Award Season is upon us!

Some news from Award Season!

First there's this:

Maddie is back on the BPAA Shortlist for her New York City Adventure! You'll find in Gilded Gauge oodles of parasol dueling, spies, intrigue, bumbling detectives, and of course Tweetle-D up to his usual antics while dodging the big-city predatory birds who want to find out if he's edible.

(For more on the Books Publishing in Alberta Awards, check out their online home)

 And then there's THIS! A second nomination for the Prix Aurora!

Claps for fellow writers Gerald Brandt, Julie Czerneda, Fonda Lee, and Elizabeth Whitton, most of whom I know from that lively summer lit-fest, When Words Collide, held each August in Calgary (and usually sold out by June).

(It's not too late to join the CSFFA and vote for your favourite authors and artists in all categories. For the full shortlist go to https://prixaurorawards.ca/home/nominee-list-page/ )

The editing life

What's up in Maddie Hatter's world, you wonder?

Awaiting the proofs and artwork for Maddie's 4th Adventure, Maddie Hatter and the Singapore Sting, coming from Tyche Books this summer of 2017.  Here's a hint about when/where that book happens.

The above shot of cherry blossoms comes from Kyuhoshi, the Japan travel and culture guide.

Meanwhile, picture me editing an unrelated project on the other side of the world, far from the cherry blossoms, with the dedicated supervision of Mr. Kesper, who is disgruntled that the birds in the Maddie Hatter Adventures are not edible, and who decried the general absence of fish in the series.

Maddie's Amazing Venetian Carnevale Launch Party

Welcome, one and all, to the fabulous, amazing, fantastical Timely Taffeta Masquerade Launch Party!

The Maddie Hatter Adventures welcomed to our launch party another Tyche Books new release, Dying on Second, the fourth in the Marie Jenner mysteries by Edmonton author (and temporarily dead second-base narrator) EC Bell.

The thrilling choral performance by Double Treble Ensemble transported us to a Venetian palazzo!

Members of the Ensemble picking up their copies of

 MADDIE HATTER AND THE TIMELY TAFFETA

Many launch guests arrived in costumes worthy of the most extravagant Venetian Carnevale!

Solo Piratical Woman

Dashing Mother-Daughter Duo down from Edmonton for the event

This mother-daughter team came dressed as Emmy Gat and Cat Cheshire from
MADDIE HATTER AND THE TIMELY TAFFETA

Moaning Myrtle made an appearance

A whole-family affair!

Altogether, there were four juniors in costume

The super Owls Nest staff threw themselves into the spirit of Carnevale

This man with the fabulous wrist-brace is using his sundial-wristwatch to find his way through the twisting tale.

The night's most elegant masquerader shone in gold and white satin against the blue dusk beyond the windows

The man who inspired Oberon O'Reilly attended with his charming lady-love

Calgary author and impressario Neil Enoch took home the coveted Timely Taffeta coffee mug.

Maddie's Fourth Adventure is officially afloat! Available at Owls Nest Books in Calgary and everywhere online that fine fantasy novels are sold.

Find out more about the book at this link

Find us on Facebook at The Maddie Hatter Adventures 

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Join us on Instagram @je_barnard  

Maddie's Third Adventure Already!

It seems like barely yesterday I was dressing up in my black-and-purple Steampunk outfit for the launch of  MADDIE HATTER AND THE DEADLY DIAMOND, and wondering privately whether anyone besides family and Tyche Books staffers would show up to find out about this debut novel from a relative unknown.
Yet it was two years ago last week. 
 
How time... or in this case, taffeta... flies!

It hasn't happened in isolation. Although I write the stories, their production is truly a team effort. My heartfelt thanks go out to the following stalwart supporters of Maddie's adventures:  Steampunks of SASS and The Airship's Mess Deck; fellow writers from Sisters In Crime and Calgary Crime Writers; the dedicated production team at Tyche Books who keep on the hop getting everything together in time for launch day; Super-Fans Lex Robertson, Cindy Bedford, and Karen M. Owen; my agent and cheerleader Olga Filina of The Rights Agency; and of course Kevin, who handles a lot of daily life for months on end while I live in Maddie's world with Tweetle-D and the other talking clockworks.

From the Book Jacket: 

Maddie Hatter’s third Adventure finds her in Venice on an all-expenses-paid assignment: report on the season’s most extravagant Carnevale costumes. Determined to land an inside scoop, she enlists the help of her half-Venetian friend, Lady Serephene, to penetrate Madame Frangetti’s Costume Atelier in disguise.

Serephene is pursuing plots of her own: training in secret for a career that’s forbidden by her family, and flirting madly with a low-born Scottish inventor in his airship laboratory.  When the inventor’s fabulous new fabric is targeted by industrial spies, Serephene risks not only her family’s displeasure but her own safety to protect him and his work.

Pursued through the floating city’s legendary canals and squares, Maddie must draw on all her hard-won survival skills to keep herself and Serephene out of the spies’ clutches. With the help of unexpected allies among Venice’s underdogs, the daring young ladies just might reach Carnevale’s grand finale alive.

If you're in the Calgary area, you're very welcome to attend our LAUNCH PARTY on October 23rd at 7 p.m. at Owls Nest Books in Britannia Plaza (149th St & Elbow Drive SW). Costumes welcome but not mandatory. There will be prizes! Check out the details on Facebook.

Pre-orders of MADDIE HATTER AND THE TIMELY TAFFETA are now available at:

Barnes & Noble (Nook) https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/maddie-hatter-and-the-timely-taffeta-jayne-barnard/1127175003?ean=2940154941607

Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07613F87Q

Amazon CA: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07613F87Q

iBooks: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/book/maddie-hatter-and-the-timely-taffeta/id1292381422

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/maddie-hatter-and-the-timely-taffeta

Rolling Through ThunderCon 2017

Thundercon 2017, in Thunder Bay, Ontario, was a whole lotta Star Trek fun for this speculative mystery writer. 

As a guest, I got to hang with other guests before and after: the amazing game-designer/narrator Ann Lemay, voice-of-Spock (and many other characters) Chuck Huber, Kevin Porter - YouTube's Batman and one of the kindest men alive - and more. 

I started the weekend with Robert Picardo of Star Trek Voyager (and latterly the Stargate franchise) fame and ended it watching Star Trek Discovery with a bunch of Klingons in party hats. 

Don't believe me? Check out the photos below.

 Okay, before the fandoms collide, I know this is not Star Trek right here. But R2D2 was cruising the con as much as I was. I challenged him to a drag race down the hallway, but he had already committed to break-dancing in the lobby.
 
 Neither are these Star Trek, but the one on the left is the ultra-competent captain of the Thundercon ship, chairwoman Heather Dickson (aka the fantasy author H. Leighton Dickson), and the other is not only Wonderwoman but Heather's daughter and right-hand woman, Brynne.

 Here we are: your first Klingon. Not the one in the party hat (yet). 

I asked for the photograph because our outfits' colour palettes matched so well. Hey - I write a fearless young fashion reporter; how could I not? 

Hi, Christina from Timmins! 

Someone out there has better photos of us but I didn't get his name and can't find his business card among the piles in my suitcase, and I wouldn't recognize him if I saw him without his Klingon face on.

Speaking of fashion, there were sufficient fabulous hats there to keep Maddie Hatter scribbling for a week!


In random order, feast your eyes....

 

 

From The Bunnydeer Hatbox

 

From The Bunnydeer Hatbox

 

  

The girl with the fascinator may have been holding the book - Brave New Girls: Stories of Girls Who Science and Scheme - but they were all bravely strutting their cosplay creations. 

 And one last hat: 

You can't say I didn't warn you.

Anyway, Thundercon was a blast and Maddie made some new fans. I'd go back in a heartbeat.

It's bookstores and libraries for this writer in the next couple of weeks, followed by Bouchercon 2017 - Passport to Murder (Toronto, October 12-15).

Whether you're home or away, be brave, be smart, and be responsible for your own safety. 

Follow us on Facebook @MaddieHatterAdventures and Twitter

A Post-Festival Post

Photo credit to AJ Proc

What a wild and wonderful weekend! 

From finally shaking hands with Sam Hiyate of The Rights Factory (my agent Olga's boss) at his seminar on Thursday through to a last meal with friends from far away at Sunday suppertime, it was one ever-flowing meet-and-greet with eager readers and other writers. all  passionate about their work and their genres. 

There were many more panels and presentations than I had a hope of getting to, and many great authors I either didn't get to meet or only nodded to as we rushed past each other in the hallways. This really is an amazing festival-slash-conference-slash-freewheeling party; one person can never see, let alone participate in, everything. 

My fun with panels began with a hilarious set of mysteries plotted from audience suggestion at "Who Killed this Character" ably moderated by Mahrie G. Reid of Calgary Crime Writers. Tying together parakeets, goats, blackmail and an air traffic controller with a victim and a murderer in under 15 minutes was no easy feat!

Photo credit to AJ Proc

Presenting this season's books with other Tyche Books authors was a blast. Time travel and kidnapping, ghosts and baseball, deep-dark Noir to light-bright Steampunk, Tyche has reading for every taste and age. Check out Axel Howerton's FURR, EC Bell's DYING ON SECOND, Simon Rose's TWISTED FATE,  Pat Flewwelling's upcoming HELIX: SCOURGE OF BONES   and of course MADDIE HATTER AND THE GILDED GAUGE.

Pat Flewwelling setting up her reading from her second HELIX book.

Later Saturday afternoon I had a howling good time debating all aspects of writing paranormal mystery with fellow panelists EC Bell, Erin Lindsey, and SG Wong: Ghosts and Fae, mythical and mystical dangers, magical systems and their limitations, and how to throw a challenging obstacle in the path of a character who can throw a fireball back. The audience of mainly mystery writers asked great questions and kept us on our toes. Panelists' personal ghost stories had us on the edge of our seats and shivering with the chill of the unknown.

SG Wong's latest!

Sunday's Elements of Suspense panel - featuring members of Sisters In Crime Canada West - was a real thinker. Old WWC hands SG Wong and Eileen Bell and me, along with newcomer Merrilee Robson, wrestled with the differences between suspense and tension and how to express them through our characters, plots, and settings. 

EC Bell, hiding her wicked wit behind a pale, cool facade

We all threw out examples of writers who do it well, and how we think they manage it. And we gave a collective whoop of delight at learning that the inimitable Deanna Raybourn will be coming to When Words Collide in 2018. #fangirling 

Photo credit to Constantine K

At the end of the day, Sisters in Crime Canada West presented Women of Mystery, moderated by the sparkling SG Wong (our chapter's president). We fabulous four presented our new books, told jokes, threw candy and gave away prizes. 

Look for SG Wong's  DEVIL TAKE THE HINDMOST and Merrilee's MURDER IS UNCOOPERATIVE as well as my second Maddie Adventure and Eileen's Marie Jenner mystery series (4th one, DYING ON SECOND, is coming out in September). 

The Maddie Hatter Adventures and I would also like to thank all the people who threw their coins and bills into my collection box for Girls Not Brides. The weekend total came to nearly $200 over just 4 panels, adding to the money raised at my Calgary and Edmonton book launches.

 Girls Not Brides empowers young women everywhere

Since Maddie herself was a runaway to avoid being pressured into marriage, it seemed fitting to collect for this very reputable organization that helps girls all over the world stay out of early/forced marriage and in school, learning whatever skills they need to become healthy, productive, independent citizens. I am thrilled that so many wonderful attendees at When Words Collide supported the cause, and wish to shout out to fellow crime writers SG Wong, Eileen Bell, and Erin Lindsey, who amplified my meager effort in word and in deed.

All in all, it was a marvelous weekend, one I'd happily repeat a lot sooner than this time next year. For now, farewell and happy reading/writing/listening to stories of your choosing.

For up-to-the hour news on Maddie's Adventures and my own, follow us onnFacebook or Twitter

When Words Collide 2017 - August 10-13 in Calgary

It's August again, and you know what that means: it's time for When Words Collide, Calgary's wildest wrangling of genre-crossing literature, a Festival for Readers and Writers.

The convention has been sold out since June but there are a few areas open to the public. Check the website at When Words Collide to learn what events you can access from outside.

I'll be appearing on several panels to discuss the amazing alternate-Victorian world of Maddie Hatter, how to plot the perfect crime, who my favourite paranormal authors are, and other topics of interest to readers and to writers of crime and/or speculative fiction.

My Schedule:

Friday, August 11th 

* at 7 p.m. in the Canmore Room (Atrium Building): When, Where, Why and How Would You Kill This Character?  Audience participation as writers brainstorm. With only a setting, character, and motive, how will each panelist kill the character and hide the body?

* at 9 p.m. (room TBA)  Tyche Books Ltd and Steampunk Arts & Sciences Society (SASS) present their annual  absinthe and Scotch tastings. Learn about malts from true aficionados  and watch a perfect absinthe drink created from the fountain manipulated by the Commander's experienced hands.

Saturday, August 12th
(all in Tower Building from here on unless specified)

* 12 noon in the Fireside Room:   Tyche Books Presents their annual book social with editors and authors presenting the 2017 collection. Panel discussion and Q & A. 

* 2 p.m. in Bonavista Room: Paranormal Mysteries by subtype and style. How much woo-woo is too much? What authors do it well?

* 8 p.m. in the Parkland Room: Mass autograph session, where I'll be signing my two Maddie Hatter Adventures, two Enigma Front anthologies, and whatever other anthologies or old magazine stories of mine readers bring along.

* 10 p.m. in a semi-secret location: Bundoran Press's combined party and triple book launch. I'm just going as a spectator and cheerer-on of the authors.

Sunday, August 13th

* 2 p.m. in the Parkland Room: Elements of Suspense (a Sisters-in-Crime panel), in which we discuss what keeps readers turning the page and sleeping with the lights on.

* 4 p.m. in the Fireside Room: Women of Mystery (a Sisters-in-Crime panel), in which 4 long-time mystery writer/readers discuss their favourite new and established female crime writers, and reveal a few secrets of our own.

Looking forward to seeing lots of friends old and new!

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