One of the featured authors at the original Fantasy Matters conference--back in 2007--was David Anthony Durham.  At the time, Durham had written Gabriel's Story, Walk Through Darkness, and Pride of Carthage; he had also just recently released Acacia: The War with the Mein, the first book in the Acacia trilogy.

Since then, Durham has written the remaining two books in the trilogy: The Other Lands, released in 2009, and The Sacred Band, released just last week.

We are very pleased this week to feature Durham's work, not only because he was part of the original conference, but also because we are excited by the ways in which he is shaping the future of epic fantasy.  We are also very honored to post something from David himself about how he brought everything together to end his trilogy.

We have other excitement for you this week as well.  We continue our coverage of the "Cute and Creepy" exhibition at FSU, we have a post from Madeline Barnicle on fantasy book covers, and we have the second post from Heather Whitney about how narratives shape and transform society's values.

So make sure you stop back and see what we're up to!  And if you're a fan of epic fantasy, you should really look into the Acacia trilogy--it's well worth reading.