Signed Copies of THE RAVEN'S TALE & a TV Appearance

If you're interested in purchasing a signed copy of The Raven's Tale—my new novel about teenage Edgar Allan Poe—the following bookstores have made ordering autographed editions easy.

⚜SIGNED COPIES⚜

✎ Fountain Bookstore, Virginia

✎ Books of Wonder, New York

If you're unable to purchase a copy, I'm happy to report that numerous libraries across the U.S. have already ordered the novel for their shelves! Visit the WorldCat page for TheRaven's Tale to see if your nearest library is stocking the book. If they aren't, most libraries have online forms for requesting the purchase of new titles.

⚜TV INTERVIEW⚜

At the tail end of my April cross-country tour for The Raven's Tale, AM Northwest, a Portland TV show hosted by Helen Raptis, interviewed me about the book. You can watch what I had to say about writing a novel about the legendary Edgar Allan Poe.

⚜PRAISE FOR THE RAVEN'S TALE⚜

“ . . . well-researched and darkly entertaining . . .”
—Publishers Weekly

“Brooding, macabre, romantic, and surprisingly whimsical . . . a must-read for Poe fans and Poe newcomers alike.”
—Kendare Blake
#1 New York Times bestselling author of the Three Dark Crowns series

“A darkly delicious tale. ”
—Kerri Maniscalco
#1 New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Stalking Jack the Ripper series

“Winters’s smart, silvery, slithering prose finds beauty in the grotesque—and what is art if not that?”
—Daniel Kraus
Co-author of the New York Times bestseller The Shape of Water

“A captivating and intensively researched tribute to the famous poet and his Gothic muse.”
—A.G. Howard
Author of the international and New York Times bestselling Splintered series

“A labor of literary love that will appeal to fans of Gothic horror . . .”
—Kirkus Reviews

“A rattling good tale that is worthy of the master poet himself.”
—Dwight L. MacPherson
Author of The Imaginary Voyages of Edgar Allan Poe, co-host of The Raven Lunatics

“Eerie, macabre, and appropriately esoteric.”
—Booklist

“Haunting and inventive.”
—Leanna Renee Hieber
Award-winning author of Darker Still and Strangely Beautiful

“The Raven’s Tale transports readers to the haunted streets of Antebellum Richmond, the city that shaped the teenaged Poe’s melancholy outlook and inspired his chilling poetry.”
—Chris Semtner
Curator of the Edgar Allan Poe Museum, Richmond, Virginia

“A darkly seductive read, bringing a highly relatable Poe to life for the modern teenager.”
—Dawn Kurtagich
Award-winning author of The Dead House

“Teen fans of Poe’s poetry will learn about his life, and the included verses will create new fans.”
—School Library Journal

“Winters effectively infuses Poe’s macabre aesthetic into her fictional retelling of his life.”
—The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

⚜ORDER ONLINE⚜

AMAZON
BARNES & NOBLE
INDIEBOUND
POWELL'S
BOOK DEPOSITORY
INDIGO
BAM
AMAZON UK
KOBO

(Raven animation: "The Raven II," by luisbc)

My TV Appearance on Oregon Art Beat

Me at the Oregon Historical Society. Photo by Krysta Maksim.

Last night a local TV series called Oregon Art Beat featured me on their latest episode, and they did a fabulous job with the segment. They hired a teen actress to read excerpts from The Cure for Dreaming, and they filmed me at various sites in Portland, Oregon, that play a part in the novel. If you look carefully, you can even catch sneak peeks of my 2016 YA novel, The Steep and Thorny Way, on the screen of my laptop.

Unfortunately, the video player they use isn't working when I try to embed it on my website, so you'll need to head over to the segment on the Oregon Art Beat website.

The writers who appear with me at the coffeehouse are Teri Brown, Miriam Forster, and Kelly Garrett. Teri is the one talking about bloodletting. :)

The segment was filmed on location at the Oregon Historical Society, Portland's White House, downtown Portland, and various other locations, including my own house. Huge thanks to producer Katrina Sarson at OPB for choosing to feature me!

VIEW THE VIDEO HERE

(From left) Me, Teri Brown, Kelly Garrett, videographer Todd Sonflieth, and Miriam Forster.

Producer Katrina Sarson at Portland's White House.

My Novel's Time Period Is Showing Up in Movies and on TV...Tonight!

It's one thing to study a time period's look (i.e., the clothing, the hairstyles, the home furnishings, the lack of indoor plumbing!) by poring over pictures in books and reading about all the minute details. But to see your historical era of choice portrayed in a movie or on a TV series is especially satisfying. Observing the way a particular style of skirt moves when a woman walks or the way her complicated hair arrangement stays in place can be extremely helpful in imagining life for your historical character.

I happen to have chosen an era that occurred after the invention of movies, so I have the advantage of seeing people from 1918 in action. For example, here's a 50-second glimpse at women involved in the YWCA during WWI:



The film is a really short peek at 1918, but like I said, I can see a woman's hairstyle from all angles in this clip, and I can watch the way a female walks in WWI-era clothing.

Furthermore, I currently have the opportunity to watch two different WWI-set dramas made in modern times, both at my local theater and on my TV tonight: War Horse and Downton Abbey. The number of movies set during WWII is staggering, but it's usually really hard to find modern-made tales involving the first world war.

I saw War Horse last week (and sobbed like crazy), and tonight I'll be curling up on my couch, switching on PBS, and traveling to WWI-era Europe, paying attention to everything from the rumble of automobile engines to the way everyone's hats fit on their heads.

My Long, Grueling Writing Road and the 21 JUMP STREET Writer Who Gave Me Advice

Once upon a time, when I was a teenager and some good-looking guy named Johnny Depp starred in a TV series called 21 Jump Street, I met a writer of that series at my friend's house. The writer knew my friend's parents, and I remember him sitting on their couch and telling me, "The best writing advice I can give you is to never give up." I believe I responded, "I won't," for I knew deep in my gut that I wouldn't and couldn't.

Decades passed, hairstyles dramatically improved, a recession came and went and then returned with a vengeance, people started needing to take off their shoes and half their clothes just to make it through airport security. Yet one thing stayed the same: I remained a struggling writer.

Recently, I got back in touch with my high school friend and asked her, "Didn't your parents know a screenwriter who wrote for shows like 21 Jump Street? Do you remember his name? I'm not totally imagining that incident, am I?" She wrote back, saying, "I am glad you did not give up. His name is Gary Hall."

Mr. Gary Hall: Thank you, thank you, thank you for planting that "never give up" advice inside my head. Since that day I met you, I've written countless manuscripts geared toward adult audiences, won several writing awards, received dozens and dozens of rejections, signed with two different agents, married my college sweetheart, given birth to two remarkable children, and pulled at my hair, wondering why, why my books are considered too risky and too unmarketable for publishers. Several times I considered giving up. I didn't understand why my brain was telling me to write when no one wanted to publish my words.

But...I also flew to a Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators conference in January 2010. Over dinner, I told my agent an idea for a young adult novel involving a teenage girl and the dark, bizarre world of early-twentieth-century spiritualism. I saw the excitement in my agent's eyes and dove back into the new manuscript as soon as I returned home. I shared the book with critique partners, revised, showed the book to my agent, revised again, and just this past fall sold that book to Amulet Books/Abrams. I did not give up. As recently as this past September, I cried on the phone while telling one of my best friends I felt like I was wasting my life by chasing this agonizing dream, but I still kept going.

Richard Bach wrote, "A professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit." We writers hear quotes like that all the time and absorb the words of wisdom into our souls, but sometimes we want to shout out, "Wait a minute. I'm not giving up, but I'm still not getting anywhere!" You know what? The advice is true. I'm proof that determination, time, blood, sweat, tears, and the pure, incomparable joy of spinning tales can indeed eventually lead to a deal with an amazing publishing company.

In celebration of Gary Hall and his advice that never left my brain, I'm sharing the 21 Jump Street opening credits below. Thank you again, Mr. Hall! To the other struggling writers out there: if writing feels as essential as breathing, keep plugging away.

Oh, and enjoy the Johnny Depp clips. I wonder whatever happened to that kid. ;)