I did an online event with a class of kids at Brimington Junior School last month, and their teacher sent me the following letter a few days later. What a lovely response!! It's always amazing to get follow-up feedback like this after an event -- usually I don't get to find out how my chat went down and what the students got out of it. I especially like Archie's comment near the end!!

(I had a weird start to the Q&A session with the kids. The first boy up was Archie, so course I told him that the main character in my most recent series was called Archie. Then the next girl up was called Lexi, and there's a character called Lexi in a book that I'm working on at the moment!! I had a glorious yet terrifying thought -- what if EVERY kid in this class shares a name with a character from one of my books?!?)

Schools are out for the summer, so I won't be doing any more events like this for a while, but if YOU are a teacher or librarian, and you're interested in trying to set up an online event with me when the kids return after their break, just drop me a line at [email protected] and I'll do my best to sort something out with you.

YA HORROR 400

665 DELIGHTFUL DEMONS

A fan of my books, called LINDEA, was idly scanning the shelves of her local goodwill bookshop recently, when to her shock she spotted THIS -- one of the limited edition copies of Bec that my British publishers, HarperCollins, released back in 2006. And it turned out to be a really cool number too -- 665, the second-last of the 666 copy edition!!

I was delighted for Lindea, and also rather impressed by the clarity of my signature! I have very messy handwriting at the best of times (occasionally I've had fans come up to me with books that I signed for them at previous events, asking me to transcribe the message that I wrote for them!) and I signed all 666 copies of the book on the same day. By this stage of the process, I'm surprised my signature wasn't a barely legible scrawl!!

Anyway, it was lovely to see this again almost 20 years later. If any of you are keen to try tracking down a copy yourself, hit those charity stores for all your worth!! If that fails, you might enjoy some luck on a site like Abebooks or Alibris. There were also limited editions (again, 666 copies each) of Lord Loss and Demon Thief. (For some weird reason my publishers didn't do one for Slawter.) There was one for Hell's Heroes too, but there were only 50 copies of that one, and they hardly ever come up for resale -- you can expect to spend at least several hundred pounds on it if one ever does, unless you make a VERY lucky find in your local charty shop or second-hand bookstore!!

VIJAY ZOM-B REVIEW

VIJAY is back with another short video review, this time for Zom-B Chronicles I, an omnibus edition that collected the first three books of the series. To find out what Vijay thought of the books, CLICK HERE

CHLOE'S DEMONATA VLOG

I recently watched a lovely, lengthy vlog from CHLOE, talking about my Demonata series and how much it meant to her as a child. It starts with a short piece about Roald Dahl, but then the rest of it is pretty much demons!!! To watch it, CLICK HERE

STORYTELLERS SANCTUARY

A podcaster called JACK, whose podcast is called Storytellers Sanctuary, devoted an episode to Cirque Du Freak, the book that he says turned him into an avid reader. It's long -- almost 1 hour 20 minutes!! -- so brew yourself a nice cup of hot chocolate, settle back into a comfortable chair, and hit PLAY when you get to the podcast by CLICKING HERE

DEMONATA AUDIO SUMMARY

I seem to get asked about audio books for The Demonata every other day! I've summarised before, but here's the skinny again for those who missed it previously...

The first 6 books were released as audio CDs in the UK many years ago. My publishers decided to stop at that point, much to my dismay. They have never been made available to buy through sites like Audible. I've urged my publishers to rectify this situation many times over the years, but so far I've enjoyed no success. I plan to go back to them soon to ask again and make as strong a case as I can, so if you would like to see the series finished and made available on Audible, keep those fingers (and toes) crossed!!! But given my previous failures to convince them, don't hold your breath!!!

FINNICKY FINNISH REVIEW

A Finnish blogger reviewed my Saga Of Darren Shan / Cirque Du Freak series last year. It wasn't an entirely gushing review, with the blogger highlighting what, in their view, were some weaknesses, but overall it was pretty upbeat. If you'd like to check it out, CLICK HERE -- my browser offered me the option of translating it into English, and while it was a far from perfect translation, it did the job well enough.

SHAN IRAN FANS

Thirty-six Iranian Shansters met up last month to chat about my books, copyright law and lots more. It's lovely to see that I still have a solid fanbase in Iran (even if most of my books were published illegally there). For a short video on Twitter, in which the fans very sweetly spell out their feelings for me, CLICK HERE.

CDF BLU-RAY

ZOMBIES VS PEPPA PIG

FAN MAIL

Back in the day I used to get lots of letters and lengthy emails from fans of my books. That's changed with social media, as most of you now contact me via Facebook or Twitter, where your messages tend to be more truncated. But I do still get the occasional old-school letter or long email, and one was sent to me a few months back by a Mum of a young boy who had just discovered the joy of reading. It's the kind of email that reminds me, on my glummer days, why I became a writer and how important my stories have been to my readers, and gives me a kick up the bum to say that I should be busy writing, not sitting around moping!!! :-)

"Dear Darren, my son Noah, age 9 (nearly 10) is a very competent reader, however he has never chosen to read for pleasure despite my encouragement. We've been to bookshops and libraries on numerous occasions, where he would choose a book that he seemed interested in, only for it to sit unread at home. Even my offers of reading it to him weren't enough to change his mind, he was totally uninterested. Until last week.

"He came home from school and started talking about a book that his teacher was reading to his class, he was keen to tell me about the characters and storyline. He was consistent in talking about it for three days, and while on my lunch break I came across a copy in a charity shop, so I bought it for him, and I have never seen him so thrilled to receive a book.

"That book was Cirque du Freak, and he eagerly started to read it the moment we got home. He was eagerly telling me about the plot, he was reading aloud to me, so keen to involve me in every chapter. He completed it in three evenings!

"Having seen how interested he was, I wanted to encourage him, so I purchased the complete set for his birthday. I ended up giving him the set yesterday as an early birthday present as he just would not stop talking about how he couldn't wait to find out what happens next. He was over the moon. The minute he got up this morning he started book two, and as I write this he's halfway through it. He has read the blurb on every book, and talked non stop about what he thinks will happen, and what he hopes will happen.

"I just wanted to say a huge thank you for writing a series of books that has captivated the most reluctant reader, and hopefully sparked a love of reading that will continue. I'd better leave it at that as I'm now being told that Darren has returned to Cirque du Freak, and is sharing a room with Evra the snake boy! Thank you so much, Zoe."

IT'S A WRAP!

And that's it for July. The Shan will be in holiday mode this month, spending the first half of the month in London. We started getting into the spirit of things even earlier than that though, with a Green Day concert and a day trip to the Emerald Park theme park coming shortly before we take to the skies -- that's a photo of Mrs Shan and I, and our son Dante, taken on their very cool (and very wet!) log flume ride. I'll hopefully see you back here at the start of August for the next issue of my monthly newsletter. Until then, all my bloody best, Darren Shan. x x x

Follow Darren Shan on Facebook and Twitter. He also has a (very rarely updated!) YouTube page.

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