The PR folks at Farrar, Straus and Giroux asked if I'd do a publicity tour in the US some time this fall for THE GHOST IN LOVE. They said it would (tentatively) be in New York, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Austin, the San Francisco area, and Boston but there may be more stops and it's all subject to change. I'll keep you posted on things as they happen. This would probably be some time in October. I look forward to spare ribs and a good t-bone steak. And of course YOU.
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For you short fiction fans, I have a new story entitled NOTHING TO DECLARE in the latest issue of CONJUNCTIONS magazine, CONJUNCTIONS:50-- Fifty Contemporary Writers. It's their big fiftieth issue so they made it a good one with writers like John Ashbery, Richard Powers, William H. Gass
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this is wonderful:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=uuGaqLT-gO4

Almost every morning I see him hurrying up the sidewalk to who knows where. He's one of those homeless people who has turned some pivotal psychic corner into surrender or flat out madness. His hair has not been cut for what looks like a year, his clothes are tattered, the sole on one of his shoes is half-detached and flapping, the skin on his face is the color of a book that was once wet and then dried into a strange splotched gray. He never makes eye contact with anyone. He carries a bright yellow and red plastic bag from a supermarket that he uses to store stuff he finds digging in the trash baskets up and down the street. When he's not poking through the trash, he's always rushing somewhere. Every time I see him I wonder where are you always going in such a hurry, and what is in that bag today? What have you found that you think is worth taking home?
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"I do believe that you can never know yourself, let alone the person next to you, let alone the person halfway across the world. Yet at the same time, I believe there is nothing like fiction to fully thrust you into someone else's consciousness."

Nam Le
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interesting one from KW:

www.schoolofeverything.com

eBay is amazing. I have not even seen the finished cover of the American edition of THE GHOST IN LOVE, but I just learned some enterprising soul is already selling a bound galley of my new book on eBay. Come one, come all-- Buy your GHOST for only five dollah! Get it half a year before that masterpiece hits the stores! It's always interesting to see what these bound galleys fetch at auction. Some people collect them religiously-- the Completists. The ones who want every edition of every book by an author. Other people just like to read a favorite writer's new book as soon as it's available and the bound galley is usually the first one out. Aesthetically they're nice to hold and read-- the same size as the hardback, but with a soft cover they're less bulky. Plus how hip you are when seen on a bus reading the cool new novel *months* before anyone else gets to see it.
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Tonight my voice will stare at you forever...

I click on SEND,
And send you this perfumed, magic hour.

Frederick Seidel
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a weird one from BS:

http://colorwar2008.com/submissions/youngnow

Thanks to SS, here's that Thomas Lux poem I mentioned in the blog the other day:

"I Love You Sweatheart"

A man risked his life to write the words.
A man hung upside down (an idiot friend
holding his legs?) with spray paint
to write the words on a girder fifty feet above
a highway. And his beloved,
the next morning driving to work...?
His words are not (meant to be) so unique.
Does she recognize his handwriting?
Did he hint to her at her doorstep the night before
of "something special, darling, tomorrow"?
And did he call her at work
expecting her to faint with delight
at his celebration of her, his passion, his risk?
She will know I love her now,
the world will know my love for her!
A man risked his life to write the words.
Love is like this at the bone, we hope, love
is like this, Sweatheart, all sore and dumb
and dangerous, ignited, blessed-- always,
regardless, no exceptions,
always in blazing matters like these: blessed.

"I wait for you to come for me from everywhere."

Marc Chagall

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"You need a danger to be safe in."

Frederick Seidel