And so, to my great sorrow, passes one of the most senior, and certainly one of the most beloved, of YA fantasy writers: one of the first of us to break out, over the course of years, into worldwide fame, and to general agreement that she “wasn’t just writing kid stuff”.
She was […]

Posted in Fantasy and science fiction, Writing, Young Wizards 5 Comments »

I just wanted to drop a note to thank all those of you who were so kind as to send sympathy messages to me (and to Peter) about the loss of his Mum.
We are both coping as well as we can: it’s obviously harder on him than on me… yet I’m in the strange situation […]

Posted in "The Big Meow", Home life, Young Wizards No Comments »

Authors’ copies of my books have started piling up around here again, so I thought I’d offer some of them here for those of you who might like signed copies of this or that before we start restructuring / restocking our offsite storage. Also, I’ve been able to acquire some good-quality copies of earlier stuff […]

Posted in Home life, Star Trek and other licensed properties, Writing, Young Wizards 1 Comment »

This has been in the pipeline for a while.YoungWizards.com is now running under the Drupal content-management system, which will make it capable of handling its own blogs, forums, and other goodies. YW.net will follow suit shortly.
Feel free to stop by and kick the tires!
Technorati Tags: Young, wizards, Nita and Kit, Diane Duane, […]

Posted in Computer stuff, Fantasy and science fiction, Home life, Online life, Writing, Young Wizards No Comments »

INT. NITA’S BEDROOM — NIGHT

She’s hidden by the tented-up blankets on her bed.
The dim light welling out from underneath would make
you think she’s doing the reading-by-flashlight thing.

NITA (O.S.)
I don’t get why some spells call
for these weird objects. The knotted
string you were using. Batteries.
Sugar cubes! Who needs this stuff
when you have the Speech?

KIT (V.O.)
It’s something to […]

Posted in Film and TV, Writing, Young Wizards 1 Comment »

A moment from a screenplay:

EXT. SCHOOL — AFTERNOON

The door into the playground cracks softly open.
Kit peers out, looks around. Then he slips out,
followed by Nita.

From around the corner of the building, Joanne and
her crowd emerge. Nita and Kit pause, look at each other.
Then, together, they head toward Joanne and her gang.

A “High Noon” moment: the […]

Posted in Uncategorized, Writing, Young Wizards 1 Comment »

Before going to the Discworld convention in Leicestershire the week before last, Peter and I had to stop by the storage where we keep various books, authors’ copies and other stuff that there’s no room for in our house (we were hunting for a specific Terry Pratchett book for the charity auction at the convention). […]

Posted in Home life, Writing, Young Wizards, eBay stuff No Comments »

For those of you who’ve been asking: here’s what I’m doing at LACon. (For Peter’s schedule, you should go check his LiveJournal later today: he’ll be putting his details up there. He’s a lot more lightly scheduled than I am, though, by his own request.) (Oh, and the master schedule for the con is […]

Posted in Conventions, Fantasy and science fiction, Film and TV, Note to self, Star Trek and other licensed properties, Young Wizards 1 Comment »

I see that the Young Wizards series’s Kit has made the 175 Cool Boys From Children’s Literature list. Neat!
Also, a nice mention of the series in/on Blogcritics.org from Tiffany Leigh…
Technorati Tags: Young Wizards, Christopher K. Rodriguez, Kit Rodriguez, Diane Duane

Posted in Online life, Writing, Young Wizards 1 Comment »

As if Peter’s horsefly bite reaction wasn’t enough to deal with right now, the power outages yesterday took out the data provider of Groupee, the firm that hosts YoungWizards.net and the Young Wizards discussion forums. Both site and forums have been down since around 5:30 PM EDT yesterday.
Most of Groupee’s hosted sites are back up […]

Posted in Computer stuff, Current events, Online life, Young Wizards No Comments »

I seem to have been nominated for a Mythopoeic Fantasy Award again. Woo woo!
(I’m betting that either Valiant or the “Bartimaeus Trilogy” will win it, though.)
Technorati Tags: Mythopoeic Society, award, children’s book, books, children

Posted in Current events, Writing, Young Wizards No Comments »

…my favorite tea mug that said “Caffeine First, Wizardry Later”. I got it ages ago to test the CafePress printing system (which is pretty good). Got a little careless this morning, put it down too close to the edge of the counter, turned to pick up the teapot…and crash!
Oh well. The design was a little […]

Posted in Graphic and plastic arts, Home life, Young Wizards No Comments »

I ran across this reference to the Big Meow project in a nice weblog called Everyday Literacies:
Online narrative writing practices, especially those associated with fanfic writing have spawned a reading and peer editing process generally referred to as ‘beta reading’. Basically, the process involves the author posting a narrative, or a chapter from a more […]

Posted in "The Big Meow", Writing, Young Wizards No Comments »

There’s been significant improvement since that last post.
Goodman, for his part, is almost completely recovered from his enteritis, and is wandering around the house shouting for food in the traditional manner. The racket is surprising after a few days of relative quiet.
Meanwhile, Squeak was taken off to the vet on Saturday, and was remarkably […]

Posted in Companions and familiars, Home life, Online life, Writing, Young Wizards No Comments »

(sigh) That graphic over there (which occurred to me very early this morning) is the only worthwhile thing I’ve gotten done today. Everything else has been about sick cats. If you’re not a cat person, or feeling sympathetic, skip this blog entry….
Goodman — the all-white cat and the middle-ranked of our three males — found […]

Posted in CafePress stuff, Companions and familiars, Online life, Writing, Young Wizards, eBay stuff No Comments »

I see the Young Wizards books turning up on a lot of “If You Like Harry Potter…” lists these days — hundreds of them, scattered all over the US and Canada (and some elsewhere in the English-speaking world). But this is the first time I’ve seen one of these:
What’s Next After Narnia?
This, I […]

Posted in Fantasy and science fiction, Online life, Young Wizards No Comments »

For those who might be interested, we’re in the middle of restructuring the Young Wizards CafePress store. Things are getting moved around, old designs are getting spruced up or dumped, and a lot of new designs are being installed to take advantage of the much wider range of products available since the store opened up […]

Posted in CafePress stuff, Online life, Young Wizards No Comments »

The first of the Transcendent Pig items are up in the store now. Some more stuff will go up later after I’ve finished remasking the image for output on white things.

Posted in CafePress stuff, Online life, Young Wizards No Comments »

For those of you who were asking, I should have the masking issues on the black T-shirts sorted out by this afternoon — check the YW CafePress store then.
There’ll also be a few other items — mousepads, etc (including the new WizPod design). I’m still undecided about the merits of a TP chef’s apron. […]

Posted in CafePress stuff, Online life, Young Wizards No Comments »

For those inquiring about the new Transcendent Pig items in the YW.com CafePress store: the T-shirt will be ready in a day or so. (The basic design is here.) The “Got Pig” mug is there already, but I may do another design or two.
All praise to Ursula Vernon, whose work this is! (And yes, of […]

Posted in CafePress stuff, Online life, Young Wizards No Comments »