My word, but I’m having a week.

First things first: congratulations to akaellisfisher for winning Blood’s Pride with an answer that was both thoughtful and contrarian (and a belated front-page shout-out to Mike Albright, who won A Cold Season a week earlier). And this week’s book giveaway is not to be missed!

Next thing most: over the weekend I finally took delivery of my own baby. That’s right folks, Gemsigns is 400 pages of big, beautiful book with weight and heft and texture, and that glorious new-book smell. Our inscrutable heroine (or is she the villain?) stares defiantly out from behind shards of red-tinted glass on the cover (or are they the fragmented planes of an unravelling double helix?), as if to say: You want a piece of this? 

Broad hint there about what’s on offer next week. Because next week is also Publication Week and Radio Week and Eastercon Weekend. There’ll be lots going on online as well as on air, and without pre-empting the Con programme (not yet published), I’ve had confirmation that I’m going to be on it as a panelist. The rate of bloggage and tweetage will rise sharply. With any luck there’ll be reviews and interviews  …

Which brings me back to this week: I was interviewed on camera for the first time ever today. It was a deer-caught-in-the-headlights experience. I’m told I wasn’t completely rubbish (though I have my doubts). You be the judge: it should be up on YouTube within a few days, and I promise to link it no matter how cringeworthy it might turn out to be.

Phenomenal thing finally: Last week was epic for my brother Storm, whose award-winning debut feature film Better Mus’ Come opened in New York’s Times Square and at the Downtown Independent Theatre in Los Angeles after sold-out sneak previews in Atlanta, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Seattle, Houston, Chicago and Port of Spain. The weekend numbers from NYC and LA were fantastic. The reviews from the Huffington Post and LA Times have been glowing. His Film Independent interview was fab (he’s much better at interviews than me, but then he has had more practice). He is brilliant and driven and generous, and he works incredibly hard. He deserves every moment of this.