Hi everyone, and welcome to the October issue of the Shanville Monthly!! This is the month when Birth of a Killer is released in the UK and USA --hurrah!! It's the first of a four book series about Mr Crepsley and his life before he met Darren Shan. I wrote the first draft way back in January 2007, so I've spent almost four years looking forward to this! For once, I think I might just be even more excited about the release of one of my books than you guys are!!! To support the release of the book, I am touring in the UK and Ireland at the end of September and through the first week of October. Then, in mid-November, I'm coming on tour to the USA. You can find info about both those tours below (although I don't have all the details about the American tour yet). There's also an incredible competition, being run by my UK publishers, HarperCollins, where winners will be given a chance to have a very special, intimate meeting with me during one of my UK tours next year -- and the most amazing thing about it is that they've opened it up to fans everywhere in the world, so you can enter no matter where you live!! And there are other cool prizes up for grabs even if you can't make the meeting, not least of which is an iPod touch!!! You can also now read my notes about the writing of Birth of a Killer...  you can read some early reviews of the book... you can find out about my upcoming first ever Twinterview on Twitter, and how YOU can take part...  and there's more!!! This is a real killer of an issue of the Shanville Monthly, which quite appropriately leads us to......

Birth Of A Killer is on sale in the UK, Ireland and USA NOW!!!!! For anyone who doesn't yet know, Birth is the first of the four book series about Larten Crepsley and his life before he met Darren Shan. It's an epic adventure series in every sense -- it covers 200 years, crosses continents all around the world, features a huge cast of characters, and more plot lines than you could shake a stake at!!! Over its course we will get to see how Larten first entered the world of vampires, how he rose through the ranks, and why he chose to walk away from the clan when he did. We'll meet characters old and new. We'll find out about the women Larten loved, the friends who were close to him, the troubled path he found himself on for much of his time.

Birth Of A Killer should now be on sale in all good book shops in Ireland, the UK and USA -- if you don't see it in your local store, please feel free to ask the staff to help you locate it, or else order in a copy for you if they are out of stock. Or, if you would rather order online, you can buy the UK edition from Amazon UK by CLICKING HERE. And you can buy the American edition from Amazon by CLICKING HERE.

I’ve added my author's notes for Birth of a Killer to my site. To find out how I came up with the ideas for the book (and, indeed, the whole series), and to learn a bit about the struggles I faced in bringing it to life, and to see how it began to take shape and came into this world… CLICK HERE!!!

The paperback edition of The Thin Executioner is now on sale in the UK and Ireland. If you haven’t checked out my first stand-alone novel yet, this will be as good a time as any to pick up a copy, hot off the presses!! It comes with a revised cover, to make it stand out more from the hardback edition, and I think the newly re-worked cover is fab!!! The book should be available in all good book shops, or you can order from Amazon UK by CLICKING HERE. Please note, the cover on Amazon is actually from the hardback edition. To see the VERY cool new paperback cover, CLICK HERE.

Waterstones in the UK have arranged for me to do a Twinterview—that is, an interview through their Twitter site—on October 7th at 4.30pm UK time. At that time, I'll be taking over the Waterstones Twitter page and replying to as many Tweeted questions as I can within the given hour. You can either send in your questions beforehand, or live during the session. If you want to shoot me over some questions of your own, CLICK HERE. Looking forward to exploring new territory and seeing you then!! And as far as I know, it’s open to fans anywhere in the world…

My UK publishers, HarperCollins, have launched a truly Shantastic competition this month! It's called SEARCH FOR A KILLER FAN! Basically, the test is to try and prove that YOU are the biggest Darren Shan fan in the world, by asking as many of your friends and contacts as you can to rate you as a vampire -- the more people you can convince to rate you, the higher up the leader board you will climb! To enter, you'll need to register with the Killer Fan site and grab a widget from it, then share the link via Facebook and Twitter to get as many of your friends as possible to rate your vampire skills. The more friends that rate you, the higher you climb on the leader board, and the most chance you have of getting into the top 10 and winning a place at a special event with... Darren Shan!!! That's right -- the Top 10 fans will get a chance to have a special meeting with me on a future book tour in 2011!! You can also win other stuff, including a limited edition T-shirt and a signed, framed book cover. And the #1 top fan will also win an incredibly cool iPod Touch!!! The competition is open to fans everywhere in the world, but the meeting will take place in the UK in 2011, so if the winners wish to come to it, they will have to make and pay for their own travel arrangements. But if you're a winner and can't come to the meeting, you will still receive the rest of the prizes, so don't let geography put you off entering!!

To enter the Search For A Killer Fan competition, CLICK HERE. Please note, this competition is being run by my UK publishers, HarperCollins. I am not personally involved in the organisation of it. If you have any queries, you will need to take them up with the good folk of HarperCollins.

In October I will be touring in the UK and Ireland again, to promote the release of the first book about Mr Crepsley, Birth Of A Killer. Every event of the tour will also be listed on the Events page of my site, where you will in some instances be able to find out more information, such as website or contact details. Please note, I'm always happy to sign as many books as fans choose to bring along, so yes, if you're happy to drag your entire collection along with you, I'm happy to sign them all!!! If I'm doing a talk, it usually lasts about an hour, and I then sign for as long as it takes to deal with everyone who has come.

Then, in November, I will be coming to the USA again on tour!! It will have been more than a couple of years since my last American tour (October 2008), so hopefully my fans Stateside will be chomping at the bit!! I can't confirm full details for all of the events yet, as we're still working on putting the tour together, but I've listed what has so far been confirmed. More dates and details will be announced over the coming month -- I will update this page and the Events pages as I get the information -- and the full tour wil be listed in full in the November issue of the Shanville Monthly. I'm not going to get very far west this time -- hopefully I can rectify that situation on my next tour!!

30^th September, Thursday

11.30am - Multi Schools Event, Castlebar Library, County Mayo, Ireland.

4.00pm - Public Signing - Easons, 33 Shop Street, Galway, Ireland.

1^st October, Friday

10.15am -  Multi Schools Event, Glor Arts Centre, Ennis, County Clare, Ireland.

4.00pm - Public Signing - Ennis Bookshop, 13 Abbey Street, Ennis, County Clare, Ireland.

2^ND October, Saturday

11.30am - Fan Event - Windsor Festival, Windsor. For web site, CLICK HERE.

4.00pm - Public Signing - WHSmith Brent Cross Shopping Centre, Hendon, London NW4 3FB.

3^rd October, Sunday

12.00pm - Public Signing - Waterstones, Aberdeen, 3-7 Union Bridge, Aberdeen AB11 6BG, Scotland.

10.30am - Multi Schools Event, North Inch Community Campus Theatre, Perth & Kinross, Scotland.

4.00pm - Public Signing - Waterstones Perth, St John'sCentre, Perth PH1 5UX, Scotland.

5^th October, Tuesday

10.00am - Multi Schools Event, The Magnum Leisure Centre, The Harbour, Irvine KA12 8PP, Scotland.

4.00pm - Public Signing - Waterstones, 38a The Plaza, East Kilbride G74 1LW, Scotland.

6^th October, Wednesday

1.45pm - Multi Schools Event at Cockermouth School.

6.30pm - Public Fan Event - Eco-Centre, Cockermouth.

1.00pm - Multi-schools event, Carr Hill, Kirkham, Lancashire.

6.00pm - Public Fan Event - Millfield High School, Thornton, Preston.

1.45pm - Schools Event with Bolton Libraries, Central Library Lecture Theatre, Le Mans Crescent, Bolton.

9^th October, Saturday

2.30pm - Public Fan Event, Playhouse Theatre, Cheltenham Festival. For web site, CLICK HERE.

11.00am - Public Signing, Waterstones, 4-5 Milsom Street, Bath BA1 1DA

*UPDATE -- NEW ADDITION*

30th October, Saturday

1.00pm -- Easons, Limerick, Ireland. A signing especially in honour of Halloween!!!

12^th November, Friday

10.19am - Two school events at Urban Assembly New York Harbor School.

5.00pm - Talk and signing at Mid-Manhattan Library, 455 Fifth Avenue (at 40th street), New York, NY 10016.

2.00pm - Talk and signing at Watchung Booksellers, 54 Fairfield Street, Montclair, NJ 07042.

6.30pm - Talk and signing at Barnes & Noble #2288, 911 Haddonfield Road, Cherry Hill, NJ 08002.

14^th November, Sunday

2.00pm - Talk and signing at Boston Public Library, 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA 02116. This will be held in the Teen Room on the Mezzanine Level.

15th November, Monday

11.45am - Two school events at Granby Jr/Sr High School, MA.

16th November, Tuesday

7.00pm - Talk and signing at Joseph-Beth Booksellers, 1 Town Center Boulevard, Suite 5800, Fredericksburg, VA 22407.

17th November, Wednesday

6.30pm -- Talk and signing at Fountain Bookstore, 1312 E Cary St, Richmond, VA 23219.

18th November, Thursday

a.m -- School event at Hopewell High School, 11530 Beatties Ford Road, Huntersville, NC 28078.

5.30pm -- Talk and signing at Park Road Books, 4139 Park Road, Charlotte, NC 28209.

19th November, Friday

09.30 - Public schools event at Student Literary Encounters, Chapman Conference Center, Room 3210. Open to ALL high school students. Reservations necessary: http://www.miamibookfair.com/events/sle_darren_shan_presents_birth_of_a_kill.aspx

20^th November, Saturday

1.30pm - Panel event with Scott Westerfeld and Ellen Hopkins at Miami Book fair International, Miami-Dade Community College, 300 Northeast Second Avenue, Miami, FL 33132. The event will be held in the Prometeo Theater, Room 1101.

210st November, Sunday

10.00am - Meeting a fan through the Make A Wish Foundation.

7.30pm - Attending an LBYR dinner.

22nd November, Monday

08.30am -- I will be giving a 30 minutes talk at the NCTE Annual Convention, Orlando FL, called "Finding Myself Among Friends And Freaks".

Click here for Full Details of all upcoming events information. This list will be updated whenever an event is confirmed.

I’ve added new Fan Art to the site—hurrah!! It actually hasn’t been TOO long since I added the last batch, so hopefully the days of tectonic-size gaps are behind us! It’s much easier to upload fan art to the new site, so I’ve no excuse not to stay on top of things now! Anyway, this time I’ve added art to most of the sections on the site, and also re-organized things a bit to make them easier to view. To check it out, CLICK HERE.

I’ve also added lots of new covers to the site, from countries as diverse as Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Russia, Slovakia, Thailand, Turkey and the good old US of A!! To check them all out, along with every other Darren Shan cover there’s ever been from any country anywhere (as long as they’re officially published!!) CLICK HERE.

I recently gave an interview to a Slovakian fantasy and sci-fi site called Fantasy Svet -- if memory serves me right, this is my first Slovakian interview! You can check it out here: http://www.fantasy-svet.net/novinka/autor/759/Interview-with-Darren-Shan.html

And that's it for October!! I'm looking forward to getting back out on tour -- it's always the most enjoyable part of the job for me!! I hope to see loads of you at my events in the UK and Ireland -- and I hope you all enjoy Birth Of A Killer as much as I enjoyed writing it, whether you can make it to one of my events or not!! I'll be back here at the end of October with all the latest news and updates. Until then, all my bloody best, Darren Shan x x x

 

Follow Darren Shan on MySpace and Twitter and on his Blog. He also has a YouTube page.