Having mentioned one big event in the whole Writing Business--namely my sudden and still somewhat surprising Amazon.com presence--I feel I should take the time to mention another for those who aren't already in the know:

I'm cowriting a column for a brand-new magazine, The Readerville Journal.

The magazine debuts today--my wife's birthday--and I'm really excited about it. It's a big, shiny, publication intended for a national audience, and it features such things as an interview with Jeffrey Eugenides, author of The Virgin Suicides and Middlesex, short stories by Katharine Weber and Dan Chaon, articles by Chris Offutt and M.J. Rose, an appreciation of John Crowley, book reviews, choice bits from Readerville.com's online discussions, and a piece on the literary appeal of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

And the first installment of Loose Canons, by Paul Clark and Yrs. Truly.

I'm as surprised as anyone, honest. It started a couple of years ago when my original online hangout, doonesbury.com, got shut down. At my friend Kristjan's suggestion, I started posting messages at Readerville.com in my spare time. Soon I found myself discussing books, trading opinions about writers, and cracking jokes there on a regular basis. I also discovered that my sense of humor was improbably similar to that of one of the other posters there, and before long Paul and I were cracking similar jokes about the fact that our jokes were so similar. Apparently this act (dubbed our "Chang-and-Eng bit" by one wag) amused Karen Templer, Readerville's founder and proprietor, and when she decided earlier this year to release a print magazine based on the online site, she asked us to contribute to the magazine. And we said yes.

The weirdest thing about the whole business, of course, is that Paul, my partner in crime, has never laid eyes on me, nor I on him. We got into this thing via the internet, and that's how we've been continuing it ever since. We trade ideas via email (and the occasional post in Readerville), and until I have an excuse to go to the Chicago area, the only person in the family who can claim to have met him is Kelly, who attended a Readerville gathering in Chi-town a while back.

Speaking of my lovely wife, I must hasten to point out that the first issue of TRJ (note the subtle use of initials to indicate Insider Positioning) also features her first published work, a wonderful review of Philippe Petit's new book To Reach the Clouds. She's also got a short story appearing in one of the later issues, and I hope I won't be accused of gross prejudice when I say that it's a dandy. So all in all, it's been a pretty good birthday for her.

If you can't find it at your local newsstand, just click here, look it over, and subscribe.

I thank you. Kelly and Karen thank you. And Paul thanks you. At least, I'm pretty sure he does.
9:40 AM

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"At last," I hear you cry. "An entry with actual content!"

Well, that's certainly true. I have received information which I'll be sharing here (and elsewhere on the site, once my web-savvy friends are done getting their OWN big project finished up... and yes, I'll be telling you about that one soon.)

The Verb To Bird now has a publication date: January 2003.

It also has an illustrator: Grant Silverstein.

It also has a cover, which you can see by clicking here.

And perhaps most frightening of all, it also has its own page at Amazon.com, which you can see by clicking right here. You can even pre-order it.

Woooooo.

I think this makes me a Real Boy now.
9:11 PM

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