Konnichiwa, Y'all

By Deborah Sharp

Tom Schreck stole my thunder a couple of days ago, with that great cover he posted of his book, "On the Ropes,'' in German. Kudos, Herr Schreck!

Nonetheless, I'm still tootin' my horn over my big news: Mama's going to the land of Sumo wrestlers and sushi, y'all! Midnight Ink sold the foreign rights for a Japanese edition of Mama Does Time, the first book in my Mace Bauer Mystery series.

I can't wait to see how the translators handle the Southern-fried language and colloquialisms from ''Mama and them.'' Not that I'd know the difference if they erred, understand. I'm just wondering how they'll handle phrases like: ''Honey, you're wound so tight only dogs can hear you fart.''

Or, "I'm fixin' to knock his teeth down his throat just so I can watch him spit them out single-file.''

Yeah, that's right. I write literature. (To that, you might say: ''Now, don't pee down my back and tell me it's raining!'')

Anyhoo, as Mama would say, now I can call myself an ''Internationally Published Author.'' How cool is that? Actually, ''International Best Selling Author'' would be even cooler, but all things in good time, right?

I'm really grateful to Midnight Ink's crack foreign rights team for making this sale to Hayakawa, a terrific mystery publisher in Japan. Arigato, y'all! I'm going to sign off here with Sayonara . . . You just knew I would, didn't you?

But first, a couple of questions for the veteran authors out there: What's been the most unusual, exotic, unlikely foreign edition of one of your books? Do you hear from readers in far-flung countries?

Readers, if you could magically speak any foreign language, and could read one of your favorite books in another tongue, what book and language would you choose? Feel free to say, ''Why, that upcoming classic, Mama Gets Hitched, in Finnish!''