Please forgive a little cross-pollination. (As a former dabbling orchardist and beekeeper, I love that phrase.)

As some of you know already, on March 3, I launched The Dogs of Looser Island, a serialized novel. New chapters will appear every Thursday (posted just before lunch, in case you need a little light reading). Chapter Two posts tomorrow. (www.alaughingdog.com/chapters).

Readers can subscribe to receive notice as each new chapter is posted. There are opportunities to share your own photos and funny animal stories, and a platform for dog-jokes, poems, etc. (And by the way, if you’re a cat-person, a llama-person, or a hamster-person, you are welcome here, too!)

Quick note: For those of you familiar with my writing for children
(The UnFairy Tale, Brillig, etc.), be aware The Dogs of Looser Island
is not a children’s book. It is intended to be gentle and lighthearted, but it is very much an adult story, with some complex, adult themes,
and some cursing.

I will continue to post occasional random thoughts here, on Brillig, but the stories in The Dogs of Looser Island have been bubbling up over the years, and I want to share them with you.

These are grim times. War, pandemic, divisiveness. Racism and hate in its many other ugly forms. Climate change. I believe we must all work for justice, for peace, for environmental stewardship. But we also need to fill the well sometimes, the better to return, refreshed, to those efforts.

A little laughter.

A little silliness.

A little dog breath.

I hope you’ll join me, and perhaps together we can shore each other up, and restore each others’ faith in humanity.

As our dogs do for us.

Postscript: I wrote this last week, and scheduled it ahead
of time. Today, I read that Russia bombed a maternity hospital.
No amount of cheery dog stories will fix that appalling evil.
Let us hold each other close, pray for peace, and continue
to search for ways we can support the Ukrainians.

Second Postscript (2023): The Dogs of Looser Island has now been renamed What the Dogs Know. Look for the complete novel in e-reader format (and possibly in hard copy), the prequel, and the sequel, in the coming months.