erin

a few thoughts about the wsj

So, this happened.

I have written and re-written this post.

I have a lot of thoughts but I’m not sure exactly what to say.

The most important part is likely this: I don’t believe there will be a “next” Harry Potter. Harry Potter was a phenomenon. Harry Potter was unique.

I think comparing my adult market, standalone novel to Harry Potter, or any other YA series, is a little bit absurd.

I think The Night Circus may share some qualities, especially in a magical, imaginary environment sense, with Harry Potter, but it’s in the same way that crème brûlée and chocolate soufflés both have sugar. And accent marks. They are still very different flavors and now I’ve wandered off into dessert analogies and made myself hungry.

I don’t want anyone tasting my book and expecting it to be something that it’s not.

Also, I have been called a pixie before, and been told by a psychic that I have fairy energy, but this is the first time I’ve ever been referred to as elfin. That I know of.

And the end of the article seems to imply that I’m not sure what to do next, when I’m well into my next novel which has nothing to do with the circus. It is also a standalone, adult market novel.

So, at the end of the day, I think it is mostly extremely odd to see a very large photo of your kitten in the Wall Street Journal. And for the record, it may look like I am calmly petting her but in actuality I’m holding her down because she was trying to escape.

By erin, ago

flax-golden tales: an embrace made of stars

an embrace made of stars

He asked me what I missed, most of all.

I was almost asleep so he had to repeat the question.

I told him truthfully that I didn’t know, the thought lost to dreams within a matter of minutes.

He asked me again the next night when I was more awake so I considered it for a while and I couldn’t think of anything and I told him so.

I thought that would be the end of it, but he asked again and again, every evening in that pre-sleep quiet, letting it become part of our nightly routine. But while I could have listed a litany of things I missed, none seemed worthy of that most-missed title.

And one night I knew, surprised that I hadn’t thought of it before.

“I miss the stars,” I told him, looking up at the empty darkness above.

He only nodded, in agreement or approval or some combination of the two, and held my hand while we fell asleep like he always does.

I woke to find myself enveloped in an early-morning night sky, stars hand-drawn on bare ground and walls, each one bright and warm and glowing.

 

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.

By erin, ago

real book!

I got a finished copy of The Night Circus in the mail today. There aren’t really words for this, I’m torn between giddy excitement and befuddled disbelief and mild concern that it is rather difficult to take a photograph of such a shiny-covered book.

I even took a photo of it in the sunshine so you can see how the scrollwork is all holographic and rainbow-y:

It’s difficult to tell in the photos but the background is shiny and the hand and tents are matte but embossed, so the texture is amazing.

And I am apparently blessed by the endpaper gods, because this one has stripes:

Tessa remains unimpressed, of course.

By erin, ago

flax-golden tales: the memory of birds

the memory of birds

What is it? she asks, pressing her hand against the picture on the wall. I wonder how many other children have repeated the gesture before her, impressed that the paint has not yet worn away, though the wall is crumbling in other places.

What is it? she repeats, and in my distracted wonderings about the longevity of paint it takes me a moment to recall the name.

It’s a bird, I tell her, though the word sounds wrong as it escapes my lips—too harsh and short for the delicate lines of the painting—I am reasonably certain of it. I think there were different types of them but I decide the explanation is better left simplified.

Is it a real thing? she asks, her finger hovering over the black dot of an eye without touching.

It was, I say, still favoring simplicity.

So it was here Before and someone saw it and repeated it on the wall so other people would see it and remember when it was real? she asks.

Something like that, I say, but no one remembers the real ones anymore.

I’ll remember that it was real Before, she says, and she reaches up on tiptoe to trace the lines of its open wings before nodding to herself and taking my hand, leading me farther along the crumbling wall.

 

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.

By erin, ago