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The wolf howl was wonderful, as always. They had a bumper crop of puppies this year at the Wild Canid Survival Center so when we went into the woods to try and get the wolves to howl for us, the puppies were sooo cute. They can’t quite howl yet, so they barked, barked, barked, barked.
We started the evening as all the wolf howls start with me reading from the next not published book. I read from DANSE MACABRE the next Anita book. Read the first sixty-two pages, which was all I brought with me. We didn’t do the question and answer session first which left us with about fifteen minutes extra to read, but since it’s one of the few times people voted for reading instead of Q and A, well, it caught me off-guard, so not enough pages. Truthfully, though most of the rest of the book is so full of spoilers, that I’m not sure I could have read from it. Of course, the book sort of begins with spoilers, but since the first chapter is going to be in the back of the paper back edition of INCUBUS DREAMS, I figured it would be okay. It wasn’t until the next day that I realized that actually the novel-lite MICAH will be published next, so I could actually have read from that. I’m just not accustomed to having so many things pubbing so close together. It’s cool, but it’s sort of hard to keep track.
Darla suggested that we might do a similar event for some other outdoorsey charity. If we do it, then I’ll read from the novel-lite. One of the reasons that Darla suggested it is she found out there were two-hundred people on the waiting list to try for tickets to the wolf howl. Because the place is an actual breeding facility for endangered wild canids they don’t allow too many people into it at a time for fear of spooking the wolves. Also the wolves are less likely to howl to a huge group. So they limit the number of people to a little over a hundred at one time. The exception to that is the open house they have I believe once a year, but they are careful to time it when there is no active breeding going on for the wolves.
This was the first reading at high summer, so it was light. I didn’t have to read by camp fire and flashlight. No camp fire at all, not in a hundred degrees worth of heat. The other two times I believe were autumn, and winter. Though the winter howl may not have been me reading, but just me going with my family to a howl. They do those, too. Volunteers will tell wolf oriented folk stories, and then you all walk into the dark to try and get the wolves to howl. No guarantees on the howling. The wolves aren’t trick animals, they are wild animals that howl when they want to. We’ve been very lucky each time and had them howl. Standing in the dark with the voices of the wolves rising around us is one of the most amazing experiences.
For those who saw us in Chicago at the ALA, I was off the cane and walking relatively normally. Though I wore the flat combat style boots, and am still only able to wear jogging shoes or the one pair of boots. Anything else still torks my knee. Ah, well.