AWESOME book trailer for THE STRAIN by Guillermo del Toro & Chuck Hogan!

This is one of the scariest book trailers I have ever seen for one of the most frightening books I've ever read: The Strain by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan. What's The Strain? Think of it this way: Imagine that Michael Crichton had rewritten Salem's Lot, added scary (plausible) science and then set the whole damned thing down in Manhattan. (And I guarantee that after you read this, you will never look at airports the same way, either.) Enjoy the trailer! (It stars Roy Dotrice! How cool is that?)

Happy Towel Day!

Today is Towel Day, a day where Nerds, Geeks and Hoopy Froods of all stripes pay homage to writer Douglas Adams and his brilliant series of Hitchhiker's Guide books. Towel Day (and its accompanying slogan "Don't Panic!") has been celebrated every May 25th since Adams' death at the age of 49 in May of 2001; with each passing year, it gains more and more followers. This year, because of Twitter, it seems to be taking off like crazy. It's been funny watching #towelday race neck and neck with #SusanBoyle on Twitter's trending topics. (Also, in case you didn't know, "Don't Panic!" has become the unofficial slogan of the entire publishing industry of late.)

Why a towel?

A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-boggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

I met Douglas Adams once and shared lunch with him when he came to speak at Stacey's Bookstore many years ago for the Starship Titanic tour. He and his co-writer Terry Jones (of Monty Python fame) led about 500 of our bookstore customers (and our general manager!) in a sing-a-long, which was completely hilarious. Years later, when I was at Del Rey Books, I was lucky enough to be able to work on the PR for the Hitchhiker's Guide backlist, as well as the omnibus Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide, and the Douglas Adams biography, Wish You Were Here by Nick Webb.

Last September, Adams' widow, Jane Belson, stirred up a bit of controversy among Adams' fans and in the SF/F book community when she gave noted children's writer Eoin Colfer (best known for his Artemis Fowl series) her blessing to write the sixth (and supposedly final) book in the Hitchhiker's Guide Trilogy. (Yes, it's still called a trilogy, which is part of the joke. Adams had often commented that he wanted to end his trilogy with a sixth book and was quoted as saying "I would love to finish Hitchhiker on a slightly more upbeat note, so five seems to be a wrong kind of number, six is a better kind of number.")

The new book, called And Another Thing, is scheduled for release on a one-day laydown on October 12th. It'll be published in the UK by Penguin Books, and here in the United States by Hyperion. Both publishers are aleady going gangbusters with promotions for the new book, but only time will tell whether true Douglas Adams fans will be happy with Colfer's offering. (Meanwhile, Eoin Colfer fans - no slouches in the devoted and obsessive department! - seem to be thrilled at the pairing of Colfer and the Hitchhiker's Guide universe.)

Some fun links for Towel Day:

• The Official Douglas Adams home page.
• The Don't Panic! Forum
• Kevin Thompson at CyberLaw Central hosted a Towel Day Blog Carnival! (And you thought lawyers didn't know how to have fun.)
  
• Wired Magazine's "Geek Dad" columnist Curtis Silver writes about Towel Day.
• Pan Macmillan, Douglas Adams' UK publisher, are holding a Towel Day contest on Flickr. Upload a photo of your most creative use of a towel to win.
• Hyperion Books has created a new Twitter feed for news about And Another Thing, called @PartSixofThree. Today they're giving away special "Don't Panic!" towels. (At least they still had some left when I checked an hour ago. And a little birdie at Hyperion publicity told me that they were going to be giving away a lot of the same towels at San Diego Comic Con International in July.)
• There's a Facebook fan page for Douglas Adams as well as a new one for And Another Thing.
• If you had any questions about whether it was Towel Day or not, go here.
• Geeks of Doom also posted about Towel Day.
• The folks at Penguin UK are pulling out all the stops in their search for a creative digital team to help spread the word about And Another Thing.
• ThinkGeek.com has a very cool "42" towel of their own!
• Join in the Towel Day conversation on Twitter here or here.
• Hilarious music video (starring Sam Rockwell) from the film version of Hitchhiker's Guide: Vote for Zaphod Beeblebrox!
  

In the meantime, I'm off to enjoy a frothy Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster! Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Make way for ducklings! The feel-good video of the year

(Via Moonrat)

Poll! What color Converse All-Stars should I wear to the Pennwriters Conference?

I'm heading off to the Pennwriters Conference in Pittsburgh on Thursday morning. And while I do plan to wear grown-up and professional clothes from my ankles up, from my ankles down, it's all about comfort. And comfort means Converse All-Star sneakers. (How can you not love a shoe you can throw in the wash?)

So now I need help choosing: which pair of Converse All-Stars do I bring to the conference? (I'll be wearing a black suit.)

What color Converse All-Stars should Colleen wear to Pennwriters Conference?



Neon-Green Hightops



Fuschsia Hightops



Brown & Orange Rugby-Stripe Lowtops



Neon Orange Low-Tops

View results

Free online surveys

Seriously funny: Wolverine in 30 seconds.

Reminder: I'm still closed to submissions and here's why.

Just a reminder: I'm still closed to new submissions via query, and all queries that have come in since March 19th have been deleted without being read.

Sending queries that say "I know you're closed to new submissions but mine is special" won't sway me. Additionally, sending me roses (yes, this actually happened - granted, they were pretty roses! - but wow, is this inappropriate!) and phoning me at the office repeatedly (this happens all the time) will just make me think you're a creepy stalker; even if I were open to new submissions, this would probably knock you out of the running in any case.

The fact of the matter is that I can only take on so many new clients per year. Right now I'm full-up. This is true of all agents. I know this may come as a shock to many of you new writers out there but we agents actually have real lives, and we don't work 24/7. (And if an agent does work 24/7, it's probably not a good idea; s/he should consider investing in a portable defibrillator.) Therefore, continuing to read and respond to queries when I know perfectly well that I don't have the time to take on new clients right now is not only a waste of my time, but it takes valuable time away from the clients that I have signed.

Are there exceptions? Sure, there are always exceptions. If I meet a writer at one of the writing conferences I'm attending in the next few months, and I like his/her work and invite him/her to submit to me, that's an exception. Likewise, I'm still open to referrals from well-known published writers, editors and/or agents that I trust. The last client I signed came to me as a referral from an agent I trust.

So what counts as a referral to me? Well, generally the only thing I count as a referral is when I receive an email/phone call from said well-known published writer/editor/agent telling me about a great writer. Conversely, your emailing me and telling me that "so and so agent" told you to write to me is NOT a referral. (By the way, this applies only to me. Other agents most likely have different guidelines and different ideas about what they consider a referral. Thus the reason you should research every one of us individually.)

Okay, so I hope we're clear on this.

At this point I'm looking to be closed to submissions until the end of July at the very least. If that changes, I'll let y'all know. Cheers!

An interview with yours truly at Follow the Reader!

I've been meaning to talk about Follow the Reader for a couple of weeks now, the wonderful Netgalley-sponsored book industry blog that's being co-written by publishing veteran Charlotte Abbott and digital marketing guru Kat Meyer.

Last week Charlotte did an amazing interview with PW contributing editor and notable book industry journalist Bethanne Patrick. On Friday afternoons, at 4:00 Eastern Time, Charlotte and Kat also host a great live-Twitter chat about the book industry. (You can follow along by using the #followreader hashtag at monitter.com or hashtag.org.)

This week, Kat interviewed yours truly, in an interview where I admit publicly to stealing books as a second grader and also to not being able to learn my times tables. (I blame Catholic school.) We also talked a lot about the book industry and publishing and why y'all should just stop complaining about Dan Brown and Stephenie Meyer already! Anyway, I hope you enjoy it.