Covers and Voting and Hugs
Hello loveliest people in the world!
I have been thinking about blogging at you for a while, but it is tricky because I have like…800,000 different emotions every day? And about half of them are hopeful but the other half are of the let’s-all-go-hide-under-the-covers / need-more-ice-cream variety, so I keep trying to catch myself in a happy mood to write this, because I’m guessing you don’t need MY anxiety on top of YOUR anxiety. I’m guessing you would rather have a hug . . . or maybe the next cover of Wings of Fire? I can give you one of those!:
Isn’t it beautiful? That’s Queen Snowfall, on the cover of Book 14, which is now only five months away! Although I do realize that in pandemic time, five months is about 400 years; sorry about that. 🙂
In the meanwhile, there is a new print edition of all the Winglets short stories — so if you never got to read them online, or you’d like to have them all bound up, you can get that now!:
Here’s a link to it on Bookshop.org, a very splendiferous place to buy books and support indie bookstores! And while you’re on there, you can find a list of many of my favorite books on the Newtonville Books Bookshop page — if you buy any of them through that link, the bookstore gets an even higher percentage of the profit (I think!), plus they are all super-fun lovely books!:
(And as you may have heard, it’s a very good idea to start your holiday shopping early this year. SPOILER ALERT everyone I know is getting books from me, because (a) I passionately want our indie bookstores to survive this pandemic, and (b) books are helping me feel better, so I hope they’ll be helpful for everyone else, too!)
The next Wings of Fire book coming out is the fourth graphic novel, which ALSO has a fantabulous cover:
And that’s scheduled to come out December 29th — just in time to be too late for the holidays, as usual 🙂 — but who needs a holiday excuse to buy books, right? Every day is an excellent day to buy more books! (Especially from indie bookstores!) 🙂 🙂 🙂
We are also hard at work on FORGE YOUR DRAGON WORLD, a guide to creating your own characters, dragons, and stories, with art by Mike Holmes — and here’s the cover for that one, coming May 4, 2021!:
Also, most important of all, tomorrow is November 3, Election Day! I hope you’ve either already early-voted or have a plan to vote tomorrow! It’s really important and also satisfying and also you can help save the world! 🙂 🙂 🙂
If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you might have noticed that I’m a bit of an optimistic maniac about voting; I really love it. It feels like a tiny bit of magic, like…I have to have faith that other good-hearted people all over the country are doing this, too, and if we all do it together, we can make the world a better place, even if it takes a while and involves lots of ups and downs.
To check your voter registration, find your polling place, or learn more about early voting in your state, Vote.org is a great, helpful resource!
Since we’ve already voted, and the kids have a half-day of school tomorrow, we’re planning to build a blanket fort and spend the afternoon eating ice cream and watching Babe and Into the Spider-Verse. If you have voted, or whenever you’re done voting tomorrow, I hope you get to do something equally comforting! 🙂
Speaking of pandemic / worrying about everything coping techniques, one of mine at the moment is a game called Splash: Ocean Sanctuary. I downloaded it on my phone to stop myself from doomscrolling on Twitter (which…mooooostly works! OK, SOMETIMES works). It’s this very soothing coral reef game where you acquire fish and then feed the fish and an adorable cuttlefish floats through sometimes and a turtle gives you missions and a hermit crab gives you presents, and it is so tranquil and serene compared to normal life right now! I just need to quiet my brain down occasionally, and I find this helps so much.
I’m also looking for the most comforting TV I can find — I’m tempted to go back and rewatch Jane the Virgin from the beginning, but I’m also very much loving a Netflix show called Crash Landing Into You right now. It’s Korean and ENORMOUSLY DELIGHTFUL.
One last piece of sad news before I go back to writing (or to feeding my imaginary fish)…if you noticed that I kind of disappeared over the summer (more than usual, anyway), it’s because we had to say goodbye to my beloved little soulmate of a dog, Sunshine.
She was sixteen and a half years old, so we knew it would happen sooner or later, and I’m so grateful she lived long enough for the kids to be old enough to remember her, but it still doesn’t feel entirely real. When I got her, I was 26, living in NYC, and just barely beginning my writing career.
She was one of the reasons I left my editing job to stay home and write, so I could be with her all the time. She came to our wedding:
And she put up with the arrival of two very noisy bears, and she always followed me from room to room wherever I went, and she was always curled up in my office with me while I wrote in the middle of the night. As many of you know, Sunny the dragon was named after her. She was the very best and sweetest dog that ever lived, and I miss her so much, you guys. I kind of feel like only half a Tui without her.
So that’s another reason it’s taken me so long to write this, because I wanted to tell those of you who have been reading this for a while, since I’ve talked about her so much over the last 16 years. But it’s been really hard to write about, especially with so many much more stressful and important things going on in the world. (And also it felt like a weird thing to share over Instagram, I think?) Anyway…so, 2020: not my favorite summer ever.
But I love you all and I hope there are better days ahead for all of us! I’ll leave you with a couple of online things I’ve done lately…
An AMA at the Wings of Fire subreddit:
An interview with Kelly Yang (via lovely bookstore The Novel Neighbor) about her new book, Three Keys (sequel to Front Desk): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jywn01MMqiM
A “Skype in the Classroom” Teach Graphix week event about adapting prose novels into graphic novels (this one is totally educational, so tell your teacher you should get school credit for it!) 😉 (click “Watch On-Demand” when you get to the page): https://education.skype.com/p/on-demand-event-join-tui-t-sutherland-author-of-the-wings-of-fire-series
And I’ll also be doing an online GraphixCon panel with Books Inc. in early December, I think — I’ll post about it on the Events page when I know more!
Hugs to all of you! Go vote! And then have ice cream (or whatever makes you happy)! 🙂
What We’re Reading Right Now:
Me: Exit Strategy, the 4th book of the Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Wells (I love these SO MUCH I can’t even tell you); The Voting Booth, by Brandy Colbert (very excellent); and A Million Junes, by Emily Henry (also wonderful)
With my bigger bear: Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy, by Rey Terciero and Bre Indigo
With my littler bear: The Next Great Jane, by K.L. Going
With both bears: Dungeon Critters, by Natalie Riess and Sara Goetter (imagine little flutter hearts all around this one!)