I've just checked the copy edit of Epiphanies, the fourth Luff Imbry novella that will be published by PS Publishing in two limited editions in April. I believe Ben Baldwin will do the cover art, as he has for the others. He does very fine work.

Over the past couple of weeks, I've relocated from a housesit near Cassino, Italy, to a new one in Tipperary, Ireland. The weather's not of the best, but it will be a relief not to have to stumble on in my rudimentary Italian whenever I go out. Now I can have conversations in supermarket check-out lines and not be struggling to work my way around gaps in my vocabulary.

A bonus: the Irish have exactly the same sense of humor I do, me having been born in Liverpool as a typical Scouser mongrel. A Liverpool joke: why do they put fences around graveyards? Because people are dying to get in.

Or this one: They say money talks, but the only thing it ever said to me was "Bye, bye!" It's funnier if you smile and wave.

Speaking of good jokes, after I got set up in the new sit, I had an odd impulse to write a near-future what-if story set in America and Canada of 2017, after Donald Trump becomes president. I finished the draft yesterday -- 7,300 words. And what does Trump do: blows his lead in Iowa. Thanks a lot, Donny boy. Was it so much to ask?

I'm going to wait to see if he wins in New Hampshire; if he does, I'll send the story out quickly, before it can turn into a pumpkin.

I've applied to be the Vancouver Public Library's 2016 Writer in Residence, from August through November. If I get it, I'll need to find somewhere to live, if anyone has a spare room to rent.