Rumor has it

So, I heard from a blog who heard from a blog who knows how to use Yahoo news that George W. Bush is attempting to cut funding to Reading is Fundamental for 2009.

RIF has been providing underprivileged kids with books since 1966. Please help RIF and the kids they assist by clicking on this link:

http://www.rif.org/get-involved/advocate/what/

Just enter your zip code and easily email the president and your senators and representatives to voice your support of RIF.

Lord. How long is it until November, again?

An old favorite

I've just finished re-reading one of my very favorites - NEVERWHERE by Neil Gaiman. It's a fabulous fantasy set partly in London and partly in an alternate London - "London below." Richard Mayhew, everyman extraordinaire, finds himself sucked into a classic hero's quest in an inventive reality neither he nor any of the other "normal" people in the city above ever knew existed.

Neil Gaiman is a master of setting fantasy into reality like a gem in a ring. It sparkles, it catches your attention, but it looks like it belongs there. He's just phenomenal. If you haven't read anything he's written, NEVERWHERE is a good start. CORALINE would be a good next step. It's written for kids, sort of, but it's the scariest freaking book I've ever, ever read.

I'm on sort of a re-reading kick right now - adult and YA and MG. I do that once in awhile, which is good for the book budget and good for me as a writer. The second or third time through a book, I notice how the author has done what they've done. The first time through I tend to get too sucked into the plot to see that stuff. I'm the world's most eager audience - willing suspension of disbelief is something of a specialty for me.