So I have been in PA this last couple of weeks, doing lots and lots of work and seeing lots and lots of movies, plus I did the Master Cleanse for 7 days last week, which means NO FOOD, just this lemonade drink, and it's supposed to detoxify you and do all kinds of wonderful things and and it was surprisingly easy and I was surprisingly clear headed up to the last day, when I thought I might die and weird bumps appeared on my fair and delicato skin. So I thought maybe those are the toxins leavin mah body but if that's the case I want them to get back in there and GET OFF MY FACE. I basically holed up in my parent's house because I was watching their dogs while they were off in the Caribbean, and I sat by the fire and played with the dogs and wrote and had friends over and watched wondrous things like the original Friday the 13th, parts I and II, which I'd never seen, in the dark with friends and with the fire going. It was a lovely week, considering I was starving, and then I totally broke the fast in the wrong way, by eating wheat crackers, due to said skin trauma.

And last weekend I wrote this story about La Llorona-- the crying Latin American ghost lady! -- for the anthology Haunted Legends, edited by Mr Nick Mamatas and one Ellen Datlow, coming out next year, and I almost never write short stories but I had this one in my head and I wrote a few pages of it months ago and so sat down Saturday and wrote all day and late into the night and then finished Sunday morning and Nick rooooodly suggested some edits including cutting some of the "Wow, Mexico sure does smell nice!" stuff, as he roodly put it, and now they have done accepted it and I am happy.

And THEN yesterday I found out my US publisher -- Three Rivers/Crown/Random House -- is making an offer on my mermaid book, book 3, very likely titled The Sea Queen, which was bought last summer by my UK publisher Headline, and I was very very nervous they might pass given the economy and state of publishing generally, but they did notta thankgod.

Upon learning this news, and upon my paranoiac brain realizing I do not have to immediately send out resumes and try to get a job, I emailed a friend of my friend Rob who has an apartment in Berlin and said YES I would like to rent said apartment for September and October, maybe longer if I like it. This has been a plan of mine for a while, tho I've never been to Berlin. But my friend Eric is madly in love with the city and has told me about for years now and has convinced me many times over that I must must must go there, that it's a city I will love for about 500000 different reasons, not least of which is that it has that wild, wonderful energy of New York in the 70s and 80s. SO I AM. AND I might stop in London on the way over to meet my publishers there and do whatever else I can, maybe a signing, and of course laugh at the funny accents.

Yesterday I ALSO solidified my plans to attend FAERIEWORLDS this summer -- this huge crazy event held on a winery half an hour outside of Eugene, Oregon, where thousands and thousands of people come to celebrate fairies and other "nature spirits" apparently, and where tons of vendors sell magical typa things and there are all kinds of bands and artists and whoknows what else, since I have never gone and in fact have never gone to any festival or convention like this ever. HOWEVER, I cannot help but notice that I have written a book that has FAIRIES in it, and as I feel that anyone who puts on a pair of wings or some antlers and goes off into a field to dance around really should be part of my target audience, I am going to go with many books in tow, and I'm going with Signe Pike, as I think I've mentioned, a lovely writer and editor whose book Faery Tale: One Woman's Search for Magic in a Grown-Up World comes out next year, and yesterday I rented a booth and did all that crapola and I'm gonna share it with LANA GUERRA and JESSE RENO and it shall be very very fun. And weird. And I'm gonna try to infect all in attendance with Godmother. And I'm writing about it for the Powell's blog. And I'm taking video which shall be used for my reader's guide that shall come out this summer when Godmother is released in paperback in England.

Speaking of which, LOOK:



I just got these a few days ago, the hardback is on the right and the paperback on the left -- here they are making out in front of the fire -- and the glitter on the paperback looks amaaaazin.





ALSO: next week I head back to New York, after having a reading here Monday night -- oh! I think I forgot to write about the reading I had on March 4, which was lovely.. -- and then the NYC reading is next Thursday, with a big party after at LUCKY CHENGS for my book and Joi's leaving NYC for true true luvv, and then SATURDAY Joi and I vamoose in a UHAUL truck, and we go to Dollywood, and Nashville, and then in Memphis WE'RE STAYING AT THE DAYS INN GRACELAND WHERE THERE IS A POOL IN THE SHAPE OF A GUITAR and free Elvis movies showing constantly. And then we head up to Columbia, MO, and then Kansas. And I shall stay for a week and a half and help Joi get settled and check out Kansas City and we're also taking a trip to OMAHA. I think I've already written about this itinerary but to me it is like a POEM that should be repeated as often as possible.

I'm about to head off to lunch with my old Italian professor, but real quick let me just say here are the movies I've seen JUST THIS WEEK;

-- The Reader, which made me cry cry cry and was lovely lovely lovely
-- The Watchmen, which felt to me like something written in some other, weird language, as I have not read the graphic novel or in fact any graphic novel front to end, but was entertaining enough
-- Wendy and Lucy, which is a tiny, heartbreaking movie about a girl and her dog
-- Last House on the Left, which, I'm not gonna lie, I liked a lot. I don't think I've ever been so tense watching any movie ever.
-- Gran Turino, for the second time, because Clint Eastwood is awesome and I love him and I have ever since BRONCO BILLY

OK THE END