New Dinos!

My son would consider me deeply remiss if I din't point out that two new dinos were unearthed in the Sahara Desert according to world-science.net: Two Strange Dinos.

Many Bloody Returns News

From our editor Toni L. P. Kelner:

Just wanted to let y'all know that the Trade Paperback edition of MANY BLOODY RETURNS is scheduled for February 2009. Also, the Large Print edition of MBR will be out in March

Writing and Cats

There are a number of writing bloggers that end up writing (or taking videos) of their cats behavior as they try to write. Here's my darling, Ms. All Ball, LURKING out from behind my fancy new flat screen monitor. And see my important writing... er, wait, that's Mahjong. Oh, maybe she's not lurking so much as nagging....

Book Club Sale

My editor sent this note yesterday:

Good news, we have sold book club rights to ROMANCING THE DEAD. The advance is <$not-bad-for-this-sort-of-deal>, and it will be a featured alternate in the Rhapsody book club (May issue), and will also be used in the Doubleday Book Club (May issue) and the Science Fiction book club (June issue).

Hawk on my Boulevard

This hawk was sitting in the silver maple tree on our boulevard for about twenty minutes on Saturday afternoon. Shawn and I suspect s/he was after the pigeons that like to roost on the window above our side door and poop copiously (we've seen evidence in the past of someone's successful hunting). What was fascinating to me was how quiet the songbirds were until I accidentally scared him/her away when I went out the back to take out the garbage. It was like we all watched the hawk in silent awe, and then after s/he left suddenly there was joyous cheeping!

Perhaps you can tell by reading my books, but I love to add moments like this into my narrative. There are always animals intruding into Garnet's storylines (and not just when she's being stalked by werewolves.) I think that's because, growing up in a semi-rural middle-sized town in Wisconsin, animals were always making themselves known to me. Bats and nighthawks chased mosquitos during the summer months. Purple martins, kingfishers, egrets and red-wing blackbirds hunted the marsh. Even in the winter, when everything seems so desolate, you might see something like this awesome, predatory bird....