I was thrilled a few weeks ago to be asked to contribute some of my thoughts about blogging to a project called, Blog Your Book to the Top. It’s an ebook published by CyberBookBuzz to help authors use blogs to promote their work.

What little I know about that apparently went over well, so I’m one of the 15 authors whose blogs and tips are featured in the book. You might want to take a look, if only for tips from others who know far more than I do about using a blog to promote their work. Nancy Hendrickson, who asked me to take part, is a freelance writer in San Diego and creator of Blogging Authors and Book Talk Radio. She’s included dozens of great tips about author blogging, and blogging in general, in Blog Your Book to the Top.

One of my particular thrills resulting from this project is to see my name on the summary page for the book — on the same page as a blurb by Jessica Macbeth, author of The Faeries Oracle. Her excellent book accompanies Brian Froud’s Faeries Oracle cards, which I love so much that after I lost my first deck last year I immediately bought a second one.

How cool is that?

Some of my best days are those on which the postman brings a bundle of mail held together by a fat rubberband that includes a package. The package usually contains a book. Sometimes yarn, but more often a book.

I’ve read a lot of books. I haven’t read as many as some people, and not as many as I wish. I plan to read a lot more before I die. I’ve never bothered to keep count, I just look around me at those still on my shelves, and I think about those I’ve given away or sold, those stored in the attic because we ran out of shelves, those that I’ve borrowed, and—most important—those that will be alive in my mind forever.

Whenever Banned Books Week rolls around, as it will next week (September 23 - 30), many of us look at a list of banned books and count up those we’ve read. But the single curious fact that stands out for me is how many banned novels or their authors have won Pulitzer Prizes.

If that’s the company banned books and their authors keep, then please ban my books.

Vote for your favorite challenged book here.