Anarchy in the UK

It's not due out until March, but this morning I received my first copies of the Egmont UK edition of Au Revoir -- pictured above with a well-used London tube map and a brochure from St. Paul's Cathedral, souvenirs from my research trip across the pond in 2010. My family and I spent several days in London, where I got to have lunch on a cold November day with the extremely awesome Ali Dougal, my UK editor, and some of the Egmont publicity staff. England is wonderful, and my wife makes no secret of the fact that we'd move there in a heartbeat...even if we weren't both obsessed with Downton Abbey...

Egmont UK's supercool Electric Monkey imprint did an amazing job with this book. It looks great, they've got a blurb from the LA Times review on the cover and a little teaser on the inside back cover for the sequel, which Egmont is calling Ciao for Now, Crazy European Chick (here in the States, it's Perry's European Playlist).

Anyway, I'm really excited about this -- and I hope UK readers really enjoy it too.

Office 2.0

I've recently rebuilt my basement office -- or at least rearranged it. What makes it an office? Mainly, the existence of the MacBook, which I spent last year carrying around the house, trying to find a quiet corner to write. Now I've got almost everything I need in one space, excluding my vintage 1979 Kenner Alien figure, which I still keep locked away for fear of its safety. Someday I'll have a place for that too. That, and my even more vintage cymbal-clanging monkey, which is so scary that my kids won't even let me bring it out in daylight.


Scary sucker, isn't he?


Meanwhile, I'm using my new office space to work on a screenplay, and edits for next year's middle-grade book, LENNY CYRUS, SCHOOL VIRUS. I've also got a November publication date for the AU REVOIR sequel, PERRY'S EUROPEAN PLAYLIST, and some possible jacket art that I'm dying to share with you, once we finalize plans for it.

So stay tuned, okay?

News from Everywhere

AU REVOIR, CRAZY EUROPEAN CHICK has been out for almost two weeks, and people are starting to notice. In fact, it got reviewed in the LA Times this weekend, which is extra cool because my old friend of almost 30 years, Michael Ludy, got the author photo credit. Besides being a great photographer, Mike's an animator who's worked for Disney and The Simpsons, and he snapped this picture of me at his home in Burbank when I was out in LA a couple years ago for the Death Troopers book tour.

Meanwhile I've been busy adapting my horror novel Eat the Dark as a screenplay, which has been challenging and rewarding, usually at the same time. I can't talk much about this project at the moment, but I'm very excited about it. Likewise, the film version of Chasing the Dead is moving forward at its own pace -- I'm not as directly involved in this project, but I have read the screenplay and seen some pages of the comic book adaptation that the producers have developed, and it looks terrific.

What else? Well, I'm very excited to announce that Houghton Mifflin will be publishing my first middle-grade book in spring of 2013, called Lenny Cyrus, School Virus. It's about a very smart, very geeky kid -- a genius, really -- who manages to shrink himself down to travel inside the bloodstream of the girl he's been in love with since third grade, with the goal of changing her mind about him...from the inside. Imagine Diary of a Wimpy Kid set inside the human body, and that's a start. My editor and I are looking at different possible illustrators for this book now, and I'm thrilled to be in the process of undertaking a whole new type of storytelling.

Finally, the sequel to Au Revoir is coming out next fall. And although that seems like a long time from now, the edits of that book are already done -- hard to believe that it's been a year since I was in Europe, researching that book. (I actually wrote some of it at a cafe in Venice, trying to protect my laptop from some extremely aggressive Italian pigeons.) We've got a title for the book (we think) and some possible cover art...and I'll be sharing all of that with you here as soon as I can.

Meanwhile, I hope you're all doing well out there. Stay happy, healthy, useful, and we'll talk again soon.

Halloween Freeze

This is what it looked like in my part of the world yesterday. Not that I'm complaining -- how could I? It's my kind of weather.

Meanwhile, I spent the day sledding with my kids and working on my screenplay. More on that later --

Hope you're all having a good weekend.

Texas Book Festival Wrap Up

I'm still in Austin promoting Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick, which officially comes out on Tuesday -- but the Texas Book Festival is over. What an amazing experience. I've got some more signings here in town, but meanwhile I had a great time and met some terrific folks here over the weekend -- including Alton Brown, who gave a great talk at the Paramount Theater (and signed a t-shirt for me!).

Lisa Loeb was there as well, to talk about her new children's book.


On Saturday night, I participated in a YA author event in the Texas State Cemetery, where I got to hang out with the incredibly nice Jay "Thirteen Reasons Why" Asher, and then we decamped for after-party at a cool, still-under construction microbrewery.

In the morning there was even time to drop in on Paula Deen for a poorly lit photo op --

After my panel today, I got to hang out with Joe Lansdale, one of my favorite writers in the world -- we got coffee and talked about writing, Texas and anything else that seemed to cross our minds. It was the perfect way to finish off an amazing weekend.

Next stop is Houston, where I'll be signing at Murder By the Book. I'll talk to you then --

A week from today, Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick hits the shelves. I'm really excited about this book, and I hope you'll take a look at it.

Meanwhile, I'm going to be in Austin this weekend for the Texas Book Festival, which promises to be a blast. If you're going to be in that part of the world, I hope to see you at one of the events and panels on Saturday and Sunday. I also have a couple signings set up in Texas while I'm there. This one, on Monday, October 24th, at Barnes & Noble in Round Rock, TX, and a signing at Murder by the Book in Houston on Tuesday, October 25th.

I've got a couple other new things to tell you as well -- exciting stuff in the wind, which I'll be posting here, there and everywhere, just as soon as I can.

Until then...

Chick in a Box

This arrived on my doorstep over the weekend. Whoa.

I always get buzzed on the day the book arrives. In this case, I was even more buzzed, since I hadn't had a look at the final jacket design until now. There's some really cool stuff going on under the dust jacket too -- you'll see what I mean soon enough. The book comes out October 25th.