Last night I finished off the last piece for Little Graveyard on the Prairie. This is a short story called "Hunting the Gardens" and it takes place a couple years after the events of the actual novelette. So, if I understand correctly, the lettered edition will have the novelette, the "news story" in which the police are still searching for the full identities of 26 people buried in the graveyard, "Hunting the Gardens" short story and reprints of my stories "Nocturnal Caress" and "Reunion." And the introduction by Steve Vernon, of course. The numbered edition will NOT have the news story and "Hunting the Gardens." I don’t have a release date yet, but things are progressing nicely.

Students are funny. My Creative Writing kids turned in their short stories on Monday and actually thought I’d have them graded by today. Ha! I’ve discovered a couple of girls in the class who are really pretty good writers. Speaking of that class, Tapestry is coming to speak to them this Friday, so a big THANKS to him. A couple of best-sellers also have agreed to come talk to the kids, but I won’t give their names just yet. I just learned today that one of them is a graduate of the school.

In Science Fiction we’re reading Fahrenheit 451 and watching the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers to talk about the downfall of a dystopia and the creation of one. Well, I’m talking about it and telling them there’ll be tests. Bradbusy is such an amazing author! And it’s just boggling how deep yet cheap Invasion is. Most of the kids are actually watching it, too, rather than going to sleep like they usually do during black-and-white movies. The way they complain, you’d think I was grinding broken glass into their eyeballs by showing them a movie made before 1990.

Now that the stories for Little Graveyard are out of the way I can get back to work on The Girls Nobody Wanted to Date. I left off with a female fist fight, followed by a budding romance. It’s just like a day at the school!