Hello all!

I would just like to share with you all the joy of having retired my laptop. I am now putting this newsletter together on a wonderfully fast and powerful desktop computer that my company has graciously lent me to use at home. The knowledge that I won't have to restart my computer several times while trying to send out the newsletter to 400 subscribers is extremely comforting (even if that's not actually -why- they gave me the computer - thanks Jay!) I'm still ironing out a few teething problems with this new desktop, but hey - it's wonderful. And now, on to real news!

Thank you all for your feedback on the new look of the website. The response has been overwhelmingly positive - I am very glad that the redesign meets with your approval! People who are really keeping track of this newsletter will have noticed I didn't send one out at the end of June - I figured one mid-month announcing the redesign was enough! Ok, ok, I know, real news....

What's New on Bright Weavings
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A new Canadian literary award has announced its list of finalists for books published in 2000. Lord of Emperors is on the shortlist, which contains six books. (As I mentioned in a previous newsletter, Lord of Emperors is also on the shortlist for the Mythopoeic Award this year). The criterion for the award is that the winning book should be the finest novel-length Canadian literature of the fantastic published during a particular year. We have the official press release from the Sunburst Award Committee on the site. Visit the news page for more details:

http://www.brightweavings.com/news/index.htm

> New Cover Art

A variety of reissues and new translations hit the shelves during the past month, and as a result there are some additional covers in our art gallery. The first book of the German translation of The Sarantine Mosaic is out, as is a Czech translation of A Song for Arbonne, plus UK reissues of A Song for Arbonne and The Lions of Al-Rassan. Strangely enough, the cover chosen for the first book of the German Mosaic (part one of four, titled 'Das Komplott' - 'The Conspiracy) is the same as the US cover of the first book of Mary Gentle's Ash: A Secret History. Or not so strange - apparently foreign language publishers often buy 'second use' rights to the work of major cover artists.

Czech and UK Arbonne: http://www.brightweavings.com/artgallery/covarbonne.htm
UK Lions of Al-Rassan: http://www.brightweavings.com/artgallery/covalrassan.htm#newuk
German Mosaic part 1: http://www.brightweavings.com/artgallery/covsarantium.htm

> Music Inspired by the Books

This month sees a new subsection added to the music section. Until now we've had Martin Springett's beautiful renditions of various songs from the books, including 'Rachel's Song' from Fionavar and the title song of A Song for Arbonne. I've now added a section titled 'music inspired by the books.' This section includes songs that have been written -about- the books, by various readers, including two professional singer/songwriters. Most of the songs in the section are there at the moment just as lyrics, although one has notation, and another one has been recorded in the past, but there is no suitable recording for the web as yet. There is one song, however, that has been recorded; Tanyss Nixi's 'Come Lay Me Down' which is inspired by The Lions of Al-Rassan. Tanyss has allowed me to put a copy of her mp3 on the site. I for one think it is a beautiful song; the sorrow that lies at the heart of Lions can be heard in the music, and she has a fantastic voice. She is releasing a CD this year. So, to hear her song, and read the lyrics of three other contributors, click through to the new music subsection:

http://www.brightweavings.com/music/inspired.htm

Tidbits
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Things of interest in GGK world - Sailing to Sarantium is now on to its fourth reprint in the US, and Terry Windling, co-editor of The Years Best Fantasy and Horror has listed Lord of Emperors as one of her 'Recommended New Works' for the year 2000 on her website. It seems GGK has a bit of a propensity for ferocity - Ms Windling is about the fourth person -in print- to describe him as a 'fiercely intelligent' writer. I seem to recall his intelligence described as dogged in another review - gets a bit worrying - put dogged and fierce together and he's positively snarling! Hey, I'm allowed to tease once in a while...

Things of interest in Bright Weavings world - it's obviously a good month for awards - I was also honoured with an award - for the website - a 'Perfect Vision Gold' award, by the website http://www.perfectory.com, which is listed as one of the top award sites on the web. Apparently, I'm a creative visionary! :-) The award is displayed on the homepage underneath the 'cool site' award from Open Directory, but hasn't yet proliferated through to every page.

Also in Bright Weavings world; a special thank you to Joe Doyle, who decides to fix things when he sees them. In the new Roc editions of Fionavar, Bright Weavings is listed in the endpapers of the books as the place where you can find GGK on the web. A great honour for me - only problem is that they got the url wrong in the second two books of the trilogy! According to them, GGK only wove brightly once, as they put the url as brightweaving.com (forgetting the 's'). Joe, a a fellow GGK fan and a fabulous cyber-friend, promptly went out and bought the domain name brightweaving.com and had it point to the brightweavings.com domain, so that anyone who uses that link in the back of the books will still get to the site. Thanks Joe.

In the Forums
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Bright Weavings continues to develop as a hub for all things Kay, and it has some great people hanging out in the forums. One of the interesting threads going at the moment is:

> Reader Demographics: a.k.a: "When we Found the Gift of the Weaver and how long we've been Enamoured"

Elizabeth S (otherwise known as smartybelle) started this very interesting thread, where we have people confessing their ages and how old they were when they found GGK's books - including some funny stories, like Alec's:

"I have a pretty funny story about how I found Guy Kay (or to be more accurate how it found me). I was browsing in a bookstore one day for a new read and liked the cover of the Tapestry (despite five years working in a bookstore I still sometimes commit the crime of judging a book by its cover). Anyway, I decided to read the description to see if it had potential. I was disappointed to see that it seemed to be a book that transported people from the real world to a fantasy one. I had liked this in Narnia but hadn't ever read another book that did this well, so back onto the shelf the book went and out of the store I go...
Then, a couple years later, I won the book as a prize for a short story contest I had placed second in. I figured, well, I have it so I might as well give it a try. So biased was I that I really didn't enjoy the first couple hundred pages and would have put it down if I wasn't one of those anal people who have to finish a book they start no matter how painful. Well, needless to say, by the end, Fionavar Tapestry had become by far my favorite book. Since then, I've reread it I don't know how many times (and can never understand what my initial problem with the beginning was), and have bought all of his other books. So there ya go, Guy Kay is so talented sometimes you have to become a fan despite how hard you unwittingly try not to!!!"

If you'd like to share when and how you first became enamoured, or read about others, click through to:

> If you knew GGK would answer one question for you, what question would that be?

In the 'If dreams came true' section, GGK has been visiting again, and has left answers to some of the questions readers have left, including what role 'awe' plays in his works, at what point clarity of expression takes precedence over beauty of ambiguity in novel writing, what the idea behind writing the epilogue of Lions was, and what stories he reads to his sons at bedtime. To read the answers to these and other questions, visit the thread at:

and finally....

> The Fionavar Tapestry group read

We are going to be starting a group read of The Fionavar Tapestry in the forums. What does that mean? Well, I think what it means is that tomorrow night I'm going to be frantically busy compiling some suggestions for themes and ideas to think about as we read, and a timetable of chapters/discussion time, so that I can create a new thread in time for August 1st, when we're supposed to be starting, and put all relevant information up there. I'm sure we'll be feeling our way a bit as we begin, but basically this is to give readers a chance to re-read a book they know and love, in company with others who love it too, and to discuss it with them as they read. It should also be interesting for those who have read the books before to read them with particular themes and ideas in mind. I'm sure that will enrich both the reading and the discussion. So, I can't give you a url for that yet, but on August 1st (maybe August 2nd if you're in Australia), visit the forums to find out what the timetable for reading and discussion will be. I look forward to seeing you there, and to a great discussion!

And that's it from me for now!

Be well, one and all,

Deborah