Dear Beth,

Happy birthday! You are now, once again, older than me. Claire might find that confusing, so I suggest you don't mention it to her until she starts comprehending numbers a bit better.

Can I tell you how incredibly excited I am to live my life with you? We're mothers! We have a baby! That's amazing. And tonight, she sees fire for the first time! You call it candles, but I call it the Promethean leap. Because that is slightly more awesome than saying future pyromaniac. Though not by much.

And your presents! Let me tell you, your presents are fantastic. I know you don't believe me, and you won't until you actually see them, but they are legendary.

But really: I love you. You're amazing. I love watching you with our baby, and I love saying goodnight to you, and I love waking up with you, and I love talking and laughing and singing and signing with you. I love you, and everything that makes you you.

All my love,
-Cass

Happy birthday, editrx!

...said David Tennant.

Many happy birthdays to skyfyre and lifewater! You are filled with squids and joy!

For those in the area, Beth and I -- and wee baby -- will be crashing the Readercon lobby/hallways on Saturday, starting around lunchtime (when we will abscond with Claire's aunt and uncles) and then for some portion of the afternoon. Further appearances will depend upon the baby's feelings on the matter, and whether anyone bribes us to show up at a different time.

( Claire Juliana )
born 7:09 PM, Wednesday, June 17th, 2009
7 lbs. 6 oz.
19 inches

Shameless promo ahead:

Salt and Silver, hot off the presses and already arriving in people's hands! Get yours today (and then don't read any of the bits involving bugs!).

For a glimpse at the REAL cover for the book, as well as the place where all this shameless promo is going to go from now on, and anything writing/research related we may decide upon, check out Anna Katherine's silly blog here. You may notice a striking similarity in the second post to something I wrote here ages ago, but that's just because I think everyone should be conjuring fairies all the time. Hurrah!

Oh! If you want to add the blog as a feed, friend it with this handy widget: annak_blog. That way you get all the news and rants regarding... oh, who knows what, but without having to click away from LJ. (My number one reason for loving feeds.) Yay!

So we're going to be at Boskone this year, and I'm going to be on some wacky panels and such. Any of you in the Boston area should totally crash come and see us.

Here's the (preliminary) sched:

( read me! )

I've been sitting on this for a bit, but:

Salt and Silver is up on Amazon! Available for preorder and everything!

I kept a lid on because I was waiting for the back cover copy to go up:

Allie can't seem to get it together. Ever since her mom ran away
to Rio with Rio -- her tennis instructor -- stealing Allie's trust fund and her
comfortable way of life, Allie has been floundering. She works in Sally's
Diner, and lives above it. And one night in the basement, she and her friends
chant a ridiculous spell -- for money, for luck, for love -- and open a Doorway to Hell.

Ryan thinks he's got it all figured out. When the Door opened he appeared out
of nowhere, a Stetson-wearing demon hunter dressed in leather. He's assigned to
the Door, and hangs out at the diner, and when the Door disappears he is
certain that Allie had something to do with it.

But something strange is happening in Brooklyn. Something bigger than Allie,
and Ryan, and the Door in the diner basement. And when a meeting of demon
hunters gives birth to a dangerous idea, Allie and Ryan are left to wonder if
the fragile feelings growing between them can survive a trip to Hell... or if they themselves will survive at all.

Yay! I think I like the blurb octette came up with better, though,
on the official Anna Katherine website:

One night six years ago, Allie and her friends got drunk and
chanted a fake spell they made up... and accidentally opened a portal to Hell.
Now it resides in the basement of the diner Allie runs, and it's a pain in the
ass -- mystical crap is always coming out, and then it has to be killed. Demon
guts get everywhere, stuff gets smashed up, there are salt circles and sigils
all over the place... It gets tedious.

The up side is that Allie gets her own personal demon hunter guarding the Door
and killing the demons: a sexy and mysterious, Stetson-wearing, snide-remark-
making, dark-eyed demon hunter named Ryan.

But after six years of jibes and sexual tension, the Door disappears at the
same time there's a surge in demonic activity -- and no one seems to know
what's going on. Not Narnia the bitchy psychic witch, or Roxie, a kickass demon
hunter from the other side of town.

It's not Allie's idea for a team of demon hunters to find another Door and go
into it to see if Hell is about to take over Earth, but she definitely wants in
on that plan. After years of seeing the havoc a Door to Hell wreaks on the
world, she's ready to grow up, take responsibility for helping open a Door in
the first place, and kick some demon butt.

Okay, and she'd also like some quality make out time with Ryan, and mortal
peril is always a turn-on, right?

If you look around the site some more, you'll also find neat quotes about Real
Magic (from academics, no less!), and under the book section, a nice, long
excerpt of the book to whet the appetite. We're still filling stuff in, but
May's a long way off yet -- keep checking. (Or poke the living beejezus out of
us if you want, for instance, some of Sally's Diner's famous recipes.)

*bouncebounce!*

WE'RE HAVING A BABY!

And ( here ) and ( here ) are pictures of it! We saw its precious little heart beating this morning. We are very, VERY pleased.

-Beth

HOLY FUCK.

I just heard. Here is what we have. College of My Heart is hurting, because one of us is lost.


Hannah Emily Upp, 23, has been missing since Friday, August 29, from her residence in the vicinity of Hamilton Terrace, Harlem.

Hannah is a New York City Public School teacher; she teaches middle school Spanish at Thurgood Marshall Academy for Learning and Social Change, at W. 135th and 7th Ave. A recent graduate of Bryn Mawr College, Class of 2007, majoring in Spanish and Comparative Literature, she is a New York City Teaching Fellow, working on her Master's degree at Pace University and teaching full time. She completed her first year of teaching 2007-08, and was about to start her second year of teaching when she went missing.

Anyone with any information is asked to contact Detective Perez, 30th Precinct Detective Squad, at 212-690-8842, or 212-690-8843.

( Further sources/information: )

So. Um. In the realm of embarrassing, this is pretty up there, so I might as well say it.

octette and I cowrote a paranormal romance -- we turned in the final manuscript to our editor this morning. It's coming out in May of 2009 under a single-author pseudonym from Tor Romance.

Um.

:D

We'll be at the Readercon hotel this Saturday (sans memberships, largely because we won't be participating in/attending any con events) -- if anyone wants to see us or arrange something, we're totally up for that.

Um. Hello! For people waiting for the next installment of the Jobhunt Series, there may be a slight delay. Because I have a new job, and will be moving in two weeks. (Whoops.) But! It will come! And there will be much rejoicing.

Perhaps all the fandom brouhaha regarding second-wave feminism, rape, and Joss Whedon made the news disappear into the aether, but:

Why did no one mention Buffy went gay?



Because...awesome.

SFWA: The Suicide Note

It had been a long-term amorphous goal of mine to eventually join the Science Fiction Writers of America. But in light of this, and previous related actions, and any number of stupidities (I remember when there was the "kid's membership" or whatever, a handy little backdoor for the young'uns to use if they wanted to "join" SFWA, thereby completely fucking taking away whatever credibility a young adult might have if they'd actually managed to join SFWA through merit, excuse me while I relive that rage) -- honestly, I don't see it happening. At this point, and with all this garbage -- why bother?


ETA: And for God's sake, don't get me started on LJ/6A. Would it be a good idea if it worked? Yes. Is there any mechanism in place to guarantee that it "works"? No. Therefore: LOSE.

Happy birthday, roadnotes!

I was going to write a very different post just now, but there's a new children's television airing this morning of CBS, and frankly, I have to share.

SUSHI PACK

It's a tiny group of crime fighters, the size and composition of sushi -- there's a little octopus character, and a salmon, and a crab, and a tuna, and a tiny blob of wasabi. The bottoms of their feet look like little sushi rolls. The villians (this episode, anyway) are the Legion of Lowtide. And the show, despite being created in America, is full of anime animation tropes (the swirly eye, the teardrops, etc.).

It's just... man. It's just adorable. "You're more than just a condiment, Wasabi. You're a hero."

(They also yell "Sushis... roll!" when they band together -- or when they become tiny sushi rolls to travel somewhere fast.)

The main page, the IMDb page, and the creator's blog page being all giddy about the show starting today.


(Note: Yes, we do stay home to watch cartoons Saturday morning. And let me just say how pissed I am about NBC cancelling Postman Pat after only a few episodes, but Jacob Two-Two will apparently NEVER DIE.)

Before I completely collapse, though, I want to wish my darling, beautiful wife a happy birthday.

(This is what migraines do: I thought I had posted about this already.)

She is now twenty-six, thus meaning that she is now a grown-up. Don't ask me why -- that's just the way it works. I myself will become a grown-up in February. This happens to everyone, or so I hear.

Life is amazing. She is amazing. Happy, happy birthday, love.

AG Gonzales resigns. He'll be giving a DOJ news conference in about a minute or so (10:30 AM). Looks like Chertoff is going to replace -- which I'm sure is going to work just fine.