Lawrence Schimel

Too exhausted now to be very coherent, but had a lovely event tonight. Nice mix of people, who stayed and listened to me talk for nearly two hours and asked questions and debated back and forth. And even bought books, a bunch of the new poetry title but also various of my earlier books, too, which is always nice.

I brought my digital camera and totally forgot to hand it to someone to take photos. Oops!

Hopefully the woman from the press who did tape much of the event will email me a still or two.

There was even someone there tonight who'd come to my very first event in Spain, over ten years ago, also here in Valencia at the late El Cobertizo, for MI NOVIO ES UN DUENDE... !!!!!

Diego Areso (www.diegoareso.com), the designer of all the covers so far for A Midsummer Night's Press, has once again come through with two elegant-looking covers for the new BEST GAY POETRY and BEST LESBIAN POETRY series.

Both cover photos are by Massimo Caregnato (who also did the photos for the cover of BANALITIES).

The books will be out in December 08, from A Midsummer Night's Press and Lethe Press.

It's 2am so technically Tuesday already. Can't believe I need to pack again so I can head to Valencia later today. Sigh.

Although I'm looking forward to the trip, since this is the first presentation of this new book.

My very first presentation in Spain was in Valencia, in the late, lamented bookstore El Cobertizo, run by Juan Alberni. This was the year before I moved to Spain, and was one of the nice incentives for my moving there: I had published over 20 books in the U.S., but this was the first time a publisher had toured me anywhere. (I was in Madrid on my own dime en route to the Frankfurt Book Fair, and the publisher paid to send me down to Valencia since the bookstore had requested me and they put me up for the night in a hotel.)

Very busy day, juggling as fast as I can on too many open fronts, and still very groggy in the am from jet-lag, alas. (Good thing the event on Wednesday hits in the mid-afternoon when I'm lately wide-awake! :->) But I think it was productive overall.

Hopefully will be able to get to some more things in the morning, before heading off.

Alas, my laptop battery is in its final throes: it no longer even gives that warning of "you are on reserve power" or whatever it used to say, it just shuts off randomly, and sooner than it used to. Bother.

But when I'd tried to buy a new battery when I was back in NYC, they didn't have for my little ibook G4. Sigh. Must try and look online or something, when things settle down and I have a spare moment...

(I do have a spare battery, I always buy an extra when I buy a laptop--among other things, the flight between Madrid and NY is too long for a single battery00, but I don't really use it any more because, as I recall, it was dying and I switched to this one. Unless I confused them and this is actually the dying one and the other is still good...??? Too much to hope for.)

There's a nice new review by Charles Tan of my FAIRY TALES FOR WRITERS at http://tinyurl.com/65qkyy

I'm pleased that the book is still able to generate interest and attention so long after first publication. These days it seems that everything in book publishing is too focused on new titles which often wind up having a very brief shelf life because of the avalanche of new releases in the months after them (and the lack of independents and specialty stores that nurture and encourage backlists, etc.)

It's not like I need more distractions, but FYI I joined Indiebound, a social networking site/community for lovers of independent bookstores (and other kinds of stores).

My profile is http://www.indiebound.org/users/lawrenceschimel in case you are also a member (or decide to join) and want to add me as a friend.

It's a shame the site is only focused on the US since it would be great to be able to use some of its features to discover other cool independents in my region. But I do list a lot of my favorite indy bookshops back in the US, places I love as a bookbuyer (or which have supported me/A Midsummer Night's Press as an author/publisher).

I still haven't gone to bed since yesterday, what with the red-eye and all, but I went and picked up copies of my new book, DESAYUNO EN LA CAMA. Yay!

They also made bookmarks with a modified cover image to promote it.
Yay redux!

(And the beard is starting to grow back; a jet-lagged 5 o'clock shadow??)

Back in Madrid. Shaving seemed to help--at any rate, they stopped the bearded guys before or after me, but I went through with no problems. Random coincidence? Maybe.

In any event, am home, longer update after I collapse for a bit.
:-)

Another newly-scraped selfpic, this time with some of my lovely books in the background (Nancy Willard! and a lot of early Jonathan Carrol...) not to mention a black angel...

So I'm leaving for Madrid tomorrow--home at last! So much still to get done before I go. Including packing!

Most of today was taken up by the usual series of vexations of dealing with red tape downtown. I picked up a document from One Police Plaza, took it to the courts tohave it notarized, only it was missing a "live signature" so I had to go back to One Police Plaza, waiting on line again, and hand it back, wait for a sginature, schlepp back to the courthouse, wait on line, get it notarized, then go down to Williams Street to have an Apostille seal put on it, to make it valid internationally (and once I get back to Madrid it will need to be translated into Spanish by a sworn translator).

Otherwise, still working on the various projects, as if I didn't have enough to do with Life stuff and getting ready to travel, plus dealing with some new crises for some of them (such as suddenly needing to find new cover images for two books that were already announced, sigh).

Who has time to panic?

I'll do what I can get done. What I can't will have to wait until I'm back in Madrid and get over jet-lag.

I have been pushing myself too hard, I think, this trip. No down time!

At any rate, I miss reading. It has been over 17 days since I last read anything, which for me is far too long. I get moody and depressed when I don't read.

So I am taking a galley of Kelley Armstrong's BRON TO BE BROKEN with me for the flight. This is the sequel to her EXIT STRATEGY, featuring her female serial killer. While she's best-known for her Women of the Otherworld series (and there's a forthcoming collection of novellas focusing on the Men of the Otherworld coming out in a few months), I really liked her non-supernatural outing, which was once again grounded very much in the personal instead of being an epic battle between sorcerous cabals, with the fate of the world (more or less, depending on the book) at stake. (the series begins quite differently, since BITTEN is also a great story grounded in personal experience, in this case that of a woman who is turned into a werewolf; it's only by book three that the focus shifts from the close personal experience to the epic battles, and etc. and while I still enjoy them, they don't move me the way the other narratives do.)

May need a backup book, too, since I have the train out to Newark, plus the waiting time at the airport, plus the flight.

So I guess I do have my usual dilemma of what to bring with me in store.

But I'll put that off to tomorrow, I think. For now back to work for a bit.

I think I just sent off the last little details of an anthology to a publisher, but there's almost always something that I've forgotten (in this instance, I forgot my own bio as anthologist, oops, will send that now).

Alas, no time to rest or even rejoice, really, as I have another grossly overdue project that demands immediate attention.

Meanwhile, Richard and I have almost dotted all the Is and crossed all the Ts on SECOND PERSON QUEER.

And we've been tossing the Calls for Submission back and forth on two new projects I've hinted at but we're not yet ready to announce (although one we've already sent to the publisher to get their OK on and so will hopefully be able to formally announce this week).

So taking the time to write this post is, alas, as much down time as I get to relish having just finished a project, before diving into the next one.








OK, nice seeing y'all, but I've got to get back to work now.

(Sigh.)

(But it truly is a relief to have gotten through this at last and sent it off.)