I hope this finds you well. MaryAnn and I are fortunate to have spent a good part of this summer at our little cottage (read: an old schoolbus on a lake) in Quebec, where rural life rolls out slowly and the most exciting events in our days consist of local wildlife sightings. No bears so far, but September's the time when they'll likely show up to raid the nearby apple orchards.

It hasn't been all play. I've been steadily working on a new novel tentatively titled The Mystery of Grace and expect to turn it in to Tor this December.

NEW BOOKS - SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER BOOK TOUR

My latest young adult novel, Little (Grrl) Lost, should be showing up in your local bookshop any day now. In a few weeks Penguin Putnam will send me on a whirlwind book tour to meet my readers and sign books. I'll be in North Carolina, Texas, California, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia and Alberta. I hope you'll drop by and say hello if I'm in a town near you. You'll find details at: www.sfsite.com/charlesdelint/faq-appearances.htm.

Seattle will be my busiest area with five events. Most are signings, but the Hugo House signing on the 17th will include a concert with MaryAnn (sadly, Seattle's the only part of the tour where she'll be joining me). We'll also give a concert at Foolscap IX convention in nearby Bellevue. www.foolscapcon.org/index.html

Charles Vess will be my co-Guest of Honour at Foolscap. It's always a treat to feast your eyes on Charles's artwork and I'm sure he'll also have some good stories to tell about the making of the movie Stardust.

Also hot off the press is my new Jilly novel, Promises to Keep, from Subterranean Press. Details, reviews and ordering info are available here: www.subterraneanpress.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=SP&Product_Code=delint15.

MYTHIC FICTION WRITING WORKSHOP

I'll be teaching a one-day Mythic Fiction workshop in Seattle on Sunday, September 16th. Class size is limited to 15 persons, so sign up quickly if you care to sit in. There's a course description and registration info here (scroll wayyy down): www.hugohouse.org/classes/listings/

AWARDS & HONOURS

I'm not one to toot my own horn, but MaryAnn insists that I tell you about some recent honours.

Widdershins has made the British Fantasy Society Award Recommendations for 2007, and also placed #1 in Amazon.com's Editors' Picks for the Top 10 Science Fiction & Fantasy Books of 2006.

The Blue Girl won the Ontario Library Association White Pine Award as well as the 2007 Great Lakes Great Books Award. Both were voted on by high school readers, which makes winning them particularly gratifying for me.

AUDIOBOOKS COMING

Other good news is that I've recently licensed five books to Blackstone Audiobooks. Titles include Widdershins, The Onion Girl, Moonheart, Memory and Dream and Dreams Underfoot. It's too early to know the production schedule, but I'll get back to you when I have more info. I'm especially happy that some of my work will finally be available to visually impaired folks.

MUSIC RECS

It'd be easy to go overboard with music recommendations simply because there's so much good music coming out, every week, week after week. So let me just touch on a few: I'm loving the album This Is the Life by Scottish singer-songwriter Amy MacDonald. I've also had the chance to hear the new Steve Earle CD Washington Square Serenade (thanks Ian!); it's due out in October, and well worth checking out. KT Tunstall's new CD Drastic Fantastic is out sooner (September 10th in the UK); I've only heard the first single so far, but it sounds...well, fantastic. Lastly, for now, if you catch Calexico on their current tour, pick up their CD Tool Box, which is only available at concerts; it's an all-instrumental outing (probably outtakes from their last studio CD) and easily one of my favourites by them. It's probably also available from their Web site. (I'd go check, but I'm writing this from the bus and we only have dial-up here...)

MARYANN'S NEWS

MaryAnn closed the doors on her boutique at the end of June. She had a great time with the shop and has no regrets about delving into retail over the past couple of years, but she's deliriously happy to return to "normal" life. That said, she'll surely show up on eBay from time to time, so if you want to be told when she puts things up for auction, just drop her a line at mah@reclectica.com.

cheers

Charles

A quick message as I prepare to fly off tomorrow on my book tour. For those of you in Austin, please note that my appearance at BookPeople has been moved up to 1 pm (rather than 2 pm). Hope to see some of you there.

cheers

Charles