I want to promote/sell/flog that I don’t even know where to start. Let’s end, as is customary in such situations, each item with a lot of exclamation points.

Nice Recovery is, as noted, now available in paperback!

Woefield will be released in 8 days!!

Alice, I Think (a.k.a. my first child) is in a cage match with a lot of other great books on Harper Canada’s March Madness!!!

It’s all a bit overwhelming.

I’m on the verge, the VERGE, I tell you, of announcing a new contest. Well, it’s more of a promotion, really. Look for details March 8. Get ready for fun while you are being relentlessly pitched by yours truly.

I have no other news but many other deadlines, so I will leave you with the following thoughts: don’t read Alas, Babylon if you are prone to paranoia about the state of the world.

And don’t put in your spring flowers on the first nice day in February, lest you end up with a crime scene-style situation like this:

Valuable Life Lessons and Accompanying Images brought to you by Susan Juby.

xo

Please join us this April Fool’s Day for a short reading, snacks, thematically-appropriate cake, bluegrass music and a book signing.

Congratulations to all the dancers who took part. I’ve been to Oak Ridge Mall in Vancouver many times. I’d probably still be there if I thought I could see this kind of action.

Also, remember last March when readers went to the mattresses for Sherm. (i.e. voted for him extensively as part of HarperCollins Canada’s March Madness)? Remember how Getting the Girl won, beating out such luminaries as, well, LORD OF THE RINGS? Here’s your chance to do it again for Alice.

You can’t see it, but they were all watching an episode of Burn Notice. Germaine, the one on the right, is afraid to fly but Michael Weston’s bravery inspired her. Tallulah, the slightly deflated hen second from right, insisted on watching the “Hundred Dollar Baby” baby episode from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Season 1. She’s low brow. You can tell from the way she slouches.

The new hen keeper/book winners have promised to send photos of the girls in their new circumstances. We can’t wait.

In the spirit of tacky and relentless self-promotion, there will be a part two for the Woefield Giveaway Extravaganza. It will also involve hen bags and wallets and an opportunity for readers to spread the good word on the book. You will, I suspect, be appalled when you hear the details. Hey, I have a flock to maintain here. Or I will. My friends Andrew and Jen are getting some backyard birds and I’m becoming a shareholder! I’m going co-op on a coop! (Forgive me: it’s too easy.)

At our last board meeting, I proposed we go for something like this:

But the other board members asked if I was prepared to build it, so I compromised and suggested we go with something like this:

One final word about Woefield. Please do not look to the book for ideas on how to run a small farm. If, on the other hand, you’re looking for a comedy about how not to run a farm, it’s the book for you.

xo

a lovely prepub review from Booklist!

“…In her sparklingly witty and charming first novel for adults, the author of the Alice MacLeod YA series delightfully combines satire and a distinctly modern voice with old-fashioned sweetness, and her laugh-out-loud writing is tempered by the characters’ emotional pain and efforts to help one another heal. Woefield Farm may not produce a single crop, yet it’s fertile ground for superb storytelling.—”

Other causes of happiness? Sam Axe and Michael Weston, happy chicken purse/book winners, a killer chocolate cheesecake cupcake from the Wee Cupcakery, the knowledge that there’s a Tana French book that I haven’t yet read and a sunny day.

(I wonder if Sam Axe, pictured above, would like a hen bag?)

xox