I had a lovely dinner…

I had a lovely dinner with Sharmi and Ryan, plus Bapsi Sidhwa, Shona Ramaya, and Suketa Mehta. We ended up having Vietnamese, and my salt-baked shrimp were oh, so yummy. Afterwards, Shona and I went to Kinko's and made some copies, I of infosheets for DesiLit, and she of subscription forms for Catamaran (which she edits), plus some pretty flyers for her latest book. We had a pleasant chat as we walked to and fro; it's just so nice to meet someone else doing the sort of things I do. It was a nice cap to a very nice day.

So the good news is official -- my book will be published in German! How cool is that?!

I'm not sure how many of the details I should be talking about, but the publisher is Rowohlt and Kindler, and while I don't get any money up front, it does get applied against my advance (just like normal sales in the U.S. will), and I'm now more than halfway to earning out my advance. Which is just so lovely, I can't tell you. It's every author's fear, that they won't earn out their advance, and that no publisher will want to buy a book from them again. This foreign sale is a great sign to HarperCollins about the possible success of my book, and will hopefully give them even more confidence in the book (and perhaps lead to larger print runs and/or spending more publicity money).

Anyway, I need to head off to the conference and will be offline the rest of the day, I think. Talk to you soon...