LKH, Author at Laurell K. Hamilton

You be you, Boo-boo, and I’ll be me.

I tried to be jollier than I actually felt for the family holiday get-together. I had these candy cane tights that Genevieve had helped me find; I used to love Christmas the way she loves Halloween, but even at my most ho-ho-ho, I never dressed in the bold colors of the season. I’ve owned one Christmas Sweater in my life and it was a gift. But I had these tights so I put them on and then I had a red skirt and a red shirt and even red laces in my boots. I looked very festive, but the more I passed a mirror the less like me I looked. Who was this person dressed all in bright red with candy canes on their legs? It was jarring every time I caught a glimpse of myself, like seeing a stranger when you were expecting to just see yourself.

I tried to keep the outfit on until the family arrived, and I made it for the first guests that arrived a little early, but by that time I was so unhappy that I excused myself and went up to change. I tried just changing red skirt for black, the boots were black so it still matched. I looked in the mirror and it was a relief to see less color and more black, some tension eased in my shoulders that had been growing all day. But it still wasn’t enough, I still didn’t feel like me, so I got out a black shirt with white lettering that says, “I’m only here because I heard Santa’s elves would be here.” There are red and green elf hats at the bottom of the shirt, but other than that it’s black. I put that on and suddenly there was enough black to balance out the bright blue, red, and green of the candy cane tights. This I could manage.

I went back downstairs to greet more guests still looking festive, but when I caught glimpses of myself in the mirrors it still looked like me. I was much happier and the evening went well. It was a good holiday with everyone, but to enjoy it I had to be me. That’s my bit of wisdom to share today, be yourself. If you are a Who down in Whoville that wants to decorate the house from top to bottom including a Santa Claus Hat with a bell on it for yourself and an apron covered in gingerbread men then go for it; be happy! But if you’re more Grinch, or Goth, then honor that. Find a black t-shirt with a funny, but non-insulting holiday image on it ( I say non-insulting if you’re going to be around family or friends that are more Whoville than you are. Let’s not start the family brawl if we can avoid it.) On the other hand, my fellow Goths do not let The Who’s pressure you into dressing like they do, unless you want to do it. Do not let them put you in something that makes you feel like a stranger to yourself, as if the body snatchers have come and whisked you away. Be yourself, especially during the holidays. It’s stressful enough without feeling like you’re wearing someone else’s clothes. And for you happy Who’s don’t get mad at your Grinch or Goth, if they want to wear black even on Christmas Day. It’s who they are and you love them, right?

So let’s avoid the Christmas wars this year and everyone be themselves. Be the happiest most you version of yourself this year and remember to honor the people you love and their level of Christmas cheer. If you are a Who, allow the family Goths to wear black, or at least don’t force them to wear that bright sweater with the glowing reindeer on it. If you’re a Grinch, don’t suck the happiness out of your family Who’s by behaving as if just sitting down to dinner with all of them is torture worthy of the Spanish Inquisition. Also, no sullenness or whining unless you’re under ten and need a nap. Sullenness and whining sucks the crunchy goodness out of everyone’s holiday no matter what side of Santa’s list you’re on.

So happy holidays, everyone! May you Who’s enjoy the season, the whole shiny package! May you Grinch’s find something to enjoy in between all this crass commercialism! May you Goths find a black shirt that celebrates the season just enough to keep the rest of the family from shoving you into an ugly holiday sweater! May those of you who love the big family and friends dinners have all the happy togetherness and great food you want! May those of you who think that Christmas should be spent alone reading by a fire with not a mouse stirring find your peaceful haven! Whatever the holidays mean to you, whatever will bring you the most joy, the most peace, the most contentment may you find it for the holidays and all the rest of the new year.

Holidays and the Broken Pieces

Twenty years of allergy shots and I finally have a cat. My inner five-year-old is very happy.

Do we ever get over wanting our parents to approve of us? Do we ever get over wanting that Hallmark movie moment with them? For most of us the answer is, no. No matter how old we get, or how accomplished we are. There’s still a part of us that is five and wants to jump up and down, and say, “Look at me! Look at me!” Or fourteen and wanting that word of praise on the football field, or at the science fair, or just anywhere, any time from the person who raised us.

I think this is part of what makes the holidays so stressful for many of us, that we’re still chasing our parents’s approval. For many of us it’s a rigged game, like carnival games that no matter how good you are, you can’t win. You’re never going to get that stuffed panda, or an atta boy, or atta girl from your parent. So how do you keep those unmet needs from ruining your holidays, and maybe raining on everyone else’s?

Honor that excited five-year-old. Don’t tell yourself I’m twenty-four, or forty-four, and too old to still be stuck there. (I tried that for years and it just doesn’t work.) Honor that awkward fourteen-year-old that’s still stuck under the mistletoe with no one to love. You can have more than one inner child inside you feeling lost and alone, and they’ll be different ages, so honor them all. Honor that moment that you didn’t get your needs met, or when the world collapsed around you and part of you got stuck. Sometimes it’s a true trauma, a death in the family that you were too young to deal with, but it can be much less trauma worthy to the outside world and still have hurt you deeply. Don’t tell yourself that it wasn’t that big a deal that you didn’t get asked to the Christmas dance, not if your fifteen-year-old self is still stuck there feeling unloved and unwanted. Honor your teenage self by dragging the memory into the light and telling her it’s all right. If you have romantic partner tell them about it, and let them help you comfort that stuck part of you, and maybe just maybe you can begin to unstick yourself and heal.

If the hurt involves family sometimes you can share it with them and that can sort of exorcise the ghosts of past pain, but if the circumstances that caused the pain are still present they may not be much help. Or they’ll tell you, that was so long ago, why are you the only one holding onto that? Just because it wasn’t a trauma to your brother, doesn’t mean it wasn’t one to you, so honor your inner child and love yourself. Sometimes you can’t explain it to your birth family, but you, yourself can love and honor your own inner self. You can love your own inner child.

If at five you didn’t get the teddy bear Santa promised you, and there’s still a part of you that’s moping over that long ago Christmas, then go out and buy yourself a teddy bear. Sometimes literally you can parent that inner part of yourself. If that stuffed toy, or train set, or sparkly dress not being yours is still making part of you that unhappy, stop telling yourself you should be over it by now and gift yourself. Sometimes it can be that simple, and no one has to understand why that in the box mint train set means so much to you. The only one that really has to know is you and that inner five/ten/twelve year-old.

If your inner child is tired of your mother fixing your favorite vegetable every year, because it’s actually your sister’s favorite vegetable, and you actually hate black-eyed peas, then cook your very favorite vegetable and bring it with you. You know what your favorite things are, cook them, make them, and bring them yourself. I hear some of you out there saying, but I want my mother to acknowledge me, rather than her favorite which happens to be my sister. Well, yeah, so did I, but waiting for your parent to fix an issue they don’t realize is an issue, is sort of a losing proposition for you. If you’ve told your parent that it’s not your favorite veggie for years and they still can’t remember, then it’s not going to happen. I’m sorry, but you can fix your own favorite veggie and bring it, or bring the fixings for the dish and cook it there in your childhood kitchen. Think how empowering it is to not only fix your own favorite food, but to do it in the midst of all those childhood ghosts.

You do not have to wait on your family to acknowledge your pain, or your unhappiness. You can acknowledge it and act on it, because that way you are in charge of it. You can parent your own inner child rather than waiting for someone else, that puts the power to heal yourself in your own hands. You can love yourself and love your inner child/children. You can take control of it and be the adult you, yourself needs, or needed long ago. Empower yourself this holiday season and treat your inner child as if they were a real life child that could take your physical hand and look up at you. Do for that younger part of you what you couldn’t do then, and maybe it can still be the happiest time of the year.

Fear, Fame, and AFP

Me and Amanda Palmer backstage at The Pageant, November 2010

My grandmother told me not to toot my own horn, which meant that I wasn’t encouraged to take too much pride in my accomplishments. She also believed that you should never enjoy anything too much, or God will punish you. These two beliefs made her life incredibly bleak, and in turn made my childhood not exactly a bowl of cherries. Skip ahead decades of therapy later and I thought I had worked through the issues those two messages had given me. Of course, bedrock issues from childhood aren’t so easily conquered. In fact, one of the things that’s been most disappointing about therapy breakthroughs is that even after you figure out what your personal demon is, the demon doesn’t always go away. Sometimes they do, sometimes the exorcism works and you’re free of that issue – free forever. I love it when that happens, it feels so liberating, but there are some issues that no matter how much cognitive therapy holy water you throw on them, they refuse to let you go.

I have trouble being proud of my accomplishments, because though my grandmother has been dead for years she raised me and she raised me not to be too proud. I’m not sure why taking pride in a job well done was such a sin. Weirdly, you were allowed to work hard to get good at something and then to do it, but once you actually started getting positive attention about it, then you had to not be prideful. It was an odd double message, be good, but not too good. It was good to get good grades and be smart, or good in athletics or whatever, but don’t get a big head about it, don’t get too full of yourself. It was okay for you to be told you were pretty, or smart, or whatever, but you couldn’t call yourself any of that, because that would be getting above yourself. Conversely anything you were bad at, or not perfect at would be pointed out immediately with comments like, “You’re so clumsy. You’re stupid. Etc . . .” I don’t know why she felt it was so wrong to praise success, but totally okay to criticize on the other end so harshly. I wondered in hindsight if she thought cutting me down would help keep me humble, just like not praising me to my face would? At her wake friends came up and told me how proud she was of me and how much she praised my accomplishments. It was news to me, and by that time I had totally taken in her mixed message of succeed, but don’t let yourself enjoy it. Due to my parents divorcing when I was a baby, my grandmother was with me from birth, and the only parent I had from age six when my mother died. She was my only parent, my world, and a lot of her beliefs and behaviors had a profound influence on the person I am today for better and worse.

I have pictures of me with famous people and I’ve posted almost none of them. Actors, singers, other writers who probably fully expected me to post the images on social media, but I didn’t. Why? Because I still can’t shake a terrible discomfort with being that kind of famous. In fact, the picture with this blog of me with Amanda Palmer, singer/song writer/author, almost didn’t get posted with this, because it made me so uncomfortable as if just the picture was bragging, and bragging wasn’t allowed. Then this morning I got the notice that Amanda had dropped a new song from her upcoming album to Patreon’s only, and since I’m a Patreon of her’s I listened to it. Gods, it was so intimate as if she were whispering into my ear, her breath against my hair. The rawness of it, it feeling so personal made me cry, and in that moment I knew that I had to use the picture of the two of us together for this blog. The picture is seven or eight years ago when she came through as one half of the amazing duo that is, The Dresden Dolls. I joined Amanda’s Patreon in part because she seems to thrive on social media and attention, and be much more comfortable with fame than I am. She is one of several people that I’ve tried to study to see if their ease with fame will help my discomfort. What I learned is that I can’t be Amanda Palmer, or anyone else. I have to figure out how to be famous as Laurell K. Hamilton.

I’ve had offers of free stuff, if I’ll just wear their clothes, or use their product and post about it, take pictures of myself in or with it. I accepted one offer of lovely shoes and then I didn’t post any of the pictures when they wanted me to post them. Why? It would take me a few more years to realize it was because the idea of me wearing shoes being possibly able to influence other people to buy them freaked me out.

Any time that I got too much attention in this area I’d sabotage it, not on purpose, not actively, but it was still self-sabotage even if just by procrastination, or losing an email. I’m never so disorganized than when it’s something that might raise my profile higher than it already is, and honestly if my agent didn’t insist on it, I probably wouldn’t say, New York Times #1 best selling author, but I am and my agent has chastised me enough times that I use it.

A journalist on the tour for my latest novel, Serpentine, this summer asked me if I’d thought about where my papers would be donated. It took me a second to realize he meant my archival papers like my drafts, notes, literary detritus and mementos. I was completely at a loss. It hadn’t occurred to me that any college or institute would be interested in my literary fingernail clippings. I explained that I’d been raised not to take too much pride in things and I just couldn’t shake it. He was older than me by a couple of decades, and we talked about the fact that some things that we know are damaging to us, old beliefs we were raised with that hold us back, never leave us. He said something to the effect that you have to stop trying to get rid of the parts that won’t go away, and just accept them. Since he’d been trying to slay his personal demons for at least a decade longer than I have, I appreciated him sharing his insight. It should have been discouraging that twenty years from now I’m still going to be fighting this deep issue, but it wasn’t discouraging, instead it was encouraging. (I cannot find the file with all the interviews from last summer’s tour that would have this wonderful, and professional newspaper journalist’s name in it. I’ve sat on this for two days trying to find the information, until I realized I’m using it as an excuse not to post this blog. When I find it, I’ll post with all his information, but for today, no more procrastinating.)

I’ve had open invitations to come back for radio, blogs, podcasts, and all sorts of wonderful interviews with great people who wanted me to come back any time I wanted, and they meant it. I have not initiated a single return interview except when a new book came out and my publicist told me to do it. Why? I don’t know why, or I didn’t, but I know what issue is behind the behavior.

So, to all the celebrities that tried to get into contact with me, especially early in my career, I’m sorry if I dropped the ball. Sometimes I couldn’t believe you were actually contacting me, like the shy girl who suddenly gets asked out by the most popular guy in school. There must be some mistake, or it’s a cruel joke and will end in ridicule and tears.

I will be trying to post more of the pictures as I find them, and I will try and believe it when people say, come back any time for an interview. I’ll try to be more comfortable with it all. Now that I know what some of the issues are that hold me back in this area I’ll try to move forward as if I don’t have the issue. Fake it until you make it, I guess.

I will at the very least stop torpedoing my opportunities for more publicity and fame. I can’t get rid of the part of me that squirms with embarrassment about me being “famous”, but I can admit it its a problem. I can admit that as successful as I’ve been I probably could have been even more successful if I had been able to embrace that success more wholeheartedly and not missed certain cues. Here’s to being a better dance partner with my success in the future, and kicking this particular inner demon down the road.

Strength and Your Amazing Generosity

I’ve been under the weather for a couple of days, nothing major, but enough to distract me, so imagine my surprise when I saw how much above and beyond you guys had donated to our charity from Giving Tuesday, Mary’s House of Hope at A Safe Place. Thank you for donating on Tuesday and for continuing to donate. You guys are the best! In fact you’ve been so amazing that we’re going to keep the fundraising going. I’ve signed so many books and we will continue to give away signed books as long as you guys keep giving so generously to this wonderful charity.

I’ve chosen to do a couple of very personal blogs recently. One with the video from my Pikes Peak Writer’s Conference keynote speech where I talked publicly for the first time about what has happened in my life when fans became obsessed, and/or turned into haters, or worse. Then I followed up with an equally personal blog explaining why I chose the charity that I did. Your reaction to both blogs has been overwhelmingly positive and supportive, thank you all so much. In fact, you’ve been so lovely about it all that I’ve decided to continue to share.

When I was first being interviewed about the Anita Blake novels, almost every journalist asked me some variation of this, “Why did you decide to write a strong female character?”

My reply was a variation of, “Growing up I learned, that you were either strong, or a victim. It never occurred to me to have a main character that was anything else but strong.”

My grandmother fought back against my grandfather and never let his abuse turn her into a victim. She was a fighter and she helped make me one, too. She’s a big part of why Anita Blake is so strong, stubborn, and unflinching. Her telling me that Rawhead and Bloody Bones would get me if I was a bad little girl, instead of the boogeyman, would give me a plot for the fifth Anita Blake novel, Bloody Bones, and send me researching Celtic mythology, which led me to write the Meredith Gentry series. My grandmother probably helped me give strength to Merry in the face of the abuse of her own family. Helping turn her from helpless princess to Los Angeles Private Detective and Queen. You, the fans, have told me that Anita’s strength, Merry’s strength, have helped you be strong in your real lives. Strength shared is strength multiplied, let’s keep sharing the best of ourselves, and thank you again for your generosity to Mary’s House of Hope, at a Safe Place.

Giving Tuesday and Why I Chose Mary’s House of Hope

My grandmother was born in 1911, and at fifteen she fell in love and married my grandfather. It wasn’t that unusual an age to marry in the hills of Arkansas back in the day. I’ve said before that I’m only one generation away from wearing shoes only in the winter, and I’m not entirely joking. At fifteen my grandmother was so in love with the man who would become my grandfather she used a box to cover one of his footprints so the rain wouldn’t wash it away. She was embarrassed that she ever thought that much of him, because soon after they married he started hitting her. By sixteen she’d had her first of five children by him, and the abuse continued through their entire marriage. He was abusive to the children, too, but he saved the worst of it for my grandmother. She was 4’ 11” and he towered over her, but she was never his victim. She fought back as hard as she could for all those years. Why didn’t she leave? Because back then there was no place to go, and he would have gotten the children. They were still seen as his property not hers. She wouldn’t leave her kids, because she was afraid of what he’d do to them without her there to protect them. She stayed until my mother, the youngest, was fourteen and old enough to choose where she lived.

My grandmother told me once, that she left when she was afraid that either he’d kill her, or she’d kill him, and then what would happen to the kids? She endured at least twenty years of abuse to protect her children. She told me once that if she hadn’t had two sons that she would have hated all men, but she loved her boys and her grandsons, so all men weren’t evil just most of them. But she allowed my grandfather to visit us, he taught me to catch butterflies and to hold them just so around the middle on the thorax so that I didn’t damage their wings. I still remember the zebra swallowtail that we caught beating its wings against the screen in the window. I never caught another one in Indiana. I can still hear the ping of it hitting the metal, desperate to escape. When I’d seen it long enough he helped me set it free, because you always set them free, he said. I remember even at five or six being confused that his big hands could be so gentle with butterflies and yet had almost killed my grandmother multiple times. It took me years of therapy to understand why I write about monsters that turn out not to be, and about people that turn out to be monsters. When I asked why she let him visit, my grandmother said, “He’s their father and your grandpa. There’s nothing I can do to change that.”

All five of their children took the grandkids back to visit Papa in Arkansas in the summer. I have pictures of me at his house with his favorite dog and one of the cats. He had a white pony that I had named Lulubelle. No, I don’t remember why I chose that name. Papa died when I was ten, and it was only when the family gathered for the funeral that the grandkids discovered that Lulubelle was also Snowball, and several other names. Every set of grandkids had a pony at Papa’s house, but since we never visited at the same time it was the same pony. I don’t know what that says about my grandfather, but he could be charming. He was well liked by everyone except his wife and kids.

If my grandmother had had a women’s shelter to go to with her children all those years ago it would have made a great deal of difference to her and my uncles, my aunts, and my mother. That’s why my charity is Mary’s House of Hope at A Safe Place. So that the women enduring abuse today, right now can take shelter with their children and their pets. Most shelters won’t take pets, and some women stay to protect their fur kids, just like their human kids. It’s one of the reasons I want to support this place, because you bring all that you love. I couldn’t change what happened to my grandmother, but you can help me make a change for other women, other children, other families. Together we can make sure there is someplace for them to go where they are safe.

Fear, Bravery, and the Pikes Peak Writers Conference

This is a blog about things I haven’t spoken of publicly before. Things that I was advised not to share ever, but sometimes not talking about something makes it grow larger until you can’t work around it. I’d been meaning to write this blog and post the attached video for a year, but I just kept putting it off, and then a woman on Twitter posted about her experience. She thought she was a coward, but bravery only exists in the face of fear, and her bravery helped me find my own. She shared her experience with a very creepy man that had verbally assaulted her in her own home. He never touched her, no bruises to show, just horrible sexual language that he had no right to say to her. She was trying to explain to some men that a woman doesn’t have to be actually physically assaulted to feel unsafe or even to feel violated. She made her point, and my first similar experience was when I was only ten-years-old thanks to an obscene phone caller that reduced me to hysterics. It would be the last time I was allowed to come home after school by myself for years after that call. My family and I both worried that he would come find me and do what he’d talked about. Women are more likely to be the victim of sexual based crimes, it’s just the truth. I learned at a tender age that the world was not safe, and there would be other incidents as I grew older that confirmed that even people you knew weren’t always safe havens, but this blog isn’t about that, not really. The every day caution that women have to exert to go through the world is just the nearest shared experience that I could come up with to try to explain how being famous feels when it goes wrong. Okay, how it feels to me when it goes wrong. I’m sure there are celebrities that handle it much better than I do. I am sharing my experience here, my feelings, because in the end that’s all any of us can share.

This blog is an introduction of sorts to the talk I gave at the Pike’s Peak Writer’s Conference in Colorado last year. My husband filmed the talk with his phone, so that’s the quality of it (the volume is low), but it was the first time I spoke publicly about a lot of things that had happened to me in my career. The topic of all the key notes speeches that weekend were supposed to be on things that made you almost give up writing, like rejections, but Mary Robinette Kowal had done a hilarious speech the night before on that stumbling block, so I had to scrap my speech and start over. (By the way I just finished reading her book, The Calculating Stars, and I highly recommend it.) It forced me to think seriously about what had almost made me stop writing. Rejection was nothing compared to it. I decided to talk about it for the very first time in front of a room full of people I’d just met, or didn’t know at all. Now, I’m sharing it with all of you, with the whole internet, because it’s time I took back these pieces of myself that got broken. The only way I know to recover that part of myself is to write about it, and I can’t do that if I’m not wiling to talk publicly about it, so here we go.

Monday was a heck of a week…

Monday began with a dawn phone-call from Jonathon’s dad telling us that there’d be a death in the family. Jon’s aunt had been sick for a very long time so it wasn’t a complete surprise, but still the final call always seems to catch you off guard. We got up and Jon started making phone calls to spread the news, and then the next bad news.

One of our good friends, one of my closest friends had been in a car accident with her husband and two of their youngest grandchildren. They were all alive, which was great news, but they were all in the hospital, so we rushed to find out how hurt everyone was. Monday’s supposed to be tough, but this was ridiculous.

The grandchildren had broken legs, but are both home now. My friend and her husband are not so lucky. He’s got a lot of vertebra damage in his back, but the doctor thinks it will heal with a lot of rehab, and no need for surgery. That’s great news, right? A lot of relief, because when we first heard the news we were not sure the outcome would be this hopeful. My friend seemed better everyday. Yesterday she seemed like her old self even with the pain of her injuries, especially the broken ribs. We talked books, writing, history, and science, the usual stuff we’ve talked about for thirty years of friendship. I was going to go see her after FMA (Filipino Martial Arts) and gym this evening. My instructor handed me my certificate for third level tonight. I was looking forward to getting a frame and putting it up on my, love me wall. I used to call it an atta boy wall, but was informed that wasn’t PC, so fine it’s my love me wall. I met Jon at gym for a workout and while there found out that my friend had a fever. The doctor was worried that she has pneumonia. My friend has the worst case of asthma that I’ve ever personally seen in action. She is not a person who needs cracked ribs with a side of pneumonia. No one needs it, but someone with compromised lung capacity really doesn’t need it. Yes, I’m worried.

It started to snow big, fluffy flakes while we were at gym, but had stopped by the time we were finished. I hit the grocery store after gym. Jon went for home. Our Wednesday was going as much as planned as we could make it considering the weather forecast was predicting another snow apocalypse. I hate them using the term for a heavy snow fall, or even a snow storm. Snow apocalypse should be saved for when the super volcano blows and sends us into a second ice age. The grocery store was the usual mad house of a snow emergency, so everything took longer. I was still hoping the storm would miss us, since the funeral for Jon’s aunt is tomorrow early.

I was still debating on if I could swing by the hospital, or should I wait if they find out whether the pneumonia is the contagious variety, or if she would even be up for visitors. When I had bronchitis with the tiniest edge of pneumonia a few years back I hadn’t been much for company. It started to sleet as I loaded the groceries into the car. I decided to run the food home before I made the finally decision on the hospital run for the night.

I’ve just taken the dogs out and we’ve already got an inch to an inch and a half of snow. It’s hard to tell just how much has fallen because the flakes are still huge and fluffy. At least the ice has stopped falling with it. I’m staying home tonight and hospital visits will depend on how much of the downy flakes fall tonight. Did I mention that the funeral is early tomorrow morning, or that it’s at least an hour and a half south of us on clear roads without traffic? Further south in our state is supposed to get hit even harder than we are here in St. Louis.

It’s only Wednesday, can we just call this week over and declare a four day weekend, please?

25 Years Since Guilty Pleasures Was First Published

We’re celebrating twenty-five years since Guilty Pleasures was first published. It came out in time for Halloween that year, and I got to add that to all the other reasons October is my favorite month. I love autumn. Late summer as the weather begins to turn cooler all the way through the end of October is my favorite time of year. I was raised without air conditioning, so the heat and humidity of summer going away was part of my love of fall. It’s easier to bundle up in jackets and sweaters for warmth than to stay cool in less clothing. But September was the beginning of fog. Sometimes the fogs were so thick that the start of school would be delayed for hours. Once I was old enough to drive, the fog wasn’t so fun; but when I was younger I thought fog was magical. It turned the ordinary into something mysterious. A foggy world was full of hidden dangers, monsters, or maybe a fantasy world that you could accidentally walk into through that soft, wet, gray cloud cover. From the trees blazing with color, fog, rain, cooler temperatures, it always made my muse happy even before I realized that I wanted to be a writer.

But now autumn means something else to me: boot weather! Boots and shoes in general weren’t that important to me until after I created the character, Jean-Claude. He walked on stage fully formed and very who he was from the first scene. He was a serious clothes horse from the beginning and elegantly fashionable. I was none of these things. I have pictures to prove that I dressed by picking the T-shirt on the top of the pile, jeans, and tennis shoes. I never wore makeup. I just didn’t care. I was raised that what I looked like didn’t matter, what I could do was what mattered. And then Jean-Claude came into my life and onto the pages of my novel. To be able to design his clothes and keep him dressed in the style to which he demanded. I bought my first copy of Vogue and other fashion magazines. I watched fashion shows on TV. I so could have used Fashion TV back then, but it was the late 1980s, so I went to the library to find research books on clothing through the ages, and costuming. I’d never worn a pair of stilettos, but researching for Jean-Claude opened up the world of shoes to me, and his voice in my head was what helped me learn to walk in heels higher than three inches. Writing him as a character made me more interested in clothes, makeup, even trying to gain control of my curls. I don’t think I would have needed a second closet just for shoes if it wasn’t for researching clothes, and especially boots, for Jean-Claude. So, now autumn doesn’t just mean, “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,” as John Keats wrote, or apple picking and apple cider, or a dozen other wonderful things. Now it means boot weather.

Deal Announcment

Publishers Weekly had an exclusive on this news, so I couldn’t share it until after they published it yesterday.

Hamilton Re-ups At Berkley

Bestseller Laurell K. Hamilton inked a new three-book deal with her editor at Berkley, Cindy Hwang. The North American rights agreement, which Merrilee Heifetz at Writers House handled, will bring fans her first new series since 1999. The new books feature Detective Samuel Havelock, who works in the Metaphysical Coordination Unit. Berkley said Havelock exists “in a universe where heaven, hell, and our own world converge,” and “he is all we have keeping the Apocalypse at bay.” Also included in the agreement is a novel in Hamilton’s Anita Blake , Vampire Hunter series and a third book, which Berkley said is “yet to be determined.” Hamilton, according co Berkley, has sold more than 20 million books.

Thank You!

Thank you to everyone that came out to see us on tour. I say us, because my husband, Jonathon and our security person were by my side at every event. Security person is nameless at his request. Jonathon especially got pulled into the limelight to help answer questions, but then we’re starting to plan our twenty year anniversary celebration, so we’ve been each other’s supplemental brains for a long time. Most of you married over ten years will understand exactly what I mean by that. Thanks to everyone that asked questions, that told us how much you loved Anita Blake and all the characters in the series. Thank you for sharing how much the books had touched you and your lives. I am still honored that my imaginary friends are your friends, too. I never planned or dreamed that my fiction could mean so much to so many people, and impact their real lives.

I am grateful to all the women who have told me that until they read Anita Blake they didn’t know that women could be strong, and that it’s helped them be more kick-ass. I’ve now lost track of the number of women who have told me they’ve left abusive relationships because they knew Anita wouldn’t take it. Blessed be.

I am thankful for the men who have told me that showing male characters that are abusive survivors has helped them find a voice of their own. When I first wrote Nathaniel Graison as a character I had no idea he would be as important to Anita, to me, to the series, or to all of you. He’s become not only a fan favorite but a role model for hope to real life people that have backgrounds of abuse or addiction. We’ve watched him grow healthier, happier and create a life for himself that is full of so many good things. It didn’t occur to me that it was a big deal for Nathaniel to talk about going to a therapist and how much it was helping him. I’ve benefitted from therapy and its just another kind of doctor. If you’re allergic to something you go to an allergist, if you break your arm you see an orthopedist, if you have an emotional wound you see a therapist. It’s just that simple to me. I had no idea that having Nathaniel talk about it on paper, and showing his own healing through the stories would impact real people. For my imaginary bestie Nathaniel and me, thank you to everyone that has told us that they’ve sought therapy because he did. To those women and men that told me they have gotten help for their addictions and gotten clean because if Nathaniel could do it, they could try – I am humbled and so happy that Nathaniel’s journey could help you along your own path.

To all those people over the years that have told me that my books have helped them through some of the darkest times in their lives, thank you, and you’re welcome. I had no idea that my stories would ever have that level of impact on anyone’s real life. The first few times someone told me that my books literally saved their lives, or their sanity, I didn’t know how to respond. I write paranormal thrillers, not self-help books, so I was confused. It’s taken me years to realize that I don’t have to understand what my books and characters mean to you, that it’s about you, not me on this one. You reminded me that books saved me once, too. They showed me better ways to live, to think, to feel, to be, and helped entertain me in the darkest of times. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me that I might do the same for other people someday, but it didn’t. Thank you to all of you that told me how important this series, and the Merry Gentry series, has been and continues to be in your lives.

Thanks to everyone that bought my book the first week and helped us get on the New York Times List and the USAToday List! Thank you to all of you that wrote into my FaceBook page, or Instagram and said you were waiting for payday to buy the book. I remember when a hardback book was something I saved up for, too, so thanks for spending your hard earned money on Serpentine. Thanks to everyone that will buy the book and help us stay on the Lists!

Hamilton Re-ups At Berkley