Here’s a shoutout to all the people who showed up to the signing/reading/book launch party for The Devil’s Alphabet this past Friday. Thank so much, friends. And thanks to Danielle and everyone at the State College Barnes & Noble, who were so gracious and helpful. I very much appreciate y’all supporting a local writer of weird books.

I think about 50 people showed up to bookstore portion of the evening, and we had about that many in our house afterward for desserts., though these two groups did not completely overlap:

True, I knew almost everyone, but that’s why insecure writers hold local signings. I’ve done a couple of these bookstore events outside my hometown, and in all cases they have been what I call Ego Correction Exercises. A roomful of friendly faces is a wonderful thing.

But I did meet a few new folks, including Nick & Phiala and Mike & Elizabeth, two couples who are SF fans and true geeks who could talk inside baseball like nobody’s business, and who all lived within two blocks of me. Which is one of the coolest things about living in a small town.

At the bookstore I started with a short reading from the book. I think it took me longer to explain the premise of the novel and set up the scene than to read the scene itself. Fortunately, the scene contained only medium amounts of description about pus.

This was followed by the traditional (because we did it for the Pandemonium launch), handing out of five “Questions written by My Wife” for people to ask during the Q&A section. Questions such as, “Rumor has it, you were a big whiner during the writing of this book. Please explain.”

I also got to talk about the cover, and demonstrate once and for all that those are not my eyes.

Then it was on to the signatures, then back to my house for dessert, coffee, and other beverages. Our friend Kimber made it to the house, straight from working as a clown at a birthday party, and freaked out my son, who has a thing about clowns. More pictures.

Can I just say how much fun I had? Thanks again for welcoming this book, people.