It’s been quite a week.

Just the other day, my agent Anna DeRoy of William Morris Endeavor finalized a deal with writer-director John Gray, who has optioned THE HANGING TREE for a film. John’s a hugely successful TV screenwriter and director who in recent years has shifted to making feature films. He wrote me a passionate letter about the book and, while recognizing that these things take a lot of time, I’m hoping that he might actually get a movie made.

On Friday, July 15, I left The Wall Street Journal after nearly 16 years. I still love the paper and my many friends there, but a great new opportunity arose and I figured, what the heck, why not try something really different before I get really old.

So on September 6, I’ll start as a reporter-at-large at Bloomberg News, specializing in big features for Businessweek. I’ll be able to roam widely and bore in deeply on the sorts of narrative and investigative features I’ve loved writing at all of the newspapers I’ve worked for. But it’ll be a different kind of writing—magazine-style—for different people and a different company. Fingers crossed that I don’t fall on my face!

For now, I’m on vacation, and heading up soon to Big Twin Lake, where I’ll be hanging with family and friends for a week or so—and I’ll be sure to pay a visit to the real Starvation Lake.