July 2014 – erin morgenstern

august internet hiatus & magicians

I am taking the entire month of August off from the internet.

What this means: no blog posts, no twitter unless important information sharing, no tumblr. I am shutting off the wifi connection on my laptop from tomorrow until Sept 1st. (I spend 90% of my computer time on the laptop.)

I will be checking my personal email periodically.

I will still be Instagramming because Instagram lives in my phone.

I hope you all have a lovely month.

***

On Tuesday August 5th two very cool things happen:

1. The Magician’s Land is finally released, hurrah!

2. There will be this magical event in Brooklyn. I will be there. I don’t know what I’ll be doing, that’s pretty much up to Lev. It will probably involve talking of some sort. I don’t know if there’s an official non-Lev signing for anyone but I will bring a pen and I will happily sign things if asked.

At the moment it is my only scheduled appearance this year which I am doing because Lev asked me to and because I really loved this book.

Here’s the official Morgensternian blurb:

Lev Grossman has conjured a rare creature: a trilogy that simply gets better and better as it goes along. The Magician’s Land is sumptuous and surprising yet deliciously familiar, a glass of rich red wine left out for a hungry ghost. Literary perfection for those of us who grew up testing the structural integrity of the backs of wardrobes.

Here is the author-studded crowd-sourced book trailer:

And here is an extra bonus outtake from when I recorded my section back in April. Filmed in Toronto. There are puppies. Also this is when I realized I needed to cut my hair. I miss my jacket, it’s too hot now.

By erin, 10 yearsJuly 31, 2014 ago

flax-golden

flax-golden tales: a not-quite-midnight picnic

a not-quite-midnight picnic

We decide to have a midnight picnic with the moon but we leave early just after the sun goes to sleep so there will be enough light to see by to get there.

We bring strawberries and honey and blue cheese and a bottle of red wine but we pack teacups instead of wine glasses because they are easier to carry and slightly more difficult to break.

We tiptoe under the deep pink sky as not to wake the sun.

We find a good spot to place our blanket and we put stones on the corners to keep the wind from stealing it away and we can only find three good stones but a passing rabbit says he will sit on the fourth corner to keep it in place for us for the duration of our nighttime picnic if he may have a strawberry and a sip of wine. We declare this a splendid exchange and the rabbit snuggles into the stoneless blanket corner.

The sky turns indigo and mauve and grey and the clouds dance and the moon peeks out at us and we raise our wine-filled teacups to it in greeting.

We have forgotten to pack napkins so our fingers get honey-sticky but we do not mind.

The rabbit tells us stories about the bees who live on the North Star and make honey that is snow-white and sparkling, and we all agree that one can never have enough honey or too many bees.

After we eat the last berries and nibble the last morsels of cheese and lick the last of the honey from our fingers and paws we make wishes on the half-moon that they might come half-true.

Then we fold up our blanket and pack our wine-stained teacups away and bid our new rabbit friend sweet dreams and say goodnight to the world.

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

By erin, 10 yearsJuly 11, 2014 ago

miscellany

now we are thirty-six

Today is my birthday. I suppose I am allowed to be thirty-six and still feel like I am just getting started, just beginning to figure things out, just happy and just married.

Thank you again for all the wedding well-wishes on Twitter & Instagram, I wish I could respond to everyone personally but I can’t keep up. I had a lot of comments about my bouquet (featured in another photo below taken on the High Line), it’s from AliciasOddities on Etsy, made from a combination of vintage brooches & handmade enamel flowers.

As mentioned previously, the last of the flax-golden tales will be posted this Friday. After that I’ll be taking a bit of an internet hiatus, if there’s news that’s worth blogging I shall blog it but otherwise it should be quiet around here for the rest of the summer, and hopefully at the end of the summer or early fall I’ll be doing a long-needed website overhaul.

But for now I am going to do birthday things and try not to melt in the heat and then get back to writing.