erin

penguin classics & an elephant

You may have seen me on Twitter bemoaning the fact that I only received one book as holiday giftage. (Technically, I got two. I received one after the bemoaning.)

Obviously, two is still not enough books. So despite the sorry state of my to-read shelf, I bought myself some pretties.

I have coveted the Coralie Bickford-Smith-designed Penguin Classics since I first saw them, so this is the beginning of what I’m certain will end up being a fairly large collection. They are so pretty, and there are so many classics that I’ve really wanted to own but lost the beat-up high school English class copies years ago. These are much better.

(Also featured in these photos is one of the marvelous bookends my sister gave me.)

I already want more because they don’t fill the whole shelf, even though the elephant is doing an admirable job of keeping them upright. And I’m annoyed that the Fitzgeralds don’t seem to be easy to find in the US, because they are swoon-worthy.

I had been planning on posting these today, so I was amused when they turned up on Doubleday’s Tumblr today as well. And then I turned up on Doubleday’s Tumblr, too. Hee.

By erin, ago

also, today is my half birthday & i should really have half a cake

As you may have noticed, I was in NYC for the past few days.

I met my agent and my editor in person for the first time. They are, in fact, actual people and not just lovely disembodied telephone voices.

I drank a lot of wine with my sister. I got snowed on in Times Square. I met the resident kitty at the Algonquin.

I generally felt like I’d wandered into someone else’s life.

It’s going to take awhile for this to fit on me properly. Like breaking in new boots.

And then last night, while I was on the train back to Boston, my Google alerts kind of exploded with the Summit film option announcement.

I’m thrilled about it, of course. It’s not helping that whole endeavoring to become more of a believer thing, though. Every time I think this whole journey might get less surreal eventually, things like this happen and I’m reduced to blinky-eyed deer in headlights mode and I say “yay” a lot, because I’m articulate like that.

Oh, and since some of the announcements have mentioned it as such, I should probably clarify that The Night Circus is not a young adult novel. It will probably have a lot of appeal for teenage readers & fans of YA, but it is indeed an adult-market book.

Home now, with kittens who claim not to have missed me. Fluffy little liars.

By erin, ago

flax-golden tales: attendants

attendants

No one told them that their jobs were finished. They were never properly dismissed or let go.

Informed that their necessity had waned.

They continued to attend. Even after temples were shut and shrines dismantled.

Always faithful, always devoted.

Incapable of being anything less.

Now they sit in corners of musty shops.

Paint peeling and gathering dust.

Collecting offerings for forgotten gods.

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

By erin, ago

leave all your love and your longing behind

So long, 2010.

You were interesting.

I spent the vast majority of 2010 living in a black-and-white circus that will be nicely bound on bookstore shelves come September.

It’s still rather hard to believe, but I’m working on that.

This time last year I was still unagented and pulling my manuscript apart again for yet another revision.

Visions and revisions. That’s the way this year went.

2010 sounded like Bernard Herrmann Hitchcock soundtracks and jazz and Arcade Fire and Florence + the Machine.

It sounded like Florence + the Machine a lot. Song of my year, no question:

My New Year’s Resolution is to stop saying (repeatedly) that anything happening to me is weird or strange or crazy. Because crazy is my new normal and I should probably try to embrace that.

I should be more of a believer.

This is all really happening.

The snow outside is melting. I have stars in my hair.

Bring it on, 2011.

By erin, ago

flax-golden tales: frames for nature

frames for nature

Nature doesn’t need frames, I say, but she insists on finding them anyway. Running around like a cameraless photographer as she composes each shot. Leaving to find another when she’s satisfied.

I ask her why, not really expecting an answer.

It’s too much to look at all at once, she says.

Maybe she’s right.

Maybe it’s better to have tastes of it, a narrower focus.

I do it myself now, too. Finding lines of bare trees and glimpses of blue sky.

Nicely contained within decorative arches.

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

By erin, ago