So, finally, finally, finally, the frelling DSL is back up (along with our landline). Turns out, someone or something in the basement had mutilated a critical wire. And it took BellSouth almost three weeks to get around to fixing it. Hence the aforementioned delay in this month's Sirenia Digest. The issue is ready to go to thingunderthest for PDFing, except that Vince hasn't yet finished his illustration for "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Ghoul." But I promise, by the tentacles of all my offspring, that the issue will go out just as soon as I have the illustration and the PDF has been done. I'm hoping this will be no later than Saturday afternoon, at the very latest. I do hope that everyone will understand. SD9 has been the victim of an unfortunate series of setbacks — the cottage in Green Hill not having DSL, our return trip falling on the 21st-22nd, our internet connection at home being down (and Spooky and our house-sitter both did their best to get that fixed before we got home), and, finally, the delay on Vince's end.

In return for your patience, you'll be getting "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Ghoul" and Sonya Taaffe's brand-new sf piece, "The Boy Who Learned How to Shudder." Plus, because the issue's late, I've also added a bonus story, a reprint of "Faces in Revolving Souls" (from Outsiders; Roc, 2005), which I know a lot of our subscribers probably haven't read.

I want to make a long entry about our return trip, but I'm starving and need to go help Spooky with dinner. During the trip, our diet was abysmal, and we've gone back to vegetarianism, beginning yesterday.

I've started proofreading the galleys of Daughter of Hounds and I think this is the most excited I've been by novel's galleys, by seeing the typescript ms. become typeset page proofs, since Threshold. I'm not entirely sure why. I just love this book.

Also, Bill Schafer at Subterranean Press asked me to remind everyone that Alabaster is now shipping, so if you pre-ordered, you may already have your copy of the book. If not, it'll be along soon. I don't yet have my copies, but I hear it's gorgeous. By the way, there's a very nice review of Alabaster in the new issue of Fantasy Magazine, for which I am appropriately grateful. But I must take issue with the reviewer calling Dancy "white-trash." Yes, she's from a very poor family. Yes, she's a bit ignorant. Yes, she was raised in a swamp. Yes, she's not quite right and talks to angels and blackbirds and stuffed bears. Yes, she's even white. However, having grown up in the South and, unfortunately, having been come into close contact with much that can be fairly labeled "white-trash," I can say that Dancy isn't.

Okay. Must go cook...