Bright blessings to everyone for Beltane, my favourite festival. This year Mr B and I wil be celebrating it at the Green Man Festival in Clun, Shropshire, and meeting up with some other Stonewylders.  We’d booked ourselves into a lovely hotel and the idea was to have a relaxing weekend to celebrate finishing all four Stonewylde books.  But these things never work out as planned, do they? I’m still working on the final edits of the fourth book and will be for the next few days!  We’re still going away for the weekend but I suspect my laptop will have to come with us else I’ll only be fretting about not doing any writing. I can’t quite believe that this coming week - Thursday in fact - sees the launch of the revised edition of Magus of Stonewylde!  I’ve just received copies of both hardback and paperback and they really are beautiful - I’m so pleased with them.  I do hope you all enjoy my revised version.  As I’ve said before, the story remains the same but I’ve hopefully improved the writing.  And the covers are stunning. Thank you so much to the many people who responded to my request for help promoting the new books.  I was overwhelmed by the offers of help, and the promo-packs have now been posted and at this very moment the Stonewylde Promo-Pixies are out in force!  They’ve been asked to send in some photos so in the next newsletter we’ll show those.  I really am so grateful for all this help. We’ve produced some lovely Stonewylde car window stickers and also a set of button badges which are available in the shop so please take a look.  Within the next couple of weeks we’ll also have a set of five Stonewylde bookplates available at a nominal price.  I will write a dedication to you (or whoever you elect) and sign them, and then you can stick them in the front of your new books. This is in response to readers who’ve moaned at me for not selling signed copies of the books from the website any more! A reminder:  the first three books will be available in limited edition hardback and also in paperback and e-book.  If you’d like a hardback, please do  pre-order it now as there are only 750 being printed as First Editions (and there are a lot more hardcore Stonewylde fans than that!).  If you click on the picture of each book, it’ll take you to the page on Amazon for the hardback - but there are of course paperbacks available too which will be cheaper and won’t be limited edition.  The books are also available to pre-order through Waterstones and any other good bookshops. Publication dates for the four books: Magus of Stonewylde - May 5th Moondance of Stonewylde - June 2nd Solstice at Stonewylde - July 7th Shadows at Stonewylde - August 4th If the first edition hardbacks sell out, it’s possible that Gollancz may produce more, but they will be labelled “Second Edition”.  I hope you all have a wonderful Beltane, and if you’ve ordered the new books - enjoy! Bright blessings to everyone - Kit xxx     Brand new Stonewylde website! Mr B and I are delighted to announce the launch of the beautiful new website.  As I’ve mentioned before, Mr B has spent a long time and many, many hours creating this, trying to cope with my demands for something magical and pretty and reconciling this with the need for an efficient and functional site that does the job it has to.  It’s been a long haul! On Thursday 28th April it was finally launched, to much fanfare on our forum, Twitter and Facebook.  We’ve had so many hits and an amazing response - luckily you all seem to love it.  The new website has a very different feel to the old one, which has served us well for several years now.  It feels clean and green to me - and I’m so pleased with the beautiful images that head the home page. This new website is also very different to the old one in that you can, if you wish, register and then make comments.  There’s a “Have your say” section, a sort of mini-forum, and also a poll.  This is not in any way to replace our existing community site, but more for readers to leave a quick, casual comment if they wish.  We’ll be adding new content regularly and also I’ll be moving my blog to the site as I’ve been very remiss about keeping this up on my blogspot one.  Do take a look - leave your comments, and we welcome your ideas too. Visit the Shop  Keep up-to-date with all the latest Stonewylde News Join us for a chat in our amazing Stonewylde Community. Get the latest news as it happens by following me and Stonewylde on Twitter and Facebook.   Stonewylde Newsletter 35 May 1st 2011 Bright blessings at    to all Stonewylders What’s been going on ...    . Visit the Stonewylde Website been revived in many parts of the country. Further information about the Green Man and also the May Day festivities that take place all over the country can be found here, at the Company of the Green Man website. Beltane at Stonewylde begins in the Stone Circle on Beltane Eve, when the spirit of the Green Man is invoked and invited to preside over the festival and bring his fertility and virility to the proceedings. The huge standing stones have been painted to depict the foliate face of a green man, highlighted with gold. The great bonfire has been prepared, and the brazier installed on the May Sister. This is a special standing stone aligned to the May Day sunrise, and the Bel Fire is kept alight all day from sunrise to sunset on top of the stone.  The Barn is decorated with boughs of hawthorn blossom and the children make papier mache masks of the Green Man and cover them with real leaves. The best way to celebrate Beltane, in my opinion, is to go alone into some quiet woods and sit silently under a tree with your back against the trunk.  Feel the energy of the tree and listen to the sounds of the woodland all around.  If you're very still and very lucky, you may just get a glimpse of the elusive Green Man. ©Steve Perry Beltane is the old name for May Day, the first day in May, and Beltane Eve is celebrated on April 30th. Another of the old Celtic Cross Quarter Festivals, Beltane is one of the few pagan festivals that has not been Christianised or altered to fit into modern society. Today in many parts of the world, traditional May Day customs are still practised. Beltane comes from the Old Irish meaning "bright fire", and in old times fires would be lit and the cattle driven through them. This festival is the most joyous of them all, celebrating the incredible vitality of the earth at this time of year. The days are longer and warmer, the sap has risen and everything alive seems to be just bursting with energy and growth. Beltane is the first day of summer. The symbol of Beltane is the ancient Green Man, to be found all over the country in the most unlikely of places. Many churches have a green man hidden in ceiling bosses or peering down from a dark corner. When Christianity superceded paganism in Europe, the image of the Green Man was impossible to eradicate as it represented such a powerful force - that of virility and growth. Other ancient customs from Beltane still survive, such as Maypole dancing, well-dressing and electing a May Queen. These customs are part of our folklore heritage, and have ©Helixtree Stonewylde T-shirts, eco-bags and greetings cards make great gifts! Just in - car window sticker and badge pack!  Look here. More Stonewylde gifts coming soon including pewter pendants! As a change from our “Stonewylde Fans in T-shirts in Exotic Places”, we now have pics of the eco-bags! Veteran Stonewylder Cornmother recently hit Las Vegas for a big birthday bash, and took her Stonewylde bag along.  Here we see it in front of the iconic Caesar’s Palace and also near what looks like a mini Eiffel Tower! Glad you had a good birthday and thanks for these, CM!