Coyote Radio's Day of the Dead Dinner Show

Yep, I've been a bad, bad blogger. Honestly, I needed to take some time to chill. I'm glad I did. My little OCD brain required some down time and taking a break from all things techie really helped. Also, I've had massive headaches all week. There's been a prescribed burn just up the mountain from my house - 100 acres a day for five days - and I just found out they're burning another 2 to 4 days west of Prescott. Yuck. I know the forest needs it. I'm glad to be able to live in the mountains and worry just a little less about a major forest fire next year, but the smoke is killing my sinuses. Wah!

Lots of good stuff going on, though. One of the best (and most time consuming) projects is Coyote Radio Theater's annual Day of the Dead Dinner Show. We're going back to the Smoki Museum for this year's show - kind of fitting as we did our first three Day of the Dead shows there. Two local chefs will be cooking for us - Miguel and Tony from The Raven Cafe. Should be a cool event with good food, some mordida music, a poem or two and then a radio theater performance - "The War of the Squirrels" as the centerpiece plus a few shorts & GlobeCo product commercials. For more blah, blah on the event & to keep up with things as they develop, check out the Day of the Dead Dinner Show blog I set up for the guys.

My dear friend Kim did the artwork for this year's t-shirt. I think it looks extra super-cool-and-groovy and am really pleased with the whole shebang. She totally rocks, and if she ever gets off her butt and sends me a bio & website info, I'll post it here. Kim's a truly talented artist chick & we were lucky to have her work with Coyote this year.

Been grooving to The Replacements. It's weird how music is often connected to specific times in my life. This particular album kept me company during a very odd and difficult one. Not the happiest time, but these songs kept me sane & occasionally even happy. Nice to have them again. Thanks a bajillion, Anne!!!

Speaking of Anne, I read Pale Immortal last week. Dear god, that book's not a page-turner, it's a page-ripper! I haven't raced through a novel like that since Neil Gaimon's American Gods. Characters, story, pace - all really, really good. Weirdly enough, it was the little things that made me fall in love with the book & force myself to slow down. You know, stuff like...high school kids learning how to knit, the bits of musical name-dropping, description of the local diner. She writes teenaged kids pretty damn well. You can check out the Pale Immortal link above for a sneak preview of the first 2 chapters, book trailer, extra stuff...

For all of those writerly folks who went to B'Con...well, I'm still green with envy, but glad to hear that so many of you had a good time. And for those of you in the blogosphere who have been living under a rock & haven't seen/heard/read about the cool new stuff going on over at The Killer Year, go check them out. Also take a few minutes and check out their blog. Writing (as we've all heard too many times before) is a solitary process. But when debut writers band together, it makes my little solitary heart go pitter patter. Yes, yes. It makes good business sense. The coolest thing, though, is that writers are pulling together to support each other. Then ITW got on board, and it's taken Killer Year to the next level.

And now it's time for me to do the thing I haven't done in over a week. Yep, not only did I not do the blog thing, I didn't touch the writing. And I'm really excited about diving back in. If I'm not around the blogworld as much as usual, just know it's because I'm back to the writing thing AND I've got a shitload of stuff to do to get ready for the Day of the Dead show. You know, rehearsals, tickets, t-shirts, decorations, ofrenda, etc. I swear I'm not carving 12 pumpkin centerpieces this year...just don't even ask. This is our 7th year (I think), and while I've learned a lot about how to make the event run relatively smoothly, I know it's going to be stupid busy. So that's it from this lazy artist/writer lady. Wishing you all (and me too!) happy writing!!!