New Publisher for Portal Chronicles

Eek! Has it really been that long since my last update!
The good news is that I now have a publisher for The Portal Chronicles.
Under The Moon are part of Final Sword Publications, a US based publisher of fantasy games and books. Hopefully this will be a successful 'marriage' and TPC will do well in the US where they will publish and promote.
Even better is that they are happy for me to continue to sell in the UK as I do today :-)
So, at the moment, you will find that there is no stock at Amazon or other online resources, either in hard copy or ebook, as I have had to remove both books from general release whilst they are edited and illustrated by the new publisher.
Both books can still be purchased, in their original form, from me via my website http://www.lovesey.net/ but once the current stock is gone I will not be replenishing until the new versions arrive.
The release dates are;
The Spider Gem November 2009
The Shimmering Gate August 2010 (estimate)

For those with copies, and for the collectors that purchased original copies; there were approx 1200 copies of Spider Gem printed and about 700 Shimmering Gate.

Brooke Hill Primary School OAKHAM

I finally made it!
After aborting my last visit due to illness I went to Brooke Hill Primary today and enjoyed one of my most pleasurable school visits to date. The students were fantastic. Well behaved and full of ideas. My thanks to all of you who attended and to the staff. I hope many of you will join me on my writing journeys over the coming years.
My thanks also to Buy the Book Oakham for organising this event.

Feedback from Thomas Deacon Academy

Often, after doing talks and workshops at schools and other institutions, you are left wondering if the audience found the talk interesting and entertaining or whether you simply bored the pants off them. Earlier today I received feedback from the Thomas Deacon Academy in Peterborough regarding the reaction of their year 8 students to my recent visit.

My thanks to The Acadamy for providing this as it is extremely helpful (and in this case reassuring).

For those interested I have included the feedback here (good and bad bits)

Taff

Did you enjoy the Taff Lovesey visit?
13% No 87% Yes

What did you learn?
That you have to check the mistakes
I learnt about where authors get inspiration from.
I learnt that I could make a book.
Makes me want to read more books
I learned I could make a book and publish it for free: D
I learnt about how to publish books.
That you can be inspired by absolutely anything
I loved many different things, especially that I can write story and improved my confidence to do that.
I learned a lot how to write books and how to get inspiration from
That’s it really easy to write a book as long as you put your mind to it

What did you love?
I loved nothing
I didn’t really love anything.
I loved not a lot
Makes me want to read more books
I liked the books he wrote.
All of it!
The bit were he shown us how to get inspired with the smiley faces

What did you hate?
I hated nothing
And I didn’t hate anything either.
I didn’t hate it
I hated everything
EVERYTHING
mmmmm nothing!
The part where the author just went on talking for ages (no offence)
Nothing

Did you know we still have some of Taff’s books you can borrow from the MRC?
yep!
Yes
Yeah I already knew that but I don’t really want to read one.

Brooke Hill Primary School OAKHAM an apology

My apologies to all the staff and students at Brooke Hill.
I was looking forward to spending time with everyone on friday as part of World Book week, but unfortunately ill health meant that I could not travel over.
I'm looking forward to my visit still which we will re-organise for later this year.

Take care and see you soon.

Taff Lovesey

Visit to Thomas Deacon Academy Peterborough

My thanks to all the year 8 students and staff of Thomas Deacon Academy.
I attended a talk at the Academy on Wednesday as part of World Book week.
The students joined in the exercises and were a great bunch.
We used some simple 'smiley' images to create a story (on the fly) and the students showed themselves to be very inventive. Story of the day must go to group 1, I still want to know what happened to the pie!
I hope all enjoyed the day as much as I did and I hope to see you all again sometime in the future.

Taff