Twenty Authors! Twenty, plus double the intellect!

You want authors? You got 'em. You want authors talking about books that matter to them? You got 'em.

First weekend of December. A Cappella Books, Little Five Points, Atlanta.

No homework required.

How I know I'm almost home

When I see this out of the right side of the car. I'm about two hours out of Atlanta, and will be home before I know it.

Thanks, E., for the ride home from Charlotte. Thanks, Queens University of Charlotte alumni and friends for a full house reading on Thursday. Thanks 200 + people in the auditorium in St. Louis the day before!

So happy to workshop an essay this weekend with the most excellent, appearing in the role of guest faculty, Rob Spillman of Tin House magazine (go to their workshop in Oregon, y'all!) and the Queens grads weekend!

Currently reading

Currently reading "Syncopated, " which is advertised as non-fiction "picto-essays." Whatever you want to call it (mini graphic novel essays?") this is really terrific.

Reading this when I'm not doing elbow deep surgical edits on my ms.

Because every Halloween, you need The Shaggs!

Give a listen here, to New Hampshire's very own Dot, Betty, and Helen Wiggin, The Shaggs !

A little background can be found here.

They're awful. That's the point. Consider it outsider-rock. Or folk art. Or 1969 at its most earnest.

It's Halloween It's Halloween.

Make like a tree and leave. Make like a baby and head out...

I'm heading out again soon, for the St. Louis Jewish Book festival and then
the Queens University of Charlotte alumni program, and a reading in Charlotte to kick it off!

This means loading up the iPod with TED talks and new (to me) music. It means getting all my students' papers graded before I go. It means remembering that the gray tights look okay with the black and white dress, and not forgetting earplugs for hotel rooms.

Means calling my husband every twenty minutes and asking "whatcha doin?" Means him calling me every thirty minutes and asking "whatcha doin'?

And it means seeing old and new friends at author events. I hope you're one of them!

Check the calendar in the sidebar for event locations and dates!

Invisible Sisters on TV!

A pretty long talk about the book, to a terrific audience at the Breman Museum here in Atlanta, courtesy of PBS .

The writer's life

This writer's life, anyway. Wouldn't it be great IF I got the writer's draft of the novel done in time to read through over Thanksgiving, when I am full of food and wine and not full of papers to grade, so that I can shove all the scenes and pages around (because I am tactile that way) and find out, for real, what's missing, scene-wise?

How does character W. hustle the small-time reporter?
At what juncture does character L. realize, once and for all, that she has to turn her back on what she's doing?
What about the little brothers?
And character W(2), do we leave his exit ambiguous?
And does character A. ascend in L's place?

For the answer to these, and other questions... Remember "Love of Chair" from The Electric Company?

And.... what about Naomi?

Book clubs! I'm all about the book clubs this week and next week. One here, another in a midwestern place via the magic of the Interwebs and video. Thanks for having me, y'all. Book clubs are a great invention.

Walking Dead

M. and I went to the Oakland Cemetery Halloween walking tour last night, and the lines were endless, which is great news for fundraising for Oakland, which has been in Atlanta since 1850 and is a beautiful, park-like garden cemetery (think Mt. Auburn in Cambridge, MA, if you've been there.)

For me, it's historic Atlanta.

So, in the chill, we toured and stopped/started among six (or was it seven?) stops, and watched an actor tell the story of the person they represented; a governor, a woman lost at sea off of Florida, the most beautiful girl in Atlanta, a judge from up on Screamer Mountain...

And Oakland is gorgeous, as always, lit by torches in the night.

And how does this connect with writing? Experience your world, do new things, and oh, yeah, this in particular is period research. That's all I'm sayin'. :)

Some more music

For Jill, since she missed it, but we went, after a happy beer or three at the EAYC!

A Youtube clip of Os Mutantes recently at the Variety Playhouse. Beatles + b52s + the Jetsons + I don't know what all else. No fala Portoguese!

Thanks, YouTube person who posted this clip!