Southern Tier Authors of Romance (STAR) and I have settled on a date for my writing workshop, Crafting Paranormal Themes: Exploring The Dark Heart and Bright Soul of Romance. We'll be doing that fun workshop online the month of February 2008. I'll have a registration link later on the Schedule page, and more information will follow in the weeks to come before the workshop begins.

I've spent the weekend with endless website thrills courtesy of my website host, Digital Space. They're updating, which is very cool, but didn't tell me, which is very bad. Thank goodness they have 24/7 online support. I tried to log in as I was getting a huge dump of the worst sort of SPAM from my website email addys I'd forgotten were still active. The webbots found 'em though and I received hundreds of emails from kind folk who were interested in increasing the size of my, well, you know . . . or giving me a great opportunity to buy drugs and Viagra online. Wowow, do those ads actually work? I mean, do people really send that guy in Africa $500. to get in on a sure thing investment? Evidently, because out of the millions of SPAMs he/they send, if only one incredibly stupid lout clicks through, well, that's easy money, if very small easy money.

The sissy-in-law of Mmmmmmmmmm sent the following autumn in Kansas piece that I loved and wished I was there instead of here in gray, wet, gray Seattle . . .

Ah, the joys of autumn in Kansas. It was 90 today and will probably be again tomorrow. The only thing good about the hot dry weather is that it makes it easier for to extract honey - the honey stays more liquid with the warmth and comes out of the uncapped comb in the centrifuge more readily. Other than than, the weather could go far, far away. I am so ready for the terrible wonderful sight of a red leaf on the ubiquitous poison ivy. Laughingly referred to as the state flower, which it is not, it grows everywhere, fostered by seeds and runners. If you discount the allergic reaction many have to it, the darned plant is really pretty, sort of graceful and definitely hardy. It is the first thing to turn color in the fall giving great swatches of brilliant reds. Very nice. The fact that we don't have allergic reactions to the stuff does soften my attitude for certain.

We have wild asters blooming with great masses of small white blooms, golden rod and some late sunflowers. There are a few grapes left to ripen but the birds keep beating us to them as they turn purple. Once again, we are having our nightly fall visitor to the garden. A deer keeps raiding our tomatoes, preferring the large yellow ones, and eating our cantaloupe and honeydews. I don't think it has a taste for acorn squash (yet). Wish it liked weeds!

The hummingbirds seem to be gone and the great turkey vultures have been flocking up for their migration south. It is awesome to watch 25 or 30 of the great birds circle on a thermal. A few years ago when we spent part of the fall in Branson we watched literally thousands of the vultures gathering, really pretty creepy. Then one day they were all gone - even more creepy! They do bring out the oogies in a person. Earlier that same fall we had been in south eastern Colorado for a week as the great sand hill cranes were gathering for their migration. Thousands of raucous birds taking off, swirling about and landing over and over again. And then one morning total silence. They had left with the full moon. Amazing. Breath taking! What a joy they were to watch.

Anyway, with any luck we will have some lovely true fall weather one of these days before the snow flies. You could send us some of that rainy weather you have had up your way. We'd be really appreciative!

And I'd really like to send you some!
Mmmmmmmmmmelinda