2022 - 06/2022 Meeting

Page Created: 02/24/22. Last Updated: 07/14/22.

KENDARE BLAKE

ONLINE

Website: https://www.kendareblake.com/

FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/kendare.blake

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kendareblake/?hl=en

Twitter: https://twitter.com/KendareBlake

SELECTED TITLES

Novels:

.....Anna Series

...............Anna Dressed in Blood

...............Girl of Nightmares

.....Goddess War Series

...............Anti-Goddess

...............Mortal Gods

...............Ungodly

.....Three Dark Crowns Series

...............Three Dark Crowns

...............One Dark Throne

...............Queens of Fennbirn

...............Two Dark Reins

...............Five Dark Fates

.....Buffy - The Next Generation

...............In Every Generation

Standalones

...............All These Bodies (Thriller)

...............Sleepwalk Society (Mainstream Novel)

Meeting Date: June 11, 2022.

Meeting Site: Zoom Video Conference.

Attendance: 27.

Meeting Program: Talk, Q & A with YA / Adult Fantasy / Horror Writer.

Notes:

The Virtual Diner Run was attended by eight people and one cat. The discussion included movies (Jurassic World, Eternals, Top Gun Maverick), television series (The Wheel of Time, Star Trek Strange New Worlds, American Gods), fiction (Heinlein juvenikles, Star Trek Captain's Table), nonfiction (From Polaris to Trident, Atoms to Ashes), and other works.

Newsletter Account:

Notes for Newsletter Account:

WRITING APPROACH

..........Uses Scrivener, only 8% of its features

..........Uses different fonts for different series when composing

..........Food Network plays in background, if she gets distracted it's only briefly

..........Writes in morning when her needy cat sleeps

..........Marissa Meyer is one of her writing buddies

..........Obsessively reads her reviews when book is released

..........One unhappy reviewer said she wished she knew where Kendare lived so she could pee in her shoes

..........Does little social media, will not learn Tik Tok, etc.

..........Never gets writers' block

GROWING UP

..........Korean adopted by Midwestern family

....................Dad a long haul trucker

....................Mom nurse for elderly

..........Not a lot of money

..........Loved to read in grade school

..........Took out tons of books from library

..........Was reading Stephen King at 10

..........Read R L Stine, Anne Rice

..........Read everything she could find with a unicorn

..........Books are safe places

..........Won lots of free pizzas for reading so much

..........Faves included J R R Tolkien, Philip Pullman, & Michael Crichton

..........Never read mysteries or Agatha Christie

EDUCATION

..........Masters from Middlesex University, London

NEW SERIES

..........Amazon Jedis - Sapphic Moms of Amazon Jedis

..........Same universe as Crowns series

WRITING

..........Started out doing fan fic for Gargoyles, Sailor Moon, Harry Potter

..........Wrote longhand in spiral bound notebook

PUBLISHING CAREER

..........Wanted to traditionally publish

..........Queried until she found an agent

..........Agent was just starting out

..........Wordshop your query letter

..........Represented by Adriann Ranta Zurhellen of Folio Literary Management

ANNA DUOLOGY

..........Two bidders for first book, Anna Dressed in Blood.

...........Went with Tor Teen because editor Melissa Frain was so enthusiastic about the book

...........The other editor was a senior editor at another line, but Kendare went for the enthusiasm.

...........Anna eats a Belgian Waffle at one point because Kendare was hungry when she was writing it

THE GODDESS WAR

..........Trilogy expanded from short story she had written.

THREE DARK CROWNS

..........Got idea while at a book day bookstore event in Oregon

..........Car outside store was covered by bee swarm

..........A patron was a beekeeper and explained that they were establishing a new colony and would move on

..........Bees will travel in a ball with the queen protected in the center

..........Peppered beekeeper with questions

..........When it is time for a new hive, the queen will lay 4 - 5 baby queens who have a death match until there is only one survivor

..........Sold series on a proposal

..........Went to auction

..........HarperTeen did lots of promotion

..........New York Times Bestseller

..........Required multiple opening rewrites to find an epic voice

ALL THESE BODIES

..........True crime book, possibly involving a vampire

..........Inspired by the Fulgate Bloodless Murders in Wyoming in 1958

..........Research In Cold Blood, American Psycho, and Murder in the Heartland

..........New England Vampire Scare - Tuberculosis?

BUFFY: IN EVERY GENERATION

..........First book out in a trilogy about Willow's daughter

SLEEPWALK SOCIETY

..........Mainstream coming-of-age novel set in 2002

ANTHOLOGY STORIES

..........The X-FIles: The Truth Is Out There edited by Jonathan Maberry - Heart - She claimed dibs on timeline

Plus

..........On the I-5 in Slasher Girls & Monster Boys edited by April Genevieve Tucholke

..........Burning Effigies in Violent Ends edited by Shaun David Hutchinson

..........Chlorine-Damaged Hair & Other Pool Hazards in Scary Out There edited by Jonathan Maberry

Her books are read by people of all ages

Became obsessed with writing YA as a teen

Moved to HarperCollins after first five novels because Harper was a much bigger publisher in the YA field than tor.teen

Pitched two books - Three Dark Crowns and All These Bodies. They said, let's go with Three Dark Crowns