Melissa Scott Writes

If you’d asked me a year ago, I would have said that the idea that became Water Horse sprouted at some point during a two-year RPG campaign set in Middle Earth, though now that I look back, I see that some of the pieces are much older than that.

This year's virtual Balticon will be hosting a memorial for Don Sakers on Sunday, May 30, at 11:30 AM ET. Sign up for the Zoom session here: https://balticon-org.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwrdOyprD8rG92Zh9aixfs1jP...

Don Sakers died May 17, 2021, of a heart attack suffered at his home in Maryland. He was 62 years old, and in losing him I have lost one of my oldest and dearest friends. His formal obituaries will tell you all about his career — as a writer, a fan, a reviewer for Analog, and a professional librarian — but I thought I’d take this space to tell some stories.

I’m pleased to report that I’ll be a guest lecturer at the Odyssey Writing Workshop this year, lecturing on world-building. Odyssey, if you don’t know about it, is a 6-week residential workshop held annually at St. Anselm College in Manchester, NH. It’s intended for developing writers, writers whose work is approaching publication quality and writers who have been published but want to improve their work.

Candlemark & Gleam will be giving away ebook copies of Water Horse! More details on their blog, and you can sign up there. The giveaway will run from today, May 10, to the release day of June 1. Good luck!

Another lovely review for Water Horse, this one from nerds of a feather. Also, the ebook of Water Horse is now available for pre-order at all the usual suspects!

Two more lovely reviews for Water Horse! One from Analog (scroll down) and one from Tor.com.

Starred review for Water Horse in Publisher's Weekly! "This is epic fantasy done right."

Needless to say, I'm extremely pleased.

I’m pleased to announce another step toward getting all my backlist reissued as ebooks. Burning Bright, my second novel with Tor, and my first novel to become an ebook, way back in the early 2000s, is once again available as an ebook, this time from Crossroad Press.

The marvelous Eleni Tsami cover for my forthcoming fantasy novel, Water Horse, is now on display at Candlemark & Gleam! Once again, Eleni has captured the essence of the novel in a singularly gorgeous image - she did the cover for Finders as well, and I'm amazed at how perfectly she summed up two very different novels. It's lovely to be working with her again, and with editor Athena Andreadis.