In the last week, I’ve been offered a Headstone of the Week feature at Legacy.com, invited to speak to a class called Over My Dead Body at the California College of the Arts, interviewed about 199 Cemeteries to See Before You Die for From the Bookshelf on KSCO radio (which will air in October), and asked to facilitate a discussion about writing about death (and cemeteries) for next weekend’s Death Salon.

And I said yes to all of them.

My life has been in a holding pattern since I turned in 199 Cemeteries.  It’s been a round of doctor’s visits, calls to nurses, and trips to pharmacies, but finally my daughter is back to school.  She’s survived the first three days, so fingers crossed.  I think things are about to get really busy.

Good things have happened recently.  Last Saturday, I joined Rebecca Gomez Farrell to celebrate the release of her new novel Wings Unseen at at the Octopus Literary Salon in Oakland, California. What a great place that is! I read what I think of as the Ray Bradbury scene from No More Heroes. Considering how flustered I was, I think I did okay. It felt kind of like getting back up on the horse, anyway.

Although the column I was writing for Gothic Beauty fell through, I was invited to write about graveyards for the Horror Writers Association newsletter.  The first of those Grave Fascinations columns just came out.  I’m excited to share what I know with other horror writers and see how it inspires their work.

Occult Detective Quarterly accepted an Alondra story that is close to my heart.  “Something in the Water” is set at the California Academy of Sciences-in-exile, which used to be down South of Market.  I’ve always loved the story, but it had trouble finding a home.  I’m thrilled to see Alondra standing amongst the other occult detectives, where she belongs.

And the Strange California anthology is finally coming out!  Another Alondra story — about suicide and the Golden Gate Bridge — appears in that book.  It’s one of the most challenging stories I’ve written about Alondra, so I’m excited to finally see it in print. I haven’t seen a copy of the book yet, but you can order one on Amazon at the link above.