BOOK IN HAND

My very first, actual real advance copy of my new book, Year of the Snake arrived in the mail today. It's just such a deeply satisfying moment to actually be able to hold the physical, tangible book in your hands . . . turning it around and around, and gently leafing through the pages. It never seems quite entirely real.

I'm very happy with the look and layout of the book. The people at Southern Illinois University Press have been terrific to work with, and they've done such a lovely job. All the promotional materials, advertisements, catalogue listings, etc. have been so nicely done. Click here to check out the on-line catalogue listing, with back-cover blurbs and such.

So, the next two months will be very exciting and busy with readings and such. At the end of March, I'll be reading at the AWP Conference in Chicago, where SIU Press will officially launch the book, and then throughout April I'll be giving readings at SIU-Carbondale, SUNY-Fredonia, and UNC-Asheville.

For the meantime, though, I'll have a few more weeks at home to keep plugging away at the fiction project, while attending to more mundane matters such as paying bills, attending to the mountainous glob of laundry shoved in my bedroom closet threatening to avalanche and about which I am in deep deep deep denial, and remaining ever-on-the-alert, it goes without saying, for any further baffling and unauthorized manifestations of cat poop.