Update from Athena House

 

The latest news from the Riordans? We’ve moved from San Antonio to Boston! Why? Long story, but mostly because both our boys found schools here that they love (college and high school, respectively) and we wanted to stay close to them! Becky is originally from the East Coast, and I’ve always wanted to experience this part of the country, so we’re here for a few years at least.

Anyway, we’re still sorting through boxes and trying to find the toothbrushes, all that fun stuff that goes along with moving, but we love our new home. Our place in San Antonio we named Zeus House, because it was painted in a greenish gray color called ‘Zeus.’ In Boston, the interior of our house is painted a gray white color called ‘Athena,’ so naturally, this is Athena House.

The color Athena:

Speedy wasn’t too sure about riding on a plane, but she did very well:

Now I’m settled into my new office, where the Nemean lion on the fireplace stares at me every day, reminding me to meet my deadlines. Atop the mantel is my favorite piece of art – a Oaxacan chimera carved by Jacobo Angeles and painted by his wife Maria Angeles. It’s made from a single piece of copal wood, and the detail they put into it is just incredible. It’s part turtle, part stag, part serpent. Jacobo told me these animals represent strength and perseverance. Along with the lion, Señor Chimera oversees my writing and provides inspiration.

Speedy and Tribble enjoy the view from the office:

Sometimes, Speedy also offers helpful suggestions while I am trying to write:

Her most frequent suggestion is: “Walk time?”

And you can’t beat the view from the roof of Athena House. I don’t take great photos, but here’s a sunset from the other evening, looking across the Charles River:

Our favorite adventure so far? Last week was my birthday, Becky’s birthday and our wedding anniversary. Yes, they are all on the same day, June 5. In case you’re wondering, Becky is thirty minutes older than me. For our anniversary, we took the ferry from Boston to Provincetown at the tip of Cape Cod, which we last visited on our honeymoon twenty-eight years ago. It was a beautiful day and a wonderful trip.

I spotted an obelisk outside Fort Independence on Castle Island, which Carter and Sadie Kane would no doubt be interested in:

One house in Provincetown had a giant metal chimera in the yard:

I also spied someone watching us from a window on Commercial Street. Bast, is that you?

I plan on spending the summer finishing up Percy Jackon’s Book of Greek Gods – a collection of the original myths told from Percy Jackson’s point of view. Wow, this book is fun to write, and I must admit it’s great to tell a story (or stories, plural) in Percy’s voice again. More info on the release date later, but don’t worry about The House of Hades. It is in the editing process, and my part is more or less done, so it will be out as scheduled on Oct. 8. Still, there is a lot to do: typesetting, proofing, printing the physical version, etc., etc.

Remember that the electronic version of “The Son of Sobek” will be available for sale from your favorite e-retailers on June 18, and it will include both an audio version (read by me!) and the first sneak peek chapter for The House of Hades.

And now, back to work! I will post again soon about what I’ve been reading so far this summer.

The House of Hades

And here it is: the cover for The House of Hades!

The god of going off to college

For Haley's graduation, my mom made a wall sculpture (not pictured) for him to hang in his new digs at college. It's a ceramic face with antlers attached and is an interpretation of the ancient carving you see above, depicting the god Cernunnos.

She picked Cernunnos because he is truly a mystery. He's a Celtic god, but we know almost nothing about him. Only a few pictures of him remain, and his name only appears in one place -- on a pillar erected by Roman-era sailors on the Seine River in what is now Paris. Because of this, the column is called the Pillar of the Boatmen. It was discovered under the foundations of the Notre Dame Cathedral.

As you can see from the carving, Cernunnos is a bearded guy with horns, and he's got a metal ring, a torque, around each of his horns. Was he the god of playing ring toss games? Did you win a stuffed animal if you got one around his horns? I don't know. In fact, nobody knows. He might have been a nature god because of the horns. He might have been a god of river travel, since his pillar was carved by sailors on the Seine.

My mom decided he could be the god of anything Haley wanted, since Cernunnos is such a mystery. So Cernunnos is going off the college with Haley, and I guess we'll have to see what he's the god of -- hopefully wonderful things!

Graduation, The Next Generation

A little Riordan family fun for you: Yesterday, our older son Haley graduated from high school, which was quite a milestone. As you may know, Haley was the reason I wrote the Percy Jackson books, since they began as bedtime stories for him when he was in first grade and was struggling with reading. Now he's doing great, and in fact just finished editing the manuscript for his first novel!

Graduation day made me think of my own high school graduation, back in 1982. One of the funniest things that happened was the cake my grandmother inscribed in icing for me. She accidentally misspelled 'graduate' as 'gradute' and we all had a good laugh over that. I may have mentioned dyslexia runs in the family . . .

The picture below is of me and my mom after my graduation in 1982 with the cake:

Fast forward to this weekend, my mom continued the tradition and got Haley a cake with graduate intentionally misspelled. Here they are:

Us Riordans, we r lern stuff real good.

Book Expo America

This will be the first time in a few years I've been able to attend BEA, Book Expo America, the main convention for the publishing industry at the Javits Center in Manhattan. Last year I was invited, but the show was held on June 5, which is my wife's and my mutual birthday and our anniversary, so that wasn't possible!

Anyway, I've seen some buzz about what I'll be doing at BEA, some of it true, some of it not true, so I thought I'd let you know what's going to be happening:

TRUE:

On Thursday night, May 30, I'll be attending the Disney Publishing annual dinner for booksellers and media with many other Disney authors. This is an invitation-only event, but I will give you a full report afterward and let you know how it went. (Spoiler: it's always awesome fun.)

On Friday, May 31, at 8AM, I will be speaking at the Children's Book & Author Breakfast along with Mary Pope Osborne and Veronica Roth, with Octavia Spencer as master of ceremonies. This is a huge ticketed event that is only open to BEA attendees, not the general public, but again, I will let you know how it goes.

Also true: We will be showing the cover art for The House of Hades for the first time that morning! And yes, soon afterward we will show the cover online so you can all get a look. It's fabulous -- that I promise.

At 10:30AM on Friday, I will be autographing copies of the paperback edition of The Serpent's Shadow at table 15 in the Javits Center. Again, this is open to BEA attendees but not the general public.

NOT TRUE:

I will be doing a public event. Unfortunately, I head back home on Saturday morning, bright and early, and I won't be around to do any events that are open to the public. Sorry about this, but there just wasn't time!

Advanced reading copies of The House of Hades will be available. HAHAHAHAHA. No. Not true. We haven't done an advanced reading copy of a Heroes of Olympus or Percy Jackson book in many years. I don't want anyone to know the story and spoil it in advance, so everyone will be reading the story on October 8 when it is first available, no sooner! So please don't mob the Disney-Hyperion booth asking for copies, because there are none.

Sneak peeks of The House of Hades will be available. Also not true. The first time you'll be able to read a sneak peek from the book will be June 18, if you purchase the electronic single of The Son of Sobek -- details as I blogged earlier. We will post a free sneak peek online a little later in the summer, as we usually do. More details on that when I get them!

Sorry to burst those rumors, but I don't want people to show up at BEA only to be disappointed. It's better to know what is and isn't happening in advance. My next public appearances will be during the week of October 8, when The House of Hades is released. It's way too early to know where Disney will be sending me, but when I get the tour information I will share it with you.

And now, back to editing!

A Mother's Day Post Revisited

 For many years, I would be on book tour in early May, so I always missed Mother's Day. I am very grateful that this year, I get to be home with my wife and kids! We'll also be going to breakfast with my mom. Because of this, I won't be spending a lot of time writing a new blog post, but I did look back in the archives for this one, written when I was traveling on tour back in 2007 for The Titan's Curse. (So don't get excited about the tour stops I list -- those are from six years ago!) It's nice to go back and read what was happening back then. So much has changed, but my thoughts about the two most important women in my life certainly have not!

originally posted Sunday, May 13, 2007

Flying on Mother's Day

My wife has to endure many things, having an author for a husband -- like not having me home with her and the boys on Mother's Day. I am midway through my tour, flying off this morning to Chicago, and although everything is going great, I really wish I could be home with family today. Flowers and phone calls are fine, but not the same as being there.

Fortunately, Becky is a saint. She puts a good spin on everything. She takes care of our boys while I'm gone with never a complaint, with infinite patience (well okay, almost infinite patience). She fields calls and emails that would bury me in an avalanche. She keeps the household from turning into a whirlwind of chaos (although she might disagree with me on that). She is the most good-natured, even-keeled, practical, wonderful person I've ever met. And beautiful, too. I got an Internet camera for this trip, so I could see my family as well as talk to them, and seeing Becky even for a few minutes a day is enough to lift me out of any depression. Hard to be away, indeed. Thanks, Becky, for sharing my crazy life with so much grace and understanding. At least I'll be home on Saturday and will get a week with family before heading off to the UK for the final leg of my tour. Still, as I fly north today, my thoughts are turning south to San Antonio.

My own mom, also in San Antonio, doesn't really believe in Mother's Day, since it's a Hallmark/FTD conspiracy to sell greeting cards and flowers. Nevertheless, I think it's good to have day like this to reflect on how amazingly blessed I am to have a great mother. For years, I have been known around San Antonio as "Lyn's son," because everyone -- I mean everyone -- knows and loves my mom. She's an accomplished artist, a musician, a writer, and an extremely gifted teacher. The house I grew up in was a work of art itself, and a natural gathering place for actors, artists, and writers. Growing up, it didn't take me long to realize just how unique my mom was. Not everyone had a Renaissance woman for a mother. She always allowed me space to discover my own interests. She never pushed or even suggested, but in a fertile environment like our home, how could I not have explored writing, music, art? I was not an over-scheduled kid. I remember frequently complaining to my mom that I was bored. She would brainstorm ideas with me, but in the end, it was up to me to entertain myself. I'm convinced this turned me into a writer. I had to look inward for my own stories and my own fantasy worlds. I wonder if kids today have time to do this, between soccer practice and recitals and the rest of their ultra-scheduled lives. I hope they do. My mom was my first reader, my first editor, my first fan. She continues to be one of my "front line" critics every time I print out a new manuscript, even if her comments are usually, "I love this, and I love this, and I REALLY love this." Hey, she's my mom. She's entitled! So thanks, Mom. It's nice to be called a bestselling author or winner of such-and-such award, but it's a real honor -- a very great privilege -- to be Lyn's son.

Now I'm saying au revoir to the Bay Area after a very fun visit. Good crowds at both Book Passage and Borders in San Jose. Thanks to everyone who came out! Tomorrow night, I'll be at Anderson's Bookshop in Naperville. If you're in the Chicago area, come on out and say hello!

Happy 'Mark of Athena' Day, Brazil!

Today is the publication day for Mark of Athena in Brazil. Check out some of the fun promotional items my Brazilian publisher Intrinseca has created for the book!