(Anne Shirley and I are kindred spirits.)

It’s my favorite month. Blustery days. The light that falls through red and gold leaves. Jack-o’-lanterns and cider and eerie stories read while wrapped up in a blanket. Beren highly recommends BabyLit’s Dracula; he’s been practicing counting wolves and castles and rats and garlic blossoms, and occasionally howling like a true little child of the night. I highly recommend Through the Woods, by Emily Carroll — twisted, brilliant, beautiful, and terrifying comics that take folk and fairy tales to even darker places — and Get in Trouble, Kelly Link‘s latest collection of gobsmackingly good short stories. Or, of course, you could read The Books of Elsewhere. I hear they’re perfect for Halloween season. Especially Volume Four. (And if you liked them, you could recommend them to other readers, which is the best possible Halloween gift you could possibly give an author. Just saying.)

October is also the month of the Twin Cities Book Festival. If you’re anywhere in the area, come to the Minnesota State Fairgrounds on Saturday the 17th for a truly incredible day of readings, signings, panels, talks, and bookish fun. I’ll be moderating a Middle Grade Adventures panel featuring Lynne Jonell (The Sign of the Cat), D.J. MacHale (Voyagers: Project Alpha), and Carrie Ryan and John Parke Davis (The Map to Everywhere), and in true middle grade style, we’re going to play Truth or Dare. Come join the fun: 12:15 p.m., 10/17, Middle Grade Headquarters. (And the whole incredible day is FREE!) Lots more info here: http://www.raintaxi.com/twin-cities-book-festival/

Along with the leaves, events for the next school year are beginning to pile up… Keep an eye on my appearance calendar if you’d like to know where I’ll be.

And for even more autumnal richness, The Books of Elsewhere, Volume Five: Still Life is a finalist for this year’s Silver Falchion Award, as well as being up for the Reader’s Choice Award — go and vote, if you’re so inclined.

Happy October to all you kindred spirits out there.

…before STILL LIFE is released.

Actually, it’s not even one day. It’s one evening, one night, and the sliver of morning before bookstores open their doors.

If you can’t wait that long, you can preorder it from your favorite bookseller (and IndieBound can help you find the closest shop: http://www.indiebound.org/indie-store-finder). Or, if you’re in my part of the world, you can come to Red Balloon in St. Paul at 6:30 on 6/17, Fox Den in River Falls, WI at 6:30 on 6/20, Valley Bookseller in Stillwater, MN at 2:00 on 6/21, or Wild Rumpus in Minneapolis at 7:00 on 6/21, to buy the book and get it signed by me. And I’ll be very happy to see you there.

Samuel Johnson said, “A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.”  And I 100% agree.  Even though I was done writing STILL LIFE months ago, this week is when it’s going to finally feel finished.  After tomorrow, people will be reading it.  People I don’t even know.  They’ll be turning the words into living pictures in their minds, and everything will have finally come to a close: the ideas traveling through paper and time and distance and transforming back into ideas again.  It’s a truly awesome thing.

The Pioneer Press just ran this wonderful piece on the series from beginning to end.

And Tor.com is hosting a giveaway of THE SHADOWS — comment between now and June 20th to win!

Lots of pictures, new links, and some more coherent thoughts to come.  Til then: Thank you for reading.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

…And I’m home.  Funny how when you’re on the road, it feels like you’ve been traveling eternally, and you can hardly remember what it was like NOT to pull your wrinkly clothes out of a suitcase each morning, and you get used to waking up and not knowing what time zone, city, or state you’re in.  And then you get back to your very own house, and all your comfortable routines and favorite coffee cups and non-travel-sized toiletries are waiting for you, and you can hardly believe you ever left at all.

But I’ve got proof: Photos.  Lots of ’em.

In the final two weeks of the 2014 Endangered Authors Tour, we visited Swans Creek Elementary (South Bridge, VA) and the Nysmith School (Herndon, VA), Southern Pines Elementary (Southern Pines, NC) and West Pine Middle School (West End, NC), Hawk Ridge Elementary and Trinity Episcopal School in Charlotte, St. Bridget School and G.H. Reid Elementary in Richmond, VA, Ensworth School in Nashville, Fairhope Intermediate and J. Larry Newton in Fairhope, Alabama, and Doss Elementary and Bryker Woods Elementary in Austin. Huge thanks to all the students, teachers, librarians, parents, and booksellers who made all of this possible.

Speaking of booksellers — Signed copies of The Books of Elsewhere, Wereword, The Accidental Adventures, and Tales from Alcatraz are (or were!) available from:

– Bookworm Central, Manassas, VA
– Country Bookshop, Southern Pines, NC
– Cardinal Lane Book Fairs, Charlotte, NC
– BBGB Books, Richmond, VA
– Parnassus Books, Nashville, TN
– Page & Palette, Fairhope, AL
– BookPeople, Austin, TX

Onward to the pictorial proof section…

Curtis (Jobling), Sandy (C. Alexander London), Gennifer (Choldenko), and Peter (McNerney) in the antique brass elevator at the Tobacco Company Restaurant in Richmond

With two young readers (Hi, Katie!) and a scroll of Elsewhere artwork at Parnassus Books, Nashville

Rows and rows of readers at Doss Elementary, Austin

Feeling very welcome in Texas

And, on the library wall at Bryker Woods Elementary in Austin, between quotes from Swimmy and Holes and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a passage from one of my very own books — and from Harvey, in particular. It doesn’t get any better.

This has already appeared on Facebook and Tumblr (and it may or may not have turned up on Goodreads and Amazon), but here it is again: The lovely, eerie, swirlingly snowy cover of THE BOOKS OF ELSEWHERE, VOLUME FIVE: STILL LIFE.  I knew how lucky I was to be paired with illustrator Poly Bernatene the very first time I saw his sketches, and with each volume of THE BOOKS OF ELSEWHERE, I feel even luckier and even more certain that these books should not — or maybe even could not — have turned out any other way.  Thanks to Poly and the brilliant designers at Dial, these are books I would want to climb inside.

The very last volume of the series will be turning up in bookstores, libraries, and mailboxes everywhere on June 17th.

Events are also falling into place.  The release party will be held at the glorious Red Balloon in St. Paul on the actual release date (that’s still Tuesday, June 17th, for anyone who’s lost track) at 6:30 p.m.

The following weekend, I’ll be at Valley Bookseller in Stillwater, MN.  If you’re in the area at 2:00 on Saturday, June 21, I’d love to see you there.

More to come…

2013 has skidded to an end so fast that I know I’ll be writing the wrong year on checks (yes, I still use checks) for weeks — or, if I’m honest, months — to come.

It’s been a year of massive revisions and small beginnings.  I started a new play (yeah, I’m surprised too), wrote the first several chapters of a new MG trilogy, revised THE BOOKS OF ELSEWHERE, VOLUME FIVE: STILL LIFE, edited some short stories, dug back into an old MG stand-alone, and rewrote the lumbering YA project for the eighth time, longhand, and am just now typing it in its nearly (I think…) finished form.

I appear to have written just four poems this year, which makes it the least poetic year of my life since 6th grade.  I wrote zero new short stories, which saddens and surprises me, but I should be back in the short story saddle soon.  I saw one novel published — THE BOOKS OF ELSEWHERE, VOLUME FOUR: THE STRANGERS — in July, and an anthology — STARRY-EYED: 16 STORIES THAT STEAL THE SPOTLIGHT — released in October, and I completed a novel — and series — with VOLUME FIVE: STILL LIFE.  I’m looking forward to some new adventures and some fresh starts in 2014. Lots more news on those fronts soon.

Between revisions, travel, and school visits, I plowed through about a third of the books that had been waiting in increasingly dusty piles all around my house.  Here’s 2013’s reading list.  As before, titles in bold are rereads, and asterisks denote books that Ryan and I read aloud together.

THE MARRIAGE OF STICKS – Jonathan Carroll
ARCADIA – Lauren Groff
*CINDER – Marissa Meyer
THE INVENTION OF HUGO CABRET – Brian Selznick
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD – Charles Dickens
ROMMEL DRIVES ON DEEP INTO EGYPT – Richard Brautigan
STUPID FAST – Geoff Herbach
HOW TO BE A WOMAN – Caitlin Moran
AMERICAN ISIS: THE LIFE AND ART OF SYLVIA PLATH – Carl Rollyson
UNDERWORLD – Don DeLillo
TOM’S MIDNIGHT GARDEN – Phillipa Pearce
A GATE AT THE STAIRS – Lorrie Moore
LAURA LAMONT’S LIFE IN PICTURES – Emma Straub
ODD GIRL OUT: THE HIDDEN CULTURE OF AGGRESSION IN GIRLS – Rachel Simmons
ALABASTER: WOLVES – Caitlin R. Kiernan
OUT OF THE EASY – Ruta Sepetys
TOUCHING FROM A DISTANCE: IAN CURTIS AND JOY DIVISION – Deborah Curtis
HOCUS POCUS – Kurt Vonnegut
THE BLOODY CHAMBER AND OTHER TALES – Angela Carter
NEW ORLEANS STORIES: GREAT WRITERS ON THE CITY – Andrei Codrescu, ed.
THIRTEEN REASONS WHY – Jay Asher
PRODIGAL SUMMER – Barbara Kingsolver
THE FLORABAMA LADIES’ AUXILIARY AND SEWING CIRCLE – Lois Battle
MISS PETTIGREW LIVES FOR A DAY – Winnifred Watson
A PROUD TASTE FOR SCARLET AND MINIVER – E.L. Konigsberg
STORYVILLE, NEW ORLEANS – Al Rose
NUTCRACKER OF NUREMBERG  – Donald E. Cooke
A GOOD HARD LOOK – Ann Napolitano
STIFF – Mary Roach
WHITE TEETH – Zadie Smith
THE PENDERWICKS – Jeanne Birdsall
A WRITER’S GUIDE TO EVERYDAY LIFE IN THE MIDDLE AGES – Sherrilyn Kenyon
*THE HOBBIT – J.R.R. Tolkien
AN EXALTATION OF LARKS – James Lipton
SHIPBREAKER – Paolo Bacigalupi
THE CLOISTER WALK – Kathleen Norris
THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN – Simon Winchester
TRUMAN CAPOTE – George Plimpton
SLOUCHING TOWARDS BETHLEHEM – Joan Didion
*LET’S EXPLORE DIABETES WITH OWLS – David Sedaris
THE SHADOW OF THE WIND – Carlos Ruis Zafon
BETWEEN SHADES OF GRAY – Ruta Sepetys
MIDNIGHT MAGIC – Avi
DE PROFUNDIS AND OTHER WRITINGS – Oscar Wilde
FOUNDING MOTHERS: WOMEN OF AMERICA IN THE REVOLUTIONARY ERA – Linda Grant DePauw
STAG’S LEAP – Sharon Olds
SAVING CEECEE HONEYCUTT – Beth Hoffman
JOHNNY AND THE DEAD – Terry Pratchett
THE JEDERA ADVENTURE – Lloyd Alexander
BELLS IN WINTER – Czeslaw Milosz
THE RESURRECTIONIST – Jack O’Connell
ADVENTURES IN THE SCREEN TRADE – William Goldman
*THE WITCHING HOUR – Anne Rice
THREATS – Amelia Gray
GOING CLEAR: SCIENTOLOGY, HOLLYWOOD, AND THE PRISON OF BELIEF – Lawrence Wright
DAUGHTER OF HOUNDS – Caitlin R. Kiernan
ZEN IN THE ART OF WRITING – Ray Bradbury
THE FANTASY WORLDS OF PETER S. BEAGLE (LILA THE WEREWOLF, THE LAST UNICORN, COME LADY DEATH, A FINE AND PRIVATE PLACE) – Peter S. Beagle
*A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES – John Kennedy Toole
NO CONTEST: THE CASE AGAINST COMPETITION – Alfie Kohn
*BLINK – Malcolm Gladwell
GUSTAV GLOOM AND THE PEOPLE TAKER  – Adam-Troy Castro
GUSTAV GLOOM AND THE NIGHTMARE VAULT – Adam-Troy Castro
GUSTAV GLOOM AND THE FOUR TERRORS – Adam-Troy Castro
SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES – Ray Bradbury
*OUT OF THE EASY – Ruta Sepetys
*PRIME – Poppy Z. Brite
*THE DARK THIRTY: SOUTHERN TALES OF THE SUPERNATURAL – Patricia C. McKissack
THE BOOKLOVERS GUIDE TO NEW ORLEANS – Susan Larson
ETIQUETTE (1960 edition, orig. 1922) – Emily Post
THE 13 TREASURES – Michelle Harrison
TALES FROM THE HOUSE OF BUNNICULA: INVASION OF THE MIND SWAPPERS FROM ASTEROID 6 – James Howe
THREE TIMES LUCKY – Sheila Turnage
STARRY-EYED: 16 STORIES THAT STEAL THE SPOTLIGHT – Ted Michael/Josh Pultz, ed.
THE BRONTES: CHARLOTTE BRONTE AND HER FAMILY – Rebecca Fraser
ELEANOR & PARK – Rainbow Rowell
SMASHED: STORY OF A DRUNKEN GIRLHOOD – Koren Zailckas
MARCH – Geraldine Brooks
THE ILLUSTRATED MAN – Ray Bradbury
WRONG THINGS – Poppy Z. Brite and Caitlin R. Kiernan
*THE SEX LIVES OF CANNIBALS: ADRIFT IN THE EQUATORIAL PACIFIC – J. Maarten Troost

Not counting much-loved rereads (looking at you, Bradbury and Tolkien), the books that really stuck with me this year are the fascinating GOING CLEAR: SCIENTOLOGY, HOLLYWOOD, AND THE PRISON OF BELIEF, by Lawrence Wright, the un-put-down-able ELEANOR & PARK, by Rainbow Rowell, Peter S. Beagle’s heartbreaking A FINE AND PRIVATE PLACE, Geraldine Brooks’s luminous MARCH, and Lauren Groff’s gorgeous ARCADIA, which is the sort of flawlessly constructed, richly layered, utterly and frighteningly believable book that pulls you into itself and sends you back out into the real world tinted and changed.

Wishing you a 2014 rich with stories, satisfying work, and good surprises.

A snowy night in Red Wing.

So, the very last volume of The Books of Elsewhere is currently being illustrated, designed, and prepped for its July release.  (Here’s what it sounds like inside my head right now:  Eeeeeeeeee!!!!!)  Until now, my protagonist, Olive, has had the covers all to herself, but with Volume Five: Still Life (eeeeee!!!), my publisher is planning to feature Morton, one of the books’ boy characters, on the cover at last.

I’m excited about this.  Morton is a pivotal character, and he’s more than worthy of a little cover glory.

And, of course, his inclusion will help to signify to boy readers that this book is for them.

Prevailing wisdom says that boys won’t read a book with a girl protagonist, written by a woman/grown-up girl, with a girl on the cover.  Conversely, girls will read books that are obviously for boys—look at Harry Potter, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, or anything by Rick Riordan—and therefore, prevailing wisdom continues, we need to market books to boys in order to keep them reading, because everyone is currently very afraid they’ll stop, and besides, books that are aimed at boys will draw in both genders at once.

Lots of people don’t buy this argument at all, but many others do.  (Visit here and here and here and here for some perspectives from either side.)  I’ve had adults—booksellers, writers, people who should know—tell me to my face that boys simply want to read about other boys, not about girls.  Some even think that there aren’t enough good MG/YA books being marketed to boy readers.  Some have told me that a boy who carries a book with a girl on the cover is in danger of being excluded, mocked, or worse.

Now, I’m not suggesting that everyone’s experience will match mine, but I happen to be a grown-up girl who writes a series of books about a girl who appears in all her obvious girl-ness on my books’ covers.  And here’s what I’ve found:

When a class or school uses my book as a read-aloud, I hear from as many boys as girls.  When I visit a school where my books have been promoted by teachers and librarians to all students, with no mention of whether it’s boys or girls who should like them, the boys are just as excited as the girls–sometimes more. I’ve heard from many, many parents who have given my books to their sons, or used them as bedtime stories, or read them aloud on road trips.  And I’ve been told more than once that it was my series that helped a reluctant young (male) reader to fall in love with books, which is about the nicest thing a writer can ever hear.  Not once have I had a boy reader suggest to me, in even the subtlest way, that he couldn’t really get into these stories because the protagonist is a girl.

So the problem clearly isn’t one of empathy.  Not only can boy readers grow to care about Olive, but they can put themselves right in her (girl-sized) shoes.  And that right there—that ability to see the world from the point of view of someone very different from you—can change the world.

The real problem is a much shallower one.  And it’s our problem, not our kids’ problem.  It’s that we, as a culture, decide certain things are  for either boys or girls, and we divide, market, and enforce this from infancy onward.  (Just look at what we do with things like color. For babies.  Who don’t even know what colors are.)  We do it in subtle ways, and we do it in glaringly obvious ways.

When it comes to books, all it seems to take is someone—a teacher, librarian, family member, or bookseller—helping kids to see straight past that gendered cultural packaging into the heart of a story.  And the same story is there to be discovered by any reader, whatever his or her gender.

Unfortunately, not all of us are lucky enough to have that magic-door-opening person who doesn’t judge what we’re reading by its cover–or judge us for reading it.

…In those cases, a cover with a girl and a boy on it might help.

The last four weeks have been a little crazy: seven school visits, three bookstore events, one book festival, one cross-country road trip, and Halloween in New Orleans.  At Wild Rumpus in Minneapolis, I met with lots of wonderful readers (including one with earrings that looked like miniature copies of The Strangers) and got to pet a chicken on its belly.

At schools in Wisconsin and Louisiana, I answered questions, signed books, led writing workshops, and received hugs and pralines.

In New Orleans, we visited yet another cemetery — Greenwood — and found the Ducoing family tomb, where John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces) is interred.  We also wandered in the Garden District and the Quarter and Audubon park, and bought lots of books and ate lots of pastry and caught beads at a Halloween parade.

Then I returned home to another school visit (here’s a newspaper write-up of this one), rehearsals for The Little Prince, and a middle grade panel at Addendum Books in St. Paul that included me, Brian Farrey (The Vengekeep Prophecies), Lisa Bullard (Turn Left at the Cow), Kurtis Scaletta (The Winter of the Robots), and Anne Ursu (The Real Boy).  I felt lucky just to share a row of stools with these people.

As long as I’m in the middle of overdue recaps, here are some reviews of The Books of Elsewhere that I missed when they originally appeared:

– A recent and very kind writeup on the blog Remembering Wonderland

– Great reviews of each book in the series from Common Sense Media

– “My Top Ten EPIC Heroes. Or Heroines!” – a list from the Nerdy Book Club blog that puts Olive alongside Harry Potter and Frodo, which is some awfully good company

And now for the Truly Awesome Map.

On Saturday, November 30 — also known as Small Business Saturday — authors all around the country will be joining in Sherman Alexie’s brilliant “Indies First” project (and if you aren’t already familiar, follow the link) by hanging out at local independent bookstores.  As for me, I’ll be back at Addendum Books from 12:00 – 1:00 to chat with customers, recommend books, dust shelves — whatever Katherine and Marcus want me to do.  To help book-shoppers find out what authors will be where–and there are some HUGE names taking part in this!–IndieBound has created this incredible map of participating bookstores all around the country.  I hope that you’ll check out your local bookstores, maybe drop by one or two or more for signed copies and conversation, and show your brick-and-mortar shops some love.

Yep, this is one of those.

I can’t believe September is already one-third over.  The end of the summer was a whirlwind: a visit from the in-laws, a final round of revisions on STILL LIFE, and my (not-so-little) brother’s beautiful lakeside wedding.

Congratulations, you two.

Now I’m digging back in to the Shakespearean YA project, which has been put aside for so long that I can see it clearly again.  I’m eagerly destroying and rebuilding, rewriting and reacquainting, and spending a lot of time staring dazedly into the distance as new ideas fit themselves together.  It feels really, really good.

My fall schedule is rapidly filling with school visits and public appearances.  Among the recently added (public) events are:

– Wild Rumpus Bookstore, Minneapolis – Saturday, October 26, at 1:00 p.m.  Reading, signing, chatting, and all sorts of special Halloween fun.

– Addendum Books, St. Paul – Saturday, November 16, at 1:00 p.m.  This is a group middle-grade author event, featuring me, Anne Ursu, Kurtis Scaletta, and Lisa Bullard. (I’ll be insanely excited just to be in the same store with these writers, so please come and watch me make a fool of myself.)

And new information is constantly being added to the Louisiana Book Festival website.  The Festival is held in Baton Rouge on Saturday, November 2nd; once I know just when and where I’ll be speaking, I’ll share the info here.

Even with book releases, summer tends to be the quietest time of the year for me, events-wise.  I’m looking forward to a new round of school visits… And speaking of schools, this 4th grade class in Milford, CT read THE SHADOWS, created their own magical paintings, and wrote short stories to accompany them.  Learning that your work has inspired others to create things of their own — stories, paintings, playground games, new names and histories for their stuffed animals — is just about the coolest thing in the world.

Thanks, Ms. Nastasia, and everyone at Meadowside Elementary. 

Another cool Elsewhere-in-the-wild sighting, this one courtesy of my very own editor:

On display at Water Street Bookstore, with THE SHADOWS sold out, in Exeter, NH.  If I ever/finally get to New England, I’ll have to make a stop there.

And (I was serious about the twenty disparate things) I am starting to use Tumblr at last.  I know a lot of my readers can’t/don’t use Facebook, so I’m hoping this platform will be a bit more accessible.  I don’t think it will take the place of this blog, in terms of actual information, but it may outdo it in number of dog pictures.  We will have to wait and see.  http://jacquelinewest.tumblr.com/

Today’s the day: THE BOOKS OF ELSEWHERE, VOLUME FOUR: THE STRANGERS is an official, purchase-able, readable book.  Look for it at your local bookstore (and if you’re in Barnes & Noble this month, please note the special displays of Volumes 1 – 3 in paperback!) or library.  Pictures of THE BOOKS OF ELSEWHERE  in the wild are always welcome.

Find it on IndieBound here or on Amazon here — and of course it’s also available for Kindle and Nook for you e-reader readers.

AND, along with THE STRANGERS, VOLUME THREE: THE SECOND SPY is available in audio format at long last!  You can find both books at Audible.com (Here’s THE STRANGERS, and here’s THE SECOND SPY).  They’re read, just like THE SHADOWS and SPELLBOUND, by the wondrous Lexy Fridell.

Release day — even now that it’s my fourth — is exciting and frightening in equal measure.  Knowing that THE STRANGERS is out there in the hands of actual readers fills my stomach with staticky butterflies; they’re bumping around in there, giving each other little electric shocks.  If you read and like the book, please consider writing a review on Goodreads, Amazon, or any other bookish blogs.  Or tell your friends.  That’s even better.

If you’re in the MN/WI area, I hope you’ll consider joining me at Karma Gifts in River Falls, WI for a book party this Saturday, July 20, from 1:00 – 3:00 (more info on Facebook here).  It’s going to be great.  And if you’re on the MN side of the river, stop by Valley Bookseller in Stillwater at noon on Saturday the 27th.  I’ll also be at the Summer Reading Finale Celebration at the Hazel Mackin Community Library in Roberts, WI, on Monday, August 5, from 6:30 – 8:00, signing books and chatting with readers.

Here’s the whole BOOKS OF ELSEWHERE crew (plus a photobombing copy of Neil Gaiman’s THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE, which is just as good as everyone says) at the Anderson Center’s celebration this weekend.  Thanks to everyone who stopped by.

Here it is… The Books of Elsewhere, Volume Four: The Strangers.

“It’s Halloween. But not for Morton, who’s trapped in Elsewhere. Good thing Olive has a plan: Swallowing her dread of the McMartins, she sneaks Morton out and takes everyone trick-or-treating. But when they’re followed by a creature who’s not all he seems, they’re in for a surprise—something, or someone, is living in Mrs. Nivens’s abandoned house. Yes, strangers have come to Linden Street. And though they claim to be her allies, Olive has a bad feeling. She returns home late Halloween night to discover something worse: Her parents are gone.

Desperate to get them back, Olive strikes an unbalanced bargain with Annabelle McMartin and loses something incredibly valuable in the process—something that could mean doom for the house, and for Elsewhere itself. Turning to her uncertain allies, Olive attempts to sever the McMartins’ power at its root, unleashing a flood of darkness and terror that could overwhelm not only her, but the house and everyone in it. To mend her mistakes, Olive must determine who to trust. Will she put her faith in her own worst enemies to save the people and the home she loves?”

Release date: July 16, 2013.

(You can pre-order it now from Amazon.  I’ll post links when pre-order is available on IndieBound and other venues.)

More cool news: Audiobooks of The Strangers AND The Second Spy will also be released on July 16, 2013, in downloadable format (no CDs this time).

And now, the wait.  Good thing I’ve got Volume Five to keep me busy.

The multi-talented Matt Myklusch (of the Jack Blank trilogy) and I are both lucky enough to be clients of agent Chris Richman.  Matt and I recently chatted for his podcast, The Other Side of the Story, which is rich with behind-the-scenes info and anecdotes.  You can listen to our conversation here.

One of my favorite parts of traveling is coming home to a huge pile of mail.  Here are two of the best things that were waiting for me on our return from NYC: A thank-you card fr0m readers at Fairmount School, and my Cybils Award for The Shadows, a gorgeous fountain pen in a carved wooden case.