Hey, gang, this is your friendly reminder that the fifth iteration of the Traveling Circus and Snake-Handling Show will be appearing this Saturday, October 1st, at San Francisco's own Borderlands Books. Festivities will commence at five, and will include delicious baked goods, live music, our inevitable raffle, and a Toby Daye Q&A.

This iteration of the Traveling Circus and Snake-Handling Show includes, in alphabetical order, Jeff "Heavy Metal Squid" Bohnhoff, on guitar and sound; Maya "Sonic Boom" Bohnhoff, on guitar and vocals; Michelle "Ceiling Cookies" Dockrey, on vocals; Tony "Code Monkey Likes You" Fabris, on guitar and vocals; Beckett "Don't Lick That" Gladney, on harmonica; Paul "The Cute One" Kwinn, on guitar and vocals; Betsy "Living Improbability" Tinney, on cello and vocals; and me, doing my usual mix of vocals and random stage patter.

Kate and Ryan will be running support, because they are awesome, and my mother will be running around like a chicken with her head cut off. Jude and Naamen will be keeping the bookstore from burning down (respect the bookstore). Mia will be on hand for pendant sales, and Victor and Lara will be on hand for AWESOME (and inevitably getting drafted).

It's going to be an awesome time, with signings and questions and cupcakes, and you should come. If you can't attend, remember that you can contact the bookstore to place orders for delivery, and get your books signed by attending our Circus in your heart.

See you Saturday!

...or any of my books, really. I'm not picky.

This afternoon, at roughly 3:00PM PST, I'm going to be heading over to Borderlands Books in San Francisco, California to sign stock. Borderlands takes phone and internet orders. They also take requests for signatures and personalization.

If you want to get a copy of One Salt Sea, or any of my other books, you can contact Borderlands (instructions on their website) and place your order now. I'll sign whatever's waiting for me when I get to the store.

I love my local bookstore.

Now that you've had about a week to read and enjoy Deadline (and to jump in over on the spoiler thread, which is rocking and rolling like whoa), it's time for a party! Specifically, it's time for a Borderlands Books party, which are some of the best parties in the world.

Since this is a Mira Grant party, it's going to be somewhat more low-key than a Toby release. We'll have readings, signings, Q&A, and, of course, cupcakes. The festivities will begin at 5:00 PM, and continue until 8:00 PM, with cupcakes served at 6:30, to divide the evening. Which brings me to...

The first Q&A will be held from 6:00-6:30 PM, and it will be a spoiler-free session. I'll repeat that before we start. Some people still haven't read Feed, and I'd like them to have the chance to get in, say hello, grab books, get a cupcake, and run without having the ending of the book spoiled for them.

If you can't make it, remember that the bookstore does take internet and phone orders, and I'd be happy to sign and personalize anything they have on hand. You can find contact details on the bookstore website.

Hope to see you there!

...also, mixing my metaphors a bit, but still, I think the statement is valid. I am running as fast as I can just to stay where I am, and while it's fascinating, it's also a bit terrifying. I am trying to do ALL THE THINGS! All the things AT THE SAME TIME! Eventually, I will spontaneously combust, and that will be funny. (Also, how is it my spellcheck knows the word "necrosis," but not the word "combust"? Oh. Wait. It's my spellcheck.)

And now, for the periodic administrative stuff.

Wicked Girls T-shirts.
Deborah is continuing to contact people, collect mailing information, and provide payment information. This is because Deborah is wonderful. If you haven't heard from her, you may be in the part of the spreadsheet she hasn't processed yet, or you may need to check your spam filter, as there are people who have been contacted who have not yet replied. Once we finish going through the spreadsheet and shaking it as hard as we can for stragglers, we will need to go to print, and any unpaid orders will be canceled. We're only printing as many shirts as have been paid for. So check your spam filter today!

Events.
I have, like, ALL THE EVENTS coming up in June and July. Seriously. Next Saturday is the big Deadline release party at Borderlands. The Saturday after, I'll be at Borderlands again, this time as Seanan instead of Mira, to do a joint event with my darling Chaz in his guise as Daniel Fox. Then it's off to Minnesota for Convergence (and Izzy's ice cream), followed by appearing at SF in SF as Mira, and finally, San Diego! My annual pilgrimage to Geek Prom is upon us, and this year I get my Amy AND my Vixy AND a convention-exclusive Monster High doll. Truly, the world is my mollusk.

Anyway, check my website for event details, and remember that even if you can't make any of these events in person, Borderlands takes internet and phone orders for signed and personalized books. They're pretty awesome that way.

Deadline.
Holy cheese, it's a book. Like, on shelves. And people are buying it, and people are reading it, and people are liking it so far. Please, if you've bought it and read it and want to talk about it, stick to the Deadline open thread? I don't want people to be afraid to read comments on other posts because there might be lurking spoilers. Thank you so much, to everyone, for everything. You've been totally amazing.

Cats.
Blue. Fluffy. Pissed off over my recent absence, and demanding I make it up to them with snuggles and scritches. I am surprisingly unbothered by their demands, and have given in wholeheartedly.

X-Men: First Class.
Opens this weekend, and anyone standing between me and the ticket booth come Saturday had better be ready for some Xavier's alumni whup-ass to be aimed their way. I need my mutants. They're an important part of a balanced breakfast. Also, the reviews have been amazing so far, which means that maybe this will be a new franchise, instead of a prequel. Look, a girl can dream, okay?

Monster High.
I WANT THE NEW DOLLS ALREADY.

...and that's it for me, for the moment. What've you got?

At this very moment, the lovely Catherynne M. Valente is in my guest bedroom getting ready for an event of such awesome and awe-inspiring proportions that it has actually stunned my cats into submission! (Okay, it was probably all the scritching that did that. But still...)

Cat is currently on tour for her new YA novel, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making. In addition to having the longest and hence most awesome title in this season's young adult releases, The Girl Who... features a girl named after a month of the year, a giant leopard, libraries, fairy queens, and all the other things one needs in a work of truly awesome literature.

Why does this matter to you, you ask me? Because today, and today only, you can see Cat at Borderlands Books in San Francisco, where she will be appearing at three PM to read, give a Q&A, and sign whatever you may happen to shove in front of her (no children that don't belong to you or legally binding contracts, please). She's full of pep and promise, and totally rockin', and you should come.

If you're more interested in Cat's adult work, she will be appearing at Writers With Drinks tonight at 7:30PM, where there will be boozimohol and slightly less YA content. A good time will be had by all, except by those who can't make it.

As a final note, please remember that Borderlands does take online and telephone orders, and that if you contact them before today's event, you can request personalized copies of any of Cat's books that they have in stock. (You can also request personalized copies of my books, but I am not the point today.)

Come out if you can, and help us blow the roof off this house!

So, um, hey.

Basically, I spent the last weekend at Wondercon, starting every morning when the van came to collect me from my house (door-to-door service!), and ending every night when I collapsed into bed, too tired to think about anything more complicated than convincing the cats to let me have half of the pillow. I had a fabulous time—I always have a fabulous time at Wondercon—but this has left me somewhat behind on silly little things like "keeping up with my blog."

Things I did this weekend:

* Gave a copy of Feed to James Gunn (and did not pass out immediately afterward, although I did feel rather dramatically ill).
* Hung out a great deal with Kaja Foglio, and introduced her to Valencia Street.
* Took Amy Mebberson and her husband, Scott, to Borderlands Books, where they could meet Ash. Ash was incredibly affectionate (especially for her), and provided them with their first real life Sphynx encounter. Jude was charming and gracious, as always, which was especially impressive when you consider that she was also feeling under the weather and suddenly beset by people demanding access to her cat.
* Bought way too many of Amy's fun-size art cards. I have a Rapunzel/Emma Frost mash-up!
* Chatted with Carla Speed McNeil, and Layn, whom I hadn't seen in way too long.
* Donated prizes to the California Browncoats, which they gave away as part of their charity chopstick pull for Equality Now. (I also discussed the Rising, and the fact that, during the outbreak at SDCC, the Browncoats were probably one of two fannish groups that managed to survive without major casualties. May have been the losing side. It's still the one that gets you home alive.)
* Attended the Doctor Who panel, and got an awesome new shirt courtesy of BBCA!

Things I did yesterday:

* Answered lots of email.
* Bought lots of plane tickets.
* Wrote lots of words on Blackout and "Velveteen vs. the Secret Identity."
* Watched Being Human after my orgy of productivity caused me to collapse.

Things I will do today:

* Answer lots of email.
* Buy lots of plane tickets.
* Write lots of words on Blackout and "Velveteen vs. the Secret Identity."
* Prep lots of mailing.
* Start working on my taxes (shudder).

So that's what's consumed my world and time for these last four largely silent days. What's new and strange with all of you?

This past Saturday was my fourth Toby-related book event at San Francisco's Borderlands Books, home of naked cats, tolerant employees, and, every six months or so, the Traveling Circus and Snake-Handling Show. We've appeared in other locations, but Borderlands is the one we keep going back to; Borderlands is the home base for this particular flavor of insanity. Why? Because we like them.

This particular party was slated to start at six and run until nine, giving us three hours in which to sell books, answer questions, make music, and feed people vast quantities of sugar. We arrived at the bookstore en masse around four-thirty, while the prior event was tearing down, and toted ALL THE THINGS inside. Seriously, when we go into carnie mode, we're a scary mob of ALL THE THINGS. It looks like we're planning to actually move in. Wisely, people scattered; just as wisely, Kate (who met us at the bookstore) hauled me away to put food in me, since I'm about as much help during setup and tear-down as a Gila monster with a machine gun.

People began showing up around five-thirty, while we were in the midst of final touches, final placements, and soundcheck. Jeff ran our small but spunky sound system, while Kate worked the raffle table and ensured (along with Mom) that everyone got a ticket of their very own. Six o'clock hit, heralded by the arrival of my cupcakes, and we got that party started.

As always, the festivities were divided between music, Q&A, baked goods, and drawing prizes in our raffle. The questions were new and different, the raffle prizes were an awesome mix of standard and surprising (including some special additions by the bookstore, which made things even more spectacular), the cupcakes (from Cups and Cakes Bakery) were delicious, and the music was rocking. The set lists:

SET ONE:
1. "Thirteen." Michelle "Vixy" Dockrey, lead vocals, tambourine; Maya Bohnhoff, Seanan McGuire, backing vocals; Tony Fabris, guitar; Betsy Tinney, cello.
2. "Dear Gina." Seanan, lead vocals; Vixy, backing vocals; Tony, guitar; Betsy, creepy creepy cello.
3. "High Desert." Maya, lead vocals; Jeff Bohnhoff, guitar; Kristine Bohnhoff, backing vocals; Vixy, backing vocals; Betsy, cello.
4. "Pocket Man." Maya, vocals; Vixy, backing vocals; Jeff, guitar; Betsy, cello.
5. "We Can Be Anything." Vixy, vocals; Tony, guitar; Betsy, cello.

SET TWO:
1. "Radio Free Luna." Maya, lead vocals; Vixy, backing vocals; Jeff, guitar; Tony, guitar; Betsy, cello.
2. "Manhattan Sleeps." Maya, Kristine, vocals; Vixy, backing vocals; Jeff, guitar; Betsy, cello.
3. "Tam Lin." Vixy, Maya, Seanan, vocals; Jeff, guitar; Tony, guitar; Betsy, cello; Vixy, djembe; Maya, shaker.
4. "Walmart." Maya, lead vocals; Vixy, backing vocals; Jeff, guitar; Betsy, cello; Vixy, tambourine.
5. "Oak and Ash and Rowan and Thorn." Vixy, lead vocals; Maya, backing vocals; Vixy, djembe.

SET THREE:
1. "Alligator in the House." Vixy, lead vocals; Maya, backing vocals; Tony, guitar; Betsy, kick-ass cello.
2. "Tanglewood Tree." Seanan, Vixy, vocals; Tony, guitar; Betsy, cello.
3. "Apprentice." Vixy, lead vocals; Maya, backing vocals; Jeff, Tony, guitar; Betsy, cello.
4. "Got to Fly." Vixy, vocals; Tony, guitar.
5. "Wicked Girls." Seanan, Vixy, vocals; Tony, guitar; Betsy, cello.

"Thirteen" and "Apprentice" are on Vixy and Tony's first album, Thirteen.
"Dear Gina" is on Seanan's third album, Red Roses and Dead Things.
"High Desert" and "Radio Free Luna" are on Jeff and Maya's fourth album, Möbius Street.
"Pocket Man" is on Jeff and Maya's third album, Aliens Ate My Homework.
"Manhattan Sleeps" is on Jeff and Maya's second album, Manhattan Sleeps.
"Tam Lin" and "Alligator in the House" are on Tricky Pixie's first album, Mythcreants.
"Tanglewood Tree" and "Wicked Girls" are on Seanan's fourth album, Wicked Girls.
"Got to Fly" is on Marian Call's second album, Got to Fly.

A good time was had by all. We raised the roof; I signed more books in a single sitting than I ever have before, even at Comicon; the cupcakes lasted eight minutes, tops; nothing got broken. We're already making plans and getting our ducks in row for the next time that the Circus comes to town.

Thanks to everyone who attended, and to everyone who didn't...see you next time!

People of Earth, consider this your final warning: The Traveling Circus and Snake-Handling Show will be descending on Borderlands Books tomorrow, from six to nine in the evening. There will be cupcakes from Cups and Cakes Bakery, including the famous (or infamous) Mad Tea Party cupcakes originally conceived for the Emilie Autumn concert. (Chai cake, ginger buttercream, and strawberry jam.) We will endeavor not to eat them all before you get there, but it's gonna be hard.

There will be no actual snakes.

This iteration of the Circus includes Jeff and Maya Bohnhoff, who have never joined us for this particular madness, and are going to go a long way toward rocking the proverbial house. We'll have a raffle, a Q&A period, book signings, and all the random cheering you can stomach. There may even be some random dancing. Do you hear me? RANDOM DANCING!!!!

Come help us celebrate the release of Late Eclipses, and my first appearance on the New York Times bestseller list. If you can't attend, remember that you can order signed and inscribed copies of any of my books from Borderlands, and they'll be happy to hook you up.

Hope to see you there!

What: Late Eclipses release party.
Where: San Francisco's own Borderlands Books, home of the naked kitties.
When: Saturday, March 19th, from six to nine PM (probably followed by decamping down the street for dinner, because That's How We Roll).
Why: Because we like you!

The Traveling Circus is descending upon Borderlands in a new incarnation, to dazzle, delight, and entertain you as we celebrate the release of Late Eclipses. This particular circus spectacular will feature Vixy "Kitsune Girl" Dockrey, Tony "Tony" Fabris, Betsy "The Cellonator" Tinney, Jeff "Heavy Metal Squid" Bohnhoff, and Maya "The Crusher" Bohnhoff. Oh, also, me. This is the first time the Bohnhoffs have joined us for a Traveling Circus, and I'm very excited about the whole thing.

There will be a raffle, readings, Q&A sessions, music, and cupcakes. Borderlands Cafe will be open right next door, to satisfy your nourishment needs (because let's face it, man does not live by cupcakes alone). We always have a great time at these things, and part of what makes them so awesome is the way people show up and help us party. So please, show up! Help us party!

It's going to be a fun night.

It's official! Late Eclipses [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] is now available from fine bookstores everywhere in North America, and from many fine bookstores elsewhere in the world! HOORAY!

Here are a few things to help you celebrate:

Firstly, there are gorgeous Late Eclipses wallpapers and icons available now at my website! Dress your computer in its Toby-related finery, and enjoy Tara's increasingly incredible work every time you make a post or minimize your active windows. Wallpapers and icons from previous books are also available.

I've done a shiny new interview over at the Qwillery, and you can win a copy of Late Eclipses! Dust off your Shakespeare and get ready for a good time, or at least the kind of time that involves hearing about my writing process in faintly silly terms.

Because people ask a lot: every sale counts, and if it's a legit sale (IE, not from a guy in a trenchcoat standing behind the 7-11), I get paid for it. In order of "how helpful is this," it goes brick and mortar stores first, because a sale from them often leads to a re-order; online retailers second, since again, they have to restock when they run out; and ebooks third, as those never need to be replenished. Take two, they're small.

Finally, I am going to be at Borderlands Books this afternoon, doing a swing-through stock-signing. If you want a signed book, and will be unable to make my March 19th Borderlands event, you can call the store and place an order any time after 12:00 PST (when they open). I'm also willing to sign the first three books, Feed, Zombiesque, and Tales From the Ur-Bar (also coming out today).

Happy bookday to me!

Late Eclipses [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] is nearly upon us, and you know what that means. TRAVELING CIRCUS TIME!

The Traveling Circus (this time consisting of myself, Betsy Tinney, Vixy & Tony, and Jeff and Maya Bohnhoff) will be descending on San Francisco's own Borderlands Books on March 19th, where we will do our best to blow the roof off with our characteristic mix of music, madness, and random, unexpected cheering. There will be a raffle, and the cafe will be open to fill your bellies with delicious food. This is Jeff and Maya's first day at the Circus, so please show up and help us show them how we roll.

I'll post a reminder when we get closer to the event, and of course, all events are listed on my website appearances page.

Also potentially of interest, for those of you who can't make it to the party: remember that Borderlands Books will take orders for signed and inscribed books, and will happily ship them all over the world. I'll be swinging through the store on Tuesday, where I'll happily sign any books that are waiting in my queue. So if you want a personalized book, drop the store a line, and trade some cash for the knowledge that my pen has been put to paper in your name.

It's really a book!

First up, here is a message from my darling spectralbovine, who is, by the way, questionably insane, as well as being one of my favorite hotel roomies:

"Wow! A great many thanks to everyone who has already donated to 826 Valencia, helping me raise nearly $5,000! Our team has raised nearly $12,000, making us the most successful fund-raising spelling bee team in the history of 826. If you would like to be a part of this tremendous achievement, there's still time!

http://tiny.cc/sunilspellingbee

If you would like to see me put all this cheating money to good use against Michael Chabon, Lemony Snicket, Adam Savage, John Vanderslice, Tracy Chapman, and others (including a former National Spelling Bee competitor), I invite you to attend the Spelling Bee for Cheaters on Thursday, February 17 at 7:30 PM at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco.

http://www.cityboxoffice.com/ordertickets.asp?p=5324

Use the discount code 826VLNTR to get general seating for $15 and premium seating for $40! Bring giant foam letters to give me hints."

Now, his team is currently in grave danger from the various celebrity teams; Adam Savage, especially, has endangered their status as Most Successful Fund-Raisers Ever. So if you were considering helping this good cause, here's your chance!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch (or back in my living room, depending on your point of view), Mom and I were shipping Wicked Girls CDs the other day, and discovered that one of the boxes had been partially damaged in shipping. So I have three CDs with cracked jewel cases and slightly damaged liner notes, but no damage to the CDs themselves. I'm selling these for $5 plus postage; please comment here if you're interested.

And that's the news.

We are now thirteen days from the release of Late Eclipses [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy], and to celebrate, here are thirteen things about San Francisco!

13. Yes, parking is as difficult to find as I make it out to be in the Toby books. In fact, it's usually slightly worse; because Toby has magic (and narrative flow), she usually manages to find street parking after only a paragraph or two of driving around. The rest of us usually wind up paying for our parking. Lucky Toby.

12. In areas like Valencia, you can walk for miles without seeing a Starbucks, although you will encounter dozens of small, independent coffee shops and cafes. In areas like North Beach and the Financial District, you can find a Starbucks every two blocks. It's like the city has a median average to maintain, and has decided to dump them all in the same place.

11. Many San Francisco natives rarely, if ever, visit the rest of the Bay Area, and are surprised when interesting things happen in the East Bay. (Not 100% true, but definitely supported by my personal experience.)

10. San Francisco is a city which never met a hill it didn't think "hey, I could put houses there, and people will totally figure out how to park at an eighty-seven degree angle." And because parking is at such a premium, people do.

9. It may be apocryphal that Mark Twain once said the coldest summer he ever spent was in San Francisco, but there's a reason so many people believe it. Thanks to the marine layer, we often have heat waves in December, and cold snaps in July.

8. Despite the hills and the messed-up weather, we still have joggers. Joggers are insane.

7. San Francisco's pigeon population is fairly epic, and most of them are pretty healthy, because there's so much food dropped by the tourist trade. Also, they eat their own sick. It's disturbing and fascinating, like an avian recreation of The Lottery.

6. Cable cars, not really worth it. No, seriously. They're not.

5. Ghirardeli Square sells a sundae called "The Earthquake" which costs around twenty dollars and needs at least five people to eat it. It's a towering monument to gluttony, and all visitors to our fair city should treat it as a mandatory undertaking. Unless you're lactose intolerant or diabetic.

4. San Francisco proper covers a span of 46.7 square miles. That's why we have South San Francisco, San Bruno, and Colma. Because otherwise, we'd run out of space really, really fast.

3. A team of fae without human disguises on could probably run the Bay to Breakers without anyone saying anything but "cool costumes, man."

2. The Ferry Building Farmer's Market is one of the best in the state. It's huge, diverse, and a little bit scary, since who really needs an heirloom tomato the size of a human head? Me, that's who. Now gimme.

1. I do an incredible amount of geographic research when introducing a new location in the Toby books. Half of it gets thrown out the window in the interests of not turning into a guidebook, but I do it. And this city is really weird. That's what makes it so great.

Since it's a "talking about birthdays" kind of a day, here's my own (belated) birthday report:

Last Wednesday was my birthday, and it was, quite frankly, pretty miserable. I had gone home from work early on Tuesday, suffering from a nasty cold. It had mostly cleared up by Wednesday morning, which was awesome, although there was still some, well, let's call it "blockage." The "blockage" continued to reduce over the course of the day, until somewhere around noon, when I sneezed, knocking the last of it free...

...and unleashing the GALLONS OF BLOOD I had apparently been storing in my sinuses, courtesy of an unnoticed six-hour-long nosebleed. I managed to burst a blood vessel deep inside my head with all the sneezing and misery of Tuesday, and then, well. Bleeding! Like it was an Olympic sport! Accompanied by dizziness from, you know, LOSS OF BLOOD. I managed to make it to the bathroom (barely), where I passed out on the floor, and was later found by a co-worker unconscious in a pool of my own blood. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME.

(Yes, I have seen my doctor; no, it was not an aneurysm; it was really and truly just a burst blood vessel, and I am now fine. There have been no repeats of the "massive bleeding followed by passing out" party-time fun.)

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I was sent home from work after turning the bathroom into my own private horror movie, and—after medical what-not and transit—met up with my mother and youngest sister for our usual Wednesday errands. We actually put off going to the comic book store in order to drive to Berkeley and eat Indian food for dinner, because it made sense from a traffic perspective. I complained a few times about the lack of cake, but not with any real passion, as I was a) tired, and b) still a little out of it. We ate. We drove back to Concord. We went to the comic book store.

Upon entry, I declared happily, "It's my BIRTHDAY!", since it's awesome when your birthday corresponds to new comic book day. The staff looked theatrically shocked...probably because that was about when Libby (the owner's wife) emerged from the office with a cake.

Yes. A cake.

MY COMIC STORE GOT ME A BIRTHDAY CAKE.

Did you ever need proof that I was an enormous nerd? Because if you did, here it is: my comic book store GOT ME A BIRTHDAY CAKE. That is how much time I spend there. BUYING ME A CAKE amounts of time.

I love my life. Medical emergencies and all.

Today is Kaja Foglio's birthday! If you don't know Kaja, she's one-half of the creative team behind Girl Genius, along with her husband, the interminable Phil Foglio. Together, they won the 2010 Hugo for Best Graphic Novel. Also, they fight crime.

I'm just saying.

This month, the Foglios unleashed their unspeakable powers on a new arena: the novel. While Phil has written book-length prose before (most specifically Illegal Aliens, co-written with the awesome Nick Pollotta), this is Kaja's first foray into this particular medium. Agatha Heterodyne and the Airship City [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] is a novelization of the first two volumes of the Girl Genius graphic novel. Meaning what? Meaning that if you already read the comic, this isn't new story, per se, but it's deeper story, more intricate story. It enriches and expands on what you already know. And if you haven't read the comic, well, why not? It's available for free online. Yes, all of it. Yes, the Foglios make a living giving away their product. Why? Because it's that good.

Why am I telling you all this? Because it's Kaja's birthday, and what she asked for this year was, well, that we talk about her book. If you were considering picking up Agatha Heterodyne and the Airship City [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy], why not do it today? Give Kaja a book sale for her birthday, and help the Foglios ring the bells on Amazon (or at your local independent bookseller—I note that Borderlands Books has the book in stock, as, I'm sure, do many others).

The Foglios are great people, and Agatha Heterodyne is a great book. If you like steampunk, gaslamp fantasy, wacky science, mad science, cute blonde girls in corsets, and making my friends happy, give Agatha Heterodyne and the Airship City [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] a look! Statistically speaking, if you're reading my journal, you'll probably be glad that you did.

Item the first: kirylyn, you have won a copy of An Artificial Night in the fourth of my random holiday drawings. Please email me within the next twenty-four hours, using the contact form on my website, to be mailing your book. If I don't hear from you inside this time, I will have to draw a new winner. So I surely do hope I hear from you!

Item the second: I spent most of the day in San Francisco, as The Editor was flying in through SFO, and needed to be picked up and toted to her final destination (for the moment). With a stop at Borderlands Books, naturally, to meet the hairless cats. Sadly, the hairless cats were not in when we swung by, but we got to hang out with Jude, and I convinced a nice lady to buy Carousel Tides for her wife. So life, pretty good, really.

Item the third: Alice is continuing to get better, and has now improved enough to be pushy and imperious when she doesn't get what she wants. Given that at her worst, she was barely interactive, this is wonderful, and I relish being bullied by my big fuzzy baby. She knows it, too, and is taking shameless advantage of me. Oddly, I'm okay with that.

Item the fourth: My bedroom may actually be a black hole. I'm trying to clean up and rearrange in here, and it's dauntingly horrific. I keep finding things I didn't know existed, like a long box half-full of Stars Fall Home. In other news, I now have ten more copies of Stars Fall Home.

Item the fifth: As part of my cleaning efforts, I'm sorting, indexing, and purging my collection of My Little Ponies. When I'm done, I'll actually be able to make a coherent wish list. This is...maybe not such a good thing, really, since I have access to eBay. But hey. Everything has its downside.

How's by you?

Back in mid-September, Borderlands Books in San Francisco played host to the third Traveling Circus and Snake-Handling Show, assembled to celebrate the release of the third (yes, already) October Daye book, An Artificial Night. Yay! I love Borderlands, I love the Circus, and I love book release parties, so this was like a whole casserole baked entirely out of pixie dust and joy. PIXIE DUST AND JOY.

We began with me, Amy, Brooke, Ryan, and Mia at my house, getting ready for the day ahead of us. This largely consisted of "putting on clothes" and "packing the event kit," a large orange plastic box that carries all the non-perishables needed for a big book party (raffle tickets, raffle prizes, bookmarks, paper plates, pens for signing stuff, occasionally one or more of the cats if we don't seal it fast enough). Ryan and Mia drove off with Amy. Mom picked the rest of us up, along with my youngest sister* and her girlfriend, and we drove to San Francisco, only stopping off to buy classy, classy cake from the warehouse store.

We got to the bookstore hours early, and stowed our stuff in the bookstore before scattering to find food. Amy, Brooke, and I would up going to a tacqueria down the street, which fed us delicious Mexican food, and kept Brooke from killing and eating us all. I ate a chicken burrito, nom, and we walked back to the bookstore to find a Kate sitting outside, reading a book, and the rest of the descending Circus waiting inside. Hooray! CIRCUS TIME! The entire Circus was wearing orange and black and green. ORANGE GIRLS OF THE WORLD, UNITE. Seriously, it was MAD AWESOME.

The night was divided into five distinct activities: music; raffle drawings; cake; reading; Q&A. We had breaks between activities, so people could mill, visit, use the bathroom, and shop (being as we were in a very large, enticing bookstore and all).

MUSIC: Musicians from everywhere! Alphabetically by instrument, we had Brooke Lunderville on banjo, Betsy Tinney on cello, Amy McNally on fiddle, SJ Tucker on guitar and vocals, Michelle "Vixy" Dockrey on vocals, and me on occasional "flustered author is flustered" vocals. (We did close with "Wicked Girls," so that's all right.)

RAFFLE: You got one ticket for showing up, one ticket for a purchase from the cafe, and one ticket for a purchase at the bookstore, for a maximum of three tickets per person. The drawing included everything from books to pendants to toys, and was fun, as always, with the usual amount of fuss and cheering for the winners. Buckets of fun.

CAKE: We had two cakes, and no cake cutting device. So Alan, glorious Alan, cut the cake with a gladius. I love having events at Borderlands. I love it SO DAMN HARD.

READING: Because I didn't want to read from the third Toby book, I read "Lost" from Ravens in the Library. When I started the story, the store had three copies left in stock. When I finished it, they had...zero. Literally, I started to say "I think this may be the last one," and Jude signaled that no, it had been sold while I was reading. Super-fun! Also, I made Vixy cry. Flawless victory.

Q&A: The Q&A was, as always, insane. You should come to one sometime.

During the milling sections, people talked, bought books, bought pendants, and bought copies of Sooj's new album, Mischief. (We wound up selling out of that, too.) Many books were sold, many hugs were given, and at the end of the night, we bid the bookstore a fond farewell and went down the street to Fritz, where we ate fries and mussels and crepes, and were joyful.

Everybody loves a night at the circus. Don't you?

(*The one who looks like a zaftig gothic Betty Page.)c

So October is basically "embarrassment of riches" month here in the San Francisco Bay Area, at least as far as author events and awesomeness are concerned. Being a sensible person, I like things which are awesome. This weekend? Has a whole lot of awesome packed into a relatively small space. HOW DO THEY DO IT?!? I DO NOT KNOW. But you—yes, you—can benefit from it.

First up, tomorrow! Professor Laurence A. Rickels, author of I Think I Am: Philip K. Dick (available from the University of Minnesota Press) will be at Borderlands Books at 3:00 PM. One presumes he will be talking about his book. And immediately after he's had his turn...

ZOMG SKIN HORSE! Shaenon Garrity and Jeffrey C. Wells will be at Borderlands Books at 5:00 PM, celebrating the awesome-tastic release of Skin Horse, volume II in a delicious dead tree edition. It's gonna be awesome. Are we prepared to face Shaenon and Jeffrey together, in the same place? I do not know. But again, you can benefit from it, because dude.

Sunday, also at Borderlands Books, Richard Kadrey will be appearing to talk about the second book in the Sandman Slim series, Kill the Dead. Words cannot properly express how much I loved this book, and its predecessor, Sandman Slim, which is now in paperback. He'll be at the store at 3:00 PM, being AWESOME.

All events are free of charge, and remember, you can contact the bookstore to place orders and requests for signed books of your very own. I'll be attending the Skin Horse party, because I am a sensible blonde, and because I have been promised cupcakes. I hope to see you there!

I forgot to share the most positive review from Publisher's Weekly yet received by a Toby Daye book:

"McGuire hits her stride with this fast-paced, sharply plotted, tense urban fantasy, the third featuring half-fae detective Toby Daye (after 2009's A Local Habitation). Toby is dismayed to encounter her frighteningly upbeat Fetch, May Daye, a magical doppelganger heralding her imminent demise. Hot on its heels comes the discovery that Blind Michael, lord of the Wild Hunt, has kidnapped a number of fae and human children—including several whom Toby considers family—to replenish his riders. Determined to outfight or outwit Michael, Toby chases him down several increasingly dangerous Faerie Roads and through the streets of San Francisco, finding unexpected allies and new inner strength. McGuire adeptly plunders folklore, nursery rhymes, traditional ballads, and fairy tales for her framework, and fleshes it out with plenty of action and intrigue. With the addition of May, the cast finally clicks and the series really solidifies." —PW

What do I take away from this? Well, a) May is totally awesome, b) it is possible for me to get a positive review that doesn't mention Tybalt (although Tybalt disagrees with this position), and c) I am totally a folklore pirate. Ahoy, mateys! Slow down your fairy tale and prepare to be boarded!

In other news, An Artificial Night was the top-selling mass-market paperback at Borderlands Books last month. That? Rules. (Also, Feed was number ten. If I can get a third book onto the list at the same time, I get to shout BINGO! really loud.)

Life is good.

10. It's Friday! And that means that tomorrow is Saturday, which further means that it's finally time for me to have a book event at the Other Change of Hobbit! Conveniently located next to Ashby BART, spacious, and full of neat things, this is one of my favorite bookstores. You should totally come.

9. Karen Healey (I know, right?) has a poll for the best moment of WorldCon 2010/Aussiecon IV, and yes, my squeaky acceptance of the Campbell Award is currently in the lead. Which is the sort of thing that makes me blink and cry a little. But in the good way, I promise! Also, John Scalzi licking stuff.

8. After our horrible "oh crap the house is full of fleas" experience this summer, everything seems to have settled down. Alice's belly-fur is growing back, no one's trying to claw their own flesh off, and our strict regimen of flea powdering the carpets and pouring poison on the cats is keeping the blood-suckers away. Thank the Great Pumpkin.

7. SHARKTOPUS! Tomorrow night on SyFy! Because Coyote loves me and wants me to be happy.

6. By the same measure, have you seen Jane Austin's Fight Club? Because seriously, this video is love. (Technically safe for work, if you're allowed to watch videos at work and feel like doing some potentially awkward explaining about why all those girls are smacking the crap out of each other.)

5. Resident Evil: Afterlife actually doesn't suck. I know, I'm as surprised as you are. Sort of tickled, too, but mostly just surprised. It's not as good as Resident Evil: Apocalypse, but then, what is?

4. Jean Grey is still dead.

3. Things that are back on the air: Glee, Fringe, Big Bang Theory, Bones, and America's Next Top Model. Things that have managed to stick the landing in their season finales: Rizzoli and Isles, Leverage, Unnatural History, and Warehouse 13. Things that make me happy: watching too much television.

2. Despite my currently perennially delayed posting schedule (curse you, Australia, and your lack of Internet), the latest iteration of the Traveling Circus and Snake-Handling Show went well, and we all had a fantastic time. Plus, the bookstore now has signed books, and that makes everything wonderful.

...and the best thing about today...

1. Welcome to fall.

What's awesome about your Friday?

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you tomorrow's...

PARTY SCHEDULE!

4:00 PM: Setup, sound check, and final details. You can show up, but we may ignore you if you do. Sorry about that.
5:00 PM: Welcome to our party. We're done ignoring you now.
5:40 PM: Perhaps you would like some music.
6:00 PM: Perhaps you would like to win things.
6:30 PM: Now there will be cake.
7:00 PM: More music?
7:30 PM: More prizes?
7:45 PM: Assuming people are not too busy buying books and drinking coffee, I'll read something. No, really.
8:30 PM: Last music of the night.
8:50 PM: Last chance to give the bookstore and cafe money before we say goodnight.
9:00 PM: Last raffle drawing of the night and we close the evening.

This iteration of the Traveling Circus and Snake-Handling Show will be in the bookstore proper; the cafe will be open throughout the evening, and they've promised to get more bread and delicious pastry this time. Raffle tickets will be available through the three standard methods: show up, buy something from the bookstore, or buy something from the cafe.

All performing musicians will have CDs for sale, because we're predictable like that. Mia will be there with pendants for sale, and they are gorgeous. There will be cake, and candy, provided as part of the party, and a whole cafe full of delicious things to purchase and enjoy.

It's gonna be a good night. Hope to see you there.

Have you always wanted to attend one of my book events? Well, here's your chance!

The Traveling Circus will be reuniting this Saturday, September 18th, for a gala bash at Borderlands Books in San Francisco, California! Festivities will commence at five, and continue until nine, by which point the bookstore will have had more than enough of us, and will doubtless shovel us all out into the street.

Will there be music? Yes, there will be music. With Amy McNally, Michelle Dockrey, Betsy Tinney, SJ Tucker, and Brooke Lunderville in attendance, music has become unavoidable. The musicians will be back in the bookstore this time, leaving the cafe open for the consumption of delicious, delicious beverages, and even more delicious food.

Will there be a raffle? Yes, there will be a raffle. Awesome prizes are being prepared as we speak, tucked into their box with care as we get ready for the big night. All attendees will get a raffle ticket automatically; get another ticket by making a purchase at either the bookstore or the cafe (three tickets per person, maximum).

Will there be cake? Yes, there will be cake. It's Toby's one-year publication "birthday," and cake makes every birthday better.

Will there be pendants? Yes, there will be pendants. chimera_fancies will be in attendance, with a never-before-seen batch of pendants created from an ARC of An Artificial Night. They're some of her best work to date, and will be available for sale throughout the evening. Seriously, you don't want to miss these.

Remember that, if you can't attend, Borderlands is happy to take requests for signed and personalized books, and I'd be thrilled to sign a book to be mailed to you. They have all three Toby books, Feed, The Living Dead 2, and—the last time I checked—one of the last remaining retail copies of Ravens in the Library. So show up if you can, and consider placing an order if you can't!

This message bought and paid for by The Traveling Circus and Snake-Handling Show, LLC.

maryrobinette is in town for this month's SF in SF—which I will regrettably be missing, due to having a prior engagement—and I managed to catch her on chat this morning and arrange for an afternoon meeting to hang out. This delighted me utterly, because I adore Mary, and don't get to see her often. (For those of you who need a footnote: Mary Robinette is the "voice" of the October Daye series, as she reads them in audio book form. She's also a puppeteer, an author, and the 2008 recipient of the Campbell Award. Girl's got game.)

Since the first thing I do with any out-of-town guest is take 'em for cupcakes, I arranged to have Mary meet me at Cups and Cakes Bakery. Yes, I am the devil. She was properly delighted by the palace of sugary delights, and consumed a peanut butter cup (chocolate cake, peanut butter frosting, dipped in chocolate ganache) and a red velvet, while I, being a pretty pink princess, ate a Pretty Pretty Princess (strawberry cake with strawberry frosting). Yum, all the way around.

You can't hang out in a bakery forever, so I asked Mary if she'd like to walk over to Borderlands. She was game for this adventure, and I've walked that route so many times now that I don't really need to pay attention anymore. Gleeful chattering and wandering ensued, culminating in our arrival at the bookstore, where we found Jude, Alan, and—eventually—Jeremy.

Jeremy had a box.

Inside the box was the new Night Shade Press anthology, The Living Dead 2. This is a big, handsome book, with a gorgeous cover, and a great table of contents. Said table of contents includes Kelley Armstrong, Max Brooks, David Wellington...and Mira Grant.

Oh, wait. That's me.

Oxygen is hard.

The story, "Everglades," is set on the U.C. Berkeley campus during the Rising. It's sad and wistful and tragic, and you should totally read it. I mean, you should totally buy this anthology if you like zombies, even a little, because it's gorgeous, but really? My story. In a book. With all these amazing people.

I managed a) not to break Jeremy's fingers snatching the book away, and b) to stay and keep talking for a while, because running cackling into the night would have been rude. We eventually shifted to the cafe, where I hugged Cole, hugged Mary goodbye, and departed for home, taking my book with me.

My book. You cannot have it. Get your own. MINE.

Damn, this was a surprisingly good day.

So there's this publisher, Leisure Horror, that prints, well, horror. Lots of it. At least one new paperback release a month (probably substantially more, given the size of their catalog), spanning everything from the classic movie monsters to the modern splatterpunk. I love them. They're my literary popcorn, and I devour them the way my grandmother used to devour category Harlequin romances. It gets me funny looks on the train, since if you run down the line of afternoon commuters-with-books, you'll usually get "woman with romance, woman with romance, man with science fiction with big guns on the cover, me," and Leisure's graphic designers don't believe in being stingy with the arterial spray.

Last weekend at Spocon, in the dealer's hall, I was lucky enough to find a man with an entire box of Leisure Horror that I hadn't read yet. Yes, that's right: a box. I went through it to pick out duplicates, squealing as I did about how unrelentingly, gloriously terrible some of the books looked. Brooke, who was with me, initially thought I was rating them. Then she realized I was buying them, and made the best "Oh God why have you allowed this to happen?" face I've ever seen her make. I got twenty-one brand new horror novels for twenty bucks, and he threw in the box. Total win.

(My total win only increased later in the weekend, when trektone expressed delight over my horror novel haul. Now I have someplace to dump all the ones I don't want to keep! FUCK YEAH, SEAKING!)

I have since devoured three and a half books from the haul. The first one, Snow, was an incredible reminder of why I'm not actually a very good straight horror author. See, these things come out of the snow, and they kill people. They stick their creepy snow-creature arms into peoples' backs, and drive them around like disturbing meat-suit zombies. And then they eat you. Unless you can kill them first, in which case, hey, points to you. That's it. That's all. No science, no justification, no "oh my stars and garters, the Wendigo myth was based on reality"—there are snow monsters, and they want to make you die. I loved this book. If I'd written it, it would have been twice as long, involved a lot more why-porn, and probably lost a few entrails in favor of a) the scene at the top-secret government lab where we learn about the aliens, or b) the scene at the top-secret monster-hunters' library where we learn about the folklore behind the snow-creatures. It always makes me happy when I get a reminder of why I'm not the kind of horror author I sometimes secretly wish I were.

The second book, Dwellers, was the first thing I've ever picked up from Leisure Horror that could actually be adapted into a Disney movie. It would be a sad Disney movie, sure, and it would lose a lot of, again, entrails, but it would work. Dwellers is like Harry and the Hendersons crossed with The Thing. It's sad and poignant and tragic and funny and altogether wonderful, and I really didn't expect it. Again, there's very little "why" in the book. Horror doesn't need "why." Horror needs entrails, and horror gets them, but oh, wow, is this a fabulous book.

The two I've read since then haven't been even remotely as good, which is why I'm not identifying them by name. Altogether, it's been a fantastic reminder of why I read horror, and why I'm not so good at writing it in any format longer than a short story. Why is there a monster in the closet?

Because.

Looking for something to do tomorrow? Wondering what mischief you could possibly get up to? Longing for spooky stories, creepy environs, naked cats, and cupcakes? Well, your potentially haunted ship is sailing into harbor, because tomorrow (July 17th) is the second, and final, stop on the Murder and Mayhem Tour.

Jennifer Brozek (Murder) and I (Mayhem) will be appearing at Borderlands Books from 3:00 PM until we get bored and wander away. Jennifer will be reading selections from her new book, In A Gilded Light, while I'll be reading from "Sparrow Hill Road." To quote Jennifer:

"Together, Murder and Mayhem will read excerpts from their fiction, tell tales out of school and generally have a good time."

Also, there will be cupcakes.

Seriously, though, we'll be signing books, answering questions, and generally having a lovely time, and we'd love to have you. There's also a chance that I'll have copies of Mischief (the new SJ Tucker album), if they reach me in time.

See you there!

I am weirdly superstitious. I say "weirdly" because the things about which I am superstitious tend to be, well, weird. I think black cats and the number thirteen are lucky, but I won't walk under a ladder (at least in part because I don't want anyone dropping paint on me). Finding a penny on the street is cause for celebration and declarations that all day long, I will have good luck. (Finding a nickle, dime, or quarter is cause for a ticker-tape parade, as people tend to be more careful about their silver.)

I count crows, I count cherry pits, I hunt for prime numbers and multiples of nine. I use my slide show screensaver as a funky sort of personal oracle. Get the concept? Superstitious and weird, that's me. So...

Yesterday, I found out that Hugo voting (and hence Campbell voting) is open to Supporting Members of AussieCon, and that voting is open until July 31st (along with registration for Supporting Members). Details are here, in case you're curious. That was pretty cool, as people have been asking me about it for a while now, and I like having answers.

Yesterday, I went to Borderlands Books to pick up the three most recent Repairman Jack books (I had a craving). As I was walking down 4th Street to the BART, I saw a coin on the sidewalk. I'm always on the lookout for coins; they might be pennies. So I stopped and picked it up.

It was an Australian two-dollar piece.

I'm weirdly superstitious, and found money is always a cause for making guesses about the intent of the universe. Last night, I dreamt about Australia. Who's surprised? Not me. And not the pony-sized huntsman spider I was riding around Sydney, either.

Kelley Armstrong is one of my favorite urban fantasy authors, and yet more proof that All Good Things Come From Canada.* She was the second person to officially blurb Rosemary and Rue, for which I will love her forever. (The first person was Tanya Huff, and for this, I potentially owe her a kidney.) I mean, really, the only thing that could make Kelley better would be for her to suddenly become local.

OH WAIT WHAT'S THIS? Kelley Armstrong will be appearing at San Francisco's own Borderlands Books tonight at seven? The best bookstore in the world has one of my favorite authors ever? Also one of my mother's favorite authors** ever? Is there anything about this which is not TOTAL WIN?

No. There is not. I hope to see you there, and remember, you can always contact the store to request signed/personalized books, because they are JUST THAT AWESOME.

Whee!

(*Okay, maybe not all good things, but since Canada gives me Brooke, Tanya, Urban Tapestry, Coffee Crisp bars, and ReGenesis, as well as the production of ninety percent of the television I love, I'm willing to give them some extra credit for awesome.)

(**Mom goes Jim Hines, Kelley Armstrong, me. When I eventually slay Jim and Kelley*** on the field of battle, this will be why.)

(***Accidental portmanteaus of Jim and Kelley include "Kim" and "Jelley." I now want to write a series of YA stories about Kim and Jelly, UNDERWORLD EXPLORERS. They would have wild adventures and wear silly hats. Kim is from a secret steampunk under-society built beneath the sewers of San Francisco, using the 1906 earthquake as cover. Jelly is a clone-construct originally intended as an organ farm for his creator. They probably fight crime.)

Saturday was my book launch party for Feed, kindly hosted by the wonderful crew at Borderlands Books. They're very tolerant of my particular brand of crazy, and I appreciate that, since I've been working with this brand for so long that I don't think I could make the switch to generic crazy even if I wanted to.

Brooke arrived Friday from Vancouver, and the plan was that my mother would pick up her, me, and Amy from my house sometime around ten, so that we would have time for a stop in Berkeley before heading into San Francisco. Mom actually arrived around eleven, as she had needed to go pick up the van that we were using to haul everyone around for the day; I allowed that this was, perhaps, an acceptable delay. We encountered more delays, in the form of "picking up Mom's friend Sydney" and "stopping so Brooke could sit on the curb until she stopped feeling like she was going to throw up," and then we were on our way.

First stop: Berkeley, where we visited the Bone Room (lots of exciting dead things for Brooke to coo over!) and collected Kate, who was going to be accompanying us for the rest of the day. Kate, being exceptionally clever, brought her iPad, complete with pre-loaded Plants vs. Zombies. So I played Plants vs. Zombies all the way to San Francisco, and PS, now I want an iPad. All hail Kate.

Second stop: Ghirardelli Square, one of those San Francisco institutions and tourist flytraps that everybody needs to visit at least once, if only to see the fountain with the copper mermaids force-feeding frogs to their horrified babies (no, really). Amy, Kate, and I wound up being the ones to place our order, which meant that we got to choose all the flavors of ice cream for our Earthquake. FEAR OUR POWER. Expert table-sharking netted us a nice table near an epically loud cluster of Girl Scouts, and we settled to await our ice cream.

The thing about the Earthquake is that it's one of those sundaes that comes with eight spoons and really means it. It takes two people to bring it to your table. When the Earthquake arrived, a moment of hushed silence fell, all of us just staring at the enormous mound of dairy goodness in front of us. And then we attacked, like starving hyenas at the waterhole. Only whipped cream and memories remained by the time our spoons dropped from our sugar-numbed fingers, because that is how you start a book release party.

Third stop: Cups and Cakes, to pick up the eight dozen mini cupcakes ordered for the event. The brain cupcakes looked amazing. So amazing, in fact, that I forgot I was supposed to be getting cotton candy cupcakes in the variety pack—whoops. It turned out not to matter, as the cupcakes I did get were utterly destroyed over the course of the evening. All hail sugar, all mourn for my fallen diet.

Fourth stop: Borderlands at last. We got there literally four minutes before we were supposed to arrive, which was cutting it pretty darn close, to find the store teeming with excited party-goers. All attempts to keep people out of the cupcakes failed, as they kept opening the boxes and snitching out cupcakes every time I turned my back, so we eventually just gave up and let the hordes descend. Rae brought RYMAN FOR PRESIDENT buttons, which were even more awesome than the cupcakes, and passed them out to the crowd.

After milling, I read the first chapter of Feed, and we had a fun, fast-paced discussion/Q&A session before another milling-and-cupcakes break. This was followed by my reading "Gimme a 'Z'!", since I didn't want to read chapter two, and we needed something else to amuse the crowd. Jude hadn't realized that I was serious when I said she was the new Squad Leader. Much amusement abounded. After that came another Q&A, and then we broke for the evening, leaving the bookstore in the same condition that we found it in.

Fifth stop: The Phoenix for dinner, before somebody got killed and eaten. I had lamb stew. My diet, so shot for the night.

Sixth stop: The airport, to send Amy back to Wisconsin.

Seventh stop: Kate's house, to return her to GP.

Eighth stop: Home, and bed.

I love book release night. Go Pumpkins!

Here's your friendly neighborhood Disney Halloweentown Princess with a cheerful reminder that tomorrow, I'll be appearing at Borderlands Books in San Francisco from five to nine PM in my role as Mira Grant, Destroyer of Worlds. As I have ordered eight dozen mini cupcakes for this event, leaving me to my own devices may result in some actual destroying of man, as I will get all hopped-up on sugar and then people will die. Save the world. Come to my party and eat a cupcake.

More seriously, this is to celebrate my first book as Mira, Feed (Newsflesh I), which came out on April 27th. It's been getting really awesome reviews, and has caused several of my friends to threaten to hit me (that's how you know it's good). It's dystopian science fiction with zombies in—sort of a cross between The West Wing, Night of the Living Dead, and Transmetropolitan—and I'm really, really proud of it.

There will be cupcakes. Naked cats. Discussion. Readings (yes, possibly plural; I'm planning to read the first chapter of Feed, and I'm bringing some of my dead-stuff themed short stories to read later in the evening). Plus, awesome bookstore full of awesome books. And I will be happy to sign books published under my own name, as well as under Mira's, so anything you want to buy and shove in front of me will be awesome.

If you can't make it, remember that you can contact the bookstore and request a signed or personalized book of your very own. They make excellent gifts, doorstops, and base materials for the manufacture of paper-mache masks, in addition to making me do a little dance when the pile of things-to-sign is placed in front of me. Support local bookstores (no one said who they had to be local to...).

I hope I'll see you there! As a special added bonus, if you let me know that you're planning to show up, I'll try to make sure that we save you a cupcake.

Zombies rule!

This Saturday, May 8th 2010, I will be appearing at San Francisco's own Borderlands Books in my guise as Mira Grant to celebrate the release of Mira's first novel, Feed [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy]. Feed is a science fiction dystopian novel of political zombie terror, best described as "Night of the Living Dead meets The West Wing and Transmetropolitan." If that sounds a little weird, well...it is. But if it sounds a little awesome, you should totally swing by.

This is going to be a more traditional event than most of my parties, because Mira's a traditional kind of girl...especially if by "traditional" you mean "fond of machetes, the undead, and things that go bump in the night." We'll be in the bookstore starting at five, and we'll be staying there until nine, providing plenty of time for undead awesomeness. There will be readings, discussion, time for wandering around the bookstore, and, yes, the world's best cupcakes. Some of my best friends from out of town will be attending, so this is your chance to finally check off "Rae" on your Seanan bingo card.

I really hope you can make it, and if you can't, remember that you can contact Borderlands to request a signed/personalized book be set aside for you.

Whee!

ETA: Festivities will begin at 5:00 PM, and continue until 9:00.

This past Tuesday was my second book release party at San Francisco's own Borderlands Books. The folks at Borderlands are learning to believe me when I say things like "and I'm bringing a snake pit and an elephant and six dozen elvish acrobats," because, well, it's safer than the doubtful alternative. So when I said "I'm bringing Amy 'oh hai I am melting your face off with my AWESOME FIDDLING' McNally, Tricky Pixie*, and my usual cast of thousands, they believed me, and made space accordingly. This is because the crew at Borderlands is awesome.

The party was scheduled to run from five to nine, and they were kind enough to keep the bookstore, which normally closes at eight, open for an extra hour because they knew that we were coming. After mass discussion amongst the Traveling Circus and Snake-Handling Show**, we decided to begin our invasion at four, allowing time for things to be set up, any last-minute emergencies to be resolved, and the adulation of naked cats. Because we are clever. I arrived at the bookstore at roughly four-fifteen, and was promptly beset by a) Amy in a black leather under-bust corset HELLO, b) Ash, younger of the store's two pedigreed Sphynx cats, and c) Jude, with a stack of books to be signed and inscribed. I found all these things to be utterly awesome, and managed to keep myself from stroking the books, signing Amy, and hugging Ash. Barely.

Once I was finished signing at the bookstore, I proceeded next door to the cafe, where industrious setting up was underway. The musicians bustled briskly in all directions, and the entire small room at the back of the cafe became, essentially, our green room for stuff storage and makeup application. Awesome. Alan and Jude were trying to be everywhere at once, getting things into position as they raced in a dozen different directions at the same time. The band was decked out in awesome urban pixie togs (and no one looked at them oddly, proving once again that Toby worries too much). Alan and Jude were in Bookstore Ninja black...and I was wearing electric orange and green.

Um, go Pumpkins?

A raffle table was established next to the cafe's pastry case, and the prizes were arrayed for ooh-ing and ahh-ing: signed books, ARCs, foreign editions, CDs, random goodies, brand new chimera_fancies pendants that no one had ever seen before. Marti and my mother passed out raffle tickets, while I got strips of tickets to Jude (in the cafe) and Kary (in the bookstore). Mom successfully got Alan to provide her with a vase, because Mom is sometimes bad-ass, and we got things underway a respectable ten minutes late.

The first musical awesome of the night was provided by Amy, who did a solo set with grace, aplomb, and amazing fiddling. Betsy joined her for a few songs, on cello, and Alec joined her for one on the drum. Totally rockin'. After that, the first raffle drawing was held, and people won cool things (yay). I signed a bunch of books. I signed somebody's cup. The cafe sold out of pastries and bagels. The cafe made multiple runs to buy more bread. Let me say that again: they had to buy more bread. We ate all their bread.

We rule.

The second set of the night was Tricky Pixie, and they tore it up, with "Dryad's Promise" and "Tam Lin." More raffle. And then...

...Tricky Pixie set three. Which Sooj opened, solo, with a surprise performance of her newest song. "Tybalt." About, um...Tybalt. My King of Cats. I...um...wow. I only cried a little. That means I win, right? (Actually, the song's existence means I win.)

The rest of the set was a whole lot of awesome packed into a remarkably small span of time. Amy and I joined them for the last song: a cover of my own "Wicked Girls." Hearing that whole audience singing along nearly made me start to cry again. Then it was time for the final raffle drawing of the night (our table included donations from both the bookstore and the band, by that point), cleaning up, and heading home.

We got back to Concord way, way past pumpkin-time...and it was so very worth it. So, so very worth it.

I can't wait to do it all again.

(*Consisting of Betsy "I am too awesome to exist in fiction; only reality can contain me" Tinney, SJ "what do I know from alligator I ask you could you die" Tucker, and Alexander James "no, no, that's okay, you can trust me with your wine, women, and song" Adams. Tricky Pixie is twenty pounds of awesome in a ten pound sack.)

(**Sadly, this iteration of the Traveling Circus was missing several members of the sideshow, including Vixy, Brooke, and Tony. Their absence was deeply felt by the remaining members of the Circus, although we soldiered bravely on. We have great hopes for September's Circus, which will be in celebration of An Artificial Night, and will be designed to basically blow the roof clean off the bookstore.)

I'll post a writeup of last night's party...later. When I'm actually awake, and not simply faking it really, really well. (Right now, y'all are lucky I'm writing in English, and not in some sublime language of my own creation, which would involve neither capitalization nor punctuation.) For right now, if you missed the Circus coming to town, there are still a few places where you can catch me. Namely...

I'll be appearing at the San Bruno Barnes and Noble on Friday, March 12th, from 7 to 9 PM. I'll be reading, answering questions, and signing books, which you can even buy right there. Total convenience! I'll also be essentially jetlagged, which could make me really, really entertaining. The bookstore is located at...

1150 El Camino Real
Space 227
San Bruno, Ca 94066

My dear friend Chaz Brenchley will be appearing at Borderlands Books on Saturday, March 13th, at 3:00 PM. I'm planning to attend, to show my support. This means that if you had wanted to order a book inscribed (not just signed), you can contact Borderlands now, and I'll be able to personalize the book for you on Saturday. (Please also remember that, for signed books through the mail, Borderlands remains your absolute best of all possible options. Largely because there aren't any other options.)

Rounding out a weekend during which sleep is not an option, I'll be appearing at the Belmont Library in Belmont, California (near San Francisco) on Sunday, March 14th, at 2:00 PM. There will be a reading and a Q&A session. I will also be signing things, although I won't be selling things myself, so if you want something signed, please bring it with you. I will not sign checks, binding contracts, or children that don't belong to you. This is my first library appearance, and I'd really love to see you there.

And that's my weekend. It's like I'm a professional author or something...

Well, here we go again: I will be descending on San Francisco's own Borderlands Books, accompanied by Amy McNally, Tricky Pixie, and my usual entourage of deep weirdness. The event starts at five and runs until nine (they've extended the bookstore's hours JUST FOR US), and will include a whole lot of awesome packed into a reasonably small span of time.

The schedule for the evening:

5:00 PM: Welcome to our party.
5:40 PM: Perhaps you would like some music.
6:00 PM: Perhaps you would like to win things.
7:00 PM: More music?
7:30 PM: More prizes?
7:45 PM: Assuming people are not too busy buying books and drinking coffee, Seanan will read something.
8:30 PM: Last music of the night.
8:50 PM: Last chance to give the bookstore and cafe money before we say goodnight.
9:00 PM: Last raffle drawing of the night and we close the evening.

Raffle prizes this time include pendants by Mia of chimera_fancies (and they are insanely gorgeous, seriously), signed books, albums, games, the German edition of Rosemary and Rue, and more. Remember that Borderlands will take requests for signed books, so if you can't make it, you can contact the store to request a copy signed for you. I do hope we'll see you there, and if you can't be there in the flesh, the store is astral projection-friendly.

Book release party!

Did you want to hang out with cool people, hear cool music, get things signed, and maybe win cool prizes? Well, tomorrow's your chance, since the Traveling Circus and Snake-Handling Show will be rolling into San Francisco's Borderlands Books at five, and staying until they kick us out.

The schedule for the event:

5:00 PM: Welcome to our party.
5:40 PM: Perhaps you would like some music.
6:00 PM: Perhaps you would like to win things.
7:00 PM: More music?
7:30 PM: More prizes?
7:45 PM: Assuming people are not too busy buying books and drinking coffee, Seanan will read something.
8:30 PM: Last music of the night.
8:50 PM: Last chance to give the bookstore and cafe money before we say goodnight.
9:00 PM: Last raffle drawing of the night and we close the evening.

Remember that Borderlands will take requests for signed books, so if you can't make it, you can contact the store to request a copy signed for you. I do hope we'll see you there, and I'll post a more detailed reminder tomorrow.

Book release party!

Uh-oh, look out—Borderlands Books in San Francisco, California is being awesome again. As many of you know, Borderlands is basically my "home" bookstore; I spend way too much time there, enjoying their awesome, annoying their cats, and feeding cupcakes to the staff. They've recently opened the Borderlands Cafe, a friendly, comfortable, welcoming place to sit, have a cup of coffee, read a magazine, and experience general awesomeness. Because of this, they're updating some things about the bookstore, and—best of all—they're having some sales.

First up is the OMG AMAZING gift certificate sale, which I wanted to highlight because it's not geographically restricted. Here's a quote from the store newsletter:

"We're going to offer one hundred special gift certificates. Each one will cost $100. Unlike a normal gift certificate, it won't give you $100 of purchasing power at the store...it'll give you $120. But also unlike a normal gift certificate, you won't be able to use it until the 1st of August this year. In other words, you buy the certificate this month and in five months or so you gain $20.

If you do the math, it seems like a crazy deal since, if it were a loan, it works out to more than 40% interest over a year term. But, from my standpoint, it's not bad at all. First off, you'll be spending the certificate on inventory at the store, which I get at a discount. Second, it is much simpler for me and has a much surer result than jumping through all the hoops necessary to get a loan for the business. For you it's a great deal since the return (if it were an investment, which is isn't—the people in charge of looking at securities and investments wouldn't like that at all) is much better than you could expect from almost anything else that you could do with a hundred bucks.

The certificates are transferable if you want to buy one for someone else and they're good for anything in the store, including special orders. But you might want to act fast. I'm only going to issue 100 of them and when we're out, we're out and it's not an offer that I'm likely to repeat.

If you live outside of San Francisco or even outside of the United States, you can participate in this as well and I hope that you do. We are happy to sell these certificates by mail and, since we'll be tracking the purchaser names, certificate numbers, and balances, you can buy one and then use it for mail orders to your heart's content. Plus there's an added bonus—the person in the United States who orders one of these certificates and who is located the farthest from San Francisco (based on the billing address of their credit card) will get an added certificate good for $10 and usable immediately after the 100th certificate is sold. And, not to leave our international customers out, we'll do the same thing for the international customer who's the farthest from San Francisco (and that is going be be based on their mailing address). Just give a call or drop us an email and we'll be happy to set you up."

So a) contact the store, b) buy a gift certificate, c) in five months, get $120 worth of books for $100 in actual money. Um, wow? Also, please note that the certificates "mature" at the start of August, and I have a book coming out at the start of September...

There are also bunches of awesome physical sales running through the month of March; you can read about them in the store newsletter. Finally, remember that Borderlands is happy to take orders for signed books. To quote their event policy:

"All events are free of charge. You are welcome to bring copies of an author's books purchased elsewhere to be autographed (but we do appreciate it if you purchase something while at the event). For most events you are welcome to bring as many books as you wish for autographs. If you are unable to attend the event we will be happy to have a copy of any of the author's available books signed or inscribed for you. We can then either hold it until you can come in to pick it up or we can ship it to you. Just give us a call or drop us an email. If you live out of town, you can also ship us books from your collection to be signed. Call or email for details."

Awesome! Enjoy the awesome, exploit the awesome, turn the awesome to your own gain, and help support my favorite local bookstore.

My beloved Amy, savior of tired blondes, fiddler to the very gods themselves, arrived last night on a plane from Alabama, where she'd been visiting her sister and staying with my Halloween Family (the Crowells). Amy is key to my survival during Release Week Madness, being a very focused and centered individual whose primary purpose in life sometimes seems to be keeping the various members of her extended campana from self-destructing in a variety of exciting ways. I love Amy very much.

In preparation for her visit, I placed an order with my favorite cupcakery, Cups and Cakes, which is located conveniently close to my office. Specifically, I ordered an assorted dozen cupcakes, to please please please include the Mudslide (slightly bitter dark chocolate cake with Bailey's and Kahlua buttercream icing). After a long day spent dreaming of cupcakes and fiddlers, I left the office and went to make the pickup, only to learn to my delight that my personal favorite flavor, the Peanut Butter and Jelly, had also been included in the assortment. (Sweet grape cake with peanut butter buttercream. Basically, these cupcakes are felony-level delicious.) Victory!

As Amy's flight was not for several hours, I also grabbed a couple of spare Mudslide cupcakes with which to bribe Jude, who was on-duty at Borderlands Books, where I intended to kill some time. Borderlands is an excellent place to sit and work, at least if you're me, and find the smells and sounds of a well-maintained bookstore endlessly soothing.

The cupcakes and I reached the bookstore without incident, and I promptly plied Jude with her delicious cupcake-y treats, thus convincing her to allow me to sit and work. (It didn't take much convincing, or really, any convincing; Borderlands is very pro-authors actually finishing books, providing we're not breaking anything while we do it.) Alas, it turned out that Ripley and Ash, the store's hairless cats, were less well-inclined toward my literary aspirations. The afternoon went something like this...

"Mow."
"No, Ripley, you can't have my lap. I'm working."
"Wow."
"Okay, you can have half my lap. But I'm still working."
"Yow."
"Just let me shut down my laptop, and I'll pet you."
"Now."
"...stop speaking English, it's creepy."

Ash, meanwhile, rode the Kitty Crazytrain around the store until it became time to groom herself, at which point she perched on my arm and licked her naked arms with blithe abandon. I think, perhaps, that I spend too much time at Borderlands, as the cats have now started to regard me as furniture.

In the "spending too much time at Borderlands" category, local folks please remember that I'll be at the store on March 9th for the A Local Habitation release party. We'll have live music from SJ Tucker, Betsy Tinney, Amy McNally, and potentially more; a raffle with some awesome, awesome prizes; a reading from A Local Habitation; and the Great Pumpkin only knows what else. It's gonna be an awesome time, and I'd love to see lots and lots of you there.

Borderlands Books. Because sometimes, we like our cats with a side-order of Nair.

Borderlands Books in San Francisco, California, is getting ready for the opening of their brand-new Cafe! More, they're celebrating the event and the season in one fell swoop by throwing their first-ever ass-kicking potluck, tonight, from six to eight. There's gonna be a whole lot of hoot, and a whole lot of nanny, and they're going to combine them in a delicious swirl of goodness, like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup designed of geeky awesome.

With food, folks, fun, and one of the best science-fiction and fantasy bookstores on the West Coast right next door, it's basically guaranteed to be a blast. I can't be there, due to more dental work (boo), but you should totally swing by if it's an option, and have a fantastic time.

Herein endith the public service announcement.

I am a total comic geek, and I'm not ashamed. I'm also a Marvel girl, and—as seems to be increasingly unusual in some circles—I'm a superhero fan. I like my flying men in tights and my women in impractical shoes. No matter how insane the storylines become, at the end of the day, it's pretty easy to make me happy.

We start, of course, with comics. For the X-geek in your life, or for the geek who just wants people to understand your love of all things X-Man, the Grant Morrison run on New X-Men is a fantastic place to start. It has enough backstory to "fill in the gaps" for people just joining, while being an incredible, world-spanning story that it's hard as heck not to love. The Grant Morrison run has been collected into three massive volumes. New X-Men: Collection I [Amazon] kicks things off with the bombing of Genosha, the world's only all-mutant country. New X-Men: Collection II [Amazon] ups the ante in a dozen different ways, and New X-Men: Collection III [Amazon] brings things to a screaming, ass-kicking conclusion. I highly recommend these books, and not just because Emma Frost features heavily.

If you're looking for something a little outside the mainstream of the superhero world, Robert Kirkman's Invincible is an amazing title from Image, one that dares to show superheroes as a little more human than most publishers will dare. It's a painful, beautiful story, and since it's relatively new (IE, "this century"), catching up isn't all that hard. Invincible: The Ultimate Collection, Volume I [Amazon] is a big, beautifully sturdy hardback introduction to Mark Grayson and his world. If that's a bit too big for your budget, Invincible book one: Family Matters [Amazon] and Invincible book two: Eight Is Enough [Amazon] include the first issues of the series, and are more than awesome enough to get you hooked.

My current favorite superhero title is a lot darker. Garth Ennis—the man who brought us Preacher, which really tells you something about how dark we're talking here—has turned his attention the superhero world, and the resulting title is...disturbing, to say the least. Start with The Boys, volume one: The Name of the Game [Amazon]. Proceed from there to The Boys volume two: Get Some [Amazon]. With fantastic art, a gritty storyline, and an all-too-plausible superhero community, The Boys is a great antidote to all that four-color brightness. (If you need still more dark-but-awesome superheroics, look up Incognito [Amazon] and Wanted [Amazon], which really has nothing to do with the movie. But don't say I didn't warn you about the dark.)

Important note: All of the above are graphic novels, and can be obtained from your local comic book store. The Amazon links are for reference, and for people who don't have a local comic book store. Buy local. It's awesome.

Soon I Will Be Invincible [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] by Austin Grossman is a brilliant piece of superhero fiction that looks at the heroic and the villainous at the same time. I can't recommend it highly enough. I also can't say much about it without spoiling the surprise. Check it out, it's awesome.

If you enjoy the "Velveteen vs." series, you absolutely have to take a look at Black and White [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] by Jackie Kessler and Caitlin Kittredge. This is the start of a bad-ass series about a world where superheroes are under corporate control, and stepping outside the lines costs you more than you could possibly imagine. It's an awesome treatment of a superhero world, and the contrast between good and evil has never been more blurred.

Sometimes you want your superheroes to be fluffy and fun, and those are the times when you should reach for the Bigtime books by Jennifer Estep. Karma Girl [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy], Hot Mama [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy], and Jinx [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] are superhero romance cotton candy with a sharply sweet bite, like cocktails that look completely innocent until they knock you on your ass. They're more fun than a barrel of radioactive monkeys, and I hugely recommend them.

I've tried to avoid movies in today's gift suggestions, but I can't resist slipping one in here: Krrish [Amazon]. It's sort of the Bollywood answer to the big-budget Hollywood superhero movie, with a dash of Tarzan and several large dance numbers. It's incredibly fun, and incredibly weird, and really, really worthwhile. For seriously.

Got any heroes or villains to recommend? Tell me about it!

Saturday, I participated in LitCrawl at Borderlands Books in San Francisco. When I mentioned this on Twitter, someone said this made them think of ArtCrawl from The Middleman, and asked if I was going to perform "Hey, Mr. God," supposedly the world's worst spoken-word piece (also from The Middleman, naturally). Being a deeply silly blonde, I replied that if Rosemary and Rue was Borderlands' top-selling paperback again for October 2009, I would not only perform "Hey, Mr. God," I would record it as an MP3 and put it up for free download.

Sadly, I made this reply in public. So here, because I am a shameless creature, is the official challenge:

If enough people buy Rosemary and Rue from Borderlands to make it their top-selling mass-market paperback for October 2009, I will go into Kristoph's studio and record an MP3 of the "Hey, Mr. God" monologue from The Middleman episode "The Boy-Band Superfan Interrogation." I will then post this MP3 for free download. I will have no shame during the recording, which means I will sound like a complete idiot. You can probably use this MP3 to blackmail me in fifteen years, which I am less young and stupid.

(Yes, they take Internet and telephone orders; yes, they ship; yes, they have signed books.)

My plan is sheer elegance in its simplicity.

Tomorrow night, I will be participating in the fifth annual LitQuake LitCrawl, as one of the featured authors on the second stage of the Crawl. For the full schedule, and details on who else you can catch reading tomorrow, check out the website here:

http://www.litquake.org/category/schedule/

My stage of the crawl will run from 7:15 to 8:15 PM; I'll be showing up at my assigned venue, the lovely and ever-popular Borderlands Books, at around 6:00 PM (6:30 at the latest), so feel free to wander by, get things signed, and get yourself well-positioned for the readings to come. There are three authors reading during our assigned one-hour time frame: myself, John Levitt, and Loren Rhoads. I'm the second author up, but can't tell you exactly when I'm going to start, and I'll be reading a story you have Probably Never Encountered Before (dun-dun-DUUUUUUUUN).

This is a great opportunity to support local authors, support local literature events, and best of all, support your local bookstore. And, on a personal note, not only would I love it if you could come out, but Rosemary and Rue [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] was the best-selling mass-market paperback at Borderlands for the month of September, and it would be awesome if we could finish out October at least in the top five. So if you've been considering nabbing another copy (they make great trick-or-treat prizes!), this would be an excellent time to swing by and snag it. I'll even sign it for you. Or for anybody else you want me to sign it to.

Hope to see you there!

My original plans for today, which centered around bad horror movies and lounging about, fell through when my date for the afternoon was forced to cancel for reasons outside his control (something about "surprise apartment inspection" inspired him to think he should stay home and tidy). Since I'd previously been making grumpy noises about missing the book release party for Gail Carriger's Soulless [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy], I decided that this was the universe hinting that I damn well ought to go off and get some books signed already. Thus was it decided: a lazy Sunday in San Francisco for me!

I departed early enough to seek out and indulge in the sweet fruits of Dynamo Donuts, San Francisco's answer to Voodoo Donut. Sadly, they didn't have the pumpkin spice donut, or the bacon donut, but I salved my wounded sensibility with a chocolate rose donut (Luna would approve), and made my way to Borderlands for the event. I made it easily in time, and snagged a few extra copies to have signed for friends (as well as the next two books in the Weather Wardens series, because I am a greedy blonde sometimes). Taking a seat, I settled to enjoy the event.

The author herself was introduced by the inimitable Jude, who punished me for some unspoken slight by calling out my presence in the audience. (It was actually very sweet, as she said that Soulless was one of "only two first novels this year" that garnered huge amounts of excitement, the other being Rosemary and Rue, "whose author, Seanan McGuire, is sitting there looking unobtrusive." So I failed my stealth roll. Probably the bright orange coat didn't help.)

The lovely Ms. Carriger was smartly dressed, witty, and sweet, and read a passage from Soulless before submitting to questions and signing. I had all three of the books I had with me signed, and chatted a bit about editors at Orbit before moving on. She hadn't realized I was also Mira Grant. The world, she is very small. There was a full tea service. I, being me, didn't drink any tea—blech—but did eat some very tasty tea cookies. People hung out for a while, being chatty, and then mostly dispersed, leaving me and a sweet lady named Andrea to chatter at Jude and Jeremy as we helped to tidy and amused the cat.

It was a good, easy Sunday, and I highly recommend Soulless (review to come in a bit; suffice to say that it made me laugh out loud). If you want an autographed copy of your very own, Borderlands does ship, and would be happy to sell you one. Just call the store and ask.

Life, as they say, is good.

1. Sketched and started inking my third possible Borderlands bookmark. See, Borderlands Books in San Francisco does limited-edition bookmarks with interesting art on them, and—after my signing/book release party/circus sideshow earlier this month—they invited me to design one of the upcoming bookmarks. As is so often the case when I am paralyzed by choice, I said "screw it," and am doing multiple bookmark designs for them to choose from. The first one, involving clownfish mermaids, is completely done; the second, involving seahorse mermaids, is in rough pencils with some inks; now, so is the third, involving Allomai and a fuck-ton of ribbons. I find this soothing and infuriating and an excuse to buy more art supplies. Everybody wins.

2. Bought the new Kelley Armstrong book, Frostbitten. This was sort of a comedy of errors, since the guy at Borders hadn't put it on the shelves yet, but had put it on the "we're putting this on shelves" cart, which meant there were no copies in the back of the store. I eventually located the cart, thus locating my book, and money was exchanged, rather than bloodshed.

3. Read the new Kelley Armstrong book, Frostbitten. What? I read fast. Also, it was so awesome I couldn't put it down. I love Kelley Armstrong's work so much.

4. Watched the final episode of season three of Primeval, the second-to-last episode of season one of Warehouse 13, and two more of the audition episodes for the current season of So You Think You Can Dance. A few people have informed me that they don't believe I watch as much television as I say I do. To them I say: you're probably right. I think I watch substantially more.

5. Sort of accidentally knocked out a thousand words on Deadline, which will get included in the next word count post, because I'm feeling too lazy to bother with doing that much math right now.

How about you?

In addition to all today's other awesome features, today is Buy Indie Day, a day to focus on making purchases from all your lovely local independent shops. It's always important to shop at your local stores—it's good for the local economy, as well as often being good for the industry as a whole—but it's even more important in these trying economic times. Remember, the local store you pass up in favor of Amazon today is the local store that isn't there tomorrow.

What's that? You don't have any local independent shops? Well, have no fear! There are, as always, options.

If you're looking for reading material, and you don't have a local bookstore, Berkeley's Other Change of Hobbit and San Francisco's Borderlands Books both do mail order and fill special requests. These are my local stores, and I love them dearly. Plus, they have cats to feed. You wouldn't want to let the kitties go hungry, would you? Think of the kitties! (Two major advantages of the independent bookstore: they often have cats, and they often have bathrooms. If you don't think this is an advantage, you've never needed to pee while in downtown San Francisco.)

If you're looking for some exotic new musical strains to delight your eardrums and confuse your iTunes categories, I can recommend some fun things. Jeff and Maya Bohnhoff, for example, provide some truly awesome offerings, ranging from hysterical parody (Aliens Ate My Homework, Retro Rocket Science) to serious and thoughtful original work (Manhattan Sleeps, Moebius Street). I recommend them hugely, and not just because Jeff was the engineer on my latest album. My beloved Vixy and Tony have a rockin' album of their own—I'm even on it!—and I can't really recommend Thirteen highly enough. And of course, there's SJ Tucker, whose works are mythic and tangled and complex and funny and altogether lovely.

What bits of independent awesome do you know about and want to share? Stores? Musicians? Comic book artists? Share, and enlighten the world!

Yesterday afternoon, I took Jon for what is becoming my regular tour through Borderlands Books, aka 'home of the freaky alien demon suede kittyfaces.' (Tip to the bookstores of the world: if you want me to come over a lot, get yourselves a naked cat. If you want me to avoid coming over, get, I don't know, a Persian.) We arrived to find the entire hive of demon cats playing bezoar in the back room, because nothing makes a bunch of naked cats cuter than becoming an undifferentiated ball of heaving, speckled flesh. Er, wait...

Jude was in the store, and I took great pleasure in showing her the cover print for Rosemary and Rue, which she was properly appreciative of -- I figure an author with new cover art is much like a parent with new baby pictures; you can hate it, but when they whip out their wallets, you'd better be prepared to coo over the fact that baby's got four limbs and a head -- before chatting for a bit about our various cats and the fact that All Cat Breeders Are Crazy. (It's true. It's just that some, like Betsy, are good crazy, while others are creepy won't let you into the house because maybe you're carrying the plague under your fingernails crazy.) Everyone's very much looking forward to Alice's arrival. Any bookstore that invites you to bring your Maine Coon for a visit with the creepy demon cats is a good bookstore.

Jude also rousted Ash for us, so that Jon could have his proper introduction to the glorious freakiness of the Sphinx. This was deeply pleasing unto me. I adore the freaky suede kittyfaces, and any day that they choose to grace with their presence is a good day for all of me.

As Jon and I were on our way out of the store (Jon having, naturally, purchased a souvenir postcard of Ripley), Jude stopped us. See, she was on the phone with Phil, confirming that the store had received their copies of Ravens in the Library. Yes: Borderlands has five copies of Ravens! They're gorgeous. And if you go down there, thus supporting your local bookstore and your local Sooj, you can totally buy one. Better still?

After Jude got off the phone, she asked if I wanted to sign them.

Nobody's ever asked me that before.

So yes, I signed their copies of Ravens in the Library -- signing several hundred CDs really makes you good at signing your name -- and walked home in a happy haze. You should, if you're local and haven't already ordered a copy, really go and pick one up. It's a truly gorgeous book. Better yet?

It's signed.

1. If you wander on over to my website -- which is getting shinier and more functional every day as the back-end code comes online, all hail porpentine, who has slaved over a hot keyboard for our delight -- you may find a few truly awesome things waiting for you. Specifically, we now have icons and wallpapers, designed by the splendid taraoshea. All icons and wallpapers are free for use! Print them out, stick them to things, do whatever makes you happy. Well, except for posting them to your Deviant Art account and claiming that you made them. That would make the Tara sad, and she knows where I keep the chainsaws.

2. As you explore the site, you may see that there is now a landing page for the 'Velveteen vs.' stories. Yes, the link currently takes you to the big COMING SOON graphic, but its very existence means that, before too terribly much longer, there will be an online archive of the adventures of Velma 'Velveteen' Martinez as she struggles to survive the foul mechanations of the Marketing Department without giving in to the urge to just kill somebody already. Because the best way to show you care is with random semi-comic superhero stories, you know. My comic book store tells me so.

3. Speaking of my comic book store, the new best thing ever is walking into the place where I go for my weekly fix (I am such an X-junkie) and being greeted by Joe (the owner) with a cheery "Do you have CDs for me?" That moment, right there, was enough to validate my entire musical career.

4. Oh, and as an FYI for those who share my comic book habit -- Monday was a holiday, but it wasn't a shipping holiday. So today is still new comic book day, day of comic book-y goodness. Although according to the release lists, very little has come in that holds any actual interest for me. That's probably for the best, what with Wondercon right around the corner. Ah, sweet Wondercon. I wonder how I've lived so long without you.

5. I spent several hours last night at Borderlands Books, hanging out with Ripley, the freaky demon suede alien kitty-face (aka, 'the elder of the store's two resident hairless cats'). The more time I spend with her, the more I start to think that maybe life with a Sphinx wouldn't be so bad. Sure, they're naked and weird-looking, but they're also smart, friendly, and incredibly soothing to hang out with. This is probably a sign that I need some sort of 'cats are not like Pokemon, you do not need to collect them all' intervention.

6. While I was at Borderlands, I chanced to notice their list of top sellers for January, and jimhines grabbed the #10 slot with The Stepsister Scheme! Way to go Jim! The weird naked cats were very impressed.

7. For those of you who missed the (admittedly rather quietly delivered) memo, I will be leaving California for a short time in March, as I hop on a plane and fly out to New York for more fun with my friends at DAW. I love visiting my publisher, largely because it gives me an excuse to say 'my publisher' a lot, and that's still a sort of shiny-and-new thing for me. I am assured that by the time An Artificial Night (the third Toby book) hits the shelves, I won't find it all quite so exciting, but I really hope not. We all need things that make us irrationally happy. Anyway, my schedule is pretty packed while I'm there, so I'm not going to be looking to host a meet-and-greet or anything, but it's definitely going to represent a break in my standard routine.

8. Zombies are still love.

9. I have now managed to go three months without starting a new novel. For some people, this may seem like an unremarkable 'I just went three months without bursting into flame' or 'I just went three months without unleashing a global pandemic'-type statement, but for me, it's the result of Herculean efforts in the arenas of focus and restraint. I love starting books. The freedom and the scope of it all is just a wonderful thing. But I can be strong. I can be controlled. I can keep myself from getting beaten by my editing pool.

10. This coming Sunday is the official release date for Ravens In the Library, a benefit anthology assembled to help with SJ Tucker's unexpected medical bills. It's got an awesome list of authors, and, on a more personal note, it's got my first official this-is-in-print anthology appearance: my short story, 'Lost,' will be the final piece in the book. I'm very excited.

That's my wending for Wednesday. What's yours?

Last week, before I left for Conflikt, I stopped in at Flying Colors to pick up my comics for the week. Mmmmm, delicious comic-y goodness. I had a copy of Red Roses and Dead Things in my purse, so I pulled it out to show around, with the accompanying squeals of "My new album came!"

Andy -- one of the counter monkeys -- asked, "Is this for us?"

Being a sensible girl who loves her comic book store, I promptly replied with "Sure!" I left the album, picked up my comics, and went on my merry way home, hence to head for the airport, fly to Seattle, and basically forget the entire thing.

Wednesday, I went to the comic book store again, since, well, Wednesday is new comic day, and I'm basically a fixture. Joe (the owner) told me how much he'd enjoyed my CD, and how pleasantly surprised* he was to discover that it was awesome. I thanked him, and went back to seeking comics...only to have Brian stop me to do the same thing, and Andy, and Jasmine, and basically, the entire staff of Flying Colors. (Andy described it as 'totally cornball and campy, but in the good way.' High praise for a girl who grew up worshipping at the shrines of Marilyn Munster and Elvira, Mistress of the Dark.)

And then Joe asked if I might want him to carry a few for me on consignment.

My comic book store -- the comic book store I've been going to almost my entire life, the comic book store I wish I could put in my pocket and just take with me to Seattle -- is going to carry my CD. In my comic book store. My CD. Later, possibly, my books (Joe's considering it).

I am a real girl.

(*Let's face it -- nothing's more awkward than having someone you like and respect hand you something they've made, and then finding out that the whatever it was sucks rocks. What are you supposed to say to them? 'Gosh, your CD sure was shiny?' 'Gee, there were a lot of words in that book?' It's an awesome surprise when awesome people make awesome things. I'm using the word 'awesome' a lot today. Maybe I should stop watching so many back-to-back episodes of Chuck.)

Step one: Get off work. Go to Target. Buy microwave lunches for the next week, because Target is the only damn store in the damn Bay Area that reliably carries the kinds that I'll actually eat. Is it so hard for Safeway to keep Chicken Mirabella, Shrimp Marinara, and Tuna Casserole on their shelves? Apparently, yes. Yes, it is. (I'm only willing to eat like four kinds of microwave meal, and even I eventually get tired of spaghetti.)

Step two: Go to the comic book store. Engage an annoying patron in a vigorous discussion of why, perhaps, declaring "Fuck the Gemworld!" in a store containing, well, me, is not the world's very best idea. Amuse the counter monkeys immensely. The counter monkeys like me, as I am reliable, polite, and very, very addicted to comics. The counter monkeys have no such fondness for annoying patron, hereby referred to as 'the cat-toy.' The cat-toy survived our encounter, but did not linger.

Step three: Go home. Set the kitchen on fire making cranberry sauce.

Step four: Put out the fire.

Step five: Read Hack/Slash while eating dinner. After the dinner part of the program is done, ink and watch two episodes of Big Bang Theory (season one). Mr. Memory and The Human Labyrinth are now fully inked, as is the masthead. Most of the Ragnaroctopus still needs to be finished. But I found my zip-a-tone, so all will be well.

Step six: Process the final edits for my Grants Pass story, which is pleasant and nice and not at all disturbing.

Step seven: Muck around with my clicky Vampire Wars game on Facebook. Damn you, Jennifer, damn you.

Step eight: Make this entry.

Step nine: Retreat to the back room for Leverage and more comic books.

All right, so here's the thing:

The American economy sucks right now. You know it, I know it, the guy who changes money at the airport knows it, hell, my cat knows it (the number of pre-approved credit cards Lilly receives in the mail has declined sharply in recent months). This means we're eating out less, going to fewer movies, and yes, buying fewer books. Tragedy. And when we do buy books, well, it's much easier to just give in to the retail therapy when it's three clicks on Amazon and no actual inconvenience, as opposed to going out and going shopping in an actual retail environment. We all do it. I do it, Bob over there does it, I'm pretty sure Lilly does it when I'm not home.

But.

Especially right now, with people's disposable income dwindling as rents and utility costs continue to rise, we really need to remember that our retail dollars also go partially to buy the places that we spend them. I buy all my comic books from Flying Colors Comics and Other Cool Stuff because I adore having a large, diverse comic book store within a short bus ride of my house. Could I get many of those same comics off the rack at Borders? Yes, but there are even more that I couldn't. I would never have discovered Hack/Slash, The Boys, or Finder if I was confined to the chain stores, and that would make me sad.

My local genre bookstore is The Other Change of Hobbit, practically a Berkeley institution. It's everything I believe a bookstore should be -- full of aisles made of shelves, hidden treasures, out-of-print books, and bookstore cats. (Two loaner cats, Clearsword and Patch, and two newly-acquired, formerly feral kittens, Trouble and Sam.) The staff knows their material, and can argue the merits of cover artists, short story collections, and the 'plot vs. porn' divide in current urban fantasy happily, for hours. It's a bookstore run by book people. And no, you won't get 30% or buy one get one free if you shop there...but you'll be able to find twenty-year-old paperbacks, make special order requests, and get recommendations for authors you might not otherwise have heard of.

Please, if you can, take your business to your local stores. Go to Other Change, or to your local equivalent thereof. When the economy is bad, it's these little stores that feel the hit first and hardest, and if we lose them now, we're unlikely to get them back. The super-stores make it too difficult to get established, and the little stores are the places that will keep your favorite author's entire back catalog on the shelf, arrange for signings, throw book release parties, and generally encourage your community.

You'd miss them if they were gone.

Also, as a side note that I couldn't find a way to naturally tangent into: when making small purchases at your local stores, try to pay cash when you can. Small stores can pay anywhere from 4% to 8% on credit card transactions. That may not be a big deal when you're getting more sales, but when sales drop off, that little bite can add up in a big way. Every little bit helps keep the stores that support our genre open and ready to welcome a new generation of readers. And that's awesome.