On Bullying

Bullying is on my mind (and has been on my mind a lot) lately. My most recent novel, Grace, is, at its heart, a novel about bullying. Trevor, one of the main characters, is relentlessly and brutally bullied by two kids at his school. The novel is dedicated to eighteen boys who ultimately killed themselves after being bullied for either being gay (or perceived as gay) by their tormentors. As a mother, it's an issue I care about immensely. As a human being, it is behavior that mystifies and shames me.

And now, Mitt Romney. I cannot begin to express how much the latest revelations (accusations) and his subsequent dismissals and denials  infuriate me. I am usually a relatively private person when it comes to my politics, but something about all of this is bringing out the angry mama bear inside of me.

At a recent book club I was asked, point blank, if I was writing from experience when I wrote about Trevor. "Were you ever bullied?" the woman asked, with genuine interest and concern. I shrugged the question off and suggested that writers always draw from their experiences to a certain extent and said something to the effect that I had been teased (as all kids are teased) as a teenager. And then I went home and wondered why I felt this need to downplay and deny.

Bullies deny. Clearly, Mitt Romney is engaged in some fairly serious selectivity when it comes to his prep school day recollections. But what about the victims? The ones who survive anyway?

When I was in the eighth grade I went through a rapid transformation from one of the shortest kids in my class, to one of the tallest (without gaining a single pound). I also got braces and had to stop wearing my contact lenses because of an allergic reaction they were giving me. I also got the smart idea that it was time to cut my hair (which had always been long and curly...and my real pride when it came to how I looked). I was also a good student. The cumulative effect of all of this was that I went from being a cute kid to an awkward, homely, gangly, "brown-nosing" teenager. For a while, however, my confidence remained intact. I asked the most popular boy in school to the eighth grade graduation dance, and remarkably he agreed. But then, at the dance, he got up to go to the bathroom and never came back. The next day he asked my best girlfriend to "go" with him. And I was crushed.

My freshman year was abysmal. I was teased for having "poodle hair." I was pushed in the lunch line. During track practice someone stole my sweatpants and threw them up into a tree. Boys were unkind and girls were worse. It was only because parents who loved me and a strong core group of girlfriends who never abandoned me that I made it through that year. But there were times when I didn't think I would. The yearbook photo that year was the one you see below. (And, as though to add insult to injury, there was a flaw on the yearbook page which made it look like a worm had crawled across my face.)

8th Grade

9th Grade

Over time, I ditched the braces and glasses and grew my hair back out. My confidence returned. I even began to balk at my former self-- as though that girl (the one who felt such tremendous self-loathing) were someone else. I separated myself from the experience. What I didn't realize, however, during this awful time was how this year set me up for future relationships.

Because in college, I found myself a nice bully and dated him for nearly five years. While my exterior had a new paint job, I was a crumbling house inside. And he knew that. He knew how to find every weak support beam. Every broken step, every loose floorboard. It took a very long time before I was able to leave, and I know that even twenty years later, there are still cracks in the plaster.

I have never written about this. And I think it's because while bullies are able to forget their transgressions, victims of bullies simply wish they could. It was agonizing for me to scan and post this photo. A tiny part of me is still haunted by that year. It's easier to dismiss and deny for both perpetrators and victims. There is a tremendous amount of shame that comes along with being victimized by cruelty. And that shame seems never to go away.

Of course, I am a grown-up now. I have a healthy and happy marriage. I'm independent and confident. As they say, things do (always, always) get better. But I am also a mother of two young girls. And I am terrified for them. I know that while so much has changed, so much remains the same. Children are cruel creatures. And parents are often scared and ineffectual protectors. The effects of bullying can be immediate and tragic (resulting in suicide) or long-term and insidious. Shattered children sometimes become shattered adults. So what are we telling our children if we elect a man who dismisses bullying as "harmless"? And what are we telling ourselves?

Ant

For the first time in my writing life, I am working on two novels simultaneously. I am revising my most recent novel, Bodies of Water, while starting a new novel. Normally, this is not my protocol. I've always felt a sort of obligation to finish what I started before moving onto the next project, but with the end of my contract, I am overwhelmed by a strange urgency to have things firmly in place for the next book.

What this has created for me is an odd schizophrenia. I get up early and work on Bodies for about an hour. (an hour of revising is about all I can endure.) Then I shift gears and work on the opening chapter of the new book. What this means is that I have become a dual resident of early 60s suburban Boston and a traveling midway in 1970s New England. It seems like this would be difficult, but I'm actually finding thematic threads that make the transition pretty easy. I don't know why I have resisted this literary multi-tasking in the past. It seems to be working.

I just finished reading Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett (her memoir about her relationship with Lucy Grealy, author of Autobiography of a Face). She talks about how different they were in their work ethics. Lucy was all avoidance, always waiting until the deadline was nearing (or passed) while she herself was an "ant." I absolutely identify with this. I feel very much a writing ant. One little step at a time...maybe two at a time now.

I think the sense of urgency I've been feeling creatively is also because the school year is coming to an end, and in just a month I won't have the luxury of 6 hour days to get my work done. The girls will be home for the summer, and I feel like I owe it to them to be present. They will be going to theatre camp and visiting family in Flagstaff, but my dream is that Bodies will be finished, the new book will have gathered momentum. I would like to spend more time at the beach this summer. Take advantage of the city more. And then we have Vermont, of course.

Where the Wild Things Are

This week the world lost two iconic artists: Adam Yauch (MCA) of the Beastie Boys and children's author, Maurice Sendak. And all week, I have felt strangely and overwhelmingly melancholy.

I started college at the University of Vermont in the fall of 1987. I brought two posters with me; one was a life size photo of Mikhail Baryshnikov, and the other was an illustration from Where the Wild Things Are. My musical tastes were pretty much limited to what I could find on the radio and The Talking Heads (whom I had discovered at summer arts camp). I had grown up an hour and a half away from UVM in a small town in northeastern Vermont, and most of my suitemates had also come from small towns all over the state, except for L. from Poughkeepsie, NY. She was Korean-American but spoke French. She dressed all in black, and liked the Sex Pistols and the Smiths.  Her friends were New York City punks who crashed our suite, living in the common area for weeks (even months at a time), smoking Turkish cigarettes. They did drugs and shoplifted and loitered. I was afraid of them and fascinated by them. L. was naughty but also terribly sweet. She introduced me to Audrey Hepburn in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and  The Beastie Boys.

The Beastie Boys' music represented, for me anyway, a safe rebellion. They were a hardcore punk band that got radio airtime. Their music was loud and fast, but it was also wonderfully silly. The appeal that the Beastie Boys had for me was the same that I'd found in Max from Where the Wild Things Are. Max was a naughty boy who got sent to bed without supper. And without leaving his room, he was able to travel "in and out of weeks, and almost over a year...to where the wild things are." And better still, after being crowned king of all wild things, he was still able to go home where he found his supper waiting for him.

When I was a little girl, I loved Where the Wild Things Are. It was probably my favorite book. Inexplicably, I identified with Max. I was not a naughty child. I was, actually, quite the opposite. I did well in school. I rarely "made mischief," and I don't recall ever getting sent to bed without supper. But the allure of that bedroom that turned into a forest and the possibility of running away to a place where big-footed monsters gnashed their terrible teeth was one I was mesmerized by.

It was that first year at UVM that I decided that I wanted to be a writer. Not a journalist, not an English teacher, but a writer. I gobbled up the short stories assigned to me in my creative writing classes. I scribbled poems and crafted my own stories. And when things started to go badly in my real life, I sought refuge in the fictional landscapes I created.

I was Max. 

In my writing I could be bad. I could be naughty. I could go places I was too afraid to go in real life: scary places inhabited by the terrible creations of a vivid imagination. But the beauty of writing was that I was still the one in charge of all these wild things, and I could also "tame them with the magic trick of  staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once." And best of all, after all was said and done, I could return to my room (my dorm room and later my tiny apartment and now, my office) where all of the comforts of home awaited.


Music and writing have always offered an opportunity to imagine other lives without leaving the safety of my home. (It's no coincidence that the antagonist in my first novel was named Max. Or that the cat that purrs at my feet is named Max as well.) And so I mourn the loss of these two men. Adam Yauch's death was tragic, untimely. I'm certain there was so much more music to be made. Maurice Sendak, on the other hand, was an old man who had lived a full, rich life. He found literary success and happiness with a partner of nearly fifty years, but in his final interview with Terry Gross, he suggested that his lack of faith made this dying business just a little bit harder than for believers.

And so with a heavy heart, I thank you, Mr. Yauch and Mr. Sendak. I hope that wherever you are, there's a wild rumpus of funky monkeys, and that after all is said and done, your supper's waiting for you....

and it's still hot.

Why I Write

I recently gave the keynote speech at the Central California Writers' Conference in Oakhurst, CA (near the incredibly beautiful Yosemite), and I have been asked by one of the writers in attendance to post a portion of it here. 

The focus of my speech was on why writing (both the process and the product) matter. I emphasized the importance of knowing why it is that you write, what drives you and/or a particular project.

Here is my answer:

I write because I love language. I love the way that words trip and tumble across my tongue. I love the subtleties of it, the nuances, the power. I write because writing makes me happy in a way that nothing else does. I write because it allows me to tell enormous lies. But I also write to tell the truths I am too afraid to say out loud.

I write to entertain myself; I write to entertain others.

I write because I have deadlines. But I would write even if no one cared whether I finished anything ever again or not.

I write because it’s the one thing I am good at. I write because when I don’t, I feel antsy and sad.

I write for my family, to preserve our history. I write to prove that I was here. That I lived in this world and felt things and loved things, that I experienced joy, that I despaired. I write for my children. And for the children they might one day have.

I write because I have stories to tell, even if I don’t know what they are until I put my fingers on the keyboard. I write to teach, sometimes. But mostly, I write to learn. There is still so much I don’t understand.

I write to make people laugh, and I write so that I will not cry. I write because I have no choice. I write to survive. I write to save others, and I write to save myself.

Now it’s your turn. Think about it. Ask yourself.

The Known World in Slow-Mo

I am really struggling with this one...only 65 pages in, and I am dragging my feet. The premise is such a fascinating one, but the narrative keeps losing me, and every time I connect to one of the characters, the story shifts away from them. And by the time we come back, I've forgotten who they were. Anybody else have a problem with this one??

Pulitzer Project Book #7: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

I knew there was a reason why I decided to engage in this Pulitzer Project...and this book is the reason. What a perfect, magical, insightful, and inspiring book about one man's complex relationships with his family and friends, with his young son, with the world, and with God. It is a book not about religion but about the willingness to see the inherent beauty in the world, and to find grace in the most difficult of places.

I can't find words to do this novel justice. The prose is gorgeous. The narrator is flawed but endearing. The imagery is astounding. I will never forget the image of two women laughing in the grass so hard that their tears rolled into their hair. Read this, read this, read this.

Here's the thing about me:

as much as I hate disappointment and feeling defeated, disappointment and defeat are actually two magical things that ignite me. They make me work harder. They make me reach farther. It's been one of those days, but now that the spark is let, I plan to set the world on fire.

Pulitzer Project, Book #6: March by Geraldine Brooks

I would never have picked this novel up of my own accord. I rarely, if ever, read historical fiction and actually find myself actively avoiding anything to do with the Civil War (books, movies, documentaries, etc...). I had also never read Little Women, which I feared would put me at a disadvantage in reading this book. But I am now so pleased that I did.

The story of the missing father from Little Women, March explores the year that this abolitionist acts as a Union army chaplain during the war. What I enjoyed the most were the moral complexities that were illustrated through March's character. I felt that it provided such an authentic and troubling depiction of what we typically consider a "just" war.

My only real complaint was that the switch to Marmee's point of view near the end of the novel made me feel less compassionate toward March. He actually started to really irritate me when seen through Marmee's eyes; his convictions began to seem less honorable and more selfish. The voice of these chapters also were not clearly enough differentiated from March's voice, which pulled me from the novel's dream a bit. But overall, this was a thoroughly enjoyable read.

On New Projects

So I am in that weird place in the novel-writing process where I am actually almost "done." Meaning...on June 1st I will send it to my editor and then, hopefully, have little more than some tinkering to do before it goes into print. There's still work to be done, but I can finally start to entertain the ideas for the next book.

I'm not one of those people who can work on more than one thing at a time. I am totally a totally monogamous sort of writer. But at this stage of the game, I am like a new divorcée, just waiting for the divorce papers to be finalized. There have been flirtations, of course....little notes jotted into my notebook, nights spent thinking about the new book instead of the one I'm with, but I have remained faithful. But now that the end is near, I have that itchy thrill of what will be next. New.

Starting a new project for me is so similar to falling in love. I seriously get butterflies in my stomach just thinking about all the possibilities. It keeps me up at night. I obsess. It's all I can think about. Everything I see and hear makes me think about it. My whole world revolves around it.

So here's to June 1st and new projects and falling in love. Again.

The Blurb

You know those endorsements you always see on the back of book jackets? The glowing praise, the author love? Poignant! Haunting! A stunning debut! You'd think from these quotes that authors must be an effusive lot by nature, a whole repertoire of glowing adjectives at their fingertips, happily spouting off praise for their colleagues. Yeah, sure. I have been at both ends of this process (as both blurber and blurbee), and the truth is that there is agony in both positions.

As one seeking endorsement, this kind of literary groveling takes a certain amount of grace, but it mostly requires blind audacity. Approaching a favorite author, asking them to take time out of their busy lives to read 300, 400, 500 pages of your work and then divining the perfect words of praise? You try it. And when they decline, see if it doesn't make you hot under the collar or filled with the cold awful drip of doubt and shame.

On the other end, I absolutely understand the inclination to just say no. What if the book is a stinker? What if you put your name on a pile of ca-ca? And when you are receiving multiple requests how on earth do you decide who to endorse and who to ignore? Is it easier to just say no across the board?

My novels have been endorsed by some very generous (and busy) people. Howard Frank Mosher and Larry McMurtry both took a chance on me with my first novel. Rene Steinke, Ursula Hegi, Miranda Beverly-Whittemore, Michelle Richmond, Lee Martin, Marisa de los Santos, Garth Stein, and Luanne Rice have all managed to find nice things to say about my work. Of course, there is no way to measure the effect of these kind words, no gauge to check the influence of their seals of approval. But what I do know is that I am entirely grateful for their generosity and time. And as an author receiving requests, I make every attempt to pay it forward. Of course, there are times when I too am simply too busy with my own work, or when I fear a novel may not sustain my interest...that I may not be able to find enough kind words to offer in return. But as a rule, if the author asks nicely, and the book looks good, I will make the time. Call me superstitious, but I suspect there are some karmic repercussions and rewards for all of this.

However, as I embark on the next round of solicitations (hoping the authors I love will love me back), I am steeling myself for whatever comes. Trying not to let my feelings get hurt...trying not to wonder if they're really busy or just think the book isn't worthy of their time.

On that note...here's a pretty funny and revealing article on the blurb. Hmmm...Should I send an email to Nicole Krauss next??

Grace

I haven't written about the new book (Grace) here at all...and I just realized I have now been working on it steadily for over a year. That's a good long time. You'd think I'd be nearing the finish line. But for me, at this stage of the game is when I start second-guessing every sentence. This morning (SATURDAY), I woke up at 5 a.m. in a near panic attack about it. And so I got up, and started to read it from the beginning, trying to pretend that someone else wrote it. Didn't work.

This is my seventh novel (actually ninth if you count all of the ones I've written), and I keep wondering if I will ever get to a point where this sort of crazed insecurity phase of the process disappears.

Here is what I do know. I have two weeks until the next draft is due to my editor. This week I will comb through it again...character by character, tinkering, fixing, and probably freaking out. I will hopefully get it to the point where I can bear to let it go. And then I will hope and wait and try to breathe.

The End of the Road: Book #5 The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Normally, I am not a huge fan of sci-fi; I think the last sci-fi book I read was called The Hero from Otherwhere, and I read it in the fifth grade. (I distinctly recall making a tissue paper wolf collage after completing it.) But despite any initial resistance I had genre-wise, there was something very engaging about this story. The language was at times absolutely lyrical ("At crossroads a ground set with dolmen stones where the spoken bones of oracles lay moldering" -- wow!), and the descriptions visceral, but it was actually the simple and subtle portrait of a father and son's relationship that most captivated me.

The unnamed father and son of The Road spend the entire novel in a futile journey across a post-apocalyptic landscape. Survival is the prevailing goal, leaving little room for much else. The son has no recollection of the world before its demise, and the father must navigate a future-less world with a young child at his side. The terse dialogue reveals beautifully (and with tremendous subtlety) the nuances of their relationship.

I was actually reminded throughout the novel of one of my favorites of last year: Room by Emma Donoghue. In that novel, a mother and her young son are confined to a small room (a room in which they are being held captive). Like the boy in The Road, Jack has no knowledge of the world outside the room. What struck me was how differently each of these parents deal with their children. While "the man" in The Road discourages dreams (fearful that they are a sign of surrender), the mother in Room relies on them to create a magical place for her small child. I can't help but wonder what would have happened if she'd been the one to survive the apocalypse instead -- if she and Jack were the ones making their way through this frozen, ashen world. Perhaps what differentiated the two parents was the simple prospect of a future: hope the one thing that eludes the father in The Road.

I did find myself worrying throughout the novel about how McCarthy would handle the end. And while it was satisfying, it also felt a little too tidy, a little too happy (despite the larger tragedy at hand). It didn't detract from my overall experience of the novel, however. Read it!

The Road to March

So I am reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy now (which is PP Book #5). It's a pretty bleak read, but I'm just so damned grateful for its simplicity and the absence of Spanglish, comic books, and footnotes, that it's already got a leg up on Oscar Wao.

Looking ahead, the next winner is March by Geraldine Brooks. I picked it up at the library yesterday, as I will probably finish The Road pretty quickly. However, I just read the jacket flap and realized that the gaps I've found in my literary canon seem to extend to my reading of children's classics as well. March is based on the father character in Little Women, which -- you guessed it -- I have never read. I have also never read Tolkien (maybe it would have helped with Oscar Wao), anything set in Narnia, The Phantom Toolbooth (at least not in its entirety), or The Secret Garden. So anyway...before March, I think I need to pick up a copy of Little Women. Maybe the girls will want to read it with me.

I also think I'm going to give myself a break every 5 or 10 years worth of PP Books to read something just for pure pleasure. What I'm most looking forward to right now is Don't Breathe a Word by fellow Vermonter, Jennifer MacMahon. There's another book called In Zanesville whose cover captivated me. (I'm a sucker for a good cover -- which is another reason why e-books have been a good thing for me -- no pretty packages to woo me.)

Book #4: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

Lately, I have been so focused on determining what a writer's obligations are to a reader, I have neglected to address what the reader's expectations are. I've been looking at this project from a writer's eyes, and neglecting the reader's perspective. I have been so fixated on defining what the writer's job is that I fear I've neglected addressing how this relates to the reader's expectations. Through this, I am learning a lot about myself not only as a writer but as a reader.

Here's the deal with Oscar Wao:

In the eighth grade, I was homely beyond homely. 5' 9" tall, 100 pounds soaking wet with braces, glasses, and an unfortunate haircut (I think I was going for punk rock but it wound up instead as a sort of poodle mullet). Anyway...I knew that no one was going to ask me to the eighth grade graduation dance, and so I took matters into my own hands. I decided to shoot high and asked the most popular boy in the eighth grade. He was a new kid, a basketball player, and had perfectly feathered hair. And, for some unknown reason, he said YES. So the night of the dance came. I got a new dress and high heeled white sandals to match. He showed up with a corsage. I swooned. At the dance, we danced two slow songs (I thought I would die then and there from happiness) and then he put his arm around me as we sat huddled in the corner with all the other couples. I had never felt so blissed out in my entire thirteen years of life. He politely excused himself at some point to get some water, and I sat grinning (I was in. I had a date!) amongst the other couples. I sat. And grinned. And waited. And waited. He never came back. And I was stuck, sitting with all these happy pairs alone for the next two hours until my dad came to pick me up.

This book is just like that boy. I was enticed by the reviews, the Pulitzer win, the recommendation of several readers I trust. But the date was a bomb. Here's why:

While the book purports to be about Oscar Wao (you'd think from that title anyway), but it's not. It's about Oscar, his mother, his sister, and his friend (and narrator) Yunior. It's also about Trujillo's reign of terror in the Dominican Republic. While all of these stories are interesting, the tragedy of Oscar's life doesn't resonate, because I didn't get to spend enough time with him to even begin to care about him.

The Diaspora it continually addresses is (ironically or intentionally?) replicated by the incredible and willful inaccessibility of the prose, which is littered with Dominican slang as well as obscure comic book and Japanese anime references. I read the entire novel with my laptop open to a website which kindly offered annotations. (I hadn't seen as many annotations since The Divine Comedy in college.) The entire book made me feel like an outsider, that poor ugly girl sitting alone at the dance after the boy ditched me. Diaz ditched me!

The narrator. Man, he's an ass. He's flippant, he's sexist, and he does nothing but disparage his culture and people. I couldn't stand him. I also felt like I couldn't trust him, because he seemed more omniscient (read, authorial) than a genuine character. See where I'm headed with this?

So anyway, I leave this book, like I left the eighth grade graduation dance that night. Disappointed and a little pissed.

The Brief Wondrous Site

Just started The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao...and I am telling you, thank goodness for whoever cobbled together this chapter by chapter annotation!

Book #3: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

I loved this book. I truly, truly did. Initially, I worried that the linked stories were a cop-out...a way to get around writing a novel. But instead, this collection of stories about the characters living in Crosby, ME ultimately accomplished everything a novel could and more.

Olive Kitteridge, a quirky and bitter old lady, is at the heart of the collection, though often at the periphery of the stories. But the portrait that is painted of her is vivid and complete. I found myself in tears after the final story...and close to it in many of the others.

Strout writes without sentimentality about aging and marriage, love and disappointment. I will absolutely seek out her backlist.

Book #2: Tinkers by Paul Harding

When I teach Plot in my creative writing classes, I return again and again to Anne Lamott who says, "You need to be moving your characters forward, even if they only go slowly. Imagine moving them across a lily pond. If each lily pad is beautifully, carefully written, the reader will stay with you as you move toward the other side of the pond, needing only the barest of connections -- such as rhythm, tone, or mood (Bird by Bird, 59). This is a lily pad novel. The writing is lovely, elegiac in tone, and meticulous. This may very well be enough for some readers. However, I am not sure these beautifully constructed lily pads were quite enough for me. Perhaps the pond beneath was too murky.

This novel purports to be the story of George Washington Crosby, a clock repairman, as he lies on his deathbed. However, the novel's locus soon shifts to George's father, Howard, an epileptic traveling salesman who abandons his family when his wife decides to have him committed. We also see glimpses of Howard's father, a failed preacher. The book shifts back and forth among these characters, revealing the tenuous relationships that exist between these fathers and sons. While very little actually happens in the novel by way of plot, its scope is fairly grand, examining themes of fatherhood and absence and inheritance.

But what I found most frustrating about this novel was not that so little happened, but that those events that were dramatized felt (at times) arbitrary. I wanted Harding to achieve what Tobias Wolf manages in "Bullet in the Brain." But while Wolf captures (in three pages) an entire life in that moment before death, I felt like I had only the most impressionistic sense of George's life after nearly 200 pages in Harding's novel. This coupled with the also seemingly arbitrary shifts in point of view and lack of any cohesive structure left me frustrated and eager for the novel to end.

I champion the quiet novel, and there was much to be admired in Harding's ambition and prose. But there are other novels and stories that have done it better; Evening by Susan Minot is one.

Book #1: A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

There are books driven by the characters who inhabit their pages and books driven by the author's ideas. This is an idea book. It is an ambitious book, a collection of stories strung together loosely by a sprawling cast ("squad") of characters, but more strongly tethered by the concepts of music and time. It struck me initially as gimmicky: A-side chapters and B-side chapters, even a Powerpoint presentation chapter, footnotes for Christ's sake...all that post-modern form play that usually irritates the crap out of me. But somehow Egan makes it work and even managed to win over this reluctant reader. While I prefer books piloted by the characters, this book takes flight based on some pretty beautiful examinations of time's passing, rendered in frequently luminous prose. I probably won't remember the people in these stories, but I will remember some of the wonderful details: the autistic child's obsession with the pauses in songs, the description of someone smelling like the inside of a peach, the slow loss of a sunset to a new building as it is constructed.

Pulitzer Pile of Shame

So I thought it might be interesting today to go through my reading list of Pulitzer fiction winners and see how many of them are already on my bookshelves. I was frankly shocked and a little ashamed to find that I already own probably a dozen of them, all but a few unread. (There are a few boxes that remain unpacked -- and I'm pretty sure that in addition to what I found Ironweed , The Stories of John Cheever, and Breathing Lessons are all lying unread in the garage). There are four additional unread winners that lay in wait on my Kindle. I'm not sure what this says about me. I clearly had an interest in all of these books at one time. My interest in Chabon's Amazing Adventure of Cavalier and Clay was earnest enough that I bought it in hard cover. I have started each and every one of them. I think I've started Middlesex three times. And I'm pretty sure I started and only pretended to finish The Color Purple. I know, I know. What's even more shameful is that two of these unread authors were visitors to George Washington University when I was teaching there. I won't say which ones in case they, like me, have Google Alerts set and might catch wind of this.

As far as I can tell, I've been populating my bookshelves with Pulitzer winners my whole adult life (and then promptly neglecting them). Here's my pile of shame. How many books have you purchased only to leave their spines intact?



Anyway, I'm halfway through Book #1: 2011's winner, A Visit from the Goon Squad, which I'm wishing I'd bought in print because reading footnotes on a Kindle is turning out to be a technological pain in the ass. Can hardly wait to see what happens when I get to the infamous "Powerpoint" chapter...though it's hard to image it would be more effective on paper than on a computer.

I'm Back!

I'm back! And I thought this might be a good venue to talk about my latest personal challenge. After looking at the list of Pulitzer fiction winners recently, I realized that I had only read three or four on the list. How could that be possible? So, I have decided to try to read every fiction winner since 1948. It's about 50 books I think (there were some years when an award was not granted). I'm starting with this year's winner (A Visit from the Goon Squad) and moving backward. I'll post my reviews here (you can also find them on Goodreads. Anybody else up for the challenge?

New Project/Blog

Here's my latest endeavor...if you can't find me here you can find me HERE (Into the Tulgey Wood).

Two Rivers #1 in Kindle Store!

Thanks everyone for making TWO RIVERS a #1 Kindle download! For a limited time only, TWO RIVERS is FREE to download at amazon.com, Barnes and Noble and Sony's ReaderStore.

And if you enjoyed TWO RIVERS, I have a new book out now, THE HUNGRY SEASON which is the story of a family in crisis after the death of their teenage daughter.

Unfortunately, my earlier novels are out of print, but UNDRESSING THE MOON will be available again in October 2010.

Mermama gets her tail back.

So, five years after the major cross-country move, we've turned ourselves 180 degrees and gone back. Home. To California.

What we had when we left: a big truck full of stuff, a three year old and a baby. One job. One novel to finish.

What we have now: an even bigger truck full of stuff, an eight year old, a six year old, two cats. One job. Another novel to finish. (And a rental house with eight tiki totem poles.)

I told Patrick that I am tired of being the couple that is always saying goodbye. Together we have left Arizona, Seattle, San Diego, and now DC. I am ready to stay put. I am tired of tearing myself away from people and places. I am ready to dig in, grow roots. I am ready to call someplace home. And given the glorious 70 degree days we've had since we got here...and the smell of the ocean in the air, I think this might just be the place.

Updates

I feel like Facebook has killed my blog...at least sucked away the time I might normally spend blogging. Anyway...quick recap: I finished the draft of a new novel this spring, This Glittering World. I am very excited about it, though it is a departure in many ways from my other work. I signed a three book contract with Kensington, which is wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. My hope is that all of this good book news will actually buy me some more writing time. I also just got the jacket artwork for The Hungry Season which comes out in February. It's gorgeous, and they used one of my photos (of Esmee) which is cooler than cool.

On the home front...we're off to Vermont on Sunday for a whole month. I have a stack of books a mile high waiting to be read. I am already dreaming of being nestled up on the porch while the girls run around outside. This is my favorite time of the year. Pictures and happy little recaps to follow.

WETA Interview

Here is my first video interview ever. Enjoy!

Tomorrow Night!

It's a strange thing promoting a book, a very different endeavor than the solitary task of actually writing it. The hats I wear are, to say the least, quite different. I picture the writer-hat as a sort of tweedy pageboy cap a la "Oliver Twist." The public reading-hat is more like one of those hats you see women wear at the Kentucky Derby -- all flowers and netting and maybe even a little birdy perched on top. I must admit I prefer the wool cap, but every now and then it's nice to get fussy.

On that note, for anyone who is in the DC area, I'll be reading at the Barnes and Noble in Bethesda at 7 p.m. tomorrow night. Stop by if you're around and say hi!

Recap?

I was thinking that I should try to recap the last few months since I posted, and the mere thought of it exhausted me. I think Facebook is sucking away all of my internet creativity. That and trying to get my novel finished by February 15th.



Here are the biggies: Two Rivers is out!!! I had my first reading in Flagstaff at Bookman's, which wound up being a wonderful reunion of sorts with a lot of friends from grad school. The novel is on the Indie Next list this month, which is also great news. There have been sightings in airports, Target, and last night my dad called me from Costco. "You've really made it," he exclaimed. "You're at Costco." :)


Here are the girls and I after my signing at Bookman's.

I had a terrific break, but now it's back to work. I get up every morning at 5:30 and write for two hours. Then I somehow manage to get the kids fed and dressed and off to school and then I go to school or prep for classes. I am only teaching 2 classes at GW, but I teach two back-to-back workshops on Saturdays. It seems like it's going to be okay...though I was pretty spent last Saturday.

I am traveling a little bit for the book...to Sarasota in February and then to Flagstaff for the Northern Arizona Book festival in April. I have my fingers crossed that the novel does well and I can lighten up my teaching load. When I finish this book I have one I'm itching to write. Just not enough hours in the day.

On the Mommy front...you may remember the check-up fiasco with Esmee (she sucker-punched me in the nose as she was getting her shots). Well, we tried it again today, and though she professed a new courage I was suspicious. And, indeed, I got kicked and scratched and screamed at. That girl has got some lungs!!

Oh...the Inauguration!!! How could I forget??!! The girls and I did not brave the crowds or the cold, but Patrick did. The air is still buzzing and humming with the thrill of it all here. Ben's Chili Bowl on U Street has an O-B-A-M-A ice sculpture out front...my favorite artifact from the past week. With the weather we've been having, it may just stay awhile.


Sorry if I missed anything. It's been a doozy of a year so far.

On being seven.

Kicky is turning seven next week, and I am overwhelmed. Because I remember seven.


(Me, at seven.)

I remember seven better than twenty-seven. I lived in Concord, Vermont. I had a cat named Boogie. I liked to play "Love Boat" and "Charlie's Angels" in the yard with my neighbors, Chris and Angie. I watched "Happy Days" on Tuesdays and "Donny and Marie" every Friday night. I loved Orange Posicles and thought I might grow up to be a gymnast. For fun, I threw my Barbies up on the roof and watched them roll off. I liked to put pennies on the railroad tracks and get the hot, flattened remains after the trains had passed. I believed that notes in bottles would reach the destinations I intended. I was in the second grade, and I wrote my first short story during recess. I got the wind knocked out of me when I fell off the monkey bars, and I had a crush on Sean Cassidy. We adopted my sister the fall that I was seven. I was a devil for Halloween. Anyway, the point is (besides totally dating myself), this is a year that she will remember. And that is wild.

My New Desk

The office is a work in progress, but I LOVE my new desk!

New and Improved

The website has finally been updated after two years of stasis...to get straight to the Two Rivers stuff, go here.

On another note, I woke up grumpy and have been grumpy most of the day. Do you ever feel like all you do is clean your house? I mean, the hours I spend cleaning the house only to have it look nice for five minutes before being destroyed again. Blah.

Fellow Artists!

Oh please, please, please one of you who can ditch your life and dedicate it to your work, please apply for this residency!!!!!

http://www.gershwinhotel.com/english/site1.html

Been a long time...

since I blogged, but, thankfully, it's because I've been happily traveling to trade shows to get booksellers excited about Two Rivers. Since mid-September I've been to Portland, Boston, Mobile, and Oakland. I've signed a zillion galleys and tried, futiley, to capture "what the book's about" in tidy little sound bites. I must admit I wish I could just say something like, "It's about a man, a maverick, who wants reform, and a hockey mom, Joe six-pack..." Oops, wrong story.

Anyhow, besides being on the road non-stop, I'm trying to keep up with my teaching and parenting and all that regular stuff. We've almost finished the renovation on the house, and I lament not having the time I'd like to properly prettify it. I'm shooting for Thanksgiving.

I'm also not left with much time to write, making me feel both frustrated and guilty. Oh how I could use two weeks of seclusion to just get it done.

And strangely, while this house of cards we call the U.S. seems to be falling down around me, I feel like I'm in a bubble of happiness. Is that wrong?

Writing

I am trying to work on the new book...which I made a little progress on this summer. It's 250 pages, but it's still a mess. It's so frustrating trying to sort everything out. I don't know why I make everything so complicated for myself. Too many voices, non-linear time and plot. Argh.

It's also strange to have a deadline. I've never had a deadline for a novel before. It's good, but a little anxiety-inducing.

Anyway...back to work.

At last, at long, long, last....

Here is the beautiful artwork. It's out on December 30! Here is Kensington's page for it...with a lovely blurb from Lee Martin, whose novel, The Bright Forever, is one of my recent favorites.

I am also gearing up for a tour of all the major independent bookssller trade shows next month. I am so very excited. Finally!!!

And this is funny...I loved the artwork right away, and then I realized why. Check out the view from the living room at Newark Pond:

You'd think I'd have more time

instead of less since school let out...but alas, I just fill it up with different things. Writing should be one of them...but still not quite back in that mode. I finished an editing job and two summer workshops at the Writer's Center, and am crashing now. Literally. My body has shut down...this used to happen after exams in college too. I am miserably sick with some sort of heinous summer cold. We're also still in the midst of major construction on the house and gearing up for a vacation out west. I think I need it. And, we're actually leaving the girls with my folks for a whole week. I may go crazy without them, though I suspect I'll be okay :)

I got some nice feedback from a bookseller who read a review copy of Two Rivers. It's still almost eight months away from publication. Jeez...having babies is faster than having books.

Just got back from Vermont...the speech at my high school went well, I think. It was sweltering though, and so I have a feeling they were grateful mostly for its brevity.

More sooner than later.

Commencement!

I was recently asked to speak at my high school's graduation. I am so excited and nervous. The last graduation speech I gave was at my eighth grade graduation. I wonder if I can find it anywhere :)

We are in the middle of construction on our house which is absolute madness, and I am busy teaching and editing...I HAVE to get back to my own work, but it's so hard.

A little frazzled...

April Fool's

So Kicky has discovered April Fool's jokes. All afternoon, she's been conducting a series of not so elaborate pranks. Esmee doesn't get it. I just overheard this conversation:

K: There's a bug in your hair.
E: No there's not.
K: Yes, there is.
E: Uh-uh.
K: Come on Esmee. It's April....
E: April what?
K: Come on...it's April Ffff.....
E: April-ham Lincoln?

I need a nap.

SHOTS

I just got my first photo published. It's in the "Portraits" issue of SHOTS Magazine. It's "Twilight," a photo of Esmee. Kicky said, "Esmee...you're FAMOUS!" Esmee was not impressed.

Bittersweet

Some sad news here. My step-grandmother, a wonderful, wonderful woman who married my grandfather after my grandmother died, passed away yesterday. She was ready, I think, but it doesn't make it any less sad. I don't know what would have happened to my grandfather had he not had her. He adored her, and we all did too.

On a happier note, the forsythia are starting to bloom in tentative yellow bursts. Vacation is over, but the end of spring break for me is always sort of exciting. I feel enervated, revitalized and ready to go back. And, it also signals the closing in of the end of the semester and the beginning of summer. I am so excited to get back to my own writing, I can barely stand it. Over break, I re-read the new novel and, despite its rough edges (and squishy middle), I think it might wind up being really, really good. It's my first third person novel...from many points of view. I love the family in it. And it's another Lake Gormlaith novel...

I've been taking more pictures lately too...I got some great ones today of Esmee wearing bunny ears while Kicky stares me down through a magnifying glass in the background. Priceless. We had a terrific Easter...lots of chocolate and eggs. Kicky said that she heard the Easter Bunny, and I quote:

K: I heard thump, thump, hop.
Me: Really?
K: Yes. And then a twinkling sound.
Me: A twinkling sound? What was that?
K: Jelly beans, Mom. Going into the eggs?!

I hope this sweet faith in all things magical lasts just a little while longer.

Single Mermama

I've been completely consumed with mermamahood for the last several weeks; P has been traveling for work, leaving me and the girls to fend for ourselves. In a way, it's been empowering; did you know that it is, indeed, possible for one person to drop two children off at schools in two separate cities and still get to work by 8:00 a.m.? To make all speech therapy, ballet, and gymnastics lessons despite two outbreaks of hives? Did you know that one single, not very big or strong woman is capable of assembling three Ikea wardrobes in a 7 ft by 3 ft. space to surprise husband upon his return? Well, it is, and I proved it. I'm pooped. BUT, I am on spring break for a week, so all is well in the world. Today I'm taking the girls to a Purim party at Esmee's school and then to "Horton Hears a Who."

On the writing front: I just mailed back the copyedited manuscript to Kensington. Next come the proofs and galleys!!

Good news!

I recently found out that I will be getting a MD State Arts Council grant this year. I'm going to take the summer off from teaching to write the next book.

MSAC Press Release

I am thrilled to death. The writing sample I gave was from the new book which gives me a much needed confidence boost.

Mermania

I just finally ordered Swim to Me...a novel based on the Weeki Wachee mermaids. In Two Rivers, Brooder's mother runs away to become a mermaid in this roadside attraction, and he winds up married to a mermaid he meets when he goes to Florida to find his mother. I have been fascinated by them since I first discovered Weeki Wachee. It bums me out that someone beat me to the punch with the novel, but maybe a photo project would be fun. A road trip down to Florida??

Do you suppose I'm too old for Mermaid Camp??!!!

Possessed

Esmee was possessed by the devil two days ago. Linda Blair in "The Exorcist" possessed. Marlena on "Days of Our Lives" in the 90's possessed.

So it was time for the annual check-up for both girls. No big deal. Ears, nose, throat...a flu shot. Some boosters. Right? Am I crazy? I thought this would be a piece of cake. These girls have been going to the doctor for years! And their pediatrician wears a little rubber Pooh Bear attached to his stethoscope and makes them guess what animal is living inside their ears. We'd be in and out, right?

No such luck. Here's the timeline.

2:30 We arrive at the office. All is great. We even get called in early by the nurse.
2:35 Blood pressure, pulse, height and weight. The girls are happy, smiling, finding their own pulses.
2:45 The doctor comes in, Kicky starts to ask questions about the flu shot. "I'm just getting one shot, right? Just the flu shot, right? It won't hurt much, right?" Anxiety starts to build. The doctor proceeds with the exam...checking tonsils, spines and asking questions about what kind of veggies they like. Kicky keeps asking questions about the flu shot. The doctor says she will, indeed get a flu shot. And a Hep A booster. AND a chicken pox booster. Terror sets in.
3:00 A respite: the eye and hearing exams. Then the nurse comes with Kicky's shots. Esmee's cool...watching Kicky freak out as she gets not one but three shots. But she is brave, strong, proud of her band-aided shoulders.
3:15 Esmee's turn.
3:20 Where is Esmee?
3:25 Curled up under the chair, clinging like a monkey to the chair legs. Screaming bloody murder.
3:30 The nurse and I extricate her from the bottom of the chair and try to get her situated on my lap.
3:35 Flailing, beet red and screaming, the demons have arrived.
3:40 The nurse prepares FIVE vaccinations and gets ready to administer the first one.
3:41 Esmee's head spins round and round and then she close-fisted clocks me in the face. Hard. Harder than I have ever been struck. Ever.
3:42 Stunned and bewildered and IN PAIN, the rest is a blur. Somehow the shots all get given, and the demon leaves my child's body.
3:45 We go out to the lobby, Esmee is clutching her Dora the Explorer sticker. I am clutching my nose. The receptionist, clutching her side, laughs, "The Four Year special?"

A New Year

I am several days (weeks?) late for new year's wishes, but I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge the bittersweet waning of 2007 and the glorious waxing of this new year. I have high hopes for this year, though 2007 really gave most others a run for their money.

I have lots and lots of writing goals for this year...I have to revise The Hungry Season (the next book in line). I also want to write a short story. I want to find a home for my collection of poems and my children's book.

Other resolutions/aspirations: I want to get a photo published. I want to make all of the Christmas presents I give next year. I vow to go to the doctor AND the dentist this year (for me, not for the kids). I will practice patience. I will pay off some credit cards. I will use the stupid new treadmill at least once or twice. And I will try to be a better teacher to my children. And I will make more time to be a grown-up with my husband, even if it means hiring a babysitter every now and then. And I am going to try to spend less time on TMZ.com and more time reading the books that are threatening to collapse my nightstand.

As for the blog...I promise to try to be more prolific. My silence has been due both to absence (holiday vacations out west) and the fact that my typing fingers have been otherwise engaged. I finished my edits on Two Rivers just a couple of days ago...and I think I am finally done. for those of you have had any sort of history with this blog...you will know that this damned novel has occupied my digits for far too long. I swear I almost got up and danced when my index finger clicked the mouse on SEND.

That's it...best wishes to all of you in this new you. Peace. (Oh yeah...Kicky learned a new word during break...PSYCHEDELIC. She told me I have psychedelic eyes. So have a psychedelic new year!)

Light at the End of the Grading Tunnel

Today was my last day of classes for the semester...sort of bittersweet. I always fall in love with my students a little on the last day. Now, I just have to power through all of their final drafts, finish an editing job, and finish up a workshop at The Writer's Center, and then I am on vacation!

Last night I participated on a panel of contributors to an anthology of DC women writers. It's the first time I've ever had anything anthologized. It was such a strange experience (not the anthologizing but the reading). The story, "Instruments of Torture" is the first and only funny thing I've written since a horrific novel I wrote in college ("Tygers and Berries: A Modern Inferno"...and no, I'm not kidding...a wild romp about two women on a road trip from New Hampshire to New Orleans, full of Dante and Zen...yikes.) Anyway, I am typically accustomed to people in the audience looking at me intently, eyebrows furrowed. But last night I felt like Ellen or Roseanne. Seriously...people were laughing! A love stories about medieval torture instruments...who'da thunk?

We also had our first snowstorm...it feels all festive and holidayee here. We did have a mishap with the Christmas tree...it fell on me while we were watching "Dexter" the other night. TIMBER!!

Sorry for the scatterbrainy post. I promise coherent contemplations in about a week.

Soooooo

..the opening was wonderful. I was really, really nervous. All of a sudden on Friday night I started to think that the whole idea had been ludicrous. But then when all of my DC friends and colleagues started showing up, it felt really right. I have to admit that watching everyone look at the pictures was a bit bizarre...but they all seemed to genuinely enjoy the show, and it also got a lot of new people into the Atlas which is always great. I even sold a few pictures...now I can buy some more photo equipment. We didn't get home until pretty late though, and I had to get up to teach yesterday morning. And then last night we had company over, and I made a lasagna that had six cheeses in it. I think I can feel the blood trying to chug through my clogged arteries as I write. It was really nice though, and Patrick even fired up some creme brulee for dessert. Needless to say, the weekend was wonderfully distracting, but tomorrow my nose has got a ticket back to the grindstone. I have 36 more papers to go and haven't even started the new editing job.

Oh yeah...I've added a link to the slideshow of the exhibit on my photo blog in case you can't go see the pictures in real life: www.ephemerafiles.blogspot.com

Gallery Gallera

I feel like I'm running on fumes these days...there are no breaks in sight either. It's that mid-semester madness coupled with me taking on more than any sane person ever would that's getting to me. Anyway, here's a brief update: the pictures are up, the reception is Friday night. I am ecstatically nervous, if that makes any sense. Happily anxious? Blissfully biting my nails to the quick? Anyway, here's a picture of the space with the pictures in it. You'll have to come to the Atlas to see them up close. And we got a nice little pitch on http://www.artsdc.com/

Check out Big Esmee!!

This week I am also getting 45 stories turned in, a 350 page novel to edit, and hope to finally really digest the editorial comments from my new editor on Two Rivers. I feel completely scatter-brained, the only thing tethering me to the world is my to-do list which is a completely full double-sided piece of paper. Yikes!

Anyhow...sorry for being so sporadic with the posts, but I am, indeed, alive here. And today I did manage to stand for an extra minute in the cold autumn sun just to watch the leaves fall like snow while the girls tried to catch them as they fell.

Falling

I love autumn. I love it, love it, love it. And, for a few minutes, it seemed like it was here. But alas, eighty degrees again today, and I'm beginning to wonder.

I went to the pumpkin patch with Esmee's class this week, and it was so wonderful: animals, a hayride, pumpkins, apples, cider. It was fun to watch her among her peers (I almost always only see her with Kicky around). She did get knocked over a log once, but other than that, she is such a sweet social butterfly.

I didn't do everything on my list, but I did everything that had a deadline. I got a portfolio off to SHOTS magazine, taught, graded papers, met with a contractor about the addition, paid bills, volunteered at Kicky's school, went on the field trip, and kept the house from exploding. I even managed to get those enchiladas made. the tooth is still in Kicky's mouth, buthopefully soon. Not a bad week. And I still have Friday.

Busy Bee

I am in some sort of crazy whirlwind these days...barely catching my breath now as I write. Here's what's on my plate this coming week:

12 student stories to grade
60 critiques to grade
6 classes to teach
3 office hours to keep
1 novel to edit (not my own)
1 novel to start editing (my own)
1 photo exhibit to prepare...only 24 days to go
1 hour of volunteering at kindergarten
1 chaperoned trip to a pumpkin patch
1 ballet lesson
1 gymnastics lesson
3 blogs to catch up on
1 storage room to clean
1 photo portfolio competition to enter
1 poetry collection competition to enter
1 pan of enchiladas I've been craving for two weeks now to make
1 harvest dummy to build with the girls
2 Halloween costumes to make (ghost and butterfly or lion or witch)
4 large piles of laundry to fold
1 call to the vet
1 call to the dentist (should have done this 6 months ago)
100's of bills to pay
74 days to Christmas
some sweaters to buy for Kicky since the weather just dropped 30 degrees in the last 2 days
1 loose tooth to nudge

What are you doing this week???

Frazzled

Little mermommy rant here: the elementary school where Kicky goes (and where Esmee will go in a couple of years) is proposing a huge renovation. Wonderful! But during the construction phase...which will last over a year, starting when both of the girls are there...they are possibly going to relocate the students beyond the Beltway (for those of you outside DC, this probably means little to you, but to me it's RIDICULOUS) to northern Bethesda...which is an hour and a half bus ride for them or an hour each way commute for me. Jiminy crickets. Parents are talking about pulling their kids from the school. Part of the reason why we live where we do rather than in the city is because of the school. ARGH. Anyway, I've got my PTA hat on now, jamming up the old listserv with my bitching and moaning.

So, on that note, way too much going on here...between getting my photo show ready and teaching and trying to raise these crazy children, I am left with little time, energy, or general gumption. I'm mustering up some tonight though to go hear Edwidge Danticat read from her new memoir at Politics and Prose. I have only read Breath, Eyes, Memory...which I loved. I'm meeting a friend there early on to catch up and browse...maybe treat myself to a new photo magazine.

The panel discussion at The Roundhouse went nicely, and the show (A Lesson Before Dying) was really incredible.

Calm blue ocean, calm blue ocean...

Everything's Coming Up...

ROSES. My, my, my have I had a fantastic week. First, I got a two book offer for Two Rivers and the next novel. (You all know how long I've been waiting for this :) But also, a curator at a southern art museum contacted me about submitting a proposal for a possible photo exhibition. I feel like I've been at such a standstill for so long...I hardly know what to do with myself! Pinch, pinch.

This week is going to be busy...teaching and the usual ballet, gymnastics, grading etc... and on Thursday night I'm speaking on a panel at The Roundhouse Theatre in Bethesda about the adaptation of A Lesson Before Dying. It should be a fascinating discussion. My approach has more to do with what happens when a novel is stripped to its bare bones. The other speakers, I believe, will be addressing the more thematic concerns of the novel/play.

At last...

Two Rivers is going to be published. More details soon...

Photos of the Crazy Book Lady's Living Room

So here it is. And notice, I haven't even filled all of the shelves yet!!

Back to School

Well summer is officially over...I am back to school again. This semester I am teaching three Intro sections...back to back two days a week. I suspect I'm going to feel like a broken record by the third class, but I like that my schedule isn't spread out all over the place like last semester.

Yesterday P and I spent the entire day re-doing our livingroom. My entire body hurts today. I painted...Pebble Path is the color. During the day it looks like Dijon mustard, and at night it looks like a latte. Very strange. P assembled four gigantic floor to ceiling bookcases, and now we are officially the "crazy people with a whole wall of books." Poor sap didn't know what he was in for when he married me. Speaking of which...it's been eight years today since we got hitched. Some pretty great years.

On the writing/book front...some renewed interest and possibilities for Two Rivers. Also, I plan to get back to the super secret summer Scranton project this week. Too long of a hiatus.

Off to start my marathon teaching session in about an hour...writing from a brand new used computer in my office at school. Beats the hell out of the Windows 95 monstrosity I had before.

A New Blog

So, I have now created a blog that's just for my photography stuff. Check it out!

The Ephemera Files

Summer's End

Just got back from almost five weeks in Vermont. This is such a sentimental time of year for me. Bittersweet...I love the onset of autumn, but everything about leaving Vermont, about starting school again, about the inevitable end of summer makes me feel melancholy.

Vermont was wonderful, as always. The first two weeks belonged to me and the girls. Swimming every day, long hikes through the woods, pancakes for breakfast and reading half the night. I wrote over a hundred pages. And I even wrote a children's story (a story within the novel), that I think might be good enough to stand on its own. Patrick came to visit right after my parents arrived, and the visit got increasingly more busy, which was also fine. Lots of family visits. A night in Burlington, and my visit to Bread Loaf, which (though short) was everything I expected. It's like summer camp for writers. I wish I could go for the whole conference sometime. I met some wonderful people there, got some work done, and then took a beautiful ride back to the Northeast Kingdom through a part of the state I had never seen before. I took over seven hundred pictures, and wound up with a handful I'll use in my show in November.

Now, we're back. And today I took Kicky to her first day of kindergarten. I was surprised by how emotional I got...I could barely keep it together long enough to get back to my car. Kicky, on the other hand, was fabulous...calm, cool, collected. I also appeared to be the only one feeling so completely overcome by things.

School starts for me next week: three sections of 81 (back to back no less). I also become official chauffeur next week: ballet lesson, gymnastics. Oh God, I'm a mom.

Any way, here are some pictures...

S'mores

The Treehouse

Painting Rocks

Lemonade and Art Stand

Swimming

Twilight at Newark Pond

I made The New York Times Book Review!

(Well, a Letter to the Editor I wrote did anyway.) Check it out...it's online today and will be in the Sunday Book section tomorrow:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/books/review/letters3.html

Super Secret Secret Summer Project

So I am fully in the throes of what we've been referring to as "The Super Secret Secret Summer Project" around here. The excitement and thrill was at a high yesterday when I spent an hour on the phone with a woman whose situation is eerily similar to my narrator's. I found her on the web, and she graciously has given me the details of her story as well as invited me to her home in Scranton to look through her papers. Her generosity is overwhelming. We may have to start calling it "The Super Secret Secret Scranton Summer Project." Argh...I am so superstitious. My horoscope forbade me to discuss the details of this artistic endeavor, but I'm just about losing my mind over it.

We leave for Vermont a week from Sunday, and I am so excited to have a whole month to dedicate to working on my own work. I am going to be a writing, picture-taking fool for a month. I also plan to spend a pretty large chunk of time floating around in an inner tube with the girls.

Also, I just entered a small portfolio of work in Aperture's annual contest. I'm not expecting anything, but it was good to help me focus on selecting the best pictures I've taken so far.

Here's one:

"Sleeping Beauty"

Yes, we let our children play with firecrackers.

Ohh Mermama

Ooooh am I back on track. Writing, writing, writing. Can you hear the tappety-tap, clackety-clack?? What a little Ocean Beach Street Fair can do for inspiration:

A Nose Knows

I did it.


I swear. It's there! A teensy tinsy ocean-colored gemstone,
my left side.

I will post more OB Street Fair pictures soon. I am exhausted and jet lagged and ready for beddy.

What Remains

So, talk about serendipity....I was clicking through the On Demand library last night looking for something to watch while P was at a baseball game, and on Cinemax I found "What Remains," the documentary about Sally Mann. It was incredible. And it hit close to home for more reasons than I had expected. For one thing, there is this incredible scene in the film when she finds out that the NY gallery where she is scheduled to show her latest exhibit (a collection which took her four years to create) cancels. It is heart-wrenching. It made me really, really think about how very precarious an artists' ego is. And how even established artists...truly accomplished and celebrated artists...face self-doubt and the anxiety that they are no longer creating anything of value. Needless to say...it was relevant. Besides, it really confirmed what I suspected about her both as a photographer and as a mother. What an incredibly humble and committed artist, mother, and wife. It's a great film...check it out on Cinemax this Friday (at 2:45 a.m. or some ungodly hour).

Off to teach my Intro to the Novel class tonight. I wrote almost 4000 words this week. A breakthrough for me. I hope.

Chili Cookoff!!!

Check out the party they're having for my birthday in Ocean Beach!!

http://obstreetfair.com/2003Video.shtml

I am so excited to go to San Diego. Who would have thought that what used to be home would one day be a vacation spot?

Writing Without Writing

I have all sorts of free time now, and I cannot...for the life of me...seem to get to work. I find myself googling photographers, studying pictures, making treks to bookstores for photography magazines, and suffering what may very well be carpal tunnel in my right index finger from snapping so many pictures. I have submitted CD's to two different fine arts magazines...what the hell am I thinking??? And all the while, despite this sort of manic high that taking pictures is giving me, I feel the same sort of guilt I always felt as a kid when I had to pick which stuffed animals to sleep with and which ones were relegated to the floor for the night. It's the Catholic in me...I can feel guilty about just about anything. And the fact that I am getting so much more out of images than words lately makes me feel like an infidel.

Anyway, next week is my 29th birthday. Again. I'll be in San Diego at the Ocean Beach Street Fair -- my favorite holiday (the street fair, not my birthday). My forever-friend Heather and I are going to get our noses pierced at Dr. Jeffe's and then drink a lot of beer and take pictures of the freaks. It seems like a silly thing to do...the piercing not the drinking and picture taking...but why the hell not? The girls are thrilled by the prospect of Mommy having a pierced nose. I've psyched myself up for it by watching people getting it done on youtube. There's something for everyone there, isn't there?

Anyway. Just checking in. Procrastinating. Writing without writing. Maybe that's what the little catch phrase for the blog should be.

Here's a picture Kicky took of me taking pictures of her.

And pictures of Kicky taking pictures of Esmee. I've really started something here, I fear:

Change of Plans

I haven't been steamed up in awhile. It actually takes a whole heckuva lot to get me really, really going. But you know what? Sometimes that's where the good writing lives. I must (reluctantly) admit that I have, as of late, completely lost interest in the book in I wrote in November. The thought of revising it has actually makes me grimace. So...I started sketching some things out last night, and the story just came...materialized out of the great frustrated ether of my mind. For a change, I think I'm going to be hush hush on this one, but it's more personal than some of the stuff I've spent the last few years writing. Maybe I'm just getting more fickle.

Anyway...it's firefly season here again. But this year I've got a good camera:

Black and White?

So I just finished a book that has, in many ways, stirred up something inside of me. Lots of things actually. The timing is serendipitous, I think, and perhaps if I had read this book even a year ago I might not have reacted so strongly to it.

Anyway, Dani Shapiro...whose wonderful novel, Family History, I reviewed for the San Diego Union Tribune a few years back has a new novel out called Black and White. It is based, according to the author, on her imaginings of what an adult child (and former subject) of a famous photographer might be like in the aftermath of her mother's fame. The connections to Sally Mann are no secret...and the author makes no bones about this in her interview on NPR. But while the book truly was compelling, well-written, evocative etc... I just kept feeling like there was something wrong with what Shapiro was doing. I mean, Sally Mann is very much alive, as are her children. And while this is fiction, and (according to Shapiro) she used the photos as a jumping off place for this book, the art itself is almost identical to the actual, controversial, Mann photos: a Popsicle-stained chest, a pee-stained bed, a black eye, a child hanging (though from a rope rather than a hay hook). I don't mean to suggest that the novelist has any particular allegiance to what is now a part of our culture...art becomes, to a certain extent, part of our cultural inheritance, a part of our collective visual vocabulary. However, it is not necessarily the assimilation of Mann's now iconic images by Shapiro that bothers me. It is, rather, the premise of the novel itself...that photography, and the photography of one's own children, is, by nature, exploitative. Of course, she does not come out and say this explicitly, but the story is told via Clara (the grown daughter of the fictional Ruth Dunne) who, in her early thirties, is reunited withe her estranged mother after fourteen years. She is so angry, so paralyzed, so stunted by her mother's "work," that she can barely function. The now dying Ruth is depicted as a manic, egotistical, and impossible artist who is completely unable to see beyond her own nose (or camera viewfinder). Fine, fine, and fine. But what really irks me, is that we side with Clara. We have to. She is the heroine of the novel, and the victim or her mother's art. The end of the novel...I won't give it away...means to offer some hope, some resolution for Clara, but, to me, it lacks credibility, because we never really see Ruth as a mother. Not really. We see her through Clara's very own viewfinder...distorted, warped, and larger than life. Now, fine, fine, fine...but what about Sally Mann? I mean, the real woman. The photographer. The mother. What does this mean when an author takes an artist's work, a living artist's work, and then fabricates a life, full of motives and agendas, for that artist? Never mind that in addition to the familiar images Shapiro borrows, there is one fictional photo (published in Vogue) which makes Ruth's character just plain wicked. And there is no such photo in Mann's portfolio...not that I know of anyway. If I were Sally Mann, I would be furious. Indeed, I am so curious to see if there is any fall out from this. Besides, and I hate to knock what is, for all intents and purposes, a very well-crafted and riveting novel...it's been done before. Exposure by Kathryn Harrison is a terrific novel based on the shattered life of a child muse. And, more recently, The Effects of Light by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore, examines what it means when childhood and art reside together. Beverly-Whittemore, who herself has modeled for Mona Kuhn, gave a much more compelling argument for the inherent complexities, the gray areas, if you will of the photographer's ethical responsibilities: to her subjects, to the truth of experience, to art.

I started reading this book after I spent the afternoon photographing my own children gleefully running naked through a sprinkler in the backyard. And it plucked a raw nerve. I truly believe that artists, particularly photographers, look to capture moments. To preserve them. I know that I do the same as a writer. Art, for me, is the beauty in my life. And I have spent my entire adult life trying to replicate that beauty with words, and now with pictures. I would hope that Shapiro, as both a mother and a novelist, might understand this too, but I fear that the revelations Clara has come too late and without nearly enough to evoke them. And lastly, I worry what people might infer about Sally Mann, who strikes me as a terrific mother, based on this novel and its sometimes uncomfortably close comparisons to the real artist's work (if not life).

Then again maybe this is all intentional...the author distorting the truth, "staging" the picture, to her own ends? Is writing a novel of this sort any different from the photographer who exploits or manipulates reality in the name of art?

Rant/review over.