Settler's Chase

My friend Doris Eraldi's second book, Settler's Chase, will be released in July 2010 by Berkeley. This is a sequel to her book, Settler's Law, also published by Berkeley in 1998. Now, it seems like a long time between books, and it is, but I happen to know that she's written at least one whole novel in between,while training a slew of horses, teaching horsemanship, coaching young riders and in general gallivanting around. No moss grows under her hooves. Anyway, as a first reader of her first book, I am now an eager awaiter of her second.

"The Oracle of Stamboul,"

Michael Lukas, a fiction participant at the Napa Valley Writers Conference last summer, wrote to say that his novel "The Oracle of Stanboul," has been purchased by HarperCollins and will be released in February, 2011. WhoooHoooo!  ZZ Packer's group will remember seeing his first chapter.

From Michael's website:

I enjoyed reading the chapter which he submitted for his application; I particularly remember the image of hoopoes circling the harbor and the town and then settling, "coating the town like frosting," which opens the book. I look forward to reading the whole thing, printed and bound.
A thousand and one congratulations, Michael!

Fan Mail from Your Favorite Flounder-er

Hey, guess what! Significant Objects just posted a story I wrote about this sweet Japanese fan.  As I've mentioned before, I have been fascinated with Josh Glenn and Rob Walker's project which seeks to show how our emotional entanglement with an object increases that object's value. All that makes sense, of course. But the beauty of the Significant Objects project is that they've devised a method to measure that increased value using the auctions on E-Bay.

So, here's the deal...swing by and read the story, then click the link that takes you to the ebay auction for it..and bid, bid, bid! You may win ... and if you do, you gain three things: the sweet little fan, a copy of my story to have and to hold, and the warm feelings of contributing to a very worthy cause, Girls Write Now.

And I'd love to hear what you think of the story, too.