1. Slightly Foxed has released Dodie Smith's memoir Look Back With Love. Written when she was 78 years old, it is a reflection of her early childhood with her mother's family in early 20th century England. I am delighted to know that her upbringing included "...seaside trips, motorcar outings, fairgrounds, circuses, jokes, charades and musical soirees." This is exactly as I would wish the author of I Capture the Castle (and 101 Dalmatians) to have grown up.

2. I was remiss in failing to mention that the January issue of Bookslut went up with my column on realistic fiction which included Sara Zarr and Holly Cupala and Cecil Castellucci and James Proimos and Laurel Snyder and 2 more cracking YA mysteries from Norah McClintock. (Since it is practically the very end of January you likely already know all about the January issue of Bookslut but I wanted to make sure you knew!!)

3. I also missed posting about the new issue of Eclectica Magazine which included a round-up of biographies for kids. Have you seen "The Great Idea" series of picture book bios? Wonderful wonderful stuff - especially the latest on the girl who invented the standing paper bag. (And she had to go to court to prove that even though she was a woman the invention was hers because someone tried to steal it from her!)

I also reviewed ZAZEN in Eclectica which is where I got to write a line that made me very happy: If you are looking for a mash-up between the Portland grunge scene, Red Dawn and the live-for-the-moment attitude of the Weimar Republic (as portrayed in Cabaret), then I have the book for you.

Totally true, promise.

4. As for my book news, Omnivoracious had a review up of MAP last week that was pretty great and made my day.

Also I have an event in Bellingham, WA this Friday night at Village Books. If you are in western Washington and want to see a slide show full of icy cold airplanes, then it's where you need to be. (That picture they have of me is cropped in a way that looks very weird, don't you think?)

5. And what else? Well I'm working on essays about things that didn't make it into the book and that is proving to be more interesting than I thought. Everyone (meaning publisher/editor/agent types) wanted me to write essays and continue to hopefully make the book buzz build in its current steady slowburn kinda way but honestly I didn't want to do it at first. I said I would but mostly I wasn't planning to. I was just so bloody tired of this subject and even more than that I thought I didn't have anything left to say about it so writing more seemed like it would be faking. And then I talked to one of my good friends who is a pilot in the book and hardly ever reads books (he's a magazine kind of guy) and he read mine (for obvious reasons) and he had questions and thoughts and ideas and was....well....excited about it. And we got to talking about the stuff I was toying with for essays and he had some stories for me that fit in with those and, well, there you go. Just finished one very short one and sent it off and now I'm working on number 2 and there are 3 more in the wings.

And I realized I have another Alaskan flying book in me. It fits with the western book idea I was already working on but the perfect Alaska flying angle took me by surprise. Never would have thought it but here we go again folks, here we go again.

[Dodie Smith with her delightful family - she's the little girl in front.]