Wait a minute Mr. Postman…

You brought me some cool stuff, and I’d like to thank you!

First interesting mailbag item this week was from the folks at French fan site Elbakin, who gave me an award a few months back for best fantasy translation (for The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, or, Les Cent Mille Royaumes). I just received the actual prize, and it’s a gorgeous hand-tooled leather book cover —

front of a leather book cover inscribed with book's title, author, and Elbakin Prize 2011 in French

book cover held open to reveal French copy and inner surface

worked-leather logo of Elbakin, a stylized dragon in red

…Niiiiiice. It’s absolutely beautiful. Now that’s a prize.

Next up is something I ordered from Etsy: a cover for my new 11-inch MacBook Air. I wanted something more interesting than the usual stuff, and most of what I found in Etsy’s shop was Japanese print or steampunky designs. Not bad, but I fell in love when I saw one of this shop’s covers done in Malian mudcloth, with Dutch wax print interiors. I had to order a custom one, since they didn’t have an 11-inch size in stock, and this was the result:

case for a macbook air, made from Malian mudcloth. Has a gourd and star design.

This photo doesn’t do it justice, so go look at Threads of Change’s shop and see better images of everything they make. And in a beautifully ironic extra touch, mine is lined with wax cloth that has an Adinkra symbol imprint meaning “the supremacy of God”. Probably not aimed at my books’ gods, but I think they’d be pleased nevertheless.

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