Annnnnd WE'RE BACK!
Hey, children! Miss me?

First, I want to thank you for your cards, e-mails, comments, Facebook postings, etc. They were greatly appreciated.

But it's time to move on. Otherwise, who is going to keep an eye on The Q-Word?

Events over the past few weeks understandably slowed my progress in finishing the final polish on the new book -- which reminds me, the title will be Straight Lies -- but I hope to turn it in tomorrow. No... I will turn it in tomorrow. I want to own my weekend for the first time in several months, dammit.

Then we'll see if Kensington Publishing and/or the reading public is ready for a madcap caper about a misfit gang of lowly career criminals who happen to be gay and lesbian. If the answer is yes, I will happily provide a new book every year. If the answer is no, well... thank God I don't depend on my writing income to pay the bills.

In other news, I spent last weekend in New Orleans at the Saints & Sinners Literary Fesitval. (Meaning, yes, I flew down the day after my mother died. Don't judge.) For obvious reasons, I was not 100% into the swing of things, but still had a good time and met (and re-met) some great people. Even though too many of them are on LiveJournal.

As usual, I didn't have a camera. And I'm too lazy to recap the entire weekend, but other people who were there can no doubt get you up to speed.

Bonus: Lisa gave me a voodoo doll and Trebor Healey -- who is very nice, even if he has no clue who I am -- gave me a plastic lizard. This weekend I'm gonna see what I can do with them, so some of you might want to watch out.

Oh, by the way, Becky has captured me in all my squinty glory on her blog. Eh... who needs eyes, anyway?

Recurring theme of the weekend, which is why I'm so certain Trebor Healey doesn't know who I am: no one knows who I am. On the last afternoon of the conference, one woman thought she recognized my name, but she also thought I wrote erotica, which would be a big "Uh... no." Fortunately, at the closing party I ran into this guy, and -- although we had never met -- he knew who I was... especially after I spotted him next to me at the bar and said, "You once called me 'crinkly.'" (And, yes, he seems like a nice guy, although our conversation was far too short. Maybe some other time...)

Alas, thanks to the weather, I arrived back home three hours later than I had planned, so I totally missed Marc Acito's reading. Then again, he had a crowd of 90 people, so if I had been in the audience I probably would have had to hurt him (said the man who usually reads to crowds of one.)

Whatever. Acito probably wouldn't be considered famous Famous in New Orleans, either. Those Hurricanes have weakened their minds.