Bookish things have been happening in my world. First, I wanted to let you know that my speculative fiction/magical realism short story collection, The Path of Totality, (POT) is having a giveaway on Goodreads. Three copies will go to some lucky readers in ten days on March 12.

The second thing is something I learned from one of my fellow writers. He clued me into the WorldCat website, which is where you can see what libraries around the world carry certain books. He looked up POT and told me that it was in seven libraries already. Cool! Of course, I then looked it up and my other books. POT is available in libraries in Omaha, NE; Farmington, NM; Charleston, SC; and Orlando, FL. This exercise reminded me that I should donate a copy to my library in Duluth so that they have it.

One surprising thing I discovered is that my first novel, Eye of the Wolf, is available in the National Library of Qatar, in the Middle East. How did that happen?? Another surprising thing is that my second novel, “Plover Landing,” is available in 233 libraries! I think that might be because I offered libraries free rights to a PDF download of it. Since that happened a few years ago, I can’t recall now what service I used for that.

The last bookish thing regards a signing and reading I had yesterday at a new bookstore that opened in Superior, Wisconsin. Foxes and Fireflies Booksellers is run by a woman who’s also a reporter for the local newspaper. Maria Lockwood began the store as a lark. She was reporting on a business startup grant program and as part of that, put in a grant request to open a bookstore as an experiment to see how the process worked. Lo and behold, she was awarded the grant.

Superior hasn’t had a literary independent bookstore in many years, so the community was excited to see Foxes and Fireflies open. The store is very cozy and is filled with neat items. I probably spent any royalties I made during my signing on a cute little fox toy that is destined for our cabin. Oh, the glamorous life of a regional author! Superior writer Vickie Smith featured the bookstore recently on her blog.

Now that I’m on a countdown to retirement for my day job (not my fiction writing), I figure I’ll have more time to read writing trade magazines. I used to subscribe to Writer’s Digest but quit after a while because the copies just kept piling up and it felt too much like work to read them. I’m wondering what writing magazines are your favorites? I’d appreciate recommendations.