Friday, January 20, 2012

Dandi News, Good News!

I’ve been remiss here I know, but after all that computer trouble I had to catch up on listing, not to mention deal with all the photos in need of renaming and uploading. But I finally got a handle on it which is great because I plan to have a rip-roaring good time tonight. It sounds a little wacky I know, but I am off to my writers’ Christmas party at 6:30. I guess to understand this you have to know that for writers time is a very fluid thing. You have a Christmas party in December. Or you have it January, or March, or even August and it’s STILL a Christmas party with presents and Christmas food. So of course I had to wrap the goodies in festive paper and bake a cake. I settled on what has become known at our house as Darwin cake – as you may recall, it’s the one I threw together  out of sheer desperation on New Year’s Day. But it was good enough to warrant a reprise, which is handy because it’s a small cake and we are a small group of four who have been together since the early 90’s.

Tonight is extra special though because one of our members, Dandi Mackall, has scored not one, but TWO major victories. Wow – for a writer this is dream stuff. First she sold her novel My Boyfriend’s Dogs to Hallmark who plans to make it into a Valentine’s Day movie, tentatively scheduled for next year. This book is so cinematic it begs to be on film – in fact, I said that to her after I read the manuscript. Imagine this as an opener  -- a woman wanders into a St. Louis café late on a rainy night dressed in a wedding gown and holding a leash to which is attached a gaggle of dogs. This sale took place a couple weeks ago and we were definitely planning to raise a glass to it, but then yesterday brought even more mind-blowing news. It turns out that Dandi’s  YA novel The Silence of Murder just got nominated for an Edgar which to a mystery writer is the equivalent of an Oscar. It almost doesn’t even matter if you win – just getting to don an evening gown and show up in the Big Apple to schmooze with the mostly famous nominees is heady stuff enough. http://www.theedgars.com/nominees.html

Of course after all THAT glittering news anything else I say is going to drop like a blob of lead on a concrete floor, but I did score a sort of victory myself on Tuesday. You may recall that when we bought the books from the House of Torture I mentioned that one very innocuous looking one appeared to be quite valuable. It looks like a complete zilch, but I picked it up, set it aside immediately, and took it home the first day before we even brought the truck. This book is so blah that I would bet an FOL sale could put it on the free table and nobody would take it. Why I felt a little zing!  when I picked it up is anybody’s guess. It’s from the 20’s and is titled Mathematical Investigations in the Theory of Value and Prices by Irving Fisher, SIGNED and inscribed by Fisher to Mercer G. Evans who served as Labor Relations Director for the Farm Security Administration. Online copies ranged from $395 to $750, but I’m not greedy, so I priced mine at $395 also, even though it was a tad better than the lowest priced one. To my amazement it sold overnight on ABE as a want match. Of course I like the money, but it’s an equal kick to have recognized  a diamond embedded in a lump of coal. It also makes the two days of misery packing all those books a lot more palatable.

Speaking of book buying, would you believe that there are STILL no estate sales this weekend. We went to a small book sale yesterday morning which we hadn’t been to in two years. It used to be a humdinger, but right now it’s the doggiest of them all. Strangely enough though , there were ZERO scanner types and a small crowd, so I was able to get six books for the antiques mall and one I wanted to read. The amazing part was that we walked in and were greeted like the Queen and Prince of England. They thought we’d gone out of business when what we actually had gone out of was patience with scanners and bad books. I think the reason they like us is we used to spend a lot of money, but not this time.Their glass case “specials” included six Rover Boy books with no dustjackets and broken spines at $6 each. I don’t think so ….

Which is why tomorrow  will find us trudging  off in the snow  to another small sale of dubious value and then on Sunday to the Medina Flea Market which lately has been a bit better, but is  worth going to only because we live two miles from it. But I am not complaining too much because I did buy some nice stuff on ebay this week, some of which I’ll show you in a future post.

Until then, let’s all have a toast of virtual champagne ( I vote for Veuve Cliquot) for my friend Dandi. Here’s to good news in all its guises!

4 comments:

Cheryl said...

How far must you trek for the festivities? A winter storm warning is I being issued for 5 o'clock.

tess said...

It's not far for me and Nancy and it's at Laurie's house outside of Medina, but Dandi comes from the Ashland area -- pretty far out in the middle of nowhere. So the party is OFF. Just got the word. I was really ready to rock and roll too! Maybe next week...

Anonymous said...

I just hope you got to have the party! I know you were concerned about the snow. A toast to all four of you! gin

tess said...

No party for us and a good thing too -- we got hammered. It was later than predicted, but it would have still been a problem.We awere all anguished, but we'll try again. Trouble is, there;s not one day next week we can agree on!