Conference, Crown Awards, and a Cat

Dear friends,

How to summarize an autumn that got so busy this draft stayed unfinished for weeks? I’ll keep things simple in hopes of sending this update your way before Thanksgiving!

• ACFW Conference: My workshop on weapons at the conference in September was just one highlight of a fun weekend full of catching up with old friends, making new ones, and carrying swords all over the conference center.

• ACFW VA Crown Award: I entered my alternate history manuscript in a competition for unpublished writers, and it won in the speculative category. The feedback from industry professionals was encouraging, and I’ll continue revisions and outlining a second book in the series early next year.

• Cat: A kitten of yet undetermined name has joined our family after a neighbor rescued a litter and my son fell in love with this fluffy princess. So far she and the rabbits are 10% curious and 90% indifferent to each other’s existence.

  

When you’re deep in fast travel—moving from country to country with no time to acclimate and ensuring stress levels remain high—you need rest days. Or at least occasional days with less walking. Five miles instead of ten. A few hours curled up in a coffee shop. That was Lithuania, where our most energetic endeavor was wandering an amber museum.

But Latvia was another story.

We walked eleven miles in Riga, enjoying (almost) every minute. But oh my word, the Stone Bridge that crosses the Daugava River felt like walking on a treadmill. It’s more than a third of a mile long, and we crossed it four times that day going to and from the National Library. Someone wanted to see the library but on our first try we felt a time pressure plus couldn’t find the entrance (the building is huge and we started on the wrong side).

Later when we knew we had time, we found the entrance. But the walk back over that bridge again seemed miles long. Sore feet aside, with the absolutely gorgeous city all around, we didn’t mind the exhaustion.

Before the library was the Central Market, a maze of connected warehouses filled with booths selling everything you can imagine. Someone decided to try a pastry even though we had no idea what it was; it looked intriguing. The baker asked if we wanted what sounded like “cardamom.” Yes? Then no—we all tried it and…I’m not sure what it was, but it wasn’t to our taste.

Exploring the Central Market added a few miles to our shoes, and we added more at the House of the Black Heads. Underground the museum has recreated everything from a kitchen and dining hall to cellars and furnace—all from the fourteenth century and full of original artifacts. I wanted to spend hours getting lost in the maze of narrow, brick-supported tunnels built more than seven hundred years ago. It narrowly beat out the library for my favorite place in Riga.

Here are the latest titles I’ve worked on at Nelson Books that are releasing this month:

1. Garden City: Work, Rest, and the Art of Being Human by John Mark Comer

2. The War for Middle-earth: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien by Joe Loconte

And recent reads that I enjoyed:

1. James by Percival Everett. This novel was winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. It was not at all what I expected, but I couldn’t put it down. Reading Everett is a masterclass on subtext and choosing every word for maximum impact.

2. Sky in the Deep by Adrienne Young. I’d never read the debut novel from one of my favorite YA authors, and her lyrical, gorgeous prose ensured I’ll be rereading this one.

3. Katabasis by R.F. Kuang: I admired her alternate history Babel, and this author’s intelligence and creativity are on full display with her newest release.

I’ll be back in January! If you know someone who might enjoy reading, please forward this to them or send them to my page to subscribe.

To the King,1