I got some exciting news earlier this week. It's nothing earth-shattering but was very cool and I'm super happy it worked out. Basically, when I initially wrote Man of Wax (which is scheduled for an October release, btw), I included a few passages from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. It's a little great children's book which I read in one of my high school English classes for some reason and it stuck with me ever since.

Anyway, in Man of Wax I use a passage as the novel's epigram and then, later in the book, the protagonist reads the book with his daughter and she quotes two lines. While the use of The Little Prince isn't an integral part to my novel, it does give it that extra layer (whatever that means). But the thing is, the book isn't public domain (not like Billy Budd and The Princess and the Goblin, both which I use portions of as epigrams in my novels The Calling and The Dishonored Dead, respectively), which means I would first need to get permission from the publisher or the estate or whoever to use portions of the book in my book. (But what's strange is The Little Prince is public domain in a few countries, including Canada, but not here; why this is I have no idea.) Which, as you can imagine, can sometimes take a lot of time and there is no guarantee that they'll allow it and sometimes if they do allow it you might need to pay something.

So, I sent my request awhile back and crossed my fingers but figured that, if push came to shove, I could always nix the epigram and the part where the daughter quotes from the book but still at least make reference to the children's book. But then, just the other day, I received an email saying that the publisher has no objections to me using the portions just as long as I give them proper acknowledgement.

As you can imagine, I am very relieved and thrilled about this.