Life in a Northern Town

I’ll be at Pioneer Park in the Bear Gallery (3rd floor, Alaska Centennial Center for the Arts) from noon-8 today for the First Friday opening of Cartoon North II. There’s sequential art on the walls from dozens of artists, some of whom will also have tables at the opening selling books, prints, cards, and so forth. I’ll be there with Freebird and Kismet!

A lot, it seems!

First of all, I’m in an art show that opens in May! The opening is a First Friday event on May 3rd from 5-8 p.m. (although the show will be up all summer). It’s a comics-themed show at the Alaska Center for Natural Medicine — which might sound like an unusual place for a gallery show, but it’s an absolutely beautiful space, with lots of little corridors and nooks and crannies for art to hang in. The show itself is like a who’s who of Alaskan cartoonists and purveyors of fantasy-themed art, including myself, Ellen Million, Jamie Smith, Chad Carpenter, and Anchorage editorial cartoonist Peter Dunlap-Shohl. I’ll mention it again closer to the show itself.

(Oh my, preparing for the show has been a nonstop comedy of errors. At the moment, after purchasing a number of cheap frames so that everything would match, I’ve just discovered that a double-thick mat doesn’t fit in the frame style, so one of my pieces of art is going to need a different, non-matching frame. FAIL.)

By the way, I have NOT forgotten about all of you who expressed interest in my watercolor cards! The main problem is that I haven’t made much more progress (on either painting more cards, or putting together a website ordering system), but I’m getting some cards together to (attempt to) sell at the opening, and after that I will focus on getting a catalog up on my website and contacting the people who had expressed interest. Thank you again for your interest and enthusiasm, and I’m terribly sorry I’ve been such a sloth about it.

On a slightly different front, my romance-writing alias Layla M. Wier has been busy. I’m starting to wonder if there’s even the slightest point in having a separate alias for that, because as it turns out, what I’m writing under that alias is basically indistinguishable from everything else I write, except for the way it’s marketed. On the other hand, the categorization split is unexpectedly useful for my work ethic. (“Today I’m working on Layla Wier’s stuff; tomorrow I’m doing Layla Lawlor” is how the thought process goes, and as bizarre as it sounds, it’s actually helpful.) As “Layla Wier”, here’s what I have for sale and upcoming:

• One of my short stories appears in the anthology Snow on the Roof from Dreamspinner Press (m/m anthology about men over 40).
• I will have a story — actually more of a novelette — forthcoming in July in Storm Moon Press’s Big Damn Heroines anthology (see their fantastic cover!), about plus-sized women kicking ass. This story is adventure fantasy with f/f and f/m pairings on the side. The anthology releases on July 12; I’ll have more info and a preview when it’s for sale!
• I just sold a novella, Homespun, to Dreamspinner Press. This will probably be out in October or November, and I’ll post more info (the cover, etc) when I have it. I’m thoroughly delighted that this one sold, though I was (pleasantly!) surprised that DSP bought it, because it isn’t really their usual fare: both the main couple are middle-aged and have been together for 20 years, and the viewpoint rotates between the two of them and a third major POV character who is female. It’s not a story about falling in love; it’s a story about growing up and growing old and dealing with family and community along the way. And also, it’s about a sheep farm; I am embarrassed to admit how many books on sheep and fiber spinning I bought for “research”.
• Also, I made a blog post over there on writing what you love that I meant to crosspost here and never got around to it. Oops.

And that’s what I’m up to! Oh, and I also need to get another round of agent submissions going for my urban fantasy novel. (Yes, I’m still at it; no, I still haven’t placed it anywhere, but that’s partly because I haven’t sent out more submissions in … uh, awhile. It’ll never sell if it never gets sent out, though.)

For those of you in Fairbanks, there are several places around town where I’m going to be signing and selling books in the next few weeks. It’s almost like a book tour! A very small tour. In one town. Yep.

Sat. & Sun, Nov. 24 & 25 – Fox Lions Club Holiday Bazaar – 10 a.m.-5 p.m.
This is a small local bazaar … and I do mean local; it’s at the Fox Lions Community Center, which is only a mile up the highway from me. I’ll have a table on both Saturday and Sunday.

Wed, Nov. 28 – Gulliver’s Books – 7-9 p.m.
In addition to signing books, I will also be giving a short talk, probably something to do with comics. (Yeah, I really need to figure that part out.) The talk will be upstairs in the cafe.

Sat, Dec. 1 – Forget-Me-Not Books – 2-4 p.m.
Forget-Me-Not is the used bookstore attached to the Literacy Council, so a portion of proceeds will be going to support the Literacy Council. There is a really groovy flyer.

There’s also a completely insane part of me that’s thinking about calling the McKinley Holiday Bazaar people tomorrow and seeing if it’s possible to get table space on Saturday. Advantage: I’d probably have a lot of fun. Disadvantage: it’s in Denali Park, which is about a 2 1/2 hour drive from here (each way). And I have no idea if I’d actually manage to sell any books, which would make it a really silly way to spend my Saturday if I don’t sell a thing.

Originally published at Layla's Wordpress blog. You can comment here or there.