readings & appearances

Next weekend: See you in Chicago

Actually I’ll be in Elgin, outside the city, for the Elgin Literary Festival on January 27 and 28.  It’s a big affair stuffed to the brim with interesting speakers and panel discussions, and it’s all free to the public. 

The Elgin Literary Festival is a free celebration of the written word for both readers and writers taking place in Downtown Elgin, a blooming center of the arts. The Festival aims to highlight bookish culture and provide writers and readers a place to create and appreciate the art of writing, all within the charming architecture and welcoming businesses that are the soul of the City of Elgin.

The program (pdf) is here or you can have a look at the festival’s FaceBook page. If you’re in the area please come by and say hello.  I’ll be traveling with Jimmy Dean, so look for the little white dog who owns me. 

 

updates: reading and readings, Pajama Girls

All kinds of little bits of information and commentary I’ve been meaning to post:

Starting tomorrow, I’ll be contributing a once-a-month column at Writer Unboxed. Please stop by and say hello. I would like to see some familiar faces over there.

The ‘tell me what happened in 1883’ experiment is going better than I ever imagined. Y’all have dug up some fantastic stuff… more on that when I close the post and do the giveaway drawing.

I just finished reaading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, a novel I really liked for a variety of reasons. I’ll post a review soon.

Thank you for all the suggestions on how to resolve the when-is-the-book-coming-out question. I’m going to implement a couple of them and hope they do the trick.

On February 12 I’ll be reading and answering questions at the Burlington Public Library here in northwestern Washington State. If you are nearby, please stop in.  The session starts at 7pm.

[asa book]0425225917[/asa] The Pajama Girls of Lambert Square will be coming out in trade paper on March 3. If you do plan on buying a copy, please consider pre-ordering from your favorite book store or from Amazon. Preorders are one of those factors that really contribute to a book’s success. Pajama Girls needs to do well if I want to write another book.

The puppy mill saga is still ongoing. They’ve now seized more than five hundred dogs from mills owned by one family in two different counties. I offered to foster one or two pups when they get that far. This is a dangerous thing for me to be doing, as I will find it hard to give them up. But I do have experience with small-breed rescue, and I think my two monsters would be a great help at rehabilitating dogs who have been shut up in cages.

In my next post I’m going to talk about The Endless Forest and the publication process.

babble

If you’ve read Pajama Girls, you may remember than Julia has a weakness for an online word game called Babble. The people who run Babble (and other games) certainly noticed. Have a look at the top of the page.

I was as thrilled to see my name up there as they were to see Julia playing babble.

Right now I am in Charleston, South Carolina. The weather is beautiful, and I had a good night’s sleep. I have a choice: I can work for a couple hours or I can go walk around town until it’s time for this luncheon gig.

I wonder what I’ll do.

Off again to South Carolina

The conference went very well, I’m happy to say. As soon as I have a minute I will put the handout up for anybody who wants one.

However. I’m leaving early tomorrow for South Carolina to speak at an authors’ luncheon in Charleston. I travel all day Wednesday, spend most of Thursday at the event, and travel most of the day Friday. With any luck I’ll get some serious writing done sitting on various planes.

Every time I fly, I seem to come down with some kind of cold. A lot of people have this problem, I know, due mostly to bad air quality in a pressurized cabin. My question: how dopey would it look to come onboard wearing a full haz-mat suit? Or at least a surgical mask? I think somebody should design a line of masks in nice colors and sell them at the airport.

I’m rambling, I realize it. I need to get a lot written today and I’m hesitating before that high dive into cold reality. I would, however, like to give you something to read that interests you. As I don’t have time to come up with anything of real value, please ask questions. Anything is fair game — except asking when book six will be out. That information in available here. Otherwise, have at it. Business related, writing related, my third grade report card, I’m an open book.