The melody fierce and joyful

With this excerpt we come to the end of "The Places Beyond the Maps" as well as the end of Wingfeather Tales. We've had some good forum discussion about these stories—conversations about dragon hunting, the risks of friendship, where we got stuck and what we loved. You Featherheads! I enjoy you. It's good to dig into this stuff together.What a full, rich story this last one was. So hard. So unexpectedly graceful at times, even in the midst of those hard places. Like the glorious number One Thousand, so satisfying to count to. I was hoping for a paragraph or two that would close out our book club with poignancy and beauty, and this part was perfect.

The man was curled on his side in the middle of a shallow river whose waters rushed dark and behind him the darkness grew while before him a clear light spread like the refractions of diamonds and yet there was no source to it but it was everywhere, and he knew that he had been crossing that river though he had no memory of his first steps into those waters or of why he had lain down in it.He tilted his head and listened now because there was a lovely music, and at first it had seemed far away but it drew steadily nearer and the man felt himself stirred by the melody fierce and joyful, and he sensed in it the beginning of something like a kindling of a flame in his bones, a stirring that was both within and without and that was calling him to rise and he thought that it must be the music of the whatever-came-next, the music of the forever wild and unmapped lands, of the places beyond all maps, urging him on across that last river, and it came to him with a sense both of nostalgia and of expectation that it was a music he had known before or perhaps always known and had always heard in the wind and the stars and in the beating of his own heart like a melody that had never ceased playing though he could not quite yet name it, and he craned his head towards the source of it and opened his eyes.
What was your favorite part of this week's reading? Post it in the comments!I hope you were able to join us for Tuesday's live chat! The videos are still available on the Wingfeather Saga Facebook page (here and here).See you in the forum!

On collaboration: Douglas McKelvey

TOMRORROW NIGHT at 7:30 Central, Andrew will be hosting a LIVE CHAT with author Douglas Kaine McKelvey. Doug wrote our Wingfeather Tale "The Places Beyond the Maps." He is also in the process of republishing his book The Angel Knew Papa and the Dog.https://youtu.be/tym_7loNi4cRecently at the Rabbit Room, Doug reflected on the trepidation and blessing of finding a new illustrator whom he could trust with his story. He asked,

...what makes the difference in any successful artistic collaboration versus those that fail?Undoubtedly there are many nuanced factors that might come into play, but I’m convinced it’s mostly about the ability, and the simple willingness, of the collaborator to enter into a creation that is not their own, and to find a way to translate it into a new language that is their own. Which is maybe the same as to say that you actually have to bring your full self to the project. And to do that, you actually have to care about the original piece. You have to foster a deep connection to it. You have to crawl inside it emotionally. You have to go to that daunting and dangerous place where you are actually risking something creatively, rather than just coasting on the rote mechanics of your craft, phoning in something that’s passable (but that doesn’t add any new layer of richness to the original vision). At the end of the day, it can’t just be about collecting your paycheck. ...As an author, one always secretly hopes in these situations that the artist will not settle for merely illustrating the text, but will instead set out to make the project their own, moving beyond mere competence and into the realm of deep creation, yielding that visual poetry that has its own interior substrata of symbolic meaning.

wingfeather-tales-cover-lightAs I was reading this, I couldn't help but think of "The Places Beyond the Maps." Thank you, Doug. You brought your full self to your Wingfeather Tale, and we are deeply grateful for your kindness and the generous gift of your collaboration.(You can read the rest of his article here.)Join us on Facebook Live tomorrow night as Andrew and Doug talk about "The Places Beyond the Maps."

This week is the last week of our Wingfeather Tales book club! Madame Sidler will be reading part five of "The Places Beyond the Maps." See you tomorrow at the live chat, here on Friday for an excerpt, and all week in the forum. :-)

The tricorn

I love the epigraph for this section. It might be my favorite—there is something about it that is so exquisite and heartbreaking. But an epigraph is not an excerpt, so I picked this instead.

His clothes were stiff with sweat salt and stank and he had given this no consideration for months but in this place he felt the offense of his own stench and so removed his outer garments for washing. But once he had done so his right hand chanced into the pocket of his submerged breeches and his fingers closed on the tattered silk tricorn and he drew it again from its long dormancy and stared at it sopped and dripping in his fingers, and his thoughts fell mute as any animal, mute even to himself, until he realized he was weeping and then did all his sorrow overtake him again in the stirring beauty of that place only this time it was because of the vast and irreconcilable gulf between the word spoken by the beauty of the meadow grove and the word spoken by his own loss, and he knew himself then as alien to this landscape and without purchase in the bliss of it and sensing his own exile he wondered what airy creatures unacquainted with sorrow could ever dwell long in such a place, and then he wiped his eyes and looked upwards and fixed his intention a final time towards that clouded summit and the great question he was sworn to ask there.
Was there a passage this week that stuck out to you? If it isn't too spoilery, post it in the comments. If it is spoilery, post it in the forum—I would love to hear what you think. There are good conversations to be had.This coming Tuesday (April 11) at 7:30 Central, Andrew and Douglas McKelvey will be having a live chat on Facebook! See you there!

Wingfeather cards!

If you've been wishing for your own Wingfeather character cards but missed out on the Kickstarter, just look—they're now available in the Rabbit Room store! Quantities are limited, so pounce on these while you can. How will you use your cards?trading cards

Henry cover mediump.s. Today is release day for Andrew's sister-in-law's book, Henry and the Chalk Dragon! In the words of Andrew Peterson, "[Bookbindery Guildmaster] Pete and I have always said she can write circles around the rest of us." If you enjoyed Jennifer Trafton's "The Wooing of Sophelia Stupe," you'll love her new story. While you're at the Rabbit Room picking up these character cards, check out Henry, too. :-)

Live chat next week!

Next Tuesday (April 11) at 7:30 Central on the Wingfeather Saga Facebook page, Andrew will be hosting a LIVE CHAT with Douglas McKelvey, the author of the Wingfeather Tale "The Places Beyond the Maps." This week, I want to make sure everyone is set up to join us when the chat starts.Step one: Like the Wingfeather Saga Facebook Page.You can search for us, or just click here. Then, click the Like button.Step two: Make sure you'll be notified when the live video starts.This option may be selected automatically, but let's be certain. Right next to the Like button is the Follow button. Click the little down arrow next to the word "Following." You'll see two sets of settings: One for how often you'll see Wingfeather posts in your news feed, and one for notifications. Make sure "All On" is selected, like so:Screenshot 2017-04-02 23.17.47That's it! Once you've done or double-checked those two steps, you should be all set for April 11 at 7:30. Facebook will send you a notification when the live video starts. We can't wait to see you there!

This week, Madame Sidler will be reading part four of "The Places Beyond the Maps." Come back on Friday for an excerpt, and to share one of your own! Meanwhile, see you in the forum. :-)

Nightmoths

This section sounds sometimes like a western and sometimes like The Princess and Curdie. An excellent combination. And have you noticed how silent this story is? Each section has at least one conversation in it, but in between are stretches of weeks and months where there is hardly any sound even outside the man. The soundtrack to this film would be very sparse. I find this effective and would like to know what you think.

Along the way were wonders the man had never heard rumor of. Great plumes of steaming water that blasted upwards from barren rock. Small silverish creatures that looked as if they were made of molten metal and slid over rocky terrain like dripping rivulets. Swarms of glowing nightmoths that numbered in the millions and wrought the fields strange with luminance where there should have been shadow so that it seemed as if he rode at times the underside of some other world in which darkness shone and those things too solid for darkness to pass through cast about them instead shadows of fluttering light.One night the man and horse were followed by a dozen lithe limberwolves more inquisitive than aggressive and the man gripped his blade unsheathed and kept alert to their movements in the field but was more curious of the bearing of the pale horse when it was asked to hold its nerve in such a hostile surround.The horse rolled its eyes and laid its ears back but trusted the man’s calming voice and did not spook and after more than a league of such tense company the wolves caught some other scent and wheeled away to the north, leaving the travelers to their journey.They slept that night in a meadow illumined by nightmoths and when they set out the next morning they crossed into a dead forest of blackened, moistureless trees and rode it for three days till the horse’s hooves were smutted by the passage over an endless carpet of ash that muffled all sound in that stillness. They slept in the ash and they breathed in the ash and they saw no creatures stir in that grey place save an unkindness of ravens alighting on spindly branches from which dark cinders dispersed and floated downwards like snow misremembered.
What was your favorite passage this week? Post it below! And then come hang out with us in the forum!Henry cover mediumDid you know that Jennifer Trafton, the author of "The Wooing of Sophelia Stupe," has a brand-new book coming out on Tuesday? It's called Henry and the Chalk Dragon, and it is wonderful. You can preorder a signed copy at the Rabbit Room. Preorders come with two free coloring pages!

The stories are true.