Kage Baker – there, my ritual salutation is in place.
My ex-agent, Linn Prentis, died Christmas Eve. I just found out today. I am sad and sorry, though we did not part on the best of terms: maybe, sadder and sorrier because we did … but she was good to and for Kage. I hope she is happier now, off at a really good cocktail party in a New York filled with glittering friends, somewhere where her back no longer hurts.
Tor Books returned my book Knight & Dei, with a polite “No”. On the other hand, they now have a novella program, so my agent is sending them “The Teddy Bear Squad”. And if we can land another editor with that– maybe one with a less refined sense of humour – my picaresque novel may yet sell.
And Tor is re-issuing Kage’s books in e-format, with quite lovely new covers. So her backlist is alive and in good health, huzzah!
Also, Hungary has made an offer to buy The Women of Nell Gwynne’s. Whoopie! Another foreign market – that always thrilled Kage.
Me, I feel like an egg dropped on a sharp rock tonight. So I am going to curl up and stare at the penultimate night of the Christmas lights, and probably go to bed early.
Happy 11th Day of Christmas, Dear Readers. Not all of 2017 is starting out bad, after all.
Kathleen, Kage and the Company 
I am sorry to hear about Linn. We spoke a few times when I was trying to persuade an Australian acquaintance to pick up the film rights for ‘Anvil.’ The story of the return of the GARDEN manuscript, with “Not a Rejection” scrawled on the envelope, always makes me smile.
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That was an act of amazing kindness, and why Kage stayed with Linn. And she was a damned good agent for Kage, for a long time. But she’d been unhappy and ill for quite some time; I hope she is happier now.
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I’m sorry to hear about Linn. Good agents are harder to find than unicorns.
The Teddy Bear Squad will get picked up by somebody. Have you tried British publishers? The Brits tend to have a keener sense of humor than the Americans.
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MisK – yep, we try all sorts of avenues! The Brits like Kage’s stuff a lot, but they have cooled quite a bit lately toward American writers in general ….
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I’m sorry. Glad to hear about Kage’s backlist. Will Dark Mondays be reissued? I recently realized I don’t have it. I could get it from AbeBooks, but want you to be paid…
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Why, thank you! On behalf of all authors and authors’ survivors … as far as I know, no, Dark Mondays is not on the re-issue list. It was published not by Tor, but by the now-defunct Night Shade Books. I think Night Shade was eaten by Skyhorse Publishing, although it may have transmuted yet again since then … the little houses cross-breed like all small, frantic organisms. While Night Shade’s website doesn’t show Kage’s work, Skyhorse’s does: http://skyhorsepublishing.com/author?author=9584-baker-kage
You should be able to buy it directly from them. If it doesn’t work, let me know – I may yet have copies in storage.
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