Covers

I just found a link to the table of contents for the Desolate Places anthology from Hadley Rille Books. Is that not the awesomest cover EVAR? I can't wait to get my copy. My story is fourth from the last, "Honeymoon," and I find it amusing that the story fourth from the first is named "Honeymoon at the Pearly Gate," by Tom Barlow.

Speaking of covers, I also just discovered that my story "The King's Messenger" is the lead story in the new issue of Renard's Menagerie, and I got the cover illustration! The story's about a guy who can turn into a deer, and I have absolutely no idea why the artist failed to put a deer on the cover. Seems to me that would be a lot more visually exciting than a bunch of kinda ugly people standing around. Not that I am complaining about my first cover, I promise! Not everyone can draw deer, after all.

I can, of course.

I haven't done much writing this week. It's been a strange and topsy-turvey time, with relatives all in and sad tasks to be done like cleaning out my grandmother's house. I'm going over tomorrow to help finish that up. I still can't quite take it in that she's gone; when I'm at her house, I keep expecting her to wander in from another room to tell us to be careful moving that table, and by the way where is the computer?

Last week I got an astounding eleven rejections, too, which on top of my grandmother's death and all its attendant emotions, definitely made me something of a basket case for a time. Today my mother and I went out together for the first time in a very long time, and I feel much better now. We had lunch at Olive Garden and did a little bit of shopping, then saw Juno at the big Pinnacle theater (a good movie, incidentally), and finished up at the library. We got Subway on the way home and I did her taxes for her, and then I came home and did my taxes (I get a nice refund!) and caught up on some of the other things that have been hanging over me all week. So even though I didn't write today, I feel good about everything else.