Wooing Nurgabog

It were a difficult thing to pick an excerpt from this formidable text. It shivers, shudders, and sings with sentences so sqwyrmy and masterful that I feared for me own safety should I be caught betwixt snippets fearsomely fine and equally postable. But in the end, this one prevailed.

“I knew it was Nurgabog,” said Gnut victoriously. Podo eyed him down and Gnut whispered once more to the man sitting next to him, “I knew it was Nurgabog.”Podo ignored him and kept on. “I waited until Lunker Jim slipped into his tunnel. As soon as he and the rest of the Stranders was gone, I sauntered into Nurgabog’s tent and said, ‘Nurgabog, I aim to steal ye.’ She batted her lazy eye at me and said, ‘What if I don’t aim to be stole?’ and I told her, ‘I can’t live without you no more. Your skin is crusty as the bark of a moldy oak and I can’t go on without its touch. Your eyes is the color of a milktoad’s tongue, and I don’t want to live without their gaze. Your brain is like a varmit trap that lays in wait for unsuspecting critters and snaps shut without remorse or pity, and I long to be snatched in its embrace. Will you agree to be stole?’ I asked her.
What was your favorite excerpt from our Bookbindery Guildmaster's Wingfeather Tale? Post it in the comments!What would you buy if you were a dragoneer? What would you have done if you were Whilly? Why do you think Podo thought the sqwyrm was mocking him? What's on the menu at the Windy Monkey? All this and more in the forum!

Happy Kickstarterversary!

A year ago today, just before midnight, Andrew posted the first update on the Kickstarter campaign we'd launched that morning. Twenty four hours later, he posted a deliriously happy poem for The End of Day Two. At 8:28 the following morning, the base goal was FUNDED. The rest of that month went by in a blur that made our heads spin and our hearts nearly explode in gratitude and bogglement, and when it was over we (WE, all of us) had raised 241% of our original goal—enough to animate the Igibys, the Fangs, and the Sock Man, plus thwaps and Nugget and the whole town of Glipwood.241 percent fundedDear Featherheads, I'm proud of us.What was your favorite part of the Kickstarter, or of the journey since then? What are you most excited to see once Chris and the team have finished the good work they're doing? Do you know how grateful we are for you???Love,Madame Sidler

Fluffy's dragon

This remarkable sea dragon was drawn by Heather, who is also known as "H-Bomb, Fluffy, Claudia, Heather the feather the queen of the weather. Writer, laugher, photo artist, drawer and student." (What sort of delightful person identifies herself as a laugher? I love it.) The crystalline patterns on its crest and around its eyes are fascinating to me—and speaking of which, what wonderful eyes. It looks like it has just spotted a very tiny and very curious human, and is itself very curious (although not very tiny). I think it would be such a profound experience to look into those eyes.Thank you, Heather! More dragons, please!102136

This week, Madame Sidler will be reading A.S. Peterson's Wingfeather Tale, "From the Deeps of the Dragon King." Come back on Friday for an excerpt, and to share one of your own! And join us in the forum to talk about this story or anything else.Andrew, Audrey, and the band have a few days off, but they'll be hitting the road again on Thursday for the second weekend of the spring tour. Check out Andrew's music site for details!

Ye Wee Daft Fool

This week we've been reading N.D. Wilson's Wingfeather Tale, "Willow Worlds." If you've read his 100 Cupboards series, you may find some parallels. The snippet below made me laugh.

Podo looked up at the falls, and then around the willow grove. The last time he’d been in this place, the sun had been setting and he’d been in a rush, holding his breath to try and avoid ingesting any misty poisons. He’d tied a pony to a rotting stump well downstream, and then he’d raced around with a small ax and a rusty saw until he’d found a forked willow with a small trunk, just big enough to suit.Two hands by two handsgreen leaf freebranchless, budless,feet length threetrunk wood and no otherye wee daft fool.That’s the rhyme that Growlfist had spoken—although Podo was pretty sure that the end hadn’t been part of it.
What was your favorite bit of this story? Post it below! Then come over to the forum to chat with us about "Willow Worlds," 100 Cupboards, or the two previous Wingfeather Tales we've read.Andrew's on the road this weekend. Check out his music site to see if he'll be near you!

The Edge of Dawn Tour with Audrey Assad

Andrew's spring tour kicks off on Thursday, and with him with be Audrey Assad and a full band. Check out his music site for details! If you're near any of the shows, Andrew would love to meet you and sign your books. ;-)Here is a little video of Andrew standing under his stone arch (!) and talking with Audrey about the tour:https://www.instagram.com/p/BQeNkvbgr66/And here's a little preview of Audrey, if you've not yet heard her music:https://youtu.be/Li2hddmy63U

This week, Madame Sidler will be reading N.D. Wilson's Wingfeather Tale, "Willow Worlds." Check back on Friday for an excerpt, and to post one of your own.Featherheads, I love our forum. Wander over there and check out the cool conversations happening. I'm glad to know you people. :-)

The fendrilady and the fendril

In the midst of a great fury of squawking, squattering, snapping, snaggering, and stampeding, these few sentences, a momentary calm, hang in the air as if gliding.

There are those who are lucky enough to find a life of settled, unsquillious domesticitude in this world. There are also those who are lucky enough to soar on the back of the Lone Fendril behind a woman whose face has been furrowed by suffering and whose mind has been sown with hope.I am the second kind of lucky.
What was your favorite passage from the second half of this story? Share it in the comments!How would you design a School of Betterment? Did one of Jennifer’s delightful words particularly grab you? Are you a saggy hound or a tahala? How does sorrow relate to beauty? Join us in the forum. :-)

Stone wall at the Warren

For the last few weeks, Andrew has spent all his spare time collecting rocks, obsessing over rocks, stacking rocks. He has endured teasing from his kids and at least one banged finger, but he has persevered. And the result? Amazing. I'm in complete awe.https://www.instagram.com/p/BQa5m2kASqf/When I see this fence I think of Andrew's European wanderings, where he and his family have stood on castle walls and under arches hundreds of years old; and, in my own world, of the stone walls of the Great Library which have stood for generations, old as the trees.There is another stone wall at the Warren, one over 150 years old. This arch, like that wall, is not made with mortar; nothing holds it together but a keystone, and the knowledge of how to do that comes down to us from ages long past. I imagine Andrew joining history in raising this wall, building in a tradition, being built into tradition himself, leaving a marker for generations to come. Some day, perhaps a hundred or two years hence, some other Son of Adam (or Son of Peter) may run their hand across the top of that wall and walk under the arch and be inspired to make something of their own which will also endure, and in doing so, will also join with history.Rest assured that Pete the Bookbindery Guildmaster has safely walked under this arch and, having lived, deemed it sound. He's not a stonemason himself, but he did write one once, and as his pate remains unbonked we'll take his word for it. :-)To watch the wall's progress, click over to Andrew's Instagram, and visit the Rabbit Room to read Andrew's own reflections.

This week, Madame Sidler will be finishing Jennifer Trafton's Wingfeather Tale, "The Wooing of Sophelia Stupe." Start where we left off last week—page 71, or Kindle location 1245, right after the words "Remember that, and beware." Check back on Friday for an excerpt, and to share one of your own!We've got a few fun Sophelia conversation-starters in the forum, and are still discussing Safiki as well. Head over there for some berry bibes and discussion!

Vexations and toebreak

This week and next we're reading Jennifer Trafton's remarvelant Wingfeather Tale, "The Wooing of Sophelia Stupe." I was amazed at the way she so perfectly emulated Pembrick's voice in this story, and yet her own writerly voice rises up through his, obbligato. It is a very Jennifer story, even as it is a very Ollister story. Here are the first two paragraphs. They delighted me thoroughly in at least twelve ways.

A letter from Ollister B. Pembrick, dated the 5th day of Sixmoon, Year 222, Third EpochTo the illustrious sirs and madams of Annieran University Press, formerly known as Graff Publishing, mysteriously transported from the Green Hollows to the Shining Isle sometime between the writing and the printing of my book The Inexhaustive Creaturepedia: Skreean Edition, and particularly to my editor Thaddeus Glapp, though you did not bother to read the manuscript the first time and can hardly be expected to read this letter (professional mockery! rudeness! but no matter), and most especially to the generous donors who allow the Press to continue printing books at all, though in latter times it has been forced to print primarily dog food labels in order to avoid insolvency in these illiterate days of Dang—Greetings, and forewarnings! This promised report of my recent travels is fraught with such heartbreak and, yea, toebreak, that even I, partly-maimed, half-gobbled, and ferociously-nibbled as I am, have never known its equal in tragedy. But this tragedy is mixed with an enormous dollop of hope and even unexpected pecuniary blessings (that is, a fat purse of coins) and so I send them to you—coins, hope, and tragedy, sealed in a single envelope—with trust that you will greet my story, and my subsequent plea, with your fullest sympathy and aid.And so to my tale.
What was your favorite passage from the first half of this story! Share it in the comments!How would you design a School of Betterment? Did one of Jennifer's delightful words particularly grab you? Are you a saggy hound or a tahala? What Durgan sneakeries have you found in this tale? Come to the forum!

The stories are true.