1. Poppy has a deep, profound loyalty to my favorite city in the world (New Orleans, of course) and will stand up for it without a moment’s hesitation.
2. Poppy is strong-willed, opinionated, has excellent taste in food, and by her LiveJournal entries, seems like she’d be an absolute blast to hang out with.
3. Poppy is an amazing writer. I fell in love with her work the first time I read Lost Souls and that romance has continued throughout her amazing Liquor series. She’s got talent…and she takes chances. Can’t help but admire that.
4. Poppy has great hair. I know…I’m normally not such a superficial brat, but let’s face it, Poppy has the cutest hair on the planet.
5. Poppy is gracious and sweet, and she was kind enough to send me a postcard congratulating me on my book sale, even though she won’t be blurbing Eighth Grade Bites. I totally understand that vampires are in her past, so no hurt feelings at all. Quite the contrary, I GOT A POSTCARD FROM POPPY Z. BRITE!!! Okay, deep breaths, deep breaths…And she was nice enough to send the postcard. She could’ve totally ignored me–because I’m a HUGE dope and forgot to include an SASE when I wrote and asked her for a blurb. So thank you, thank you, thank you, Poppy. I bow humbly to your greatness. 
Without further ado, my new favorite thing (address removed to protect the, er, me–I left Poppy’s address, as it’s available online):
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Major cool!
Totally agree! Uber cool!
See that? Famous Authors (note the initial caps there) are really just people. With lots of money. And fans. And publishing contracts.
HEY! What’s the “Gray September” meter? Huh? Hah? Huh?
Famous Authors are fantastic people.
I just received the nicest letter from Vivian Vande Velde. No blurb from her either, but it astounds me how kind the Well Knowns are.
GRAY SEPTEMBER is a rethink of a project I started some time ago. See, I have a really hard time letting go of things. And this book has strong connections to the first book I ever wrote. In fact, GRAY has gone through many different forms, but last night the Lightbulb of Inspiration flickered on and I took it upon myself to rearrange a few elements, which led me to GRAY SEPTEMBER. An adult fiction full of pain, love, loss, and memories.
I hope, anyway.
Kewl!
Good luck with it. And believe me, I know about it being hard to let go of something ((Jackie eyes THE LORN)) and to try reworking it ((Jackie smiles over THE MAGIC BRIGADE)).
Sometimes being reborn is the best thing that can happen to a manuscript.