What’s this Littsburgh stuff? You all thought I was West of Mars!

Well, I am BOTH. Littsburgh is the literary hub for us publishing folk in the city of Pittsburgh and maybe you missed it, but West of Mars definitely refers to the only city or town of Mars in the United States. The question I usually won’t answer is how far west of Mars I am, but that’s because I hate it when people show up on my doorstep. Of course, showing up on my back deck is even worse, so don’t do that, either. And before you go, “A-ha! I’ll use the garage,” know that’s where the boy’s bows are stored. Just sayin’.

So because I’m both West of Mars and a proud part of the Littsburgh community, Nick and Rachel and Katie were more than glad to feature me with a quick four-question interview about my story, “Undaunted,” in the Running Wild Anthology of Stories.

I know I’ve done other interviews and stuff about it already, but somehow, seeing myself up on Littsburgh, being an active part of the writerly community… it’s darn cool.

Check it out. If you haven’t picked up a copy for yourself, what are you waiting for?

June was, editorially, a slow month. For some reason I have yet to figure out, June ALWAYS is a slow month in terms of editing work.

But it gave me plenty of time to do other stuff — although not everything on my To Do list got started, let alone finished! — and one of those other things was making the media rounds. I hope you’re having as much fun with it as I am, because now I present to you some tips on feeding teens, compliments of US News and World Report.

It’s now mid-July and the summertime slam has begun, so this is probably it for a while, in terms of press. I’ve got manuscripts stacked up in the queue, which is a very very good thing. Keep that happening, keep sending in your own hard-crafted works, and keep referring me to your friends and colleagues. I’ll even take a few enemies, too, so long as they are mentally stable.

At the end of the day, I’m an editor and I love what I do. But it’s fun to fill the gaps with a little bit of press, even if it’s not press that’s directly about books and editing. That’ll come.