Official website of fantasy author and poet Craig Gilbert
Hi folks,
Just a note to say I’m attending the Falkland Craft Market again on June 1st showcasing my books. Be lovely to meet you all! It should be another fun event; the one in March was superb.
Again, for further details, please visit: www.falklandcraftmarket.co.uk
I will be attending the Falkland Craft Market on April 6th, Falkland, Fife, where I will be selling my books. Hope to see you there!
For further information, visit www.falklandcraftmarket.co.uk
The Black Tree, my supernatural horror novel about sinister white faeries, is currently being written with an expected finish by the end of March 2013, to coincide with the Safe Space Write-a-thon charity project.
After March 2013, I will release the book initially as an e-book in Kindle format, and it will be available to purchase on Amazon. There will subsequently be printed versions thereafter, although no timescale is yet defined for these.
I hope people will enjoy the book, which has been immense fun for me to write and to flex my creative muscles in a different genre.
I’ve really been enjoying visiting The Merchant’s Garden cafe and spiritual shop in Kirkcaldy. A lovely place to drop by and look at the sea! They’ve been kind enough to stock my books. Please check them out. Their facebook page is here.
There is a book fair being held in the Music Institute, Dunfermline, on Saturday September 29th, from 10am-4pm. I will be there with a table, showcasing my books. It will be great to be part of this event, which has many locally talented authors showing their own fantastic work. Look forward to seeing you there!
For more details visit Fife Book Fair Association’s website.
This month I’m setting up for a real challenge. I’ve decided to write a book for charity. I’ve got 6 months in order to come up with 52,600 words (about 200 pages in novel terms), starting from September 3rd.
A charity in Fife called Safe Space are hosting a Write-a-thon in order to raise money for their cause. Have a look and check it out.
I thought this would be a unique challenge and opportunity for me to test my creative skills and write a completely different style of book to what I’ve written before. I’ve therefore decided on a supernatural horror book, and it’s going to be called ‘The Black Tree’.
I’ve set up a blog page where you can follow links to donate, and also to chronicle the highs and lows of this challenge, so please check back to the blog often for what I hope will be weekly updates until the book is complete. It’ll be self-published and produced as an e-book at the end of it (the good news is that you’ll see this work out next year!)
It may become longer than 52,600 words, but that’s the target. I’m currently embroiled in reading horror books – I’ve just finished a Stephen King book (‘Rose Madder’) and am now reading James Herbert’s ‘The Magic Cottage’. If I can make my book as good as these, I will have done myself proud.
A quick news item – I’m extremely grateful to Erica from the Blue Nile Jewellery shop in Falkland, Fife, for putting some of my poetry books (copies of ‘Spirit’ and my latest work ‘A Gathering of Wings’) in her new shop, for sale. Please visit her new shop to see the books and also to see some lovely hand-crafted jewellery, made locally in Fife.
I’m very grateful to the Kinghorn Community website for featuring some of my new poems. All the poems featured are from my new book A Gathering of Wings and include ‘The Island off the Coast’, ‘A Butterfly’s Blessing’, ‘Walking the dog’, ‘Goldfinches’, ‘Afternoon Seals’, ‘Seabirds over Inchkeith’ and ‘Starlings in the rafters’. Lots of these poems came into being from inspiration while walking the Fife Coastal Path. I hope you enjoy them.
Happy new year to all my readers!
It’s taken 3 years to write, but, finally, A Gathering of Wings is complete and will be released as a paperback on February 12th 2012 (printers permitting). It’s been a labour of love (and angst) and been a real challenge to write. I’m thrilled to see it finished in its final form, and am proud of the achievement of it. I really hope people will find it different, and that those not normally into poetry will give it a try, because at its heart is a story of a journey, and a pretty astounding journey at that.
The book is available to pre-order on the bookshop page on this site. It will shortly be also available as an e-book on Kindle Amazon, and available to buy at Amazon/Waterstones websites as a paperback.
To celebrate the launch of the book, I’ve updated this website, as you can see (if you’ve been regular here). I hope the straight-forward look will be to people’s liking. The site should also make adding comments for you all much easier, as I greatly appreciate any feedback on my work.
Thanks, as always, for the support and for reading.
Hi all,
With only just under three weeks left of 2011, I felt it time to reflect back on the year, and give some news as to what people can expect from me next year.
I have been bowled over by the response to publishing my work on Kindle. Certainly my fantasy novel seems to be getting bought every day at the moment, which is a tremendous feat and I am humbled by it! It just goes to show that e-books seem to be doing better than their paperback counterparts, although when/if the bubble will burst is open to debate. I’ve always preferred paperbacks, and will still buy books; well, I need to fill my bookcases up with something…or my home will become a drab affair, surely…
…this year has had its ups and downs. Certainly the time taken to attend book fairs/craft fairs has borne some fruit, and much more awareness of my work, and I’ve met some lovely people in the process. On a down side, some events I sold nothing at all, and certainly felt ‘out of place’ in some halls. Yet I have to say this year has been exciting, and has propelled my thoughts into achieving even more next year!
So, what to expect? Well, I’m pleased to report ‘A Gathering of Wings’ is now finished. I’ll soon be sorting out cover details and working out funds in order to self-publish this book. It will also emerge as an e-book, of course. The book has been a real challenge, three years in the making, and tells a journey of someone knowing things aren’t right in the world, and taking a leap of faith, a choice, to something greater. It involves angels, coastal walks and lots of birds, and I hope it is received as more a story than simply a collection of poems.
On top of this book, work will continue on ‘The Dark Shores’. I’m on the 2nd draft, and am writing new passages into the book, and taking some out as well. The feel of the book is changing, becoming more epic, and more a challenging task with each week! However, I am determined to finish the 2nd draft by Summer 2012. Then, I might be satisfied with it, but I will probably write a 3rd draft, after getting some people’s views on it, and thereafter will attempt to publish this book the proper way…failing that, of course, it will be self-published – although I would be surprised we’ll see that happen in 2012. Potential 2013 release? I hope so.
My thoughts are now wandering onto new pastures, and I feel after ‘The Dark Shores’ I might diversify my writing into other genres, but time will tell. I may stay in the land of fantasy, but I’m currently pondering horror, sci-fi, as well as general fiction. We’ll all just have to wait and see, myself included!
Finally, to promote ‘A Gathering of Wings’, and to whet the appetite for ‘The Dark Shores’, my website will have a revamp in the new year. I hope you join me on my new journey online, and I wish all my readers a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year…