Summertime

New glasses. Let there be songs /feasting.

Happy July everyone! First off, I'm happy to report that the second Reggie Spiffington mystery, MAD DOGS AND ENGLISHMEN, has been delivered, sent back for edits, revised, and redelivered. So now it's going into design and production. I'll keep you updated. I'm really happy with the results--very pleased with where Reggie, Pelham, Mimsy, and company went on this second outing. Terribly dashing, all of it. This is probably a good time to remind you all that Reggie has his own Twitter account.

Since finishing the novel, I've written a couple of essays for Typecast's Inspiration Institute. I'm offering fiction writing workshops over there, and saying some non-fictiony things as an intro to myself. The first one is a musing on Charles Dickens and Clash frontman Joe Strummer. A second one about my love for the 1980s film Time Bandits should be up any time now.

What else? I'm really proud to have been asked to be part of the first season of Unbound, a new fiction on the radio project put together by Erin Keane at WFPL in Louisville. Twenty great writers, reading their own work. I'm part of a line-up that includes some stunning writers, including Gwenda Bond, Roxane Gay, Frank Bill, and Kirby Gann. My episode, shared with Frank Bill, is here, but you should check out the whole series. Erin is a pretty grand poet herself, and you can't do better than her circus noir poem cycle Death-Defying Acts, unless you wait for the new Springsteen-inspired collection coming out next year.

Still shopping the manuscript of my Victorian London zombie/mad scientist YA novel, CHARLEY CROSS AND THE LONDON DEAD, to agents far and wide. I've had one full request, and one request for additional pages, along with the dozen or so queries still out. Fingers crossed.

Next on the agenda: a couple of short stories, a play, and possibly a children's book about pirates and cheese. 

What are y'all up to?

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