Writer's Grove

Houston, there is no problem

So I gotta give mad props to Murder By the Book in Houston. I have heard nothing but awesome things about this indie bookstore and knew that someday I’d get out there when the right opportunity came along. Well, it’s come along.

They contacted my homie Jaye Wells (author of the Sabina Kane series and the forthcoming Prospero’s War series coming next year) and said, hey, Jaye, wanna come down to sign the CARNIEPUNK anthology when it comes out in July? We’d love to have you. Jaye relayed the invitation to everyone else involved in the anthology and SOME OF US SAID YES, including me! So I will be in Houston to sign CARNIEPUNK on July 27 with Jaye Wells and quite possibly some of the other authors in the anthology. Those that can’t be there will probably send along bookmarks or bookplates or nineteenth-century handmade Amish swimwear. It will be something of a shindig, methinks.

Understand that it makes absolutely no practical sense for me to do this. Royalties from the anthology are going to be split thirteen ways or something like that so I will make maybe nine cents per copy. (For more on why it makes no sense for authors to tour, please see this post that goes into numbers a bit.) But I have many impractical reasons for wanting to do this. I can make a list!

1) The last time I did a joint signing with Jaye—that was in Dallas last summer—we had a great time. Lots of completely awesome people showed up and I got to sign a pregnant woman’s belleh. (The kid has since been born and is named Oliver, I hear tell. Hi, Oliver!) I am fond of great times and would like to have another one. I feel certain that the people of Houston are as capable (maybe MORE???) of having a great time as the people in Dallas. It is a hypothesis, anyway, and I am anxious to test it.
2) Authors like to hang out with other authors every once in a while because otherwise we spend our lives alone talking to ourselves and wondering if we need to be medicated.
3) I have heard that Houston is a fairly spiffy city but one cannot take such assertions at face value. I must judge for myself. I’ve never been there and neither has my wife, so we’re going to explore a wee bit. Where should we go?
4) Someone will probably throw BBQ at me and I’M GOING TO LET THEM.
5) I’ve had a few readers ask me to come to Houston and I do like to make people happy if I can.
6) J.J. Watt. I had a dream in which he and I went on a cattle raid together and I was sure glad he was on my side. On the other side were cattle wearing Tom Brady jerseys. He sacked them all and I gave him a high five. It dislocated my elbow. I’m sure I won’t meet J.J. while I’m there, and it’s probably best for my metacarpals that we don’t because he would utterly crush them in a handshake, but I will feel more manly just knowing that we’re looking at the same sunset.
7) My brilliant, awesome friend Hillary Jacques and I came up with this anthology idea one night on Twitter. (Her story is in the anthology too!) We worked for a while to make this happen and as such it’s kind of a sentimental thing for me.
8) I’m going to get Jaye Wells to sign my copy because HECK YES I’m a fanboy. She knows this and still tolerates me. If Mark Henry or Nicole Peeler or any of the other authors make it down there too then OMG asdf;lkj!!!

Though this appearance is primarily to promote CARNIEPUNK—a finer collection of urban fantasy authors you shan’t find!—I will of course happily sign anything from the Iron Druid Chronicles too. I will also sign foreheads and forearms and pregnant bellehs and if you bring a cat we will tape bacon to it and take a picture and send it to John Scalzi because he LOVES that shit.

Kids, please don’t tape bacon to your cat at home. Do it in an independent bookstore.*

Again, huge thanks to Murder by the Book in Houston for extending the invitation and for supporting urban fantasy. They are entirely responsible for making it happen. Please support them and/or your local indie bookstore. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone in Houston! If there’s someplace that I simply SHOULDN’T MISS while I’m in town, let me know!

*I’m kidding. Don’t do that.