Getting ready for the Con!

Tomorrow begins Timegate, where Michelle Roper and I will be guests (as Gillian Summers). I received boxes of our books to have on hand when we man our table, and now that we have The Secret of the Dread Forest, the last book in the first trilogy, we can offer complete trilogies for sale. We thought we'd offer them at $25 for the set, a $5 savings over buying individual books.

Timegate hosts a fundraiser, each year benefiting a different charity. It's a cabaret. As in performance. Michelle and I are so not performers! Sing? Um, no, although the thought of Michelle and I doing a duet of "Sweet Child Of Mine" is amusing.

Instead of frightening the natives, we decided to do a skit. Michelle sent me a slew of funny short pieces she'd written over the years, and after I mopped up all the coffee that I sneezed out when I made the mistake of reading them during breakfast and had an attack of caffeinated giggles, I chose one to turn into a play form.

So Saturday evening Michelle and I will perform, with the help of Jana Oliver and perhaps others, "The Haunted Chicken Truck of Lake Lanier" (cue spooky banjo music). We'll save "Earlene's Evil Pickles," which came in second, for another time.

If you're in Atlanta this weekend, catch our act - God willing there will never be a repeat!

Check out the LUCKY CHICA widget!

St. Martins made this cool widget for LUCKY CHICA - go to the MacMillan site to check it out and get it for yourself.

Almost done updating my website, so you'll soon be able to enter my new contests. Besides books and other goodies, I'll be giving away a $10 gift certificate to online bookstores, starting in January with an Amazon gift certificate. Know of teachers and librarians who could use the $10 credit? Tell them to sign up at www.bertaplatas.com and www.gilliansummers.com - two chances a month to win!

Hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season. I've been baking cookies and mixing bath salts and sugar scrubs. It's so much fun! What do you do to make your Christmas special? With fewer gifts under the tree, spending family time together is more important to us than ever.