I am thrilled to announce that Windstorm Creative has signed up the Okal Rel Universe, that publishers can be great people, and that we now have two of them! Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy will bring out the ten novels in the mainline series, as has been the plan with Edge since Alison and I signed contracts for Throne Price. [We have two of these in process with Edge, now: Second Contact in the copy editing stage, and Far Arena one step from that.] Windstorm Creative will bring out first Meksan'stan and Kath (novellas), and then a series of novellas and other works in the ORU covering times and events outside the mainline chronology in the Edge novels. Alison and I met Windstorm's Jennifer DiMarco at this year's Rustycon, where I gave her a copy of Brian's (Edge) beautiful edition of Throne Price with the metallic process cover, and the Plett/Jordan edition of Mekan'stan, produced in a limited edition for Rustycon as a promotional tool for the ORU. Jennifer loved them both. She was generous enough to tell us she had stayed up all night reading Throne Price, in fact! And she wanted to publish ORU material. We had a wonderful, and difficult, couple of days in which I--at least--had nightmares about winding up with zero publishers instead of two. Writerly wisdom in the pub is to take nothing on trust and soldier through the creative process with a grim attitude and lawyers, if possible. I do not dispute this may be true in some cases, and cringe at the horror stories, but both Windstorm and Edge are, well, princes. :-) Windstorm did not refuse to work with the ORU because we meant to honor our existing understanding with Edge about the ten mainline novels, and Edge did not balk over Windstorm becoming a partner in the ORU "enterprise". Alison, who writes the lion's share of the novels with me, stuck by me as a friend as well as a co-author, and expressed herself happy to see me publish my solo novellas and other works with Windstorm. (Expecting, hoping, lobbying? that she will do some novellas with me, there, also. Like the D'iff/Amel series of stores while Alivda is growing up, and story of how Charous became Ameron's gorarelpul. She is keen in principle. We just have to, jointly, find the time.) Jennifer DiMarco, on behalf of Windstorm, was very understanding. She sent an e-mail saying she didn't want to come across like "a pushy American". :-) Brian Hades, of Edge, called me up on the phone to talk about it. I confess I almost cried when he said he wanted us to succeed and wouldn't "get in the way" of that. Without Brian, the ORU would still be something Alison and I did for ourselves (and because our characters have to live somewhere). I am also proud, as a Canadian, of the books that Edge produces: Science Fiction that is a little more challenging in its reading level and ideas than the average fare in the genre, beautifully produced, and drawing on international as well as domestic talent. Brian's support of the ORU, and faith in it, has kept me going on days when I've wondered whether treatment for an irrational obession might not have been a more reasonable strategy. And since I am in a warm, fuzzy mood, I would also like to embrace, in this message: Edge's Richard Janzen, our swift and caring editor; Kim, the sales and promotion person at Edge; Kathy Plett and Jordan Bacon, who produced the Rustycon edition of Mekan'stan; Ali and Robert Grieve of the westcoast con circuit; Yukari (who will be doing cover art for some of the Windstorm productions); and every single person who bought Throne Price... which reminds me, reviews on http://www.amazon.ca would be nice. :-)
posted by Lynda at 09:53   comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments