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6.11.08 My! It's sure been a while since my last update. I have a few good items to report. First, I've sold two short stories in recent months that should be appearing around the Fall. The first is an SF story called "Down the Well" for Strange Horizons, and the second is a fantasy story called "Far and Deep" for Interzone (I like to shake things up). I'm really excited about these sales, since I love both markets and it's always a pleasure to have my fiction appear there. Also, I have a forthcoming middle-grade novel/graphic-novel hybrid, due out in spring next year from the Graphic Universe imprint of Lerner Books. "The Goblin King" is written in the old "choose your own adventure" style (i.e. Do you want to go down the deep dark tunnel or Bake cookies with your grandma? Turn to page..."). It was a blast to write and I hope people will like it. And finally, I'm going to be at Readercon in July, and actually appearing on a panel for once. The one I'm definitely doing is on writers workshops, with my inimitable writing workshop colleague and small press publisher, Matthew Kressel. It should be fun. Alaya
10.30.07 First, more good reviews. This time from Library Journal ("Johnson's first novel presents a coming-of-age story with a strong female protagonist and an unusual and exotic setting. For most collections.") and Harriet Klausner (#1 Amazon reviewer)!("This is a terrific coming of age fantasy thriller starring a thirteen years old girl whose rite of passage into adulthood takes a dark turn when she finds the special blood gem. ") If you have read and liked the book, I encourage you to write a few sentences on Amazon. Reviews are always helpful. I have a few upcoming events scheduled that I thought you'd like to know about. First, I will be at the World Fantasy Convention. I will have a reading at 8:30 in Broadway 2 (whatever that means) on Thursday, November 1st. So, if any of you are planning on going to the convention, please stop by! (For extremely annoying reasons that I can't really go into, my reading isn't going to be listed on the program, and probably not even in their errata sheet, so I'm going to have to rustle up an audience all by my lonesome). On Saturday morning, at 5 am on November 3rd, I will be the guest on Hour of the Wolf (airing on WBAI, if you happen to live in New York). Lucky for almost all of you, it will be available as a podcast online. I read the first chapter of Racing the Dark and have a nice discussion with Jim Freund about the process of getting published and other SF-type stuff. Next, I'm reading with a bunch of other really cool YA authors
at the Tompkins Square Library in NYC on November 7th. Alaya Johnson, Racing the Dark Kristen Kemp, Breakfast at Bloomingdale's Louise Plummer, Finding Daddy Abby Sher, Kissing Snowflakes Scott Westerfeld, Extras Jake Wizner, Spanking Shakespeare And THEN I'm flying to Chicago to do a reading at a local bookstore: Women and Children First. The listing for the event is here. Wednesday, November 14th at 7:30. And if any of you happen to live in the Chicago area I hope you can make it. I will also be going to the West coast in February, but that is still pretty tentative at this point. I'll post here when I have some actual dates and locations. Finally, my big book party was on Friday and I think it went pretty well. My friend has put up some pictures he took from the party, in case you are curious. (Actually, most of these are from the karaoke afterward...) Alaya
10.9.07 Happy Birthday, John Lennon! My short story Among Their Bright Eyes is the latest podcast up at Pseudopod. Very cool voice reading, though it's a little weird to hear my own writing read back at me. It was originally published in Fantasy magazine. Racing the Dark has now started to appear in book stores, and I got my final copies today. And guess what? The Chicago Tribune picked it as one of their Best Reads for Fall! You can see the page here. And finally, don't forget to sign up for my email list if you want to hear about tour dates, or readings, etc. I've only sent out one message so far, so I promise I won't spam you. Alaya
8.7.07 Well, the book is off to the printers and I have some pretty neat stuff to report. First, apparently it will start appearing in stores around mid-September (though the official publication date is October 26th!). I hadn't expected this to creep up on me quite so stealthily, so now I'm a little nervous as to how it will turn out. But, in anticipation of the fateful day, I have posted a PDF of the first three chapters, so you can get a taste of the whole book. Check it out here. Still, it's pretty exciting, because I have been lucky enough to get blurbs from two awesome fantasy writers, Cecilia Dart-Thornton and Jacqueline Carey. Here they are:
I'm still in a bit of shock, but very grateful that they thought well enough of the book to give me such marvelous quotes. I strongly recommend their own work. That's it for now. Sign up for my mailing list if you get the chance (I promise I won't send out too many messages) and thanks for stopping by! I'm supposed to go on a mini-tour that will cover DC, New York, Chicago and LA, so stay tuned for more announcements of appearances. Otherwise, if you are planning to attend the World Fantasy Convention, I will be there. Hopefully, giving a reading. Alaya
6.25.07 As you can see, this redesign is pretty major. Hopefully, this will be the last one for a while. Many many thanks to my lovely sister for doing most of the work on this. Of course, then she had to hare off to Japan and leave me holding the bag, but hey, what are sisters for ;) I am off to Readercon the weekend after next, which should be exciting. It will be my first SF con since Worldcon 2004. And since I apparently know people now, I have a feeling it will be vastly more fun. Also, I have changed the main name of this site: www.alayadawnjohnson.com. You can still get here with alaya-dawn.com, but I thought the dash was unnecessarily complicated. Of course, I still doubt that anybody at all sees this page, but if you happen to be reading this: thanks! Alaya
6.06.07 Another redesign, this time with the cover art from my book. I have started a personal blog called open vein, write story, which will actually be regularly updated. This will just serve as a static place to keep my bio and any major announcements. Speaking of major announcements, I have received the wonderful news that I am one of the twelve science fiction/fantasy writers selected to attend the Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop, sponsored by NASA. Wyoming, here I come! Oh (and wow it's been a while since I've updated this), I have joined the Altered Fluid writers group. Alaya
10.12.06 I've done a bit of a redesign of this website. It ought to fit in most browsers now. A big, major thanks to my friend Rachel who drew the extremely cute afro girls on the front page. In other news, my short story "Among Their Bright Eyes" should be out in the upcoming issue of Fantasy Magazine, #4. Also, I have started a blog with a friend called Two Fangirls. It's basically the two of us expressing our obsession with clever television and books and movies via quzizes and snarky commentary. I'm pretty sure no one reads this, but I thought I'd mention, just in case. Alaya
6.21.06 Well, my new website is finally up and running! This took me ages, and is finally finished largely because of the incredible effort of my sister Lauren (so all infelicitious design elements should, of course, be ascribed to her). I plan to have regular updates on my weird blog Misadventures in Vegetarian Cooking and (coming soon) commentary on some choice short stories that have heretofore resided in what I like to call The Graveyard. In other news, I just found out that my Strange Horizons short story "Shard of Glass" was shortlisted for the Carl Brandon Society Parallax award, which is pretty cool. To find out more about me, check out my bio page. Thanks for stopping by! Alaya |
E-mail me! alaya [a t] alayadawnjohnson [d o t] com
