Archive for the 'My Travels' Category

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Back to Blighty!

Hello my friends! It’s now Sunday evening of my first weekend back in London, and I’m happy as a pig in shit. Which I’m told makes for a very happy pig, although I really don’t know if that’s true. But I do know I’m one happy Nikki.

The flight over was fine, although I did arrive to a bit of a debacle with the keys to my holiday flat, as I blogged about over at the Pens. But it was sorted out by early evening, and within a few hours I was unpacked and ready to start cooking for my friends.

I have a secret, paradoxical domestic streak. I don’t think I want children, and I’m ambivalent about marriage as an institution, but I love nothing more than making people food and serving them and pouring them drinks and making sure they’re comfortable. It’s odd, and I have no idea where it comes from, but I’ve learned to embrace my strange drive to nestle people into my domestic bosom. So within hours of unpacking I had my lovely friends Ruth and Linda over, as well as Linda’s brother who was visiting from Dublin. All I did was make salad and heat up pizza, but it was so nice to catch up and know I didn’t have to run around that night. Then we had delicious cherries and pots of delicious chocolate ganache, which was heavenly.

The next day I had a proper day out with Ruth, and our friends visiting from Edinburgh, Sarah and Robin. We went to Hampton Palace, which was Henry VIII’s stomping grounds. Indeed, Dr. Ruth has become rather obsessed with the Tudors, the TV series, and she especially enjoyed all the large-booted stomping performed by the actor playing Henry.

It was a gorgeous day out, and a great day for a picnic on the front lawn:

After which, we did the whole palace and gardens. I really enjoyed it, although there were a few rooms in which they piped in “authentic” sounds and smells. I was fine with the sounds, but the faux-beef stew smell in the first rooms of the kitchens nearly made me hurl. Any nausea, however, was quickly eradicated by the rest of the kitchens, which had live cooking demos with recipes from the time. Not only were the demos interesting, but all of the cooks were sporting proper period costumes, including these padded cod pieces that looked incredibly, hilariously vulgar underneath their aprons. It was a definite moment of “Is that a rolling pin under your apron or are you just happy to see me?”

As usual, we were definitely the least mature people in the room, and couldn’t stop giggling. But all in all the palace was gorgeous, and very inspiring. I especially liked the maze:

And here’s a picture from the gardens that is actually a cryptic spoiler from book 5, Tempest’s Fury:

After leaving Hampton Palace, we headed back to Islington and one of my favorite restaurants here, the Afghan Kitchen. It’s tiny and super cheap and I adore it. We ate ridiculous amounts of food, then headed down the street for one last drink at the pub:

It was a place I’ve been to often with Dr. Ruth, and it was nice to be back with her:

We went our separate ways after that, but Ruth and I were back at Waterloo Station the next day to head out to Whitton for a BBQ at the house of Dr. and Mrs. Whisky, and the Wee Dram. It was a lovely long day spent with good friends, and I had such a great time. The Whiskys are great, and Dr. Whisky has been very busy with his new job as Global Ambassador of Balvenie. Not too shabby, right? Meanwhile, Mrs. Whisky is expecting ANOTHER Wee Dram, so she’s not been slacking off, either.

Another uni friend, Steve, was also in attendance, and he’s been doing awesome work studying glaciars in Greenland. It was great to catch up with everyone and find out what everyone’s up to. I’m lucky to have such fascinating friends, and the conversation ranged from places to visit in Austin, TX, to the drinking culture in Korea.

Tomorrow I’ve got to get some writing done, but in the evening my friend Jo is coming round to stay for a few days. I can’t wait to catch up, again. Then I should have a fairly quiet (and hopefully productive) week till the weekend, when we’re throwing Mrs. Whisky a baby shower.

So all is going very well here, and I’m so happy I’ve come over. I’m sure I’ll have some more updates for you shortly, including some very exciting things that are happening over in the UK with Jane and her series. I’ll let you know as soon as I can!

Now, however, it’s time for some sleep. Book five calls, and I might be writing a very sexy scene with Jane and a certain someone . . . who do you hope that someone might be?

OH, and Happy Fourth of July!!! Watch some fireworks for me!

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Published on July 4, 2011 in My Travels and Over at Pens . . .. 3 Comments Tags: , , , .

The Tour: Snarking LA-TEX

Hello mah beauties!

I’m writing to you from Shreveport, where I am recovering from our Snark-La-Tex tour with the gracious care of my good friend Mary Lois and her husband, Doug. They keep feeding me and carting me places, bless them.

The tour, itself, was fabulous. Here’s a rundown from me, but you can also get more narrative over at Jaye’s site. I arrived the day of our first signing, last Sunday, in Dallas. Jaye picked Mary Lois and me up at the aiport, as ML tagged along as our driver/bodyguard/handler. It was so much fun to have her, and she totally saved our asses in Baton Rouge, but more on that later.

We started out our roadtrip by Jaye taking us to a place called Fuzzy Tacos. I love good food with stupid names, so I was in heaven. We then cleaned up and went to our signing at the Borders in Allen, TX, right outside of Dallas. The store was gorgeous, and we had a great turnout. You may recognize Dakota Cassidy, Renee George, and Michele Bardsley sitting front and center, in all of their splendor.

The staff at Borders were awesome, as was the audience. I met loads of people I’ve been tweeting or Facebooking with for a while, which is always fun. There was also a great turn out of book bloggers and reviewers. So fun!

After the signing, we headed out with Jaye’s husband and son, Michele, Dakota, and Renee to another Mexican restaurant (I’m making up for the horrible Mexican around where I live). This one, however, is famous for margaritas so potent you’re only allowed two or you’re taking a taxi. The conversation was about as raunchy as you might imagine, and it was great to catch up with Dakota, Michele, and Renee, three of my favorite people.

The next morning found us, rather unsurprisingly, EATING AGAIN. This time we went to Cafe Brazil, which has the most amazing chorizo empanadas. After fattening up, we drove to Austin. I’d never been, and it was such a cool city. First we met up with an Austin librarian, David, and his wife, Marlena, both avid readers. They were unbelievably generous and took us to a gorgeous restaurant named Bess’s Bistro. It’s owned by Sandra Bullock, so we were certainly not the biggest celebrities they’d every seen, but we were still treated royally. The food was delicious and the aesthetic of the place really great, so I highly recommend it.

After dinner, we headed to one of the coolest indie bookstores evah, BookPeople. We were definitely small fry for a bookstore that hosts such celebrities as Simon Pegg, but you wouldn’t know it from the way we were treated: like gold. They were so nice and so very, very welcoming. There was even a marquee!

And tons of other pimpage, including very cool posters they’d whipped up:

The space in which they do their signings is lovely, and we felt very professional. Or at least as professional as Jaye and I can feel, which is not all that professional, really.

We did readings, and then some Q&A:

And thanks to Pam (SpazP on twitter) for the gorgeous photos. She’s not so shabby herself (hubba hubba!).

After our signing, Jaye and I bought a metric fuck-ton of mustaches. Why? You’ll see! We also found this AMAZING MASK:

We realized later we missed a golden opportunity to stage a cock fight, which MUST HAPPEN the next time we hit BookPeople. I’m sure they’re thrilled at that idea. ;-)

The day after our Austin signing, we headed to Houston and one of our all-time favorite indies, Murder by the Book. John from the bookstore was sweet (or perhaps crazy) enough to let us stay at his house, and he and his partner Matt were the perfect hosts. Their house is gorgeous and cozy, and they could not have been sweeter.

Mary Lois did nearly steal their cats, but that’s another story.

The signing, itself, was a hoot. As I said, we bought lots of mustaches in Austin, and we put them to good use in Houston . . . by making everyone in the store wear one. The view from the front was awesomely mustache-tastic:

But I’m fairly certain the view from the audience was equally (if not more) ridiculous:

Just putting them on was a challenge, as we were giggling so hard:

But the effect was awesome, and it was great that the Murder by the Book people also played along. Here’s John looking verreh handsome in his ‘tache:

And here’s ML, Jaye and I posing in all our hirsute glory:

Mary Lois, for one, looked rather nice in her hipster ‘tache. Meanwhile, the signing itself was great. The audience was SO good-natured about being asked to wear things on their face, and they were so funny and fun about it. I also met some people I’ve been tweeting with for awhile, although one girl stayed incognito by not reminding me of her Twitter handle! (glares at @lobsterbandita)

She was already wearing a mustache, would I really have embarrassed her further??

After dinner, we went out to the amazing restaurant, Mockingbird Bistro, where ML and I had gone the last time I had a signing at Murder by the Book. I loved it then, and loved it just as much this time. Besides Matt and John, my very talented mentee from SHU’s MFA, Elle Stone, came with us to dinner. Her awesome first book, a YA fantasy, is currently on submission to editors, so I’m keeping all my body parts crossed for her. Not that I think she’ll need it: the book is phenomenal.

We had a great deal of food, but also a few cocktails . . . which were very, very strong cocktails. I’d become rather obsessed with the tattoo of one of the ladies at the Borders in Allen, TX, which was of a mustache on her finger, so she could be in disguise whenever she felt like it. I’d seen them before, but something about this ‘tache just really resonated with me. And after a few cocktails, somehow there were all sorts of jokes about finger ‘taches, and poon (I have no idea how that happened), which morphed into the idea of “poonstache,” and then we decided our next tour would be called Poonstache 2012, and then it went downhill from there. We closed out the restaurant after nearly howling down its walls with laughter, and with my being firmly committed to getting my own mustache tattoo.

Which brings us to New Orleans.

Obviously, much debauchery happened in New Orleans, right? Including that tattoo, right? We did hit Decataur, and Coop’s, hard, having a few drinks and feeling our oats. Unfortunately, we made the wrong decision after that and ended up at my favorite NOLA eatery, Muriel’s. Now, don’t get me wrong, Muriel’s was as delicious as ever. But we ate ourselves into a COMA and it was all we could do to drag our sorry behinds back to our hotel and go to bed. At 11:00 pm. In New Orleans, city of sin. It was pathetic!

But dinner was delicious, and we were up nice and early to work out and then undo the workout by eating beignets. Then we spent a delicious afternoon in the quarter, buying chicken feet from voodoo shops and clothing from Trashy Diva. As one does.

Then we went to Baton Rouge. Or we tried to. The drive was easy, up until we hit the city that, historically, I’ve always breezed through driving to and from NOLA. But not this time! A combination of crazy construction and some flooding in other parts of the city meant that everyone, their mama, and their voodoo priestess were on the highway. Jaye did a great job blogging the gritty details, but suffice it to say that Mary Lois totally saved our butts by taking us a ninja back route and getting us to the store only one minute late.

But it was worth it! The Baton Rouge Books-A-Million was very fun, and its employees Randolph and Pepper were super. Randolph also told us about a great place to go for dinner, Red Zeppelin Pizza, which was delish. Handily, right across the street from the pizza join was a tattoo parlor! And what more does a mustache-themed book tour need than a mustache tattoo???

Atomic Tatto was a great studio, much to Jaye’s relief. I loved the guy who did  my tat: he was all squirrely, offbeat, and wry (also probably very high). And he did a beautiful job! Here’s the finished ‘tach:

I didn’t think the tattoo hurt, but then I’m a bit of a piercing champ. So those needles compared to tattoo needles is nothing. It’s healing up well and I still am endlessly amused by it, so I’m happy.

The next morning we headed out for our last stop, Shreveport. It was so nice to be back! We had a lovely crowd full of old friends and familiar faces from other signings. That said, I think both Jaye and me were just about running on fumes.

Not that we didn’t get a kick out of reading some raunchy self-help guides:

After the signing, we went to the Noble Savage, where Chef and Lee knew just what I needed:

The lovely dram on the right is Adelphi’s Breath of Islay (pronounced EYE-LA, btw), and the golden beauty on the left is a Laphroig (pronnounced LA-FROY) 18-year-old that Chef brought out specially for me. I love the Savage.

We ate meat pies, drank Scotch, and listened to Chef’s partner, Angela, regale us with hilarious stories. It was lovely seeing my friends from Shreveport, whom I’ve missed very much.

Tomorrow, however, I’m returning home to Pittsburgh. My friend, Wendell, is my knight in shining armor and driving me all the way to Dallas for my flight. Thanks, Wendell!

Once home, I plan on embarking on a strict regime of exercising and writing book five. I’ll let you know how that goes. ;-)

Finally, don’t forget there’s still time to enter my contest to win one of Kat Richardson’s Greywalker books. Details are here.

Talk to y’all when I get back! In the meantime, be good. Unless you want to be naughty. Then feel free.

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Published on May 24, 2011 in Appearances, My Travels, Signings and SNARK-LA-TEX. 5 Comments Tags: , , .

Update and Guest Blog from KAT RICHARDSON!

Hello lovelies!

I’m updating you from a hotel room in Baton Rouge. Snark-La-Tex has been a BLAST. Seriously, it could not have gone better. We had fun turnouts in awesome bookstores, and we’ve had so much fun together. Everyone’s asked, “Have you killed each other yet?”, which couldn’t be further from the truth. We’ve had an awesome time, laughing our way through everything.

There has been a lot of eating, a lot of snarking, a ridiculous amount of swearing, and a tattoo. Whose? Where? You’ll just have to wait if you don’t follow me on Facebook or Twitter. ;-)

I’ll blog the whole tour soon enough, when it’s over. Tonight we have our last signing in Shreveport, at the Barnes &  Noble on Youree, at 7pm. Be there or be square.

But now I’ve got a special treat for you, a guest post from Kat Richardson who has done a very cool walking audio tour for her books. Kat’s books are set in Seattle, so if you’re a visiting fan these tours have to be a must-do on your list!

Here’s Kat!

Playing Tourist in Harper Blaine’s Neighborhood

Nikki, being the fab human that she is, asked if I’d say something about the walking tour I put together recently for YodioTours.com. Well, OK, because I’m always one to toot my own horn if someone is fool enough to ask.

Which is kind of how the whole thing started—Clay Loges asked me if I’d like to make a tour based on my Greywalker books for his new service and since it was a chance to get some more exposure in a new way, I said “sure!” Clay had been referred to me by the staff at Seattle Mystery Bookshop who are the best book-pimps money can’t buy. I just love those guys.

So I walked around, took photos, wrote the script, edited the script with Clay’s help and then recorded the audio once we’d got all the photos and the script set to our satisfaction. It was fun to take a look around the neighborhood again since it had been a while since I’d spent much time in Pioneer Square. The books had started out there, but the later ones had often gone out on vacation to other parts of town or even other towns and I’d almost forgotten some of the things that had made me love the historic district to begin with. So I guess I’m back in love with my character’s old stomping grounds. It’s nice when a new project reminds you how much you loved the old ones.

If you want to take a look, the tour is up at YodioTours.com (http://www.yodiotours.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=35&Itemid=164) and you can view it online or download it to your phone and follow along, when you visit Seattle.

Thanks to Nikki for letting my squat in her blog like this—she’s the best!

I AM the best, Kat. ;-) But seriously, thanks for posting and this walking tour is such a great idea. In fact, I’m so psyched about this idea that if you comment about which other series of books you’d think would make a great walking tour, and why, I’ll enter you into a contest to win the book of your choice from Kat’s Greywalker series. Sound good? So comment on this blog post, and if you win then you can pick any of Kat’s Greywalker books and I’ll have it Amazoned to you. ;-) If you’ve never tried this series, I think you’ll love it. I’ll draw the winner next Friday, May 27th.

So comment away and thanks for blogging, Kat! I’ll blog myself soon about the tour (the tats and the plans for Poonstache 2012). But if you miss me that much, you can finally see my debut post at Pens Fatales, on carpeing your diems. ;-)

See all you Shreveporters shortly!

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Published on May 20, 2011 in Appearances, Contests, Guest Blogs, My Travels, Over at Pens . . . and Signings. 9 Comments Tags: , .

Pop the Champagne!

And feel free to call it “champag-nah!”

For I finished grading today! I also knocked out a massive chunk of my to-do list, including deciding what texts to use for my literature course (writing about literature) next semester. It’s a writing intensive course, so there’s not too much we can do, but here’s what I chose:

Don Delillo’s White Noise

Angela Cater The Bloody Chamber and Other  Stories

Henry James The Turn of the Screw

Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author

And an antho of poetry, plus the readings from the textbook.

So I’m very excited! White Noise is one of my all time favorite books, and it’s great to study with English majors, not least as it makes so much fun of academia. I also have a near obsessive love of The Turn of the Screw, but I’m sure there’s a pill for that on the market by now. I’m really excited to teach Carter, as I’ve not taught her before, but I think she’ll BLOW SOME MINDS. ;-) And who doesn’t love Pirandello? I mean, really?

And meanwhile, what finishing all of this means is that I get to be an AUTHOR again. The deadline for Tempest’s Fury is alarmingly close (like nibbling on the nape of my neck close), but I’ll be jumping back into Full Author Mode with a book tour. So by the time that’s done I should be totally recharged and ready to write! After a nap. For those of you who are like, “Book tour? What book tour?”, Jaye Wells and I are going to be all over Texas and Louisiana, swarming like ants on the ass of a dead armadillah. Here’s the roster if you’re interested:

Sunday, May 15th — DALLAS, TX

4:00 pm, Borders (965 West Bethany Dr., Allen, TX 75013)

Monday, May 16th –  AUSTIN, TX

7:00 pm, BookPeople (603 North Lamar Boulevard, Austin, TX 78703)

Tuesday, May 17th — HOUSTON, TX

6:30 pm, Murder By The Book (2342 Bissonnet St., Houston TX, 77005)

Thursday, May, 19th — BATON ROUGE, LA

6:30 pm, Books-A-Million (2380 Towne Center Blvd, Baton Rouge, LA, 70806)

Friday, May 20th –  SHREVEPORT, LA

7:00 PM, Barnes & Noble (Bayou Walk, 6646 Youree Drive, Shreveport, LA, 71105)

Jaye and I will be doing all sorts of stupid shit with each other’s books, because we get bored doing regular readings. You can also meet the infamous Mary Lois, from Shreveport, who is serving as our Turtle.

You have to get through her, people.

So that’s what I’ll be doing Sunday! Friday and Saturday will be taken up with last minute crazy prep for the tour, plus graduation and the two solid days of activities that it entails.

But then I’ll be FREEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!

Man I love being a teacher. :-D

In the meantime, let me know if there’s something you think would be really funny if Jaye & I do on the tour, or what you’d like to know about touring. I’m gonna try to take lots of pictures (read, make ML take lots of pictures), so that we can do some major Bloggage. ;-)

See y’all on the flipside!

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Published on May 13, 2011 in Appearances, Day Job!, My Travels, Signings and SNARK-LA-TEX. 4 Comments Tags: .

Update and a WIENER!

Hello mah beauties!

I hope you’re well! I’m fighting off a bit of a cold I picked up at JFK. I swear, every time I fly through that airport I get sick. I can’t complain too much, though, as this is just a head cold. That last time I went to London through JFK, I picked up what I think might have been ebola, and spread it all around to friends in the UK and then back to my colleagues in PA when I returned. They claimed I was the Outbreak monkey, and they are, realistically, correct.

But DC was wonderful, and it was lovely to spend time with my parents. My dad sat at the hotel while my mom and I wandered around the city. And by “wandered,” I mean walked for miles and miles and miles. It’s a fabulous place though, and it was great spending quality time with Rella.

As for me, I’m working slowly but surely away at Tempest’s Fury, and finishing up all my grading for the end of the year. I’ve got one class done, and just three big things to grade before I’m finished! It’s still quite a bit of work, but totally doable.

And then on Sunday, I leave for Dallas, to join Jaye Wells for our SNARK-LA-TEX tour. If you’re in Louisiana or Texas, we might be near you next week!

We’ll have Mary Lois, our Turtle, with us, so hopefully she’ll take lots of pictures. You got a camera, ML?

Our goals for the tour are to have a) a buttload of fun and b) not get arrested. Although Jaye keeps reminding me that we also want to sell a lot of books, so that’s c) sell a lot of books (while having fun and not getting arrested).

I’m very excited to be back in the South, and especially to spend some time with my friends in Shreveport after the tour.

So that’s the next few weeks of my life! Typically busy, crazy, and fun…hurrah! I hope to see some of you on the tour, and for those of you who can’t make it, I’ll try to blog lots and remember, you can always email me at iheartselkies(at)gmail(dot)com for a signed bookplate.

But speaking of books, I know what you really want . . . to know who won a signed copy of Kevin Hearne’s Hounded!

The contest can has spoken!

And the wiener is Damaris T!

Congrats to Damaris. Email me at iheartselkies(at)gmail(dot)com and I’ll forward your info to Kevin.

Thanks everyone for playing. You all had great entries, some of which I’m still giggling over.

See you soon, and come play if you’re in LA or TX! ;-)

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Published on May 10, 2011 in Appearances, Contests, My Travels, Signings and SNARK-LA-TEX. 2 Comments

It’s Almost Time for Romantic Times!

Howdy folks! I hope you are all doing well.

Here at Casa Peeler I’m gearing up for the 2011 Romantic Times Convention! Unfortunately, not as many Leaguers are going this year as last year, but we’ve still got a fair few, including me, Jaye Wells, Allison Pang, Jackie Kessler, Jeanne Stein, Richelle Mead, Molly Harper, Diana Rowland, and Keri Arthur. Other writer friends I’m stupidly excited to see include Rachael Herron, Juliet  Blackwell, and Sophie Littleton.

My editor, Devi Pillai, will also be going, as will my agent, Rebecca Strauss. I’m super excited to see both of them, obviously, not least as this is Rebecca’s first RT.

My friend from Shreveport, Mary Lois, is also flying in and rooming with Jaye and me, so that will rock!

Here’s my schedule:

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 6

SOCIAL MEDIA: Social Networking for Dummies and How to Master It
Date: 2011-04-06
Time: 02:15 pm – 03:15 pm
Location: Los Cerritos

THURSDAY, APRIL 7th

Club RT 9:30 am & 10:00 am

CLUB RT BASKET: League of Reluctant Adults

Friday April 8

SOCIAL MEDIA: It’s A Blogger’s World
Date: 2011-04-08
Time: 10:00 am – 11:00 am
Location: San Pedro

URBAN FANTASY: Keeping Romance Hot in an Urban Fantasy Series
Date: 2011-04-08
Time: 11:15 am – 12:15 pm
Location: San Gariel C

SATURDAY, APRIL 9

Giant Bookfair 11:00 am – 02:00 pm (this event is open to the public!)

So that’s my schedule, folks! If you want to see my agent in action, here’s Rebecca’s panel info:

AGENTS’ PANEL: MEET THE AGENTS
Date: 2011-04-07
Time: 01:30 pm – 02:30 pm
Location: Santa Barbara A & B

I will definitely be there making funny faces at her from the audience!

But this doesn’t answer your REAL question, does it? Namely . . . “So what are you wearing??”

I will definitely be wearing my new hair, as it’s attached to my head:

And here’s a sneak peek of my FAVORITE outfit I’m bringing:

I’m so excited! And I hope to see you there!!!!!! LA or bust, baby! ;-)

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Published on April 4, 2011 in Appearances and My Travels. 0 Comments Tags: .

Book Tour News: Who’s Afraid of SNARK-LA-TEX??

In today’s big, exciting announcement, I’d like to warn anyone who lives in or near Texas or Louisiana: Jaye Wells and I are coming to gitcha!

It’s the SNARK-LA-TEX Book Tour! Come for the signing, stay for the snark!

Sunday, May 15th — DALLAS, TX

4:00 pm, Borders (965 West Bethany Dr., Allen, TX 75013)

Monday, May 16th –  AUSTIN, TX

7:00 pm, BookPeople (603 North Lamar Boulevard, Austin, TX 78703)

Tuesday, May 17th — HOUSTON, TX

6:30 pm, Murder By The Book (2342 Bissonnet St., Houston TX, 77005)

Thursday, May, 19th — BATON ROUGE, LA

6:30 pm, Books-A-Million (2380 Towne Center Blvd, Baton Rouge, LA, 70806)

Friday, May 20th –  SHREVEPORT, LA

7:00 PM, Barnes & Noble (Bayou Walk, 6646 Youree Drive, Shreveport, LA, 71105)

We’ll be reading, answering questions, and probably saying something offensive. So strap on your snark and come play!

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Published on March 31, 2011 in Appearances, My Travels and Signings. 8 Comments Tags: , .

Eurovision 2011!

Why hello there! I’m trapped in JFK, having “missed” my flight to Pittsburgh due to a series of clusterfuck conditions at Heathrow and at JFK. I say “missed” as I was actually at my original flight’s gate before it even began boarding, but I’d already been helpfully checked onto the 9 pm flight. And by “helpfully,” I mean I’ve seen better service on Cops, when they run down men wearing their underpants.

Anyway, I’m trying to kill some time by blogging, but realistically that means shite will pour forth from my exhausted brain, onto my laptop, and directly to you! Awesome!

But I really need to pull up my big girl pants and not complain. Up until the horror which has been Delta’s customer service, I’ve had an absolutely amazing trip.

For those of you who haven’t seen my travels with Dr. Ruth, she’s the photographer. Meaning that the night we were in Paris, we have over 200 beautiful photos. For the rest of my trip, when I was on my own? I think I have one fuzzy iPhone photo of an off-center cooked breakfast. Pathetic!

So I hope you enjoy the Paris photos, but I can’t take any credit. They were all Dr. Ruth’s!

Here we are at the EuroStar, waiting for the train. Everyone looks very glamorous! You’ll be seeing this “cafe configuration,” as I like to call it, quite a bit in these photos.

And here we are! On the banks of the Seine. The train ride is ridiculously short, and does not go through Wales. Also, if you ask your Europeans friends (with their much firmer grasp on geography) whether you’ll be going through Wales, they will mock you. From left to right, we have Mrs. Whisky, representing Norway; me, representing either oompah loompahs or the USA, depending on whom I’m standing next to in a photo; Dr. Ruth, representing England and Wales (which you do not go through on the Eurostar), Judith, or Yoooo-deeeee, representing the Netherlands; and Linda, representing both Ireland, and Salim in that one reading my friends did for me. Such pretty ladies!

Here we have another cafe configuration, this one con blankets. I’m practicing my French, which I’m ashamed to say was absolute pants. Apparently, two years of high school french over a decade ago gets you bupkes in the field.

Here we have the ubiquitous “upward photo” shot:

And the  ubiquitous Louvre, “Look, that’s where Mary Magdalene is buried!” shot:

With another at night, just to keep it real:

Keeping in mind that between the five us girls there are about 97 degrees ranging from physics to sexual health, you might wonder what cultural things we got up to. Well, we made Linda act like an Egyptian:

But she wasn’t Egyptian enough for Ruth, who had to intervene:

There may have been some molesting of statuary:

Someone (Dr. Ruth) might have pointed at a fountain and said, “Who wants to pretend she’s peeing!” And someone (Dr. Peeler) might have said, “Me! Me!”:

Obviously, none of these things can be blamed on the drinking of many kir royales and pastises:

Or the two helpings of abused goose I managed to cram into my gob on the first day we were there. Here’s round two. And yes, Mrs. Whisky’s starter featured a shot of vodka. How very Scandinavian!

The steak frites was amazing, and enjoyed by all:

And, admittedly, quite a few croissants were abused in the photographing of this trip:

We did have a few moments of serious contemplation of Paris’s incredible beauty:

And there were a few monuments too large for us to mess with:

But the best part of this trip was being with my beautiful friends, who make me so very, very happy.

Ruth says it all with this lovely smile in front of the Eiffel Tower:

There was much catching up, and gossiping, and sharing. I dont’ know what we were talking about here, but it must have been intense:

I think this looks like a still from a soap opera. Cracks me up! Finally, the whole whirlwind trip can be summed up by these two photos. Now you see it; now you don’t:

Mmmm. Fondant.

Anyway, the trip was gorgeous. We got back to London late evening, and the next morning Ruth and I went for a full English breakfast. Then I went to grab a train up to visit another friend, leaving Ruth to her work week. I had a brilliant time in the frozen North: totally relaxed and louche. We did nothing, which is exactly what I needed. A few wee wanders, much watching of movies in our skivvies, and a few nice meals with lovely conversation. Brilliant!

Then I returned to London, where I had one last meal with Dr. Ruth. This morning, very early, I was up to get to Heathrow. Where Delta commenced screwing me silly. So right now I may smell like a goat, and I’m absolutely dreading the 11:30 pm drive back to Greensburg, but the trip was lovely. I’m so privileged to have such amazing people in my life, and to be able to visit such beautiful cultures. And to eat their food in copious quantities.

And despite sitting in the Sartrean hell which is JFK, I was also very, very thrilled to see some of my favorite book bloggers have made themselves into Peeler’s Cheerleaders. They’re adorable:

Jessica, aka the SPINECRACKER (rawr!) has a contest to win Tempest Rising attached to the post, as they’ve made it their mission to wrangle me more fans. Which I appreciate very, very much. You girls are lovely, and I’m so glad I get to meet some of you at AAD, and hopefully more of you at RT! I’d give you big sloppy goat kisses but I’m thinking I should just say, “thanks,” and maybe buy you a bevvie.

All right, I am about to melt into some sort of primordial goo, so I’d better sort myself a coffee and a walkabout. Maybe throw a temper tantrum. Or write a strongly worded letter to Delta, using copious amounts of metaphor and simile.

It’s been a long day. See you in a few, after mucho zzzzzzzzzs. Don’t forget you still have time to enter to win the contests on this page. Just scroll down a few entries!

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Published on January 21, 2011 in Contests, Food!, My Travels and Nicole Peeler. 11 Comments

London Calling…

Hello my pretties! This is just a brief update post before I leave tonight for London. I’m so excited to see my friends, it’s a little ridiculous.

First of all, here are a couple of great reviews of Jane. Abigail at All Things Urban Fantasy enjoyed Jane, as did Amanda at Floor to Ceiling Books.

Paul Goat Allen, the paranormal reviewer/blogger for Barnes and Noble, also wrote an absolutely gorgeous review of Tempest’s Legacy, in which he says, “Jane is such a great character – she is definitely paranormal fantasy’s “It Girl” – she’s spunky, naïve, idealistic, courageous, funny, and incredibly sexy in her own way.” I think that about sums up Jane, and it was so lovely to read. Thank you, Paul!

You can also join the Barnes and Noble discussion about Tempest’s Legacy, here.

Orbit’s also put up this adorable advertisement over at Smart Bitches:

It links over to a sample chapter of Legacy… one of my favorites in the book!

I think that’s it for Jane! If I’ve missed something, give me a shout. As for me, it’s been a very hectic and very rewarding week at our MFA residency. Here’s a pic of all the students at the first evening’s reception:

And here’s a pic of all our graduates on SHU’s lovely grand staircase:

It was my first “real” residency–I’d attended the last one, but more as an observer. And it was so much fun, this time. I loved the teaching, and the students are wonderful. I’m so happy for the graduates, and any sadness about their leaving is mitigated by the fact they always come back for a summer retreat that runs parallel to our summer residency. In other words, people, if you come to SHU for our MFA, know this: you apparently never, ever leave. Which I think says a lot for the program.

And if you’re curious about my other hat, the academic one, here’s an article I did for Beatrice.com on the recent Huckleberry Finn censoring debacle. I forget how much I love writing more academic things, until I’m doing it and it feels so good.

Finally, I am officially off the fence when it comes to my hair. I’ve always had long hair, and recently cut it short. It took me a while to feel like I wasn’t wearing a wig. As a friend commented, “You’re a ‘long hair’ person,” and it took me a while to become a “short hair person.” Anyway, I am now completely sold. Here’s the latest incarnation, and I’m very pleased:

So yay to short hair! It’s so much easier, and it always looks okay. The problem with my long hair was it looked nice about twice a month. Other than that, it was in a ponytail. So this haircut always looks like I’m definitively not homeless, whereas it was sometimes hard to tell with the long hair.

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Published on January 13, 2011 in My Travels, Nicole Peeler, Over at Orbit Books . . ., Tempest's Legacy and Tracking the Tempest. 9 Comments Tags: , , .

Happy Pre-New Years!

Well, hello there! I hope you’re having as great a vacation as I am! It’s been non-stop parties this week . . . parties here, parties there, parties EVERYWHERE. Also, loads of catching up with friends from all over.

The good news is, I’ve had a blast and I feel myself again. The bad news is, I’m a few days behind in my revisions. I’ve been working pretty steadily, but not quite steadily enough.

So I think I’m going to take one for the team and not do anything super crazy on New Years. While I’d love to take up all mah friend’s offers to get into Chicago and show it how to swing, I think I have to finish book 4.

The thing is, I’m going back to G’Burg the 2nd, and then I have Three Days of Frantic Preparation for our January residency for our MFA program, then I have the residency, and the day after the residency I fly to London.

So, yeah, it’s going to be nutso. And it will be so much LESS nutso if I have my revisions all done and shipped off BEFORE January 2nd, don’t you think?

What’s your opinion on what I should do? Book 4 or par-tay?

As for book 3, it’s all over the wild. As I said, once I get home I’ll do some Contests, Contests, Contests! And at least one vlog for you. With something cheekeh!

But for right now, here’s some Legacy stuff to wet your whistle:

A great review from Book Series Reviews.

An interview with an international giveaway!

Review from Nocturne Romance Reads

Melissa from My World interviews both Anyan  and Ryu with a contest!(these are all separate links.)

And a recent review of Book 1, Tempest Rising, in case you’re wondering what all the fuss is about. ;-)

If you’ve reviewed or interviewed me, and I haven’t pimped you out, remember you can always bother me on twitter, facebook, or email me at iheartselkies(at)gmail(dot)com.

This’ll probably be my last post till I get back to G’Burg and start the Release Madness for Tempest’s Legacy. Have a FABULOUS New Years, drink something bubbly for me, remember not to make any stupid resolutions but instead make GOALS that you can achieve, and remember to buy Tempest’s Legacy! ;-) I heart you guys, and I can’t wait to see what y’all get up to in the New Year!

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Published on December 30, 2010 in Coming Soon!, Contests, Eye of the Tempest, My Travels, Nicole Peeler, Pimpage!, Reviews and Tempest's Legacy. 16 Comments