A week's worth

We have a cover for Slightly Peculiar Love Stories. I'm torn between plastering it everywhere and uncovering it little by little. Wait and see what I decide. It's striking and I like the fact that it doesn't have to follow the rules of regular book-making. Doesn't need a spine or a back page. Doesn't even have to be rectangular, except that it'll fit more neatly on a screen if it is (and it is).

Proof copies of The Glass Harmonica, the print-on-demand version, arrived in Salt Lake City and Dunedin this week, and we were pretty chuffed to hold it in our hands, stroke that winsome front cover, and see Dorothee's fine prose on cream paper of good quality. A couple of tweaks at the Lightning Source end, and a couple of technical details to attend to at this, and we'll be away. I'll keep you posted here.

While we're talking short stories, please consider pre-ordering a copy of Tales for Canterbury (collected and edited by Canterbury writers Cassie Hart and Anna Caro) for which all profits will go to the Red Cross Earthquake Appeal. I see that at least four of the writers have work appearing in our collection, too. What a feast of stories.

You're going to meet our slightly peculiar writers, one by one, here on this page, starting on Monday or even sooner. Some will blog, and others I'll introduce before pointing you to a fine example of their work. I hope they'll venture to speak about love, about writing, about their own peculiar interests – oh, anything at all; we just want them here, hanging about on Rosa Mira Books and talking to you.

Blown south

Home again, in time to miss the Auckland tornado — except that our applause went north for the brave efforts of our daughter's namesake and sister-in-law who tried valiantly to breathe life into the storm's only mortally wounded victim. Here it's degrees cooler and autumn, without a doubt, today dank, still, and grey — perfect for garden spiders to showcase their cobwebs — clock-faced, hammocked, or tattered — outlined as they are by drizzle.

It's also the perfect day for digging in at the desk. Helen has come up with a lively plan to tease the palate of our readership for Slightly Peculiar Love Stories; Christine Buess is designing the pages of what is now a single document (or will be as soon as I've completed a cheerful, enticing foreword). Sophie, alluded to above, has almost finished manipulating and photographing the funky digital cover.

I saw the film 'Potiche' last night, a French 'screwball comedy' featuring Catherine Deneuve as 'trophy wife' turning MP. Of course it was absurd but Deneuve made convincing portrayal of a woman growing into her own skin, heart, and wider vision. I like to think that Rosa Mira Books is quietly giving some of us opportunities to fill our boots and stride out — whether as writers, publishers, publicists, designers, bloggers, even readers. (I reckon The Glass Harmonica works this way in the reader's imagination, which is why I wanted to publish it; it's a story like fertiliser or taurine, only far more appetising and longer lasting.)

Talking of which, the print on demand version will be available soon (oh 'soon', that slippery little word on which I nonetheless rest one elbow, sometimes two) via Lightning Source (as soon as someone in NZ gets up and running with multiple-outlet POD, let me know, please?) and when the proof version arrives, Dorothee and I will each drink something fizzy and cheer because however nifty and versatile the digital version of a book, to hold the thing itself gives the writer (and publisher) an unparalleled thrill.