A bookish autumn news roundup
Boston events, a WICKED MARIGOLD audiobook, and cinnamon buns
Dear Scuttlebutt friends,
I have a few pieces of long-awaited news to share with you today… and also a few things I forgot to tell you about earlier. Let’s do the long-awaited news first!
Will you ever do an event in the Boston area?
I’ve had this question from several of you, and I’m thrilled to say that the answer is yes! I will be in Boston twice this fall: once for a professional conference for teachers, and once for a public event open to all.
On Monday, October 28th, from 6-7 pm, I’ll be at the Weston Public Library in Weston, MA for a Boston-area Wicked Marigold launch party. Bring your friends, your kids, your parents, your dogs (well, probably not dogs—I’m not sure they are allowed at the library). Please don’t bring your cats; I am allergic. You can register for the event here. I would love to see you!
On Saturday, November 23rd, I’ll be speaking at the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Annual Convention. This is a professional meeting for teachers and librarians, so not free and open to all, but if you are planning to attend the conference in your professional capacity, you can catch me on the panel Dreaming for Change: Middle Grade Fantasy as a Springboard for Inspiring Real-World Action from 1:15-2:30 pm. I’ll be chatting with fellow authors Kekla Magoon, Katherine Marsh, Heather Bouwman, and Will Alexander about creative strategies for incorporating fantasy literature in the classroom.
Will there be an audiobook edition of Wicked Marigold?
Yes! I know that many of you—especially those who discovered my books through the Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates audiobooks—are hoping to listen to an audio version of Marigold, and I’m excited to share that it’ll be available on November 19th from Tantor Audio, narrated by Katherine Anderson. You can preorder it now from B&N or Libro.fm, but I expect it’ll be up on more platforms closer to release.
I divide my time between Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and Russia—will Wicked Marigold be available in all of my countries?
You must be exhausted! But yes, Wicked Marigold is available now in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, so you should be able to order it online pretty easily or ask your local store to order a copy if they don’t have it in stock. It will be published by Walker Books in the UK, probably in 2025, and a translated Russian edition is planned from the Russian publisher Clever Media.
When’s your next book coming out?
In the publishing world, dates are hardly ever set in stone, but you should be able to look for my next middle grade novel in Fall 2025—that’s only a year from now, ack! I’ve just turned in my second round of edits for this book, and in the next few months, I should have a blurb and cover art to share with you. Let me know if you would like to see the many, many notes and maps and timelines and other ridiculous appendices I had to make in order to keep this story straight in my head. It’s by far the most complicated manuscript I’ve worked on, and now that it’s getting closer to being a real book, I’ll be able to start sharing some behind-the-scenes details with you.
Could you share a photo of the cinnamon buns you made?
Of course. These are the cinnamon buns I bake for my family every Christmas morning, but I also love to find excuses to make them at other times of year, especially once the weather gets cooler. They are great with coffee—but then again, they are great with everything. If you’d like to make them yourself, you can find the recipe in The Swedish Table by Helene Henderson.
Read anything good lately?
Oh, yes. You can see my favorite new children’s releases over on Lit Hub, including my October column, which just went up today!
Happy reading,
Caroline