M A C V A Y S I A

I’m still tweaking a half-decent draft of my book (the one I wanted to finish a looooong time ago but instead seem to have been picking at bit by bit for well over three years now) but fret not dear readers, there’s already a book out with some of my writing in it. It’s called Down the Block and is available over at Lulu.

The editor of the book, Margaret Larkin, has been a reader of my blog for some time. The story of our acquaintance will be very interesting to anyone who remembers a post I wrote in reaction George W. Bush’s re-election back in 2004. Margaret took offense (it was a somewhat scathing post after all) and rallied some rather rabid Republicans via a forum or two. They came to my blog with their torches and pitchforks and left a slew of comments. I got a few emails as well, including a particularly venomous one from the editor of a NASCAR magazine. But somehow, Margaret and I became friends. Hey, if I can have friendly chats (and I do) with a very conservative blogger who passionately despises Obama (and says silly things like “We are at war with fanatical Muslims. So what do you do, do you elect a guy with a Muslim name? That’s ridiculous.”), I can be friends with someone less (I don’t want to be mean so you can insert your own adjective) who voted for Bush for her own reasons, right? She ain’t so bad. In fact, she’s a sweetie who shares my passion for writing and my interest in languages. It’s all good.

Anyway, Margaret wanted to publish a book about life in the city, and she thought it would be cool to get stories — fiction and/or non-fiction — from people she knows whose writing she likes. So she asked several bloggers, including me, to come up with pieces that revolve around the experience of living/being in a city. I retooled a couple of blog posts about my experiences in Guangzhou, China and put them together to make a piece I called Sods in the City. If you go to the Lulu site and click ‘Preview this book’ you can see a bit of my contribution to the anthology. You might also notice that the book’s foreword was written by Mary Beard, Cambridge professor and Classics editor of the Times Literary Supplement (oh, and she’s also a blogger).

If it sounds interesting, go ahead and take a look. Can’t wait to read it myself. My copy’s in the mail, woo hoo!