Oh! So that’s what a contract from a literary agent looks like. Though it looks a lot less blurred in person.

Some big things happened last week, and I’ve basically been exploding to tell the Internet all about it. I’ve signed a contract with Red Sofa Literary and will be working with literary agent Dawn Frederick. You can learn more about (the wonderful) Dawn on the agency’s website and via Publisher’s Marketplace. You should also follow her on Twitter.

Dawn is going to be pitching out the YA fantasy novel I’ve been toiling away with since the Fall of last year (I spent my vacation in Puerto Rico and Montreal working on it), and really, I’m just so excited. She’s got amazing ideas, and I’m already starting work on book #2 (what!) in the series.

Huge thanks to Jessica Anne, Peter Marinari, Steve Rauscher, Chris Urie, and Elizabeth Crutchley for spending the past few months workshopping this book with me. They washed down their dinner with my tears after giving me harsh criticism, and convinced me it was a story worth writing. They’re done an amazing job ripping apart and improving my manuscript since we started meeting in January.

Also to Jennifer Adams for her lovely touch ups and guidance, the Quirk crew for having my back, my darling Britt Miller for keeping me company during endless nights in Cosi, Tim, Melissa, and Chris for reading the rough cuts, Frankie Mallis for weekly pep talks, and Ransom Riggs for inspiring me to give this a shot in the first place.

And of course, Dawn for believing in this book! I can’t wait to work with you!

Expect lots of updates as things progress. Here we go!

Alright, so I’m shamelessly stealing this idea from Gabrielle Gantz, an awesome publicist I admire (I have got to meet her at BEA!) over at Picador.

On her personal blog, she posts information on the books she’s currently working on. Check it out and make sure you’re following her on Twitter. Seeing as I tweet a lot about the titles I’m marketing over at Quirk, I thought it might be a good (to steal her) idea and toss monthly posts up.

This month, I’m busy pitching out The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters and Stuff Every American Should Know by Joesph D’Agnese and Denise Kiernan. Details below. If you want a copy, email me at eric@quirkbooks.com!

What’s the point in solving murders if we’re all going to die? Detective Hank Palace has asked this question ever since asteroid 2011L47J hovered into view. Several kilometers wide, it’s on a collision course with planet Earth, with just six precious months until impact.

The Last Policeman presents a fascinating portrait of a pre-apocalyptic United States. Industry is grinding to a halt. Most people have abandoned their jobs. But not Hank Palace. As our story opens, he’s investigating the latest suicide in a city that’s full of suicides—only this one feels wrong. This one feels like homicide. And Palace is the only one who cares. What’s the point in solving murders if we’re all going to die?

The Last Policeman offers a story we’ve never read before: A police procedural set on the brink of an apocalypse. What would any of us do, what would we really do, if our days were numbered?

BEN H. WINTERS is a New York Times best-selling author (Quirk’s Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters) and an Edgar Award nominee (for the HarperCollins YA novel The Secret Life of Ms. Finkelman). His most recent novel, Bedbugs (Quirk, 2011), was hailed by Vanity Fair as a “diabolical tale of paranoia.”

—

Where did Mount Rushmore come from? What’s a bicameral congress? Who was Geronimo, and why do we yell his name when we jump?

Stuff Every American Should Know answers all these questions and many more: How do you bake the perfect apple pie? Who played the first game of baseball? Is it really illegal to tear a dollar bill in half ? Full of illuminating Q&As and helpful how-tos, this Stuff is the perfect gift for Americans of all ages!

DENISE KIERNAN and JOSEPH D’AGNESE are the authors of Signing Their Lives Away (Quirk, 2009), Signing Their Rights Away (Quirk, 2011), and many other nonfiction titles. They live in North Carolina.

I’ve had a busy two weeks.

Last week, I was honored to be asked back to Arcadia University to give a talk to students about blogging, writing, and working in the world of publishing. They even wrote a lovely post (and made a cool poster) in their campus Bulletin. There’s the image hanging in the halls of Arcadia, right up top. Thanks for taking that awesome photo, Allison.

The talk focused on going after what you want, despite the world telling you no. I wanted to write about geek culture. Folks said no, so I started Geekadelphia with Tim. I wanted to publish Textual Healing. I had a hard time, so I did it myself (though I learned a lot of hard lessons in the process). The results? I landed a lovely job, my writing has been published in a few more places, and things are good. I tried my best to encourage students to keep trying, because eventually, good things will happen.

Earlier this week, I was thrilled to be on a panel for Philly Tech Week. Moderated by Leah Kauffman, I was joined by a handful of other local bloggers for a discussion about… well, local blogging. I’d write a recap, but my pal Brian James Kirk of Technically Philly already did that. You can scope out his full write up here, on Technically Philly.

Anyhow, thought I’d put a few photos up from the talks. I love doing these kind of things. Thanks for having me, Arcadia and Technically Philly. It was lovely.

The Arcadia castle

The lecture hall, before it filled it. It did!

Out on the Arcadia lawn.

Workshopping with students

Dr. Wertime and YA author (and bff) Frankie Mallis

Hanging with Dr. Wertime

Introductions

The mausoleum

Brian of Tech Philly w/ Leah K

Brian makes introductions

Some ladies. Sup Shmitten Kitten?

Leah moderates the panel with skill

Audience listening

Tech Week program

This weekend, as I made my way to pick up my first brand-new bicycle, I found myself panicking a bit. Not just over the price (city bikes are expensive!), but over the concept of bike riding in the city. The idea of riding up Kelly Drive and pedaling along the Schuylkill River Trail horrified me. Though I was excited about the prospect of bitching about bike lanes and people parking in them.

Silliness aside, this led to further musing, and I was struck with a realization about my Philadelphia living experience. There’s still a lot I haven’t done here. I’ve yet to go to an Eagles game (I hate sports, but I feel like I should do this). Haven’t explored the Morris Arboretum or Longwood Gardens. Hell, I’ve never even been to the Camden Aquarium across the river.

So this weekend, I decided to mix things up a bit, and accomplish one of the things I’d missed out on. Fresh out of the box from Bicycle Revolutions (a great shop in Queen Village), I hopped on my new bike, strapped on my new (dorky) helmet, and off I went with some fab friends.

And it felt pretty damn good. Some snaps after the jump.

Next up… the South Street Challenge. Mikey, get ready.

When I turned 29 in October, I detailed some ridiculous things I wanted to accomplish before I hit 30. One I finished (the new book is done!), and I’ve recently begun work on another. And the results have been pretty awesome.

As a child, I was in love with adventure stories. My (amazing) Mother bought me all classic novels I wanted. The works of Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Arthur Conan Doyle sat stacked by my bedside, and I spent a lot of nights hidden under blankets with a flashlight, totally consumed by fantastic tales.

I was eight, and I loved steampunk before I even knew what it was.

All the reading was the result of my parents not letting me watch a lot of TV or play a lot of video games (oh how things have changed). The few times I interacted with either, I could be caught watching films and playing games that catered to what I read. Indiana Jones and Star Wars, Wing Commander and Prince of Persia. And of course, The Rocketeer.

When The Rocketeer was finally available on VHS and the video game was on my SNES, I was ten. I watched the movie countless times, played the (terrible) game again and again. The Rocketeer was a mash up of everything I loved in a good adventure story. A protagonist that was a common person, larger than life villains, a world in peril, and inventions that felt like they belonged to another time. Plus, the main character could fly.

Jim of Sweet Juniper, who made his young son an adorable Rocketeer costume, perhaps says it best in his blog post about his son’s outfit.

Is there a kid in the world who doesn’t believe it a considerable injustice he was born without the ability to fly?

This isn’t some cathartic endeavor. No one broke my heart this time. This is just for me, just because. Thus far, I have the pants, the boots, the aviator gloves, and the amazing leather jacket. I’ve been collecting parts piece by piece, using eBay and Etsy, praying that when the items arrived they’d fit okay.

A copy of the leather jacket

The boots, need to get rid of the wingtip pattern

Full outfit, posing in front of my awful bedroom mirror

So far, so good. Next up? Helmet. Jetpack. Mauser replica.

My pal Steve Rauscher, the guy who destroys manuscripts with an array of horrifying multicolored markers, recently had a short story published by a small local press, Wrags Ink. Steve’s short story is absolutely fantastic, and is one of the many pieces collected in the book Philadelphia Anthology.

This past Sunday, Steve read an excerpt from his short story at InFusion, a cute cafe / art gallery located in the Mt. Airy section of Philadelphia. The Wrags Ink folks were hosting a release party, and invited a bunch of the authors out to share their works over coffee and muffins. A number of Steve’s pals came out to support, including most of the folks in our little writing group.

I took a bunch of pictures and shot a video of Steve reading. Apologies for the shaky camera, I forgot to turn on the anti-shake-function-thing. I wish I could have captured his entire short story, but alas, folks in the audience had tons of questions for the previous readers, and time ran out towards the end.

Enjoy! And here’s some snaps. Congrats Steve. I’m proud of you!

The other day, Jeff Lyons and his crew over at Used Wigs invited me to be a special guest on their hilarious podcast. The show recorded live upstairs at L’Etage in Queen Village, featured celebrated local artist Yis Goodwin, and was an absolute blast.

Topics range from New Orleans prostitutes to horrible weight loss tips, tertiary Star Wars characters to disbelief in penguins. I chatted about my Master Chief armor, gave away a few Quirk titles, and had a lovely time.

A big thank you to Jess, Linzy, Leah, Chris, and Ben for coming and supporting. You guys rock.

Give it a listen! And thanks for having me on!

Used Wigs Podcast: 93
www.usedwigs.com/podcast-93

So the local Philadelphia literary journal, The Apiary, published one of the essays I wrote back in graduate school.

The piece is about one of my many adventures working at sleepaway camps, and brings up some of my family’s charming quirks.

It’s a bit long, and you can scope it out online via their official website.

I surprised a lot of people last month when my first piece for Philly.com went live, a lengthy four page editorial on the Philadelphia based indie game studio Cipher Prime. The article was a featured story, highlighted prominently on the homepage of Philly.com for a few days.

I also wrote up a fun piece about iOS games couples could play together, what with Valentine’s Day approaching. And I’m far from finished writing for them.

It’s an exciting opportunity, writing for Philly.com. While yes, I love my Geekadelphia, blogs really aren’t meant (at least Geekadelphia isn’t) for feature length editorial, and I’ve always wanted to do that. When Philly.com’s Leah Kauffman approached me with the opportunity to write for them, I jumped on it immediately.

I’m hoping to showcase Philly’s awesome game development scene on the site with long form pieces (like the Cipher Prime one), as well as review the occasional game here and there.

Good times. Thanks for giving me this awesome opportunity, Leah! I’ll try not to drive you crazy.

Steve tearing apart a manuscript

So lately, I’ve broken up the monotony of my Sunday writing schedule by meeting up with three of my aspiring writer friends; Chris (Geekadelphia blogger, former intern at Quirk), Steve (local blogger, handsome man around town), and Jess (my eternal travel buddy). And since I started working on this new book, I’ve also met up with YA author Jessica Corra and my artist BFF Britt Miller.

During the week, I spend a lot of time in Cosi, Starbucks, etc. But on Sunday, I generally spend all day fussing with my in-progress novel, articles for Philly.com, and Geekadelphia blogs. The little writing group meets up at the end of the day, usually around 6pm, which is generally the time I’m finished with all that.

Aside from the fact that Chris, Jess, and Steve all give excellent advice, and the fact that Jess C. and Britt make lovely drinking-coffee-while-we-write companions, there is a reason I hang out with this select group of people.

Steve about to dish out his thoughts

They intimidate the Hell out of me.

Okay yes, they’re all my friends. Jess and Britt are particularly close friends of mine. Chris was once my intern at work. But never the less, they each have qualities that make me sweat.

Jess, who cannot be described. Britt, a brilliant artist who is absolutely fearless. Steve, though he will never admit it, is a phenomenal writer, great to the point that his Twitter updates make me want to give up. Chris is young and insanely ambitious, thus making an old-head-in-comparison like me nervous. Jess Corra is an agented author with a fabulous book coming out in the very near future.

Don’t be fooled by the smile, he’ll steal your job

The fact that all of these people have these qualities, makes them fantastic companions to write with. They keep me on my toes (Chris), they make me want to be better at what I do (Britt and Steve), they give me something to aspire to (Jess and Jess).

So really, I can’t recommend this strategy enough. Surround yourself with friendly, intimidating people. Let yourself be terrified. Be nervous. Let your hands sweat when they are ready to dish out advice. It’s the best.