...either a copy of The Mad Scientist's Guide to World Domination OR a copy of Indistinguishable From Magic!

Welcome to the ninth of the Thirteen Days of Hogswatch. I will be starting a new giveaway every day between now and December 13th. Each giveaway will have different rules, and a different deadline, although all prizes will be mailed on December 30th, because I am bad at going to the post office (and also, avoiding the post office until that other winter holiday is over).

The ninth giveaway is for a copy of either The Mad Scientist's Guide to World Domination OR a copy of Indistinguishable From Magic. This is going to be a random number drawing, because I just got a big deadline dropped on my head. So...

1. To enter, comment on this post.
2. If you are international, indicate both this and your willingness to pay postage.
3. Indicate which prize you are hoping to win.
4. That's it.

I will choose the winner at 1PM PST on Wednesday, December 16th.

Game on!

FRIDAY.

I'm Sorry, I Haven't A Clue, 4:00 PM, Lilac C. The antidote to panel games. Two teams enjoy a battle of wits and are given silly things to do by the moderator. Come and place your bets on SF Squeecast versus SF Squeecast. With game host Heath Miller. Me, Heath, Lynne and Michael Thomas, Catherynne Valente, all the fucks I have to give. ALL THE FUCKS.

Opening Ceremonies, 7:00 PM, Junior Ballroom BC. Quote, "Don't miss out on this rare chance to see all of our Guests together in one room! Join us as we kick off the convention weekend!" So, you know, there we shall be.

ISFiC Press Book Launch Party , 9:00 PM, ISFiC Suite. Come by for the official release of the SF Squeecast's new anthology from
ISFiC Press, Harvest Season. The authors will be there and there will be cake. What's not to like? Also, this is the best place to obtain our brand new book, with a brand new Fighting Pumpkins story! Hooray!

SATURDAY.

SF Squeecast Podcast, 11:30 AM, Grand Ballroom GH. We're recording the Squeecast! You can come and watch! It'll be fun, we promise.

Reading, 2:00 PM, Boardroom. I'm reading stuff. I'm probs reading from Harvest Season. Come and read along!

Seanan McGuire & Friends Live In Concert, 4:00 PM, Junior Ballroom BC. Did you know I was a musician? Did you know I knew a lot of musicians? Did you know I was dating a musician, who will probably have to fiddle the Devil for my soul very soon? Yeah. Come see the concert, maybe buy some CDs and T-shirts, enjoy music, watch Amy make the fiddle-bliss face. It'll be fun! It will also be followed immediately by Bill and Brenda Sutton in concert, so hey, you don't have to move again until it's time for Barfleet!

SUNDAY.

Autographs, 11:00 AM, Autographing Tables. I am signing! I am signing with P.D. Anderson, J.L. Nye, and M. Resnick. Yay!

Closing Ceremonies, 2:00 PM, Junior Ballroom BC. Again, to quote: "This is your last chance to see all of our amazing guests. The party award winners will be announced, and you will find out what we have in store for you next year!" See you there!

I am pleased to announce that my first non-fiction book, consisting of essays taken from my various blogs and poetry from my two self-published chapbooks (Leaves From the Babylon Wood and Pathways Through the Babylon Wood, both of which are loooooooooong out of print) is available now from NESFA Press.

Click here for information on Letters to the Pumpkin King.

With introductions by Catherynne Valente and Elizabeth Bear, and an absolutely gorgeous cover by David Palumbo (I covet this artwork), I could not be more pleased. It's a hardcover, so the price point is high for what is essentially my blog in paper form, but you can use that paper form to kill spiders, which is pretty damn cool.

Here is what some people say. All of them are biased toward liking me, so:

"This book is bursting with Seanan-brain. You should read it." —Jim C. Hines, author of Libriomancer.

"Seanan McGuire knows how to beguile with the very best. She can whisper spells and secrets by the ballad and the bushel. But here she simply tells it as she has seen and lived it, with bravery and a loud voice, and that is magic, too." —Catherynne M. Valente, author of The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon In Two.

"Seanan is rough and potent magic. Her work may not change you, but it is likely to change your experience of the world." —Elizabeth Bear, author of Stiles of the Sky.

"I've read Seanan’s fiction and nonfiction for years. Because she's smart. Because she's funny. Because she's insightful. Because she uses the word 'f***' in original and interesting ways." —Jim C. Hines, author of Libriomancer.

Letters to the Pumpkin King! Get your copy today! (And yes, Borderlands is planning to stock them, if you're coming to the release party.)

Hey, happy people! In less than twelve hours, I will be boarding a giant metal sky-bird to fly to Denver, Colorado, home of very little oxygen, very impressive floods, and Mile Hi Con, where you'll have the rare opportunity to see me and Cat Valente together on stage! (Okay. Not that rare. We do this whenever people let us. But still.)

You can see me at...

Friday.

7:00PM: Opening ceremonies.
9:00PM: The Return of Kitty and the Midnight Hour. Hosted by Carrie Vaughn! With me and Cat as awesome guests!
10:00PM: Run, Run, The End of All Flesh Is Upon Us: Cat Valente and Seanan McGuire in Conversation. It's like an Evening with Kevin Smith, but a lot boobier, and sometimes even swearier.

Saturday.

11:00AM: Mad Scientists in Fiction, Film, and Filk.
2:00PM: Autographing! With Carrie! I love Carrie.
4:00PM: An Hour With Author GoH, Seanan McGuire.

Sunday.

9:00AM: Kaffeeklatch.
11:00AM: GoH Remarks and Awards.
1:00PM: Write On!
3:00PM: Conquering Sexism in Geek Culture.
5:00PM: Closing ceremonies.

I hope to see you all there! Or at least all of you for whom it is vaguely physically possible. Yay, Colorado!

Earlier this week, The Guardian published a list of what they viewed as the twenty best young novelists in genre fiction. It's a pretty good list, and I'm awed and delighted to appear on it.

But as I looked at this list, what really struck me was how many of these people I call friends, and how many I call friendly acquaintances ('cause they're not quite close enough for me to call them up and swear at them about the X-Men, but I would totally let them crash in my guest room if necessary). And that was, honestly, even more awesome and delightful than being on the list in the first place.

Lauren Beukes and I were on the Campbell ballot together, and she has been a joy and a delight every time we've been able to spend time together. Saladin Ahmed shares a publisher with me (DAW), and DAW is a family: he's like the cousin I never knew I had until he was stealing my hash browns and lecturing me about my taste in music. NK Jemsin just might be one of my favorite people to share a panel with—she's thoughtful and passionate and engaging, and her thoughts and passions are so brilliantly put together that I can just sit and listen to her forever.

Chuck Wendig is a man I would call brother (and also a man I would call a flaming cockweasel, because that's how we communicate; we're like a spinoff of John Dies at the End, scored for bearded penmonkey and shrieking murder princess).

And then there is Catherynne Valente, about whom I have already said everything, including the eternal "I miss you and I wish you were here."

There are names on the list that I've heard only in passing, names whose works I have read and names whose works I haven't reached for yet. And I know that these people are friends of my friends; that there's this huge web of community that connects us, because we came through the same forests to get here, even if we didn't come via the same paths. It's a wood that shifts every few years, although parts of it remain the same.

I didn't know any of these people before I started publishing (although Cat and I have so many people in common that it would have happened eventually; she has been an inevitability in my life since the day I met Vixy, and that is wonderful), but we have walked the same ways and seen the same sights and we are connected now, and that is incredible. There are so many other names that aren't on this list (Jim Hines, Elizabeth Bear, Peter Clines, Amber Benson, to name a few) who are part of my unique web of connections, and they all have their own webs, forever and ever, to the end of the horizon.

Community forms one meeting and one miracle at a time.

I am so glad to be part of this one.

The world is wonderful.

I am home.

I am recovered.

I am well-rested.

I am the proud owner of the 2012 Hugo Award for Best Fancast.

YES. YES, I WON A FUCKING HUGO AND IT'S IN MY HOUSE AND IT'S BEAUTIFUL AND IT HAS MY NAME ON IT AND I THINK IT STARTED OUT AS CAT'S (I'M PRETTY SURE WE TRADED AT LEAST ONCE) AND I DON'T CARE BECAUSE IT'S MY HUGO!!!! I HAVE A HUGO!!!! I AM A HUGO-AWARD WINNER!!!!!!!!

...be really glad you can't see my uncoordinated geek dance. You might go blind.

Thank you thank you thank you to everyone who voted. This truly means the world to me. Y'all gave me a Hugo for never shutting up.

Message received.

I don't think it's any secret around here that I've been running at warp speed basically since a month before WorldCon, last year. This has resulted in a general decrease in available content here at my journal, because slowing down enough to type an entry hasn't always been an option. So here are some things I've meant to blog about, and haven't:

1. I went to Disney World for a week, with Vixy and Amy and Brooke and Patty. My mother and sister were there, too, but we sort of had parallel-but-rarely intersecting vacations. This was ideal, as my idea of "fun at Disney" involves pin trading and shows and ice cream and frogs, while theirs involves luaus and smoking and ludicrous plush and more smoking. Our only real point of overlap is roller coasters, and we already had a full car.

2. Also I went to Disneyland for a weekend, with Vixy, my mom, and my sister. See above for the basics.

3. I watched a lot of television, in an extremely non-critical manner. I don't believe that you should shut off your brain completely while consuming entertainment, but sometimes I really just want to be all "you know what? I like what I like," and not be all analytical and thoughtful about it. This stops when somebody blows up a blonde girl.

4. I went to New York for a week and a half, where I saw the Counting Crows (with my agent), Ludo (with a large group of friends, my former editor, and my agent; I have a very full-service agent), and The Devil's Carnival (with several friends, including Tu, who I didn't even realize was on the East Coast until I found her in line).

5. Also there is a permanent haunted house called Times Scare in New York, open 365-days a year. If I lived there, I would wind up asking about a Frequent Dier's card or something, because I would be in there at least once a week, being chased by a man with a chainsaw and giggling unnervingly.

6. I wrote some book club articles for SFX Magazine. The second, which is about The Midwich Cuckoos, is out now. I need to think more about the responses some of the readers have had to the book (not to my article), because they're fascinating to me. But basically? I got paid for my Wyndham and telepaths obsession. Life is good.

7. I went to Maine! I stayed with Cat and Dmitri! I want to move to Maine! I won't, because I'm moving to Washington, but seriously, in another timeline, I have already bought a house on Peaks Island, and I am not sorry. I sort of envy that version of me.

8. An old friend from high school literally showed up on my doorstep. Randomly.

9. I ate six pounds of cherries and I'm not sorry about that either.

10. I am currently behind on word count in several areas, which is why comments are going unanswered for what feels like, to me, an unreasonably long time. But I'm catching up. Slowly. I think.

And those are some of the things I've been too frazzled to blog about.

The odds are decent that you've seen this by now, if you were online at all this past weekend. But since I'm going to be posting about the Hugos a bit this week, I thought it might be kind of me to put the whole ballot up here for people to review. If you don't need to know, don't click the cut. Life is simple!

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Hugo Awards, they are given each year at WorldCon to celebrate the best the science fiction and fantasy fields have to offer. They are voted on (and people are nominated by) the members of the World Science Fiction Society. You can become a member by joining the current year's World Science Fiction Convention.

This is important, and we will talk more about it later. But what you should know right now is a) if you're going to WorldCon, you can vote, and b) if you're not going to WorldCon, but you want to have a say in what we, as a community, recognize, you can obtain the right to vote by purchasing a Supporting Membership to the current WorldCon. Supporting Memberships cost $50, and get you access to the entire electronic Hugo Voter's Packet, which contains all the nominated fiction of the year, as well as other exciting goodies. This is a more than $50 value, grants you the opportunity to find out what we as a community think warranted inclusion on a Top 5 list for the previous year, and lets you be a part of making history.

And now...the ballot.

( Click here if you're curious, or just want the reminder.Collapse )

I missed the SF SqueeCast's Awkward Episode—although you don't have to; you can listen to it, and all the awkwardness, here—and that made me Very Sad. This was the episode for saying awesome things about each other, which is something that, well. It's socially awkward, and hard to do. We feel weird sometimes, being overly positive about our friends. It's like "I love you, I have to be critical of you, because no one will believe me if I say you did something awesome."

Screw that.

Catherynne Valente is proof that the universe intends for all us fairy tale girls to find one another, given enough time, enough space, and enough raw need. Our paths wound through the same wood for a very long time; the last ten years of my life are peppered with mutual friends offering to introduce us to each other, and it just not working out. And I'm glad, I'm so glad, because we needed to reach the same stage in our stories before we could recognize each other. I'm the Lily Fair to her Snow White; she's the Ozma to my Dorothy; she's the sister I didn't know I was looking for, for so very long. And she's amazing. She really is! It's not just because I love her: I am actually very critical of her, because I love her. Her Russian political fairy tale, Deathless, is out in paperback today, and I give copies of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making to every little girl I know.

Jim C. Hines was one of the first people to welcome me to DAW when I signed with them for the October Daye books. He was friendly, he was knowledgeable, and he made a scary process a little less unknowable and terrifying. For that alone, I would love him always. So of course he has to be funny, and smart, and an awesome blogger, and a great writer who re-imagined some of my favorite fairy tale characters into ass-kicking heroines who don't need saving, by anyone other than themselves. He's like the Lego of fantasy authors, constantly being reconfigured into something new. The awesome, gender-neutral Lego of my childhood, not the sexist, pink-and-purple Lego Friends of today. He's a gentleman, a scholar, and one of the best men I know. I'm proud that he's my friend. You should read all his books.

Elizabeth Bear always struck me as vaguely terrifying. She was smart, she was loud, she wrote lots of books, she won a Campbell Award, she had a Giant Ridiculous Dog...terrifying. And then I met her, and realized she was terrifying because in another lifetime, she was my best friend all the way through school, and echoes of the time she shoved me off a roof in that reality kept overwhelming my sense of this one. It sounds weird, but it's true: we met, and I instantly knew that I'd known her forever, and wanted to keep knowing her forever, because not knowing her made my life less awesome. Her upcoming book, Range of Ghosts, is one of those things I shouldn't have loved, and did, because it was just that well written, and that infused with the raw awesomeness of the woman who had written it.

Paul Cornell still thinks I'm capable of being shy when put in front of a microphone, and wrote some of the best Doctor Who novels ever conceived. Also some of the best episodes.

John Scalzi sometimes shows up in my dreams, usually taking poor, confused me by the hand and leading me to where I'm supposed to be (often, it's a plane).

Tanya Huff changed my life forever with her books, and then changed it again with her friendship. I am beyond blessed to know her.

Amy McNally is planning to fiddle the Devil for my soul when he comes to collect on the crossroads bargain that I clearly made when no one was looking.

And then there is Vixy.

If Cat is my sister in story, Vixy is my sister in soul: she's the wicked girl I was looking for all my life, without ever knowing what I was trying to find. Some of the happiest moments in my life have included her, and they were all the more amazing because of it. I am eternally grateful to the filk community, for throwing us into the same space, and to OVFF, for giving me an excuse to say "hey, you want to sing with me?" Vixy makes me a better writer, a better performer, and a better person, because I feel the need to live up to her example. She makes me a better friend. For that, I am so grateful that there aren't any more words.

I can't list everyone in the world, or my fingers would fall of. So I say to those who read this: Happy Valentine's Day to each and every one of you, and if you don't celebrate Valentine's Day, happy Horny Werewolf Day. May you be happy, may you be loved, may you be warm and safe and dry. May you have stars to steer by, wish on, and follow, and may you find your sisters and brothers and lovers and children in these woods, waiting for you, where you always knew they'd be.

So first off, I'm not dead. I am, however, home from Disney, and coping with my own flare-up of food poisoning, which haunted my party during our Disney World adventure. Getting sick on the plane is awesome! But anyway...

It's award eligibility season! Nominations are now open for both the Nebulas and the Hugos. Nebula nominations are open until February 15th for SFWA members only. Hugo nominations are open until March 11th, and to quote the website: "Nominations are open to members of the current year's Worldcon, the members of the past year's Worldcon, and, starting with the 2012 Hugo Awards, the members of the following year’s Worldcon." This means that if you had a membership to Renovation, you are eligible to nominate. If you didn't, you have until January 31st to purchase a membership for Chicon if you want nominating as well as voting rights on this year's ballot.

Anyway, this is what I did in 2011. If you are eligible to nominate, please consider these works, as well as many others by many awesome people.

Novel:

Late Eclipses
One Salt Sea
Deadline (as Mira Grant)

Novella:

Countdown (as Mira Grant)

Novelette:

Through This House

Short Story:

"The Tolling of Pavlov's Bells."
"Gimme a 'Z'!"
"The Alchemy of Alcohol."
"Apocalypse Scenario #683: The Box." (as Mira Grant)
"Riddles."
"Uncle Sam."
"Cinderella City."
"Crystal Halloway and the Forgotten Passage."

Of these short stories, many of which I am very proud of, "The Tolling of Pavlov's Bells" can be read for free at Apex Magazine, "Uncle Sam" can be read for free at The Edge of Propinquity, and "Crystal Halloway and the Forgotten Passage" can be read for free at Fantasy Magazine (soon to merge with Lightspeed Magazine, which may change the way they archive things, I don't know).

Best Related Work:

Wicked Girls

I'm serious. According to the Hugo website, this category is..."Awarded to a work related to the field of science fiction, fantasy, or fandom, appearing for the first time during the previous calendar year or which has been substantially modified during the previous calendar year. The type of works eligible include, but are not limited to, collections of art, works of literary criticism, books about the making of a film or TV series, biographies and so on, provided that they do not qualify for another category." I believe that filk albums would thus be "related works," not dramatic presentations. Also, the idea cracks me up.

Best Fancast:

The SF Squeecast, in which I babble about all things awesome with Paul Cornell, Cat Valente, Elizabeth Bear, and Lynne Thomas.

I think that's everything. 2011 was amazing for me, publication-wise, and I am so happy and so pleased that all of you were there with me. And now, to quote the lovely Cat, who reminded me to make this post myself...

Quoth Cat: "A final note: you do not have to go to Worldcon to nominate and vote for the Hugos. You can buy a supporting membership for $50 and get that perk. I realize $50 is a lot to express an opinion, but every year we hear complaints about the ballot and every year I hope that my generation will vote a little more, because the Hugos are kind of a bellwether for the field, and I want new crackly risktaking goodness in there, too. Since I have no control over the price of the supporting membership all I can say is—give it a thought, if you have the scratch."

So if you have the funds and you want the voice, consider it. You could be a part of science fiction history.

Happy New Year!

Today is a day for poetry.

My poem, "Post-Modern Cinderella," has been published in the summer issue of Goblin Fruit, along with many other lovely things, by many other lovely people. Cat is telling Persephone's story all over again (we are forever telling Persephone's story, apples and snow, pomegranates and winter, lilies on a grave), there is Coyote, and Apollo, and a beauty in a tower. You should go and read and be filled with fairy tales, because fairy tales exist to fill the hollow places.

And also and also and also: my darling Mia, of chimera_fancies, who has made me so many beautiful fairy tales to hang on ribbons 'round my neck, is selling little bits of Bordertown for you to take, and wear, and love. They're made from ARCs of Welcome to Bordertown, and they're amazing.

As with all Mia's pendants, each piece is unique, hand-made, and waiting for the right person to claim it. You should take a look; one of them may be singing for you, waiting for you to come and carry it away.

And that is the time, and that is the tide, and there are pomegranate ices in the garden. I'll see you soon.

In case you missed the memo, I'm one of the Guests of Honor at Convergence 2011 in scenic Bloomington, Minnesota. How soon is this? Well, my plane leaves tonight at six, so...

I'm super-excited about this convention, where I get to room with one of my favorite people (Tara, my web graphic designer), hug Cat Valente a whole lot (Thomas still wants to know why I let her leave), and generally enjoy the hell out of one of my favorite states. Also, Soundingsea (the lady I named Buffy's blog after) is taking me to Izzy's for ice cream. Om nom nom. Best convention ever! And here, for the curious, is my schedule:

Friday.

Reading, 2:00 PM. What am I reading? I do not know! Suggest something, I'm flexible.

Ask a Writer, 3:30 PM. G'head. Ask me about writing. I dare you.

Signing, 5:00 PM. Specifically, we will be signing Chicks Dig Time Lords and Whedonistas, although let's face it. I'll sign anything you put in front of me that isn't a small child or a legally binding contract.

An Evening With Seanan McGuire and Catherynne Valente, 7:00 PM. Look. We're not kidding when we call this event "An Evening With Kevin Smith, Plus Tits." We are profane. We are bizarre. We will talk about damn near anything that comes into our heads. We are eventually going to become the darlings of the fannish lecture circuit, so you should see us early, while you can still get good seats. Although we'll have to end mostly on time, because...

Whedonistas, 8:30 PM. Ra ra Joss. Ra ra ah-ah-ah, we all got his bad romance, yo.

Saturday.

Happy Writers, Fast Writers, 12:30 PM. Gimme a Diet Dr Pepper and I'm both!

Chicks Dig Live Doctor Who Commentary, 2:00 PM. I did not realize until I was making this list that we're commenting on "The Parting of the Ways." Oh, I am going to need so much boozimohol not to get inappropriate...

Signing, 3:30 PM. Since many of you will doubtless have attended the group signing, this event may be me, my comic book paper, and a lot of inking. And I am okay with that, although I'd love to see you again.

Sunday.

Chicks Dig Comics, 12:30 PM. Yes. Yes, we do.

The SF Squeecast, 3:30 PM. This is going to be our first live recording of our awesome new group podcast, which is getting ready to go live. It will also be the first recording I have done while fully clothed, since again, live. I have now used the word "live" too many times in this panel description.

Closing Ceremonies, 5:00 PM. This is where I get to kill and eat the con.

I hope to see as many of you there as possible, and I plan on having a fantastic time. Hooray for Minnesota!

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!

1. It is now twenty-one days to Deadline. I am scrambling to catch up on "Countdown" (the series of little in-universe snapshots has a name!), and writing ahead so as not to get caught flat-footed by my next convention adventure. I'm not certain I'll have internet while at Wiscon, so the last few pieces may be posted a little late, but they will be posted.

2. The cats responded to my going to Leprecon by magically acquiring giant felted mats which should have taken them well over a week to create. Last night's brushing adventure was a lot of fun for everyone involved, let me tell you what. Also, ow. Also, I am so saying "screw this noise" when I get home from BEA/Wiscon, and just taking the pair of them straight to the professional groomer for trimming and mat removal. I am not going through that again if I don't have to.

3. My whole house is clean! Why is my whole house clean? Because my mother is awesome! Why is my mother awesome? Because she cleaned my house! The first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club.

4. I get a Cat this weekend! Cat Valente is using my house as her base of operations during the San Francisco Bay Area branch of her tour for The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making. She'll be at our best-beloved Borderlands Books this Saturday; there will be cupcakes, and carousing, and all the usual wonderful things. You should totally come.

5. There will be another, probably photo-heavy post about this later, but...I got an Evangeline Ghastly doll! More precisely, I got two; the one I bought, and one that mysteriously appeared on my doorstep in a big-ass box from Wilde Imagination. My squealing, it was vast. Of course, now I have entered the dark realm of the ball-jointed doll, from which there is no returning. Which leads us to...

6. I am allowed to do one fiscally silly thing every time I do certain things, career-wise. As I have done a certain thing (more on this later), I get to be silly, and I've decided that this time, for silly, I want a resin Evangeline doll. They fit more of the clothes, and can wear all the shoes. Specifically, I want the Cemetery Wedding Evangeline, since she has the best face. If you know anyone who might be selling part of a doll collection, please let me know?

7. The new season of Doctor Who continues to delight me.

8. I have finished the Tybalt short! "Rat-Catcher" is 10,000 words long, and has been officially submitted to the market it was written for. If they buy it, I'll announce when and where it will be appearing. If they don't, I'll start looking for something else to do with a story full of Cait Sidhe. Whatever I do, it will probably need to involve gooshy food.

9. Zombies are love.

10. I am hammered enough right now that my response time is slow, and the amnesty on replying to comments on the "Countdown" posts endures. I'll still answer comments on all other posts; it may just take me a little while. Thank you for being understanding.

So this has been a week. Yes. That is definitely what it's been. Rarely has a week been so very week-shaped, and so equipped with lots of little pointy days to stick things to. I have thoughts, honest I do, and many of them even make sense, but it's been such a week that I really am essentially reduced to sitting here going "well, yeah, that was a week." So here, have some bullet-points instead.

Writing.
I'm making awesome progress on Blackout, which is up to 115,000 words, which technically puts me a day ahead of target. If I can make my overly-ambitious goals for the weekend, I may be able to get far enough ahead of target that I can actually enjoy LepreCon next weekend without needing to get up in the morning and worry about word count. (I'll get up in the morning and worry about word count anyway. I just won't have to.)

"Rat-Catcher" is also coming along nicely, and I'm about halfway through the story. I'm shooting to finish the first draft by Monday or Tuesday of next week, and then hand it over to the Machete Squad for glorious abuse. It's being written for a specific anthology, but I can't say which one until the story is finished and the editor decides that it's worth printing. Assuming that happens, I'll make sure to share the ordering info, because who wouldn't want a story about Tybalt in London before he was King? Questions are asked, questions are answered, you get to meet the elusive September Torquill, and as a bonus, Tybalt's family is involved.

Watching.
So the season premiere of Doctor Who was amazing, and I can't wait for tomorrow night's episode. I love Matt Smith's Doctor so very much, and I really hope we get to keep him at least as long as we kept Tennant. (Young actor, more likely to want to avoid getting typecast. Young actor, more likely to go "This is AWESOME!" and keep doing the show just so he can play with more aliens. So it's a wash, and we'll need to wait and see.) I love Amy, I love Rory, I love that Rory's in the opening credits now, and yes, I even love River Song. Although there is now officially an embargo on characters named "River."

Two episodes remain in this season of Fringe, which is absolutely one of my favorite things on television, bar none. I'm even kind of jealous, since "alternate versions of the main character or characters" is one of my narrative kinks, and it's really, really hard to do when you're working purely in text. I've got some alternates coming up in the Vel stories, but that's about it. The storytelling on Fringe just keeps getting better, and I am so excited and terrified to see where this season ends.

Wandering.
May sort of kicks off my convention season in a big, big way, and next weekend is LepreCon, in scenic Tempe, Arizona. I'm their Music Guest of Honor! Which will be fun, since I'm working with an unfamiliar guitarist and we won't have much time to practice. That means our performance will be, if nothing else, sincere. I'm planning to have a great time, even if it kills me.

Later in the month, I'll have Cat Valente crashing at my place before her event at Borderlands to promote The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, which you should totally attend, and then heading to New York for Book Expo America, followed by Wiscon, with a stop in the middle at a high school in Wisconsin. And all of this should explain why I am quite so passionate about making my word counts every day, even if it kills me. There is no room left for slippage.

Wanting.
The new Monster High dolls have been announced, and to absolutely no one's surprise, I want them all. ALL OF THEM. I am going to need to get a new shelf. "All of them" includes the San Diego International Comic-Convention Exclusive Ghoulia Yelps cosplaying as her favorite superhero. Yes. A ZOMBIE SUPERHERO. I control all things.

What's up with you guys?

The second round of this year's BSC Book Tournament has closed, and Toby is still standing, since An Artificial Night managed to crush the competition handily. That's good!

Now I am up against Cat Valente's Habitation of the Blessed. That's not so good. Weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth to follow. But still, I entreat that you should vote, regardless of your choice in this round, and hope only that Toby will prevail. Why? Because it amuses the living crap out of me, naturally, and I am a simple blonde.

I'll add the voting link as soon as it goes live. Vote your heart. Vote your champion. Vote for MAXIMUM CARNAGE.

Girl fight tonight!

ETA: As promised, here is the actual voting link for the contest. Now get your smackdown on!

Hello, world! It's the Thursday before Wondercon, and I'm trying to take care of all the little rags and tags of reality that build up over the course of a week like cat hair on velvet pants. So anyway...

1. The fight is still raging in the BSC Review tournament! This round closes Sunday morning, at which point, eight books will be reduced to four, and those four will duke it out for the right to do to the bracket semi-finals. Cat and I both still have horses in this race, so please, help keep Toby swinging!

2. Speaking of Cat, her new book, Deathless, came out this week. Hooray for book release! There's a lot of neat free stuff to have and enjoy and be amazed by; my darling talkstowolves has made a big post collecting it all into one place. I even drew a Pretty Little Dead Ghoul for the occasion. Feel the love!

3. My new phone is lovely, and allows me to do exciting things like "take pictures of my cats" and "access Twitter from the train." It also allows me to answer email when I'm not at home, which is going to be a huge, huge relief as time goes on. It's already taken some of the weight off, since I've been able to respond to things while in transit.

4. Thomas and Alice have started working against me. Thomas jumped onto the back of my knees at four o'clock this morning, jarring me INSTANTLY AWAKE, at which point Alice began pushing their ceramic food dishes back and forth in the feeding tray. Scrape. Scrape. Scraaaaaape. So yes, I got up, and I fed the cats. I am so doomed.

5. The full-length trailer for the new season of Doctor Who has been released, and is so intensely awesome as to cause me to sit, weak-kneed and gaping at my monitor, for several minutes before hitting "play" again. I remain overjoyed and giggly over the fact that this show, my show, is back.

6. Also, there's a new My Little Pony cartoon that doesn't suck. I clearly control the universe. You can place your requests with Kate, who will only allow me to fulfill the ones that don't involve diseases or amphibians.

7. I'm getting ready to do a massive post office run, so I am once again taking orders for "Wicked Girls" posters. According to my files, if it's been paid for, it's been sent out; please email me if you don't have yours. Comment either here or on the original post if you'd like to request a poster, and we'll coordinate.

8. I will be mostly offline this weekend, as I will be attending Wondercon. I'll have my awesome new phone with me, but let's face it, when given a choice between answering email and staring raptly at James Gunn, James Gunn wins without a contest. I'll definitely Tweet my location at various points throughout the weekend, and if you find me, you could win a prize. Or not. I may be out of prizes.

9. Zombies are still love.

10. I get to see Amy this weekend (Mebberson, not McNally)! And Kaja! And Phil! And there will be cupcakes, and hugging, and artwork, and Mom will probably wear her chicken hat, and I'm so excited!!!!!

What's new and awesome in the world of you?

Today is the official release date for Whedonistas: A Celebration of the Worlds of Joss Whedon by the Women Who Love Them. No, we don't expect you to use the book's whole name every day. That's just for company. You can call it Whedonistas when it's at home.

This is a book of essays about the many and varied works of Whedon, from Buffy to Dollhouse. I somehow managed to resist the burning urge to write about his work on the X-Men* in both movie and comic form, and wrote instead about how Buffy: the Vampire Slayer shaped my identity as both a fan and a creator of my own work. When the apocalypse comes, beep me.

I am, naturally, biased in favor of this book, which contains some awesome essays by some awesome women, many of whom are friends of mine. So here's a review written by an objective third party, which should hopefully sell you on the sheer awesome of this book better than I, who am biased, could ever manage. But if you buy this book, angels will sing, pixies will get their wings, and my cats will feast on sweet, sweet tuna. I'm just saying.

Or you could always win this book. My beloved catvalente is having an awesome book giveaway, for Whedonistas AND her upcoming totally rockin' books Deathless and The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland... Go forth! Enter! Read the instructions carefully before entering, because they are specific and also important. There could be ice weasels in your future if you don't read the instructions. Again, just saying.

Whedonistas! Happy birthday, awesome book of awesome!

(*Let's be realistic here: I was able to resist solely because I was already planning to write about the relationship between Scott Summers and Emma Frost, and why Jean Gray needs to stay dead, for Chicks Dig Comics. I am a blonde with very basic needs.)

I was bored, I remembered catvalente's list of things to do before she died, and so I decided to write my own list of things to do before I died. Because that's just the way we roll around here. Also, a bored blonde is a dangerous blonde.

25 Things I Want Deeply Enough to Put Them On a List of Things to Do Before I Die, Assuming My Life Doesn't End With Cackling, a Flaming Biosphere, and Joyous Shouts of "I Showed You, You Fools! I Showed You All!":

1. Tour a Level-4 biohazard safety area

Look, I never claimed that I was going to be reasonable, safe, or sane in the things I wanted to accomplish before shuffling off this mortal coil, and at the end of the day, if said shuffling occurs because I was exposed to smallpox while touring a CDC lab, I can't say anyone's going to be overly surprised. I want to actually experience the moon-suit and the tugging from negative-pressure airflow. It's something that part of me really feels I need to do.

Necessary objects not currently owned: access to a Level-4 biohazard lab, understanding lab technicians who don't mind civilians in their workspace, possibly some sort of government clearance.

2. Have a display area suitable for my dolls and Ponies

This is one of those wishes that's sort of wrapped up in a bunch of other wishes, since having a display area suitable for my toy collection basically means having a larger house. The place I live right now doesn't have any room left for a series of proper glass-fronted cabinets, and that's what it would take to really set my My Little Pony collection up properly, to say nothing of my Monster High dolls and assorted other toys. Am I a massive nerd? Yes. Yes, I am. I embrace my nerdhood, and dream of proper shelving.

Necessary objects not currently owned: several nice glass-fronted display cabinets, a room where they would fit without my needing to sleep on an inflatable mattress or something.

3. Visit Maine

Maine is something akin to Fairyland in my heart: this strange, impossible place where mysterious things happen, like ice falling from the sky, or killer clowns dragging your little brother down into the sewer to eat his heart. I've been dreaming of Maine since I was seven years old. There's no possible way for the state to live up to everything that I hope it's going to be, but that doesn't stop me from wanting to go there and see it for myself.

Necessary objects not currently owned: a block of vacation time without any other commitments. Ha. Ha. Ha.

4. Become functionally fluent in American Sign Language

I've been learning ASL out of books and off of webpages and from friends for the last few years, and I've reached the point where I can sign along with Journey songs without really dropping words. My finger-spelling is still terrible, but it's getting better. I think it's just shy of magic that we can have a language that doesn't require spoken words, but exists somewhere between the realm of the written and the spoken. Besides which...I go through life expecting that since I live in a country where the dominant language is English, everyone will understand me. I'd like to be able to assist in making that true for other people. And the sign for "science" is just plain fun.

Necessary objects not currently owned: a good ASL class. I'm going to be looking into one during the upcoming semester.

5. Take a ludicrously long walk to nowhere of any specific use to anyone else

I love taking long walks. Like, really, really, REALLY long walks. We are talking "bring a tent"-length long walks. And I love stories about people who walked to Mordor, or Oregon, or just about anyplace that is, like, crazy far away and means sleeping on the ground or at weird slightly creepy motels with broken neon signs out front. I want to take an epic walk. I want to take a "bring a tent" walk. I'd really like to take it either alone or with a large dog, which probably means having someone who follows me in a car about ten miles back, just in case I run into issues with being female and alone by the side of the road. But this is something I really, really want to do.

Necessary objects not currently owned: a destination, time to get there, a large dog, an escort.

( Twenty more odd wishes after the break.Collapse )

Welcome to the second, and hopefully final, portion of my not-a-con-report for Arisia. I really did have a wonderful time in Boston, snow and all, and I'm definitely going to be going back. Eventually. After I've had the opportunity to take a nice nap, and maybe watch a whole lot of really, really dumb television. Anyway, here are the summarized highlights (and lowlights), for your amusement and edification.

My candy corn hat! The Agent knows me too, too well, it seems, and when the time came to give me the last piece of my holiday gift, she led me to the dealer's hall and purchased me a felt candy corn hat from one of the local vendors. Yes. I now have a hat that looks like a piece of candy corn. TREMBLE WITH FEAR, MERE MORTALS. I wore this hat to almost every serious panel I had during the weekend, and proclaimed proudly that wearing it provided that I was a professional. I never said what kind of professional.

The Mad Science song circle! I didn't make it to very many filk events this year, sadly, because I was busy with other programming and also wound up spending most of Sunday vilely ill (more on this in a moment). But the Mad Science circle was awesome, and Ben Newman sprung a positively wicked new science parody on me. It was a very cool circle, and I'm so very glad I got to go.

Alice and Josh! My life is better when it contains large quantities of Alice, and since I had to leave my beloved Maine Coon in California, I supplemented diet of Alice with a local fan and acquaintance of mine from this blog. She and her husband took me to dinner, where I ate, unsurprisingly, shepherd's pie, and then she and I sat and talked for like an hour and a half while he ran off to a panel. It was a really nice, relaxing way to spend an evening, and I had a wonderful time. Since they didn't run screaming, I assume they did, too.

Meeting Toni! My friend Toni lives near Boston, and was able to come out to the convention on Saturday, transforming herself from "my Internet-only friend Toni" to "my friend Toni, whom I have met in real life." She brought her husband, who was witty and fun to talk to, and I brought Diana, who was witty and fun to talk to and bought me chicken fingers. There were exchanges of books and hugs, and life was very good. It's nice to have people transform from words on a screen into actual humans. It makes me happy.

The Guest Breakfast! Arisia had a special breakfast event on Sunday, where people could buy tickets to have a special, intimate breakfast with the Guests of Honor and Special Guests. Each of us had a table of our very own. Sadly for me, someone at the next table over was wearing a mango-based perfume, and the breakfast went rapidly from "yum yum, free fruit" to "quietly excusing myself, walking to the bathroom, vomiting copiously, and walking back to my table to resume being entertaining." I would become progressively sicker for most of the day. It was so much fun. My poor roommates had to deal with my basically being a creepy dead girl from a horror movie. How I try their patience.

Cat and Seanan strike back! Cat and I are getting pretty good at our urban fantasy girl version of "An Evening With Kevin Smith." Every time it happens, the crowd gets a little bigger, the questions get a little smoother, and our comfort levels get a little higher, which leads to, you know, more swearing, more craziness, and more references to Lord Byron's penis. It's a victory for everybody! This installment of the Cat-and-Seanan Show was pure hammered awesome, and we only had to decline one question, which is possibly a record. More impressively, I wasn't even able to walk without throwing up an hour before the panel. So this is what I do for love.

Better Off Ted! Diana and Cat introduced me to this show, and Cat's Netflicks account allowed us to wallow in it each night before bed. I now require the box sets. And maybe a meat blob.

Post-antibiotic science fiction gone wild! My final panel was on Monday morning, and was all about post-antibiotic science fiction. It turned into "Seanan defends her thesis on causative agents for the Black Death" for about twenty minutes, which seemed to be fun for everyone, if a little more mentally rigorous than I had wanted to be that early in the morning on the last day of a convention. I recommended not licking things as a way to avoid infection. You're welcome.

Flying home! Actually, the flight was pretty lousy. But my cats made up for it.

See you next time!

I am not going to write an Arisia con report. I'm not good at them under the best of circumstances—they either wind up obscenely long and take six months to finish, turn into a series of comic strips, or make no sense—and these are not the best of circumstances, what with the "two conventions in two weekends" and "under a whole lot of deadlines" parts of our program. So these are the summarized highlights, for your amusement and edification.

Arriving in Boston! Persis picked me up from the airport, because a) Persis loves me, and b) I had made it quite clear that fuck you people, I am not going outside in the snow unless it's to enter a private car. No, I am not a prima donna; I simply refuse to take the bus or other forms of public transit when you have A FOOT OF SNOW on the ground. My sunny California upbringing can't handle the reality shift. I did, in fact, remain entirely inside the hotel until Monday afternoon, when I went outside in the snow, entered a private car, and returned to the airport. So screw you, New England winter; I am not your chew toy.

Hanging out with Rene! My room wasn't ready yet when we got to the hotel, so I wound up sitting with Rene, the Fan Guest of Honor, in the lobby Starbucks for about an hour. Rene was conchair for the Montreal WorldCon, and is a really neat guy. Plus he helped me get my luggage up to my room. Class act, yo.

Cat and Diana! My roommates for the weekend were the lovely Cat "The Crusher" Valente, and the equally lovely Diana "The Destroyer" Fox. They both arrived Friday afternoon, and seriously, it was like spending the entire weekend having an awesome slumber party with awesome people and our own private bathroom. Our hotel room looked like it had been hit by a localized tornado. A tornado of RAW AWESOME. I couldn't have asked for a better time. Plus? They brought me presents. (I also brought them presents. I like to share.)

The Paranormal Romance Weather Report! My first panel of the weekend was on the appeal of paranormal romance and the flirtation with the mainstream. The only panelist I'd met prior to sitting down at the table was Kelley Armstrong, which was sort of neat. We talked for an hour, and it was a lively and engaged discussion, but didn't come with as many book recommendations as people expected...so I used my closing comments to provide a cable-news style weather report on offerings in the urban fantasy and paranormal romance genres. Yes, complete with a "and next, here's John with sports!" closer. It was more fun than it should have been. Seriously.

Shawn! My good friend Shawn lives in Massachusetts, and swears he actually likes New England winters. This is because Shawn is insane. He actually came to the convention to see me! It was awesome. He is a good Shawn, and shall be renowned in song and story.

Shaenon Garrity, big-time star! Shaenon was the Webcomics Guest of Honor, which meant that her adorable mad science illustrations were all over the program book (awesome), and that she had the big box of Skin Horse strips available for people to paw through and purchase. I got one of my favorite strips. And also? A hug.

Ellen and Delia! Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman are a) mad awesome, b) very sweet, and c) just plain cool. They're also involved with the Bordertown revival, about which I will blog more very, very soon. And Ellen? Ellen gave me an ARC of the new Bordertown book, about which I will also blog more very, very soon. So who has an ARC of the new Bordertown book? THAT WOULD BE ME. Dude, the trip was worth it for that alone, I swear.

Having an Irish pub attached to the hotel! One of the two hotel restaurants was an actual Irish pub, with actual Irish pub food. I basically ate shepherd's pie for every "real meal" I had during the weekend, and while that may not have been awesome from a Weight Watchers standpoint, it was pretty damn cool from a "don't flip out and kill everyone in a ten-mile radius" standpoint. You may now thank the Irish pub for saving mankind.

...okay, so even when I'm doing the quick-and-dirty highlights version of a con report, I can't condense it very well. Tune in next time, for more things that were awesome, or at least interesting, since "Seanan has an allergic reaction to some lady's perfume and spends the bulk of Sunday yearning for death" is totally making the list.

There's something magical about airport departure lounges. They're these strange, impossible liminal spaces, where the world is infinite just because it's so limited. I spend a lot of time in them these days, what with the conventions and the work and everything else. The TSA at San Francisco is starting to know me by name.

I am heading home from Boston, where I just spent a wonderful, terrible, magical, mundane, perfect, flawed, absolutely incredible weekend as a Special Guest of Arisia 2010. The convention was warm and welcoming and filled with people who hugged me and were happy I was there. I had a terrible allergic reaction Sunday morning and spent most of the day sick even unto death. I sat on a stage with Cat and talked about gulper eels and Lord Byron's penis. I tried to make the hotel internet work, to mixed results. I curled up in a warm bed with two of my favorite people sitting nearby, and watched great television. I wandered around unfed and confused.

I had a fantastic convention. I am glad to know that someday, I will go back there. I am so very glad to be going home. And that, really, is the convention experience. You go to a strange place, you enter the airport departure lounge of your soul, and you do your best to fall in love with the people you meet there. And then you all get on planes and go home to your separate places, and you wonder whether you'll ever fly that route again.

My bags are packed. I'm ready to go. The city streets are filled with snow. I hate to wake you up to say goodbye...

But I will. And soon, Great Pumpkin willing, I'll say hello.

Thank you for everything.

I promised you shopping lists, and I intend to deliver! I'm taking a very generous definition of the word "friend," here, using it as a sort of shorthand for "friends and acquaintances and people who've emailed with me a few times and would probably buy me a drink at a convention if it was convenient and they had their wallets with them." Since that takes a long time to type, "friends" is our winner.

I have read every book I am recommending to you today, so consider this my Endorsement of Awesome. I've tried to be upfront about things like age ranges and such, but let's face it, I was reading Stephen King at the age of nine. My ideas on what you should and shouldn't give to your seven-year-old are messed. Up. So please try before you buy, and don't come crying to me if your kid starts claiming the clown in the closet is coming for his soul (hint: the clown probably means business).

First up, the inimitable Jim Hines! I mean that. He's hard to imitate. One of the things that makes him so amazing is the way he crosses age and gender barriers like they weren't even there. You think I'm funning with you? Hand Goblin Quest [Amazon] to any teenager who likes things that are awesome, and watch the divide between "boy books" and "girl books" melt away. Now try it again with the adults of your choice. It's fun, well-written comedic fantasy that has something for everyone. It's also the first of a trilogy. Hard to go wrong with that!

Once you've spent some time with the goblins, you could do a lot worse than sticking with Hines and taking a peek at The Stepsister Scheme [Amazon], the first of his modern action-adventure fantasy answers to the Disney Princess craze. It's a very pink book, but it, like the goblin books, works for male and female readers alike, with its engaging plot, awesome characters, and wicked-good dialog. I even helped to copyedit the third and fourth books in the series, which tells you something about my love for this world.

Moving on from Jim—thanks, Jim!—means it's time to take a look at the fantastic Jeri Smith-Ready, whose fantastic Wicked Game [Amazon] will introduce you to some of the most unique, most fascinating vampires currently stalking the shadows. They're the DJs of WVMP, and with the help of a con-artist protagonist and an author who knows how to go for the jugular, they can keep you rocking all night long. I love these books. Check 'em out.

But hey, maybe vampires aren't your thing. You could be more X-Files than Angel. And if that's the case, may I direct your attention to the delightful Gini Koch, and her steaming-hot, sexy, silly, utterly enchanting Touched By An Alien [Amazon]. (Okay, I admit it, I love Gini in part because there is now a DAW heroine whose name is sillier than Toby's. Thank you Katherine "Kitty" Katt, for making my protagonist less likely to kill me.) The sequel comes out next week, and wow, do you not want to miss the opportunity to beam up.

Cat Valente is exploring a different kind of alien landscape in her beautifully-written Habitation of the Blessed [Amazon], a landscape populated with creatures out of myth, legend, and allegory. She conjures up historical myths almost forgotten in the modern world, and weaves them together into something just probable enough to hurt your heart. It's a beautiful book.

Finally (for now), a book I loved so much that I actually blurbed it: Carousel Tides [Amazon], by Sharon Lee. It's an urban fantasy old-school enough that it wouldn't look out-of-place next to War for the Oaks and Tam Lin, and at the same time, it's totally part of the modern urban fantasy explosion. It's gorgeous and rich and deep and unique, and I can't recommend it highly enough.

That's books by my friends for today!

Monday morning, I woke up, and I had still won the Campbell. This was...something of a relief, since part of me had been vigorously insisting that I was going to wake up and it was going to have all been a VERY CRUEL DREAM. Because that is the sort of shit my brain thinks is funny. Well, at this point, if it's a very cruel dream, it's been going on for almost two months, and when I wake up, I'm kicking the living shit out of the Sandman.

After dressing, abluting, and giggling a lot, Jeanne and I made our way over to the convention center, where I had been added to the "Disreputable Protagonists" panel. I...didn't have that much to contribute, honestly. Toby is disreputable, but she's disreputable due to very world-specific things, not because she's actually a roguish naif. Ah, well. What I remember of the panel was fun (I had, remember, not slept much for almost a week).

We wandered around the convention a bit. We peered at stuff. And we made our way to my reading, which was governed entirely by consensus. What was I going to read from? Feed. Okay. Which part? The first part. Again, okay. I read the first chapter. And then I gave away books, so I wouldn't have to take them home.

We wandered around a bit more. I gave away more books, including one to Crystal, a very nice lady associated with Arisia in Boston. I ran out of books. We hooked up with what had become the Usual Suspects—Cat, Rob, Liz, Mundy, Mal, and a gentleman whose name I have since forgotten—and took cabs downtown, where we ate Italian food and threw things at each other and made fun of Scotland. Then it was back to the Hilton, where we drank cocktails and talked about many things, and flung cookies at each other, and generally were silly buggers until the time came for sleeping.

That's the end of AussieCon IV. To everyone who made my weekend so amazing, thank you. To everyone who would have done the same if they could have been there, thank you. And to Jeanne and Cat, thank you twice, because you made the weekend magic.

Australia!

When last we left our intrepid heroes, Jeanne and I were heading to the auditorium where the Hugo Ceremony was being held, so that we could acquire a sufficient number of seats for our (admittedly large) group of people. We had, by that point, myself, Jeanne, Cat, Gretchen, Jay, Shannon, Daniel, and Keli, all of whom were basically "required human to prevent destruction of mankind." This is quite a lot of seats, so really, it makes sense that we took off the way we did.

Even with our early arrival, we wound up two seats short. Cat and I took the seats in the main row (where we would have a clear shot at the stage, should it be needed), while Jeanne and Gretchen sat right behind us, allowing for hand-holding and hysteria, despite the technical separation. Hyperventilation commenced.

Eventually, everyone was present and in their seats, and the lights were dimmed for the Hugo Ceremony to begin. Garth Nix, the MC, came out and told a funny story about how he was chosen to be the MC. At least, I think it was funny. I was mostly focused on hyperventilating without passing out. It's fun! Then came the video presentation of the year's "highlights in science fiction." This included, among other things, the book covers and author pictures of all the year's nominees.

They showed my book. And my face. On the big big big screen at the Hugos. This would be the point in the ceremony where I started to cry for the first time.

After the video came the First Fandom Big Heart Award, which, while not a Hugo, is given out during the Hugos. Please note that the Campbell Award is given before any of the actual Hugos (but after the Big Heart Award), and this little additional delay was enough to make me more of a nervous wreck than I already was. Now consider that Cat's category, Best Novel, was the last of the night, and she was still together enough to make soothing noises and pat my hand. Woman is a rock when she's gotta be, that's all I'm saying here.

The Big Heart was given. John Scalzi and Jay Lake took the stage, along with Kathryn Daugherty, the year's administrator (and someone who's known me since I was fourteen), who was holding the actual Campbell, turned against her chest to hide the writing. Jay and John explained the award, along with fun facts like "where the Campbell pin came from" (thank you, Jay and Spring), and "who thought up the tiara" (thank you, Elizabeth Bear). The names of the nominees were read out. I discovered the heretofore unknown ability to taste sounds and pray in sign language (hint: I can finger-spell "please, Great Pumpkin" faster than I can spell my own name).

(Also, wow, the screaming when they said my name was amazing. I mean, everyone got cheers and applause, but if you listen to the ceremony on playback, I think people actually blew the levels screaming when they said my name. Cue second tears of the evening.)

"And the winner of the 2010 Campbell Award for Best New Writer is..."

I clutched Cat's hand so hard my fingers hurt.

"...Seanan McGuire."

I kept clutching Cat's hand, because let's face it, when you can taste sounds, you're going to be like Cordelia in that episode where she was in the running to be Homecoming Queen: you'll think they said your name even if they've just announced "No Award" as the winner. Cat pushed me to your feet. "That's you."

The processional music for the Campbell was the theme from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Kathryn, Jay, and John were all beaming like they'd been the ones to win. I was mostly chanting "Oh my God" over and over again, that being roughly the limits of my mental acuity at that particular moment in time. They put the tiara on my head, and I was rightly crowned the Princess of the Kingdom of Poison and Flame.

All hailed.

My acceptance speech was a bit disjointed, at least in part because I was so focused on clinging, lamprey-like, to the Campbell. I did say that John and Jay were mistaken when they said that people wearing the (star-shaped) Campbell pin weren't the sheriff: "I just think y'all should know, I actually am the sheriff." So congratulations, my six-year-old self: you got to wear a pretty dress, become a princess, and be sheriff, all in one night. Next up, the planet of eternal Halloween, and maybe a pony.

I explained how, when I was seven, I said I wanted to grow up to be a Timelord, and everyone was okay with that, because no one knew what that was, and how everyone was a lot less okay a few years later, when I said I wanted to be a science fiction writer, because "girls don't do that" (and also I would wind up living in a cardboard box). I thanked the Great Pumpkin, which may well be a Hugo first. I thanked some other people. I lost the ability to form coherent words, and fled the stage as quickly as three-inch heels and a floor-length skirt would allow.

I admit, I spent the rest of the ceremony watching my award as much as I watched the stage (and also, getting the tiara caught in Cat's hair, at one point during the proceedings). People won things; we cheered. I cheered especially loudly when Will McIntosh won Best Short Story, since I'd had dinner with him the night before, and he was an absolute doll, and when Phil and Kaja Foglio won Best Graphic Story, because c'mon, it's Phil and Kaja. Favoritism? On occasion, yes. But at least my biases are public knowledge.

Cat didn't win Best Novel. But she did clutch my hand just as hard as I'd clutched hers, and thus was symmetry maintained.

After the ceremony, the winners and presenters had to stick around for a lengthy photo session on the stage (some of the pictures appear in this month's issue of Locus, which I need to buy multiple copies of, since otherwise, my mother will end me). Meanwhile, the other nominees, and their plus-ones, decamped for the Hugo After-Party. After all the pictures were finished, Jeanne and I joined them, dragging John Grace (my audiobook publisher) in our wake.

At the party: booze! Yay! Also prizes from next year's WorldCon, in Reno, and trays of actual food, which I finally felt competent enough to consume. Ellen Kushner came over and admired my Campbell. I squealed a lot, and wound up at a big table full of people I adored, sipping champagne, wearing my tiara, and loving the night.

Every time someone asked me if I was ecstatic, I replied, "I'll be ecstatic tomorrow, when I wake up and it's Monday." Ah, the joys of feeling vaguely like you're living in a dreamworld. Nothing is every quite as real as it seems, until it's over.

When we were all champagne-ed out, we went back to the Hilton Bar for more serious drinks (which were serious). On the way, I stopped to use the bathroom, and was then waylaid by a lookout for the filkers. "Are you going to come up?" he asked. "Kate's waiting for you to sign her book."

I said I could, but only for a few minutes, as Jeanne had my shoes, and up we went. The circle was singing "Hope Eyrie" when we entered the room. Half of them stopped singing to applaud, making me turn beet red and flap my hands in negation. (Thankfully, no one was mad at me for interrupting the song, since I clearly hadn't meant to.) I signed Kate's book. I was asked to sing before leaving, and, since Kathleen was there, sang "Burn It Down" with more fervency than I had ever managed before. My fear was on the fire, baby, and it was going down.

Fleeing, I rejoined the others at the Hilton, and had another round of hugs and joy with the folks who hadn't been able to attend the after-party. Then it was up to Cat's room to put our real clothes back on (and pluck the pins from my hair) before Jeanne and I walked back to our own hotel, to sleep.

Jennifer woke up long enough to say "Congratulations, lady," and went back to sleep.

For the first time in days, so did I.

While I was in New York, after the reading I did with the ever-lovely Cat Valente, I noticed that she had an ARC of The Habitation of the Blessed which looked, well, lonely. Deeply lonely. Unloved, even, an abandoned little slip of a book, begging for someone who would love it. I volunteered.

"If you take it, you have to talk about it," cautioned Cat. I said I understood, for that is the Rule and the Law of the ARC: if you take it, you have to talk about it. That's the bargain you make when you open the covers and release all that new book smell. I took the book.

Now I am talking about it.

The Habitation of the Blessed is the first book in the three-part Dirge for Prestor John, a historical figure who may or may not have been an early example of the Internet hoax. "Dude, let's tell the Church that we have all this neat shit, and watch them freak out!" Oh, they were wacky in the "here there be dragons" days. But The Habitation of the Blessed takes the approach that, in fact, Prestor John was a real man; his land contained all the things he claimed it contained; all those wonders once were true things. So where did they all go?

If you're familiar with Valente's Orphan's Tales books (In the Night Garden and In the Cities of Coin and Spice), the structure of Habitation will be familiar to you; told through three written memoirs and the reactions of two monks, it nests stories inside of stories, moving back and forth through time as the threads wind slowly together. This is not a book to be read in an afternoon; the density of its mythology is too great for that, and you'd miss a lot if you tried to rush. Valente has always been a fan of ornate and graceful language, a tendency which she honed with Palimpsest, and Habitation is no different; it's sort of like what you'd get if a medieval bestiary and a poet's dictionary decided to tryst in a seedy fairy tale bar, and then left the baby to be raised by the goosegirl who lives in the shed out back.

In case you can't tell, I liked the book.

Now, there are flaws. Depending on your familiarity with the source material, you may find yourself turning to your dictionary or even Wikipedia to check linguistic and historical facts. Parts of each storyline are omitted due to a fabulous, totally in-universe complication; this helps to reinforce the reality of the world, but is also a bit frustrating, because dude, missing story. But Valente never leaves out so much that you can't fill it in yourself, and as every horror movie, ever, has demonstrated, the monster you imagine is always more fantastic than the monster that you see.

Because this is the first book of three, it doesn't resolve so much as "find a convenient point and stop there for a little while, you know, to rest, maybe have some tea." You don't walk away with a complete story sleeping in your heart. And yet...

You walk away having seen something beautiful. Valente loves this story, and it shows in every word. She takes risks, and, for the most part, the risks pay off. I highly recommend The Habitation of the Blessed. It is beautiful, and strange, and a chronicle of something very dear that we know, inevitably, must be lost to us.

Read it, and rejoice, and learn, and grieve.

Last night was all about me and Cat Valente and the SoHo Gallery for Digital Art, home of the New York Science Fiction Review series of readings. Because, you know, when you import yourself a couple of fairy tale girls, the only thing to do is stick them in front of a large crowd and wait for the fun to begin.

But the fun has to begin at the beginning...

My flight got in right on time, which was a small blessing, since I wasn't really sleeping very well. Mind you, the fact that I was able to sleep at all made me a lucky girl. I had actually upgraded my ticket to Main Cabin Select, as that was the only way to get out of being crammed into a middle seat for five hours in the air. I turned out to be the only person in my row, and was able to pull the "belt yourself into the middle seat, curl up like a pillbug, and sleep" trick. Blessed empty seats, how I adore thee. But there were screaming babies on the plane, and there was turbulence, and it was not a restful night.

Jon and Merav collected me from the airport, and—after dropping Merav at work—Jon drove me home...where Kate was already waiting on the front stoop. Whoops. We went inside. I plugged in my laptop to make sure nothing was on fire, and the phone calls began, making it quite clear that a nap was not in my future. Well, fine, be that way, universe. After showering and changing my clothes, we were off, to meet The Agent in lovely downtown Manhattan, and eat lunch. Because without sleep and without food, I was going to murder someone.

(Incidentally, this was the first time The Agent got to meet Kate. They got along. So when they destroy your puny planet, don't worry. I'm sure they'll make you a nicer new one before long.)

Lunch was challah French toast and mussels, at least for me. Om nom. From there, we went to a lovely tea house The Agent knew about, where she and Kate drank lovely tea, and I passed out on a love seat. Eventually, The Agent went off to do something else, and Kate stole my headphones, while I...passed out on the love seat again. But then! A Cat Valente came and joined our party! Hooray! Kate and Cat sat and chatted while I achieved that nebulous state known as "wakefulness," and we set out for the venue. With one of those "only in New York" stops along the way, to buy hand-crafted artisan popsicles. No, seriously. I mean it.

We ate our popsicles, giggled a lot, and walked onward, to the SoHo Gallery of Digital Art...and into our very own fairy tale. The walls were covered in our books, our faces, our everything, and it was incredible. It was like a dream. I squeaked. We stared in awe. And then, because we needed our fairy tale faces in this fairy tale place, we ran off to change our clothes, Cat into a mad awesome tailored suit, me into a bright orange skirt and green top. And then the flood began.

We were both a little worried, in that abstract author way, that no one would show up. It turns out that what we should have been worried about was violating fire code, as the room wound up so packed that we ran out of chairs, then ran out of wall, and finally, ran out of places to stand. Wow. Everyone from DAW came—I got to meet Saladin!—and so did most of my New York friends, along with people like K. Tempest Bradford and Ellen Kushner and Teri Windling OH MY GOD I MET TERI WINDLING.

Ahem.

Cat read an absolutely gorgeous piece from The Habitation of the Blessed. I read "Laughter at the Academy: Field Studies in the Development of Schizotypal Creative Genius Personality Disorder." Everyone sighed and swooned at Cat's reading; everyone laughed in the appropriate places at mine. I got to shout "IGNITE THE BIOSPHERE!" in a room full of people who'd actually come to hear me do just that. It was magical.

In the Q&A afterward, someone asked us if we'd ever considered doing a photo shoot as Snow White and Rose Red.

And Cat and I laughed.

(Yes, part of me is still in Australia. Specifically, the part of me that's responsible for writing up this trip report. This entry is going to take us through Sunday, right up until the end of the pre-Hugo Cocktail Party. Not because I'm trying to be a tease. Because the Hugos themselves need a whole entry, just so I can explain, in depth, what was going through my messed-up little head.)

Sunday dawned bright and early, again, with an extra dose of sheer blind "oh sweet Great Pumpkin the Hugos are TONIGHT, they're giving out the Campbell Award TONIGHT, why am I not drinking heavily RIGHT NOW?!" panic. I love my psyche sometimes. Anyway, blah blah, showers, blah blah, straightening my hair into a shiny, manageable state. Fun for the whole family.

Once we were ready to leave our hotel room, Jeanne and I packed up everything we were going to need for Hugo prep in the smaller of my two pink-camo suitcases. That may sound like overkill, but once you factor in dresses, underclothes, makeup, brushes, small appliances, shoes, makeup, and other items needed by the two of us, well...if either of us had been wearing a more fabric-heavy dress, we would have needed a larger suitcase.

The suitcase accompanied us to breakfast, and from breakfast, to Cat's hotel, where we checked it with the concierge. All hail good hotels! With this accomplished, it was time for the second order of business: confirming that I had been removed from my five o'clock panel. I hate to do that sort of thing, but I really needed to be getting ready for the Hugos by then, since the pre-Hugo reception started at six. (Basically, it was "drop the panel" or "attend the Hugos naked.")

After dropping the panel, we swung by the Green Room, where I had one of my few unpleasant at-con experiences as a woman informed me, with great good cheer, that the Hugos were on Sunday night because they wanted to see how many of the nominees would actually break down and cry. Thanks, lady. Jeanne didn't hit her. I was very proud of Jeanne, and not just because "get thrown out of the Green Room" wasn't on my list of things to do that day.

We wandered the convention for a while before proceeding to my one remaining panel of the day, "YA Urban Fantasy." I was happy to be on the panel, if only because it provided a window into that beautiful future where I've sold the Clady books and can legitimately call myself a YA author. Plus, it meant I got to hang out with Karen Healey (best last name ever). I brought her a My Little Pony from my stable, because she'd expressed a fondness for Ponies, and I like to share. She was properly appreciative of the Pony, thus securing herself an eternal place in my heart. Yay!

The panel was cool, too.

After the panel, Jeanne and I made our way back to Cat's hotel to start getting ready. Cue increasing terror. Cat met us at the door in her bathrobe. "Close your eyes," she commanded.

I am an obedient blonde. I closed my eyes, and let her lead me into the room...where an entire bed was covered in tiaras. Big tiaras, little tiaras, fancy tiaras, less fancy tiaras (because all tiaras are inherently fancy, at least to some degree), tiaras.

"We wanted to make sure that no matter what, you went home with a tiara," she said.

I laughed because it was that or start crying, and I knew that if I started, I was never going to stop, ever. The tiaras were beautiful, and just made moreso by the sentiment behind them. You guys. Thank you so much.

Cat's friend Gretchen was also there, and the four of us started our respective "getting ready" cycles. Four fairy tale girls, no waiting. Gretchen looked like a punk-rock Red Riding Hood. I could easily have believed Jeanne spinning straw into gold. Cat, as always, was my sweet and stained Snow White, and I was a Grecian Lily Fair, with ice on my eyelids and a prayer pressed to my heart. Cat didn't have any good luck charms on her; I gave her my silver sixpence, and taped it to her foot with a Band-Aid. I put on earrings made by Beckett and tucked the two-dollar coin I found in San Francisco into the front of my strapless bra.

After checking Twitter, Cat announced that the Night Kitchen in Seattle was having a Hugo party. All those people, staying up just to find out what happened. It was amazing. So much love from across the world. I can't describe what it meant to me to learn that. No matter what, we were nowhere near alone.

Gretchen and Jeanne did a very good job of juggling their high-strung pumpkin princesses until Susan arrived to do our hair, and put on her Sooj playlist to provide background music. We all sang along with "Ship Full of Monsters" as Susan got me pinned into place, and "Pixie Can't Sleep" while she worked on Cat (who looked amazing, by the way, in her gown of royal oceanic blue). It took forever to get us all ready to go. It took no time at all. It was like we blinked, and we had to go, because the pre-Hugo reception was getting ready to start. After days and weeks and months of wondering, the hour was finally nigh.

Dude.

Aussiecon 4's pre-Hugo reception was sponsored by Orbit, which meant that the owner of my publishing house was there, and also that there was a lot of free champagne. I mean a lot of free champagne. It's a measure of my Irish heritage (and unwillingness to force myself to visit the restroom in my floor-length dress) that I did not wind up roaring drunk, given my tendency to drink cold liquids really, really fast, and the way people kept trying to hand me fresh glasses.

We milled around, admiring people's outfits, posing for pictures, and generally being sociable, until it was time to do the photo ops for the various trade publications. Unfortunately, the microphone really didn't work well enough for a room that size, and, well...let's just say that those of us who have served as SCA Heralds in the past rapidly came out of the medieval closet, yelling our heads off as we herded nominees into place. I got to have my picture taken with my Campbell class. It was amazing.

And then it was time to go. Time for the Hugos. Jeanne and I struck out at the head of the party, so that we could grab a sufficient number of seats.

Wow, was I nowhere near ready. And wow, did that not matter anymore.

Okay, like, wow. How is it October? It's not supposed to be October. It's supposed to be, I don't know, somewhere comfortably in the middle of August (only then I suppose the Hugos wouldn't have happened yet, and I'd still be a neurotic mess, so maybe that's not the best thing for me to be wishing for). I love the fall, it's my favorite time of the year, and I love October, it's my favorite month of the year, and since I both need a three-week-long nap and a finished draft of the fifth Toby book, this whole "welcome to October" thing isn't working out for me as well as it otherwise might.

On the plus side, however, I'm mostly packed for tonight's red-eye to New York. I'll be met on the other end by Jon (of Jon and Merav), who will carry me off to my East Coast home in Jersey City. (Let's face it. Once I understand how to handle your recalcitrant plumbing, I basically live with you.) I will then take a really long nap, because good ye gods, red-eye flight, before a) letting Kate into the flat, b) calling The Agent about lunch, and c) heading into Manhattan for the big adventure.

What big adventure, you may ask? Why, me, reading with Cat "the Crusher" Valente at the New York Review of Science Fiction. TWO AUTHORS ENTER, BOTH AUTHORS PROBABLY LEAVE. I'm so excited! When you put me and Cat on the same stage, and give us a microphone, a good time is basically guaranteed. The doors will open at 6:30 PM, and there's a five dollar suggested donation. I recommend arriving early, for good seating (although I don't think there's going to be a splatter zone). Cat put it really well. She said, "Sometimes I get matched up with another reader with whom I become friends, but being paired with one of my sisters and shipmates just makes everything so fun and relaxed. Plus, we encourage each other dreadfully." So come and see us encourage each other dreadfully! It's going to be a fabulous time.

I'm also going to be at the New York City Comic Con this upcoming weekend, as both myself and my own evil twin. Seanan will be doing the Penguin Panel on Friday night, and a signing at the Penguin booth on Saturday. Mira will be doing the Zombie Panel on Saturday night, and a signing at the Orbit booth (also on Saturday). I'd love to meet you! Please, swing by if you're at the convention! Just, y'know, please don't show up for my Seanan-signing with eight copies of Feed, or my Mira signing with all the Toby books. I try not to antagonize my publishers like that.

I get to see The Agent, and The Editor, and all my New York friends. I get to eat interesting food and ride the PATH train and generally have a wonderful time. All while making word count every night, because a girl has got to eat (or she'll end up on the street). And then I get to fly home, and keep making word count, because word count never rests.

Anyway, if you're in New York, I hope I get to see you, and if you're not, I hope I get to see you some other time. Any pending prizes will be mailed when I get back, as I am a bad blonde, and forgot to buy new book mailers.

Oh, babe, I hate to go.

The first full day of WorldCon dawned bright and early. Very bright, and very early, since Jeanne and I were both still waking up at roughly six o'clock in the morning. The fact that I did this despite spending a good portion of the night out drinking with my friends was somewhat astonishing to everyone involved, and could be taken as proof that I function on some sort of nuclear power source, rather than actual sleep. Our early rising did net us first shower, which was nice, as fixing my hair* takes a long damn time (which is why I so rarely bother to do it). Now socially acceptable, we hit the street in search of a) breakfast, and b) caffeine.

Breakfast was ham and cheese croissants in the food court attached to the casino attached to our hotel. Yeah, I know, I'm stacking on attachments like a professional spammer, but that's apparently the way they roll in Australia. Unless otherwise stated, assume all meals were in the food court attached to the blah blah blah. It was close, convenient, and (by local standards) reasonably priced, and Jeanne and I were both willing to eat there. Pretty much a victory all the way around.

At the convention center, the poor folks at registration were still waiting on their program books, so we went to see Mary Kay Kare and get my Participant Packet instead. It had invites! To Hugo-related functions! This is about when it all started seeming very real to me, and also when I pretty much gave up sleep for the duration. Expect my sanity to degrade rapidly from this point onward.

We wandered the convention, figured out where everything was, and had an unexpected meeting with Lezli Robyn, my fellow Campbell Award nominee. She was incredibly sweet, and I'm very glad to have met her. After touring the dealer's room and the half-assembled art show, I located Jay Lake and Shannon Page on a comfortable couch, and camped there for a bit, because Jay is cuddly and I was warm. Jeanne pointed out that failure to decamp from Jay would mean I got no caffeine before my three o'clock panel on Supernatural. I knew I'd need caffeine for that one. I decamped.

Thank Heaven for 7-11, yo.

The panel went well, despite some early confusion as to what, exactly, we were talking about. The topic was "Breaking the Fourth Wall: Supernatural and Its Audience." Given my opinions on season five, this could have been a blood bath. It was not, largely because polite tourists don't kill people. (At least, that's what Kate says, and everyone I ask says she's right. Conspiracy much?) And that was...well, that was it. That was my only Thursday panel.

Oh, wait. What about my Kaffeeklatsche? You know, that thing where I go and have coffee with anyone who wants to sit and talk to me for an hour? That was still coming up, right? Well, yes, and no. Because somebody told the programming desk that I was sick, you see, and they cancelled my slot. I found this out when someone asked me why, if I was sick, I was hanging out in the hall chatting with my friends. I went down to the front desk and whined until they fixed it. GO TEAM MATURITY. After that, the actual Kaffeeklatsche was fine. People drank coffee (I drank Coke Zero), we talked, and a good time was had by all. Jeanne and I trundled off for dinner, after which I returned to the Hilton to spend several happy hours at Barcon, drinking expensive cocktails and feeling the love. I love the love.

Friday, I spent most of the day idly trundling around and visiting my friends, capping it all off with the moment...the myth...the madness..."Seanan McGuire and Catherynne M Valente In Conversation." Also known as "the Snow White/Lily Fair Variety Show." It was, quite seriously, quantum madness. People asked it, we talked about it. Also, Cat brought the My Little Pony I'd given her to be our moderator while we sat on the edge of the stage and made merry for an hour. Worlds were born. Laws of physics were broken. It was awesome. And we're going to do it again in New York, because that is just how we roll.

After the In Conversation, Jeanne and I decamped to collect John Grace (my audio book publisher), Malcolm (Jeanne's friend), and Phil and Kaja Foglio. We trekked back to the alley for dinner. This time, they bribed us with a free bottle of wine for the table! Score. We got a fabulous table, and spent several hours chatting, eating, splitting appetizers, and generally having a fantastic time. Best WorldCon Friday ever. Even with the rain.

Australia is amazing.

(*Yes, it is actually possible for me to not look like a dandelion on the verge of going to seed. It's crazy, I know, but all things are possible with SCIENCE. And a ceramic straightening iron.)

Australia!

Having had our wacky outback adventure (tm), it was time to turn my attention to more mundane topics, IE, "checking out of the hotel, moving over to our convention hotel, and attending a signing." Yes, a signing. I was supposed to be at the Southlands Dymock's bookstore by mid-afternoon, which was super-fun, especially considering that I had no living clue where that was.

Jeanne and I managed to get packed and out of our first hotel in a reasonable amount of time, after bidding a fond farewell to our newly-familiar surroundings. (Had we been aware that we were also bidding farewell to the only free Internet in the ENTIRE COUNTRY, we might have been a little more tempted to stay where we were. I'm just saying.) Because we are not idiots, we took a cab between hotels. Because our room wasn't ready yet, we checked our bags with the concierge, picked up our taxi vouchers from the front desk (thank you, Orbit!), and were off.

Where were we going? Why, the Westfield Mall. You know. The biggest mall chain on the west coast of the United States. Because that is what every tourist should do. GO TO THE MALL. We found the bookstore, along with a Safeway, and basically every store I would expect to find in a large suburban mall. Humans. We're all essentially the same.

The store manager, Chuck, was truly thrilled to have me, and made a point of getting his picture with me. This is because Chuck is awesome, and his store now has many signed copies of Feed (alas, only my evil twin was represented in the store's stock). We hung out for a few hours, and I got to meet a few awesome people I'd been hoping to meet while in Australia, including Tez. Yay Tez!

Before we left, I bought the UK edition of the latest Pratchett, I Shall Wear Midnight, because that's just how I roll. We had lunch at TGI Friday's, and made our way back to the hotel, where our room was still not ready.

We made our way to the Crowne Plaza to collect our badges. The woman who gave me my badge all but wanted a blood sample, which was...fun. (Seriously, I was like the only person in line asked to produce photo ID. Apparently, my life is very steal-worthy. Who knew?) I ran into several friends, and much hugging happened. We returned to the hotel, where our room was still not ready. Grumble.

Eventually, we were able to get into our room, greeting Jennifer and Jeff with great glee in the process, and then we were out, to have dinner with John (my audio book producer), a bunch of his other clients (including Phil and Kaja, and Cat, all of whom would be very central for me over the course of the weekend), and some awesome last-minute additions: Rob and Mundy. Rob and Mundy made my convention infinitely more awesome, and I am so beyond overjoyed to have met them. Seriously, there are not words. Even if our dinner conversation had rather more circumcision than I was expecting.

After dinner, Jeanne ran off to meet some friends, and I went off with Rob, Cat, and Mundy, to crash someone's cocktail birthday party. Cat and I wound up sitting on the cool veranda overlooking downtown Melbourne, sipping rum cocktails made with pomegranate liqueur, and going "Holy shit, this is our real life."

Maybe it's worth stealing after all.

Yes, again. Australia let my links get all out of control, and I'm just now starting to beat them back down to a manageable level. It's like wordy kudzu!

The Fantasy Cafe has posted a review of Feed, and says, "Even though I usually would treat a zombie book like zombies themselves and run the other way, I'm glad I read this one." Works for me.

Oh, hey! I did an interview with the Word Zombie to go with their Feed review. Give it a look, it's fun. Plus? Actual photo representations of my dream casting. Swoon.

My darling catvalente posted a long, thoughtful review of Feed, complete with MAINE COON MADNESS, and says, "The plot? Bloggers are hired to follow the Republican candidate for president some 40 years after the zombie apocalypse. A full society is in swing that knows how to deal with zombies but is still plagued by them. It's fascinating stuff. There is a conspiracy. Things bite other things. There are, I shit you not, both zombie palominos and zombie moose. This is unassailably awesome." Hee.

Beth at Flying Off the Shelves posted a lovely review of Feed, and says, "When I first started reading this book I wasn't expecting it to be nearly as good as it is. I questioned it and asked myself, 'How could this book be any good after reading World War Z? I don't want to read another crappy zombie book,' but I took the chance and I found that this book is truly an amazing piece of writing. The characters are dynamic and complex. The story line will knock your socks off. I actually don't have anything bad to say about this book whatsoever. Even the science behind this story is interesting and spot on when it comes to basic virus information. If her next book is anything like this I may just die (and hopefully not zombify)." Yay!

Finally for today, my old friend Mike Jones reviewed Feed for SF Site, and says, "Combining zombies, politics, epidemiology, pop culture, blogging, humor and horror, this is one hell of a series opener. Grant (the open pseudonym for urban fantasist/artist/songwriter Seanan McGuire) knocks the ball out of the park with Feed." Works for me.

Rise up while you can.

catvalente and I will be appearing "in conversation" at the upcoming WorldCon. While we have a few topics of our own to cover, we thought it might be nice to see what other people want us to talk about. We're going to try to get this videotaped, thus giving y'all a much greater stake in the discussion than you might otherwise have. So...

Have a topic you'd like to see discussed by me and Cat, probably while under the influence of a lot of sugar? Drop it here! We'll copy out our favorites and put them into a hat (or hat-shaped object), to be drawn during our conversation whenever we need a subject change.

It'll be fun!

I am going to Australia.

I am going to Australia, and I have been nominated for the Campbell Award.

Because I am going to Australia, and I have been nominated for the Campbell Award, I am attending the Hugos.

Because I am attending the Hugos, I needed a dress.

Originally, I was having a dress made, but time got away from us, and now this year's fabulous pumpkin patch of a dress will be next year's fabulous pumpkin patch of a dress (which gives me something to look forward to in Reno). I wound up in the unexpected, somewhat awkward position of needing to find a formal dress at basically the last minute. Oh, and did I mention that I have a wacky build and wear a size 16-18 right now? SUPER-FUN.

Thanks to a fantastic crew (Kate, HappyCat, Jeanne) and a fantastic saleswoman at the Walnut Creek Nordstrom's, we found me a dress. Floor-length, one-shoulder, teal and peacock, Grecian-cut...seriously, I put this thing on, and I am suddenly both thirty pounds lighter and thirteen feet tall. It is A DRESS OF MAGIC.

Because I have a dress, I needed shoes and jewelry.

Due to the cut of the dress, a bracelet was mandated; no necklace, which eliminates most of my jewelry collection (I'm planning to carry a Chimera Fancies pendant in my strapless bra, because I am a superstitious bunny). I found a lovely blue and silver swirl bracelet, and ordered a pair of beautiful blue glass earrings from Beckett's Etsy store. My shoes are two-inch tarnished silver heels with a sling-back.

Because I have shoes, I need a pedicure. Because I have a formal dress, I need a haircut.

Being a girl is difficult, yo. But it's all going to be worth it. My little sister (#2, the gothic Betty Page) spent yesterday working out my makeup, and Cat and I are going to have our hair done before the Hugos. I will look like a princess. A weird blue princess who may have a chainsaw somewhere under there, but still, they don't depose you for that.

I am going to Australia, where I will wear my dress. To the Hugos, where my name is on the printed material.

Wow.

That is all.

The mail at my house tends to arrive in the late afternoon. Once I judged that the mailman would have had sufficient time to navigate the horrifying suburban wasteland in which I live, I opened the door...and stopped.

Even around here, it's not every day that a big blue biohazard bag hits my porch. I'm just saying.

I picked up the bag, checking the tags in the vague hope that it had been mis-delivered to my house, and was actually intended for the mad scientist down the way. Nope; there was my name and address, along with the ominous routing tag for Sweden. Yes, Sweden, land of chocolates and, quite possibly, human organs and anthrax. I mean, why else would it have been secured with two heavy plastic zip-ties?

Lacking anything better to do with the bag, I took it inside, cleared the cutting board, and put it down. Then, after a quick check of my time zone-based options, I called Cat. "I have a big international biohazard shipping bag in my kitchen," I informed her, without preamble.

"What?" She was laughing. This is because humor is the best defense against me sometimes.

"Big international biohazard bag. I need you to call the CDC if I start screaming and drop the phone."

"Um...okay."

It took several minutes with the industrial-grade scissors to work my way into the bag, which kept producing more and more ominous routing stickers as I ripped my way inside. Finally, I ripped away the last layer, and shrieked happily.

Cat did not hang up and call the CDC. All those of you not currently trapped in the blasted quarantine zone that used to be California, you can thank her.

"It's the British edition of Feed!" I told her exultantly.

"Oh, good."

I have the UK copies of Feed! They're so pretty! They're only subtly different from the American edition—redder blood, because presumably the Rising is still fresher in England's memory; the word "bloggers" is actually on the back cover; no number "one" on the spine; a quote from Publishers Weekly on the front—but having them fills me with deep, atavistic satisfaction. This is the first British edition of one of my books. I am PUBLISHED IN THE UNITED KINGDOM, yo. The cast of Doctor Who could wander into a Waterstone's and just pick up one of my books, without worrying about the import sticker. I'm global. And stuff.

This is even better than illegal human organ trafficking. I'm just saying.

The first time I met Cat Valente, I was predisposed to dislike her. I had, after all, just come off a plane (I am never at my most charming when I have just come off a plane), we really hadn't spoken much at all (if at all), and she was waiting for me in Betsy and Dave's kitchen, like a grumpy* trapdoor alligator. I was not in a "meeting new people" headspace, and I didn't really have a way to avoid her, since she was between me and the bed.

The second time I met Cat Valente, it was eight o'clock in the morning, and she was in dire need of coffee, lest worlds should end. I, on the other hand, was bright-eyed and perky, having already been awake for an hour. I believe this was the meeting during which she was justifiably predisposed to dislike me. (I never hold people disliking me in the morning against them. It shows sanity.)

This is a story about Cat, and about me, and about all of us.

Because see, Cat had an idea for a book about a city that existed somewhere outside the bounds of simple cartography. It was a city of the sacred and profane geography of the soul, and it was called "Palimpsest." She wrote its story, because that's what women like her do, and, in the process, she wrote the story of a story: a children's book called The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Boat of Her Own Making. People were enchanted by the very notion of it, and asked when she was going to write it. She said she wasn't, and so of course, she did.

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Boat of Her Own Making was originally crowd-funded, posted online for anyone to read. People followed the green wind into the realms of Cat's version of Fairy, and the book sailed away on sails that we all spun together. Since then, print rights have been sold, along with the promise of a sequel...and The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Boat of Her Own Making has been nominated for the Andre Norton Award. It's being given tonight at the Nebulas, the day after we sent a shuttle into the sky to become a star.

Pause a moment, and consider this. The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Boat of Her Own Making was a dream inside a dream, and it became reality because people said "I want this, and I am willing to help you make it real." It became so real that it's on the ballot for a major literary award. The book of the dream that birthed it, Palimpsest, is up for the Hugo, given the same weekend as the Campbell Award (which I have been nominated for, and yes, have had weird dreams about). We made this real for Cat, and so she made it real for everyone else.

Whether she comes home with the award or not, she's already won, because nothing like The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Boat of Her Own Making has ever made this sort of ballot before. Know that you helped to do this, and be glad.

Oh, and Cat?

I like you now. Even when I'm tired.

(*My screensaver face is one of abject puzzlement. Cat's is one of holy irritation. We're like the Statler and Waldorf of urban fantasy when we're tired and standing next to each other.)