Saturday 27 July 2013

Catriona's Debut

Well, this is a happy day for me. I have seen the revised cover for my novel Ceremony of Innocence, and it is great. It gets across so much! Meanwhile, the book is coming out in September. I'm terribly sorry for the delay, all you people who pre-ordered and wondering where it is.

As you can see on amazon.com, there are blurbs by my fellow Canadians Michael Coren (Why Catholics are Right) and Richard Greene (Edith Sitwell: Avante Garde Poet, British Genius), by rising star Fiorella Maria Nash and elder statesman Piers Paul Read.

Piers Paul Read, people.  I really hoped Ignatius would send him my book and they did.

Meanwhile, I am terribly pleased by all the blurbs, and I am thinking, "If they all came to dinner, what an amazing dinner party that would be!"

Once again, I feel I should mention that this is going to be a controversial book and not okay for Sunday School. Brilliant for Book Club and Theology on Tap and anywhere brainy young Catholic adults congregate to chatter, but not for les petits enfants.


Update: Here's a great article by Piers Paul Read about being a Catholic author. His Death of a Pope was published by Ignatius Press because it was deemed "too Catholic" by his agent for British publishers.

That said, I don't want any of you  Catholic artists getting bogged down with "I'll never get anywhere because I'm a Catholic"-type thinking. That is not true. You just have to keep doing your thing and trying and failing and trying and failing and trying and failing again. Basically, you cannot give up because, unlike falling in love and getting married, learning your craft and getting it out there is something that does indeed depend entirely on you.

Oh, and you must be careful not to write Catholic propaganda. I know it is a terrific temptation, but really you must write as though everybody is Catholic and you don't need to convert anyone. We anglophones are at a disadvantage because we are a minority. Imagine how nice it would be to be a Polish writer (or painter, et alia): they just assume 90% of their readers are Catholics, so there is no temptation to explain or to make their church-going characters all so incredibly good.

10 comments:

truthfinder said...

This is a bit of a stupid question, but, how do you pronounce her name?

Regardless, I'm excited for your book, although I fear I'll probably have to buy it through amazon unless I can convince one of the local Catholic bookstores to order it.

Anna said...

May it be blessed!

Seraphic said...

It's pronounced Catreena. Hopefully your religious bookstore will order it in, as Ignatius is a major Catholic publisher. If not, however, you can certainly get it over Amazon.

Maggie said...

Pre-ordered!

(off-topic,but as WYD 2016 is in Krakow, there should be a Seraphic Singles meetup there, since Auntie is learning Polish!)

Seraphic said...

That's a very good idea. I think I can get to a Seraphic Singles/Anielski Single meet-up. And by 2016, my Polish should be pretty good.

katy said...

will there be a kindle edition? Bringing a bunch of books on my October vacation, and to avoid luggage problems I'm kindling them all :)

Jackie said...

Way to go, Seraphic!!! I can't wait to read it and have submitted it as a suggestion for our Catholic women's book group.

By the way, what about making the Amazon.com link go directly to your pre-order page? :-)

Seraphic said...

Thank you, Jackie! That's a great idea.

Seraphic said...

Katy, there isn't one yet. I'm still agog that it's going to be hardcover. Hardcover! Heavy! Shiny! Impressive!

Seraphic Singles is now available on Kindle.

Jackie said...

Seraphic, did you also notice COI is a selection on Amazon PRIME?! Huzzah!

(I don't know how many of you guys have Amazon Prime, but it automatically upgrades Prime items to free 2-day shipping. IME, people buy Prime stuff much more frequently 'cause it is such a good deal.)