Johnny's here to greet you in seasonal green and red, and we hope this little missive finds you and your loved ones happy and in good health.

We've lots to catch up on, given that these newsletters of mine are woefully infrequent. Like many of you, our lives have been busy, especially with the project to get my backlist published on digital platforms.

Speaking of which, our newly-released Triskell Press ebook of The Very Best of CdL is now available at Amazon. On the advice of other indie authors, I'm trying out Amazon's KDP (Kindle Prime) program for 90 days. KDP subscribers can download the book and read it for free. I'm only doing this because I'm trying to expand my readership and find some new fans, and Amazon's KDP subscriber base is huge. Apparently I'll reach a multitude of readers who've never heard of me. It's DRM-free and there's a free Kindle app, which should let you read it on your preferred device.

Thanks again to my longtime readers, who helped me choose these stories. I couldn't have put this collection together without you. I also owe a big debt of gratitude to Charles Vess, who kindly offered his cover art for this book. Do you recognize The Merry Dancers shop from Moonheart? MaryAnn and I have the original hanging in our house. Lucky, eh?

Word-of-mouth is crucial for any author to succeed, so it also really helps me if you share this by social media or e-mail. Some of you have already helped spread the word on Facebook or Twitter, and I'm so grateful for your support. For those of you who aren't on those sites, here's the link to the ebook:

www.amazon.com/Very-Best-Charles-Lint-ebook/dp/B00R55IVLI

Print fans, if you don't already have this book, do not despair. The Tachyon edition is still available.

Speaking of print books, Seven Wild Sisters, a companion of sorts to last year's The Cats of Tanglewood Forest, came out from Little Brown last February, and like Cats, it got a starred review from Publishers Weekly along with some other lovely accolades. MaryAnn insists that I mention that Cats won the 2014 Canadian Sunburst Award, which was a lovely surprise.

Technically, Cats could be called a prequel to Seven Wild Sisters. Each is certainly a standalone novel, but the sisters do meet Lillian in their story. Little Brown asked me to rewrite the sisters' book as a middle grade novel so that all the new young fans of Cats would also be able to enjoy it. The actual story didn't change very much and it's been fun to reach a whole new audience (e-mails, letters, pictures and videos sent to me by young readers have been incredibly sweet). Another big plus is that this edition is now in full colour, with twenty new paintings by Charles Vess, who also reworked his black and white illustrations from the original Subterranean Press edition so that they're all now in colour. So the book is rich in gorgeous art, and I'm certain that's part of the reason why Charles won the World Fantasy Award as Best Professional Artist in 2014. Hooray for Charles!

This year I also finished up the Wildlings trilogy with Out of This World, published by Razorbill here in Canada, and by our own Triskell Press in the rest of the world (in both ebook and print form). Just this past weekend it was included in the Toronto Globe & Mail's "must-reads" holiday gift recommendations. That's a big deal here in Canada. Johnny insists that I also mention that book one, Under My Skin, won the Canadian Aurora Award, and that each novel in the series has a five-star rating on Amazon.

Here in Canada you can buy them in the bookstores or online. Outside of Canada, the Triskell Press print editions are available here, and the ebooks, here.

All three books are available here in paper, and here as ebooks.

I'm nearing completion of a new adult novel—exciting for me because it's been ages since I've had the luxury of writing for adults. I won't say more about this new novel because I never talk about work-in-progress, but the end is definitely in sight and I'm happy with how it's coming together.

Aside from that, MaryAnn and I are still busy getting books from my back catalogue published as ebooks under our Triskell Press imprint. It's slower going than we'd like because we painstakingly proofread and format the texts to make sure they're as error-free as possible. A few of my readers have helped out by being extra pairs of eyes, for which we're very grateful. So far, we've managed to get these ones published:

Moonheart
Spiritwalk
Someplace to Be Flying
Memory and Dream
Trader
The Very Best of Charles de Lint
The Little Country
Jodi and the Witch of Bodbury (from The Little Country — see note below)

The Jack of Kinrowan duology:
Jack the Giant-Killer (book one)
Drink Down the Moon (book two)

The Wildlings trilogy:
Under My Skin (book one)
Over My Head (book two)
Out of This World (book three)

We've also published some shorter fiction, including a few pieces of brand new work. Kindle editions of all my Triskell Press ebooks can be found here. All other digital formats are available here, via Smashwords. Since we publish all of our ebooks DRM-free, you can readily convert them to whatever format best suits you with conversion programs such as Calibre. You can also get free Kindle readers for your phones, etc. via Amazon.

This new digital world has let me fulfill a long-held dream: I've always wanted to have Jodi's story from The Little Country as a book on its own, so that's exactly what we did when we were working on the novel's manuscript for digital publication. I was able to separate Jodi's tale, give it a different title so as not to be too confusing, and publish it on its own.

But of course it's still in The Little Country, so if you've got that, you have Jodi's tale as well. Even so, Jodi and the Witch of Bodbury is proving to be one of the most popular downloads in our Triskell Press catalogue.

Also related to The Little Country, earlier this year a Colorado band called Zahatar asked for my blessing to hold a special concert wherein they would play all my original tunes from the book's appendix. I love it when one creative work inspires another, so of course I said yes. The band played their concert inside an art installation, and they also featured passages read from the book. As it turned out, Zahatar's members are fabulous players and their arrangements are brilliant. The evening was such a success that, with my unbridled encouragement, they ran a successful Kickstarter campaign to record and release an album by the same name. The campaign was a success, so the album will be available early next year and I, for one, can hardly wait to get my hands on it. You can get a taste of their concert here.

MaryAnn and I love to touch base with my readers, but we're trying to scale back our travelling in 2015 so that we can get a little further ahead, me with my writing and the two of us with digital publishing. There are still many older titles to convert, and some were written on a typewriter, so you can imagine how much time this takes. Frequent travelling also makes it tricky to get dog/cat/house sitters. Even so, we've accepted several invitations, so we will be on the road some, and we'd love to see some of you at one of the following events:

Mythic Worlds (Seattle WA), February 20-22, 2015

ChiSeries reading (Toronto ON), April 8, 2015 (It's too early to be on their site, but it's apparently confirmed.)

Ad Astra (Toronto ON), April 10-12, 2015

Word on the Lake Writers' Festival (Salmon Arm, BC), May 15-17, 2015.

*World Fantasy Convention, (Saratoga Springs NY) Nov. 5-8, 2015
*This is still tentative, but since it's in New York State, and close enough for us to drive, we're hoping to make it.

I'll try to stay in touch more often in the coming year, but you know how New Year's resolutions go; if you'd like more up-to-date info on our news, music recommendations, book releases, upcoming appearances, you might want to connect with me on social media:

Twitter

Facebook

Tumblr

MaryAnn and I also host a lively group on Facebook called The Mythic Café with Charles de Lint & Company, which features interesting discussions on all aspects of the mythic arts. You can find out more here.

Well, as Johnny leads a little pack of friends off into the sunset, we will bid you adieu as well. Have a joyous holiday season, and all the best to you and yours in 2015. Thanks for reading my books! Thanks for telling people about them! And please wish us luck with this new promo for The Very Best of CdL.

Remember to take care of each other and may our paths meet up soon.

cheers
Charles