When last seen, she was at a reading at the Fountain City Branch Library (had a wonderfully nice crowd--11 whole people--yes they were whole as they had arms and legs and heads and torsos...)
She then went to the Authors and Artists Festival in Walland, Tennessee. Last year, she learned that a few of the teachers actually tried to ban her and her book. This year, they not only welcomed her with open arms, they begged her to take on an extra class.
Alas, she was not able to attend ConQuest in KC because her stepfather has not worked for a while, and she is the only income and could not afford the gas.
But in the meantime, for the first four months of the year, she made four sales. Yep.
First, she sold her short story "Like The Night," a kicky tale of vampires in Atlanta, to Aoife's Kiss. The story will be in their September print issue.
Then she sold her short story, "The Blight of the Memphis Belle" to the INTERNATIONAL HOUSE OF BUBBAS anthology (to appear later this year). It's a story of an International Elvis Contest that is taking place on a cruise ship when the Yuppie 25 virus breaks out. Very irreverant...and funny.
Her next sale? Well in the month of March, she learned that her novel THE HOUNDS OF ARDAGH had been picked up by Five Star Speculative Fiction for publication in the next two years.
And the fourth was a reprint sale; "The Dancing Stones of Nevermhor" is a novella that appeared in print in her collection TANGLED WEBS AND OTHER IMAGINARY WEAVING (Dark Regions) will be coming out as an ebook from Jintsu next spring.
Meanwhile, the official date for publication of book one of her Demon-Bound Duology, DRAGON'S TONGUE, has been officially set for May of 2006. The sequel WANDERING LARK should be coming out in the following year, assuming she finally lets go of the rewrites and turns it back over to her editor in the near future.
Th-th-th-that's all, folks.
Laura J. Underwood