AMoL Q&A time change! Also, Waygate Foundation & Updates

Planning to attend the midnight release of A MEMORY OF LIGHT at the BYU Bookstore? Want to see Robert Jordan's wife Harriet McDougal at the event? Then be sure to check out the newest details. Harriet can't stay up for the midnight release itself, but she will be pre-signing the books with me, and we will both appear at a reading/Q&A earlier in the evening of January 7th. This will NOT be at the bookstore itself due to space issues, but will take place at the nearby Provo High School auditorium at 8:00 p.m. So if you're driving or flying in from out of town for this event, make sure you go to the right place at 8:00 Monday evening! That's one week from today, folks. It's coming!

One thing among many that I find cool about the Wheel of Time fandom is how much readers like to help other people. There's one group in particular that has taken the idea of being "servants of all" to heart and gotten very involved in charitable activities. The group I'm talking about is called the Waygate Foundation, which launched this year (although its members have been involved in charitable giving for years though organizations involved with the big fan sites such as TarValon and Dragonmount).

Waygate's mission is to support and engage science fiction and fantasy authors and fans in global philanthropic endeavors. Board members include Harriet McDougal, Robert Jordan's cousin/brother Wilson Grooms, and me. Maria Simons is also a director, and the driving force behind the whole thing is Karen Campbell. Waygate's current campaign is called "A Story Begins..." and has a goal of raising $10,000 partially for Patrick Rothfuss's Worldbuilders charity—exactly the sort of charitable endeavor that Waygate wants to help other writers and fans become involved in. When the campaign's goal is met, Waygate will share a sneak peek at the forthcoming Wheel of Time Encyclopedia that Team Jordan is hard at work on.

For more information, please see Waygate's website and Facebook page. I think the way Waygate wants to help writers and fans give back to their community (and beyond) is a great idea, so I hope you will check it out.

Speaking of Facebook, my Facebook URL has changed. So if you used to visit my Facebook page via a bookmark or typing it in manually, the new URL to use is facebook.com/BrandSanderson. Now the link matches my Twitter handle, twitter.com/BrandSanderson. If you're curious as to why that is, Twitter handles max out at 15 characters, and BrandonSanderson is one character too long. With that restriction, BrandSanderson seemed like the best option that was available. Facebook has no such limit, but there are plenty of other Brandon Sandersons out there, and one of them already claimed the full URL on Facebook. Alas!

Anyway, I used to have two different URLs on Facebook, one of them my profile and one of them a page. Both locations posted the same things, so if you were following one but not the other, you didn't miss out on anything I said—but the conversation in the posts' comments was fractured into two and switching back and forth between the two got confusing. Well, Facebook finally allowed me to combine the page into my profile, so everyone who had hit "like" on my Page is now a subscriber to my profile. (There were about 5,000 of you who were following both locations before.)

Facebook still has a way of usually hiding my updates from your newsfeed, so if you want to make sure you see all of my posts, go to my profile and mouseover the "Subscribed" button. Under "Show in News Feed" click on "Settings..." and pick "All Updates." You can also put a checkmark by "Get Notifications" if you really want to make sure you never miss anything I post. That may be a bit of overkill though, unless you're just that interested. My assistant has also uploaded a new Twitter posts archive showing what and who I was talking about/to on Twitter for the last six weeks or so.

Earlier this year when I went to Chattanooga for a convention, I sat down with Derek Pearson for an interview. It's about 20 minutes long and covers a wide range of topics. There's a tiny bit in there about working on the Wheel of Time, but it's mostly about how I got my start as a writer. Check it out.

Writing Excuses has three new episodes, finishing off our seventh season. Episode 52 is another microcasting episode, talking about embarrassing early projects of ours, how to tell if an idea is too big for a particular story, how to avoid discouragement, and how to handle multiple magic systems in one book. Episode 53 talks about Secret History, which is a type of alternate history where historical events are given fantastical explanations (such as with Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter). And the final episode, Episode 54, talks about four ways the publishing industry is changing. Next week marks the beginning of season eight!

Signing & Magic Draft in Salt Lake area Saturday

Just a quick reminder that I have a signing up in West Valley tomorrow, followed by a Magic draft. The signing is focused on the Mistborn RPG, but I'll have my other books there too. Hope to see many of you there! Details below.

Signing & Magic Draft, Epic Puzzles & Games, Salt Lake City

Date: 12.22.12 Time: 1:00 pm-7:00 pm
Place: Epic Puzzles & Games
Address: 3612 West 4700 South #4
West Valley City, UT 84129
Phone: (801) 982-0167
Schedule:
1:00 p.m.: Signing
3:00 p.m.: Magic Draft. Call for buy-in registration information.

Utah events this week + Updates

Writing Excuses has two new episodes this week due to a goof on our part. We had planned to hold Mary's brainstorming episode back until the spring, but we forgot that there was a direct followup episode. The followup got released first and people were confused, so we've gone ahead and made it a two-episode week. Here are the episodes in chronological order: episode 51, Brainstorming with Mary, and THEN episode 50, Outlining the Mary Way.

InkWing has a new blog post up about their December deadlines and the Windrunner pin, which they're giving away in each T-shirt order, or which you can get by entering the contest in the blog post comments.

I have two events in Utah this week.

Dragons Keep Magic The Gathering Draft & Signing, Orem

Date: 12.13.12
Time: 6:00 p.m.–10:00 p.m.
Place: Dragons Keep
Address: 48 W 300 N
Orem, UT 84601
Phone: (801) 225-5215
Schedule:
Draft: 6:00 p.m.
Signing: 9–10 p.m.
Limited amount of potential draft participants; sign up now.
Cost: $12.00 Dragon's Keep Standard Draft Pricing and Prizes
This one will focus on ALL of my books, and while there might be a few copies of the Mistborn Adventure Game for sale, this is my holiday signing for Utah Valley. Because of that, we'll bring a lot of copies of various things to sell.

Worlds of Fantasy at the Salt Lake City Library

Date: 12.15.12
Time: 10:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m.
Place: Salt Lake City Library
Address: 210 East 400 South
Salt Lake City, UT 84111
Phone: (801) 524-8200
Schedule: See the library website for the full schedule, which begins at 10:00 a.m.. My events are as follows:
Fantasy Literature and the Re-imagined Myth with Brandon Sanderson
12:00 noon–1:00 p.m., Nancy Tessman Auditorium
Sponsored by Utah Humanities Council
A discussion exploring the questions; from whence did Fantasy Literature Rise? What is its place in contemporary culture? Where is it going?
Brandon Sanderson Q&A: World Building
1:30–3:00 p.m., Lower Urban Room
Brandon Sanderson Signing
3:30 p.m., Night-Flight Comics at Library Square
Bookplates for A MEMORY OF LIGHT will be available.

Here is the Salt Lake Library's press release on the event:

Popular Fantasy Author Brandon Sanderson Speaks at The City Library
Highlights Worlds of Fantasy Exhibit on Display

December 10, 2012—Salt Lake City—Fantasy is a major component in our cultural zeitgeist. The past decade has been filled with literature, film, games, and art that capture society's desire for the exploration of magical worlds. From Harry Potter to Game of Thrones, The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, The Wheel of Time, Dungeons and Dragons, Magic: The Gathering, our pop-culture world is one obsessed with fantasy. Join The City Library for a series of events highlighting the mystical and magical.

On December 15, The City Library will be transformed. An ongoing exhibit featuring sets and pieces from a locally-produced fantasy film, Flight from Shadow, will be the backdrop for a series of fantastic events, including an all-ages costume contest—from the worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Robert Jordan, wand-making classes, film screenings, book browses, tours of the exhibit, and a performance by the Salt Lake Pops Orchestra.

The feature of the December 15 celebration is a lecture with famed author Brandon Sanderson, beginning at 12pm in the Main Library Auditorium. Sanderson is best known for finishing Robert Jordan's epic series, The Wheel of Time. The final installment of this series will be released on January 8, 2013. Sanderson will also host an intimate Q&A, focusing on world-building, followed by a book signing.

Other Worlds of Fantasy events continue through the month of January, including Dungeons and Dragons at the Chapman Branch, and a continuation of the Fantasy Genre Speaker's Series, focusing on art, film, and deconstructing Middle Earth.

The Genre Speaker's Series is funded by the Utah Humanities Council, and Worlds of Fantasy has been sponsored by The City Library, University of Utah Department of English, Fort Douglas Military Museum, McGrew Studios, Wagonland Adventures, Absinthe Hair and Grooming Parlor, Razor's Edge, Abbie Warnock Photography, Badali Jewelers, Wheel of 9 Productions, Utah Museum of Fine Arts, The Downtown Alliance, Gryphon Games, Night Flight Comics, Utah Film Commission, and Marcela Torres.

For more information on Worlds of Fantasy at The City Library, visit www.slcpl.org/fantasy.

Signing Thursday in West Jordan

Just a quick note to remind you that I'll be signing at the Jordan Landing Barnes & Noble tomorrow. Details are below. I also have signings this month in Orem, West Valley, and the Salt Lake City Library. Some of those include Magic drafts. See my events page for details.

Date: 12.06.12
Time: 6:30 p.m.–9:30 p.m.
Place: Barnes & Noble Booksellers - Jordan Landing
Address: 7157 Plaza Center Drive
West Jordan, UT 84084
Phone: (801) 282-1324
Type: Signing
Notes: Brandon will sign any book you bring that he wrote, but it's nice to support the store hosting him by buying something in the store that day (it doesn't have to be one of Brandon's books!).

A MEMORY OF LIGHT happenings + Updates

This post will have quite a few random tidbits. First off, my friend Tracy Hickman wrote to tell me about a holiday serial novel he and Laura are putting up. If you preorder, you can read and comment on the chapters as they're written.

Irene Gallo at Tor.com posted a picture of the first printed copy of A MEMORY OF LIGHT. This is called an F&G (folded and gathered pages). The book comes out next month!

Most of my A MEMORY OF LIGHT book signing tour has been announced and posted on my events page. There are still a couple of Canadian dates to be added, but Tor should have those finalized soon. If you want email reminders when I'm near you, tell me your city at this link. I also have a handful of events in December, including this week in West Jordan.

Tor.com also put up a video where Harriet McDougal, Tom Doherty, Jason Denzel, Pat Rothfuss, and I talk about A MEMORY OF LIGHT. Check it out.

This is the last week for the A MEMORY OF LIGHT audiobook/iphone case promotion that I talked about a few weeks ago. If you buy the CD version of the audiobook, you can get a free iPhone 4/4S case. Details are here.

Moses Siregar III has an interview with Jason Denzel on the Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing podcast. It talks a lot about A MEMORY OF LIGHT, as well as other things Jason is involved in.

Writing Excuses has a couple more episodes: one on the Pixar rules for writing a compelling story, and one on beginnings. There are also two more bonus episodes we recorded for NaNoWriMo, which ended a couple days ago. I hope many of you reached your writing goals for November!

Here are two more cool pieces of fan art. The second one is a painting that the artist Megan brought to show me at my signing in Idaho Falls. Thanks!

Finally, the blog The Ranting Dragon is having a "cover battle" that I thought was pretty cool. You can vote for which cover art/design you like best, and the top vote-getters will face off against each other for...supreme domination or something. The competition is quite stiff, but the ebook cover for THE EMPEROR'S SOUL (art by Alexander Nanitchkov, design by Isaac Stewart) is in the first round. I love this art and the design, so I'm happy to see it nominated! You can vote for whichever cover you like, and you can also write in other options. For an explanation of the different rounds see here.