Cover Reveal for Crow's Rest from Crow and Pitcher Press

I've been working hard behind the scenes to get Crow's Rest ready for a May 22 release, and I can finally share the cover! I started out by teasing on Facebook and my websites with a partial cover:

And now, the entire thing! (you can click on it to see it bigger)

I hope you all love it as much as I do! Kudos to Kelley York of X-Potion Designs for another great cover. She actually did the design on the earlier edition of this book, released through Spencer Hill Press in 2015, which was styled after a mockup I did with stock art.

This time around I didn't want to hassle with licensing and permissions, so we used entirely my own work (plus a little painting by Kelley, like the skirt). I paid to do a private photo shoot at Preston Castle with model Renee Sprouse and we got some great shots for this cover, Merlin's Stronghold's cover, and for assorted teasers. It was well worth the time and expense--and almost worth the 105+ degree day of the shoot.

The archway and brick, and stone rail, were taken on the front porch of Preston Castle, a haunted former boys' reformatory I've been photographing for about a decade.* I knew it would make the perfect framework for introducing Avery, and leading us into a magical world.

The path beyond the arch is at Bunratty Castle in Ireland, in the Folk Park which features tableaux of villages and cottages from surrounding areas. My husband and I stumbled into the grounds directly after landing, and my own skewed perceptions (from jetlag) lent them a surreal quality indeed. The real path is paved, but Kelley and I liked the wilder look of a grassy walk found in Stourhead Gardens (taken on the same UK trip).

Kelley expertly fused all these elements into an image that I hope conveys a bit of the story, with Avery's feet planted in one world but her attention captured by another. We have more great covers in store with the rest of the series, plus in the weeks leading up to the release on May 22, I'll be sharing teasers (some with the shots that didn't make the covers) and other fun content.

Stay tuned for more!



*I've collected my photos of Preston Castle in an art book, Capturing The Castle: Images of Preston Castle (2006-2016), which you can purchase on Amazon, B&N, etc with links here

Newspaper Writeup for Capturing The Castle

My local newspaper, The Mountain Democrat, interviewed me and featured Capturing The Castle on May 26th:

"In “Capturing the Castle” Jackson’s color and black and white photographs show both Preston’s unique architecture and the types of living arrangements used for staff and wards. Ornately carved corbels and archways vie with the Spartan utility of the basement baths; ivy crawls up walls studded with hundreds of windows."--The Mountain Democrat

You can read the entire article online here and the writeup came out in time for several people to also come to my signing at Preston Castle on the 27th.

I had a great time talking to everyone about Preston Castle and my book! Plus, 30% of the proceeds from that day went directly to the Preston Castle Foundation, and they'll be carrying it in the gift shop starting next week.

Now, on to finishing the editing for the Faerie Crossed novels so they can also hit the bookshelves!

Capturing The Castle Release Plus Event

That's my sell sheet above, but I thought it would make a great announcement on here for the release of Capturing The Castle: Images of Preston Castle (2006-2016), my latest book. It's now available through Amazon, BarnesandNoble.com, and independent booksellers. You can also get a signed copy directly from me by clicking the Buy Now button on this page.

Readers of Crow's Rest, my YA UF, may recognize Preston Castle as the inspiration for the book's Warren Castle. If you'd like to see it for yourself, I'll be doing a signing at the Castle on May 27th, from 10-1. 30% of all sales that day will go the the Preston Castle Foundation, and they'll be open for tours, so it's a great way to explore Preston Castle and leave with a signed keepsake. Hope to see you there!

New book coming May 2017!

In case anyone is wondering what I've been working on lately, I've been getting a collection of my photographs ready to print. I'll be releasing it in May, but you can preorder through my IndieGoGo campaign at https://igg.me/at/Capturing-The-Castle through April 19. Then it will hit stores (through Ingram distribution) starting May 16. I'm particularly proud of this one!

Event this Saturday, September 19th!

I get to stretch my visual artist wings at a show called Literary Palette, viewable at the El Dorado Arts Council gallery in Placerville through October 20. This Saturday, September 19, there is an artist's reception from 5- 8 PM, and I'll be there to share my love of art!

This is a fun show where all the works are inspired by literature, and they've also arranged a fun scavenger hunt where you match up the art with the written work to win a prize. Hint: of my two works in the show, one of them inspired a section of Crow's Rest!


Can you guess which book this one reminds me of?

Some Changes in Store!

I've done some shuffling of domain names and websites, so here's the lowdown:

My domain name www.AngelicaRJackson.com now points to a shiny new author website! It has a place for news and events, links to my social contacts, and links to my books (once I have something available to pre-order or order, that is).

My photography galleries that formerly lived at the above domain are now at www.AngelicaRJackson.photography, oddly enough. They will still serve as a place to buy prints, digital downloads, and gift items featuring my photographs.

This blog will remain at this address, and will also feed into my website and Goodreads Author Page. I will still be blogging at Operation Awesome every other Monday, and starting August 15 my OA posts will show up on Angelic Muse a few days later. Original content on here will be sharing whatever strikes my fancy: photos from trips, interesting tidbits I've unearthed in research, and the like.

More of the day-to-day stuff shows up on my Facebook profile if that sort of thing interests you, and so do the links to conferences, grant opportunities, etc that I run across and share.

All this shakeup is the result of me needing to change gears now that I have a book coming out, and don't have as much time to browse other people's blogs as I used to. I actually still do a lot of reading of blogs in my feed, I just don't have as much time to comment.

That seems to be the case for a lot of friends (writer or otherwise) and I considered abandoning this blog entirely, but there are some gems in the archive and I poured a lot of myself into these pages.
I've opted to keep it up, with the compromise that I'm going to feel less guilty about posting on a regular basis. Who knows--that might actually make me more likely to jump in with spontaneous posts!

New Author Pics!

I've posted a few photos from the shoot I did with Eliya of Eliya Photography on my Facebook, but there were actually a ton of great shots that came out of that session. So many that I'm having trouble deciding which ones to use for author-y things!

Right now, I mostly am using them for conference slide shows and bio stuff (like for contests I judge, or my blog). But I will eventually need a jacket photo and can't decide. So I figured I'd share the photos, and get input/votes from you all!

In no particular order, here are some of the photos that Eliya took.

You'll notice that the one in the stripey dress is the only serious one in the bunch--until you find out that I call that dress "The Dress That Grandma's Afghan Died For". But really, it would be useless to have a bunch of photos of me looking appropriately grave, since I have difficulty being serious for more than 3 seconds in real life. Eliya was really fun to work with, and tolerant of me cracking up at odd times.

We also took some pics using my crow mask, and I'd love to use this one for a book cover for Crow's Rest.

Isn't that cool? And just so this post isn't all about me-me-me (okay, so it will be 95% about me), I'll leave you with a tip for your own photo shoot.

I don't do much photography of people myself, but from watching other photographers with their models at Preston Castle photo shoots, I learned it's helpful to have several outfits to change into. So what I did was to wear a pair of basic black leggings, black boots, and a black camisole. Then I just had to pull off my dress and put on a different one, or really change it up with that purple sweater and/or black trenchcoat.

I wore the same jewelry for all, so it made for very quick costume changes. The layers also let me change clothes right in the parking lot; we got a few startled looks, but we didn't lose time to finding a bathroom to change in. So feel free to use that idea if you get your own pictures taken!

And don't forget that any photo can be cropped to make it Twitter or other thumbnail friendly; here's the one I've been using

I highly recommend Eliya Photography if you're in my area, but have fun no matter who takes your portraits--it will come across in the pics!

RTW: Downed Wood and Boulders

I've been parked on the side of the Road Trip Wednesday for awhile, but today's topic caught my eye and I'm in! Road Trip Wednesday is a "Blog Carnival," where YA Highway's contributors and followers post a weekly writing- or reading-related question and answer it on their blogs. You can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic.

This week's topic: Pictures that inspire your WIP

I have loads of pictures for Crow's Rest, but now that it's a finished book I suppose I'll have to feature some other work. I did a photo shoot a month ago for fall color, and there's one image that's really haunting me (click on it to see it larger).

Not fifty feet behind me was a road lined with cars and photographers, taking pictures of the aspens lining the roadway.

I followed a trickle of snow melt into this clearing of downed wood and boulders. So eerie and hushed, and lit like a stained glass window.

(If you've read The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater, think Cabeswater of the Sierras)

So although I don't have an actual WIP inspired by this photo yet, I can feel a little sprout of something starting.

Feel free to put a link to your post in the comments if you played along with Road Trip Wednesday. Don't forget to go to the YA Highway post and read all the answers!

Teaser Tuesday in Images

I used to do a Teaser Tuesday post, featuring a short teaser of my current WIP.

I'm doing a little twist on that today, with a heartfelt message going out from my main character, Avery, to Daniel, her crush-next-door. Note: this Avery-ism has been edited for language.

Click on an image to see it larger.
P.S. Yes, this ate up some of my editing time, but my inner artist really needed to come out and play. I'm considering including my artwork in Crow's Rest (the above images are the marvelous Arthur Rackham's) but am waiting to see what an agent or editor says about that before putting too much time into it.

Time for Another Peek into the Garden

I realized I haven't done any posts with pictures from my garden in a while, but the warm spring weather has made my shutter finger itchy. Here are a few I've taken over the last few days (hint: click on them to make them bigger in a slideshow):

Hope if you have good weather, you're out enjoying it today!

My First Ever Contest! Win Art by Yours Truly!

I was trying to think of a unique prize I could offer as an appreciation for all my followers and friends, and then it hit me--duh! What about one of my prints? A matted 8x10 should be easy to mail (in my experience, people want to pick out frames to match their decor). In fact, 2 pix would be just as easy to mail!

To enter the contest, just leave a comment on this post before Friday, Jan.28, at 5 pm PST; I'll use a randomizer to select a winner over the weekend and post an announcement on Monday, Jan. 31. No requirements about following the blog, although followers, posts, and tweets are always appreciated. Make sure I have some way to contact you, whether it's your profile or your email, and apologies to international folks but this contest is only open to those with a U.S. address. So here's what you could win:

An 8x10 matted print of a photo of the schoolhouse in Bodie that has proven popular with writer-friends and teacher-friends:



PLUS any 8x10 matted pic of your choice from my website!

Maybe you're the flowery type


Or the scenic type


Or more urban decay


ETA: 1/28/2011 @ 5:00 PM PST
CONTEST NOW CLOSED! LOOK FOR THE WINNER ON MONDAY 1/31/2011, and thanks to all who entered!

Cross-posting

Some of you may have noticed that my Blogger profile started showing 2 blogs a while back--this one, and another called Fat Kitty City Nitty Gritty. FKC NG is the blog for a no-kill animal sanctuary I volunteer at, and I just wanted to direct you to a post over there for a fundraising calendar of my digital paintings.

Bryce Bonanza

As promised, here are a few pictures from our Bryce trip. Storms made for fantastic clouds. There are a few more in my scenics gallery.

New Preston Castle Pix

I posted my newest Preston Castle Pix--enjoy!

Pastoral

We saw this nature show on Alaska once, filled with incredible scenery and footage of amazing wildlife. Wildlife surrounded by seething clouds of mosquitoes. After the program, there was a "making of" feature that showed what the crew had to go through to get those shots--it cemented my belief that I am not nearly dedicated enough to make it as a real nature photographer.

Well, we had a little taste of that last Sunday when we went to Wright's Lake in the Sierras. In order for me to take any pictures, my husband had to stand behind me and flail like he was having an attack of jazz hands. The skeeters weren't so bad if you kept moving (walked the loop in record time), but if you stopped even for an instant they were on you.

I think if I'd had a magnifying glass, I would have seen little cartoon mosquitoes with jackhammers and pneumatic drill bits--they even went right through my bicycle gloves. Hubby had a tidy little row of bites on his neck, between where his collar ended and his hat began.

The irony of the whole thing was that we went up there to scout for a future canoeing trip. Wright's Lake has all these marvelous channels to take a canoe (as in the photo above), and now that we have a Highlander we can rent a boat. When we got there, absolutely nobody was out on the water, they were all huddled in their cabins. We thought it might have to do with the looming thunderclouds, but the real answer became pretty obvious.

October might be better for the mosquito problem, but the water will be freezing if we fall in. That sounds like it could lead to more hilarious hijinks for the blog.