Galleys arrived yesterday, and they are beautiful. Some of these stories date back six years now, but to see them here, printed in something very much like a real book, is a thrill. See for yourself.

As I write this, we are still three and a half months out from publication of The Book of Life, enough time for it not to seem too real, but close enough that things like this are happening: a colorful website! And – notice the absence of an exclamation – a blog. Writers far more industrious and fearless than I have found good use for blogs, and I will leave the confessions, declarations, polemics, trivialities, recipes, family photographs, and commiserations to them. What will exist here is something I still haven’t figured out, although I suspect it will, over time, become filled with something vaguely interesting, or at least, updated infrequently with some pretty pictures to look at. That’s the hope, I guess.

It’s worth saying, though, that this website is a gift from the brilliant Mike Fusco, whose M+E Design is a wonder. Everyone should be so lucky to have such talented friends. Please go to their website and buy something from them.

And because it seems to be the thing to do, I’ll include a picture here of what I’m working on at the moment. This is the current manuscript of my first novel, and my next book, Wise Men, which is undergoing a last, minor tweak, and which will see the light of a bookstore some time in early 2013. First, I have to get through all the stickies.