1 | Cathy C. Hall Writes

It’s Valentine’s Day and I promised you a heartfelt gift, so how about something classic? Something with romance, intrigue, politics, religion? Something like Cleopatra’s Moon by Vicky Alvear Shecter?

Vicky’s YA novel was recently released in paperback, and to celebrate, she gave away several copies. But I already have a lovely, inscribed copy of Cleopatra’s Moon, so I’m giving her book to a lucky Valentine commenter.

I’ll be catching up with Vicky at a conference next weekend, so I’ll ask her to pen a lovely inscription for the winner, and then I’ll mail the book off to you. I know you’re going to love Cleopatra’s Moon, so get your comments in and I’ll pick a name next Thursday before I leave.

Actually, you’d love Vicky Alvear Shecter, too, but I’m afraid I can’t afford to mail her to you. (But you can visit her blog whenever you like.)

Happy Valentine’s, y’all! I so appreciate the writer love you share with me each and every day!

I woke up this morning to the Beneficent Mr. Hall telling me that Pope Benedict XVI would resign.

I’m still sort of reeling from that news. I mean, Popes don’t resign. Well, not since the Middle Ages.

And Popes are not like Presidents. Presidents retire to their nice homes and catch up with the family, maybe do a little horseback riding, golf, get in a strip poker game for a change. Occasionally, a former President will get a call along the lines of “When you were president, what did you do?” But I think most of the time, the new guy wants to go it alone, make the job his own.

So what do you do with a resigned Pope? It’s…it’s unprecedented is what it is. The new Pope will most likely be named on Easter, so I suppose we shall all have to wait and see what happens in this historic moment.

Meanwhile, I wrote about Authorgraph and the age of digital book signings over at The Muffin.

Pope Benedict is a multi-published author, you know. Maybe he’ll finally have time to send out a couple personal inscriptions to his readers.

Just a thought.