I’m deep in edits right now, encouraging my husband’s new culinary skills and dodging responsibilities like Britney Spears in a courtroom. (And really tired. Laughing at myself and my poor jokes.) But I knew you’d want to know this as soon as it was possible to know this.

Donald Maass, agent and president of Donald Maass Literary Agency, will be joining Writer Unboxed as a contributor beginning next April.

Yes, you read that right. We are beyond thrilled to have him, as you can imagine. His debut at WU will coincide with the release of his new book, The Fire in Fiction: Passion, Purpose and Techniques to Make Your Novel Great, and he’s promised that his first few posts will be outtakes from this new writer’s resource.

(In other news that’s going to be hard to believe, news of my sale and book made Liz Smith’s column in the New York Post.)

If you haven’t checked our sidebar lately, you may not know that we have some great interviews coming soon, too. Stop by this Friday for the first part in my two-part interview with independent editor and expert on the third draft, Lisa Rector-Maass (Donald Maass’s better half). Sarah Addison Allen, author of Garden Spells and The Sugar Queen will be here in the fall; as will agent and author of one of my favorite craft books, A Dash of Style, Noah Lukeman. Juliet Marillier will present a wonderful three-part interview with British fantasy author and master of characterization, Joe Abercrombie, on his First Law trilogy in September. Kath has some goodies up her sleeve, too: interviews with brain surgeon and novelist Allen Wyler on his medical thriller Deadly Errors; and one with award-winning YA novelist and author of Writing and Selling the Young Adult Novel, KL Going.

In other news, the now-resolved Writers Guild of America strike had a strong ripple effect in Hollywood. It the mass release of JK Rowling’s short work, The Tales of Beedle the Bard, will appease HP fans. And, this just in, Twilight–another movie based on a best-selling novel (Stephenie Meyers) has taken Harry Potter’s place. Previously set to release in mid-December, Twilight will now release November 21st.

Religious protests may have extinguished any plans to film a sequel to Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass. The best-selling novel had been the first in Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy.

The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest results for 2008 have been announced. Garrison Spik was the “winner of the worst” with the following plum line: Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber, and like the city their passion was open 24/7, steam rising from their bodies like slick streets exhaling warm, moist, white breath through manhole covers stamped “Forged by DeLaney Bros., Piscataway, N.J.”. Congrats, Garrison.

(But, really, isn’t our news best of all?)

Write on, all!