Hello, book supporters!  Two quick pieces of exciting news:

1) I'm changing the title of the book!  It turns out that a new SF series has just come out with the same title, and rather than create confusion, I'm going to change mine.  I'm actually very excited about the new title, which I think is fabulous for the book.  As you may remember, the book is set in a university city (in space!), and I found a great university motto to inspire my new title:  The Stars Change.  

It's from the university motto, Sidere mens eadem mutato: The stars change but the mind remains the same.  You'll have to read the book to see just how perfectly it suits the story.  (I don't think I can change the Kickstarter page info at this point, so if you're looking at this on Kickstarter, it'll still be found under Demimonde.)

2) The other news is that I finally have a pre-order page up.  Many of you will receive various editions as a reward for your Kickstarter support, but just in case you think you might want more (for you, for friends, for family), here's the link to the pre-order info:  http://www.mamohanraj.com/kickstarter.html.  Remember, the print editions are small, limited runs, so when they're gone, they're gone.

Thanks, everyone!  And now I'm back to writing -- Part I is finished, and I'm moving on to Part II. :-)

 - Mary Anne

I recently did a reading at Tuesday Funk, and they actually recorded it and edited the videos. (Thanks, Bill Shunn!) So here's a little sample of me, reading. Enjoy!

- intro and reading a poem about war: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCsRjCgJOSY

- reading "The Night Air" (the first story from Demimonde):http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYaG7E2JOo8

I cut the first story from the book, and the book is overall better now, which is frustrating in terms of lost work, but satisfying in terms of artistic improvement. The new order starts with "The Night Air," followed by "Thick as a Brick" -- I read them together last night at a science fiction convention (FogCon) to an appreciative audience (yay), and I think they worked really well, both as individual stories and as the opening to the book, which was a relief!

I'm looking forward to getting back to the book on Tuesday, when I should have a nice long stretch for writing (before diving into a pile of grading).  But the real bulk of the work will happen after the semester ends, around the beginning of May -- I'm not teaching this summer, and the kids are in school, so I'm looking forward to a fabulously long stretch of intense writing.  Thanks again for your donations, which made it possible for me to *not* teach a class this summer. :-)  I haven't had such a luxury of time since grad school in 2004, and I intend to make the most of it!

The book is progressing very nicely.  I've just finished Part I, and I think it's in pretty solid shape.  Early feedback on it has been very positive, hooray!  Completed stories so far include:

• Here, Under the Twin Moons
  
• The Night Air
  
• Crackles and Chokes
  
• Thick as a Brick
  
• Past Echoes
  
• Hammer in the Dark
  
• Old Friends Meet
  

If you're as geeky as me, you can read the table of contents as a poem.  Like this:  

Here, under the twin moons / the night air / crackles and chokes, / thick as a brick. / Past echoes / hammer in the dark; / old friends meet.

Yes, I'm weird.  But it pleases me.

I'm finally picking an illustrator for Demimonde! More on that shortly -- I expect to announce the name (and a teaser illo) by the end of this week!

On the downside, someone else JUST published a sf book with a very similar title, The Demi-Monde: Winter. I was briefly crushed, but then decided it was okay, because I wasn't sure I loved the title anyway. Maybe the word 'demimonde', which I do love, will become part of a subtitle. Hmmm. The first story is titled "Here, Under the Twin Moons." Would that work for a book title? Or should I try to incorporate either the war or the sex more explicitly in the title? Suggestions welcome.

 - Mary Anne