Once again, I say the email mea culpa. Some of you have been owed responses for a very long time. I'm sorry. I plan to get right to that. This has been a long, crazy month (two months?).

Same for "Say... why aren't we crying?" submitters -- and we're coming up toward the end of the submission period in April, so the rest of you send stories/poems/nonfic pitches/drawerings and such. We're reading now and should be caught up and sending out acceptances/rejections very soon. We do know we're going to have a fabulous cover and also a comic by E.L. Chen and a play by Terry Bisson. So anything else is just icing, right?

It's actually getting warmer, as night falls, after a brutal reminder that spring gets to decide whether it's here or not. The sky is a beautiful heavy blue and there's the tiniest moon, nearly eclipsed by wonder-bright Venus. We walked down to the library, after taking The George for his ambulation around the block, and I remembered the excitement of not having been in the library for awhile and getting to pull up a stack of books I want to read and actually bring them home, only putting a couple back because they made the stack not fit in my bag. For the curious:

E.R. Frank, AMERICA
David Quammen, MONSTER OF GOD
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, THE CONCH BEARER
Zakes Mda, MADONNA OF EXCELSIOR
Ed. Patrick Nielsen Hayden, NEW MAGICS antho
Stewart O'Nan, THE NIGHT COUNTRY
Harriette Simpson Arnow, THE DOLLMAKER (See Alex, we do listen!)

THE CONCH BEARER is my deciding book on how much of the Kentucky Women Writer's Conference I'll do this weekend. I have to skip everything except the readings and nightlife on Thursday and Friday, due to work obligations that can't be gotten out of (and which really aren't unpleasant anyway). Saturday, mostly everything's done, but there's a reading by Louisville writer Sena Jeter Naslund and then a couple of workshops with Divakaruni that look interesting, but only if THE CONCH BEARER knocks me out a little. We'll see. I'm not terribly big on programming at conferences, period, but I do feel like if there's something this big and well-organized here in town, two blocks away, I should probably get off my ass and go. If I don't, I will force myself to edit chapters instead.

Speaking of being off one's ass, my legs are so, so, so sore from today's weight-lifting session. But: grrrr, strong!

Okay, now I'm just eating into my editing time. So, links.

Writing advice from John Scalzi that's worth a look.

Terry makes a point I couldn't agree with more over at About Last Night. Which also explains why I am not going to start going all zealot about why indy and used bookstores are worth saving and are facing way new challenges and that people who've been in business for 30 years (like Avenue Victor Hugo) obviously do know how to run a small business so there's something more going on than that. Or how I grew up in the middle of nowhere and was used to driving an hour and a half to get to good bookstores for the bulk of my life and would do it again if I had to. I'm really not. And please, don't respond to any of that -- this is one of those things where I have a feeling never the twain shall meet. I'm just sad that such a great physical space, such a bookshop with a good soul is going away.

To distract you from that little slip above: DWARF CATS! (Via Chicha.)

The amazing Rosetta Probe seeks to land on a comet.

Stephen Hunter's BACK at the Wash Post! (Though sadly not reviewing movies.)

That is all. Did I mention my legs hurt?

worm: that whole Calexico album, the last one

today's fave post: no real time to read today

namecheck: Barb "Hands Like G-d Wishes" Gilly