The Fantasy Worlds of Kelley Grant
  • Welcome
  • Books
  • Blog
  • Appearances
  • About
  • Contact me

 A lot can happen in one year

5/5/2015

0 Comments

 
Last year on May 5th, I came home from a tiring night at the studio after teaching Beginning Yoga and staying for Tai Chi. I checked my email and opened an email titled Sand Sifters. It said "I just finished reading your novel, THE SAND SIFTERS, and I really enjoyed it!  Sulis and Kadar are great protagonists, and you’ve built an incredibly rich, original world.  I’d love to set up a time to chat with you about this book and your planned sequel, as well as the Harper Voyager Impulse program."

My husband was taking the trash out and I ran outside with the laptop and made him read the email.
"Is it real?" I demanded as we looked wide-eyed at each other. "It can't be real. I thought I was rejected last year!"

I spoke with my editor on May 9th, my 16th wedding anniversary and it did become a reality. Much happened since - the name changed to Desert Rising. We kept the Yoga Studio going through a lawsuit and loss of popular teachers, until the lease was up in March. I wrote The Obsidian Temple as a sequel and did professional edits on both novels. The digital version came out and I went to C2E2 in Chicago to promote it.

Last night a dream came true for me - I held my own paperback book in my hands and riffled through it. My name was on every page. The Dedication and acknowledgements pages were exactly as I had envisioned them on those lonely days when I was only writing for myself, without hope that anyone would ever read my wondrous tales. The digital version came out April 21st, but having it download on the Kindle did not provoke the same visceral satisfaction that holding the paper copy gave me.
Picture
Picture
Picture
0 Comments

  Satisfyingly Twisty

3/2/2015

1 Comment

 
Picture
Last week was a busy week, with copy edits and studio stuff, but a week of wonderfulness. A starred review from Publishers Weekly started the week on a dizzying high. I know this has been said before. But a writer is often home to both crippling insecurity and astonishing conceit. Maybe it's because of our active imaginations - the best and worst of an event instantly and vividly spring into our minds. For example, when I got the email with the book offer last spring, my brain offered up both "Woohoo - I'm going to have a bestseller" and "this must be a joke, no one would want this crap."

A healthy writer mind will settle somewhere between the two. A narcissist will decide everything he does is incredible and will fight the editor to the death and refuse changes.  Whereas I tend to dwell in insecurity, the down side. So even though everyone around me liked the book (they're biased), my editor liked the book (even editors pick poorly once in a while), I fully expected it to be panned by the critics and reviled by those who knew better. So when my publicist sent me the starred review, I suddenly understood what "weak with relief" meant. They liked it! As a first time novelist, I was a little disappointed that it only got one star, until I read about PW starred reviews and found out that a star is their highest ranking and they only give it out to works they find exceptional. Outstanding novels. One article I read said "More importantly, PW anoints works that are exceptionally good with the much sought-after starred review, a prime cut above its vanilla good review. One might argue that authors have not arrived until their work has been blessed with a starred review."  WOW. They REALLY liked it.  I have arrived on the authorial scene! HAPPY DANCE!

It's on the "Welcome" front page of this website if you want to read it. The reviewer does a better job of describing the novel than I've ever been able to! And the reviewer says it is an "Impressive series opener" "original and entertaining...a promising new series." and that "Grant draws readers into her unusual setting with lively, well-rounded characters and a satisfyingly twisty plot."
I'm satisfyingly twisty -  as both a yogini and a writer. Squeeee!

1 Comment

Contract signed and vacations

7/22/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
Got the contract signed before we went away to Cape Cod for a planned family vacation. So I am a signed HarperCollins Voyager author - wow! At this point Sand Sifters is due out April 21st, 2015. The second book is due in to editing by February 2nd, 2015.

The writing was going wonderfully. Then I went on vacation. I always have such good intentions on vacation. I start out promising myself I will write every day. Then every other day. Then I will journal at least once during the trip. But this was a whole family trip and not much room for "me time" when you have 14 people to catch up with. And of course sand castles and ocean tide pools beckon
and are so much more entrancing than a Macbook Air. So here I am, at the start of this week feeling vacation hangover and wondering where I was in my story having not visited it once in the past ten days. I tend towards serious hangover and depression after family vacations. All those wonderful people you never see, such a short time to catch up, then wham - back in Ohio and they're in separate places. My heart all wants them all in central Ohio with me, so we can casually take each other for granted and never get together because we are so close. I'm missing the more casual, less frantic time we usually have with my sister and her brood when they come into town during the summer, just hanging out and making s'mores at my parent's house.

But now it is time to get my head back into the Illian and the desert and see what Kadar and Sulis are up to.
Worried that events might be wrapping up too quickly and know there is much that hasn't quite formed in my brain yet. Get the feeling this week the novel word count might be low, but the scene daydreaming and woolgathering will be high.


0 Comments

Press Release

6/12/2014

0 Comments

 
http://harpervoyagerbooks.com/2014/06/12/voyager-impulse-to-publish-digital-submission-winners/

My first time on a press release. The Sand Sifters is listed with the group to be released in the next year. Look at the beautiful covers! Can't wait to see what artists do with the feli and Sulis of Sand Sifters!  Even with the excitement, got in 1,466 words today on Sand Cast.
0 Comments
    Click to view daily statistics

    Archives

    February 2017
    January 2017
    October 2016
    September 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    October 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014

    Categories

    All
    Author Events
    Editing
    Meditation
    On Writing
    Publishing
    Unabashedly Fantastic

    Author

    I am a writer, with a three book contract with HarperCollins Voyager Impulse for my Desert Rising Fantasy novel series.  I also teach yoga and give yoga workshops and sing kirtan with my husband, Brian.

    Picture

    Links

    Links to other great writers. 
    Bishop O'Connell - Harper Voyager Impulse Colleague

    A.F.E. Smith -
    Harper Voyager Impulse Colleague

    Andy Livingstone - Harper Voyager Impulse Colleague

    Katherine Harbour - Harper Voyager Impulse Colleague

    Nancy K Wallace
    - Harper Voyager Impulse Colleague

    Lexie Dunne
    - Harper Voyager Impulse Colleague

    Ingrid Seymour
    - Harper Voyager Impulse Colleague

    Categories

    All
    Author Events
    Editing
    Meditation
    On Writing
    Publishing
    Unabashedly Fantastic

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly