The Named Are Being Twits Again...

For purposes of fun and silliness, I have given the Named clan cat characters the ability to temporarily teleport from their home in the California Miocene so that they can peek into the human world and remark upon what they see. This, of course is not to be regarded as 'canon', i.e. in the storyline of the actual books. Think of it as sort of an alternate universe version.

Of course, the main event recently, was of course, the election. I was and am, an unabashed (though some may yet wish to bash me) Obama supporter.

Please note that I have added one or two introductory Tweets. Also, the words prefaced by a '#' (pound sign) were used as Twitter search categories. For more (dis) orientation, see my earlier blog post, "Ratha on Twitter".

So, without more author blather, here are Ratha, Bira, Thakur, Cherfan, Thistle-chaser
and last, but certainly not least, the clan's fiesty Firekeeper leader Fessran. She would have the audacity to fall in love with the prez elect.

Cats don't tweet, but they do chirp. Let the Chirps begin:


Who is behind all this prehistoric cat stuff? http://bit.ly/2n88x4 5:17 PM Oct 24th from TwitWall

Trying Twitwall. The pic is what Ratha will be for Halloween... 5:21 PM Oct 24th from web

For #Halloween, Thakur wants to be ... Joe Biden! 5:34 PM Oct 31st from web

For #Halloween, Cherfan wants to be....Joe the Plumber! 5:44 PM Oct 31st from web

For #Halloween, Fessran says she doesn't know squat about the #First_Amendment and wants to be....#Sarah Palin! 5:57 PM Oct 31st from web

Now, back to our regularly scheduled (hah!) transtemporal broadcasting from the Miocene....Fessran says Obama is one hot cat! Prrrrr... 11:46 AM Nov 5th

ClanChirps - For the newbie whitetippers (nice followers), the Chirps are by characters in my Ratha series about big prehistoric cats. 12:05 PM Nov 5

ClanChirps - Ratha: "Fessran, get your tail back here! We have a story to finish. 11:48 AM Nov 5th from web

ClanChirps - Fessran: "I don't wanna come back yet. I'm in love with #Obama-cat. Quit pulling my tail, Ratha!" 1:20 PM Nov 5th from web

ClanChirps – Ratha: “C'mon, Fessran. #Obama-cat already has a mate. A good one. And cubs. The clan needs you back home.” 3:28 PM Nov 5th from web

Characters doing the ClanChirps reside in #Ratha's_Courage, my new #book about #prehistoric big #cats. http://www.rathascourage.com 12:28 PM Nov 6th from web

ClanChirps- Fessran:“I know you're going to light fires under some deserving tails, Obama-cat. I gotta go back and light fires of my own...” ... 12:32 PM Nov 6th from web

ClanChirps – Fessran “Farewell, love of my life! May you eat of the haunch and sleep in the driest den, you cool Obama-cat.” 3:58 PM Nov 6th from web

ClanChirps - Ratha and Bira together: "FESSRAN!" 12:14 PM Nov 7th from web

ClanChirps – Ratha: “Bira, you take Fessran's scruff and I'll grab her tail. All right, back to the Miocene!” * poof * 4:50 PM Nov 8th from web

OK guys, enough...

CB

Ratha's Courage - Good Stuff Happening

Alien pipe-cleaner critter steals brownies while oblivious author signs Ratha's Courage at Northern California Independent Booksellers Association conference, Oakland, CA, Nov 5, 2008
Picture by JC Simmonds of Beagle Bay


Ratha's Courage has been making various appearances at different events and online sites. Previous posts on this blog have followed Courage's torturous road to publication and final and welcomed refuge at Sheila Ruth's Imaginator Press.

Sheila kindly invited me to attend KitLitospshere08 in Portland Oregon. This was a conference for children's and young adult book bloggers, including book reviewers, librarians, writers, illustrators and other publishing professionals. Since other KidLit08 bloggers have described the conference in detail and with greater wit than I could here, I'll just hit some of the personal high points. I had to scramble a bit to get all the arrangements in place and without conference organizer partner Jone McCulloch's aid in getting registered, it would have been harder.

I went up on the Coast Starlight Amtrak train and enjoyed the ride, especially along some of the inland Oregon coast, where I watched bald eagles soaring out over the estuary. As soon as I figure out how to get the picture out of my cellphone, I'll post it here. My clunky old road-warrior of a Sony Mavica digital camera decided to take a vacation, so the phone was a backup. I hope I can fix the Mavica or get it fixed. It has been a real workhorse.

Being a compulsive note-taker at conferences, I filled up several pages with notes on the sessions. I decided not to post them here. Instead they are in the Yahoo KidLitosphere group files, and are available to anyone in that group.

Just for the heck of it, I took along some stuff for display, including a pipe-cleaner alien critter that I made. I thought it would be an eye-catcher during the Meet the Authors event. Actually my little friend got more attention at the hotel bar. I suppose folks decided that they could explain it as a booze- induced hallucination. Here's Betsy Bird mugging with the critter, and a bit from her SLJ Fuse#8 blog (scroll down her blog page).

After the conference, I stayed in Beaverton, OR, spending a delightful few days with the family of a young Ratha fan who is a writer, photographer, and an artist, then returned home on the southbound Coast Starlight.

More good things continued to happen once I got back. Joan Druett, a New Zealand literary blogger, wrote about Ratha's Courage and the rough road to publication in a post called “Fantasies and Miracles”

I had sent Imaginator Press an article of how science fiction writer Andre Norton helped get Ratha's Creature published. Sheila and I decided to use it as a press release, and she sent it out. The result, among other things, was another Joan Druett post, “An Inspiring Story of Sponsorship”. Thank you, Joan!

Since pipe-cleaner critters were part of the story, here is another pic of the little brownie raider in closeup. He's not a kitty, but a strange little beastie called a "chumat", which is sort of the alien equivalent.


I knew that since Courage appeared this year, the book was eligible for the kidlit blogging community's Cybil awards. Scarcely had nominations opened, and before I could wonder if Courage would be chosen, a devoted Ratha fan had dashed in (at a speed that would make Thakur the Named herding teacher dizzy), to nominate it in the Science Fiction category. I think more than one reader wanted to name it, but the Cybil rules say one nomination per book. Even if Courage just makes it to the Cybil short list, I will be very pleased, and if it gets a Cybil, I will be knocked over backwards and all the Named clan cats will have to lick my face to revive me. There are so many other deserving books out there, but one can always hope!


CB

Ratha's Courage E-Released on Baen!

This version is an electronic book, which means you purchase it, then download it into your laptop, Sony reader or other device. On sale now for $6.00.

To buy it from Baen Books, you need to get an account, which is free and easy.

Here's the link:

http://www.webscription.net/p-822-rathas-courage.aspx

Baen's homepage is:

http://www.baen.com

Baen will have an exclusive on the book during April, then Amazon and Fictionwise http://www.fictionwise.com will be carrying it.

If Courage does well as an E-book, the next step is print publication.

Eeeeyarooo!

The other books in the series are Firebird re-issues and are available through the net and at bookstores.

My deepest thanks to everyone who made this happen, including E-Reads, Baen, and my agent, Richard Curtis.

CB