Tour Day 3 - Oregon

Early to rise today - 5 a.m.! Bryan Davis aka "The Android," was up at 4 a.m. Waaaaaay too much to pack into our supposed '15 passenger van.' Yeah right... maybe 15 dwarfs or smallish elves. The Miller Brothers - Hunter Brown Stories - were gracious enough to let us crash at their place and then we made a made dash from Seattle to Portland, OR for an 11a.m. - 1 p.m. "meet and great" at the gazebo at Bridgeport Village Mall. Wayne Thomas Batson provided the crowds of this open air mall with a boisterous dramatic reading and then we jumped back in the van for the 4 hour drive to Medford, OR and the Evangel Family Bookstore.

The folks at the Evangel Family Bookstore couldn't have been better to set up this awesome event. Tons of fans showed up and gathered outside the storefront in the large Mall area in front of Macy's. Tables were set up in a semi-circle and the area was roped off for great banter and swordplay between Wayne and Christopher Hopper. Again, Jonathan Rogers provided us with a dramatic reading.

To the left is a picture with Megan, one of two sisters who stopped by, chat and get a book signed.

The store front was awesome... displaying all of our books in such a classy way and each member of the Evangel team made us feel so welcome from their bright smiles to the food and drinks to keep us going. Thanks so much for your hospitality! Tomorrow we get to sleep in until 6 a.m. and then it's off to California!

Tour Day 2 - Seattle Area

What a whirlwind trip today! Heading down from Canada to a TBN television interview, while picking up some of the additional tour members at the airport - Wayne Thomas Batson and L.B. Graham.

The bookstores were awesome... first stop was The Harvest Logos bookstore (see photo above). There were many distracted drivers as a mock sword fight erupted among a few of the authors outside. After a few hours of meeting fans and signing books, we headed out on an hour trip down south of town to Enumclaw and a beautiful bookstore - The Salt Shaker Christian Bookstore. Dramatic readings by Jonathan Rogers and Wayne Thomas Batson highlighted the night as well as a sword fight between Christopher Hopper and Wayne, which broker out over whether long-hair or a bald head served fantasy fiction better!

It' time for bed... 11:30 pm and we need to get up at 5:30 am to head down to Portland! Eric

Tour Day 1 - Abbotsford, BC (Canada)

What a fun-filled first day to kick off the Fantasy Fiction Tour. Six of the eight authors flew in to Seattle from all over the country (I believe I flew the furthest, from Orlando) and we picked up the Miller Brothers (Christopher & Alan) who live in Seattle and just finished their first book. We all hopped in our 15-passenger van (driven by Bryan Davis) and headed north. Pictured here is Donita K. Paul - The Dragon Keeper Chronicles and Sharon Hinck - The Restorer Series.

We had to leave our swords in Seattle, due to customs at the Canadian border. Judging by the face of the border guard, they take security very seriously! After road construction traffic, we made our way through the lush green countryside, surrounded by mountains on the horizen and showed up 10 minutes before we were due to speak. The Mennonite Education Institute (MEI) Middle School was impressive. Great facilities, wonderful leadership kids to take us around, and a very friendly staff. Each of us spoke for 25 minutes to two different classrooms with 40 kids or so in them and then joined together in the library afterwards to spend time in small groups of 3 kids per author for in-depth discussions on writing. We then headed to our hotel to check in for a short 1-1/2 hr break before heading back to the school.

At 5:30 pm we had a fun-filled hour of pizza with prize winners from the St. James Bookstore that were invited to "dinner with the authors." We then made our way into the auditorium for a 2 hour time of storytelling and Q & A, led by our MC - Christopher Hopper. If you haven't checked it out, go to http://www.fantasyfictiontour.com/ and you can watch all of our presentations "live" and even send in questions while we speak. During the Q & A we answered half a dozen questions from the web. At the end we spent time talking and signing books for all the great fans who had attended. A super way to start the tour... at 7 am tomorrow (Sat) we head South to Seattle for an interview with TBN at noon! Oh... and my roommate for the trip so far? Jonathan Rogers - The Wilderking Trilogy.

New Artwork for Book 2 !

How do you like the new artwork for book 2? I'd love to get your feedback.

The publisher has not put the title on yet...
but the top half will be the front side of the book cover and the bottom half will be on the back.

As in book 1, I like this format, because then I can make cool bookmarkers. In fact, they just came in!

"Ryann Watters and the Shield of Faith" will be out in the Spring of 2009. The above scene is from Chapter 16. Ryann is riding the White Pegasus -- Adain, and Liddy and Terell are riding the little mentioned White Dragon from book 1 -- Sorcha. The new villian is a Black Unicorn by the name of Narcissus.

I love the background with the two moons and the detail of the castle, just peaking around the side of the mountain. Your thoughts?

COMING SOON... Ryann Watters Book Trailer

I'm excited to announce that the "Ryann Watters and the King's Sword," book trailer will be coming out shortly. *** UPDATE*** I was at the filmographer's house last night... it's lookin' really cool. Above you will see my three actors: Terell, Liddy, and Ryann, on location in downtown Mount Dora (in front of the Goblin Market). The closing scene has all three of them jumping into the alligator infested waters of Lake Dora (I forgot to mention that in the book!).

By the way... the cute girl in the middle playing the part of Liddy... is my daughter! *** UPDATE 2 *** It's up!!!

Thanks to our Fantasy Tour Sponsors!

We have some great sponsors onboard for the Motiv8 Fantasy Fiction Tour this year. If you haven't checked out REAL ARMOR OF GOD - go to their website at http://www.realarmorofgod.com/ or click the link on my blog. The sword pictured here is a replica from the "First Knight" movie and each author is being provided with one to take on the tour. Hopefully none of us will make the nightly news as we attempt to carry them across country on planes!

The shield above was perfect for me. My second book, "Ryann Watters and the Shield of Faith," will be out in the Spring of 2009 and the hero in the story is a White Unicorn. They also have authentic costumes, shields, boots, armor and more. Even if you just want to browse, take a few minutes to check 'em out and then pass the word along.

A new sponsor this year is Hotel Burgess in Reedley , CA. Personally, I'm looking forward to visiting with them in October. Check out their website at http://www.hotelburgess.com/ and the town website at http://www.reedleydowntown.com/.

Another new sponsor this year is Character-4-Kids. The tour is partnering with this non-profit 501C(3) to provide books of "high moral character to youth that are at a disadvantage physically or financially." Through this partnerhsip, we are looking to have the tour stop at a Children's Hospital and After School Reading program in two of the cities we visit. You can find out more about them at http://www.character-4-kids.org/ and make inquires into how to make a charitable donation and also have an author visit a local hospital or inner city youth program in your area to speak and provide free books.

EJR

Meeting Cover Artist Corey Wolfe!

On my recent family vacation to the Northwest, I had the pleasure to meet my cover artist, Corey Wolfe, "in the flesh." Corey lives just across the river from Portland, OR, in Washington and has a very cool art studio out back behind his house. The picture above includes a lifesize model of the Silver Surfer (Corey bought it from a movie theatre after seeing the film - the surfboard alone is 9' feet long!).

To this point, Corey and I had only dialogued and e-mailed in regards to the cover of "Ryann Watters and the King's Sword." You can see the making of the cover in the section "Artist's Corner" at http://www.ryannwatters.com/. As you can see from the photo, Corey wasn't a finalist for an NBA team :) but he isn't short on talent!

We were able to sit down for awhile and discuss the cover for book 2 in The Annals of Aeliana series, "Ryann Watters and the Shield of Faith." He has sent me the first draft and it looks really cool! I just finished Chapter 9 and my plans are to have it completed in November so that we can have a Spring pre-release (at my site and book signings) and then a store release May 1, 2009. After 9 Chapters, book 2 is already almost the length of book 1, so look for a much longer read this time around.

Other cool stuff... check out my new Zazzle store (thanks to Donita K Paul for telling me how to set it up) at http://www.zazzle.com/ericreinhold. I will continue to update it with fantasy art stuff (my characters, dragons, and so on!). EJR