Blue Heaven is a week-long peer workshop/retreat for critiquing novels that has been meeting every twelve to eighteen months since 2003. The workshop is named for Himmelblau (Blue Heaven) House, the Victorian bed and breakfast on Kelleys Island where we originally held the retreat.
When we started the workshop, most of us had never finished -- much less sold -- a novel. But, as you can see from the list below, the Blue Heaven model seemed to work for us.
The structure has evolved over the years as our careers have grown and changed, but new writers who are interested in copying the original Blue Heaven model can read more about it here.
Books Workshopped At Blue Heaven (by author)
Moonshifted (St. Martin's Press, 2013)
- Trilogy foreign rights sold to Germany.
The Windup Girl (Night Shade Books, 2009)
- Winner - John W. Campbell Winner - Memorial Award 2010
- Winner - Compton Crook Award 2010
- Winner - Hugo Award 2010
- Winner - Locus Award for Best First Novel 2010
- Winner - Nebula Award 2009
- Time Magazine – Ten Best Novels of 2009
Ship Breaker (Little Brown, 2010)
- Booklist - starred review
- Finalist - National BookAward 2010
- Winner - Printz Award 2011
- Finalist - Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy 2011
One For Sorrow (Bantam, 2007)
- Winner – Crawford Award 2008
- Finalist – Great Lakes Book Award 2008
- Finalist – Logo Channel’s NewNowNext Award 2008
- Translated into Italian and Spanish.
- Adapted into the film "Jamie Marks Is Dead" (2014).
The Woken Gods (Strange Chemistry, 2013)
Crystal Rain (Tor, 2006)
Ragamuffin (Tor, 2007)
- Finalist – Nebula Award 2007
- Finalist – Prometheus Award 2008
Sly Mongoose (Tor, 2008)
Arctic Rising (Tor, 2012)
Crown of Embers (The Girl of Fire and Thorns series, Book #2)
Greenwillow (US), 2012
Gollancz (UK/Aus/NZ), 2012
- Foreign rights sold to Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, Poland, Russia, Spain, and Turkey
Wide Open (Tor, 2012)
Deep Down (Tor, 2013)
Reading The Wind (Tor, 2008)
The Prodigal Troll (Pyr, 2005)
- Translated into German
“Abandon the Ruins” (Fantasy & Science Fiction, 2006)
- Excerpted from Prodigal Troll sequel.
- Translated into Russian for Esli.
The Patriot Witch (Del Rey, 2009)
- Publisher’s Weekly - starred review
A Spell For The Revolution (Del Rey, 2009)
“The Political Prisoner” (Fantasy & Science Fiction, 2008)
Translated and published as a standalone book in Italy by DelosBooks.
- Finalist – Nebula Award Best Novella 2008
- Finalist – Hugo Award Best Novella 2009
- Finalist – Sturgeon Award 2009
The Devil's Alphabet (Del Rey, 2009)
- Publisher’s Weekly – Best Books of 2009
- Finalist - Philip K. Dick Award 2010
Burndive (Warner Aspect, 2003)
Cagebird (Warner Aspect, 2005)
- Winner – Prix Aurora Award 2006
- Winner – Gaylactic Spectrum Award 2006
The Stars Down Under (Tor, 2008)
King Solomon's Wives (Coliloquy, 2012)
Singularity's Ring (Tor, 2008)
- Winner – Compton Crook Award 2009
- Winner – Locus Best First Novel Award 2009
The Walls of the Universe (Tor, 2009)
- Publisher's Weekly - starred review
- Optioned for film by the producer of Shrek
- Novella excerpt published in Asimov’s Science Fiction
- Finalist – Hugo Award Best Novella 2007
- Finalist – Nebula Award Best Novella 2006
- Finalist – Theodore Sturgeon Award 2007
- Winner – Asimov’sReaders Poll Award 2006
The Broken Universe (Tor, 2012)
Briarpatch (Chizine Publications, 2011)
The Magic Thief (HarperCollins, 2008)
Starred reviews -Kirkus, Booklist, Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
- #3 Booksense (Indie Next) pick, spring/summer 2008
- Publisher's Weekly Flying Start author (spring 2008)
- New York Public Library 100 Books for Reading and Sharing (2008)
- National Council of Teachers of English Notable Books in the Language Arts (2009)
- Booklist Top Ten First Novels for Youth 2008
- American Booksellers for Children Best Books of the Year (2008) list
- An E.B. White Read-Aloud Award honor book
- Cybils Award Finalist (MG fantasy category)
- Booklist Top-Ten First Audiobooks for Youth (2006-2010)
- The Beehive Award winner (Children's Literature Association of Utah), 2010 (state award winner for children's fiction)
- State award lists in Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Wyoming
- Finalist - West Australia Young Readers Book Award
The Magic Thief: Lost (HarperCollins, 2009)
- Trilogy foreign rights sales in the following languages/regions:
German, French, Italian, Spanish, Turkish, Polish, UK/Australia/New Zealand/India, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Finnish, Greek, Danish, Dutch, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish/Catalan, Czech/Slovak, Bulgarian, Romanian
- plus audio rights in English, German, Dutch
Winterling (HarperCollins, 2011)
- Foreign rights sales to Germany and UK/Aus/NZ
- English language audio rights
Above World (Candlewick, 2012)
- Finalist – Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy 2013
Above World: Mirage (Candlewick, 2013)
Stories excerpted from the unpublished novel Library of Souls, co-authored with David Ackert.
"The King of the Djinn" (Realms of Fantasy, 2008)
- Selected for Year's Best Fantasy 8
"Stray" (Fantasy & Science Fiction, 2007)
- Selected for Year's Best Science Fiction Vol. 25
- Selected for Fantasy: The Best of the Year 2008 Edition
- Translated into Czech, Danish, and German
Bitter Seeds (Tor, 2010)
Palimpsest (Spectra, 2009)
- Winner – Lambda Literary Award 2009
- Finalist – Hugo Award Best Novel 2010
Norse Code (Spectra, 2009)
- Finalist - Locus Award for Best First Novel 2009
Kid Vs. Squid (Bloomsbury, 2010)
- Indie Next Pick - Summer 2010
The Boy at the End of the World (Bloomsbury, 2011)
- Finalist – Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy 2012
Other writers who have attended Blue Heaven:
Sarah K. Castle, Lisa Deguchi, Roger Eichorn, Kameron Hurley
Catherine M. Morrison, Nancy Proctor, M. Rickert, Heather Shaw, William Shunn
James Stevens-Arce, Mary Turzillo, Amber van Dyk, Lori Ann White