If you're wondering where I've been for the past 5 months or so, well, I've been involved with several different projects, including an experiment on Twitter.

Here's a copy of the story so far, plus some links to images and blog posts about the creatures in the series.

Also, look in my favorites for some really good Ratha fan artwork

Comments encouraged. If you like this, follow me at @rathacat on Twitter.( [link] ) Search tags are #rathafic for the story text and #rathalink for associated links about prehistoric creatures in the story.


Ratha's Island, a Twitter novelette by Clare Bell, author of the Ratha or Named series.

Prepared for Twitter by Sheila Ruth and Clare Bell. Inspiration by Sheila Ruth. Copyright 2009

The Twitter search tag or hashtag for the story posts is #rathafic

Story archive pages are #1 The Scratching Log [link]

And #2 The Ratha Series Forum [link]

Archive pages will have text links to photos and blog posts about creatures in the story. You can also leave comments.


Ratha, female leader of the Named cat clan, paused on the meadow trail, one forefoot raised.

To one side, the small three-toed horses that the Named called dapplebacks, huddled nervously.

On the other, the three-horned deer stamped and shook their heads.


The deer stabbed up with their forked nose-horns, as if at an invisible enemy only they could see.

Even the sky, choked with low clouds, seemed a threat. Ratha lifted her head, narrowing her eyes.

Just below the clouds two shapes circled.

Yes, they were birds, probably eagles, but she had never seen eagles this large.


Ratha knew the hawks and eagles that often sailed over clan ground, but she hadn't seen these birds before.

They seemed to fly much faster, making her even more uneasy.

Her ears flattened, their tips lifted, showing anger rather than fear.

Often her ears showed her emotions before they really surfaced in her thoughts. At that idea, they twitched.



For more about:

Me (Clare Bell) [link]

Ratha [link]

Inspiration for Ratha [link]

The Named Cat Clan [link]

Dapplebacks and three-horned deer [link]

Dapplebacks - When Birds Ate Horses [link]

Dapplebacks - The Bush of Horse Evolution [link]

Three-horn deer - Wiki article [link]

Three-horn deer - Image on a postage stamp [link]

Miocene birds of prey
[link]




Story archives [link]

[link]



11/30/2008

The Ursa Major Awards are presented by the anthropomorphic/furry community and Ratha's Courage is #1 in the novel category on their recommended reading list for 2008.
Here's the link:

[link]

Here are some recent online reviews of Courage:

[link]

[link]

[link]

And of Thistle-chaser:

[link]

And good old Ratha's Creature:

[link]

Reader's Rants - Fangs and Fire

[link]

A 4.94 rating on Library Thing!

[link]

Maybe I'll have some time to do artwork over the holly-days. Hope so!

In the meantime, I'll check out what you folks have been doing.

CB


The book is out, being shipped,and has been nominated in the science fiction category for a Cybil Award. I have been to a number of publishing events, including KidLitosphere 08 in Portland, OR and Northern California Independent Booksellers Association (NCIBA) conference last weekend in Oakland, CA.

So many good things have happened so fast that I'm only now coming up for air.

The Cybil Awards 2008 are presented by the Children's and Y/A blogger community for 2008 books with both literary merit and kid appeal. 30

[link]


The publisher is Sheila Ruth at Imaginator Press, Baltimore, MD
[link]

The distributor is Jaqueline Simonds of Beagle Bay in Reno, NV
[link]

First availability (if you can't wait): Author's BookShop
[link]

Excellent and insightful review by Emily at AyeCaptain blog

[link]

Updates on my website:

[link]

More later, hopefully new artwork.


At the printer!

Courage went to the printer early last week and the presses are turning. The books should be ready to go to the distributors by mid-Sept.

I will be attending the Northern California Independent Booksellers Conference in Oakland in early October. It is for booksellers and other publishing progessionals, as far as I know. I'll be at Beagle Bay's booth.

I also plan to attend the Wordshop event in Portland, Oregon, in November, and FurtherConfusion furrycon in San Jose, CA in January 2009.

More details later on these events.

Since Twitter is supposed to be the next hot thing in bookbuzz, I've joined. Follow me there as rathacat at [link]
. I'm doing ClanChirps about and by the various characters in Courage. Why "Chirps?" Well, the Named don't really "tweet" (as the Twitter posts are called). They do, however, chirp like cheetahs.

I'm also working on some art to post here as well, since I really enjoy D/A and you folks.


Completed Proofing of Imaginator Press Courage Paperback.


We are rolling! The goal is to get the book to the printer by Monday.
I've just completed corrections on the IP ARC and have been emailing them back to Sheila Ruth. She's attempting to get the book out in 3 months, and she'll do it, if I am any judge.

The cover art is complete and looks great. We are using the original Christian Alzmann artwork, but the design and back cover are different.

We also have a new Library of Congress Catalog Number, which came in record time. The book is back up for pre-order on Amazon, and I will post the link as soon as the page description is updated.

Thanks to folks here who read the excerpt from the book and notified me about a typo, which is now fixed.

We are shooting for a release date of late Oct, early Nov.

I'll also be attending some events around that time, and I will be posting more details.

Now I'll take time to do a little artwork.


Imaginator Press to Publish Ratha's Courage: Book 5 of the Named.


Sheila Ruth of Imaginator Press and Clare Bell, author of the Named series, have signed an agreement to publish a print edition of Ratha's Courage. Sheila also co-administers Wands and Worlds, a well-known teenage fantasy fiction fan site ( www.wandsandworlds.com). Agent Richard Curtis helped arrange the agreement. For more information and Sheila's announcement on WW, please see:




Courage publication announcement




I am really pleased that Sheila is going to publish Ratha's Courage. Yeeearooo!
CB


05/24/08 New forum up on [link]! Check it out.

(If you've wondered what I've been up to lately...)

by Clare Bell
Ratha Series Author

Ratha, the fire-wielding leader of the Named prehistoric cat clan, has, according to the recent VOYA review of the new Ratha's Courage, “a long and venerable history”. From the now-classic hardcover Ratha's Creature (Atheneum/Margaret K. McElderry/1983) through Clan Ground, Ratha and Thistle-chaser, to Ratha's Challenge, Ratha's prehistoric Miocene world fascinated readers. Now, thirteen years later, comes Ratha's Courage. Why has there been such a long gap after Challenge and why at last did I return to the series?

When Ratha sprang into print in 1983, she captured the 1984 IRA Children's Choice and jumped onto recommended teen book lists. CBS Storybreak adapted the book for a 1987 animated episode (see clips on MySpace TV and YouTube). After such an entrance, the series should have been commercially successful, but it wasn't for various reasons. I mourned, and turned instead to my other love, electric_vehicles. I became an EV journalist/editor for the
Electric Auto Association, and later, an electric vehicle engineer.

In 2003 a call came from acclaimed Firebird_Books editor
Sharyn November. Sharyn interacts via Internet with teen readers and her young advisors suggested re-issuing my Ratha series. Would I write another book in order to pull the series back into print? Could Ratha, perhaps grown creaky from a 13 year sleep, handle another adventure? The answer came back in a Ratha-growl. Yes, of course!

In writing Ratha's Courage, I returned to the strength of Ratha's Creature, which_engulfed_its_reader_in_a_prehistoric_big_cat_body,_thoughts, and_world. Courage would also be based on up-to-date paleontology. I researched the leopard-like paleofelid
Nimravus and its sister species, the cheetah-like
Dinaelurus crassus. From the latter, I generated my fictional Named species, Dinaelurus illumina sapiens.

To visualize my characters, I used
sketching, sculpture, and animation.
A photo of a
cobweb_panther inspired a new character.

The road_to_publication_was_rough.
After suffering inexplicable hardcover cancellation (and near cancellation of the Thistle-chaser and Challenge reprints), Courage was scheduled as an E-Reads selection. When E-Reads allied with Baen Books, they decided to make
Courage a featured e-release for April.

I have also interacted with fans on
MySpace,
LiveJournal, LibraryThing,
Goodreads, Facebook, Wands and Worlds, and others. The author and series have a
Wikipedia entry and come up on search engines. Ratha fan art appears at sites such as
The Lion King Fan Art Archive
and DevArt. There is a new role-playing site (Into_the_Mist:__Voyage Untold) and a fan site (Trails_of_ Conquest).
The_Scratching_Log,
author blog contains “Ratha's Creatures”, describing various prehistoric beasts in the series. Courage itself has captured a
five-star_review_on_the_Internet and good words in a
Wands_and_Worlds_review
Amazon.com will carry Courage as an E-book and it will appear on
Fictionwise.com.

Ratha's Courage resembles the series character,
Thistle-chaser, , Ratha's daughter, who was nearly killed in infancy.
Like Thistle, the new book has survived, shaken off its injuries and will thrive in the hearts of its devoted fans. Thanks to Sharyn November, Richard Curtis, John R. Douglas, Baen Books, Ratha fans, my parents, Kathleen and Don Steward, my husband Chuck, and everyone else who made this possible. Live long and enjoy!


(Click here for a longer version of this article)

I joined Big Cats Club!