It's coming!!

I just got word that my poetry book, Femme au chapeau, will be here in three weeks. In an instant I went from lizard-like torpor on the subject to pinwheels behind the eyeballs.

You'll see and hear it here first. I'm going to post an image of the cover just as soon as I get it -- maybe a few days. Announcements and mailings will come later, as will actual copies. But I thought Rocket Kids was the best place to preview it.

Kevin and Lori at WordTech have been wonderful to work with. Professional, clear, and pleasant at every stage of the process. I really appreciated having two sets of proofs -- preliminary and final -- and all the care they took to make the cover right. With a Matisse image on the front, it just had to be right.

So now, the actual, and no longer the fictive book. I'm going to have business cards, bookmarks, fridge magnets and various other celebratory bits of inscription made at Vista Print (all nearly free, except for the ticking away of your expensive daily time when you get on their email list).

Actually, I'm going to celebrate this news with a surreal hour, immersed in The Towers of Trebizond, whose first line is justly famous in literature: "'Take my camel, dear," said my aunt Dot."

I feel somewhat like the camel.