The Quantum League! And some other stuff.

First things first. The news is out, so I’m excited to announce my next writing project. From Publishers Weekly:

Lisa Sandell at Scholastic Press has acquired a three-book middle-grade fantasy series called The Quantum League by Matthew J. Kirby, author of The Clockwork Three and Icefall. In the series, two best friends fight modern-day magicians in a magical crime saga; it will debut in 2014. Stephen Fraser of the Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency brokered the deal.

That doesn’t say an awful lot about it, but it’s still pretty early to go into more detail. So I’ll just add that I’ve always wanted to write a crime saga. Something with daring heists, criminal underworlds, and evil masterminds. The trick was to write one in a way that was exciting and fresh to me. That’s where the magicians come in. And I’ve been fascinated by quantum physics for a while now, so that found its way into the story, too. It’s going to be a lot of fun to write, something fast-paced and exciting. I’ve begun work on it, and like PW said, the first book will come out in 2014, with the next installments coming out a year apart after that.

I have to also say how happy I am to continue working with Scholastic. The people there (far too many to name right now) have all been so supportive of my books and my career. Especially Lisa, my editor. She understood the vision for this series right away, and I’m really looking forward to working on it with her.

So, after my installment in the Infinity Ring series and my next stand-alone novel (both of which will come out next fall), The Quantum League is what I’ll be working on.

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I mentioned in a previous post that my wife and I had moved to Northern Idaho, and I presented a photographic argument for that decision. We have since bought a home. We hadn’t planned to buy a home just yet. It made sense to first live here for a year, become familiar with the area, and then decide where we wanted to put down roots. But in becoming familiar with the area, we found a place that satisfied almost all our “dream home” criteria, and we couldn’t pass it up. We live on several acres, much of it wooded with pine and cedar and tamarack, on a lake, with the potential for horses.

It is also fairly remote, something I am still getting used to. My internet comes in through a parabolic dish mounted on my roof. Our water comes from a well. We have a family of wild turkeys that spend a lot of time on the property and drive our dogs crazy. The frequent deer have long since stripped the elderberry bush in our back yard clean. Last night, I fell asleep listening to the nearby howl of a wolf. It is a beautiful spot of earth.

I’ll try to post some pictures soon.

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A few upcoming events…

• In October, I’ll be in Utah for the annual Book Festival sponsored by the Utah Humanities Council. I’m doing an event in Brigham City, and another in Murray. Both events will be held on October 17th and both are free and open to the public. Details can be found in the sidebar to the right.
• I’ll be speaking at the annual SCBWI Winter Conference in New York City in February, presenting some of the same material I taught at the summer conference back in August. So if you wanted to come to one of my break-outs in L.A., but weren’t able to, you’ll have another opportunity if you’re going to the winter conference.