I'm a novelist, poet, critic and sometimes writer for and about the theatre. Each of these things keeps interrupting the others. My poetry and criticism have won prizes. I'm the author of the popular and critically acclaimed fantasy quartet The Books of Pellinor, the Gothic fantasy Black Spring and The River and the Book, a forthcoming speculative fiction novel. In English, my novels are published with Walker Books (UK and Australia), Candlewick (US) and Penguin Books Australia. I have self-published two novels as Kindle ebooks: the literary memoir Navigatio and Jimmy Wonderspoon, a story that I wrote for my 10-year-old daughter. Presently I'm writing The Bone Queen, a prequel to the Books of Pellinor. You can find out more at alisoncroggon.com. And you can follow me on twitter at @alisoncroggon.

Why "Reimkennar"? It's an old word for sorceress that stems from old Germanic: literally "rhyme knower". Seems like a good title for a fantasy novelist slash poet slash whatever.

Monday, September 10, 2012

Yes, a new blog

Since Black Spring, my new novel - you can see the Australian cover on the right - is about to hit the bookshelves in Australia on October 1, I decided it was about time that I rethought my web pages. So welcome to Reimkennar, which replaces my occasional Books of Pellinor blog. Even though I am presently writing a Pellinor book - the story of Cadvan - my other novels just aren't Pellinor books. (Yes, there's another one, which I recently finished, called Simbala's Book. More on that as news comes through.)

It's difficult to describe your own books, so here's the Black Spring blurb from Walker Australia: "Lina is enchanting, vibrant but wilful. And her eyes betray her for what she truly is: a witch. With her childhood companion, Damek, she has grown up privileged and spoilt and the pair are devoted to each other to the point of obsession. But times are changing. Vendetta is coming. And tragedy is stalking the halls of the Red House. A stunning new novel by Alison Croggon, inspired by the Gothic classic Wuthering Heights."

I hope that sends a shiver up your spine. Black Spring will come out in the UK, again with Walker, early next year. And Candlewick Books will be publishing it later in 2013.  I can't wait until everybody else can read it. It will mean that I can forget about it at last!

Meanwhile, Walker Books UK has just re-released the entire Pellinor series, with some stunning new covers. Again, you can see the new cover for The Gift to the right. I am completely thrilled with these books, and they make a gorgeous set. I wrote new introductions for them, which was enormously fun. This is what they look this all together:


 I'm doing various interviews in the lead-up to the Australian release, so I'll be linking them here. Au revoir!