There's No Place Like Home...

... and there's no place like the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop . Here's a picture of the fabulous Finn House, home of the Kenyon Review (it's Carpenter Gothic, for you architecture geeks like me, which is apparently also called Steamboat Gothic, thanks Anna for that info!)

What a wonderful week, assisting the brilliant and kind Rebecca McClanahan (essayists, heads up, The Riddle Song is on your reading lists, right??) working with, guiding, and learning from our Literary Nonfiction workshop writers, talents all.

Shout out to new pals Amos and the Jasons squared, also the skunks, rabbits, green grass and blue sky, and the fact that I really could start my day and wait an hour for coffee...sort of.

Invisible Sisters sold out at the bookstore after the faculty/fellows reading night! H. rocks for ordering more.

Workshops are important daily nutrition for your art, writers! I've got new ideas, new prompts, and re-invigorated work that was weak, but now... it's alive!

Road Tripping, part deux

So, I'll be "dark" as we say in the tv and theater world, until the end of the month, mostly because I'm not sure how to add blog postings remotely.

If I figure it out, I'll update from the road.

I'll be at the Kenyon College Writers Workshop , and dropping in on some pals on the way home.

In the meantime, drop in and read here !

Movin' and Shakin'!

Invisible Sisters: A Memoir is officially NUMBER THREE on the Amazon Kindle "Movers and Shakers" list this week.

I'm movin' and shakin' with this news! Thanks, fabulous agent S., for sending along the news!

Wahoo!

Psychjourney Podcast & "Invisible Sisters."

Thanks, Deborah Harper, for a wonderful conversation about Invisible Sisters: A Memoir for your podcast.

Here's a link to Psychjourney Podcasts, which has interesting interviews with all kinds of authors. I'm in good company here!

What I've Been Reading

What I've been reading lately... and what I'm recommending.

Bound South, by Susan Rebecca White
Breaking the Tongue, by Vyvanne Loh
Pure, by Terra Elan McVoy
Home of the Brave, ed. Jeff Hess
Women Up on Blocks, by Mary Akers


Also, my pick-up and browse through it reading includes writing by Pema Chodron, and an anthology of Adrienne Rich.

Just sayin'.

Eyeglasses

In Georgia, by mid-June, when you get out of your car at night, your glasses fog up from the humidity once you step onto the grass. Or driveway.

I love this.

Also, new authors like me, take note! I learned this week that if I take my glasses OFF when I'm being interviewed, I can see the interviewer just fine, but I can not quite make out the audience, the cameras, or other nerve-wracking, distracting elements.

Creates a faux one on one scenario.

Some rockin' music

Take a listen to Sister Rosetta Tharpe , whom the Web site Delancey Place calls "the first rock and roll guitarist."

Want an interesting bite of diverse nonfiction on a daily basis? Check out Delancey Place.

Internets and TV nets

Two terrificly fun interviews this week, one with Psychjourney Podcast, the other with Writers in Focus. Thanks, Deborah and James, for great questions, deep thinking, and support.

And thanks to Lynn's garden for the outstanding gardenias, oak-leaf hydrangea, roses, and lillies on the table. A smell-good interview. Hey, smell-o-vision for real!

Crossing the Same Southern River Twice

I've been thinking lately that visiting bookstores and communities to talk about Invisible Sisters has taken me to places I haven't been since I was eight or nine years old, places that my father traveled to representing the ILGWU in the early days of the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights movement.

A south that was to me, as a 2nd grader, beautiful to look at and to smell (yes, smell! Privet hedges, cows, hot dirt, sweat.) So here I am, forty years later, driving through communities that have changed economically and culturally, but oh, how places like this look to me.

Here are some pictures from North Carolina Route 321, between Winston-Salem and Gastonia.

Oh, and the peach? If you're from around here, you know it's the Gaffney, SC water tower. Looks like a big tuchis.

A Collection of Reviews, in case you're searching. E.'s suggestion, and she would know.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution calls Invisible Sisters "harrowing," (in a good way.)

The Jewish Daily Forward used a wonderful photo, and said terrific things, too.
like "elegance" and "clarity ."

Atlanta Intown's is here , and Atlanta Magazine's generous review isn't online, but check out the May issue!

The Atlanta Forum Network has a video presentation of the author event at A Cappella books. You can hear a selection from Invisible Sisters: A Memoir here.

Psychjourney Podcasts has a 44 minute interview with me and a discussion about growing up in a family under adverse circumstances.

Invisible Sisters makes it to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune!

You can listen to Georgia Public Broadcasting's show about Invisible Sisters here!

And this just in from the Jewish News of Greater Phoenix!

And The Feminist Review!

Guest blogging!

I'm guest blogging over at Mary Akers's site, with some notes about being on the road.

Mary's got a great short story collection out called "Women Up on Blocks." This book is so good it has a cocktail created for it!

Speaking of being on the road, see you in Winston-Salem tomorrow? Am bringing tests to grade during the time when M. drives.

"Getting Hippies Up at 9am isn't going to be easy..."

Here's some fun stuff from Atlanta Time Machine, while I get my thoughts together (some literal and figurative unpacking) from four days in New York. A whirlwind of BEA, the Jewish Book Council presentations (fingers crossed!), and wonderful, busy, catching up sessions (over adult beverages) with S, M. E., E., T. M, geez, who else? Oh, and a stop at Housingworks Thrift Shop on 23rd Street for some thrifty clothes and supporting their good work!