Thanksgiving

Turkey is good. Turkey sandwiches are better. Eaten without the distraction of pumpkin pie, mashed rutabagas (not my idea of a good time, but tastes vary), yam fries with maple aioli, and the other fripperies of a Thanksgiving table, turkey achieves its highest calling between two slices of bread.

I like two kinds of turkey sandwiches. The night-of-Thanksgiving turkey sandwich, eaten late and alone, in the peaceful muzziness that follows a successful party, is moist white meat on 12-grain bread, with Dijon mustard, mayonnaise, and leafy lettuce. With a nice glass of a full-bodied chardonnay to go with. Ahhhhh.

Day-after-Thanksgiving turkey sandwich is a little fancier. Eaten for lunch (with Diet Coke if working in the afternoon, otherwise, more wine [g]), again on 12-grain bread, but mixed white and dark meat, thickly daubed with gorgonzola cheese, heavily studded with walnuts, and layered with a sliced ripe pear. You put mayonnaise on the bread, but mostly to keep it all stuck together. Oooooh.

But of course turkey (etc.) is not the primary reason to celebrate Thanksgiving. (No, really. Add in a nice bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne, and I'm not saying, but….no, really.) So let us concentrate on the essentials.

I'm thankful for whatever it is that makes me write books.

I'm very thankful for those of you who read the books, because I might tell stories to amuse myself, but it's having those stories read that closes the cosmic circle of creation.

I'm especially thankful to have met so many of you (in the US, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia) over the last two months. I've never met so many nice people in such a short period of time. But…

I'm most thankful of all to be home with my family!

Hope you all had a lovely day, and much to be thankful for, whether you celebrate Thanksgiving or not.

THANK YOU!

Dear Readers--

Well, AN ECHO IN THE BONE debuts on the New York Times list next week at #2! (My publisher sent me a large bottle of single-malt Scotch in congratulation--and, I suspect, in apology for having released Dan Brown's book a week before ECHO [g].)

HUGE thanks to all of you, and I'm thrilled that y'all seem to be enjoying the book!

A word about the ending...I did say, did I not, "Nobody's going to hit the end of _this_ book, and think it's the last one?" [g] Indeed it is not. There will certainly be a Book Eight--and no, I have no idea when that one will be out. At the moment, I'm home on a (very brief) furlough from book-touring; back on the road Monday, and won't be home for good until Thanksgiving, which is the soonest I could reasonably resume anything like a productive writing routine--as well as a prequel volume about Jamie's parents, a Volume II of the OUTLANDISH COMPANION, and heaven knows what-all else. But the story is definitely not over!

ECHO is out--and the party's at the BILTMORE!

Very exciting!

I'll be back later with observations on Game Day [g], but wanted to let y'all know right away that the launch party for the book is tonight _at the Arizona Biltmore Hotel_, not at the Poisoned Pen bookstore. (The Pen is organizing the event and selling books, but they can't possibly cram hundreds of people into the bookstore.)

Rosana, my webmistress, sent out an email this morning to the website subscribers, welcoming them to the party, but mistakenly ended it with "...at the Poisoned Pen." I'm sure she'll be sending out a quick PS shortly [g], but wanted to put in an early word here, since I don't know when she'll get my email about it.

Hope to see many of you in person, tonight and on the road--and I hope ALL of you will enjoy the new book! Thanks for buying it. [smile]

Quick Dog Update

For those who've asked after Homer and JJ, I'm pleased to report that all is well.

JJ (the idiot) ate about a quarter-pound of kapok pillow stuffing a month ago. Kapok is not the benign fluff they fill dog-toys with. Four thousand dollars and a foot of small intestine later, though, the hound is fine, and the house once more resounds to the thunder of racing dachshunds and the crash of what my son describes as "puppy-Sumo."

(That's JJ standing on my lap, and Homer wallowing on the floor, in our living room in Santa Fe.)

Facebook

OK, I have _no_ idea what I'm doing here, none. As part of the promotion for ECHO, though, Borders asked me if I'd come talk to people during a two-hour online chat thingie on their Facebook page next Tuesday. "Sure," I said--despite the fact that I've never been on Facebook in my life, have no idea how to get there, nor yet what to do when I _am_ there. But following initial advice from Youngest Daughter (who certainly _does_ know all about Facebook, and a good thing, too...), I created a "Celebrity" page, as well as making an individual account (which the Random House publicist said I'd need in order to do the chat on Tuesday).

So I did, and pretty darn confusing it is, though I imagine things will become clearer as I muddle around in it. I did somehow manage to link the page to this blog--thought I'd mention it in case any of y'all wondered what the heck that "Fan box" is doing there.

I'll try to put some actual content on said page, as soon as I figure out how to do that...so if there's anything you'd like to see there, let me know!

THE EXILE - graphic novel is DONE!

Great news! The artwork for the graphic novel is done (bar little tweaks here and there) and it looks terrific! We don't have a specific pub date for this yet—sometime in 2010—but we do at least have a title. This is called THE EXILE (An OUTLANDER graphic novel).

I took some of the artwork with me to DragonCon last weekend (I did the Decatur Book Festival and DragonCon more or less simultaneously, which made for an interesting time all round), and was very pleased that everyone who saw it raved about it.

In celebration, here are two more sample pages, to show off Hoang's mastery of color and light (and anatomy). One small note: Please don't nab these pictures and go posting them all over the net. I don't own the copyright; that belongs to the artist, Hoang Nguyen, and these are posted here by his kind permission and that of the Ballantine editor. If you'd like to share these with your friends—and I'm all for it [g]—please just send them a link to this page.

And Some of Australia

I don't yet have a complete listing of places and events for Australia, but this is what we have so far:

Diana Gabaldon Australian Tour Schedule

1. Monday 9th November 2009 - Perth
10 am – 12 noon
Venue: Tompkins on Swan Function Centre
Address: Corner Dunkley Ave and Canning Highway, Alfred Cove (free parking is available)
Contact: Dymocks Garden City
Phone: 08 93647387
Email: gcorders@dymocks.com.au

2. Tuesday 10th November - Adelaide TBC

3. Wednesday 11th November - Melbourne TBC

4. Thursday 12th November - Melbourne TBC

5. Friday 13th November – Melbourne TBC

6. Sunday 15th November - Hobart
1.30pm for 2pm
Venue: Hadley’s Hotel
Address: 34 Murray Street, Hobart
Contact: Dymocks Hobart
Phone: 03 6231 6656
Email: hobart@dymocks.com.au

7. Monday 16th November - Sydney
12.30pm – 3pm
Dymocks Literary Lunch
Four Seasons Hotel
Address: 199 George Street, Sydney
Contact: Judy Benson
Phone: 02 9449 4366
Email: judybenson@bigpond.com

8. Tuesday 17th November – Sydney
1pm – 2pm
Stanton Library (free event)
Address: 234 Miller St. North Sydney
Contact: Constant Reader Bookshop
Phone: 02 9438 1763
Email: bob@constantreader.com.au

9. Wednesday 18th November - Canberra TBC

10. Thursday 19th November – Brisbane TBC

11. Friday 20th November - Brisbane TBC