Laure Eve

Events: 2014

In 2014, you can come poke me with sticks at the following places (updated frequently) :-

BOOK LAUNCH: BANISHED by Liz De Jager

Details: I think it's invite only but I wanted to highlight it because it's to celebrate a kick ass debut by a lovely writer and you should be aware of it. Published February 27th.

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Date: Thursday March 6th

Location: Forbidden Planet, London

Time: 6:00 - 7:00pm

Cost: free

Details: The fabulous Adam Christopher will be signing his new books The Burning Dark and Hang Wire. !

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WRITING WORKSHOP: ME

Date: Thursday April 17th

Location: Waterstones, Hemel Hempstead

Time: evening - tbc

Cost: tickets are £3 or free with a copy of Fearsome Dreamer (HB or PB)

Details: I'm running a writing workshop aimed at teens interested in creative writing - email to reserve a place.

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ARTHUR C. CLARKE AWARDS

Date: May - tbc

Location: tbc

Time: tbc

Cost: tbc

Details: Always a great evening, and certainly one of the most prestigious SF awards in the world. Hopefully I'll be able to go again this year.

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YALC at London Film and Comic Con

Date: Saturday 12th - Sunday 13th July

Location: Earls Court 2, Old Brompton Road, London

Time: 9am - 6pm each day

Cost: standard day pass is only £8, more here

Details: The first ever YA Fiction convention in the UK - curated by Children's Laureate Malorie Blackman and run by Booktrust. It will have its own special 'zone' within London Film and Comic Con. It. Will. Be. Awesome.

Confirmed authors include: Patrick Ness, Darren Shan, Derek Landy, James Dawson and Matt Haig. Many more to be announced.

My involvement is still tbc but both Fearsome Dreamer and The Illusionists should be there to buy and I will hopefully at least be signing :)

More on YALC here.

More on London Film and Comic con here.

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NINE WORLDS GEEKFEST

Date: Friday 8th - Sunday 10th August

Location: Radisson Blu Hotel, London Heathrow

Time: From Friday morning until Sunday afternoon

Cost: £75 adult, £37.50 child - until march 2nd, then it goes up

Details: This annual con started in 2013 and was brilliant. It's designed to celebrate all things geek - from gaming to movies and tv to books, music and beyond. It will be amazing. Come get your geek on! My involvement is tbc.

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WORLDCON 2014 / LONCON 3

Date: Thursday 14th - Monday 18th August

Location: ExCel convention centre, London Docklands

Time: From Thursday until Monday

Cost: varied - there are daily rates and full rates, have a look here

Details: This is the world's biggest Science Fiction literary convention and is held in a different place every year - it hasn't been in the UK since 2005. My involvement still tbc.

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Fearsome Dreamer's sparkly best of 2013 lists

Let's be upfront right now - this is basically blowing the horn of my book. Yes. Toot mega toot. But DAMN IT ALL if it isn't the coolest feeling to make best of year lists.

I mean, these lists are put together by bloggers who read many, many books a year. Many of them read more than a hundred.

I'll just let that sink in for a sec.

The most incredible thing about these lists is who Fearsome Dreamer is on there with. Patrick Ness, Leigh Bardugo, Maggie Stiefvater, David Levithan - this is the creme de la creme of YA and seeing your name alongside these greats is akin to winning the lottery.

In no order, these are the ones I've been made aware of. These bloggers are fab and work very hard and very passionately for free. Go love 'em by giving them a good old follow:

Best of 2013 on Fiction Fascination
"Fearsome Dreamer is something quite special, it mixes an interesting blend of genres, has the most exquisite detailing and is all round just awesome! Laure Eve is a glorious writer... I just didn't want to leave these characters or world. I'm eagerly anticipating another book..."

Best books of 2013 on Cicely Loves Books
"The writing was luscious and the world building was brilliant and the characters were equal parts lovable and despicable. Properly good."

Favourite 2013 reads on ShinraAlpha
"A stunning début from one of the hottest new publishers of YA literature at the moment (Hot Key Books), Fearsome Dreamer is a brilliantly paced fusion of Science Fiction & Fantasy... Laure’s novel is gloriously well written, with a deep, textured world & layers of mystery waiting to be unfolded. It’s set for big things."

Books of the year on Total Teen Fiction
"The writing was absolutely stunning, the ideas were smart and there were fantastically well developed characters."

Best YA 2013 debut on CiaraReads Books

"This book was a bit of a surprise for me as I won it from GoodReads so I wasn’t sure what to expect from a freebie. In the end I loved it!"

Best YA fantasy on The BookNook

Best 2013 books survey on The Pretty Books

Best book out of the blogger's comfort zone!

Best books of 2013 on The Cait Files

"One of the few 2013 debut novels I read, but definitely one of the best books I read last year. Magical and melodious with complex and interesting characters in a complex and interesting world. Fearsome Dreamer is a favourite amongst my favourites."

Things that are happening in 2014

So in 2013 I had my first ever book published. It's had reviews and an incredible amount of support from the amazing blogger community out there without which little debuters like FEARSOME DREAMER wouldn't get very far.

I've seen it in shops. In actual bookshops. Given the current climate of our high street and the unbelievable level of competition out there, seeing its little bookface peering out from shelves where anyone can just, like, pick it up and buy it gives you a special warm feeling, not unlike chronic heartburn but much nicer.

I had a book launch. People came to it. There were cupcakes and alcohol. I made a very bad rambling speech. This is the height of everything.

One would think such a year would be difficult to top, really. Right? RIGHT?

WRONG. WRONGITY WRONG BECAUSE 2014.

This is what's happening in 2014:

JanuaryFebruaryish: Something is announced that I don't think I can mention yet.

April: FEARSOME DREAMER paperback comes out. I suddenly develop an obsessive need to know sales at the same time as harbouring a crushing fear of knowing sales.

May: I go to Cuba. This is nothing to do with books but CUBA.

July: THE ILLUSIONISTS, the sequel to FEARSOME DREAMER, comes out. I do a jig. Cover reveal soon! (hint: it's painfully gorgeous.)

In between all this... the next book project. I already have ideas sinking their cute little claws painfully into my brain, demanding to be created. Maybe we even manage to sell it this year. And the cycle begins anew.

It's easy to keep looking beyond. I think I need to let the now sink in. By this time next year I will have had two books (and maybe something else) published.

But I'll never stop feeling like I'm not quite a 'writer' yet. Not like those proper writers. You know.

Here's to 2014. May it bring us all life, and everything that contains.

So Fearsome Dreamer has been shortlised for its first award... and what exactly do awards do, anyway?

Later edit: I've now heard that Fearsome Dreamer also been longlisted for the Branford Boase Award. Here's the Telegraph piece on it. The Branford Boase is like... holy crap. Even a longlisting is just wow. Check out all the details on the Telegraph link above.

Initial reaction: "people have actually heard of it enough to like... shortlist it for something?"

The award is for Peters Book of the Year. This is awesome because Peters is a massive company that sells to teachers and librarians - those people in schools who get books in teenager's hands and ignite lifelong fandom. (My school library is how I discovered Tamora Pierce and my English teacher is how I discovered Alan Garner. These people are indispensable.)

It is also awesome because actual people in actual schools vote for the winner, thus hopefully making it a genuine reflection of what people actually like to read.

Considering the books Fearsome Dreamer is up against, it's so not going to win... but I genuinely don't care. Shortlisting is enough of The Cool.

This might be a good opportunity to talk about prizes and awards, and what exactly they do for books.

While it's true that the big prizes can have an effect on sales, and I'm talking Man Booker, Carnegie Medal levels here, the many, many more smaller prizes probably hardly ever do. What they do is elevate awareness. This is an important thing in a world where there are, you know, a lot of books.

With prizes like the Peters award, for example, for childrens/YA books in particular it means visibility to all those teachers and librarians in all those schools. And grassroots support from this quarter is absolutely invaluable. Often the first place kids will discover new books is their school library or through a teacher, before they have purchasing power of their own.

With adult awards, the average consumer is not going to be affected. Most of these awards they will never have heard of, and a sticker on the front of the book telling them what award it has won (with a few notable exceptions) by and large means nothing. Where I think they make a bit of difference is sway with retailers. It's a kudos stamp. This book is worth your shelf space. It's award winning! And even shortlists will make their way around the industry. Booksellers keep up to date with this sort of stuff.

Most awards will not make or break a book. But they are a good part of that incremental thing known as buzz.

The Dream Collective: Dragons, Blocks and Santa

Here's where I explain why I'm doing this.

Tweet me your dream:

Email me your dream:

Post your dream on my Facebook page:

RECENT DREAMS:

Briana Boche's dream:
"A very still night with moonlight. An old, creaking house that may or may not have been my family's.

They (an unknown menace) had come for us, to hurt us or take us away. I don't know why. There was an urgent scramble to find somewhere to hide in the house as they approached. We couldn't escape the house without them seeing us.

I had been holding wooden blocks that fell when my father tried to hurry me towards a closet or chest to hide in. And I suddenly realized how important it was that those blocks not be seen by whomever was outside. So I snuck back toward the entryway where I'd dropped them, knowing I might be seen. But instead of wooden blocks, I found a single, smashed cassette tape."

Sally Felton's dream:
"So, I have a vague recollection of there being a group of us and I think we were going to be introduced to the dragons for the first time. I was underground in a large wide rectangular corridor. It felt deep underground, like we were beneath a mountain.

A hangar-sized stone door was raised in front of me revealing another large corridor on the other side. There was blossom and kind of fine sawdust mixed on the floor and it looked almost like snow.

A long thin tail lay along the corridor like a snake, partly covered by the snow-dust and coming from a opening further up and to the left. It shifted curling towards us slowly and flicked slightly, the end touching a girl ahead of me and to my left, who wasn't looking, on the leg. She screamed. The tail disappeared instantly and the whole tunnel was filled with the face of a huge grey dragon. The scream had startled it and it opened its jaws and roared at us. Everything was shaking with the noise and the force of it and it went on forever. It was the loudest, most terrifying and awesome sound I'd ever heard. We all put our hands over our ears and I felt a deep instinctive fear go right through me at the noise. But it was also exhilarating and I couldn't wait to meet him."

Drew Chial dreamed "that I was a department store Santa in New York. Does someone have a Dream Dictionary? What does that mean?"

That you're looking forward to Christmas? :)

I started vlogging. I'm sorry.

I'm intending to vlog a lot on all sorts of writerly shiz such as the process of traditional publication, including this here video on how to submit to a literary agent:

WHY NOT, I SAY.

One can subscribe to my channel, if one felt so inclined, .

Fancasting Fearsome Dreamer: the movie

A while ago I did a post on this that included a lot of other bits, so I'm reposting this in a New Fashion by itself. Because it's fun, and it's also a question that comes up on interviews a lot. Let's face it, who hasn't fantasised about the movie version of their book?

So herewith my choices for the main characters of Fearsome Dreamer:

RUE

Someone like Felicity Jones. Who basically looks like a gorgeous tree sprite.

WHITE

Someone like Ezra Miller. He has one of those beguiling, exotic faces that sometimes looks utterly beautiful and sometimes looks unreal. Plus he plays strange loners to perfection.

FRITH

Someone like Ben Whishaw. He might be a little too young to play Frith but he has the emotional maturity to pull it off, I reckon. Plus he plays below the surface incredibly well.

WREN

Someone like Matthew Goode. Great actor with the prettiness to pull off Wren's artificially sculpted looks.

Wade in with your own, better choices if you've read it - I'm fascinated to see how people visualise each character.

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