The Spoons That Are My Ears!

Engelbrecht is at the printers (the book, not the actual dwarf) and so I have been signing bookplates for the time when it emerges. 300 in total. I am also supposed to be making my mark on a set of signature sheets for a forthcoming issue of Postscripts but they went to the wrong address (my fault) and now I don't know where they are. The concept of the 'signature' is rather an odd one. Why should a handwritten name increase the value of a book? But it does.

Talking about signatures, here's a question I want to pose: is it permitted for an author to change his signature halfway through his or her career? I have been recently experimenting with a new signature but I don't know if I can allow myself to use it. For one thing it seems unfair on readers who have bought my previous books. Shall I stick with my old signature, even though it no longer pleases me? What would you do in my position?

Although everything I write is ultimately interconnected, my stories tend to form individual wheels of varying size and complexity within the greater scheme. I have lately been adding to two minor cycles: (1) My 'Two Doctors' sequence, featuring Dr Frazer and Dr Vaughan, whose rivalries and disagreements always result in catastrophe for their patients; and (2) 'Fanny the Fantasist', a set of short inverse fairy tales that mock escapism and feyness with unwarranted savagery.

Coming Soon -- Farmerphile#14.