I know many of you don’t need to be introduced to my dear friend Seanan McGuire, but for those of you who do…I’d like to spend some time telling you how awesome she is.

(Seanan will occasionally try to eat your face. Do not be alarmed.)

Seanan is not one but TWO bestselling authors (see also: Mira Grant, who I interviewed for Toasted Cheese last year, and her books are made of awesomesauce. Film rights for the Newsflesh trilogy  have been optioned! As herself, Seanan has published 5 books in the October Daye series (with book 6 coming soon), and her first book in the InCryptid series, Discount Armageddon, was published earlier this year. The worlds of each of these series are very different, but all great.

Seanan was the winner of the 2010 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and her novel Feed was named as one of Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of 2010. (that is directly from her bio.) This year, she has been nominated for a record FOUR Hugo awards: Best Novel, Deadline; Best Novella, Countdown; Best Fancast, The SF Squeecast; Best Related Work, (her album) Wicked Girls. For more info on Seanan’s music, click here. (This is the first time a woman has been on the ballot four times in a single year.)

Seanan also does a really cool web comic called With Friends Like These, which I have appeared in a bunch of times. My first appearance (as Velma) was here, in a comic about my engagement to Rand…of course, I saw the comic when it was first posted, and I even own it, but I had not seen the description in the archive until a few days ago. (Seanan, I know you know this, but we adore you, too. xo.) The other comics I appear in, for anyone who ares, are #7, #8, #18, #21 (sort of), and #26. In addition to three of those strips, I also own this art card.

Seanan drew this comic when Wicked Girls was nominated for the Hugo, and I got a little bit weepy at being included. (Full lyrics to “Wicked Girls” are here.)

(Photo from Seanan’s concert last weekend at Confluence in Pittsburgh. This may have been during “Wicked Girls.” Let’s just say it was.)

(Rand played guitar during the concert. I’m not sure which song this was…but it was probably either “Dear Gina” or, um, the other one he played electric guitar on, which I don’t remember at the moment…)

Here’s Seanan’s post of the full set list from that concert.

In short, I feel so unbelievably lucky and honored to be counted among this amazing woman’s friends. Read her books! Buy her music!

And Seanan…thank you for being a part of our lives. *heart*