Happy Birthday to Me!

A GIFT FOR ME

Yes, today is my birthday. My 50th, to be exact. So people are making a much bigger fuss than usual...which is turning out to be a lot of fun.

Yesterday I got a mystery package from my publishers, Llewellyn. On the front it said : DO NOT OPEN UNTIL YOUR BIRTHDAY. Argh! Torture. I rattled it...nothing. But I was good, and waited until this morning to open it.

Woke up to snow (ah, upstate NY in April), but this cheered me right up!

Here is the front of the card I got--



And on the inside were SIXTEEN signatures and personal messages, from all the folks I've worked with--editors, publicity folks, the lots. I almost cried!

And here is the present that was inside --



And here's what was inside THAT --



50 pieces of chocolate, a wonderful and heartwarming (and only occasionally snarky) A to Z of me, and a cute little kitty.

Not bad for a day that started with snow!

Thanks so much to Elysia Gallo, Becky Zins, and all the other wonderful folks at Llewellyn for making me feel so loved and appreciated. What a wonderful gift!

A GIFT FOR EVERYONE ELSE

I am so overwhelmed with the amount of love I've received; gifts, and cards, and emails, Twitter and Facebook... I decided I want to do something special for everyone who has been so supportive of me. So here's a birthday gift for my readers and fans (you know who you are):
Anyone who goes to www.Llewellyn.com or Amazon and orders one of my books, or preorders one of the two coming out this year--and comes back here and tells me about it--can get a signed copy of Circle, Coven & Grove, my first book, for $5. I'll even pay for the shipping myself. [USA only, please.] You can pay on paypal, so it's easy. So if you've wanted a signed book but haven't been able to make it to one of my events, here's your big chance.

Happy birthday to me, and thanks so very much to everyone for the good wishes!

Check back tomorrow for reports on the rest of today's celebrations,and a link to my guest blog for Candace Havens at GenReality.