Guy Gavriel Kay
@guygavrielkay
Author, punster, baseball fan, whisky lover, cocktail maker. Limericks happen here. Written on the Dark now released in paperback, Canada, U.S., U.K. Print, ebook, audiobook.
Julien Delval’s cover for L’Atalante’s forthcoming edition of Written on the Dark in France. Julien is a pleasure to work with, and L’Atalante make handsome books. As pleasing to an author as a good martini.
If we are noting Bastille Day today (and thus what followed), here’s a savagely brilliant Booth cartoon (that fastidious Ross rejected for The New Yorker). I am less delicate, think it, er, kills. imagerenderer.com/images/rende...
I remain touched and honoured Apriori in Ukraine continues to steadily publish my work. And with such striking covers. (Interior art, too.) I do suspect TIGANA may resonate there. (This will be released in August.)
Youngest bro is scanning old photos. Just sent. This is our Dad at 60. What would have been his birthday is coming up on the 18th. I usually drive to the cemetery on that day. He was a lovely man. A gifted chief of surgery with the caring manner of a country doctor.
This beautiful thing is about to arrive. Note this is for people who earlier bought copies of Fionavar from @grimoakpress.bsky.social. On June 3 at 11 EDT everyone gets access to what they have not already sold. I love working with Shawn Speakman and Julien Delval on these.
Update from a Kyiv bookstore. I remain so admiring of Ukraine that they are publishing and reading books still, and so honoured that some of them are mine.
Another image received from @hodderscape.bsky.social for their imminent paperback release of WotD in the U.K., with another truly generous quote. One of the things I’ve always been grateful for is the response of other writers to the books over the years.
And so a year has passed, which means the trade paper editions of WotD are now due to arrive. Here’s a visual feature @hodderscape.bsky.social sent from the U.K., with a lovely quote from the splendid @robinhobb.bsky.social.
I thought this tone deaf hilariousness had to be fake, but have been assured it is not.
This is a good photo for Democratic Party candidates to use, I daresay.
Book news? Alire’s handsome edition of Written on the Dark is now out in Québec. (Écrit sur la Nuit is their title). I’ve been with Jean and Louise and their team and successors for a long, happy time. Pleased to celebrate this. (Yes, it starts in winter!) m.media-amazon.com/images/I/711...
Don’t @ me! Didn’t know this book until we had kids, but adored it extravagantly. There are many children’s books we loved. Call this emblematic. Also, it is such a glorious salute to childhood imagination and creativity.. #worldbookday.
Young me *devoured* Rosemary Sutcliff’s work. Could have picked *Warrior Scarlet* for this, or a few others. #worldbookday
Of *course* poetry books count. Don’t mess with me. #worldbookday
Have to have Dorothy Dunnett here. She was so extraordinarily good. This begins her Lymond Chronicles. She was someone I knew, later, was so gracious to someone so much younger, before I’d written anything. Plus her husband Alastair taught me to put a little water in my whisky. #worldbookday
Continuing books I’ve loved. This is a cover I’ve never seen, but really like. The book? For me it is Renault’s best, and she’s just superb. #worldbookday
For World Book Day I’m not going to push my own books, but offer a few covers for books I have dearly loved. This first is the edition I read (and reread), and still have, but there are many other covers. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tra...
Thinking of my dear, lost friend Eddie Greenspan today, on what would have been his birthday. A source of passionate engagement with so many things (especially the criminal law, but not only) of joy-bringing wit, and a deeply trusted confidant for decades.
My father, Dr Sam Kay, died on this day in 1990, far too young. Hit by a car while walking the dog. I am endlessly grateful that he was my dad. Gifts without measure. Kindness, intelligence, wit, engagement with the world. A role model for dealing with people — including, always, his patients.
And just got the cover for Alire’s forthcoming (April 1) edition in Quebec, of Written on the Dark. Moody and wintry, just as I drew up the opening! (Better weather does come later, I promise.)
Just arrived from France today. These are L’Atalante’s reissues of The Fionavar Tapestry, new cover designs. Seen against a backdrop of winter out the window, which does fit one of the volumes!
For some reason I keep looking at the image of the Kathisma, where the emperor would watch the chariot racing. The rear of this led right into the Great Palace. static.cambridge.org/binary/versi...
Today would have been my mom’s birthday. She loved art, books, music, travel (photo is Gordes in the Luberon), baseball, vodka martinis. Tracked politics with fierce intensity to the end. Read just-finished drafts of everything I wrote. Miss her all the time, feel grateful for her all the time.
Born on this day, Cezanne was never a nice man, by any real measure, but a genius by almost any measure. And if the colours and the light of Provence matter to you, he’s godlike. But it’s not only that. Here is one version of his ‘Card Players.’ The *attention* he gives them. And the dignity.