Woohoo! I just got a peek at the cover art for my second book THE MAGICAL MISADVENTURES OF PRUNELLA BOGTHISTLE, due out in the spring of 2010. The cover is not finalized and may still change a bit, but I have the okay to share it here:

I love it! The artwork is by Brandon Dorman, which I find particularly thrilling as he is also responsible for the covers of several books by one of my all time favorite authors, Diana Wynne Jones. Check out his beautiful website for dozens of other gorgeous and magical art. You can also read Betsy Bird’s interview with him over on her Fuse #8 blog (he’s doing the art for her own forthcoming picture book).

Things that particularly delight me about the PRUNELLA cover: the jewel-like colors, the fireflies glittering among the trees, that Barnaby and Prunella are wearing the sort of clothing I envisioned (I particularly like Prunella’s shoes and socks), that the scene depicted is full of action and adventure (because I like to think there’s a good helping of that in the book), and most of all that there’s a GIANT ALLIGATOR on it (there is a giant alligator in the book too, by the way).

In other less bogwitchly news, I am happy to report I had a lovely visit at the Prince Memorial Library in Cumberland Maine earlier this week. It was a very small crowd, but all the adults were librarians, and since librarians are my heroes, I was perfectly happy chatting with them. Many thanks to the fabulous Jan Hamilton for inviting me!

And in addition to some other upcoming library visits, I am also now very excited to have joined in on the Debs of 2009 Holiday Tour Stop in New York City! If you are in the area, please come to Books of Wonder between 1 and 3PM on Sunday, December 6th to say hello! I will be posting more details when I have them, but we’ve already got quite a crowd of debs who will be in attendance. Thank you Michelle Zink for setting it up!

And last of all — I have officially signed up to do NaNoWriMo this year. If you are doing it too, feel free to add me to your buddy list. My handle there is “devafagan”. I am excited and a little scared, but eager for the chance to dive into drafting the second CIRCUS book and live and breath writing for a month. Whee!

Tags: events, prunella bogthistle