The full winners list can be found here.

Famous Serbian, Nikola Tesla, not reading HOTEL.That’s Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet—in Serbian, the latest foreign sale, which means that in the near future, used copies will be sold at garage sales in 21 different countries. Just keepin’ it real, folks.

That’s one drawback to eBooks—a future without cheap used books. When I was a kid I bought Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy for a nickel. A nickel!

Speaking of garage sales, I heard a story about a famous author (who shall remain nameless) buying his own books at garage sales for 25¢, signing them, and then selling them on eBay for $20-$30. As Hayley Mills would say, “Scathingly brilliant!”

The award is presented April 8, during the Montana Library Association’s conference in Bozeman.

Guess I'd better pay my late fees.

Speaking of weekend, I’m on my way back to the Emerald City.  Seattle is a charmingly odd place. The traffic is as congested as LA, but without the random freeway shootings to up the entertainment value. And people do walk around with sippy cups—I mean Starbucks. Or Seattle’s Best (also owned by Starbucks, in case you didn’t know. Yes, you will be assimilated to the caffeine collective). Then there’s Tully’s (the CEO used to drive around in a Humvee with a plate that read TLYNATR), plus a Greek chorus of indie/rebel/organic coffee pubs. And yes, it rains. But not like a monsoon, more like a perpetual puppy-sneeze, light and annoying.

Yet despite all that or perhaps because of all that, the Seattle area is one rockingly literate place. Which is why it’s always a joy to do book gigs thereabouts...

I also have a gaggle of meetings, luncheons, book group thingies, and other fun activities disguised as work. See you soon.

If you ever hear of an author talking about how it took him (or her) ten years to write a book, you can rest assured that they wrote 90% of it in a year or two, and spent the rest of that time dealing with separation anxiety. It’s true. Writers have a fear of crossing the finish line—of setting everything in stone, so to speak. Some rewrite and rewrite until said book scarcely resembles what they started with. Others just keep writing as if they’ve missed their exit and are now content to drive around the world until they reach it again. While just as many slooooow the process down—like traveling near the speed of light, time is normal for the writer, but everyone around them ages considerably.

I haven’t seen or read it (it’ll be my cathartic reward for turning in the latest version of WHISPERS next week), but I hear that Michael Chabon’s, Wonder Boys, nails this phenomenon in agonizing detail.

In my case, I think I just needed a break—for clarity. It never fails. What I thought was a ginormous vortex of suck, is suddenly worth reading a few weeks later. (That trip to Hawaii didn't hurt, either).

I’m close. Now all I have to do is stop blogging and get back to writing…

But this week, all that changed when I found out that HOTEL is #1 (drumroll please) in Norway. HOTEL is also currently a bestseller in Italy and Taiwan. And I’m still hanging around the IndieBound and New York Times bestseller lists, #9 and #18, respectively, for those of you keeping score at home.

Speaking of keeping score at home, it’s time for the Winter Olympics. Where athletes from countries like Norway will, in all likelihood, be enjoying the view from atop the medal stands—and deservedly so.

At least in this small corner of the literary world, there’s someone chanting, “USA!”

It’s a career-fair sort of deal, which is always fraught with danger as I’m liable to send the entire class to the nurse’s station having bored them into a collective coma. The problem, of course, is that in my current vocation, I neither blow things up, cut things open, nor stitch them back up again. You’d think that being a jet-setting novelist (we’re talking coach, don’t get too excited) would wow them, but a tax attorney discussing the fundamentals of the 1040ez probably elicits fewer yawns.

Just once I’d like to show up wearing a dark suit, with a suspicious-looking briefcase and tell the entire class that, “I kill people for a living, and get paid a handsome sum to do it”. Of course, I only kill bad people who obviously have it coming—staring at the quaking math teacher in the corner. Then I’d show them how to make Semtex using Drain-O, Arm & Hammer Baking Soda, and Pop Rocks, imploring the kids to place the explosives under the gas tank, and not the driver’s side seat. Finally my phone would ring and I’d rush off saying, “I love my work.”

*Sigh*

Instead, I’ll tell them about sitting at a keyboard all day, typing things like this…

For example, would critics of Barack Obama still think he was born outside of the U.S. if his name were Barack Dunham? (His mother’s maiden name). Makes you wonder.

Before HOTEL was sold, I talked to a handful of editors and one asked if I’d consider writing under a pen name, a family name, like Chung (my grandfather) or Chew (on my grandmother’s side). Jamie Chung? Sounds okay, but honestly, I didn’t think about it, I just went with Ford.

This week I spoke at the University of Connecticut. I was asked to give a talk for their annual Day of Remembrance, Co-sponsored by SLAAM (Asian American Cultural Center), the Asian American Studies Institute. I thoroughly enjoyed being there and had a fantastic time talking story with students and faculty. We even talked about names, and identity—especially celebrities that are hapa, or half, or part-Asian. Names you wouldn’t normally think of, like Phoebe Cates, Rob Schneider, Michelle Branch, Johnny Damon, and Dean Cain, probably because of their names.

Would these celebs be perceived differently if they had Asian surnames? Would they be cast in different roles? Dean Cain’s real name is Dean Tanaka. Would he still have landed the role of Superman?

I dunno...

For those that don’t know (and many don’t), Macmillan, one of the “Big Six”—a house that includes Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, Picador, Tor, Henry Holt, St. Martins, Minotaur, Thomas Dunne, and countless others, has been pulled from Amazon over a pricing row regarding eBooks. Amazon did this without warning or explanation in a move that’s akin to the tantrum of a spoiled child. You see, they didn’t just pull Macmillan’s eBooks, they pulled ALL their books.

I won’t bore you with all the details, and other writers have done a yeoman’s job of explaining what this is all about, but for now, Amazon and Kindle users no longer have access to 1/6^th of the books published in the English language. (What genius!) What was probably intended as a bold statement by Amazon has dissolved into a publicity nightmare, one rightfully earned.

Or as Scott Westerfeld so aptly wrote on his blog, “Hey, Amazon. When cutting off publishers, don’t start with the one that has the most science fiction writers. We will blog you dead!”

Don’t get me wrong. I love eBooks. My wife has a Nook. I love audio books as well. I’m actually an optimist about technology bringing in more readers—especially younger readers—the ones that are driving the industry right now. And I don’t see traditional books going away anytime soon.

But I don’t like bullying.

So what can you do? Buy Macmillan books elsewhere. Wolf Hall, Sarah’s Key, Ender’s Game, The Wheel of Time, Plum Spooky, yes—these are the kind of books you can’t buy from Amazon, at least not until they lick their wounds and learn to play nice.