Kalayna Price

The May addition to the GRAVE DANCE excerpt has now been posted! Click here to read it. I'll be extending the excerpt one more time (in mid-June) and then the book will hit shelves on July 5th. I can't believe we are just over a month and a half from release. In the coming weeks I should have information about blog tours, release parties, and signings, so please stay tuned. Happy hump-day everyone, and remember to check back later this week for an author chat with Mario Acevedo and clips from last weekend's SC Book Festival.

 I'm very happy to unveil my very first foreign cover. This is the German version of ONCE BITTEN (German title appears to be "The Kiss of Eternity") and I am just floored by how beautiful it is. I will have to figure out how to get my hands on one when it hits shelves this December.  What do you think?  (If you follow my twitter/facebook feed, you might have already spotted this cover, but I just had to share here as well.) Happy Tuesday everyone! I should have an extended excerpt up tomorrow and videos from the last weekend's SC Book Festival later this week, so check back soon.

First of all, I want to say thank you everyone who entered! It was awesome to read how you found the books. I wish I could send all of you ARCs! Okay, on to the announcement you all want to see. And the winner is: dorien-b who wrote "I believe I found the cover of Grave Witch on All Things Urban Fantasy and kept it in the back of my mind. It was a great cover and the blurb had caught my attention, so when release month came I noticed the cover again." Congratulations Dorien-b! Please send your shipping information to contests(AT)kalayna(DOT)com and I'll sign the ARC and ship it out to you. To everyone else, thank you again for entering! If you didn't win this time, please check back because I'll be having another contest closer to the release of the book. Happy Monday Everyone! (Edit: I've just been informed it's Tuesday--how did that happen? Sorry for the late post!)

Today all my news is about Grave Dance. You might have seen my earlier tweet that I received a couple of ARCs. I think now is a good time to give one of those copies away, don't you? What is up for grabs: An ARC (advanced reading copy) of Grave Dance. These are pre-pageproof copies, so there are some uncorrected mistakes and a few very minor text changes. How to win: Leave a comment telling me how you first found me and my books. I'm just curios. ^_^ Only comments left on the blogspot blog will count toward entry, so if you are reading this post somewhere else, please stop by THE BLOG . When to win: The contest will close April 30th at 11:59pm EST, so be sure to get your entry in before then. Who is eligible to win: I'm willing to ship overseas, so the contest is open  internationally . Anyone who has not already read or received a copy of Grave Dance, and who is not related to me or my critique partners is eligible to win! Okay, I think that about covers it as ...

Audio books were something I never gave a lot of thought to. Oh, I'd listened to one or two over the years, but I always preferred to read a book. That has started to change over last year. I can't really pinpoint a single event, but I would say the amount of traveling I've been doing had something to do with this change. Anyway, sometime last year I started listening to audio books in the car. Then I brought them inside and started listening to them while I cooked, or made buttons, or any task that took both my hands but not my full attention. Now I wouldn't say I'd rather listen to a book over read it, but I definitely enjoy being able to multi-task. All that said, when the audio rights for both the Alex Craft and Haven series recently sold, I was a lot more excited than I probably would have been in previous years. Who will the reader be? What kind of voices will she give the characters? What will Alex/Kita/Nathanial/Falin/Death/Bobby/Tatius/etc . . . sound lik...

Today I'm being interviewed over at My Bookish Ways Blog . There is a giveaway for Grave Witch, so if you haven't heard me talk about myself and my books enough yet, please go check it out ! Deadlines are closing in again and at the same time spring has hit my sunny town in the Carolinas. I'm spending most of my time with my laptop pounding out words. My limited spare time I'm devoting to my garden while the weather is still beautiful. (It's in the high seventies and mid eighties now, but spring is a short season here and summer will hit with high nineties and heat indexes over a hundred soon, so I'm enjoying the good gardening weather while it lasts.) Because of those reasons, (though the former more than the latter) my blogging schedule will be rather erratic over the next few weeks. I'll try to have a substantial post at least once a week, so if there are any topics you guys want me to blog about, please let me know in the comments. I'm not sure wha...

Do you remember last week's post about the Facebook Author Page Contest ? Well, the contest has now ended and it's time to draw the winner! According to the random number generator, the winner is: LISA FULLER Congratulations Lisa! Please send an email on facebook or to contests(AT)kalayna(DOT)com with which book you'd like to receive and where you'd like me to ship it. Thank you everyone who "liked" the new author page. Stay tuned for more contests and book info to come. (Sorry about the late posting of this announcement. This is the first time I sat down with my internet today. Also, I'm dreadfully behind on email. If you've emailed me in the last few weeks, I should be getting back to you in the next few days. Sorry!) Happy Hump day everyone!

(If you didn't see it yesterday, check out this post for details on how to enter the current contest.) Hey everyone. This is a just a quick post to let everyone know I'm over at Magical Words today. I wrote a craft post about the preposition gnome haunting my laptop , so I hope you'll head over and check it out. In other news, I designed a countdown widget for the release of GRAVE DANCE. If anyone is interested in sporting the widget on their page/blog/what-have-you, just click on the grey "Get Widget" box under the counter for the code. Get the <a href="http://www.widgetbox.com/i/1d9b585c-3e60-4288-81e4-d6a8a01c38bb">Countdown Creator Pro</a> widget and many other <a href="http://www.widgetbox.com/">great free widgets</a> at <a href="http://www.widgetbox.com">Widgetbox&...

I mentioned last week that I was planning a contest for those who "liked" my new author page on Facebook, and I am now ready to get that contest going. Entering is super easy: everyone who currently "likes" the page as well as all those who join by 11:59 pm on Tuesday, March 22nd will automatically be entered to win. Now I'm sure you're all wondering what you could win, right? I'm glad you asked. Up for grabs is a signed copy of your choice of any of my currently released books. (Sorry, I don't have any ARCs of this summer's upcoming releases, so only the three which are already out.) And, just because I think it will be fun, for every hundred "likes" the page gets during the contest, I'll add in another book . That means that if the page passes 300 fans, I'll be giving away signed copies of my entire backlist. If the contest generates even more entries, for every hundred mark after 300, I'll pick an additional winne...

Today I'm very pleased to share the first sneak peek excerpt of GRAVE DANCE! If you'd like to check it out, you can CLICK HERE . This first excerpt is only a few pages long, but check back often because I'll be releasing extended excerpts on or around the 15th of each month between now and the book's release in July. I hope you enjoy and thanks for reading!

Hey everyone. I'm very pleased to share a quick author chat with New York Times Bestselling urban fantasy author, Faith Hunter . I had a chance to chat with Faith about her books and tips for writers when I was at StellarCon last weekend, so I hope you'll check out the video (below). And for more writing tips, be sure you check out www.magicalwords.net. Have a great weekend everyone! (Sorry this is so late in the day--I was fighting with youtube all morning. I finally realized I could upload the video to facebook first and share it that way, and thus circumvented the whole youtube issue, but yeah, way later than I wanted.)

First and foremost, I want to thank all of you who have joined the fan page on facebook. Next week there will be a contest that everyone who likes the page will be automatically entered in, so watch this space for more information to come.  Next on the list, I'm very excited to announce that GRAVE WITCH was nominated as "Best Novel with Romantic Elements" for 2010 by The Romance Reviews. If you have a moment, I'd be absolutely thrilled if you'd head over and vote . Thanks! And on to more updates, I've been given permission to release an excerpt from GRAVE DANCE. Woohoo! I promise I've been waiting as impatiently to share as you guys have been to read. Tonight or tomorrow I'll be releasing a newsletter with a special preview of the excerpt. It will be up online for everyone next Monday. If you haven't joined the newsletter yet but would like to, you can sign up here: Don't worry, I send out no more than one newsletter a month. Also, I t...

Today I'm very pleased to share with you an quick video chat with Misty Massey from StellarCon last weekend. Misty is the author of Mad Kestrel and a regular poster at Magical Words , an amazing craft website for writers. This video was also filmed in the dealer's room, so the background noise is a little distracting. Sorry about that. I really need to look into getting a mic for my camcorder. Anyway, without further ado, the the video: Now, when you were watching that interview, did you hear how Misty described her book, Mad Kestrel? She didn't give us a big break down of the plot or give us a long explanation about who her main character is. She gave us just two short sentences: "A rollicking adventure of magic on the high seas. If Jack Sparrow had a little sister, it would be Kestrel." From those two little sentences, you get an idea of what the story is about (Pirates, magic, adventure) that a longer, rambling explanation likely wouldn't have ...

Hey everyone. I'm back from StellarCon and I have a sack of updates to share with you, but I think I'll have to spread them out across the week. For today I just want to direct your attention to my brand new fan page over on Facebook. Please take a second to check it out and "Like" it if you're a facebook user. I'm still getting information up on the page and working out the kinks, but my hope that it will not only be a great place to find out what is happening with me but also to connect with other urban fantasy and paranormal romance readers. I've added a discussion board to the page, so we will see what happens. Okay, back to the con update. I had an absolutely amazing time at StellarCon. The convention included a lot of firsts for me. My first reading you've seen already, but my other first for a con experience was even more exciting. What was it, you're asking? Well, (to my knowledge) this was the very first con I've been to where I sig...

This is a flash post because I'm due down at the signing table in 20 minutes.  I just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone who have me advice and encouragement for my first ever public reading. I recorded it, and I think it wasn't a total disaster. And now for your enjoyment, if you missed the reading in person, you can watch the clip now. I'm having a great time at StellarCon and I promise a full update once I get back. Have a great weekend everyone.

It's Thursday, which means tomorrow I head to StellarCon in Highpoint NC and at 4:30pm I have my first ever reading. I am nervous. I'm at 28 hours until the reading and I still don't have a clue what passage I'm going to read. I don't even know how long a passage I should pick. I wish I had attended more readings in the past, but I haven't, so I'm flying rather blind. I just had a long talk with fellow author Rachel Aaron , and she pointed out that if you can't do voices, dialogue tends to run together so avoid dialogue heavy scenes. I'd never considered that. The block for my reading is 30 minutes, but I doubt anyone would like to hear me drone on that long. It would probably be best to split things up and pick a 10 minute passage, talk a bit and get a feel for what the attendees (if there are any and I'm not reading to an empty room!) are interested in, and then read a shorter second passage based on them. What do you think? Has anyone...

When it comes to politically correct terms for gender roles, anyone who knows me personally long ago gave me up as a lost cause. I don't care one bit about the generalized 'man' being a collective for both males and/or females such as in words like mankind and chairman. I find the insertion of the word woman in such words to be amusing, and the substitution of 'person' downright silly. In person, I'm not even particularly inclined to differentiate male and female versions of long held titles. For instance, I may mention the party's host, and mean the woman hosting it. And as far as new 'titles', well, expect an eye-roll if someone refers to me as an author ess . In print, my characters speak and think in terms that are in line with their views. Unless they are particularly pushy in the politically correct department, my characters typically follow common gender grammar rules simply because 1) so far I haven't had a good reason for one not to an...

Thank you everyone who volunteered to be part of the bookmark project! I wasn't sure what kind of reception the post would get, but a ton of readers contacted me and now bookmarks will be headed out to dozens of stores across the states. I'm prepping packages of bookmarks and goodies for the mail, but hopefully everything will be shipped by the beginning of next week. Thank you again! Have a great weekend, everyone.

You might have seen my tweet yesterday about the fact I just received two boxes of shiny new bookmarks. I'm very excited that I'll have these available at future cons and events, but I haven't quite run out of my last run of bookmarks yet, and there is only so much room in my luggage and on tables, so I need to reduce my stock. With that in mind, I'm looking for some minions volunteers who would be willing to see that the old bookmarks make it to bookstores where they can find a new home.  Okay, let's  talk about what is actually involved in this "bookmark project." What I'm proposing is that if you're interested in helping me get the word out about the books (and helping some bookmarks find good homes) send an email to kalayna(AT)kalayna(dot)com with the words "BOOKMARK PROJECT" in the subject line and include your name, shipping address, and the name of the bookstore you plan to take the bookmarks to. I will then send you 20-30 boo...

I know, I only just hung my corset and kicked off my boots from the last convention, but the next is just around the corner and they sent me my panel schedule, so I'm anxious to share it with you. March 4th-6th I will be in High Point North Carolina for StellarCon and if you want to take a peek at my panel schedule, it looks like I'll be chatting about a lot of vampires. LOL. (Don't worry, if vampires aren't your thing and you'd rather chat with me about fae, witches, shifters, mages, and/or soul collectors, just find me outside the panels!) Okay, without further ado, my schedule: Reading (Heritage, Friday @ 4:30PM) Opening Ceremonies & Guest Meet and Greet (Queen Anne B, Friday @ 6:00PM): Come to the Opening Ceremonies and meet StellarCon 35’s Convention Manager and Guests of Honor. It is followed by a meet and greet of all this year’s guests. Vampires of the Past, Present and Future (Victorian B, Friday @ 9:00PM): Come and explore the world of va...