Amazon on the line.
The notion of Amazon ringing me up for a conversation sounds nicely absurd. One+ million toiling souls would speak as one voice on the other end as they processed orders and organized packages, drove vans to remote addresses and left Dual Breakfast Sandwich Makers and Sports Bralettes, copies of Paper Girls: The Complete Story and Muscle Massage Guns, Turbo Fleshlights and Yodeling Pickles on front porches and in high-rise mailrooms.
Could I get Bezos on the line? "Hey, good to hear from you, Jeff! Yeah, we have the same first name. I have a garage, too, but it's not in Seattle." Or perhaps I'd speak to one of the people toiling away seasonally in vast warehouses, maybe one of those old wanderers featured in Nomadland?
Someone did call me, however, and they quickly and efficiently set right the "Jd" vs "JD" confusion. I am whole again or, at least, my Amazon profile is. To celebrate, I uploaded a new profile pic there.
Just in time, too! My publisher sent me a link this morning to the first advance review of Live Nude Aliens and Other Stories. I'm quite pleased with it, though I note they neglected to say, "And the excellent cover by D.S. Barrick, by itself, makes this book worth having!"
The collection will be out in March but can be preordered now.
Other than that, I gave an online presentation on The Con to the local SF group who were very gracious, and did the final review of the LNA ms. I hope to have some time between now and March to work on the next project, but this pernicious prolonged pandemic is not making my job less stressful nor affording me a lot of extra time right now.
Working title of the work in progress: A Confusion of Gnus.