A Banshee, Baby!

We interrupt this Thursday for an emergency announcement: I seem to have a new book deal. Here's the blurb from Publisher's Marketplace:

Children's: Middle grade
Author of SMALL PERSONS WITH WINGS and THE UNNAMEABLES Ellen Booraem's CONNOR'S BANSHEE, in which a Irish-American boy is visited by a banshee prophetizing death for someone in his family, again to Kathy Dawson at Dial Children's, in a nice deal, for publication in Spring 2012, by Kate Schafer Testerman at kt literary (World).

This is why I've been reading up about early Celtic homelife, just to get a handle on where my banshee came from and what she might be like. As you probably know, some old Irish families (usually those with an "O" in front of their names) have their own banshees, spectral woman who wail when someone's about to die. Mine's the spirit of a young girl who died too early--one variant on the tradition as conveyed by Katharine Briggs, queen of folktales from the British Isles. The entire book popped into my head almost fully armed when I was flipping through one of Briggs's books. That seems like it might be a good sign.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled Thursday.