I really like the cover for Dragon Lovers, the anthology in which I have my novella "Anna and the King of Dragons." New American Library/Penguin USA did a lovely job of it.

MUCH better than having my picture there. I noticed that others have pictures of themselves or some other avatar, but I discovered that I have very few pictures of myself around, and the latest one (which I have included in the pictures section of my MySpace (is that redundant? "My MySpace"?)) is not at all recent. This probably because I'm the one who takes all the pictures in my family.

Anyway.

Love the cover on the anthology, and I absolutely loved writing the story. All the novellas I've written have given me a chance to write something different than what I've written before, whether it's exploring a different era or place, or different kinds of characters. And I truly enjoy working with Jo, Mary Jo, and Barbara to come up with the anthology's concept. In fact, in our Faery Magic anthology, we even had our characters appear in each other's stories. Very fun!

Mine is set during the Edo period of Japan (1650's or so) on the island of Kyushu, where my mother was born. I've never set anything in Japan, though I am of Japanese heritage and was born in Yokosuka. But, I really wanted to write in a different place and time from my novels, and heaven knows a full-length romance novel set in Edo-period Japan would have been a difficult sell. But, I think publishers give a bit of leeway with novellas, because there is relatively little risk with them, especially if the other authors are best sellers, have a solid following, and/or are not taking too much of a risk with the rest of the stories.

Overall, I think we were taking bit of a risk with the subject matter (dragons), but there's enough pull with most of the authors to carry it off.

Funny thing: when I was writing the novella, I told my mother that I was writing about a dragon that was living around Arita. She piped up and said that she had gone to a dragon's cave near that city, and that she had seen a dragon's pool. There is a cave not too far from Arita that is unique n that the interior is covered in what looks like stony scales.

Coincidence? Hmm.....

But for all my research I can find neither hide nor hair of such a cave, not mentioned anywhere on the Internet. So, maybe it exists, and maybe it doesn't. I decided at least to include the dragon's pool, anyway, as dragons are considered air and water creatures in Japan.

Well, I'm going downstairs to watch TV. I was going to revise more of my manuscript, but I feel too tired to do so, most likely because my doctor said I had pneumonia today.

So, good night.