So, first of all I love Halloween. Every part of it. Big gaudy decorations and scary movies and trick-or-treating. For a long time I had a huge collection of hideously tacky Halloween earrings–plastic rats and spiders and light-up ghosts. But several years ago a burglar broke into my house while I was out of town, although he was immediately spotted by neighbors who began shouting and banging on windows. Pressed for time, the burglar apparently had time to grab only one thing and make a mad dash for it…and he chose my jewelry box full of plastic Halloween earrings. (In fairness, it was a nice-looking jewelry box.) I have passed many happy minutes imagining the moments after he finally stopped running and opened his prize…and found those plastic rats. Surely the least valuable haul he ever made.

I’ve just sold my next novel, Beautiful Things, to Viking! My editor will be the wonderful Laura Tisdel, and here is the most shocking part: they plan to release the novel in MAY 2017! That’s an eight-month turn-around from the signing of the contract to the actual book in customer’s hands, which is, oh, maybe half the time it normally takes. And–hey, did I say the release date was the most shocking part?–the book is being released simultaneously in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K.

For anyone who is obsessed with Hamilton as my entire family is….or, really, for anyone who likes seeing five-year-olds pretend to be singing Founding Fathers….

Here’s a little video.

 

What I Loved About San Francisco in January (in no particular order)…

Mulder and Scully. Oh, how I loved you.

 

I was not an early riser. Ever. One of my earliest memories is laying, wide-eyed, in bed after my mother had forced me there, and waiting forever until I heard Johnny Carson’s intro music from the den where my father was watching television. I’d wiggle off the bed, very slowly, toes dangling in mid-air, trying not to wake up my mother who’d fallen asleep next to me. After eons, I’d hit the ground and creep into the den, hoping my dad would let me stay up.

It occurs to me that coming back from another country feels a little like closing your computer at the end of day when you’re writing a novel. It’s not that easy to turn off the other world—it’s still there, lurking, pressing in around the edges.

So my son used to have impressive obsessions–presidents, geography, the solar system–but now it is largely battles. Fights and weapons and warriors. Although at least it’s medieval battles that interest him. You could argue that it’s about history, not violence and mayhem.

You could, you know, argue it unsuccessfully.

So A Little Bit of Spectacular was released yesterday, and tomorrow, May 7, 4:30 -6:30 p.m., we’ll have the book launch party at Trattoria Centrale in downtown Birmingham. For anyone who’s able to come, it’s worth it for a) free tasty scones, and b) checking out the bathroom walls where the main character in the book first discovers a strange message.

I’ve had this bundt pan sitting around forever–I partly just like the word “bundt”–and my son’s newly discovered love of castles and knights and dungeons and moats has FINALLY made it indispensable.