Omaha Beach, part deux

Not part two of the book, but part two of the publication news.
Omaha Beach now has a different cover (fab, fab, fab!) and a better layout inside. It also has an ISBN!

Here's a link: Look here.

On a side note, I returned home last night from a trip to London, where I worked at the London Book Fair for comic book publisher Cinebook. An international book fair is a great place to embarrass yourself by trying out your textbook French, German, Italian, Cantonese, etc. on people who actually speak the language. Tee hee.

If you're blondish and mention that you live in California, expect to be asked by at least one person from another country if you surf. I am, I did and I was. And I don't.

In a narrow, crowded restaurant with uneven floors in the Earls Court section of London, I enjoyed the best tikka masala I've ever tasted. At the tables on either side of ours (we were almost bumping elbows with the diners at those tables), unidentified and highly gutteral languages were being spoken with such intensity that I could practically feel the speakers' breaths in my face. It sounded like a throat-clearing contest.

My one tourist foray of the trip was to Hampton Court, just outside London. Hampton Court was taken away from Cardinal Wolsey by Henry VIII after Wolsey failed to persuade the Pope that it was a good idea for Henry to divorce his wife and marry Anne Boleyn. Some of the outstanding features of the palace include a 500-year-old astronomical clock (taken down for renovation during my visit), the Chapel Royal (closed between church services the day of my visit), the gardens and the Royal Tennis Court (designed not for modern tennis but for the centuries-old game jeu de paume). I was really disappointed to miss the chapel and the clock, but the living history presentations around the palace (including actors preparing a meal in the palace kitchen) assuaged my feelings. I'd watched several PBS specials on Hampton Court before this trip and am thrilled that I got to visit the palace.

Omaha Beach is now in print!

To everyone who's been beating down my (virtual) office door asking when I was going to publish my Omaha Beach collection of short fiction . . . it's done! Omaha Beach is available in print and as a PDF download. These stories, many of them set near a fictitious lakeshore beach outside of Omaha, Nebraska, are about survival.

I'm revising the layout, so I've taken down the link to the preview site. :-)