That’s a shot of Rosie on the beach a couple weeks ago, when we spent four fun days on a family retreat just south of Waldport on the Oregon coast. After her first couple forays to the beach, where our intrepid Irish Setter seemed reluctant to even get her paws wet, she was much more ambitious this time, splashing about with abandon. It was also a quiet enough beach that we were able to let her off to run free, and boy, does she run. It’s such a joy to watch her. 

My Garrison Gage fans will be happy to know I’m making good progress on Gage’s latest adventure. There has been a lot of rainy days here in the Willamette Valley lately, which makes it easier to rack up some big word counts. Hopefully won’t be too long before the book is out in the world.

I’ve got a story in the latest issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, “Ask Hagan,” a real twisted suspense tale that packs a punch. What if a writer similar to Hunter S. Thompson, the author of books like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, wrote a very popular online Dear Abby-type column, full of cranky, irreverent advice and even insults? What if this writer hid behind an anonymous facade, pretending to be this larger than life persona when he was actually someone much more ordinary? And what if someone started impersonating this author and managed to fool the world? Read the story to find out what happens. You can subscribe to Ellery Queen, of course, or buy this single issue electronically on Amazon right now.

Also, WMG Publishing has reprinted my story, “Exchange Policy,” which recently appeared in Pulphouse Magazine, in the anthology Twisted Robots. My story is about a man who wants to return his android wife, modeled on his real wife who recently passed away, for a very unusual reason. What’s the reason? Read the story to find out. Lots of great tales in this volume, so be sure to check it out. It’s available in both ebook and print. Yes, I will be putting out another collection of my stories, but probably not until next year.

One last thing: My latest book, The Dragon Lottery, is now also available in hardcover (in addition to ebook and paperback), a handsome case laminate edition . . . which is just a fancy way of saying it’s a glossy hardcover without a dust jacket. This one is available exclusively from Amazon.

As I write this, it’s cold and drizzly and gray outside my office window. After a months-long record dry spell in the Willamette Valley (everything climate-related seems to set a record these days, doesn’t it?), it’s nice to see the rain again. Some fall color on the trees is nice too. We got our daughter off to college a couple weeks ago (a trying all-day ordeal because of some poor planning on OSU’s part), so the house does seem quieter. Since we live just a few blocks from a 2000-student high school, however, our street is definitely bustling more than usual, and I have mixed feelings about that. On one hand, it’s nice to see the vast majority of kids in face-to-face school again. On the other hand … well, it was nice not to have all that traffic on our street a couple times a day during the school year.

But hey, it’s a minor inconvenience, and the way the world’s been going lately, I’ll happily endure a whole bunch of minor inconveniences if we can get some semblance of normality back again.

For those of you who love audio books (and I count myself among you!), Throwaway Jane, the first Karen Pantelli book, is now available in audio. You can find it at both Audible and iTunes. Thanks to the excellent Jennifer Pickens, a top notch narrator, for bringing the story to life.

As far as other news, I’ve got a middle grade fantasy that should be heading off to the copy editor in the next few weeks, a little change of pace, and I’ll be talking about that soon enough. I took down the Run of the House comic website for now. The website was hacked and it was just easier to take it down. Unfortunately, this sort of hacking seems to be pretty common these days, even for small fry websites like mine, and I’ve had to add a couple more security tools to my main website to project it.

I was never really happy with having the comic strip be so separate from everything else I do, anyway.

Working on the next Gage book now, which I know a lot of you will be happy to hear. As I joked to a friend of mine, it would probably be a lot better for my bank account if I just wrote Garrison Gage books, but then, I wouldn’t be me. C’est la vie.

Nothing else to report as of now. Back before too long.

Writing goes well, productivity is up quite a bit, and fall is in the air. Even when it gets warm, it’s a very different kind of heat when the mornings are crisp and the days are shorter. September is one of my favorite times of year in the Willamette Valley.

That’s a picture above of Buck Bay, or at least the part of it we could see from our cozy cabin in Olga on Orcas Island, where Heidi and I spent a wonderful week. We drove up from Oregon and took our little Nissan Juke on the ferry from Anacortes, bringing Rosie along for the ride. It was her first experience on any kind on a boat, but the ferry is so large I’m sure she thought she was just on some kind of island. Here I am trying to explain what an archipelago is to her. Or maybe I’m just pointing at a seagull, it’s hard to remember the exact details of our conversation:

The occasion was to celebrate 25 years of marriage, and we couldn’t have asked for a better place to spend a few lovely days. While we drove up Mount Constitution (picture below, the highest point in the San Juans, see if you can pick out Heidi and Rosie for bonus points), hiked Turtleback Mountain, walked around Eastsound, took Rosie out on a rowboat on Cascade Lake in Moran State Park (also pictured below), and had a wonderful anniversary dinner at the Rosario Resort, among other things, the best time for me was just spending many quiet hours looking at the bay with Heidi. What a special place.

Of course, the best part was getting to do it all with my best friend and the love of my life. It makes it a lot easier to leave home when you bring the best part of home with you.