This morning I woke up early and drove 2 1/2 hours through Tropical Storm Hanna to participate in a publishing fair. It was a sucky drive and towards the end, when the weather started clearing up and I was 6 miles away from Cumberland, MD, I tried to "make up some time." About sixty seconds after that bright idea, Smokey snagged me. He was such a gentleman he only wrote me up for 74 in a 65 instead of the 81 mph I was actually going.

I arrived at the publishing fair exhausted, dejected and not too positive. The book tables were under a small tent outside in the middle of a parking lot. The strong wind kept knocking over my books. I expected the day to continue on this miserable track.

But it was surprisingly nice. I got to hang with Ed Ochester, met several nearby publishers I never knew existed, traded a few books, sold 13 (!!!! -- and many of those were sold to STUDENTS, undergrads -- further justifing my preference of undergrad over graduate) AND, I think I found an INTERN.

Yep, that's right, Ms. I-Don't-Need-No-Stinkin'-Intern might have an intern. Guess I'm softening with age. I was talking to the folks at Raw Dog Press and they were telling me all about what they have their interns do, things I never considered. I started thinking about it, I've been re-evaluating lots of things lately. Two minutes later a Frostburg undergrad who was helping with the fair approached me about an internship. It was like all the stars aligning, the planets syncing, a sign from a higher power, that and he overheard the conversation. His timing was perfect and I told him that if he asked me about an internship three hours earlier I would have told him to fuck off.

As I drove home, obeying all the speed limits, I came up with a lot of things an intern could do for No Tell. We'll see how this goes.