A Celebration and a Smackdown: An Update on The Queen of Hearts

I was contemplating the time course of novel-publishing the other day, after someone asked me an interview question about how long it will have taken to get my book into the world. The short answer: it's slow. The long answer: one year to write, one year to edit and have other people critique, one and a half years to get picked up by an agent and a publisher, and two years between signing the contract and finally holding the hardcover book in my hands, which will happen on the glorious date o...