News

The kick off for STRANGE CANDY was a nicely subdued affair. Jon and I dressed up. He did a suit and I even did stiletto heels. The crowd was about two hundred people. It’s the smallest kick off event we’ve had in years. This was also the first time we’d had a short story anthology instead of one of the series books. The book is selling really well, but people just didn’t feel compelled to come out and play. Or it maybe that this is the third event we’ve had in St. Louis this year. We did MICAH in February or March. We did DANSE MACABRE in June. It’s only October, and here we are again. I actually had at least three people explain why their usual friends weren’t with them, they said, “They’ll catch me next time.” I found the same thing, sort of, on the third event in Minneapolis when we did the comic book special preview, smaller crowds. I guess it’s the same reason when bands tour they don’t keep doing the same city in the same year over and over, no matter how much people love your work, they just grow accustomed to the idea that they can catch you next time. But because of it, all of us got out of there before ten o’clock. It was unheard of. We’d also, Jon and I, gone ahead of time and signed lots of stock. The store manager said they’d had people come in earlier that day and just want a signed book. They didn’t want to stand in line for four or more hours. I can’t blame them. But because so many of you guys didn’t want to stand in line for four hours, the rest of us didn’t have to. So many familiar faces remarked over and over, how nice it was that it was so quick. It was nice. I suppose there are writers that would have been upset at a smaller crowd, but they have to be writers that have not done four hundred, or more people night after night. You try signing two books per person, every night for six weeks with crowds at around that size, see how you stand up under the sheer physical demand of it. Jon and I are secure enough to let this one be a smaller signing. Though, it makes me wonder what the con this weekend is going to be like. Jon and I are hitting Archon this weekend for the first time in years, like six or seven years. I think six. Now I’m thinking that even though we haven’t done the con in years that most of the people that wanted to stand in line, or see me, will have had their fill of me. We’ll see. But I think that the kick-off for MISTRAL’S KISS in December will be in a different city than St. Louis. We’ll see how Archon goes, but I think we’ll give everybody here a pass in December. We’ll do some place warm where we won’t get snowed in.