Mary of the Good Week

There are those weeks that just feel like they might do you in and then nice stuff happens and you feel like a jerk for not having any faith in the universe. Which is to say—I need to not WATCH ANY NEWS RELATED TO THE ELECTION. omg. Also you know–REJECTIONS at the same time.

Ladies and Gentlemen I am behind. Library wise? Going as fast as humanly possible. Still hoping to open on September 6.  There’s some bureaucratic snags. The curriculum director finally came down to look at the site (honestly we are a brisk 22 minutes from Capital City–it wasn’t that hard) and we hope she went away knowing that the books aren’t hers that they are indeed the communities and the kids.

Found out on Thursday that the corporation Dollar General bought up three pieces of property in downtown Greenville and plans to demolish them and build a box store to sell us merchandise from China–never once looking into whether an area that has less than 1000 people could possibly sustain that kind of store–especially when a good half of us plan to never step in there. One of the buildings going is kinda meh ugly. The other one that will be torn down has a brand new kitchen and was a popular restaurant till the chef got sick and died. We don’t need this store. They’ll make a giant parking lot , a box store, and shut down in a year when they realize they aren’t making any money. We’ll be left with an eyesore and they will get a tax right off.

But breathing because there are good things.

We had a great moment last week when a kid who was on track to drop out and have no use for the world walked into the library almost on a dare and realized that every graphic novel and Japanese manga he ever wanted to read was in there. (He was too cool for school and then left like a kid coming out of a candy store). We let him borrow the Death Note series.

The Roundhouse Council director and I talked about checking out a hundred books to let her rotate at the afterschool program the American Indian Education Center runs. My son goes to that program.  And then she told me they were headed to North Dakota which just made me beam proud and happy.

On the way home from Los Angeles on Wednesday, I picked up the YA novel I started last year and edited the first 50 pages. So as long as I stay away from school bureaucracy and the election I’m okay.

And then this happened:

Mary of the Chance Encounters is OUT! My audiobook! Yay. I will have hard copies delivered to the house sometime soon but at the moment one can download and listen there. Yay!My family hates this photo for the book. That’s me face down in the ashes around Whittier Narrows after a fire. Photograph by

So … I hear the audiobook CD of Mary of the Chance Encounters will be out this coming week! YAY! I’m sure all of you authors out there can relate to  the frustration/joy of a new release–I become like a kid before Christmas. It’s coming! But WHEN?!