Win Lunch with A Literary Agent...

Win lunch with a literary agent (not mine, who is indeed a terrific lunch companion, but Karin Slaughter's, and Karin is way famous), or have your script evaluated, or meet famous authors (not me, I have to be out of town, and I am only famous to my cats), or heck, just support libraries.

Libraries are good. They are, in fact, a reader's lifeblood.

So, you say, how do I do all these things? You go to the Save the Libraries event in Decatur in March. You learn more about it here. You can bid on signed books from all kinds of authors. Including me.

Got the Creative Nonfiction bug? Here's a course you might want to take!

My pal Suzanne Van Atten's teaching a Creative Nonfiction class evenings this spring in Atlanta.

You know you want to take it!



(photo of I.B.Singer's actual typewriter by me.)

On the Radio

Thanks, Robin Hemley, Amy Butcher, and Iowa Public Radio for the high praise for "Rotary Phone" in Defunct Magazine.

So very cool to hear you read it aloud, and kudos from Robin are kudos indeed.

I'm bringing you guys mood rings.

Tales of the Tailbone, and what happens when a memoirist visits a book club hosted by someone with an emotional connection to her story?

I can hardly excuse my absence with the reason that I slipped on the ice in my nearly ski-slope driveway and am now hobbling like a crone. But I say "ow ow ow" when I settle into my chair, so there's my excuse. Hardly a casualty of Snowmaggedon, but it got pretty cabin-feverish around here last week.

Could I call it "cabin-febrile?" Or, since we successfully taught Biscuit to fetch to keep ourselves busy, "Cabin-Feline?"

In other news; I visited a book club last week at the invitation of H., a pediatric nurse who knew my sister Sarah when Sarah was about seven or eight, and in H's care. H. taught my sister to give an IV, so that Sarah would understand the process. H is one very good nurse.

I visit book clubs often, and I love doing it. But there's something special and elemental about sharing your story and meeting new friends and talking, face to face, with someone who can confirm for you that your love for your story and your family is very real.

In more news, Prime Number is running a book review I wrote about a terrific essay collection by Curtis Smith.

And, if you're in Atlanta and haven't made it to TrueStory! yet, put the reading series on your calendar for March, and come say hi.

Like A King

Dr. King would have been 82 this week.
Discuss.

Meanwhile, here's a link to Ben Harper's song .

Justin Bieber and me

The cover of February's Vanity Fair magazine is Justin Bieber, covered with kisses.

The kisses are not mine. I confess, I've never heard Mr. Beiber's music, nor do I seek it out. I'm more of a Frazey Ford kind of girl.

However, mass kisses go to my friends Alan Deutschman, Susan Rebecca White, Sheri Josep h, Joshilyn Jackson , Amanada Gable, and the sum total of the NINE Atlanta authors and brilliant types like Natasha Trethewey, Kathryn Stockett, Emily Giffin, and Karin Slaughter who make the wonderful "Belles, Books, and Candor" two page photo so overwhelmingly cool.

Oh, we have a literary scene indeed, captured in delicious style by photographer Iris Brosch.

And I have really big hair. (But not when I write. Only when Vanity Fair has a famous hair guy stick pins and product in it!)

What he said...

I'm turning this over to M. today, on politics, vitriol, and the urgent need for discourse in the wake of the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords.

Acknowledging the Owls

Well, Mr. and Mrs. Freefall get their due in today's' issue of The Rumpus .

And just think, on New Years Eve, the topic - for a shining moment - was the common noun for owls. (It's "parliament," as in "a parliament of owls.")

Thanks, Rumpus!

PS: Note to your reading list - check in with The Rumpus every day!

What you do on New Year's Day

Since what you do on New Year's day is supposed to set the tone for the year, lo and behold, inky elbows' word challenge.

I've already met my 250. You?

( Wish I'd taken a picture of the gorgeous greens, beans, veggie sausage, mimosas and cornbread that preceded it. )

Happy New Year!