Harper has me out on tour for Ink Exchange (starting this week). If you want to catch me, here's where I'll be. I enjoy questions, so feel welcome to ask me whatever you want & share your thoughts. Talking to readers is more fun than reading. :)

I'll also be doing a talk at the Library of Congress in May. I'm nervous, but excited. . . much of life is like that, though, isn't it? I like that tangle of excitement & nervousness.

Events continue to get added to my calendar, so please check there & there if you're so inclined. I do love meeting people.

General News:

I attended both Romantic Times Booklovers Convention & Comic Con NY in April--and had nonstop fun. Ideally I'll be getting photos up in the gallery here soon, but in the meantime, I did blog abt it on my livejournal blog.

Check back on the media section in the next month. We'll be having a video that Harper had made of me chatting abt the books. It was fun to make, & the film folks did a great job in hiding the fact that I was still hobbling around on a sprained ankle at the time. My slow limping walk turned into something almost graceful thanks to their film magic. The wonders of technology & art . . .

I know there's more, but I'm off to pack for tour, so I'll leave you with a thank you for the sweet letters in MySpace, my journal, my inbox, my forum, & the wonderful wickedlovely.com fan forum. I really do have the coolest readers out there. Thank you.

Ink Exchange news:

I have two bits of news about INK. First, INK EXCHANGE was included on the Book Sense Summer 2008 Children’s Picks List. I am elated by this. Secondly, it earned a starred review in Publishers Weekly. . . I'm pretty gleeful over this one too.

Starred Review Returning to the faery world of Wicked Lovely, Marr serves up another highly addictive read, this time centering on Leslie, a mortal girl who made a cameo appearance in that earlier work as a friend of its protagonist, Aislinn. Broken by terrible trauma, Leslie seeks to anchor her mind from slipping into oblivion. She finds salvation—or so it seems—in a strange tattoo that gives her power and strength like she’s never felt before. But Leslie’s euphoria is short-lived, and the tattoo comes with a shocking price. Its ink has been laced with the blood of Irial, king of the fey’s Dark Court. Upon the tattoo’s completion, Leslie will be bound to Irial as if a slave, with Court rules forbidding even Aislinn, the new Summer Queen, and Summer King Keenan’s guard, the handsome Niall, to sever this dark attachment. Once again readers will find a love triangle that simmers, this time among Leslie, Irial and Niall—all of whom face choices that could cost them everything they prize. Compulsive enough to give the Twilight series a run for its money, and dizzyingly more sinister. Ages 12–up.

* HC has post reader responses toInk

*Some other reviews are linked in my LJ. My site doesn't have them up, but they're starting to crop up everywhere actually--

From adult romance sites, to urban fantasy sites, to YA review sites,
There are a lot of reviews already. If you post a review, please let me know & I'l link it on my LJ as I did with the ones people have sent me so far.

Manga News:

We seem to have a title for the manga series about Rika, one of the earlier Winter Girls. We're going with Desert Fey, and there will be subtitles for each volume. The art is continuing to amaze me. Irene--the artist--is truly gifted.

Random:

PW on "Spring Sequels"

*My work related good news is that I finished the third book (tentatively called Enthralled) and sent it to my editors. This is the sequel to Wicked Lovely where the narrators are Ash, Seth, & Sorcha.
*My art contest is still in progress, but my web team has added some of my favourites so far here

*A kind reader set me up with a deviantART page so I can comment on art there too :) On it, she collected the fanart that was already posted there.Thanks, Michaela!

Two more podcasts were uploaded on the website (under media) as well. You can hear both my US & UK editors interviewing me.

Wicked Lovely News:

I've learned that WL is one of the four finalists for YA in the RITA Awards (http://www.rwanational.org/cs/2008_rita_finalists). I'll be at the Romance Writers of America National Convention July 30-August 2 so if any of you attend this, please do say hello.

*WICKED LOVELY has been included on the New York Public Library’s Books for the Teen Age 2008 list. :)

HarperAudio (US) has added WICKED LOVELY to their digital-audio grid for an on-sale date of 4/29/08.

Other Book News:

The Love is Hell anthology is out end of November. It's already listing on Amazon.

Subrights & European treks:

Fazi Editore (the Italian publisher of Wicked Lovely) has decided to includes "extras" in the release of the book there. These will include that character descriptions currently available on melissa-marr.com (under "writing").

Discussions for an Italian tour are ongoing, but that won't happen before next Winter at earliest because the only earlier workable dates would conflict with my trip to Scotland & my pause in London.

Book event type things will happen in London, but not in Scotland. Scotland is for ruins, nature, & soul-sating.

Carlsen Verlag (the German publisher) has decided to keep the first book (Gegen das Sommerlicht) in hardcover a bit longer than expected. The YA softcover AND adult mass market (by Piper Verlag) will both be out in summer 09. The adult release will be the same as the YA release. The book's contents will not change.

The second book (Gegen das Dunkel der Nacht) will be out in hardcover no earlier than Fall/Winter 08. We have no concrete date there as of yet.

Reader Created Sites:

Two readers notified me that there is a discussion site in Italy

This joins the lovely blog on the impending Spanish release

And a German reader (Thank you, Maja) translated some of WL.com into German . . .

On MySpace, there's a WL RPG page. My lovely Beira has a page, and WL.com has a page

As always, thank you for your amazing support.