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That’s right! KINGS OF THE WYLD is officially one year old today, and boy, what a year it’s been.

Some book-related highlights include the following…

I met the unbelievably gracious and extremely talented Christian Cameron at Ad Astra in June, and earlier this month had dinner with he and Sebastien de Castell, with whom I share an agent. So that was awesome.

Also at Ad Astra, my second ever public reading was attended by Guy Gavriel Kay, who is BY FAR my favourite author of all time and ABSOLUTELY the reason I decided to take writing seriously. Needless to say, that half-hour was not only a highlight of my year, but of my whole entire life.  Again, very awesome.

I was invited to Comicon in London, England, where I met and made some truly incredible authors I’m now fortunate enough to call my friends (and in one case, my brother). I also met the incomparable Mike Everest Evans, my agent Heather, and the folks at Orbit UK, who were (this should not surprise you) really wonderful people.

I blew my deadline for BLOODY ROSE.  Twice, I think.  Things got a little murky last summer, and I’ll confess that anxiety and the unshakable sense of not being capable of putting a proper sentence together got the better of me for a while. These feelings, I’ve learned, are unfortunately common among authors (especially debut authors) and I like to think I’ll be better prepared to face them should they darken the horizon once again.

I FINISHED BLOODY ROSE! See? A happy ending after all! And I’m so dang proud of the book it became!

I said a tearful goodbye my beloved editor (Lindsey Hall, who took an amazing step up in her own career) and welcomed a new one (Bradley Englert, with whom I have A WHOLE LOT in common).  Also, I finally got to work with my UK Editor (Emily Byron), which was a total delight.

I contributed to my first anthology (ART OF WAR) and was relieved to hear my story didn’t suck.

My book was sold in seven other languages: Russian, German, Italian, Polish, Hungarian, Czech, and French. So…yeah….wow.

KINGS OF THE WYLD was nominated for some really cool awards, and even won a few!  It managed to snag the top spot in Fantasy Faction’s Best of 2017 (against some ridiculously stiff competition) and won a r/fantasy Stabby Award for Best Debut Fantasy Novel, which UPS had better deliver soon! It also went head-to-head with such juggernauts as J.K. Rowling and Brandon Sanderson in the Goodreads Reader’s Choice Awards, and though it lost by literally tens of thousands of votes, the exposure alone is a wave the book is still surfing.

Best of all, though, since last February I have met hundreds of writers, readers, bloggers, reviewers, and industry professionals either in person or online, and with the exception of very few (I’m looking at you “This is the most derivative piece of shit I’ve ever read” guy!) they have been unstintingly supportive, for which I am exceedingly grateful.

Thank you so much to everyone who has read the book and helped to spread the word. You’ve truly made my wildest dreams come true.

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