Welcome to Bordertown is out in paperback today, with a spiffy new cover, and a spiffy new website. Please check out the site, and the Bordertown video below (if you haven't seen it already), and enter the "Bring a Friend to Bordertown" contest for a signed copy of the book and other cool swag from the Elflands. Ellen, Holly, and team have done a fabulous job with it all. I hope you'll join us on the Border.

And okay, we're talking elves on motorcycles here...but here's why the Bordertown series is so important to all of us who have worked on it over the years (as well as being a whole lot of fun): These are stories about kids who find their way through the dark with the help of art, music, and the "magic" of community and friendship. And there are kids out there who need these kind of tales. Please help us to get the book into their hands by spreading the word.

I've got competing deadlines staring me in the face right now, including a book due in to its publisher next week (an anthology of YA dystopian fiction called After, co-edited with my partner-in-crime, Ellen Datlow). I've also got a dog who is missing her papa and needing good long walks to distract her from pining. Since I can't clone myself to make time for everything, this blog will take a back seat until the deadline crunch is past. I'll pop in if I can, but I won't be posting regularly again until after June 1st. And speaking of books:

Today is the Official Publication Day for Welcome to Bordertown!!! Which means not only are the books now in the shops, but also that ebook editions are merrily zipping to Kindles and Nooks and Sony Readers even as I type this.

I hereby raise a glass of Farrel Din's finest to the amazing Ellen Kushner & Holly Black, to all the writers and artists who contributed to the book, to our excellent editor Mallory Loehr and the good folks at Random House (including Jessica Shoffel, Ellice Lee, and Chelsea Eberly), to agents extraordinaire Barry Goldblatt & Christopher Schelling, to web designer Theo Black and web-art-creator Tara O'Shea, to Delia Sherman and Midori Snyder and Tor Books (for generous assistance behind the scenes), to Howard (who convinced me to return to the Border), to the kind souls who donated art, crafts, and books to the Bordertown Sweepstakes [open until May 31, if you haven't entered it already], to the film crew and kids who made the video, and to everyone else who helped to re-open the Way to Bordertown.  (You know who you are.)

There will be Bordertown stories, poems, articles, interviews, and other fun things popping up all over the web this week, and in the weeks ahead. So keep an eye on the Bordertown blog, where Ellen, Holly, and I are doing our best to keep track of it all (despite the fact that Ellen is off doing literary things in France, and Holly is off doing literary things in Sweden, and I'm here in England with a moping dog, while my husband's off doing theatrical things in Portugal. When did life get so...international?)

And please, everyone, we could use your help to pass the word about the Bordertown book trailer video, which is now up on YouTube. We want to get as many hits and comments as we can, with the goal of getting the book itself into the hands of every kid out there who needs stories like these...but might not know it yet....

By the way, if you purchase Welcome to Bordertown from Amazon.com by following this link, the Endicott Studio gets a small percentage of the sale -- and that money is donated to a charity for homeless, abused, and at-risk children. You'll find more information here.

The art above, from Welcome to Bordertown, is by Dylan Meconis.

I'm popping in on a Saturday morning to pass the word that Erin Underwood has posted a terrific "shared world interview" with Bordertown writers Chris Barzak, Holly Black, Charles de Lint, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Tim Pratt, Sara Ryan, Janni Lee Simner, and Jane Yolen, over at Underwoods: Life Literature, & Everything in Between.  She's also giving away a copy of the Welcome to Bordertown ARC via Book Club on Facebook today.

I must post this link quickly because I'm not really meant to be in the office on weekends. After a lifetime of working basically 24/7 (as so many self-employed writers, freelance editors, and artists do), I've been persuaded to actually take weekends off during my months of convalescence...and I'm finding the weekly break so helpful, bringing fresh energy and clarity to the rest of my work week, that I plan to carry it on when convalesence is finally done. If you, too, are an over-worked, overstressed 24/7 type, I recommend giving it a try. You'll be amazed. (I also recommend having one day a week when computers remain entirely switched off, which we do in my household on Sundays.) 

So I'm out of here now, and leave you with the video above, recommended by my friend Bożena Małek in Poland. It's Bruno Mars in a studio session performing "The Lazy Song." Perfect.

Below: The pup in lazy mode (which dogs are so effortlessly good at), chilling on a bench in the front garden.

...the book trailer video for our new Bordertown anthology! (It's running exclusively on io9.com this week, so I can't embed it here; just follow the link.) Go watch it before you read the "making of" information below, as it's more fun to stumble upon it fresh....

Okay, you're back?

Ellen Kushner, Holly Black, and I cooked up the initial idea for video...but then Ellen ran with it, wrote the script, and, with our publisher's support, made the leap from Cool Idea to Finished Project. (See that deep, dark chasm between the two? Alas, that's where too many Cool Ideas end up unless there's a person, like Ellen, with both vision and tenacity behind them.)

Ellen got Vital Theatre on board (the company that produced her fabulous "Klezmer Nutcracker" in New York), and they, in turn, brought in some terrific young actors from the New York City school system. Bravo to everyone -- especially Ellen, who has been involved with every step of the project, but also to the kids, New York radio host Jim Freund (the grumpy old-timer in the video), the video crew, the support team at Vital Theatre, and the good folks at Random House Publishers (including the book's fine editor, Mallory Loehr), who all helped to make it happen.

The picture on the left above, by the way, is a Bordertown sketch created by Brian Froud back in 1991 (for a film project that didn't make the leap across the chasm). You'll find more sketches by Brian on the Bordertown website, on the Characters page.

And one last thing: Christopher Barzak is running a new Bordertown contest over on his blog. (Chris has a terrific story in the new book.) The prize is a one-of-a-kind Bordertown pendant by Mia Nutick of Chimera Fancies.  All the info is here.

This morning I put the names of everyone who entered my Welcome to Bordertown ARC contest into a hat, and picked one slip of paper with the winning name: Evan. Congratulations, Evan! The ARC will soon be on its way to you.

For those of you who didn't win, don't despair: we have more contests coming up between now and the book's publication date (May 24). At the moment Holly Black is running one, which finishes on May 8th. All you have to do to enter is to go to her blog and leave a comment about your favorite magical place. " It can be a place you've been to in our world which has always seemed special," says Holly, "or a magical land that you have only visited in a book." And while you're over at Holly's blog, have a look at the comments that have been left so far, some of which are very touching. 

Also, Janni Simner is running an ARC tour here; I don't know if there are any places left on it, but it's worth asking if you're interested. And go here to read the first review to come in as a result of Janni's ARC tour.

Photo above by Midori Snyder.