As the debut of The Stolen One looms ahead (June 30th), I'm working on various projects, some semi-secret, other's I'll tell you about. Every hour or so, I check the front porch for packages for various elements that I'm expecting that have to do with my projects. Earlier today the doorbell rang and I sprinted to the door, but alas, nothing was there. Later, when some neighnbor girls rang the doorbell, and did a "Memorial Day" dance for me, I realized it was probably them - they rang the doorbell and then chickened out. After they did their little dance I rewarded them with Rollos and some leftover smiley face toys that I gave away at "Merilee" booksignings.

Anyway, back to projects. I asked my father to do a pen and ink of a pear for the bookplates I'm going to design for The Stolen One. He emailed it to me today. Sometimes nice surprises come by email and not snailmail (or UPS or Fedex). Isn't it beautiful? I have some samples on the way from Online Labels - cream, white, and gold labels that can be printed in the printer. I'm going to experiment with the colors, fonts for my name, and perhaps a simple border around it all? Fun, fun, fun. Just so you know I have a standing offer for free bookplates (when they are done) and the beautiful bejeweled brass bookmarks I've been making. I've had over 25 libraries request them on myspace and I've been making them in batches. I've sent out over 300 of them. A librarian friend has offered to come over and help me make them - I've bribed her with a glass of wine. I'm out of the base pieces - that's another package I've been waiting on. Back to my Dad - if you haven't already, check out his website at www.wildlifeartbyacree.com He's quite an inspiration. And I know of one famous children's author who also follows his blog.

Another fun thing today is I got a call from Lois Adams at Greenwillow with some questions. It seems they are going to do the audio of The Stolen One on Tuesday at Harper! Woohoo! Lois did most of the copyediting for the book so she is very close to it, so it was really neat talking to her. She needed to know pronunciations of certain words. We went through the list together, sometimes laughing because neither of us knew how to pronounce a couple of the words - obscure place names in England or no longer used embroidery terms. I learned the narrator is an English actress. Lois had the name so I googled her. I won't say the name yet because I'm not positive, but I think I found her and I even found a website of English voiceover actresses and was able to listen to a snippet of her reading. I brought my daughter Caitlin in and she declared that the actress was perfect! Another fun, fun, fun thing.

In other news, Teensreads has given The Stolen One a five star review! Yay! In July I'll be giving away 5 signed books on their site. Here's a link to the review:

http://www.teensreadtoo.com/StolenOneCrowley.html

Also, I'm giving away a signed copy at an auction for Bridget Zinn, an aspiring YA writer who is battling cancer. There are some great things to bid on:

http://bridgetzinnauction.wordpress.com/about/

I believe it ends at the end of this month so check it out - it is a great cause and I'm bidding on some things myself. Don't anyone dare bid on the Karen Cushman signed Catherine, called Birdy against me. Don't you dare.

Other things I'm looking forward to: The trailer for The Stolen One should be ready any day now. So excited.

The REAL book of The Stolen One should be on coming in the next couple of weeks! I'm going to do a major happy dance when I get it!

Cheers!