A Year in the Life...

#fantasybooks, #nobledeadsaga, #nobledeadseries, #themisttornwitches, #thedeadseekers, #barbhendee, #jchendee

J.C. and I rarely put up posts of a personal nature. We tend to be private people. And yet, it's been quite a year for us both personally and professionally.

Last year, at this time, we were living in a three-bedroom house in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. We'd lived there for eight years and remodeled the interior and turned the entire backyard area into a small fruit orchard and veggie garden. Around the end of 2014, we were still living as full time writers, but the publishing industry began shifting rapidly after Border's closed. Then our publisher, Penguin-Putnam, merged with Random House, and Random House began to downsize many of Penguin's imprints, including ours. Many writers like ourselves began earning less and less money from our work.

It soon became clear to J.C. and me that we would need to make some serious changes. For one, we'd both need to find other sources of income to supplement our writing. I decided to go back to teaching college. However, I could not do this while living out in the middle of the Willamette Valley. Last July, we sold our house and moved up into a townhouse south of Portland. We do like the townhouse, but it has been a big change for us all. Our gray kitty, Ashes, adjusted fairly well, but our black kitty, Cinders (our wild girl) has had some trouble. She misses her big back yard with big trees to climb, and the tiny one [above] in our patio area pales in comparison.

I do have a nice office nook in the new place. This is just off our bedroom. J.C. writes and works at our dining room table with Ashes beside him at times.

Last July, our editor of eight years was “downsized,” and we were assigned a new editor. Two months ago, that editor's position was “eliminated,” and we were reassigned again. As I said, the industry is shifting.

Through all of this, we have continued writing to bring you new stories. We finished the Noble Dead Saga, which was a bittersweet experience as this series has been such a huge part of our lives for a decade and a half. However, we had been contracted to begin a new series called The Dead Seekers, set on the eastern continent of the world of the Noble Dead Saga. We will have much more news on this as soon as the public links go up at Amazon and B&N. We've seen the cover, and it's gorgeous.

I have a new Mist-Torn book released today: To Kill a Kettle Witch So… it's been quite a year of change for us, but we forge ahead and will share news of our upcoming works soon. Thank you, readers for being readers and for loving books.