.@VickiBatman - welcome author Margo Bond Collins w #handbag & a tale #MFRWorg #RLFblog

Hi, all! I am delighted to be here today—but the way I got here was a little odd.  I need to preface this story with the fact that in addition to being a writer, I have a full-time job as a college professor and an incredibly active four-year-old daughter. I am almost perpetually distracted.  

Several months ago, I sent an email to Vicki about guest posting on her blog. She said yes, and a few days later, she sent an email asking about the post she had sent me for my blog. I didn't remember anything about a blog post from her, but Vicki and I belong to some of the same writers' groups online and have posted on one another's blogs before—and as I noted, I'm more than a little absent-minded—so I assumed I had simply forgotten agreeing to have her as a guest blogger. I asked her to re-send the post, and I put it up on my main blog.

When I sent Vicki the link, she responded asking about the post on the second blog.

You are determined to embarrass me, aren't you?

I had indeed started a second blog just a few weeks before, but I didn't remember telling anyone about it. Still, Vicki had used my name in the post ("I'm glad to be a guest today on Margo's blogs"), so clearly she knew what she was talking about. 

I posted on the second blog and sent her the link. Vicki's response this time was to ask about a specific blog—one that belonged to someone else named Margo.

Vicki and I have laughed about that incident several times since then, but I've also decided to assume it's some kind of fate. We are clearly meant to post on one another's blogs often! 

Today, I'm here to talk handbags—and the handbag I'm featuring today is one of my favorites, perfect for a parent, a literature professor, and the absent-minded type in general. My favorite handbag is this one:

It's not brand-name. It wasn't expensive. It's not fancy. 

It is, however, a bag that I bought in a street market in Athens, Greece last November, when I was there for an academic conference. From the corner shop where I got it, I could see the Theatre of Dionysus, the birthplace of modern drama. And every time I look at the bag, I remember the long history of literature that stretches from all over the world and leads to all of us who now write.

On a more practical note, it's big enough to carry not only my usual items (a wallet, a comb, my phone, and so on), but also anything I might need to carry for my toddler—a change of clothing, a few toys, a book or two. 

And even though it's a bag that I carry in the spring and summer, I hang it on the door knob of the closet in my office year-round—right next to prints of the covers that I am working on at any given moment—so it's almost as much a decoration as it is a handbag. 

Only fifty years left before vampires rule the world.

When Dallas police detective Cami Davis joined the city's vampire unit, she planned to use the job as a stepping-stone to a better position in the department. 

But she didn't know then what she knows now: there's a silent war raging between humans and vampires, and the vampires are winning. 

So with the help of a disaffected vampire and an ex-cop addict, Cami is going undercover, determined to solve a series of recent murders, discover a way to overthrow the local Sanguinary government, and, in the process, help win the war for the human race. 

But can she maintain her own humanity in the process? Or will Cami find herself, along with the rest of the world, pulled under a darkness she cannot oppose?

Connect with Margo at:  Email        Website

Find Sanguinary-Night Shift at: Amazon



Wow, Margo, that's some book! Congratulations!!!