I’m so thrilled to be in issue 21 of A PUBLIC SPACE
Inside it I’m talking about a book I can’t quite seem to get right but will go back to soon. It’s set in Paris at the end of Enlightenment, through the French Revolution and into the Terror. The central character is a diminutive female called Anne Marie Grosholtz, who grew up to become Madame Tussaud. A Public Space let me publish various sketches (and a large wooden doll) I’ve made for the book over the years I’ve been working on it.
Just arrived from Toronto Heap House buttons/badges, very snappy.
Today I was sent the full cover for Foulsham, here’s what it looks like. Thank you so much Jan Bielecki for all your patience.
Here, but for a couple of tweaks is the cover for Iremonger Book 2.
I’m so delighted to say that this winged elephant
by which I mean the Overlook Press will publish the Iremongers in the U.S.
They are the American publishers of Mervyn Peake, and have stuck to his original covers (my favourite covers in all the world)
and even added one that looks as if Peake designed it himself.
I couldn’t be happier.
I’ve published a couple of short stories in the last couple of months. One is in XO ORPHEUS, a book of new myths published by Penguin and edited and organized and inspired by the amazing Kate Bernheimer (if you don’t know it look up her wonderful www.fairytalereview.com).
I chose as my myth Baucis and Philemon about an ancient couple who want to die at the same time and so not leave one behind in terrible grief. Here are my illustrations for it. Before:
And after metamorphosis:
I’m so pleased to be in the latest volume of Conjunctions (Volume 61: A Menagerie) edited by the brilliant Bradford Morrow and Benjamin Hale.
My story is set in eighteenth century Paris, just before and during the Revolution. It’s about a very large fellow called Paul Butterbrodt, he actually lived and was a sort of side show attraction, here’s a sketch I made of him:
In my story Paul’s closest friend is this, his name is Louis:
I’m also busy scrabbling to get some images ready for another American magazine, I’m trying to select characters I’ve drawn who didn’t make it into books, or who changed enormously from first drawing to final edit.
I haven’t posted anything for ages. I’ve been busy writing (I think, I hope) the sequel to Heap House which will be called FOULSHAM. I’ve just started the illustrations:
Whilst I’ve been away people have said some really nice things about Heap House, here are a couple. I can’t believe my luck.
Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked: The life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West wrote, ‘IREMONGER torques and tempers our memories of Dickensian London into a singularly jaunty and creepy tale of agreeable misfits. Read it by gas lamp, with a glass of absinthe at your wrist and a fireplace poker by your knee.’
Eleanor Catton, winner of the Man Booker Prize 2013 for The Luminaries, has been extremely generous, unbelievably generous, to Heap House, she wrote this, “Edward Carey’s HEAP HOUSE – delightful, eccentric, heartfelt, surprising, philosophical, everything that a novel for children should be.” And then in the Guardian this: “My favourite novel for children published this year was the marvelously funny and inventive HEAP HOUSE.”
“This inventive and continually surprising novel evokes a darkly distorted image of Victorian London which is at once frightening, grotesque and often very funny … a peculiar but superbly-realised fantasy – the first book in what promises to be an excellent trilogy.” Booktrust – Books We Like
“Astonishing and inventive, it calls out to be read.” — Nicolette Jones The Sunday Times (listed as one of the top children’s books of 2013)
“A rare work of individual brilliance.” Inis magazine
Quite enough of that. Back to work. Yesterday, I painted this seagull. Her name is Otta Iremonger.
Only 30 + illustrations to go! I’ll post some here as I plod onwards.
I’ve only been on Twitter a very short amount of time and much of that time I seem to have been tweeting about moustache cups. Here’s a moustache cup from the cover of Heap House. In the book there’s a moustache cup that was formerly this maid servant, see below. But for the best coverage of moustache cups see Essie Fox’s newest post.
The proof has just arrived for the Canadian edition of Heap House, looking wonderfully gloomy…
…and it’ll be out on April Fool’s Day.
The wonderful bookshop Mr B’s in Bath have put Heap House in their window, here’s how it looks:
