Double Rainbow

    EDIT

Another public event in Perth has been added to the Australian
tour, plus contact details for the South Perth Library event,
and more details about the second Adelaide event-

check three posts down for information. 

For those who have asked, the Brisbane event on the morning
of the 13th IS a public event. A few schools are coming along,
but it's still open to the public also- even though it's on at 11 AM
on a weekday...

EDIT: Also, the Southampton and Dulwich events have been
switched for the UK tour. The change has been made to the below
post...

We're having a pretty awful summer here in Ireland, but
sometimes you can find little moments of prettiness in amongst
all the dreary drabness.Like this double rainbow outside my
house...

I liked that double rainbow. It was a nice double rainbow. But I
didn't like it nearly as much as this guy liked HIS double rainbow...

Ireland and UK

Right then, I have here the details of the Ireland/UK tour. My publishers do like to keep me busy, the little scamps, but this tour isn't quite so arduous as they've been in the past- probably because they know I'll have just come back from the ANZ tour, and will be feeling pretty sorry for myself...

Ireland

30 August: 

Easons, Newbridge, Co Kildare-   Public signing - 2 PM

Easons, O'Connell St, Dublin- Fan Event - 6.30 PM

31 August:

Dubray Books, Kilkenny - Public signing- 4 PM

1 September:

Waterstones, Drogheda - Public signing - 11 AM

Easons, Swords - Public signing - 3 PM

2 September:

Easons, Cork - Public signing - 12 noon

5 September:

Mountains to the Sea Festival, Dun Laoighaire


UK

7 September:

Waterstones, Southampton - Public signing - 4.30 PM

8 September:

Waterstones, Bournemouth - Public signing - 11 AM

Village Bookshop Dulwich, London - Public event - 6 PM

9 September:

Waterstones, Bluewater - Public signing - 12 noon

13 September:

Waterstones, Guildford - Public event - 7 PM

14 September:

Waterstones, Birmingham (New Street) - Public signing - 5 PM

15 September:

WHS, Stoke - Public signing - 11 AM

Waterstones, Liverpool One - Public signing - 3 PM


29 September: 

Bangor Literature Festival - Morning

Easons, Belfast - 3 PM

14 October: 

Cheltenham Festival




And now I am going to watch the Silva/Sonnen fight from last night. I haven't even glanced at online stuff today for fear that someone will have mentioned who won. Oh I'm looking forward to this...

Winners and Release Dates

For those of you who don't know, we recently ran a writing competition on the Skulduggery website, where I supplied the first 50 words of a story and left it to others to come up with the next 450. The ten winners were supposed to be announced last week, but it took my publishers longer than expected to cope with the massive response... Ah, those silly publishers. When will they learn?

I was sent a little over 30 entries and it was not easy narrowing them down. As usual, the standard of writing was very high- and not just with the winners, either. A lot of the entries made me laugh, and that's always a good starting-off point, but the major point of interest for me was watching where you took the story. I gave the villain an outrageous name- Sadistica Tortura- and sat back and let the fun begin. There were some lovely ideas in there, some lovely moments and some fantastic lines. You should all be proud- especially those of you who managed to stick to the word count (ahem).


I managed to take a few days off last week, but seeing as how I have about five weeks before I head off on tour, I need to start working again. August is pretty much wiped off my calendar as far as writing goes, so I'm going to have to get an early start on Book Eight. Which is scary, because it only seems like a few weeks ago that I finished Book Seven. I'm not going to talk about Book Eight AT ALL until a few months from now, once you've absorbed KOTW into your bloodstream, but it feels kind of weird to be tying up all of these stories that I've been telling since 2007. Best not dwell, methinks...

Oh, and as for KOTW release dates, those lucky scamps in Australia/New Zealand will be getting the new book ever-so-slightly ahead of anyone else... My tour there starts on August 8th, and my publishers want the books on the shelves at LEAST one week before that- maybe even two. For the UK and Ireland, we're looking at a release date of August 30th, I think.

Of course, the Minions-who-speak-funny know by now how much I detest spoilers, and you've all been fantastic at not ruining the books for other people. I shall expect this to continue (shakes fist in a threatening manner...)

For all you Ameriminions, still no news on getting the newer books released over there, my apologies. I have some positive news for the Germinions, however, as my German publishers are planning to catch up to the English-language releases. More news on that when I have it.


Oh, and Irish readers will be able to take a break from the football final on Sunday night to tune into Celebrity Mastermind on TV3, where I shall be showing off my amazing brain power on national TV. Hells yeah.


And now, a picture.

Down Under Tour 2012

Righto, I can finally reveal the details for the A/NZ Down Under Tour. Most of the days will be taken up visiting schools, so I'm only listing the public events which will occur in the evenings and at the weekends.

For the public signings, all you have to do is turn up and I'll sign as much as possible in the time I have- but for the public events, it might be a good idea to contact the bookshop/library/whatever as soon as possible, in order to book a place.

The Ireland and UK details will be posted when I have them.

Oh, and for those of you who entered the little short story competition on the Skulduggery website, I've just read through the finalists (30 of them) and the winners will be announced before the weekend. Some truly great work in there...




August

NZ

Wellington

Thursday 9th:

The Children's Bookshop, Kilbirnie- Public Signing - 4:30 PM

Whitcoulls, Queensgate - Public Signing - 7 PM


Christchurch

Friday 10th:

The Children's Bookshop, Blenheim Rd - Public Signing - 4:30 PM


Auckland

Saturday 11th:

Appearing on Breakfast TV at 8:20 AM

Whitcoulls, Albany Mall - Public Signing - 10 AM

Paperplus Botany Town Centre - Public Signing - 1 PM


AUSTRALIA

Brisbane

Sunday 12th:

Riverbend Books- Public Event (ticketed) - 5 PM

Monday 13th:

Chermside Library - Public event - 11 AM

(CONTACT the library for bookings)


Sydney

Tuesday 14th:

Pages & Pages/ Mosman Library- Public Event- 4:30 PM

Wednesday 15th:

Virtual Author Session via Video Conference (for schools) - 11:30 AM

(To register and log in  http://www.seeshareshape.com.au/share/VC/virtualexcursions.aspx?EventID=6238&SessionID=6186&ActivityID=8313 )

Shearers on Norton - Public Event  - 4:30 PM


Melbourne

Thursday 16th:

Dymocks, Collins St - Public Event (ticketed) - 5:15 PM


Adelaide

Saturday 18th:

Dymocks, Rundle Mall - Public Signing - 11 AM

Cabra Dominican College - Public Event - 1 PM

(CONTACT Pages & More, Glenelg for bookings)


Perth

Monday 20th:

Aquinas College - Public Event - 6 PM

(CONTACT Dymocks Garden City for tickets)


Tuesday 21st:

South Perth Library - Public Event - 11 AM

(CONTACT Dymocks Hay Street for bookings)

John Forrest Secondary College - Public event - 6 PM

(CONTACT Dymocks Morley for bookings)

Chapter One

Ladies and gentlemen...

"The Butterfly and the Wolf" is now available to read on the home page of skulduggerypleasant.com.

Consume.

Ireland/UK Tour

Okay then, here comes the places I'll be visiting in the Ireland/UK part of the tour. As mentioned previously, these will be weekend affairs- from Fridays to Sundays (mostly)- and they'll mainly consist of public signings.

30 Aug - 3 Sept:
Dublin
Bray
Drogheda
Cork

7 Sept - 9 Sept:
London
Bournemouth
Southampton

13 Sept - 15 Sept
London
Birmingham
Liverpool

And I'll also be appearing at the Bangor Literature Festival, the Mountains to the Sea festival in Dublin, and the Cheltenham festival.

The fact that I can't visit EVERYWHERE is always a shame, but we do try and spread the love as much as possible. This time around, my publishers took into account that I'd be in Australia/NZ for the previous two weeks, so I reckon they took pity on me. Maybe it was all the manly crying I did. We'll never know...



Eagle-eyed Irish readers may also have noticed that I shall be appearing on the "Celebrity Mastermind" quiz show, starting on TV3 this Sunday. I'm not sure what episode I'm on (I think it airs on July 1st but I'm not sure). For those who don't know, Mastermind is a show where you are asked questions about a chosen topic, and then you're asked general knowledge questions. I'm not going to say ANYTHING about what happened (we recorded it a few weeks ago) so you'll just have to watch to see how well I did. Or not, as the case may be. Ahem.


Let's see, anything else...

The Forums are back up, thanks to a load of readers who chipped in and paid the website domain fee. You Minions are amazing, you really are. Anyone who hasn't visited really should, if only to raise an eyebrow or two at the topics being discussed...! skulduggeryforums.co.uk.


Oh, and sometime soon (don't know exactly when) we'll be releasing Chapter One of Kingdom of the Wicked for you to read over at skulduggerypleasant.com, a chapter entitled "The Butterfly and the Wolf"...

Dalkey! And Forums!

For all you readers in Dublin/Wicklow, I'm going to be appearing at the Dalkey Book Festival this Sunday at 12 PM...

And does anyone know what happened to the Skulduggery Forums? It seems to have been replaced by a... web-sitey... thing...

And because I have nothing further to add, here are two well-timed photos...