whew!

Whew! Okay! I have talked to Mary-Theresa, and this is what I now know:

It’s looking like mid-2005 for URBAN SHAMAN’s publication. It could be a little earlier, could be a little later, but probably somewhere in the July-September range. Then the manuscripts for the second and third books will be due somewhere around March and December of 2005. I ought to get a revision letter for US around Christmas time, so it’s not looming over my head or anything; she’ll want the revisions for US around June, so yeah, that’s the basic schedule I’m looking at.

US is *not*, snif, the first contemporary that they’ve bought. Laura Anne Gilman will be having a contemporary come out in July-ish, and Laura Resnick will have something coming out… later. :) In 2004, but I forget when. However, that puts me in some pretty damned good company, if you ask me! Wow!

I mentioned my friend Jim Butcher, which caused her to say, “Oh, I *love* his books!” and I said, “Oh good! He offered cover quotes!” and she said, “Great!” So that was cool. Hee hee hee! And, hm, I plugged Ursula’s artwork and said I didn’t know how they did cover art, but if they were interested in author suggestions, she was a terrific artist, and she told me to email me Ursula’s website/portfolio URL, so I’ve done that.

And last, Jennifer Jackson did in fact contact her and so contract details will be worked out there, if Ms. Jackson takes me on as a client. I expect I’ll know these things within the next 72 hours or so.