I head East tomorrow to kick off the last leg of the Unshelved 2008 Spring Tour. On Tuesday the 29th I'll be speaking to the New Jersey Library Association. I'll wind my way up the East coast to Falmouth, MA, where Gene and I will speak on the 9th to the Massachusetts Library Association (also appearing there: Nancy Pearl and this week's sponsor Talia Ross). Finally, on the 13th we'll speak to the Vermont Library Association, at which point we expect the immune system of the Northeast to expel us bodily.

After only a few weeks at home we begin our Summer California Conference Tour. At the end of May, of course, we'll be putting on a small circus at Book Expo America in Los Angeles. Not four weeks later we'll be at the American Library Association annual conference in Anaheim. And the following month it's Comic Con International in San Diego. I wish they all could be California shows.

But what about Seattle's homegrown Emerald City Comic Con? Funny story. ECCC is usually earlier in the year, so we didn't hesitate to schedule the above talks in MA and VT. Then Unshelved BFF Jim Demonakos ended up having to schedule it in mid-May. We couldn't back out of our commitments, so we're compromising. Gene and I won't be there, but Unshelved store manager Jana will be manning (womaning? personing?) our booth by her lonesome. Please stop by, say Hi, and peruse our wares. Then enjoy our many cartoonist budies that will be there, including Dave Kellett, Scott Kurtz, David Malki!, and many more.

Unshelved is made possible this week in part by Macmillan Library. Macmillan is the publishing house known formerly as Holtzbrinck. It includes such storied names as St. Martin’s Press; Farrar, Straus & Giroux; Henry Holt; Tor/Forge; and Picador. Macmillan's Library group has a very well-known face: Talia Ross, who has gained a reputation for being willing to engage very deeply with the library community. She is seemingly at every library conference at once. She answers her email. She answers her phone. She solves problems.

But Talia is known for something else. She is known for loving the goriest, bloodiest novels made. Books that drive grown men to their knees? They just whet her appetite. Head on over to the Macmillan Library site and see what she's recommending these days in the category of "stomach-churning". And even if you don't share her taste in books, we recommend you get to know Talia. You'll thank us.