First, I just want to thank EVERYONE who gave me a yo! It’s crazy awesome that you did and I’m crazy thrilled that you did. To be fair, I pimped out the giveaway in multiple places but that didn’t guarantee anyone entering it! But entered it was, and shocked I am, and each comment on that post made me smile. By the time I got to the end of them, I was smiling so much my face really hurt. Like, it hurt so much I cried through my smile. But that’s okay because it’s good to smile, no matter how much it hurts. This guy agrees with me:

So. For the draw, I cut out equally sized pieces of paper WITH MY HANDS and wrote your names on each of them. WITH MY HANDS. Every single name. This was difficult because we all know typing has made handwriting obselete. Just joking. I’m really lazy, actually; that’s why it was difficult.

I had three witnesses to the drawing: my mother, my sister and my grandmother. They wouldn’t let me take their photographs and because I accidentally gouged out some skin on my face earlier this week (right under my eyebrow! I’m still not sure how I did this…), I wouldn’t let THEM take MY photograph either. So I can’t prove to you any of us were there, but I assure you, we were.

(Oh, what a hopeless lot we are!)

Still, I was determined someone be photographed picking the winning name because that was the reason WHY I painstakingly cut little pieces of paper and wrote on them (thank you to those who suggested random generators, but they’re hard on the photo-ops, yo!). Luckily, my BFF from way back helped me out.

Meet Conky:

In an ideal world, everyone knows who Conky is. For those of you who have seen Trailer Park Boys, Conky needs no introduction. For those of you who haven’t, Conky is an evil ventriliquist dummy that belongs to Bubbles and makes him do bad things. His fingerpuppet counterpart has been my BFF FOR YEARS NOW. We chill and make a lot of sinister plans together.

Anyway, Conky was kind of enough to do the drawing for me since my stylist was out of town. I mean since I mysteriously gouged out a piece of skin on my face (I’m so HOT, you guys). So that is Conky, and you will note that he is posing with all of your names, folded to perfection, and placed in one of my grandmother’s pots. Those pots are like 50 years old, by the way. They’re great.

So after we placed the lid on the pot and shook it and shook it and shook it, Conky peered over the edge…

And chose.

And the winner of an advance uncorrected proof of Cracked Up to Be is……


You know, when Conky picked the name and I looked at it, I laughed. They’ll know why when they see they’ve won. Oh wait, I still have to tell you who won, don’t I?

And ze winner of an advance uncorrected proof of Cracked Up to Be is….

TKT aka Thomas Kingsley Troupe of Tappity Tappity and author of the incredibly adorable Patrick’s Super Socks! Yay Thomas! I’ll be emailing you. You’ll have 24 hours to get back to me or Conky will be diving back into the 50 year old pot!


***


And now the guilt. I would have LOVED to have given everyone a copy of Cracked Up to Be that showed interest in it–as I said before, the turn out was incredibly heartening–and I do regret that I can’t. THANK YOU for entering. It really made my week.

The good news is, if you really really really want a copy, stay tuned! This was not the last giveaway (unless I have miscounted my galleys!)–but it will have been the easiest.

Dum dum dum.

And thank you again, guys, you rock.