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:
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:
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
So I've added this information to
The
House of Dead Maids front page.
Webpage text copyright 2011 by Clare
B. Dunkle. Homepage photo and the above photos copyright 2005 by
Joseph R. Dunkle.