Megan Lindholm, Fantasy Novelist

GRIM OAK PRESS PUBLISHING NEW EDITIONS OF WIZARD OF THE PIGEONS

The 35th Anniversary Editions Will Publish December 1, 2020, To Aid Veterans 

SEATTLE, WA, May 22 — To celebrate the thirty-fifth anniversary of Wizard of the Pigeons by Megan Lindholm, Grim Oak Press is producing new editions of this seminal urban fantasy for a very good cause, with Hugo Award finalist Tommy Arnold supplying original illustrations.

Wizard of the Pigeons was first published in 1985. It tells the story of Wizard, a homeless veteran who possesses the Knowing, an enchantment he uses to help others. But magic has a price: Wizard must never have more than a dollar in his pocket, he must remain celibate, and he must feed and protect the pigeons. Breaking these rules strips him of his magic—and makes him vulnerable to a mysterious entity that hunts him for its own reasons.

"Megan Lindholm is one of my favorite writers," said Grim Oak Press publisher, Shawn Speakman. "When I learned rights for Wizard of the Pigeons were available, I recognized a way to reimagine it for a good cause. It is rightly lauded as a cornerstone of urban fantasy, but it is also a timeless book about our veterans who sacrifice so much, the homeless we try to avoid, and the PTSD that not only damages our vulnerable but harms society's collective good. In support of veterans, Grim Oak Press will donate 5 percent of the book's profits to the National Veterans Foundation as a way to acknowledge their sacrifices and give back."

The limited and lettered editions of Wizard of the Pigeons will be available for pre-order on June 1st at 10:00am PT, to publish December 1st.

The wide-release hardcover and ebook of Wizard of the Pigeons are available for pre-order now from your favorite bookstore. Signed copies of the wide-release hardcover will be available on The Signed Page on June 1st.  

Grim Oak Press is the award-winning science fiction and fantasy publisher devoted to producing beautiful limited and signed editions. It most recently published Age of Death by Michael J. Sullivan; Unfettered III, featuring stories from Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson, Naomi Novik, Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson, Seanan McGuire, and many more; as well as the sci-fi novel Street Freaks by bestselling Shannara author, Terry Brooks.

Megan Lindholm lives on fourteen acres in the outskirts of McKenna, Washington, surrounded by wildlife of all types. She is a grandmother to seven youngsters of various ages. She has been a published author since she was eighteen years old, and in 2020, that was fifty years ago. While she shares a keyboard with Robin Hobb, they are definitely not the same writer!

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If you'd like more information about Grim Oak Press or Megan Lindholm, please email Shawn Speakman at shawn@grimoakpress.com or visit GrimOakPress.com.

https://grimoakpress.com/blogs/news/super-tuesday-grim-oak-super-sale

Time to announce something nice.  Shawn Speakman, of Grim Oak Press, is putting Unfettered III on sale for the rest of March!

Details on Sale here

As you can see, those are all the ebooks of the anthologies.  That's a lot of reading from a wide variety of authors.  If you've ever wanted to sample works by, say, Brandon Sanderson or Naomi Novik or Jim Butcher or Janny Wurtz, or even Megan Lindholm, this might be your best opportunity!

The sale is on until the end of March!

I suspect this is true for every writer.

A first paragraph narrates itself while I are weeding the beets or scrubbing the bathtub  or cleaning the catbox.  And it's very exciting and good, and as soon as possible, after washing my hands, I rush to the desk and sit down to capture it.

I type that great first paragraph.

And the words just stop.  Ping.  Done.  That's it.

There are so many of those saved on my computer.  Little bits of a story that never was.  So maybe I'll start using them up here.

Like this.

Whenever she got depressed, she would add 'Kill myself' as the last item on her To Do list. She knew full well she would never get down to that last item on her To Do list.  Who does?  But she suspected that if she did, she wouldn't feel like killing herself by then. So it was safe, relatively, to add it to the list and fantasize about the moment when her To Do list would be done, and she could make everything finally just stop.

Hm.  Well.  It probably wouldn't have been a very cheerful story anyway.  Or satisfying.  Because, just look at it.  The reader knows the ending already.  Either she never gets to the end of the To Do list, so she never kills herself.  Or she does get to the last item, and by then she is so cheered by having finally accomplished her To Do list that she is no longer suicidal. 

I think I start about 100 stories for each one that I finally finish.

That's writing.

Kat says I should post here more often, to create more reader engagement.

Not much to say today.  

So I've decided to begin inflicting my angsty high school poetry on you.

A glimpse of who I was in the 60's.

Fate

                                       "Whistle and ride," said the wind.

                                       What of the traveler in his black cloak?
                                       What of the gold that had once filled his poke?
                                       What of her brooch to his shoulder pinned?

                                       "Whistle and ride," said the wind.

                                       The black horse pulled up his picket stake.
                                       How much sleep would his master take?
                                       Why in his breast sat the arrow finned?

                                       "Whistle and ride," said the wind.

                                       What of the maiden who stood by her gate?
                                       She married another. Such is fate.

Copyright M Lindholm 1968

There's the garden you imagine.

Then, there's the garden you plant.

And finally, there is the garden that grows.

And yes, books.

A recurring question from readers is, "Where can I order the Megan Lindholm books?"

The answer is not a happy one for me. The books have been out of print in the US for, well, over a score of years now.

However, if you live in the UK, the answer is a much merrier one. The books are still easily available there. My publisher in the UK is HarperCollins, and through the years, they have kept the Megan Lindholm books in print, and often refreshed them with lovely cover art by artists such as Jackie Morris and John Howe.

They can easily be seen at the HarperCollins page for Megan Lindholm And I am very pleased to say that in a short time, Wizard of the Pigeons, an urban fantasy set in the Seattle of the 1980's, will be available with a lovely cover by Jackie Morris.

US readers can, of course, still order the Megan Lindholm books from Amazon.co.uk but may find the shipping charges to be discouraging.

French readers have had access to the Megan Lindholm titles for many years. If you enjoy reading in French, whether it is your native language or one you are learning, J'ai Lu has kept many of them in print.

And again, US readers can order the Megan Lindholm books in French from amazon.fr  but do pay attention to the shipping costs.

I hope this has been helpful information!

Thank you for visiting here. The website is a bit quirky and still in its early stage of development, but I do hope you will return again!

It's Autumn.  October, 2019.  I've spent all summer working on my acreage.  I put in a larger garden than I've every grown before, tended it more attentively, and as a result, had a much bigger harvest.  Most of September was spent canning.  I now have a very nice pantry full of jam, pickles, tomato base for soup, and applesauce.  Unfortunately, I still have a porch full of oversized zuchinni and other summer squash, and a secondary area heaped with winter squash.  And LOTS of pumpkins.

I am not complaining.  But those tasks kept me outside and away from the keyboard.  I've taken a long and I feel, well deserved rest from writing.  Neither Megan Lindholm nor Robin Hobb has been very productive of late!

But with the winter closing in and rainier days coming thick and fast, I find myself back at my keyboard.  I'm writing stories again.  And also feeling the drive to share un-story thoughts with my readers.  Hence the revival of a website for Megan Lindholm, and a blog.

In the weeks to come, I'll be posting about my writing efforts, farm and dogs, chickens, books and events.  

Welcome!