Back from the D

That's Disneyworld, silly. We went down to Florida last week and spent a big chunk of time hanging out in various theme parks that would probably drive a weaker man mad, but whose magic I metabolized with admirable strength. In the future, though, I wouldn't recommend doing four parks in four days with two kids. We survived through ample repeated doses of Pop Tarts and ice cream shaped like Mickey Mouse's head.

I started the visit by going to see my favorite bar band, The Hold Steady, play a show at the Social in downtown Orlando. It was amazing and the band was incredibly tight, one of the best live performances I've seen...ever. Good thing I was able to capture its full glory with the awesome power of my BlackBerry's camera.



So yeah, we went to Disney. There's a big Star Wars element there, in case you hadn't heard, and I found a great poster of my favorite bounty hunter, Bossk. It just made miss my Kenner action figures all the more.



But I wasn't preoccupied long by melancholy. Not long after, I was placed under arrest to be frozen in carbonite.



Plus, after the Disneyworld Star Tours ride, I found my book on display at the gift shop.



Where is it? Take a closer look, up right next to another slightly less popular character...


Our next stop? Disney's Animal Kingdom. Not only are you allowed to pet the animals, but you can see what Disney feeds them. Seen here: something called a Primate Maintenance Biscuit. Mmm, them's good eating.



But it wasn't all copyrighted characters and monkey chow. On the way north, we stopped by Savannah, Georgia, where I got to visit the childhood home of my favorite Southern gothic writer, Flannery O'Connor. Little known fact: the biggest benefactor of the museum is none other than Jerry Bruckheimer.



Which makes me wonder, how long until we get Michael Bay's version of "A Good Man is Hard to Find"?

The Red and the Black

A few months ago, it was announced online that my next Star Wars book would be called Star Wars: Black Orchid. This past week I discovered that Amazon is listing my next Star Wars book as Star Wars: Red Harvest.

So what gives?

First of all, let me say that I'm fine with both titles. Black Orchid was the one that my editor came up with, and I thought it was dandy -- it sounded dark and noirish to me, and it didn't really sound your standard Star Wars title. Plus, I'm a big fan of the movie Adaptation. In retrospect, though, it might have been a little too unconventional, because the concern arose that people might think it was a romance novel. What with all the flowers, and everything.

So when Del Rey got back to me and asked for suggestions, I tossed out a whole list of options, including Red Harvest. And that didn't sound noir-y at all.



And plus, nobody's ever used it before, as far as I know.



Uh, yeah. So anyway. I hope you like the new title, but more importantly, I hope you'll like the book. It's coming out early next year.

And it might even still be called Red Harvest.

We'll see.

Tour Dread

For those with an insatiable appetite for listening to me blather, I give you yesterday's Dread Central interview with me. In this one, I went out of my way to be as brutally honest as possible, as opposed to indulging in the all-too-frequent bouts of self-mythologizing that so often plague my interviews ("And I landed the 747 under the Golden Gate Bridge, bringing all 345 passengers to safety while defusing the bomb with my teeth," that sort of thing). So, if naked candor is your thing, check it out.

Or maybe you're the type that prefer to interrogate me personally, in which case, read on, because the Joe Schreiber Summer 2010 mini-tour is hereby in the house. So far, we have:

Saturday, July 17th
Borders Express
298 Exton Square Mall
Exton, PA 19341
(610) 363-5036
1-3 PM

Saturday, July 24th
Borders - Camp Hill
3515 Gettysburg RD
Camp Hill, PA 17011
(717) 975-2132
1-3 PM

Saturday August 14
Waldenbooks - Lebanon Valley Mall
2264 Lebanon Valley Mall
Lebanon, PA 17042
717 274-2731
10-2 PM

I have no idea if there will be anymore dates coming, but if there are, I'll be sure to post them here as soon as I know.

Darth by Darthwest

Revealed at last -- the cover art to my next Star Wars novel! (Thanks to Martin Sweeney)

It Talks!

Yep, that's me on the cover of the current issue of Supernatural Magazine. Or at least there's an interview with me inside, wherein I babble rather randomly about how Supernatural fits in well with classic American storytelling, from Huck Finn to On the Road. And if that's not enough, there's also several pictures of me staggering half-naked around the TV's production offices with a Civil War musket and bottle of Jim Beam in my hand.

Okay, that last bit is an exaggeration. But you should still grab the mag if you get the chance.

Meanwhile, Jens over at Unreality SF has just posted a brand new interview with me here, so make sure you check that out as well!

Supernatural Tuesday

If you're interested, my novel Supernatural: The Unholy Cause comes out tomorrow. If you're on the fence, check out Liana Bekakos' review here at Eclipse Magazine -- she seemed to dig it...at least enough that she interviewed me at TV.com about all my deep dark secrets.

And if you still don't know if you wanna take the plunge, Fearnet's got a chapter excerpt for you to read. Don't say you weren't warned.