Neil Gaiman says this summer may mark his last book-signing tour. The author explained via his blog that the very long lines for his book signings – and the lengthy delays for readers – mean that the experience is "no fun for anybody."

Full story: Neil Gaiman blog

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George RR Martin approves Game of Thrones maps. Twelve epic maps – each 2 feet by 3 feet – of the lands of Westeros and Essos, illustrated by Jonathan Roberts for The Lands of Ice and Fire, have been cleared with Random House.The end result?

Full story: Flavorwire

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Authors Felix Gilman, Barry Napier, K.T. Davies, Colin F Barnes and Alden Bell (The Reapers are the Angels) select their favourite books of 2012, amongst which is included Last Days by Adam Nevill.

Full story: Johann Thorsson

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Just as Brandon Sanderson’s final novel in Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time series A Memory of Light comes out fans get to look forward to Steelheart, Sanderson’s dark dystopian trilogy-starter coming out this September, thanks to a recent cover reveal (see right).

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Harriet Sanders, Rights Director at Macmillan, has sold US rights in two novels by new UK fantasy novelist John Gwynne – Malice and its untitled sequel – to Tom Bauman of Orbit US. World rights in these titles were acquired pre-emptively by Julie Crisp at Tor UK from agent John Jarrold for a major advance. Malice was published in the UK in December 2012, and the sequel has just been delivered.

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Doctor Who news

JK Rowling may be connected to Doctor Who. The BBC has just announced a major project featuring a collaboration with children’s authors and the Doctor Who franchise. As part of the 50th anniversary year of celebration, the BBC is planning on collaborating with “well-known children’s authors” to publish a series of eleven original Doctor Who stories called “eshorts.” Each eshort will feature one of the incarnations of the Doctor starting with the original William Hartnell version that debuted back in 1963.

Full story: Hypable

Eoin Colfer confirmed as writing 50th Anniversary ebook story. Colfer is taking on the First Doctor’s story, entitled A Big Hand For The Doctor, to be made available via Amazon and iTunes on the 23rd of January for £1.99, then joined in the coming months by stories about the subsequent regenerations of the Doctor.

Full story: Den of Geek

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Christopher Paolini took to Facebook to answer some fan questions including information on his next project. “Over the past ten years, I’ve thought of a whole bunch of stories that I would like to write, stories in all different genres. Last I’ve looked, I have between twenty to thirty completely new books all plotted out. I’m pretty sure that I’m going to tackle science fiction next, but who knows? In the long term, though, I definitely intend to return to Eragon’s world and write a fifth book. After spending so long with the world and the characters of the Inheritance Cycle, I can’t bring myself to walk away from them for the rest of my life,” he said.

Full story: Hypable

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The Federal Circuit affirmed Walt Disney Co.’s ownership of the Winnie the Pooh trademarks, sidelining claims over a 1930 sale of the rights to Pooh Bear. AA Milne, the author who created Pooh, sold exclusive merchandising rights based on the works to cartoon pioneer Stephen Slesinger in 1930. Slesinger died in 1953, and eight years later his eponymous company, controlled then by his widow, sold Walt Disney Productions the rights from the 1930 agreement. The company reaffirmed this transfer in a 1983 agreement. Disney went on to market Winnie as its most profitable character. Litigation between Slesinger’s heirs and Disney has been ongoing since 1991.

Full story: Courthouse News Service

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The Yanez Agency, representing Joanna Kaliszewska – Senior Rights Manager at the Headline Publishing Group – have sold Spanish rights to the Steelhaven fantasy trilogy by Richard Ford to Eduardo Hojman of Ediciones Urano in a major deal. World rights in the trilogy were acquired pre-emptively by John Wordsworth of Headline from agent John Jarrold for a high five-figure sum in pounds sterling. The first volume, Herald of the Storm, will be published in the UK in April 2013.

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Aston Tower Primary School was one of the first schools in the country to trial a new reading scheme being launched nationwide this week by Children’s Laureate Julia Donaldson. The Gruffalo writer has written new plays and revised traditional tales, including the Billy Goats Gruff and a rhyming version of the Hare and the Tortoise, to appeal to younger readers.

Full story: BirminghamMail

© 1974 Cal Acord /Courtesy of Moonrise Media
From the book JAWS: Memories From Martha’s Vineyard

Memories from Martha’s Vineyard is one of the most impressive behind the scenes books ever produced, and is a must-have for the worldwide legions of Jaws fans. It is full-to-the-brim with anecdotes and pictures and is incredibly detailed.

Jaws is rightly regarded as a landmark event in the history of motion pictures and to facilitate the filming hundreds of locals were hired to work as actors and labourers. Among these participants there were numerous professional and amateur photographers, who all had full access to the production’s inner workings. And now the general public is able to see these behind-the-scenes photographs and read the stories that have been compiled in a book that features interviews with production designer Joe Alves, screenwriter Carl Gottlieb and location casting director Shari Rhodes, providing an affectionate insight into the creation of some of the most memorable and terrifying scenes in film history.

© 1974 Edith Blake /Courtesy of Moonrise Media
From the book JAWS: Memories From Martha’s Vineyard

This collection is ideal for those who share Taylor’s love for either the film or the location. It provides hours of engaging reading and the photographs detail every aspect of the production. It is quite simply a brilliant and in-depth look at one of the greatest movies of all time, a book that all Jaws fans must own.

Jaws: Memories from Martha’s Vineyard, by Matt Taylor & Foreword by Steven Spielberg. Titan Books, September 28 2012, £34.99

© 1974 Joe Alves /Courtesy of Moonrise Media
From the book JAWS: Memories From Martha’s Vineyard

Starting way back in 1999, when the Artist Formerly Known as Prince had a slight resurgence of a career due to one aptly named song, NaNoWriMo was comprised of 21 people, all friends in San Francisco. Since then, it has slowly gained momentum to become the literary monolith it is today. In 2011, 36,803 writers wrote over 50,000 words or more in the month of November. That’s a lot of words, and a lot of dirty keys on a keyboard. The aim is to concentrate for the duration of November, and produce 50k words on a project. During this time you can communicate with other participants, race your word counts against others and attend write ins in various locations when you meet each other and then uh… write!

So now we’re in November of 2013. All year I had been looking forward to November. Not that I don’t write any other time, but it would be refreshing to knuckle down and focus for a whole month on writing. I could lock myself away in a literary cave and concentrate on writing the best seller that lurks deep (deep, deep, deep) within me. Alas, someone didn’t tell the rest of the world that I wouldn’t be participating for the duration of November, and it went on regardless. I still had to do all the usual crap I had to do, only this time with a 50k benchmark hanging over my head. I decided to abandon NaNoWriMo and continue as I always had.

Great, so it’s not for me, but plenty of people I do know (who I can only assume have much quieter lives) are participating, kicking arse and taking names, so it would seem. But it occurred to me, what would happen at the end of November? It’s all very well to bust out of the gates early, knocking over thousands of words at a sitting, but is it possible to peak too early? What happens when Christmas dawns and we all take time out of our schedule to battle Gladiator style down the local Westfield for the final car park (that is probably too small but you will make your SUV fit, damn it)? Who needs side mirrors?

In the new year, as you sit on your couch nursing the food baby that has planted itself in your stomach, the last thing you may want to do is sit down at a computer and keep going, and oh look – the cricket’s on. Oh well, there’s always next November.

Being a writer isn’t a job that is one month a year’s work. It’s a little like the tortoise and the hare… steadiness is the key. It’s all very well to get out there and write half a novel in a month, but it is something that has to be continually worked on. Once the first draft is done, then come the subsequent drafts, the editing and of course, the polishing. If you’re writing as a hobby, then great – you can do it at your own pace, no pressure. However, if you take your literary works a little more seriously, then you realise that writing is about continuous deadlines, whether they be set by a submission date or even your own self-imposed goals. It’s important to know your own limits and your own work-rate, and figuring that out is often a matter of hit and miss.

In my opinion, the trouble with NaNoWriMo is that it focuses on quantity over quality. The author of Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë, wrote each word on a separate scrap of paper, and spent hours deliberating over every single syllable, constantly arranging a rearranging her sentences to express what she wanted to say precisely how she wanted to say it. Needless to say, Chaz probably wouldn’t have gone so well at NaNoWriMo.

Although we aren’t probably aiming the write the next literary classic (or at least, I’m not), we do need to have some kind of dedication and thoughtfulness about how we construct and present our ideas.

Of course, there is great merit in blasting words down onto a blank page.  The idea is that at least some of it could be salvaged and assembled into a semi-coherent segment of prose, but there is a danger in writing for the sake of writing. Pushing yourself to reach a word goal is not going to produce your best writing. Telling yourself that you’re going to hit the hay after another thousand words, might see you rambling on or wasting words.

“Be quiet, you crazy man,” I hear you say. “That’s what the editing phase is for!” Well, yes, that’s correct, but why create more work for yourself? As writers, we should be working on improving our first draft quality all the time. Work smarter, not harder, and the pay off is evident. Less time spent editing and revising, means a higher production rate and increase in writing efficiency. Simple really. The time saved could be used on revising and improving your story, deepening characters, heightening drama or making raisin toast.

That said, I’m sure there is a great many people who do continue with their NaNo projects, and best of luck to them. Anything that gets people writing should rightly be celebrated – literature is often overlooked in a world that has so many other forms of entertainment. But still try to think about what you’re trying to say instead of just churning out thousands of words of mindless drivel.

Goats of Glory by Steven Erikson
The first story in another anthology that I’ve had the pleasure of browsing recently – Swords & Dark Magic: the New Sword and Sorcery edited by Jonathan Strahan and Lou Anders – is by one of fantasy’s biggest names; Steven Erikson.

His addition to the anthology is Goats of Glory and it has all the Eriksonian flare you’d hope for.

Set in an indeterminate world – which is to say, it could fit in his Malazan world and it may not – we encounter five surviving members of a thousand-strong army, and the half dozen or so inhabitants of the run down town of Glory.

It is suitably morose from the get-go, though the “why” behind that sense is not fully explained until halfway through the tale. Maybe slow to begin with for those who are unused to Erikson’s style, the story quickly steps up into a fantastic action sequence through a warren of tunnels, turning the preconceived notion of how the story would go – at least from the view of the residents of Glory – up on its head.

To cap it all off there is a great cliff-hanger that receives no explanation, attention, or thought whatsoever and leaves the reader suitably hungry for anything else written by Erikson. Just as he would have hoped, I imagine.

All in all, one of the best short stories I’ve read in a while.

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In The Stacks by Scott Lynch
It was with utter and purely unadulterated joy that I was able to start reading ‘In The Stacks’ by Scott Lynch and realise just how much I have missed his writing. Author of the widely loved Gentleman Bastard series, Lynch has suffered from severe depression and been forced to continually postpone the release of his third novel, ‘The Republic of Thieves’. However, with his contribution to ‘Swords & Dark Magic: the New Sword and Sorcery’ edited by Jonathan Strahan and Lou Anders, I was once again reminded of just how wonderful a writer he is.

I love that feeling of returning to the pages of one of your favourite authors and just knowing it is him.

In The Stacks is set, funnily enough, in the stacks of the Living Library of the High University of Hazar. It is the final exam for the fifth year magic students and their task is simple; return a library book.

So obviously it isn’t as simple as that, and the lack of simplicity is what makes this story so engaging. It jives on the library dynamics I’ve read of in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, which dictates that the more magically themed books you put in proximity to one another the more unstable the whole region becomes.

The magic system is interesting and almost entirely ignored by our protagonist, and the climax of the story is suitably fascinating. The twist is enjoyable, and gives a great texture to everything that came before it, but only once you reach the twist, giving the whole tale a sort of duplicated sense by the time you finish.

If for no other reason than to read this story, I would recommend buying the whole anthology. Thankfully, there are some other great stories in there too, which just makes the enjoyment of In The Stacks all the more special.

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Swords & Dark Magic: The New Sword and Sorcery can be purchased at Amazon UK and Amazon US.

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Party Tricks by Dan Abnett
Contained within the anthology ‘Magic: An Anthology of the Esoteric and Arcane’ compiled by the wonderful Jonathan Oliver at Solaris publishing, Dan Abnett’s story ‘Party Tricks’ is an absolute gem.

As I trundle through this quiet reading period in my life, I’m enjoying being able to read a short story from some of the variety of sources available to me, without worrying about needing to review an entire book. So when I opened up Magic on my iPad Kindle app, I went straight to a name I knew and dove straight in.

I was not disappointed.

I must make it clear: you probably want to have a small attachment to politics to get as much enjoyment from it as I did; say, maybe a love of the TV show The West Wing.

Party Tricks is set in Britain during an unnamed period of political strife inside a party of indeterminate political leanings (in other words, you shouldn’t be upset by any particular inaccuracies or politics). There is magic, but it is never displayed and barely acknowledged. It is a little bit of a whodunit, and you’re left with a great little cliff-hanger that doesn’t so much leave you wanting more but does wrap up any mysteries you might have had.

The whole story is told in an “I remember that time when …” style but with a narrator who is funny, witty, and important. There is no real detractor for me in this story, and if this is representative of the whole anthology then I’ll be stoked to recommend it to people.

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The Wrong Fairie by Audrey Niffenegger
Another story to reside in Jonathan Oliver’s spectacular collection, ‘Magic: An Anthology of the Esoteric and Arcane’ is a tale from one of the planet’s most post recognisable names; Audrey Niffenegger, author of ‘The Time Travellers Wife’.

“My story is called The Wrong Fairie and is about Charles Altamont Doyle. He was a Victorian artist who was institutionalized for alcoholism. He was also the father of Arthur Conan Doyle, and he believed in fairies.”

And indeed that sums up the story very well. I wasn’t overly impressed with the tale, as it seemed very much a beginner’s attempt. Without the polish and hook of other stories I’ve read recently, Niffenegger’s ‘The Wrong Fairie’ seemed somewhat bland in comparison.

Nevertheless, the story was interesting, shining the light on an untold/fictional slice of Charles Altamount Doyle’s life. It leaves you feeling happy, if a little deprived, as you enter a fairie world that entices the reader.

More could have been made of Charles’ situation and love of fairies, but what we are left with is a nice little story that surely adds to the collections overall worth.

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Magic: An Anthology of the Esoteric and Arcane can be purchased at Amazon UK and Amazon US.

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“In 1991 I’d already been writing for about twenty years, on and off (though there was a long gap where I didn’t write because of a divorce, the finding of a full time job to support myself and my son, and a remarriage… life) when I contracted my fourth novel, my first of four to Zebra paperbacks, a romantic horror called Vampire Blood, about a family of vampires who ran a movie theater in a small town. I’d already had a fifth novel, The Last Vampire, completed and in with them when they asked me for another novel.

Got anything about witches, they asked. Witches are hot right now. Hmmm.

For many years I’d played around with an idea about a present day white witch who finds a diary of a long dead witch – either good or bad, I hadn’t decided – in her old house’s attic, or basement, or under a floorboard. The story would have been about the good witch reliving the other dead witch’s life through the diary. I’d always called that possible book Rachel’s Diary in my head.

So in 1991 or 1992 I began the witch book and it quickly metamorphosed into a story of a present day good witch, Amanda Givens, who’s yanked into a perilous seventeenth century past by an evil witch, Rachel Coxe, to take her place…and die a horrible death as an accused witch. I had the idea then to actually send Amanda into the past to live (for a while) the other witch’s life. Of course, being a good witch, Amanda, changes the other witch’s unsavory reputation but still ends up in a prison waiting to die for Rachel’s earlier crimes. The story, simply put, would be how Amanda overcomes her trials and tribulations, finds her lost eternal love again in the past, and finds a way to return to the present alive. In the process, learning some important life lessons about accepting what life has dealt her and the value of sisters, friendships and the love of those around her. Or good versus evil and, in the end, good wins and is rewarded. I also threw in a few touches of humor in the form of three precocious witches’ familiars… a mind-reading and speaking cat called Amadeus, a mouse, Tituba, and a tiny bat, Gibbiewackett… all with feisty personalities and quirks of their own.

I was excited about the book as I was writing it and when it was done, pleased with it, but had no idea that over the years it’d become the jewel of my writing career and the book that my fans would love the best of all my books. I loved the cat face cover Zebra did for it (a rare occurrence as I’d learned the hard way that covers weren’t always what I’d envisioned and in the early days I had no choice but to accept whatever the publisher’s gave me… and some weren’t so hot, let me tell you!).

Witches came out in 1993 and did well. I noticed soon after as I went on to publish other books that I got the most response and admiration for it. Readers loved the three sisters, Amadeus and Amanda, Gibbiewackett and Tituba. In those days I was too busy working full time as a graphic artist, living my life and writing new books to notice. It went into a second printing in 2000 and after that, sadly, went out of print. But my fans never forgot it. I’d find comments on it and discussions on the internet… even customer reviews raving about it years and years later. I tried talking Zebra into reissuing it but after Zebra and I parted ways there was no talking them into it.

Then in 2010 when Damnation Books contracted my 13^th and 14^th novels, the publisher, Kim Richards, asked about all (there was 7 at the time) my out-of-print Zebra and Leisure backlist novels and if I’d like to have them reissued as new paperbacks and, for the first time ever, in e-books. Sure, that’d be great! I told her. And, as they say, the rest is history. Between June 2010 and June 2012 all 7 of them (and now another 3 of my Wild Rose Press novels and two short stories from 2007) updated, rewritten and with stunning new covers will be out again. All in e-books for the first time.

Of course, that’s meant a heck of a lot of rewriting. A lot of work. Those early novels go back twenty-seven years and were first written in the days of snail mail and on an electric typewriter before the internet, e-mails and Windows Track Changes (for editing). Oh, boy, did they need revising. As of today I can happily say they’re all rewritten now except the very first one, Evil Stalks the Night, 1984; yet even that one will be completed soon.

I’ve often been asked what I think of e-books and I have to say it feels strange, all these years later, to be so into them. I think it’s fantastic to be able to put thousands of books on one little lightweight hand-held contraption and sell them as inexpensively as we do. I started publishing e-books four years ago and have seen such great changes in even that short a time. I love the editing process now. With Track Changes it’s truly a collaborative effort between the editor and the writer and it’s taught me far more about the craft of writing than the old way of just sending off the manuscript, being asked to change certain things, but then never seeing any of those changes or the basic edits until the book was printed and in my hand. Now, no more pages added by an editor (that actually happened in Evil Stalks the Night. The editor, who I never met, added three pages of his own and I didn’t even know about it until I held the book in my hand. And the three pages didn’t make sense… ech!) that I never know about or see until the book comes out. Yeah.

With a chuckle I recall a writer’s convention I attended in 1990 – yes, that far back – and the main topic back then was…OMG the electronic books are coming! They’re going to make us authors obsolete! Print books are going to die a terrible lonely death… etc., etc. Lack and alas, what are we going to do? Ha, ha. It’s ironic that 21 years later I’m in love with e-books. They’re the future. And I think there’ll always be room for print books as well as electronic ones.

So Witches… (Damnation Books) was rereleased in 2011. I’m thrilled. The cover is still of Amadeus, the cat, and Dawne Dominique did an amazing job on it. My editor, Alison O’Byrne, helped me make it a better book than eighteen years ago. Of all my novels, I’m most proud of it. It’s held up pretty well. I hope it finds many more readers and fans.

So that’s the story of Witches…the little book that wouldn’t die.”