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.