What's
New in Clare Dunkle's Career
This page keeps you up to date on things that have changed on my website. I also use it to keep you up to date on new blog posts I've written or events I'll be attending.
JANUARY
Dear friend, if you're a returning visitor, please click the circling arrow button to refresh the webpage you're viewing on my website. This month, every webpage has changed not once but several times. You may have to click the refresh button twice.
My statistics are telling me that visitors are looking for webpages or parts of webpages that have been gone from this site for three years! If something looks strange, please refresh your screen. Better yet, go into your browser and click the setting to dump your cache files. If you're seeing three-year-old pages on my site, then your browser is showing you three-year-old webpages everywhere you go. That can't make browsing the web a fun experience.
Over the weekend, I completed a project to make the fonts on my pages display more consistently across the Windows, Apple, and Linux platforms, and cooperate better with tablets too. Some of you will see a much nicer looking website now--but you'll probably have to refresh the browser view a couple of times to get the new fonts to come in properly.
The project to update my webpages for tablet viewing is now complete. I'm very pleased about this! Now even the Trilogy Treasure Hunt scales properly and no longer provides a garbled view on a tablet or phone. If you're having trouble displaying a page, you may need to refresh your browser not once but twice. Beyond that, if something on the site looks odd, please drop me a note at claredunkle at gmail.com (or you can use my webform).
All seven of my published books are now available as ebooks. You can find them for sale for your Kindle or NOOK on Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble.com. I'm very pleased about this because I myself hate to wait more than a minute to start reading a new book, and it pleases me to know that my readers won't have to wait to read mine. So I've added that information to the Books page and added a Kindle edition "buy" link to the Book Jacket page for each of my titles.
Over the last month, I've made numerous changes to my webpages to optimize them for tablet browsing. This project is almost complete, but there are still four or five pages to change. I've also added the language code to each page so that my foreign readers can easily get to a language translation option with plugins like Google Translate. I've put my gmail address on the Contact pages, altered the banner across the top of each page, and made picky little font changes to help the pages look good on Apple devices as well as on Windows and Android devices. Why have I done all this tinkering? Well, I'm living in a little furnished apartment over here in Germany, with no dog to walk or house to clean. So I've been cleaning my website instead.
NOVEMBER
The project to add "My Blog" to the top of every web page is now complete! It appears in the "starry night" banner that stretches across the top of each page. Take a look as you browse my site, and if you don't see "My Blog" as the second choice in the banner on each page, please click the refresh button in your browser (the arrow chasing its tail). That will bring the new version of the page to your browser.
I'm inordinately proud of the fact that all the images on my website are now scalable to make my website display neatly on a tablet or cell phone. Only a handful of pages remain to be optimized for tablet viewing. (The Trilogy Treasure Hunt pages are the main ones for me to tackle now.)
As I've been doing webpage maintenance, I've started deleting the images that aren't used anymore. These are images I dropped from my webpages a full three years ago. Still, I'm discovering that some of you are still looking at ancient versions of my pages, and that means you're seeing broken image icons now. Please do me a favor: when you look at one of my webpages, please hit the button on your web browser that shows an arrow chasing its tail (the refresh button). This will make your web browser download a fresh copy of the page. You might be surprised at what you see.
The House of Dead Maids appears on this year's Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books Guide Book to Gift Books. I'm honored to be in excellent company on this list, and if you're looking for Christmas or Hannukkah ideas, this is a great place to start. I've added the link to The House of Dead Maids reviews & editions page.
The work to change over the website to integrate my blog into the banners at the tops of my webpages is taking its sweet time. That's all right: it gives me something to do when I'm procrastinating. I can't explain why I find webpage construction so absorbing, but it's something I love to do.
I'm still living in Germany temporarily, and my blog about life in Germany is in full swing. I post six times a week: three posts about interesting German words I've encountered and three longer posts with photographs about subjects that catch my fancy. You can read new posts by clicking on the "My Blog" link at the top of the page. Or, if you have a favorite blog reader, you can subscribe by going to my blog page and pointing your reader to the "feed" version (available under the orange "feed" button at the right side of each blog page. And of course, you can also like its Facebook page if you'd prefer hearing about updates that way.
OCTOBER
The House of Dead Maids is now out in paperback from Square Fish! Just in time for Halloween. I've added this information to The House of Dead Maids reviews & editions page.
SEPTEMBER
I've continued work on the blog I started last week about life in Europe. Now, rather than checking back here, you Facebook users out there can "like" its Facebook page in order to bring information about new blog posts into your Facebook news feed. And, for you blog subscribers out there, I've set up a newsfeed link also, under the orange "feed" icon on the right side of each blog page.
I'm also adding "My Blog" to the banner menu across the tops of all my webpages, but that's slow work. So, at the moment, you'll find that some sections have their "My Blog" link and some still don't.
AUGUST
This has been a quiet summer for the website but a busy summer for me. I'm now in Germany for several months, and I've started a blog on the website about life for an American in Europe. You can visit my blog here. I've also had to shut down author visits and signings for the foreseeable future, so I've noted that on the signings page.
On a very sad note, Lucy, my tabby cat pictured on this page and on my About the Author pages, has died. She was only five, but the diseases she was born with took her away from us far too soon. It hurts my heart to work on this page and see her again as a tiny kitten, but I'm not going to change the picture. Death is a natural consequence of the glorious chance to be alive in the first place, and in time, I'll be glad to see her here.
APRIL
Only today did I nail down my signing times for the Texas Library Association conference—which starts today! Better late than never. I will be signing for Overlooked Books, the wonderful Texas bookselling company run by the equally wonderful Pat Anderson. Overlooked Books specializes in books about Texas, Texan authors, and hard-to-find biligual books. I'll be there on Wednesday from 12:30 to 2:00, signing books, and on Friday from 10:15 to 12:00.
FEBRUARY
By These Ten Bones is coming out in paperback this month. I'm very fond of this book, and I couldn't be happier that it will have a chance at a wider readership now. I'm going on a blog tour to promote the paperback release. Here are the dates of the tour:
DECEMBER
I added another question to The House of Dead Maids reader questions page this morning. It had showed up in Yahoo!Answers last week. I also added a note about the Square Fish paperback edition, which is coming in September 2011, and the changed date for the Recorded Books audio release, which has moved to January, to The House of Dead Maids reviews & editions page.
Another 5Q from VOYA! That makes me very happy. That's three 5Q ratings out of seven books—not bad at all!
The VOYA review for The House of Dead Maids is out, and it's very favorable. I've posted an excerpt on The House of Dead Maids reviews & editions page. I don't yet know the Q/P rating, but I'll post it as soon as I do.
NOVEMBER
I'm very pleased that The House of Dead Maids has been nominated to the ALA "Best Fiction for Young Adults" list. (This was previously known as the BBYA or "Best Books for Young Adults" list.) I've noted this nomination on The House of Dead Maids jacket page and reviews & editions page.
Now that I'm starting to get questions about The House of Dead Maids, I've added a reader questions page to that section of the website. Also, a new blog entry out there in Internet land has prompted me to add a new criticism and answer to my criticisms of The House of Dead Maids page.
Bryce Milligan, book reviewer of the San Antonio Express-News, has given The House of Dead Maids a strongly worded positive review. Needless to say, I've wasted no time adding it to that book's front page and reviews & editions page. And, since the blog tour is now finished, I've moved the list of blog sites to the bottom of the reviews & editions page and the background notes page and added brief descriptions of each of the blog posts. I've also added the list of blog sites to the author interviews page.
OCTOBER
There's a lovely article out in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that reviews three classic Halloween reads: Bram Stoker's Dracula, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House—and The House of Dead Maids! I've added an excerpt from it to The House of Dead Maids reviews & editions page.
Unfortunately, I have had to raise my author visit rates. Because of the activity associated with the new book, I haven't had as much time as I would like for my new manuscript, and this helps to protect my writing time. The new fees are still quite competitive, though. You can find them at the visits & signings main page, along with my current schedule.
School Library Journal's review is out, and it's another good one. Unfortunately, spoilers abound so thickly in it that I could pull out only one phrase to quote without ruining the surprises of the book! I've added that excerpt to The House of Dead Maids reviews & editions page.
I'm recovering from a cold and poking around the website, so I just reworked the very-out-of-date author interview page to bring it up to date.
What a wonderful day! Brontëblog has just posted a fabulous review of The House of Dead Maids. I put into the book many tiny details that only a Brontë scholar would notice. (Other readers respond to those details unconsciously.) And I've been waiting for the day when such a scholar would come along and say, "Look at this tiny detail—it adds so much to the book!" That day has arrived at last. In a true scholarly review (with seven substantive footnotes, no less), Brontëblog has called attention to a number of the details that—to my mind, at least—make this book much more than a simple work of YA fiction. To have earned the respect and praise of such a knowledgeable, careful, and insightful reader is truly a dream come true.
This review and The Horn Book's star have arrived on the same day. Only one other day in my publishing career compares to this one: the day I won the Mythopoeic Award for The Hollow Kingdom. But this day is even sweeter than that. I worked harder for it! Needless to say, I put excerpts from the review on The House of Dead Maids front page and editions page.
Did I say last month had been a banner month? Nope, it's this month that earns that title. The Horn Book just starred The House of Dead Maids, calling it a "worthy companion to its classic literary inspiration." It doesn't get any better than that! I've added the quote to The House of Dead Maids front page and its editions page, and also had it painted on my living room wall. Well, no, not actually—but I'm thinking about it!
SEPTEMBER
This has been a banner month so far. To add to the excitement, I received a jpeg of the new cover for By These Ten Bones that will appear on the Square Fish paperback edition coming out in February, 2011. I can't wait! I love that book. I've added the cover to that book's front page and edition page, as well as to my books page. And the blog tour is continuing to garner attention for The House of Dead Maids. I've added the link to my favorite review of this book (and possibly favorite review of all time) to the front page, right under the blog tour schedule, and to the editions page. (Look for 'Tabitha' at Black Gate.)
At the request of Publishers Weekly, which is featuring my blog tour in their e-newsletter, Children's Bookshelf, I updated my publicity photo, and I've added it to the About the Author front page. We had a lot of fun taking these photos, so I've gone ahead and offered several different publicity shots to those who might need them for events or webpages. You can find my author publicity photos page from any page in the About the Author section of my website by following the link below the photo on the purple menu bar.
The book has launched, and the blog tour has begun. It's lovely to see the Internet attention The House of Dead Maids is getting! Booklist and the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books have also done very nice reviews for the book, so I've added excerpts from them to The House of Dead Maids jacket page and editions page.
AUGUST
This page keeps you up to date on things that have changed on my website. I also use it to keep you up to date on new blog posts I've written or events I'll be attending.
JANUARY
Dear friend, if you're a returning visitor, please click the circling arrow button to refresh the webpage you're viewing on my website. This month, every webpage has changed not once but several times. You may have to click the refresh button twice.
My statistics are telling me that visitors are looking for webpages or parts of webpages that have been gone from this site for three years! If something looks strange, please refresh your screen. Better yet, go into your browser and click the setting to dump your cache files. If you're seeing three-year-old pages on my site, then your browser is showing you three-year-old webpages everywhere you go. That can't make browsing the web a fun experience.
Over the weekend, I completed a project to make the fonts on my pages display more consistently across the Windows, Apple, and Linux platforms, and cooperate better with tablets too. Some of you will see a much nicer looking website now--but you'll probably have to refresh the browser view a couple of times to get the new fonts to come in properly.
The project to update my webpages for tablet viewing is now complete. I'm very pleased about this! Now even the Trilogy Treasure Hunt scales properly and no longer provides a garbled view on a tablet or phone. If you're having trouble displaying a page, you may need to refresh your browser not once but twice. Beyond that, if something on the site looks odd, please drop me a note at claredunkle at gmail.com (or you can use my webform).
All seven of my published books are now available as ebooks. You can find them for sale for your Kindle or NOOK on Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble.com. I'm very pleased about this because I myself hate to wait more than a minute to start reading a new book, and it pleases me to know that my readers won't have to wait to read mine. So I've added that information to the Books page and added a Kindle edition "buy" link to the Book Jacket page for each of my titles.
Over the last month, I've made numerous changes to my webpages to optimize them for tablet browsing. This project is almost complete, but there are still four or five pages to change. I've also added the language code to each page so that my foreign readers can easily get to a language translation option with plugins like Google Translate. I've put my gmail address on the Contact pages, altered the banner across the top of each page, and made picky little font changes to help the pages look good on Apple devices as well as on Windows and Android devices. Why have I done all this tinkering? Well, I'm living in a little furnished apartment over here in Germany, with no dog to walk or house to clean. So I've been cleaning my website instead.
NOVEMBER
The project to add "My Blog" to the top of every web page is now complete! It appears in the "starry night" banner that stretches across the top of each page. Take a look as you browse my site, and if you don't see "My Blog" as the second choice in the banner on each page, please click the refresh button in your browser (the arrow chasing its tail). That will bring the new version of the page to your browser.
I'm inordinately proud of the fact that all the images on my website are now scalable to make my website display neatly on a tablet or cell phone. Only a handful of pages remain to be optimized for tablet viewing. (The Trilogy Treasure Hunt pages are the main ones for me to tackle now.)
As I've been doing webpage maintenance, I've started deleting the images that aren't used anymore. These are images I dropped from my webpages a full three years ago. Still, I'm discovering that some of you are still looking at ancient versions of my pages, and that means you're seeing broken image icons now. Please do me a favor: when you look at one of my webpages, please hit the button on your web browser that shows an arrow chasing its tail (the refresh button). This will make your web browser download a fresh copy of the page. You might be surprised at what you see.
The House of Dead Maids appears on this year's Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books Guide Book to Gift Books. I'm honored to be in excellent company on this list, and if you're looking for Christmas or Hannukkah ideas, this is a great place to start. I've added the link to The House of Dead Maids reviews & editions page.
The work to change over the website to integrate my blog into the banners at the tops of my webpages is taking its sweet time. That's all right: it gives me something to do when I'm procrastinating. I can't explain why I find webpage construction so absorbing, but it's something I love to do.
I'm still living in Germany temporarily, and my blog about life in Germany is in full swing. I post six times a week: three posts about interesting German words I've encountered and three longer posts with photographs about subjects that catch my fancy. You can read new posts by clicking on the "My Blog" link at the top of the page. Or, if you have a favorite blog reader, you can subscribe by going to my blog page and pointing your reader to the "feed" version (available under the orange "feed" button at the right side of each blog page. And of course, you can also like its Facebook page if you'd prefer hearing about updates that way.
OCTOBER
The House of Dead Maids is now out in paperback from Square Fish! Just in time for Halloween. I've added this information to The House of Dead Maids reviews & editions page.
SEPTEMBER
I've continued work on the blog I started last week about life in Europe. Now, rather than checking back here, you Facebook users out there can "like" its Facebook page in order to bring information about new blog posts into your Facebook news feed. And, for you blog subscribers out there, I've set up a newsfeed link also, under the orange "feed" icon on the right side of each blog page.
I'm also adding "My Blog" to the banner menu across the tops of all my webpages, but that's slow work. So, at the moment, you'll find that some sections have their "My Blog" link and some still don't.
AUGUST
This has been a quiet summer for the website but a busy summer for me. I'm now in Germany for several months, and I've started a blog on the website about life for an American in Europe. You can visit my blog here. I've also had to shut down author visits and signings for the foreseeable future, so I've noted that on the signings page.
On a very sad note, Lucy, my tabby cat pictured on this page and on my About the Author pages, has died. She was only five, but the diseases she was born with took her away from us far too soon. It hurts my heart to work on this page and see her again as a tiny kitten, but I'm not going to change the picture. Death is a natural consequence of the glorious chance to be alive in the first place, and in time, I'll be glad to see her here.
APRIL
Only today did I nail down my signing times for the Texas Library Association conference—which starts today! Better late than never. I will be signing for Overlooked Books, the wonderful Texas bookselling company run by the equally wonderful Pat Anderson. Overlooked Books specializes in books about Texas, Texan authors, and hard-to-find biligual books. I'll be there on Wednesday from 12:30 to 2:00, signing books, and on Friday from 10:15 to 12:00.
FEBRUARY
By These Ten Bones is coming out in paperback this month. I'm very fond of this book, and I couldn't be happier that it will have a chance at a wider readership now. I'm going on a blog tour to promote the paperback release. Here are the dates of the tour:
Feb-14 MacKids Feb-15 The Book Faery Feb-16 Bookworming in the 21st Century Feb-17 The Compulsive Reader Feb-18 The Hate-Mongering Tart (Review) Feb-21 TheNeverending Shelf Feb-23 Tales of the Ravenous Reader Feb-24 Tempting Persephone Feb-25 WORD for Teens Feb-26 In Bed with Books Feb-28 Mundie Moms Mar-1 The Hate-Mongering Tart Mar-2 Rebecca's Book Blog
DECEMBER
I added another question to The House of Dead Maids reader questions page this morning. It had showed up in Yahoo!Answers last week. I also added a note about the Square Fish paperback edition, which is coming in September 2011, and the changed date for the Recorded Books audio release, which has moved to January, to The House of Dead Maids reviews & editions page.
Another 5Q from VOYA! That makes me very happy. That's three 5Q ratings out of seven books—not bad at all!
The VOYA review for The House of Dead Maids is out, and it's very favorable. I've posted an excerpt on The House of Dead Maids reviews & editions page. I don't yet know the Q/P rating, but I'll post it as soon as I do.
NOVEMBER
I'm very pleased that The House of Dead Maids has been nominated to the ALA "Best Fiction for Young Adults" list. (This was previously known as the BBYA or "Best Books for Young Adults" list.) I've noted this nomination on The House of Dead Maids jacket page and reviews & editions page.
Now that I'm starting to get questions about The House of Dead Maids, I've added a reader questions page to that section of the website. Also, a new blog entry out there in Internet land has prompted me to add a new criticism and answer to my criticisms of The House of Dead Maids page.
Bryce Milligan, book reviewer of the San Antonio Express-News, has given The House of Dead Maids a strongly worded positive review. Needless to say, I've wasted no time adding it to that book's front page and reviews & editions page. And, since the blog tour is now finished, I've moved the list of blog sites to the bottom of the reviews & editions page and the background notes page and added brief descriptions of each of the blog posts. I've also added the list of blog sites to the author interviews page.
OCTOBER
There's a lovely article out in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that reviews three classic Halloween reads: Bram Stoker's Dracula, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House—and The House of Dead Maids! I've added an excerpt from it to The House of Dead Maids reviews & editions page.
Unfortunately, I have had to raise my author visit rates. Because of the activity associated with the new book, I haven't had as much time as I would like for my new manuscript, and this helps to protect my writing time. The new fees are still quite competitive, though. You can find them at the visits & signings main page, along with my current schedule.
School Library Journal's review is out, and it's another good one. Unfortunately, spoilers abound so thickly in it that I could pull out only one phrase to quote without ruining the surprises of the book! I've added that excerpt to The House of Dead Maids reviews & editions page.
I'm recovering from a cold and poking around the website, so I just reworked the very-out-of-date author interview page to bring it up to date.
What a wonderful day! Brontëblog has just posted a fabulous review of The House of Dead Maids. I put into the book many tiny details that only a Brontë scholar would notice. (Other readers respond to those details unconsciously.) And I've been waiting for the day when such a scholar would come along and say, "Look at this tiny detail—it adds so much to the book!" That day has arrived at last. In a true scholarly review (with seven substantive footnotes, no less), Brontëblog has called attention to a number of the details that—to my mind, at least—make this book much more than a simple work of YA fiction. To have earned the respect and praise of such a knowledgeable, careful, and insightful reader is truly a dream come true.
This review and The Horn Book's star have arrived on the same day. Only one other day in my publishing career compares to this one: the day I won the Mythopoeic Award for The Hollow Kingdom. But this day is even sweeter than that. I worked harder for it! Needless to say, I put excerpts from the review on The House of Dead Maids front page and editions page.
Did I say last month had been a banner month? Nope, it's this month that earns that title. The Horn Book just starred The House of Dead Maids, calling it a "worthy companion to its classic literary inspiration." It doesn't get any better than that! I've added the quote to The House of Dead Maids front page and its editions page, and also had it painted on my living room wall. Well, no, not actually—but I'm thinking about it!
SEPTEMBER
This has been a banner month so far. To add to the excitement, I received a jpeg of the new cover for By These Ten Bones that will appear on the Square Fish paperback edition coming out in February, 2011. I can't wait! I love that book. I've added the cover to that book's front page and edition page, as well as to my books page. And the blog tour is continuing to garner attention for The House of Dead Maids. I've added the link to my favorite review of this book (and possibly favorite review of all time) to the front page, right under the blog tour schedule, and to the editions page. (Look for 'Tabitha' at Black Gate.)
At the request of Publishers Weekly, which is featuring my blog tour in their e-newsletter, Children's Bookshelf, I updated my publicity photo, and I've added it to the About the Author front page. We had a lot of fun taking these photos, so I've gone ahead and offered several different publicity shots to those who might need them for events or webpages. You can find my author publicity photos page from any page in the About the Author section of my website by following the link below the photo on the purple menu bar.
The book has launched, and the blog tour has begun. It's lovely to see the Internet attention The House of Dead Maids is getting! Booklist and the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books have also done very nice reviews for the book, so I've added excerpts from them to The House of Dead Maids jacket page and editions page.
AUGUST
I'm going on a blog tour to talk about The House of Dead Maids:
So I've added this information to The House of Dead Maids front page.September 15—MacKids blog September 20—In Bed With Books September 21—The Compulsive Reader September 22—Teenreads.com blog September 23—The Book Butterfly September 24—Carrie's YA Bookshelf September 27—The Neverending Shelf September 28—The Book Faery September 29—Bookworming in the 21st Century September 30—YA Books Central October 1—Rebecca's Book Blog October 4—Babbling Flow October 5—Steph Su Reads October 6—BrontëBlog October 7—Mundie Moms October 9—Jenn's Bookshelves October 11—The Spectacle October 12—Darkly Reading October 13—Adventures in Children's Publishing October 14—Sonderbooks Blog October 15—Tor.com (delayed) October 18—ScFiGuy October 26—WORD for Teens October 29—Cynsations
Webpage text copyright 2011 by Clare B. Dunkle. Homepage photo and the above photos copyright 2005 by Joseph R. Dunkle.