Notes From the Handbasket

The Perilous Mix of Politics and Prose: A Rant

2012-01-23T23:57:00.000-05:00

Let's all be thankful that we have the right to free speech (for the most part) in These United States. We can say whatever annoying thing, whenever we want (for the most part), and not live in fear of government censorship. It's the right that has kept us from bottling up our complaints and aggravations until they reach the bursting point and we start taking over television stations and holding government figures hostage so we can get our message out into the world. Yes, the right to blather on is a Very Good Thing. But it doesn't follow that we should open our mouths every time something we think is clever occurs to us.

I'm talking about writers, here, primarily, but also anyone who wants to sell something to the general public.

The temptation has never been greater. We have unlimited opportunities to speak our minds: Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, blogs, blah, blah, blah. The available material is priceless-- particularly political material. Some boob is out there providing absurd sound bites, secretly recorded rants, ridiculous hair, or risky ideas every twelve seconds. One could easily come across a hundred hysterical or outrageous items a day that beg to be shared. But should you indulge?

My thought: Not unless broadcasting your political or social opinions is way, way more important than putting food on your table. If you're already famous, no, it doesn't really matter. If you're a non-fiction writer, or a writer whose fiction is necessarily topical, and people pay for your opinions, then go ahead and sound off. Those are pretty small groups, though. The majority of writers, bloggers, visual artists, freelance folk, etc., can't afford the luxury.

Put yourself in the position of the reader--say, a reader who has never read your blog, or picked up or purchased one of your books before. Reader Y has just read a review of your work in the Happy Valley Times or seen an ad on Goodreads. Reader Y thinks, "Hey. Wonder if this writer is on Facebook," and trots with enthusiasm over to your page. And the first thing Reader Y sees is an uncivil rant excoriating So-and-So Politician's position on universal health care or illegal immigration. Reader Y may love your position and click right on the handy link to your website and then on the big, fat purchase button. Yay! But what if she's on the OTHER SIDE OF THE ISSUE and, to top it all, you've declared that anyone who would vote for So-and-So Politician is dumber than pond scum? Then, you've just given her a reason not to buy your book, and maybe even inform her friends that you sound like a big, thoughtless jerk.

You might say that you don't want some crazy bitch who occupies such a ridiculous position to buy your book anyway. So, there! You might say that anyone who would let something as important (or trivial) as a political joke or point or rant interfere with their appreciation of your Golden Word isn't worthy of your time or attention or energy. You might say that people don't really care about that kind of thing, that they just care about THE WORK. Yeah, maybe. That happens. But it also happens the other way 'round. If you're a writer who isn't already established as a big earner, are you willing to take the chance of alienating a large percentage of the book buying community?

Readers--particularly readers of fiction--invite the writer into some pretty intimate spaces. Not just their living rooms, but their beds, their kids' rooms, the inside of their heads. As writers, we're already head-cases from the get-go. We get to let the crazy out in our work: our extremes, our tender insides, our freaky visions. That's what people are looking for--but professional work is always edited for content and style by ourselves or professional others, so that it's entertaining, or at lease consumable. As human beings, we writers live in ways that most readers find unfamiliar and a little odd--for example, our habit of sitting in rooms for long periods of time communing with invisible people...well, let's just say, some of us make for awkward, real-life dinner guests.

Am I advocating self-censorship? No. I'm advocating self-control.

When I go to writer conferences, and hang around with successful writers--people whose names are way bigger than the titles on their books--they rarely talk politics in the bar, and (almost) never on panels (Though I have witnessed some cringe-worthy moments when the writer didn't read the crowd well at all). Why do they stay reticent? Because conferences are still professional events, even after a scotch or two (or three...okay, maybe not after three). The professional writer knows that there are editors, publishers, other writers, and, most importantly, readers in the vicinity. The key word here is professional. Professionalism has to extend to social media as well.

Facebook--as large as it seems--is like high school, and everyone wants to be popular, witty, and beloved. It's easy, when you're in close quarters, to want to take up the popular call, and to get caught up in the emotions of the crowd. (And don't start with the "I'm there because I have to be." FB and other forums are vast exercises in exposure, and not a little vanity. No one likes the people who are there for negative attention--that's just creepy.) Resist the impulse. Be an original, not a joiner.

Of course, the openness of the interwebs means that the personal lives of very few people are completely opaque. If a reader is very curious, a little digging will probably turn up a writer's religion, political leanings, sexual orientation, marital status, children's names, favorite place to buy books, or pizza. Some people would call that research, others might call it, uh, stalking. That information is available, not advertised. And they're facts, not opinions.

If you're a rebel-writer, and you don't give a damn about selling books to more than a few like-minded people, or don't care what anyone thinks, more power to you. But it doesn't take a whole lot to give the appearance of professionalism: Just sit on your hands until the impulse passes in order to stay the hell out of your own way.

Readers: Do you agree? Would you rather know a writer's opinion on issues of substance, or would you rather just read their work?

Writers (If you're speaking to me at all): What's your experience? Do you agree it's unprofessional to mix politics with promotion and social networking? Or is it important that a reader know and understand your positions and principles?

My Unapologetically Ego-centric, Brutally Honest List of Stuff I Want to Do in 2012

2011-12-30T01:37:00.002-05:00

In the waning days of 2010, I made a gorgeous spreadsheet for my 2011 goals. It was a thing of beauty. I even did a pretty good job of checking it every month to see how I was doing--up until August. There are a few things I didn't end up accomplishing, but I did meet all of my writing and publishing goals for the year, and I got a better handle on the family finances. It was a good year.

In recent months, I've ascribed to the theory that building habits is more effective for me than setting goal deadlines. (Thanks, Zen Habits.) Solid habits are critical for ADHD-ers like me. Routines get things done. So, Bengal and I were working on our Lego projects the other day, and were chatting about what we want to do this year. He wants to set up a college savings account, clever boy. Totally unprompted, I might add. I think he understands that MIT is pretty pricey.

Here's my 2012 list, in no particular order:*

1) Stop obsessing about about crime and murder. My professional crime obsession has greatly increased my already substantial paranoia. Every car that turns around in our driveway is full of home invaders. Every panel van is a serial-killer van. Every time one of my kids leaves the house I'm certain they're not coming back. Every dry cleaning bag suffocates. Every one of my fiction plots has death in it. I'm coming to realize that the world is oddly full of non-murder. I think it's called life. I'm not sure, but I think I might like it.

2) More and better writing. I want more life in my work. I want more honesty, and less restraint in it. I want to put a gag on my internal editor until I'm ready to let her loose on my messy drafts. I've never had a really messy draft. It's time, I think. No more prissy writing. I want messy and delicious. I want writing that hums with emotional torque.

3) More publishing. So much want, here. At some point, I'll tell you how traditional publishing broke my heart. It's an old, sad story that, these days, is oft-told by many good writers. I'm ready to get past my broken heart. I dithered for almost two years, feeling sorry for myself b/c my glorious, glorious contract ended with a pathetic whimper that didn't even include a paperback of novel #2. All I can say is that I'm grateful that I got the cash up front. That sounds cold, yes? Well, whatever. I busted my ass to promote my work. Seriously. No one worked harder than I did. And sales were respectable, but not good enough to sell the next novels. I can't say that I won't go panting after another contract when I get finished with the first novel of the series I've begun (thisclose, I tell you), but I'm going rogue for book #3. It's kick-ass, and it will be out in January, God-willing. I have amazing, amazing people helping me with the editing, cover, format, etc. I want to give it the chance it deserves. Am also putting out every short story I've written worth publishing. Plus audio. I have secret plans and clever tricks to come that even include a logo. Count on it.

I'm also going to stop fretting about what the hell genre I write in. I don't write a genre. I write stories. Generally speaking, they're intense and scary. Sometimes they're not so scary. I spent a lot of years worrying about where people would find my work in a bookstore. Now there are electronic tags for fiction. I can cross genres easily. I won't say it wasn't a thrill to go into BN and find my books on the Mystery Table. But it was a real bummer to get tons of emails from people whose Aunt Fanny swooned when she got to the part where someone's head got half-sawed off of his neck. It's funny to me now to go into a big box bookstore and see who is filed in the ginormous Fiction/Literature section, and who is squeezed into Horror, Fantasy, and Mystery. These tags have plagued writers for way too long. When did that happen, anyway? The idea of some bright boy MBA in the '70s I bet.

4) More reading. I don't read enough. Time to set some reading goals. My attention span is about 30 seconds long these days. (I remember that in the years running up to the Big M, my mother complained about the same thing, and rarely read books. Now she's again a fiend for them.) I have to remind myself to read sometimes, which is weird because I've spent most of my life as a book junkie. I think that a small part of it is being too able to see the bones of books. I'm stupidly particular. That said, there are some astonishingly good writers on the block, now. Fortunately, I've managed to stop measuring every writer against Cormac McCarthy and Joyce Carol Oates standards. That was a big problem for me as a younger writer. My tastes have broadened considerably, and I'm so grateful for the change. Louise Penney, a cozy writer, is one of my current favorites. But I also like John Hart, and edgy guys like Anthony Neil Smith. Jim Thompson is still a favorite. Then there's non-fiction. I love books on art history, and, uh, disturbed people (like serial killers).

5) Review and promote others' work. (This really should be 4a). I miss reviewing books. I made a (very tiny) living from it once upon a time. Belonged to the NBCC and everything. I want to start reviewing here on the blog and reposting on bookseller sites. I've been watching, and it's pretty evident that people read those reviews before they purchase. I want to help make sure that books I like get read. And sell. Here's my problem: I take reviewing very seriously. Unlike some professional reviewers I've known, I feel compelled to read the entire book before I review it. Crazy, huh? Then I want to be fair. Again, the perfectionist thing. Again, the internal editor just needs to SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP. If I read a book, I'm going to review it somewhere, in some small way. Or large if I find it deserving. (Told you I was particular.)

6) I want to get the whole, stupid menopause thing over with. Approaching it is like being on a jerky, uncontrolled, hormone-fueled sleigh ride in and out of hell and back again. And I haven't even had a hot flash, yet. Ridiculous. I may want this in 2012, but it's not going to happen this year, is it? I'm only 49. Damn. Just slap me if I suddenly take up wearing purple caftans, and start maundering on about improving herbs. That is so not hot.

7) I want to have more fun. This includes playing golf and playing the piano. I suck at both. I'm terribly shy about performing around people. I would just as soon play the piano with headphones on so no one else could hear me. I took lessons for 7 years, but was too embarrassed to practice as much as I needed to. My last recital was a humiliating disaster. But I love playing classical music, even if I can't get my fingers to move fast enough. My daughter plays Chopin in a way I can only dream of, and I love to listen to her. I yearn to play again, myself. Lessons are probably in order.

Golf? I have a very complicated relationship with any kind of sport. Again, the performance anxiety. Golf isn't meant to be played alone. Given that I'm 49 years old, you would think I could get over it. I want to stop hounding myself to only get better and better. That just keeps me from trying at all. I just want to be comfortable going out with friends (or like-minded strangers) and hitting the ball with a stick as few times as possible in order to get it into the hole. Also, I like to walk the golf course. Carts annoy me. Everyone drives carts. Bleh.

8) Legoland. Bengal and I both want to go to Legoland near San Diego. I want us to go as a family before he turns 13. Poor Opera Poodle and I didn't get to American Girl Place in Chicago until she was sixteen or so. We had a lot of fun, but felt a tad goofy sitting at lunch with our selected dolls beside us while we ate our chicken salad in the pink and white dining room. Wish I could've taken her there when she was 8. So, Legoland is a must. Also, Virginia. We need to go home this summer. This is on Bengal's list, too.

9) Scotland. Given the big jaunt to Legoland, I'm going to start planning a trip to Scotland in 2012, and go in 2013. I want to look at castles and Edinburgh and walk in the countryside. I also want to go to the Orkneys where our friends Duncan McClean and Ingrid Tait live. Duncan told us once that they have a day in July that quite resembles summer. I'll aim for that.

10) Do some small stop-motion films. The form intrigues me. I made one years ago with Barbie climbing on and off of the back of a giant bird. Surreal opportunities abound. Though I think some will definitely involve Legos. And headless dolls.

11) Get my mojo back. I've been in a slump, mentally and physically. I take a very small amount of regular medication for my raging anxiety, and doubt that I'll ever be able to be off of it, or something similar. It helps. But exercise and sufficient sleep are equally helpful. Sleep, especially. I have a rotten habit of staying up way too late and getting up early. That's hard on the mind, and the skin. (Wrinkles suck, and I come from a long line of wrinkly, wise women. I apply lots of unguents.) Exercise. Who doesn't need it? (Well, I know one slender, popular writer who avoids it like the plague, but she's going to look pretty saggy here in about 5 minutes. Heh.) So, a new sleeping habit of 7.5 hours/night. I've joined Fitocracy and am posting on FB to shame myself into keeping up the workouts. Shame. There's just not enough shame in the world these days. So effective.

That all sounds very virtuous, doesn't it? My true goal is to look fabulous for my husband's 30th prep school reunion. I know there will be lots of cool, Manhattan blondes there, and I'll be damned if I'm going to be the matronly frump in the room. Honesty feels so good.

12) Grow a spine. You would think I'd have one by now. But I'm a freaking pushover. I overpay people. Workmen show up late if they show up at all. It's weird, because I've heard that many people are afraid of me when they meet me. I think it's because I look kind of stuck-up. I've heard that all my life. Really, I'm just kind of shy. I may look tough, but I'm too nice to yell. I'm working to find a middle ground.

13) Promote my work. It's hard to think about doing this on my own. When my first two books came out, I enjoyed at least the illusion of corporate support behind me--and there was indeed a small amount. But for the next novel and a few projects, it's just me and my DH, Pinckney. And he's very busy getting our bills paid and teaching the mysteries of writing, the saint. I find the notion of pimping myself slightly terrifying. But, in truth, I adore a big, fat challenge. I can do this.

14) Spend less time online. Seems a contradiction given #13, doesn't it? Life happens online, just as it does offline. It's fun. It's freeing. It can even be anonymous. I love, love, love having mini-relationships with people I've never met in the offline world. It's a kick to fall into the twitter stream and ease into casual conversation. People support one another in small ways that mean a lot. I always learn something new through links and even 140 character stories. I used to think of it as a cyber cocktail party, but it's more than that. It's a fluid community. But sometimes I find myself drawn to the computer instead of my nuclear family. That disturbs me. My kids won't be kids forever. And as much as I enjoy my online friends, cuddling with my DH is always a better time. Also, I get overwhelmed by all the writing/publishing stories. They're occasionally motivating, but I get distracted from my writing way, way too easily. I also start comparing myself and my career. At that point it's time to turn off the data tap.

15) Cook dinner more often and entertain more. Two of my loves. Healthy for the body, and soul.

16) Pare down my clothes. I have too many. Too many fat clothes. Too many skinny clothes. Both sets piss me off too often.

17) Treasure the people I love and honor the divine in everyone I meet. (Unless they're a murderer, of course, or drive a psycho van.) I do the best I can in this area, but there's always room for more. Don't you agree?

It's an ambitious list, and yet it's not. I think it's doable.

Do you have a list? A spreadsheet? Please do tell. I'm very curious...

*I didn't lay all this on poor Bengal. Just the trips and the cooking more goal. Being 12 is hard enough.

Shiny Object Saturday: My Magical Front Door

2011-12-10T22:32:00.001-05:00

I'm not even going to show you a photo of our old front door. It was green and ugly and had no glass. When we started this latest remodeling project, the contractor said that he thought the door was fine--it just needed to be painted. He didn't seem to notice that it belonged on a pseudo-Colonial cottage, and not (even) on our loooong, then-cedar-panelled ranch house. But I digress.

Our new door speaks to my heart. It lets in light. It's cheerful. It's stained a lovely oak color. It makes me happy all day long. (Just ignore the satellite cable running along the top--it will be tucked into the attic.)

One thing remains true, though. Someone is always on the wrong side of the door!

Fiction Friday: Pinckney Benedict and "Damselfly"

2011-12-09T07:30:00.000-05:00

Someday I'll tell you what it's like to be married to a genius writer guy. But for now I'll just share a little bit of his work. His name, btw, is Pinckney Benedict. He doesn't have a website, a blog, or a Twitter handle. He does have a Wikipedia page. If I say that his writing defies genre classification, it's because it does. He writes in the way good writers have written for hundreds of years: he just tells the story. Fantasy, science fiction, (rural) crime, horror, Literary Americana (I just made that up)--he lets the story be whatever it wants to be, which is what good writers do. I want him to write more, because I think his work is pretty amazing. I think that you'll think so, too.

Here's a bit of the opening to his Surreal South '11 story, "Damselfly." (You should check out his short story collection, Miracle Boy, too. Or his other books, all of which are available for your e-reading pleasure.)

“And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men. And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions. And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle.”

Revelation 9:7-9

DAMSELFLY

Pinckney Benedict

At just past four in the morning, with the false dawn brightening the eastern sky, Nimrod Nickel once again found himself wide awake. He sat in the place where he’d watched the sun rise every morning for a week or more: perched on a hard wooden chair turned backward, arms crossed on the chair’s rigid back, staring out of his open kitchen window, praying for a breeze. Anything – a sigh, a whisper, a kiss. Anything but this apparently endless doldrums. The suffocating summer’s heat and the constant droning of the seventeen-year locusts had bored their way deep into his brain, and he felt like at any minute he might go mad. At any moment, he might explode into flames. He might scream. He might hurl the kitchen chair through the screen door that opened onto the back porch. He might even do a worse thing. Give me something, he thought. His voice no more than a whisper, he said, “Anything.”

Out in his back yard, not far from the old smokehouse, some thing moved. It was slight and pale and it walked upright. Nimrod squinted. Sweat dripped from his furrowed brow into his eyes, and he wiped at it. A child? A girl? The salt of his sweat stung him, and his vision momentarily dimmed and swam. The pale figure – pale wasn’t the right word for it, exactly; it seemed luminous, it seemed almost to glow – crossed the bottom of his yard with its flitting, light-footed gait and, quick as a wink, brushed open the door of the smokehouse and slipped inside.

For a moment, Nimrod imagined that the glow he had seen – a blue luminescence as pure as light refracted from the faces of a diamond, as calm as the rays of the late-afternoon sun glancing off the surface of a cool, deep lake – outlined the heavy wooden door of the ramshackle smokehouse. How bright must that radiance be, to shine through the gap around the door that way? Inside the smokehouse, which hadn’t seen any proper use since his grandfather’s time, it must be blinding, he imagined. Nimrod closed his smarting eyes and held them closed, and when he opened them again, his vision had cleared. There was no figure, no girl, no glow.

Pharaoh pharaoh pharaoh, cried the locusts in their unnumbered millions. Pharoah pharaoh pharaoh: the locusts’ two-syllable mating chorus, endlessly repeated from every tree on Nimrod Nickel’s place, from every tree in the green little valley that lay beneath the looming shadow of Nickel’s Ridge, and from every tree and shrub and bush on the ridge. It was as though the trees themselves were crying out.

The only trees that had been spared the locust infestation were the ones covered in caterpillar cocoons. These trees stood shrouded, silent and ghostly in their white silk garments, amidst the others. Apparently the caterpillars and the locusts had an understanding between them. But the other trees: they were cloaked in the whirring, creeping, buzzing carpet of locusts. Pharaoh pharaoh pharaoh. Nimrod Nickel’s mother had told him when he was a little boy, when the unrelenting cry of the seventeen-year locusts had frightened him, that they made that sound to remind the world of the fate that had befallen the magnificent Pharaoh of Egypt when he hardened his heart against YWHW, the Lord God of Hosts. The eighth plague, followed by darkness, followed by the Destroyer.

The crushing heat had continued unbroken for better than a month now, not a breath of wind since the day in early summer when the locusts had begun boiling up out of the ground (repulsive, to watch them pull themselves free of the earth, like dead men clawing their way out of their graves; and yet he hadn’t been able to look away, fascinated for hours as his land bloomed with this weird, alien crop), and the humidity made him feel weak and woozy and sick to his stomach. He knew he needed to drink water to stay healthy, he ha dlearned that much as a boy and had relearned it during his time int he desert, but still he couldn’t bear it. On his tongue, the metallic tang of the tap water – drawn by electric pump from an ancient limestone aquifer four hundred feet below the surface – made him think of blood. He felt his gorge rise, just imagining it. He had grown up in that house, drinking that water, and it had never bothered him before this summer, but now – now it didn’t bear thinking about. Like the locusts bursting from every inch of his property. Unbearable.

Needless to say, he wasn’t eating well (You’re going to waste away, his plump, pretty wife, younger than he was by several years, said to him at every meal – Don’t you care for my cooking anymore?) and he’d begun losing weight, his jeans hanging loose from the sharp angles of his hipbones, his workshirt when he put one on in the morning draping over him like some kind of a caftan. He’d had to punch two extra holes, first one and then another just a week later, in the wide leather belt that he wore, the one with the heavy brass bull’s head buckle. He hadn’t slept through the night in weeks. He was beginning to see things, movement in the corners of his vision, cobwebs where there weren’t any cobwebs, moving shadows when there was no light to throw a shadow and nothing moving to cast it. And now – had she been naked? – a girl. A girl had drifted across his yard and gone into the smokehouse.

More at Surreal South '11.

Fiction Friday: John Hornor Jacobs's "Old Dogs, New Tricks"

2011-11-25T08:00:00.000-05:00

Happy Day-After-Thanksgiving Fiction Friday, dear readers. Since today is also kind of a holiday, I couldn't resist giving you an extra-special treat. John Hornor Jacobs's story, Old Dogs, New Tricks, reached out and grabbed us by the collective throat here at Surreal South central, and wouldn't rest until we put it in the book. Seriously, it stalked me. Scared the hell out of my own two dogs, who made me promise to never, ever take them to Arkansas.

After you're done reading, you'll want to check out John's most excellent website, and read all about his new book, Southern Gods.

Enjoy. --Laura

Old Dogs, New Tricks (excerpt)

John Hornor Jacobs

Six dogs were dead and two maimed, whining pitifully in their pens, when the truck came over the hill, headlights shining up into the pines and then dipping down, illuminating the mat of needles covering the forest floor. The truck wound its way down the path toward the pit, rumbling and coughing through the trees. It stopped with a clatter near the kennels and Issac Douglas climbed out of the cab and walked to the back.

The men watched, standing around the pit, smoking in the guttering kerosene light. Issac reached into the bed of the truck and grabbed a crate, sliding it out and onto the gate. Dressed in khaki work-shirt and pants, grease marring the elbows and knees, Issac lit a cigarette and drew on it heavily. His khaki clothes hung loosely, cinched at the waist, giving him the look of a withered navy officer.

Cigarette jutting from his mouth, he lifted the crate with a grunt. With the quick step of someone carrying a heavy load, he walked the crate over, setting it down with a thump, leaving a faint trail of smoke in the dark.

The dogs began howling and slavering, biting at the metal grills of the kennels.

“Hush now, dogs! Hush!” A man cried, kicking at the line of portable crates. The sound of growls grew frantic, more desperate. One of the men threw a bucket of water at the pens and the dogs quieted.

Turning back to the pit, the men—rough men all, field hands and laborers—leaned on the plywood and corrugated tin sides.

Kerosene lanterns hissed in the dark, throwing yellow pools of light onto the clay floor and the faces of the spectators. The men laughed and joked; money changed hands. One man, wearing a vest embroidered with the words Arkansas Warrior Kennels, adjusted a digital camera on a tripod, whistling.

Billy Cather, belly spilling over belt and sweating through his shirt in dark patches, hollered, “I got two on Luther’s terrier! Two hundred! Need a match. Someone match me!” A man raised his arm, waving, and joined Billy. They spoke for a moment then shook hands.

Cather walked over to his truck. He fished a beer out of a cooler and popped the tab. Returning, he passed Issac.

“You got another watch for me, Ike? I’m starting a collection.” He slurped his beer.

Issac sat on his crate, staring into the light of the kerosene lanterns with an abject, blank look. He pulled on his cigarette and blew a huge plume of smoke.

“Ain’t right what you did,” he said slowly, not looking at Cather. “Ain’t right.”

“What the hell you talkin’ bout, Ike? This is a goddamned dog- fight, not the Salvation Army.”

“That watch been in my family four generations. Grandaddy had it in the East Indes, and Daddy had it too in the Merchant Marines.”

“Maybe your land-locked ass shouldn’t have put it up on a bet. Ain’t nothing as sorrowful and nostalgic as a gambler down on his luck.”

“I told you I’d give you money for it last week. I’d buy it back. You know I don’t have no thousand dollars. Ain’t worth that anyway. It’s gold plate.”

Cather laughed. “You said it was priceless last week.” He leaned over, trying to look into Issac’s pen. “When did you start raising, Ike? You don’t have no kennel.”

Issac blinked slowly, not looking at the man. “I got a dog. Been training him all week. Found a little something to help in Daddy’s knick-knacks from overseas.”

Doubling over, Cather dropped his beer and held his gut in an exaggerated pose of laughter. He hawed like a mule, making his voice project across the hollow. Men encircling the pit turned to watch.

Gene Corso walked over and asked, “What’s the gag, Cather? We’re about to start another match.”

“Ike here says he’s got a dog. To fight. You better adjust your book for him, cause his dead Daddy been helping him train the thing.”

Corso squinted at Issac, cocking his head.

“That right, Mr. Douglas? You got a dog you want to fight?” He was over-polite, which felt to Issac like another form of rudeness.

Issac nodded.

“Well, we’ve got an empty slot. Miller took a pass, we need a dog for filler. So, you’re welcome to fight if you got the entry fee. Hundred dollars.”

Fishing in his pocket, Issac withdrew a wad of dirty bills and peeled off five twenties. Corso took a small black ledger from his back pocket, pulled a pencil from the spine, and flipped it open.

“Issac Douglas. Entry fee paid. Dog?”

“Dog what?”

“Sex? Color?”

Issac remained quiet, staring at the kerosene lanterns. He flicked his cigarette away, toward the trucks.

“Don’t rightly know if it’s male or female. I didn’t check.

And...after...I wasn’t gonna get close enough to check. But it’s a terrier.”

“Fine. I’ll mark it as terrier, sex...unknown. That’s a first. Color?” “Sorta gray, I guess.”

Cather laughed again. “Now that’s a breeder for you. Don’t know color. Can’t sex a dog. You sure there’s even a dog in there, Ike? Sure is being quiet. Maybe you accidentally put in a possum instead?”

Corso moved back toward the pit, bellowing, “Entrants! Get your dogs to the gates.” He looked at his ledger. “Cullum’s brindle versus Alexander’s black. Match starts in five!”

Men moved to the pens, grabbing individual crates and pulling them to either side of the pit. The crates jerked in their hands, dogs growling and shifting their weight.

When all was ready, Corso picked up a large electric torch and turned it on, shining it into the pit. The clay circle gleamed wet and red in the light. Two men, one for each dog, perched at either side, leaning forward, ready to unlatch the crates and loose the dogs.

“Ready?” Corso’s voice pitched upward and the crowd fell silent.

“FIGHT!”

You know you want to read more...Surreal South '11

A Day to Breathe

2011-11-24T15:38:00.001-05:00

For a moment there, I forgot to breathe. Has that ever happened to you? I used to worry about breathing a lot when I was a kid--suddenly remembering that I had to take a breath every few seconds, or I would die. I would take control of my breath, think about breathing in, breathing out, try to make sure I was doing it right. The panic never lasted too long. But in those moments, I realized that, if I had to remember to make myself breathe, I definitely couldn't keep doing it.

Sometimes the onset of winter and its holidays makes me remember how unconsciously I live, going day to day, writing, cooking, eating, minding the home fires, cleaning (ugh!). I get to the end of each day thinking, Where in the world did today go? I hope I get to have a tomorrow, because it would be strange and sad to have my life end on such an ordinary day.

If you're a believer in astrological signs, you'll understand that I--as a Cancer--am prone to homebody-ness, and a lover of the commonplace. My home is my world, and anything outside of it appears rather daunting. The interiors of my imagination, heart, and hearth seem vast to me, and exploring them uses up most of my energy. It's not that I don't want to travel or have new experiences. It's that I forget that I can, and that they are necessary, and that I will be very glad to have gone those places and done those things. They are part of the breath of life.

Like most grownups I know, I despair of the enforced jollity of The Holidays. I hate that for every mention of Thanksgiving, I hear 864 mentions of Black Freaking Friday. And that even my own child has come to think of Halloween as the beginning of The Holidays. But for all the commercial fuss, I am thankful that there is Thanksgiving, a day when the ordinary blessings of life are celebrated. When a lot of people, like me, remember to breathe.

I'm thankful for my ordinary life. It's a beautiful life, full of people and animals who love me and need me, and whom I can love and need in return. When I forget to breathe, I can round up a couple of ridiculously silly dogs (who never, ever forget to make sure that each of their moments lives up to its full doggy potential), and take off up the hill to walk in the meadow. And there are the sky and the trees and the mud and more sky to remind me that the world is only small when I make it small. Or need it to be small. That it's all out there, waiting. Breathing. Blessed.

Hope your every day is full of breath and blessings.

Shiny Object Saturday: Pickle Forks and Little Pigs

2011-11-19T08:30:00.000-05:00

I'm desperate for a pickle fork. When I mentioned this on Twitter recently, a woman responded with shock: "How can you call yourself a southern girl if you don't own a pickle fork?" It's true. Pickle forks come with proper sets of silver, and preferably come to you handed down from a grandmother named Gammy. Alas, my grandmothers weren't the silver-owning types. I did receive a selection of serving forks for marriage number two, but the ex got custody.

I blame my strong desire to own a pickle fork on these tasty nibbles. Trois Petits Cochons makes the most delightful cornichons (baby sour gherkins) on the planet. They're only about 3 calories apiece, but that's beside the point. They're tongue-numbingly sour, and excellent as part of an antipasti platter, or with a sandwich. Or just as a snack.

Since we don't entertain much, and I'm the only one who likes these pickles, I really have no need of anything fancier than a regular salad fork to pluck them from the jar. But salad forks have too many tines for these little darlings. I need something with a bit of barb on the end, or they get away.

(Can you tell I spend a lot of time at home, wondering what to eat and how to eat it?)

So, I've asked my mom for a pickle fork for Christmas. I spent a lot of time looking at them online.

In my reading about pickle forks, I learned that pickles were, for many years, served on platters. But at some point in the Victorian era (mid-to-end of the 19th century), they started coming to the table in tall, decorative jars. The handles had to get longer so people wouldn't have to touch the pickles. This one seems well-used. I like flatware with a little history.

Pickle forks come in sets, in case you serve a lot of pickles. But don't use the second one for olives. Olives have their own kind of fork, of course. (They look suspiciously like pickle forks to me, but mostly seem to have only two tines. I think a lot of people are getting away with using pickle forks for their olives.)

I like the whimsy of this pickle fork/olive spoon set. Late 19th century. The olive spoon seems to be a less popular option than the fork.

Um, okay. Pickle fork earrings from Barney's of New York. (They're sold out. Sorry.)

And I definitely want to go to this lovely woman's house for Thanksgiving. Last year, she gifted her guests with pickle forks. How cool is that? (I'm subscribing to her blog right now. Somehow she makes me feel okay about really wanting a pickle fork.)

[Photo: Kathryn Greeley Designs]

This is one I would truly like to have. It's from the Victoria and Albert Museum. Beautifully preserved. But I'm afraid I would have to buy it its own special cabinet. I'm sure it wouldn't want to mix with my stainless.

Fiction Friday: J.T. Ellison's "Gray Lady, Lady Gray"

2011-11-18T07:30:00.000-05:00

What a blessing it is to have talented friends. When I called up J.T. Ellison to ask if she would write us a ghost story for Surreal South '11, she said "yes!" immediately. And what a story it is. It's not just a ghost story, it's a deliciously gruesome demon story. Yet, there's so much more to Gray Lady, Lady Gray than demons. I love the fairy tale, Gothic feel it has all the way through. That could have something to do with the castles she'd been visiting in Scotland for research for her Taylor Jackson thriller series.

The following is an excerpt, opening a few pages into the story. I like the crescendo of anticipation that's common to both sets of characters.

Thanks for reading. Enjoy.

Laura

Gray Lady, Lady Gray (excerpt)

J.T. Ellison

Dolon mounted the stairs slowly. He knew what was waiting for him. Lamia was once a beautiful, cunning woman, sought after by men across realms. But she had become something less than real, something full of hate and spite. He didn’t blame her. Not really. He was simply annoyed that he was tied to her, forever. All gray ladies were assigned a demon, for they were unable to leave their earthly rooms without a demon’s escort, and needed something that could travel through the air, move through walls, lift into the breeze and delve into the souls that fed her existence to make that happen.

It was just… Lamia was so old. Even when she received the essence, became the glorious woman she once was, even then he knew that she was crinkled up like an old parchment inside. It interfered with his abilities, it truly did.

He reached the top of the stairs and slid through the wooden door into her rooms. She was asleep in her chair, facing the fire, a fur throw around her shoulders. Her gray skin sagged and a fine line of spit dripped from her hollow teeth. At least she still had them. She would be furious with him for watching her sleep. He slipped back through the door and made some noise in the hall, a warning to wake her. When he moved through the door again, she’d straightened in the chair. The fur throw was in her lap now, and she was smiling at him. Her cataracts made her eyes the color of sludge.

“What news, my sweet?”

“A wedding, Lamia. Just like you thought. Between two very young, very impressionable beings. You should have seen the female when you called to her—she turned red in the face like a baboon’s ass. And him, my love, he is strong, but also susceptible. We have a chance.”

Lamia leapt briskly from her seat and went to the window. “When is the ceremony?”

“Tomorrow night. Seven. We should have enough time.”

“Yes, we will.” Lamia turned back from the window to face him, and Dolon could see the vestiges of the beauty she had once been. Even she, old and cruel and severe, could be transformed by joy.

“We will.”

The dress Elizabeth wore was simple and elegant. The base had been her grandmother’s, a wide, bell-shaped skirt of thick satin. The bodice and all the lace had been current additions, making the dress modern and sophisticated. It had a cathedral length train, and though it was much too long for their purposes in the small castle chapel, shortening it was a concession she refused to make.

Princesses had cathedral trains.

She swished about in the heavy skirt, feeling the slick fabric mold to her legs. She was rapturously happy. She checked off the list in her head.

She was in a castle.

She was about to marry the most wonderful man alive.

She was wearing part of her grandmother’s wedding gown, which brought her back to life, in a way.

She looked beautiful. Her skin was clear, she didn’t have her period, her dress fit like a glove. Even her hair had gotten in line and was piled on her head in glorious waves.

That was plenty for one girl’s wedding day, she thought.

There was rustling in the antechamber.

“Lizzie, it’s time. Are you ready?”

Her father. Tears pricked her eyes. Oh, my God. Her whole life she’d been waiting for this moment, and now, here it was. She took a deep breath.

“Ready, Daddy.”

She opened the door and admired her handsome father, resplendent in his white tie and tails. He twitched a bit, uncomfortably humbled by the scrutiny.

“You look gorgeous, Daddy.”

“So do you, my dear. Shall we get you married off? Remember, it’s right foot first.”

There were forty-nine stairs. She counted every one as they went down.

The castle was decorated to the nines. She wondered what mice had descended upon the rooms to make it happen.

Before she had a chance to think anymore, the planner handed her the flowers, a simple spray of white roses and hydrangea, then opened the doors to the chapel.

It all went very quickly from there. The trumpet voluntary sprang to life, her guests rose to their feet, and she saw Edgar, standing at the other end of the room. It was all she could do not to break free and run to him, throw herself in his arms.

She floated down the aisle to gasps of appreciation. She attributed the crawling, goosebumpy sensation to nerves. She couldn’t see the two uninvited guests standing at either side of the altar, waiting for her with blood risen.

Her father stopped walking, so she stopped as well. Edgar looked ready to cry. She fought the urge as well.

Words.

Her father squeezed her hand. And then it was time. The priest was a homely man with wads of white hair spilling from his ears. Mwaiwwage… She stifled a giggle. He spoke in a clear bell voice that snapped her back to sober.

“Elizabeth, will you have this man to be your husband; to live together in the covenant of marriage? Will you love him, comfort him, honor and keep him, in sickness and in health, and, forsaking all others, be faithful to him as long as you both shall live?”

“I will.” Elizabeth brushed a single tear from the corner of her eye.

The priest turned slightly with a rustle of cloth as dark as raven’s wings.

“Edgar, will you have this woman to be your wife; to live together in the covenant of marriage? Will you love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health, and, forsaking all others, be faithful to her as long as you both shall live?”

Edgar’s voice carried to the back of the hall.

“I will.”

“Will all of you witnessing these promises do all in your power to uphold these two persons in their marriage?”

There was a chorus of confident, “We will.”

Elizabeth glowed.

Food Is Love, and I Love Everybody

2011-11-14T08:30:00.000-05:00

Food is love. I've tried to fight it, but it's endlessly, hopelessly true for me.

This weekend, my beloved in-laws came for a visit. What did I plan? Hikes and family bowling tournaments? An afternoon of firearms fun on the family range? A Monopoly marathon? No. I planned meals. Many of them. I kept the pictured list beside my stove for quick reference. No one of the meals happened exactly as I planned, but I purchased and stocked each and every ingredient, and had my favorite cookbooks handy, just in case.

How many times have I read--in fitness magazines, books, and websites--that one should eat to live, and not live to eat? Clearly, when pressed, I live to eat and offer the same madness to anyone who comes within tasting-spoon distance.

Ask a child, when I went on long car trips with my family (two hours to Cincinnati was a huge distance for me), I always had my supplies ready well in advance. Candy was my traveling choice, of course. I was particularly fond of Tootsie Pops, for their longevity. Even now, my kids know that the approaching zombie apocalypse has nothing on me. If we must flee on a second's notice, I'm sure to have plenty of ham sandwiches, Luna Bars, and fresh fruit in my massive purse. If necessary, we can use the food to barter for our lives. Or, we can just eat it while everyone else starves. (Though I guess I've put us at risk, now that my secret is out.)

Nothing makes me happier than a cabinet or refrigerator filled to overflowing with food. I tend to distrust people who only have diet soda, wilted lettuce, and apples in their fridge. Empty shelves are an invitation to danger: Power outages! Ice storms! Bad news! I feel safe when there's lots of food around. Maybe one of my past lives spanned the Great Depression. Maybe I was an anorexic. Maybe it comes from one of my earliest memories: shelf upon shelf of canned goods lining my grandfather's basement walls. Or maybe it's because I always felt such stress about the food at our family dinner table.

It wasn't that my mother was stingy with food. It was that she prepared enough. Never too much. Just enough, so it wouldn't go to waste. That's sensible, of course. With three energetic, picky daughters, it must have been a huge accomplishment for her just to get a meal on the table. My mom's a good cook. But I always wanted more. And more. Thank goodness there wasn't more, or I would've ended up significantly overweight.

Compare: When we lived in Michigan, I somehow ended up in the newspaper with my mom's chili recipe. Also my favorite Southern Living Mocha/Chocolate cake. When the reporter asked me how many people the chili served, I said, "Oh, probably four." I didn't know from measuring servings. I never measured out pasta. When I cooked spaghetti, I would cook up almost the entire pound bag, just for the two of us and our four year-old. We never ate even half of it. It would mostly get thrown away. (I think about that now, and blush with embarrassment.) I was mortified when the article came out and the reporter said she was confused because, given the chili recipe's ingredients, it should feed six to eight people. My understanding of servings was obviously way out of whack. Really, I do cringe.

It was a spring spent on Weight Watchers that taught everyone in our family portion control. Now, I weigh pasta before I cook it to get it right.

But that doesn't mean there won't be a salad, and bread, and dessert. And a different kind of dessert if you don't like the one I planned.

I want the people around me to know I love them. I want them to know that life is extra-sweet. I want them to know that, when I feed them, they are close to my heart. I want their pie crusts to be flaky, and their fish perfectly poached, and their asparagus peeled and just a wee bit crunchy. And then I want them to have a big, fat slice of chocolate cake. I know that true love would instead feed them just enough, and then take them for a long, picturesque walk to aid their digestion and burn calories.

Fortunately, my in-laws sensibly took themselves on walks while I was retting up meals. I like to take walks. I do! It's just that taking walks doesn't get those pecans chopped or cookies baked.

Yes, I am incorrigible.

Shiny Object Saturday: The Vapur Water Bottle

2011-11-12T08:30:00.000-05:00

Love this water bottle for hiking and taking walks. When the water is all gone, I can roll it up, stick it in my pocket, and refill it later.

I agree with the reviews that say the water can taste a wee bit plasticky when it heats up, but it's a small trade-off for total convenience. You can probably get them other places besides Eddie Bauer, but that's where I picked up ours.

Really, is there a better excuse for getting out there to take a hike?

Fiction Friday: "For Housekeeping," from Surreal South '11

2011-11-11T13:09:00.000-05:00

I'm trying something new here at Notes From the Handbasket. It's been a while since I've had a novel out, so my writing can be a tad hard to find. But I am so excited for you to get to know it, if you don't already, or to see what I'm doing now, if you've been so kind to read my earlier work. I plan to share a taste of it with you every Friday.

I also hope to get permission from some of our Surreal South contributors so you can get a taste of some of their work. Pinckney and I are very picky about what goes into Surreal South, and we think you'll find the writing deliciously well-done and delightfully twisted.

For Housekeeping (excerpt)

BY LAURA BENEDICT

Juli used her housekeeping master key to open room five-eighteen, looking up and down the hallway to make sure she wasn’t noticed by some guest who might wonder why she was working so late. She’d never quite believed what Raoul, the housekeeping supervisor, had told her when she’d started at the hotel a month earlier: that she would be as good as invisible to the hotel’s guests.

“No one wants to know who’s scraping the toothpaste and short hairs off the bathroom floor,” he’d told her. The sudden twitch of his right eyelid might have been a wink. She liked him fine as bosses went, but Ana, who had helped her get the job, had warned her not to be alone with him any more than necessary.

As the door clicked closed behind her, she kicked a bright yellow ball that had rolled into the room’s entryway so that it skipped back into the living room.

The Mason family, who had been living in the suite for more than three weeks, were dead on a highway in the Allegheny mountains, some hundred miles away. Raoul had told her that afternoon, just before her shift ended.

She’d been in the suite that morning to clean, and the room had been as it always was. Maybe a little neater. There were often a few toys scattered around, and, once, a bright green pacifier with smiling ducks painted on it lying on the edge of the bathtub. In the bedroom, Juli kept up with the small, careless piles of clothing belonging to the children’s parents, folding the clothes and leaving them on the room’s single chair. If there were dishes in the sink, she loaded and ran the dishwasher. Nearly every morning she found a pair of slightly sticky wine glasses, one with a lipstick-smeared rim, on the coffee table. There were always two or three fresh bottles of wine among the vegetables, cheeses, and meats in the refrigerator.

The Masons were a mystery to most of the staff. No one--including Juli--ever saw them come and go. But each morning when she came in to clean, there was a note for her on the skimpy hotel notepad, with a couple of dollars or a lottery ticket lying on top as a tip. Not many guests left tips for housekeeping. Sometimes Juli did feel invisible--just as Raoul had described--pushing her heavy cart through the silent corridors, disappearing into the rooms on her list. But she was sure the Masons were different from the other guests. They knew she was there, and how hard she worked for them. She’d even won five hundred dollars with one of the scratch-off tickets they had given her. They never acknowledged the pale pink rose in a vase that she’d left for them as a thank-you for the winning ticket, but she was sure they’d liked it--especially the little girl. When, almost two weeks later, it was still in its place on the coffee table, petals curled and brown, leaves brittle from want of water, she’d thrown it away herself. If she felt a little embarrassed, it wasn’t their fault. The Masons were busy people.

It was the first time she’d played the lottery. At home, where she’d lived with her aunt since she was five, games of chance weren’t allowed. Juli wasn’t the sort of person to argue--at least not with her aunt, who had never given Juli any kind of reason for her prejudice against gambling. Not religious, not moral. It was a rule. A simple rule.

The two of them lived simply, on simple, healthy food. Her aunt wore simple clothes of natural fibers and had always bought the same for Juli. They both wore their ash blonde hair simply, straight and parted down the middle, and used very little makeup. There was no drama, no yelling, no hateful exchanges between them, as there was among their neighbors. Juli had taken the job cleaning rooms at the residence hotel for the summer because it had simply presented itself by way of Ana, whose backyard opened onto the same narrow alley as her aunt’s. With her pierced tongue and trio of elementary-school-aged children, Ana was one of the least simple, and strangest people that Juli knew. Also, Juli needed the money for college because her parents hadn’t left her a dime, and her aunt considered any kind of investment besides a plain bank savings account decidedly un-simple.

This evening, Juli was tired. Her head and limbs felt weighted, ungainly. Ever since Raoul had told her about the Masons, barely looking up from the papers spread over his ugly metal desk, she’d felt like her body was moving against some kind of punishing current. Hit by a semi that came over the median--total shitstorm, he’d said. She’d pressed him for more information, but that was all he had to say, except that they were going to have to contact someone about picking up the Masons’ stuff. Their stuff: the toys, the yellow fleece bunting lying on top of the dresser, the crayons, the little girl’s pile of stuffed animals, the woman’s hairbrushes and makeup, the husband’s worn brown slippers, the small pile of sports magazines. It all belonged to someone else, now. Or no one.

[For Housekeeping is a ghost story, if you haven't guessed!]

It Really Does Take a Village

2011-11-09T08:00:00.000-05:00

I want to tell you about something that made me feel sad and frustrated.

Recently, a friend and I stopped by a nearby drugstore to pick up some evening supplies--beer, some ice cream, chips and some candy. The Benedicts were having a small, impromptu party after a very pleasant dinner with friends and colleagues. I was in a terrific mood. Too often our evenings are such that they have little variety, and I was looking forward to some spontaneous fun. (That's my favorite kind of fun.)

The drugstore is bright and quite new. Definitely the shiniest thing to grace the tiny town nearest our home in a very long time. Why a drugstore? Well, isn't that what's being built these days? Our population is aging. We take lots and lots of prescription drugs. And if we're not taking prescription drugs, there are those other handy drugs: alcohol, sugar, and yummy salty things. So, a drugstore makes sense.

The place was busy for 8:00 on a Friday night. A lot of people were buying the same things we were, plus drugs. My friend, who was there just to buy beer, checked out before me and waited, patiently, while I dithered in the candy aisle.

I'd seen a little girl, maybe four years old, wandering around the store in the company of an eleven or twelve year-old girl, who I assumed was her sister. The little girl clutched a dollar and a package of gum.

"You can't get that," her big sister said. "You don't have money for the tax."

When I finally got into line, the little girl absent-mindedly stepped up to the counter, cutting ahead of me. She laid her money and gum on the counter. The older sister was nowhere in sight.

"I want this," she said.

The clerk, a pale, pimply-faced young man of about twenty, rang it up.

"A dollar, six," he said.

The little girl pushed the dollar toward him. He looked very uncomfortable.

"You need some more money."

She pushed the dollar a little closer.

I could see the guy's blood pressure go up. There were at least three more people in line behind me, and he was alone. But the little girl didn't move. She didn't even look at him--only at the gum. She wasn't sullen. She didn't look stubborn or resentful. She just stood there. Waiting.

"Let her have it," I told the guy. "I'll pay the tax."

He looked at me as though I'd just told him that I'd performed lifesaving surgery on his best friend.

I told the little girl to tell her sister that the gum was paid for. I didn't want there to be a scene. She wasn't really paying attention, but, heck, she was four.

Now, if that had been my own child, there's no way he would've gotten that gum if he'd gone into the store with only a dollar to spend. It would've been a teachable moment! Taxes! Responsible budgeting! An excellent life lesson! And I expect he would've found a tasty, cheaper replacement. Or he would've thrown a tantrum, in which case I would've picked his ass up and hauled him out of the store without any sort of treat. So, why did I make it so the little girl could get her gum? To move the line along. Plus, she was awfully cute in her pink jacket and tiny blue and white barrettes dotting her braids. Adorable. Did I want her to hear and learn the lesson about living within a budget? Yes, but she wasn't my child. It would've looked inappropriate--and maybe even would've been inappropriate. People would've stared, thinking I was a busybody, and might even have thought I meant her harm. I was not her mother, teacher, aunt, or friend. Plus, my own friend was waiting.

I turned my attention to the cashier so I could check out. He thanked me. Really, it was seven cents. No big deal. Seriously. It made that tiny moment in all of our lives that much easier. No skin off my nose, as my dad says.

My patient friend and I went outside. We hadn't reached the car yet, when I saw the little girl at the other end of the parking lot. She was standing on the corner of the walk that runs alongside the store, silhouetted in the streetlamp. She was alone.

"Mommy!" she yelled. "Mommy! Mommy!" She was definitely looking north--I'm guessing that's from where she and her sister her had walked. She wasn't crying, but she was definitely distressed. And loud.

I mumbled something to my friend about us having to do something, and called to her. I can't tell you what trepidation I felt. It was a terrible situation. The safe thing for us to do would've been to get in the car and drive away. And I knew that was a possibility. But there's no way I could've done it, and left her there, standing in the street-lighted darkness. I told her she needed to go back into the store to find her sister.

That child was so compliant. She came running to me at the entrance to the store. I didn't take her hand or even touch her head. I was far too paranoid. I didn't want to frighten her or--again--imply that I meant her harm. All the while, my friend--did I mention my friend was a guy?--hovered nearby, quiet. He was as concerned as I was. I knew he was thinking that we could only do this because I was a woman, and therefore slightly less suspect.

"Do you know where your sister is?" I asked her. She didn't give me an answer or even look at me. She just stayed at my side.

I'd last seen the sister in the chips/ice cream section of the store. It had been a good five or six minutes since I'd seen her--or since she had laid eyes on the little girl. We found her in the same place.

God, I was angry. I wanted to scream at her. I wanted to put my hands on her shoulders, and look into her eyes and ask her if she knew what could've happened to the little girl. If she understood that someone could've simply stopped their car and picked up the little girl to toss her inside and drive away. I wanted to know if she understood that she might never have seen her sister again, and would have to live with that the rest of her life. I could see how young she was, and I knew that she probably didn't have much of an understanding of those things. At eleven, I was a total bitch to my own little sisters. I'm ashamed to say that I made their lives hell when they were in my care. But I like to think that I at least wouldn't have let them wander alone in a drugstore alone on a Friday night.

It's because I'm an adult that I know these things. And so my anger should've been directed at the woman who lived north of the store with her children, and had sent them out with a dollar or two to the drugstore at eight o'clock at night.

Instead of screaming, I used my authoritative mommy voice. "Your sister was outside of the store by herself, calling for her mommy. She didn't know where you were. You need to keep an eye on her."

The girl, heavyset in her too-small jacket, glanced over at the rack of chips, then back at the little girl and me. But her eyes never changed. She had no reaction. No concern. Not even irritation. Her face was blank of emotion. It chilled me.

This time, I did touch the little girl. I put my hand on her back and pushed her gently toward her sister.

"You need to stay with your sister," I said. "Don't go outside by yourself." And I fled.

I wanted to leave there. I wanted to get away. Mostly. What I really, really wanted to do was call child services. But you can't charge an eleven year-old child with carelessness. And the mother? How many times did my own parents let the six year-old me walk almost a mile to and from school by myself, or go down to the pony keg (which was just a corner store) at dusk, with an equally young friend, to buy an ice cream? It was many, many years ago, of course, but it still held some risk. Now, we're all more aware of the risks because of the media, and we have a better understanding of the long, long process of the development of reason and risk assessment capabilities in children. And we have big words for all that stuff.

I won't speculate about the home life of those two girls. I really can't know it. Maybe they have a wonderful mother. They were both dressed for the weather, and were appropriately groomed. Their shoes fit. They weren't malnourished. Maybe this was a big trust experiment, to see if the big sister was responsible enough to take care of the little girl. Maybe they'd been looking forward to getting a dollar to take to the store on Friday evening all week. No. I really can't know.

What I do know is how I felt when it was all done and we were on our way home. I felt pretty terrible. I felt a little guilty for having gotten involved at all. I had interfered and probably seemed bossy and overwrought. I felt like I was the interfering Nice White Lady from the old MAD TV sketches. I felt self-conscious about giving a damn. I can't tell you the number of times, when my kids were young enough for playgrounds, that I tried to bring a parent's attention to something truly dangerous--to himself and others--that his kid was doing, and for my interference got a cold stare or a mind-your-own-business.

But, on the other hand, I hope that someone would've done the same thing for one of my kids--not just because they're my kids, but because every child's life is precious.

Have you ever had to make that kind of choice? How did it feel?

(*Image: The Village, by Joan Miró)

A Writer Must Eat: The Perfect Hardboiled Egg

2011-11-03T09:48:00.000-04:00

I know. You're thinking, there is no such thing as the perfect method for making hardboiled eggs. No, really. This is almost magical. I promise.

1. Take eggs out of refrigerator. It helps to have purchased the eggs a few days ahead of time. You don't want them super-fresh.

2. Fill a pot or pan with enough water so that eggs will be completely submerged--at least 1/2 inch over.

3. Put pan on medium heat.

4. Take a safety pin and poke a little hole through the narrow end of the egg's shell. Don't worry, shells are tough. You won't have a disaster if you're careful.

5. Cook water for 2-3 minutes on medium (depending on amount). When you put the eggs in, water should be hot, but not yet boiling.

6. Drop eggs, gently, one by one, into the water with a spoon. Water will be hot! (Ask me how I know.) You might see a little thread of egg white leak from a hole. Don't panic. This is normal.

7. Keep heat on medium or medium-high until water and eggs come to a full boil. Reduce to medium. Boil for 10 minutes, uncovered. (Do set a timer.)

8. After 10 minutes, remove from heat. Cover. Let sit for another 10 minutes.

9. After that 10 minutes, run cold water over the eggs (in the pan) in the sink for a minute or two. When pan is cool or lukewarm to the touch, drain out about 1/2 of the water.

10. Immediately add several handfuls or cupfuls of ice, so that eggs are once again covered. If the ice melts very quickly, add more.

11. Let eggs sit in ice water for a few minutes until they're nice and cold to the touch--about 10 minutes or so.

12. Remove eggs to a colander so they drain/dry. Brush off any bits of cooked egg white that might have leaked from the eggs.

Store eggs in refrigerator. I know that the Easter Bunny used to leave boiled eggs in baskets overnight, but she has revised her practices for health and safety reasons.

Peeling: This is the best part. Roll the egg around on the counter until it's all nice and crackly. Careful not to take out a big chunk when you start to peel. It's good to start on that narrow end--sometimes there's a little air pocket. Once you get started, the skin should come off easily.

Does this sound complicated? I promise that it's not, really. I adapted the recipe from Julia Child's The Way to Cook. She has you do two quick dips in ice water-filled bowls. It really does make you hang around and pay attention. But I found--accidentally--that the trick is putting the cold eggs into nearly-hot water. Don't know why it works.

Let me know if it works for you. If it doesn't, feel free to riff on what you've read here, and come back and share.

Enjoy!

P.S. If you came by just for the egg recipe, I hope you'll poke around the blog, and maybe check out my books. Welcome! --Laura

**Photo by this guy.

SURREAL SOUTH '11 Has Arrived

2011-10-31T10:57:00.000-04:00

It's finally that time of year! (No, not that time of year.)

We Benedicts have taken the wraps off of our latest spooky-but-also-beautiful literary baby, Surreal South '11. It's ready to jump into to your arms and delight you with twisted tales of ghosts and monsters told by some of the smartest, most devious writers we know.

Distribution is limited. Your best bet for getting hold of a copy is online from Press 53, Amazon, or Barnes & Noble.

Ebook edition coming very soon. (Yes, very soon. We're on it!)

Can't wait to hear what you think!

Troped to Death

2011-10-10T15:13:00.000-04:00

I like my horror with a certain amount of...elegance. I don't mean that I require diamonds, silk, and pretty words with my scary stories. Okay. I do like pretty words. Words that evoke images that tell a story in themselves--a kind of circular beauty. (Speaking of stories, Surreal South '11 is going to press today! Just thought I'd throw that in.) My taste runs to the Gothic, or Surreal, rather than, say, the gorier aspects of Bizarro.

Folk tales and stories of haunted houses are like candy to me. I want cobwebs and hidden skeletons. Mysterious pairs of twins, woodcutters, scary old women, and maybe even Victorian taxidermy (really, is there anything creepier?).

Over two years ago I planned out a series of dark novels based on folk tales: Familiar Tales of Uncommon Horror. The first in the series, The Devil's Oven, is based on The Gingerbread Man and became rather Frankensteinian. The second and third are from Hansel and Gretl, and Cinderella. The Hansel and Gretl story is set in the 19th century. The other two are contemporary. Sadly, dear reader, the series didn't sell. My agent gave it her best shot, but it just didn't happen. I'm still in love with the idea. There may never be a traditional publisher behind it, which disappoints me, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to plow ahead. It may be slower going, but this is what I do.

Is there an appetite for similar adaptations? Uh, yes. There are hundreds of books out there--some of them quite excellent. There's a spankin' new television series called Grimm. So, expect even more books and films that make use of the stories that most of use grew up with. These tales are rich fodder for storytellers, and have been for hundreds of years. (I have known people who refused to let their children read fairy tales because they might contain anachronistic role models. Seriously, children aren't that dumb, people. They adapt--and, believe it or not, they get their most significant learning from their parents' words and actions.)

I wanted to bring up the The Devil's Oven and Folk Tales, first. But what I find myself desperate to express is the sense of genuine horror, nay, terror, I felt when I watched the premier of American Horror on FX last night.

There are tropes that are common to specific genres of categories of literature and film. I like this definition of trope: The use of a word, phrase, or image in a way not intended by its normal signification.

When I think of a typical slasher film, I think: Ingenue opening the basement door to investigate scary noises, the audience thinking, don't go in there! The creepy old man or woman or child who warns the investigating kids to stay away. The house or woods where murders occurred. The handsome supporting actor who is really the murderer! In the real world, an ingenue is not necessarily foolishly intrepid, handsome men are not necessarily murderers, old houses are not necessarily haunted. But almost invariably, from one horror film to another, one is expected to recognize these commonalities. They have become tropes. You can see them in spades in investigative crime novels, too. Tropes are comforting. Tropes are often identifiers of genres. Overused, they're deadly dull. Used carefully, like garlic or anchovies or spices in a sauce, they're delightful.

My work-in-progress, which is within spitting distance of being work-completed, is called Bliss House. I've blogged about it before--I'm not particularly superstitious or secretive about my work. Bliss House also opens a series, this one about a, you got it, a haunted house. The series works backwards in time, each novel fully exploring the terrible events that happen to each generation of the inhabitants of Bliss House, the last novel explaining the house's horrific origins. It's an excavation of sorts, and I'm loving exploring the characters and the stories.

When I first heard about American Horror, I was intrigued. Then, last night, I finally got to watch the premier.

I watched as Bliss House itself, an enormous brick Victorian, loomed onscreen.
I watched a family move across country after a terrible, life-changing event.
I watched a damaged female protagonist try to make sense of both her emotions and her suddenly bizarre surroundings.
I watched that same female protagonist peel back wallpaper to reveal an old, strange mural.
I watched a man become hypnotized by the strange forces in the house.
I watched someone burn sage to purify the house of evil omens and spirits.
I watched a character who had burns over 70% of his body.

It was as though someone had been looking over my shoulder as I worked on Bliss House, taking notes. I nearly had a heart attack.

For the briefest of moments, all I could think about were the editors and Amazon reviewers who would look at my manuscript and dismiss it quickly because they'd seen it all before. My career collapsed before my eyes. It was exactly the opposite of my real life experience with Isabella Moon and Calling Mr. Lonely Hearts, where there were people who thought my writing was just too different. I started thinking that I'd better brush up on my "Do you want fries with that?" patter.

I calmed, slightly, as the show went on. I couldn't even begin to describe everything that happened in those 40-something minutes, because there was just so much. It was as though someone said, "Okay, we have to have a whole bunch of scary, weird shit happening to everyone in this first episode. Everyone! And everyone in the episode has to be really weirded out, but they can't be weirded out enough to run out of the house, because there wouldn't be more episodes. Then we can maybe slow down in future episodes and start explaining stuff." I was glad for the pause button because there was an awful lot to absorb (Spoiler Alert!): A teenager who cuts, a woman with Down's Syndrome who wanders in and out of the family's house, followed by her batshit-crazy-scary mother, Jessica Lange, a few psychiatric sessions with a teenager who is obviously actually dead, a sex act with a guy in a rubber suit, a seduction by a succubus (?), Dylan McDermott naked from the back, Dylan McDermott, uh, masturbating, the terrorizing of a mean girl down in the basement, a girl fight, the brutal murder of an irritating pair of twins, Jessica Lange cursing and stealing diamonds, the protagonist catching her husband en flagrante, a man pouring gasoline all over his family and burning them in their beds, that same man tracking Dylan McDermott, and the stuff in the above list. Oh, and Dylan McDermott playing with fire and having sex with his wife. Phew! I know there was more, but I'd have to go back to the DVR.

What to do with all of this? I was very lucky to be watching the show with my husband, Pinckney, who has watched pretty much every American, Italian, Japanese, and Korean horror film ever made. He was able to tell me where each event, or trope, occurred in film before. That's from The Shining, that's from Hell House, that's music from a Hitchcock film, etc, etc. I called The Others, and The Sixth Sense.

After that, I felt better. Obviously, the screenwriters and I have been watching the same films and, perhaps, reading the same books. Only, where the screenwriters had all that stuff happening in a single episode, I would only maybe use about a third of those events in an entire novel. (And nix on the Dylan McDermott masturbation scene. That is soooo not elegant.)

What does all this mean? Well, it's a big lesson to me. As a writer, I obviously depend on the occasional trope--the same tropes that other people in the horror/suspense genre use. If I want to pout and be a baby about it, then I really should find another vocation, because this stuff happens all the time.

I'm reminded of what Pinckney told me when, early in my career, I said I was worried that I would accidentally write something the same way someone famous had. (Yes, I was pretty naive, and apparently had a very high opinion of my skills.) He said that you can give many writers the same subject and characters and they will all come up with stories that are pretty much unrecognizable from one another. Each writer has a different approach, a different history, a different vision. Even when we model stories, they're never quite the same as the original. It's impossible.

I think I'll probably just forge ahead, writing whatever in the hell I want, the way I usually do. It's suicide to try to write to the market. I suspect it's equally foolish to write directly against it, whatever that means.

As to American Horror: I do hope they slow down. I hope that the show is actually about something more than a lot of weird shit happening to people. They've got some excellent actors, Dylan McDermott's really cute butt (if that's really him, which it's probably not), and a hell of a set. Although the basement in Bliss House is way, way cooler.

**The above painting is Heironymous Bosch's The House of Ill Repute.

A Present? For Me?

2011-10-07T00:35:00.000-04:00

Look what showed up in my mail this week. How cute is it?!

While at Bouchercon 2011, I spent a couple of hours at the International Thriller Writers' (ITW) table, handing out membership brochures and extolling the virtues of ThrillerFest. It was an absolute pleasure to hang out there because I got to meet many folks, trade stories, and drink tea, all while sitting down. (Why is it that cute shoes so often wear like torture implements?)

One of the lovely people who stopped by was Linda Rohrbough. She was actually there to deliver one of her special Writer's Clocks to Dennis Kennett, the hard-volunteering spouse of writer Shirley Kennett. When Linda showed it to me, my eyes got very wide, and I said, "Oooooh, that's cool!" (Because I know all the hip slang, you know.) Dennis's clock was red. Like a shiny car. I tucked it beneath the table and promised to pass it on to him.

Linda and I chatted for a while, and she told me her remarkable story of writing, tragedy, recovery, and courage. You can read about it all at her website. She's an unflaggingly positive force of nature.

At some point, Linda said that she would send me a clock. And she did. I love it! You can get one, too.

Check out the progression of hours carefully. It makes a disturbing amount of sense.

Thanks, Linda!

My Bouchercon

2011-09-25T19:00:00.000-04:00

I've been dithering about doing a blog about Bouchercon 2011, the mystery conference which ended last Sunday, because I had such a great time that every moment felt like a highlight. My post threatened to be 10K words, and I was feeling intimidated by all that territory. So I'm working hard to limit myself, here...

(Events are in no particular order)

Did you know that writers often make the goofiest fans of all? I don't usually get all excited about meeting celebrities. Really, it's their work or accomplishments I admire. Often they can be very unpleasant human beings, so I don't bother. But the intimacy of Bouchercon brings out the stars-in-eyes girl in me, and I spend more time than I probably should engaging in hero(ine) worship.

Saturday afternoon, I made a complete ass of myself going fan-girl all over the brilliant Val McDermid after she was interviewed by Jen Forbus. But she did stand still for a picture, bless her heart, even though I blurted out something stupid like, "I just loved hearing about your family!"( Read: I am obviously a stalker with no social skills whatsoever.) And when I told her what a Robson Green fan I am, she told me that she is, too, and that he waxes his shoulders. Cool!

Later, bestie Maggie Daniel Caldwell and I spotted Ridley Pearson signing in the same area, right after he was interviewed by the witty and debonair Jeff Abbott. Neither of us had any of his books with us. There were only a couple of people ahead of us--book dealers with big bags, mostly. I must have been very, very loud that day, and Mr. Pearson must have needed a break from signing, because just after I said, "Oh, we don't have books, but we would love to get a picture," to no one in particular, he popped right over for photos. What a sweet guy.

I wish I'd been able to get a picture with Charlaine Harris. A couple of years ago, I had lunch with her and several other women, and found her to be charming and funny. But when I finally reached her in her post-Librarian's Breakfast, informal signing line on Saturday morning, she looked exhausted and ready to get out of there. She obviously had no recollection of me at all, so I just asked her to sign, and said nice things I don't remember, and let her go. She gave a wonderful keynote speech at the breakfast, and answered a lot of questions. Sounds like her life has changed in a lot of good ways since True Blood became a hit. It couldn't happen to a nicer writer.

The panel I moderated was on Thursday, quite early in the conference. That worked out nicely since I only had to be truly nervous for the few hours preceding it. The title of the panel was TIMEBOMB, which I took to indicate that we should talk about the tension in thrillers. It was at once a very broad and very narrow topic that gave us a few fits at the start. But the panel was made up of seasoned pros, and they took up the ball and ran with it. They were wonderful to work with, and, best of all, the audience all stayed until the end!

Left to right: Adrian Magson, Meg Gardiner, Daniel Palmer, J.T. Ellison, Simon Toyne, me.

At every conference I leave a little something of myself behind--accidentally. This time it was my the adorable Vera Bradley pen I'd bought for myself a few months ago. I left it on the podium or table, I'm sure. I hope that whoever found it enjoys using it. I liked it so much I bought another when I got home.

One of the best surprises of the conference was getting to know people I'd previously met only online. Have you been in that situation very often? Since I hadn't done a conference in a couple of years, it was a fairly new experience. And, you know what? The people I'd met online and liked, I liked even more. I read comments and blog posts all the time about how writers need to carefully craft their online presences to fit their "brand." Really? It seems to me that if you keep your brand thisclose to the social aspects of your actual personality, your brand is going to be just fine, thank you. This doesn't mean we need to overshare--dignity is always required. Conclusion: Most people are quite like their online selves. And I know a lot of nice people.

Here are a few:

Elyse Dinh-McCrillis (PopCultureNerd)

Sabrina Odgen

Jaden Terrell (Killer Nashville)--Cheating here, a little. I met her in Nashville, but it was great to see her, again.

I was able to see quite a few panels and interviews, given that mine was over with on Thursday. There was EVIL GOING ON: Does evil truly exist or is it just human failing? with John Connolly, Thomas H. Cook, Peter James, Laura Lippman, and Daniel Woodrell. The moderator was Reed Farrel Coleman. If there was a conclusion, it seemed to favor the human failing side. Laura Lippman told some chilling stories from her journalism days, and Daniel Woodrell talked about his neighbors, who scared me even though they're a couple hundred miles away. Much of the discussion centered on their opinions on the death penalty, which was interesting.

Hilary Davidson (who won the Best First Novel Anthony!) moderated a panel on crime, technology and social networking. Panelists were J.T. Ellison, Chris Knopf, P.J. Parrish, Sam Reaves, and Mark Russinovich. It's a real challenge for writers to peg the correct technology to the settings of their novels.

I started out the 2:30 hour on Saturday at the YOU SMELL LIKE DINNER panel, which dealt with food-themed cozies. But I confess I drifted next door to Jen Forbus's fun interview with Val McDermid.

I also caught EVERYTHING IS BROKEN: Authors, Publishers & Bookstores in the eMarketplace: Friends or Foes? I had wanted to stay away from the epub vs. legacy pub subject during the conference because things tend to get very shrill (online, anyway) when it comes to that subject. But the panel, moderated by Eric Stone, was made up of real pros Kate Grant, Neil Nyren, Abigail Padgett, and Gary Shulze. It was all very civilized, though everyone was a little hard on thriller writer Barry Eisler--he of the awesome hair. You can Google Barry to follow his publishing/self-publishing adventures.

Of course, most of the real fun and business happens in the bar at these things. I confess I didn't spend too much time there as I don't drink much, and need my beauty sleep. BUT I did have an amazing time at Wednesday night's NOIR AT THE BAR event!

The tireless and talented Jed Ayres and St. Louis's most self-effacing-but-hysterically-funny writer, Scott Phillips, welcomed an enormous crew of Noir-ish writers to U-City's Meshuggah Cafe. Who was there? Who read? My list is in no way exhaustive because I'm getting a little exhausted...Let's see: Greg Bardsley, DH Dublin, Bryon Quertermous, Cameron Ashley, me, Matthew J. Matthew Funk, Sophie Littlefield, Mike Wiecek, Matthew McBride, Josh Stallings, Holly O'Neill West, John McGoran, Hilary Davidson, Janet Rudolph, and Alison Gaylin. I got to sit right next to my friend, noir-chick extraordinaire, Kelli Stanley. In all, it was a terribly naughty evening as far as the prose went.

Here's the adorable Hilary Davidson. All of my iTouch photos from that evening were appropriately fuzzy and mysterious.

And Scott Phillips with the original Noir at the Bar guy, Peter Rozovsky.

One last fun photo. I booked my hotel room at the Renaissance Grand, which was the conference hotel. But then I needed a room for Wednesday night so I wouldn't miss Noir at the Bar. So I stayed nearby at the Hilton Ballpark on Wednesday. Here's the view:

Too bad the Cardinals were out of town!

In all, it was the best Bouchercon ever. I heard that from a lot of people. So glad I went.

Noir@TheBar Anthology: Writers Gone Wild!

2011-08-07T02:05:00.000-04:00

Once upon a time, my friend Jedidiah Ayres invited me to a bar. Wait. Let me start over... Jed invited Pinckney and me to read at a bar in St Louis's UCity Loop. When Jed issues an invitation, one dare not refuse. He's just too darn nice (but I don't think he'd like that to get around...). Noir@TheBar is a reading series that he and fellow writer Scott Phillips started in St. Louis a couple of years ago. (I think the original N@TB series began in Philly?) Noir@TheBar events are prose-loaded, booze-fueled (okay, I sipped one beer) festivuses of crime-loving fun--for writers, readers, and brave audiences alike.

And so, with all those stories floating around the bar's formerly nicotine-laced air, Jed and Scott came up with the brilliant idea of corralling them into one tightly-packed volume of literary irreverence. Delicious cover art by Matt Kindt.

Purty, ain't it?!

Some of my favorite quotes for this collection of mayhem and madness:

"Noir at the Bar is to crime fiction what Michael Jordan was...to crime fiction." --Todd Robinson, editor of Thuglit

"I've told you repeatedly that I do not give blurbs, and in any event I wouldn't dream of giving one for this piece of crap. Don't even think of using my name or any words of mine to promote this drivel." --Lawrence Block, author of A Drop of the Hard Stuff

"Like...it...full of...Good..." --Sara Gran, author of Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead

All thoroughly within the spirit of good fiction gone nasty, I'd say.

Seriously, these stories are the real thing. I haven't any clue how I ended up in here with this crew of scruffy boys, but there I am on page 114, with my Five Revelations story from Surreal South '09. Go figure.

NOIR@THEBAR is available exclusively at and through St. Louis's remarkable indie, Subterranean Books. I think it's priced ridiculously low--something like $12.

**GIVING AWAY STUFF HERE**

I'll order up a copy of this dastardly book for each of three folks who are brave enough to comment below. BUT I won't turn loose of these books easily! You must write a pithy blurb that lovingly trashes one of your very favorite books--similar to what Gran, Block, and Robinson did above. Amuse me. Astound me. Go ahead and try to shock me with your mock cruelty. Just for fun.

You have until Monday, August 8, 6 pm, EST.

Meanwhile, I'm at a loss for words to describe the awesomeness of the trailer that Scott Phillips put together for the book. Go ahead and try not to dance while you watch it. I dare you.

You're So Far Away

2011-08-02T00:39:00.001-04:00

Some very wise person played Carole King’s classic song You’re So Far Away at Amy Winehouse’s funeral. It was reported in the press that it was one of her favorite songs. Could there be a more poignant choice for the celebration of the life of someone who has died so young? (Below, I’ve posted video of King singing You’re So Far Away in 1971.) King’s vibrato is plaintive, her delivery naturally intimate. The song is longing encapsulated in a few hundred words and some simple chords. Magic. Perfection.

Like so many others who heard it playing beneath the many news stories about Winehouse’s death, I couldn’t wait to hear the song, once again, in its entirety. To more fully experience the mournful beauty of it. To remember what it felt like to hear it the first few times.

Carole King’s album Tapestry--the one on which You’re So Far Away appears--was on the Billboard 200 for an astonishing 306 weeks and won King four Grammys. I was only nine years old when she recorded it in 1971. The singles from it played on the radio--to which I was already seriously addicted--regularly. But I had little understanding of the songs as belonging to an entire album. The album concept is pretty much antique now. Then, albums were carefully crafted works of theme and musicianship. It was only a little later, when I played the record albums belonging to the families I babysat for, that I understood that they were powerful mediums of emotion and experience.

King was only twenty-nine years old when she released Tapestry. She’d already begun an extraordinary songwriting career, and Tapestry helped her break out as a performer.

What is it that makes a piece of music or art speak so powerfully to so many people? And how interesting that so many gifted artists are young. Winehouse was terribly gifted. Taylor Swift is still almost a child, but she has a definite skill: taking the immediate, often crushing events of adolescent love and making them instant, if occasionally amusing, memorials. Maybe it’s that we all understand the life-shaping terror involved in being fifteen or sixteen years old. That understanding is something we all carry with us--and when we are reminded, we can’t help but pull it out, acknowledge it, love it or hate it. The best artists are the ones who can tap into the common without making it ridiculous.

I think that You’re So Far Away is one of the most intimate, evocative popular songs I’ll ever know.

This is what it was for me:

It was lying on my back on the first real carpet I’d ever had in my childhood bedroom. It was closed eyes and frequent tears. It was headphones (bigger than the palms of my hands) snugged onto my ears against the frustration of living. It was a soothing peek into a life I hadn’t yet lived, but knew was coming. It was the promise of friendship and desire. So much desire--or was it hunger for love, or for what I imagined love was supposed to be? It was someone else’s pain that lifted me, gently, compassionately, out of my own.

I don’t know what it was for Amy Winehouse. I don’t want or need to know because the memories, thoughts, and images the song evoked for her belonged to her.

The lovely thing about a memory is that it is always immediate. It doesn’t thrust us back in time. It’s simply a layer. It’s already a part of who we are.

Nostalgia is an incredibly self-indulgent practice--that of wishing to go back to another time. Nostalgia can be shared to a great extent: from vintage-inspired fashions to wistful references to childhood on cereal commercials. But memories are specific to each of us as individuals. We can have shared experiences, but our shared memories of an experience can never be identical.

What would a writer be without memory? I never know when a memory will suddenly arise and demand to become a story. The magic--for me and any other prose- or songwriter, painter or filmmaker--is that the reader/viewer will probably never recognize the memory in the work. They’ll never know it as autobiography. Because the memory might be as tiny as a whispered word, a scent, a song, or as big as a newspaper headline or the birth or death of a child. All I know is that, for me, it usually arrives unbidden and surprising and powerful. I’m strengthened by its presence, and moved to take action.

And I will take you with me, if I can.

My Summer Vacation

2011-07-20T01:02:00.000-04:00

The kids and I spent ten days in Washington, D.C. and environs this month. I took about 700 pictures--but I'll only post a few of my favorites here. Don't you hate it when people invite you over to see their boring vacation pics?!

There are thousands of national treasures in Washington, D.C., but the Library of Congress is surely one of the grandest.

At the Tomb of the Unknown.

In the Apothecary Shop at Colonial Williamsburg. Spooky in its sparse banality.

In the Bindery, also at Colonial Williamsburg. I loved the light we had at midday.

One of my fabulous mother-in-law's doll houses. She does beautiful work. This one is Victorian.

My sweet Opera Poodle on the Metro.

The Jefferson Memorial from the top of the Washington Monument. I had to take it through the murky, fingerprint-covered window. It came out looking like an antique postcard, don't you think?

Hey, my Canon also does black and white pretty well. I think Bengal took this.

Bruton Parish Church, Williamsburg.

Amphitheater at Arlington National Cemetery.

This is how I mostly looked during the trip: vaguely puzzled, and very, very hot. We got to Busch Gardens, Williamsburg just as the heat wave was getting under way. The water cost $2.89 a bottle, and we bought a lot of it.

How I'm feeling right. about. now. An Old Woman Dozing Over a Book by Nicolaes Maes, 1655, from the National Gallery. There was a kick-ass Rembrandt exhibit going on, too.

The book I'm reading is Jo Nesbo's, The Snowman. More on that just as soon as I finish it...

In the Handbasket: Keith Raffel

2011-07-13T05:00:00.003-04:00

Meet Keith Raffel: Silicon Valley entrepreneur, former counsel to the U.S. Senate, and killer thriller writer. The action in his latest novel--Drop by Drop -- bridges the country from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., and makes excellent use of all that intriguing intelligence knowledge he soaked up working in the nation's capital.

Keith has lots of fascinating information (media, too) about his professional life and all three of his novels at his website. So I thought it would be fun to know where his remarkable sense of adventure started--and was surprised to learn that his real-life adventures have brought him right back home again.

My Hometown, by Keith Raffel

(Photo credit: Palo Alto Historical Association)

I grew up in a lazy college town surrounded by orchards. Two-thirds of the country’s apricots were grown right there in “The Valley of Heart’s Delight.” We didn’t lock our doors. Teenagers would stick their thumbs out on the main drag and get rides to school. The local university was informally referred to as “The Farm.”

Do you know what? I’m still there. I live only eight houses away from my parents’ old place. Two of my kids graduated from the same high school I did and I have one about to be a sophomore and one who should show up there as a freshman in two years. But almost everything has changed in a single generation.

When I went to Palo Alto High, I was friends with the daughter of the school custodian. I’ll bet anything that no children of a school custodian live in the Palo Alto of today. Like schoolteachers, fire fighters, or police officers, they just couldn’t afford it. When my parents moved to Palo Alto, they bought their first house for $29,500. Now Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, has bought a house in town for $7 million. (Thank goodness, I bought a house here long ago.)

(photo from Wikipedia--one of Facebook's former buildings)

What happened? Somehow my hometown of Palo Alto became ground zero for world technology. Orchards filled with cherries and apricots have been replaced by tilt-up buildings filled with software engineers and MBAs. The Valley of Heart’s Delight has been transmogrified into Silicon Valley. Facebook is headquartered in town as is the world’s largest technology company, Hewlett-Packard. Google’s closer to my place than either, just over the city limits in Mountain View. Venture capital firms, trendy restaurants, and startups have pushed out the hardware stores, supermarkets, and bookstores in downtown Palo Alto that catered to local residents. In addition to Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs lives here. Stanford University is now known throughout the world. San Francisco has become a place where Gen Y high tech employees eat, sleep, and cavort on the weekends while spending the week commuting down 101 to Palo Alto and other Valley cities. (Does that make San Francisco a suburb?)

It’s weird. I saw an article that mentioned three cities driving the world economy – New York, Shanghai, and Palo Alto. Wow! One of those cities has 23 million, one eight million, and one 60 thousand. Palo Alto now represents the high tech world in the same way Hollywood does show business.

I left Palo Alto to go to college and stayed away for 13 years. But I couldn’t resist the siren call of my hometown. And now I love having my kids go to the same high school I did, but wish they could have what I had in those simpler times.

But if push came to shove, I would not change a thing. Here in Palo Alto I’ve had the rush of working day and night to do my bit to make an Internet software company successful. I love the drive, the excitement, the people, and the opportunity it gives to build something. The Silicon Valley city-state of Palo Alto has even provided a rich vein of ore to mine in mysteries and thrillers. Plenty of crime fiction novels are set in New York, LA, and Washington, but few here. And why not here? Silicon Valley is where board members of the world’s largest high tech company hire private eyes to spy on each other. Where CEOs buy cocaine for their employees and are sentenced to prison for backdating stock options. We have as much ambition, greed, wealth, and criminal impulses as anywhere. Take that Wall Street, Hollywood, and Capitol Hill!

And yet, in a mental archeological dig, I am still reminded of the way Palo Alto used to be. My best friend from those days (and now) lives down the block and I run into my high school girlfriend every couple of months. Beneath a mask that adds a couple of character lines, their faces look pretty much the same. Sometimes one of my kids brings a book home from the school library, and I’ll see the name of one of my classmates scrawled inside the cover. When I consult with my lawyer, I remember sitting in the high school bleachers with a bunch of other elementary school friends and rooting for him, the best high school halfback we’d ever seen. That old Palo Alto is a ghost town occupying the same space as the high tech icon of today. I count myself lucky to live in both.

Bacon Date

2011-06-26T01:57:00.000-04:00

Pinckney and I have always had a fairly unconventional daily schedule, given that we're both writers. His various year-round academic duties keep him busy at odd times, as well. Back before we had kids, we had lovely evening dinner dates. We even went to *gasp* parties with other adults. And, wonder of wonders, I think we even spent time in a bar or two. Drinking. Now, hardly a week goes by that we don't look at each other and opine that we just don't drink enough. We're certain that we're missing something.

Gone are those cozy, after-dinner, cognac-sharing tete-a-tetes. These days, after dinner at home, or out with the kids (and after Bengal's homework), we tend to disappear to our offices to finish up work, or crash with a book or the t.v. before we go comatose.

Who has the energy to plan or strategize or even tell jokes or talk about books or gossip after the sun goes down? Strategy and planning are important in a marriage. It's critical to be able to touch base. Heck, it's critical just to look into each other's sleep-deprived eyes and say, Hey, don't I know you? How are things?

P and I do our best strategizing, talking, cooing, arguing, gossiping, updating, and dreaming over...bacon.

Our very favorite bacon date place is the small, unprepossessing Annie Mae's Restaurant in Murphysboro, IL. There are other fancier and hipper restaurants in the Carbondale/Murphysboro area that serve the blessed bacon meat--but, for us, none have the cachet of Annie Mae's.

Fridays and Saturdays, they have a morning buffet: biscuits/gravy, scrambled eggs, sausage, pancakes, French Toast, BACON, special bake--see below. (Dinner buffet, Monday-Saturday)

Here's P dishing up some scrambled eggs. (See the bacon!)

I don't know who the man in the hat is, but this shot gives you a decent look at the dining room.

Ummmmmmm. Bacon!

They always have fried, diced potatoes on the buffet, but I'm a hash browns girl. These hash browns are HEAVEN.

Here's my morning glamour shot. Squinty-eyed, laughing, no make-up. See how much I trust you?!

P is always far more dignified.

Oh, and I forgot to mention the Annie Mae's bake. I had a taste of P's. It has bacon, biscuits and gravy, and lots of cheese. (Angioplasty on the side.) It was pretty yummy, though I'm not a gravy girl. Not for breakfast.

(You're looking for fruit, aren't you? There's maple syrup for the *killer* pancakes. That should count. You can always order orange juice.)

Buffet for two, including tax and drinks runs about $15-$16. Totally worth it. Our servers and the cook were a little camera shy, but they were lovely ladies.

Where you pay. The check doesn't come to the table--you go to it. That's fine, because it gives everyone a chance to chat and say Thank You.

Farewell from the parking lot.

Does you have an Annie Mae's Restaurant? If not, you should definitely find one. Everyone needs somewhere to go to eat bacon, and make plans for world domination.

Garden Madness, Part the Second

2011-06-22T01:27:00.000-04:00

More flowery goodness from the Missouri Botanical Garden's St. Louis Garden Tour...

Here's a story of major contrasts. The first pics are from a woodland garden/wildlife sanctuary that showcases many native plants in a natural setting. I really liked that the house was nice, but not crazy fancy, like so many of the homes on the tour. The homeowners are very committed to sharing what they've built, and even keep small brochures near the garden entrance for year-round visitors.

The second garden. Hmmm. I think one of the docents said it best. "What you are about to see is quite effusive."

Wildlife Sanctuary:

There wasn't a good place to get a big overview because there was almost an acre of landscaped or groomed area. This is a shot off of the deck, looking down onto the herb/perennial garden. It's in the shape of a butterfly's wing.

I loved this little path. It leads to the garden gate (at the top of the shot). There were three boys selling drinks and chips. I bought a small bag of chips for .75. They had drunk the soda from their sample bottle, which was a little odd. If they hadn't asked me if I wanted the .25 change from my dollar, I would've definitely given it to them. (I'm contrary that way.) Still, I admire their enterprising spirit.

How cool is this? It's a kind of clothesline/pulley system for bird feeders. It's anchored to the house. These hang about fifteen feet off of the ground. The owner said she uses safflower instead of black oil sunflower seed because the crows and grackles don't like it. I have mixed feelings--I would probably put out both. I adore the calls of the red wing blackbirds we've had in the neighborhood lately.

Cute photo op.

Sculpture in the butterfly/perennial garden.

This was my favorite highlight. It's hard to see, but there's a mister that sprays out over the pond. The owner said that the hummingbirds love to come and play in the mist. I want one!

And now...the Tropical Paradise. Effusive, indeed.

Out near the drive way.

A peaceful meditation spot, above it all. Restful, yes?

Can't wait until the next tour. In the meantime, definitely visit the Missouri Botanical Garden if you're in St. Louis. Anytime of year. It's not to be missed.

Surreal South 2011: The List

2011-06-17T13:41:00.000-04:00

I can hardly believe that we're working on the third volume of Surreal South: an Anthology of Short Fiction. The series started when a writer/editor at Press 53 asked Pinckney if he'd be interested in writing a craft book for them. When Pinckney told her that he had an idea for a collection of surreal fiction instead, she and Press 53 said we could give it a shot.

Surreal South 2007 submissions were by invitation-only. We weren't trying to be sniffy or exclusive by not opening up submissions--we just didn't really have a good platform for explaining what we were looking for. We begged and borrowed some amazing work for SS '07. It had stories and poetry by heavy-hitters like Robert Olen Butler, William Gay, Joyce Carol Oates, Ron Rash, Andrew Hudgins, Rodney Jones, Daniel Woodrell, Tom Franklin, Lee K. Abbott, Julianna Baggott, and George Singleton. Several talented then-newbies, too, like Ben Percy, Kyle Minor, Ann Pancake, and Brad Vice. Wow--Looking back, we really were damned lucky, weren't we? I'd venture to say that no more than four or five of those people had ever been anthologized together at one time before that volume. Probably because they are such diverse writers that no one would have thought to do it.

If you look at those stories and poems together, it's a pretty good picture of the surreal. Life through a warped looking glass. The impossible and improbable taken as a matter of course. Robots, zombies, murderers, aliens. But the writing has to be exceptional. It has to take its subject seriously--even if there are laughs involved.

With Surreal South 2009, we opened submissions up to anyone. And we got a wide assortment of fiction. Some of it brilliant. Much of it puzzling, and not at all surreal. But we found some real gems, and gave a few people their very first publications. Some of the stories were downright gritty. Most pleasing of all, we had many stories that crossed genres. It was one of our goals in the very beginning to break down genre barriers, and we were getting closer.

Surreal South '11 busts down genre walls. The crime and sci-fi and horror and literary genre stories stand side-by-side as just damned good stories.

Here's the list of contributors:

A.K. Thompson

Alex Lumans

Anne Valente

Anthony Neil Smith

Brad Green

Gregory Wolos

J.T. Ellison

James O’Brien

Jedidiah Ayres

Jim Walke

John Horner Jacobs

John McManus

Josh McCall

Julia Patt

Josh Woods

Laura Benedict

Marilyn Moriarty

Mark Fleming

Michael Kardos

Nik Korpon

Pinckney Benedict

Reuben Hayslett

Robert Busby

Robert Hill Long

Ron Lands

Rose Bunch

Sheryl Monks

Sophie Littlefield

Susan Woodring

Victor Schultz

Surreal South ’11 will be available in print and as an ebook in October. Can’t wait for you to read it. You won’t be disappointed.

And if I might be so bold to suggest...if you want to get a little surreal in the meantime, both Surreal South '07 and '09 are available from Press 53, Amazon, and other fine book purveyors.

Really. I can't wait!

Garden Madness, Part I

2011-06-15T01:33:00.000-04:00

I spent last Sunday with a good friend, visiting gardens that were featured on the Missouri Botanical Gardens' St. Louis Garden Tour 2011. There were eight homes on the tour, and I think we made it to six. We skipped the bus/lunch tour, and drove ourselves. St. Louis is so easy to get around--if you don't mind driving. I mind driving much less than I do climbing on and off buses with people telling me where I can go, and when.

We saw so very much that it would be true madness to try to describe everything. I got some good ideas for my own garden, and discovered some new plants. I now know what purslane looks like, and that a Ming Aralia is a house plant, and not a kind of dwarf Japanese Maple.

I also learned that some gardeners don't know when to stop. Annuals are lovely, but can be visual weapons when used by intemperate gardeners. And how people find the time to fill all those little pots, and then water them, I'll never know.

Let's skip the verbiage and get on to the photos...

Beyond this door lay a mad effusion of life. Of greenery and blooms. Made me a little dizzy, but it was quite lush.

This was a stunning contrast to the first garden...The docent mentioned that the tiny boxwoods are snipped weekly.

The theme of this garden was Southern Charm. One of the most amazing facts about it was that the home was only eleven years old, but had been designed/decorated to seem much older. I would've made some different choices, but it was gracious, overall.

Loved this:

Herbs:

Sweet:

Now, this place kind of freaked me out. It was so enormous and well-planned, that I guessed that it was a business right off--but it was also obviously a labor of love. The Yoga Garden was so huge--covering an acre or more--that there was no way I could give you a sense of the whole area with a single camera shot. Here are some details:

Part II later this week. xo

In the Handbasket: Anthony Neil Smith

2011-06-11T08:00:00.004-04:00

Whenever I correspond or tweet with writer Anthony Neil Smith, I feel like I need to man up. I find myself peppering my communications with words like "damn" and "Dude!" and "ammo." I also start craving good scotch, neat, and wonder if I'd be good at smoking unfiltered Camels.

Smith's five novels and ubiquitous short stories are not for the timid. Comparisons are useful, yes? Maybe Charlie Huston, Jim Thompson with a smidge of Chris Bojalian thrown in. Okay, I was kidding about Chris Bojalian--let's go with Larry Brown. I'm most familiar with Smith's two Billy Lafitte books, Yellow Medicine, and Hogdoggin'. Also, a stand-alone called Choke on Your Lies. All are crime-ridden and slick with prose that rarely has an awkward moment. Smith's characters are very poor decision makers and tend to solve their problems with weapons, flight, or good, old-fashioned blackmail. But there's something strangely...endearing about them. I think maybe that last quality comes directly from the man himself.
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Q: When did you first realize that Jim Thompson had taken up residence in your brain? There's a lot of praiseworthy, literary-flavored flesh on the bones of your prose of the kind that Thompson had no time for, but the soul is there. What other voices/influences come through for you?

A: I read in [Robert] Polito's bio of Thompson (Savage Art) that Thompson was kind of squeamish and didn't like blood or violence so much. And yet he posed as corpses for the "true crime" stories he was writing (all made up, of course). That turned a switch in me and made me look at Thompson differently. I think about the opening of The Grifters, where the guy gets poked in the stomach with a broom handle (right?) and carries the pain for a while. I prefer that to the eternally beaten yet unharmed hero. I like my characters to feel the fear regular people would feel in such wild situations.

I think I'm also channeling Chester Himes, James Ellroy, and--more often than not recently--James Lee Burke. And floating above them all is Flannery O'Connor.

Q: I love that Billy Lafitte starts out as a sheriff's deputy in Yellow Medicine. Tell us a little bit about Billy's slide into corruption and near-madness, and why it makes a good story? How thin is the line between being a cop and a criminal?

A: After watching The Shield, my only complaint (because it was brilliant all the way through) was that Mackey's money issues were all driven by the great love of his kids. So none of his villainy from that angle seemed "selfish" enough. It gave us a reason to cheer him on. So I wanted to have a bad cop cut loose from that sort of responsibility and see what happened. Turned out the family aspect was a lot more important as the book (and Hogdoggin') went on, but that was the original idea.

Also, having moved from the Gulf Coast to Minnesota, my first few months were, well...hate filled? The landscape, the atmosphere, the personalities, all of it was a clash. So in channeling that anger and frustration into a character who had some power to do something about it, I enjoyed a respite from my surroundings and lived vicariously through Lafitte.

Since then, I've come to love Minnesota, especially since my wife (a Minnesotan) showed me around the state, all the stuff I hadn't seen those first few months. And there's a beauty to the cold, bleak starkness, too.

Q: Will there be a third Billy Lafitte novel anytime soon?

A: I'd love to have a draft done by year's end. It's in progress, and it's due to the e-book sales that I felt confident enough to pick it up again. I always write myself into a corner with Lafitte, so the fun of each one is to get out of the corner. Having fun with it.

Q: So, Choke on Your Lies. It's a story of a friendship, really--a twisted sort of friendship between an angsty academic who has a cheating wife, and a zaftig lawyer with bad habits and a hearty appetite. And not only is Mick, the protagonist, an academic, but he seems to spend a lot of time weeping. What's up with that? After Billy Lafitte, he was a bit of a shock.

A: It took a while to find the right voice for Mick. I originally tried a less "wussy" sort, but it didn't work. I finally had to embrace something I didn't want to do because it was something I wouldn't normally read: I had to make him a writer and an academic. I still wouldn't write about a fiction writer (I just can't stand fiction writer protags), but by making him a professor, it was cutting close to home.

I also wanted his character to be self-centered, very conscious if his "image", kind of too in touch with his emotions, but it's kind of a front. He knows he's exploiting himself and the people in his life for his "art".

It's Octavia who keeps him in check and makes him face reality. I'd like to think they need each other to help curtail each others' bad habits, but they're so lustful that really they just keep each other ashamed of those habits instead.

Q: As both a crime writer and creative writing prof., where are you most comfortable--the bar at Bouchercon, or hanging around panels at the annual AWP conference?

A: Bouchercon. Something about the "hipster" vibe I see in the literary/academic world doesn't jive with me so much, even tough I really love writing programs and I love directing the undergrad one here at Southwest Minnesota State (and, yes, I do enjoy hipster MFA things like nerd glasses and 80's nostalgia). Very few panels at either conference really sound that intriguing any more, having heard a bit too much of it. But even fewer at AWP get to me because they seem to overanalyze writing to the point of sucking the enjoyment out of the process. I don't get that same feeling from workshops, which I enjoy, but the panels feel a bit...navelgazing. At least at the bar at Bouchercon, the conversations tend to be sunnier (although all the authors write about crime and death) and more engaging. Says me. But I'm an outsider. I guess the table full of hipsters laughing and talking ironically about music are having a great time, so I should shut up.

Q: Lots of mystery, crime, thriller, and other genre writers complain they get the cold shoulder from the academy--and I confess I've faced rooms full of academics who put on polite, frozen smiles when I get up to read. And there seems to be a marked difference between what most creative writing programs are teaching and what their students are interested in writing (and reading). What's your teaching approach?

A: Well, I take the tact I heard from Tod Goldberg about MFA grads: Do you want to be a working writer or an enlightened barista? I think if you teach writers a strong foundation of solid literary techniques, it will raise the standard of any genre in which they choose to write. The push towards literary fiction as the only genre worthy of graduate writing programs has really put a lot of new American fiction and poetry in a box that seems less interesting to the mainstream, and instead is only read by other writers. Any sneering at genre labels comes off to me, now, as a bad business decision. So if you want to write "art" for a limited audience, go right ahead. I applaud that as much as I do my students who want to write sci-fi and fantasy. They're going to write some great stuff, too, for a different audience. So I've let down my guard and I allow genre work in the classroom because I realized that you can lead students towards literary skills by getting them excited about the journey rather than sending them down the yellow brick road with their ankles chained together.

Q: Now that you have--or are about to have--your entire backlist available as ebooks, tell us what the learning curve was like for you. Do you have professional help for formatting, etc? Was your move into the ebook universe a jump, or a shove?

A: No pro formatting. I read the style guides, messed around, trial and error, and now I think they look pretty good. Kindle doesn't allow you to mess around with fonts, but thankfully the one they use is gorgeous. Same with Nook. And I recruited a couple of artists to help with covers (Erik Lundy and Ben Springer) after putting together the one for Choke on Your Lies on my own after discovering the lovely Erin Zerbe on Flickr.

Thanks to the experience my agent Allan Guthrie has in selling his two novellas online, I had a lot of advice and guidance as I got rolling. So I'm glad I figured it out fairly easily.

It was a shove, I'm embarrassed to say. Now that I have a Kindle and I love reading from it, I wonder why I ever would've pushed it away. And I use it as a discovery engine for new writers more than I do as a replacement for paperbacks. I don't get why publishers are kind of dumb about ebook pricing. They're missing out on a grand new market and they need to catch up. Meanwhile, I'm finding the next big things selling books for 99 cents or 2.99.

Q: I read in Victor Gischler's terrific May 1 interview with you that you're simultaneously shopping a new novel with traditional publishers. Is this the future? A combination of traditional publishing methods and direct, writer-to-reader content?

A: I still like publishers. I like the branding you see from good imprints, and the support (cough, cough) they give their writers. I like that they earn the book some automatic respect simply by choosing it, causing some readers to feel comfortable enough to take the monetary risk of paying 15 to 20 (to 30 these days) bucks on a book. And I would love a broader audience, because as a storyteller, I want people to get excited from listening to my stories. That's why I keep telling more stories. So I have no problem with writing some books and trying publishers, while taking some other work directly to the ereader market. Different stories, different audiences.

Q: I saw in a video of your day (here) that you sport a very impressive C-Pap mask for sleeping. My husband, Pinckney Benedict, started using one about four years ago and it changed his life. During his sleep test, they said he was getting about 8.5 minutes of actual sleep a night. For years, he had lived in a sort of waking dream. Are you conscious of your dream life affecting your writing?

A: Not so much. I do remember my dreams a bit better, and they're usually a blend of TV shows with my own life with the feeling of being trapped in an airport and never getting to the gate. I think dreaming is just the brain using stuff for "practice". So it's all random.

The C-PAP did change my life for the better. I can sleep, feel rested, and it helps me feel an energy that I had lost for a while. I can conduct that energy into new projects and stop falling asleep at my desk at 3:30.

Q: Do you see yourself leaving Minnesota and returning to live on the Mississippi Gulf Coast someday? Does living so far away make it more vivid in your imagination?

A: I really don't. If I have my way, I'll retire to Duluth's North Shore. I like it here. The Gulf Coast is home, and New Orleans still rings with romance, but I feel like my hometown is eroding away, uncared for by its residents or officials. The only reason I go back is to see my grandmother, sister, and uncle. The rest of my family lives right outside New Orleans now. So it's a bit sad, really. The Coast still has a lot going for it, especially in Biloxi and Gulfport, which are beautiful, but I don't feel as connected any more after nine years away. But the memories I have still fire up story ideas that might come into play later.

Q: What's up with the venerable Plots With Guns?

A: Still going strong, but under a new captain. I "promoted" myself to publisher, meaning I pay for the site and I get final veto power, but I wanted some strong new hands to choose the future direction for the work and for the art. I can just loll around like Hugh Hefner now in my smoking jacket. Sean O'Kane, formerly of Murdaland and still with Out of the Gutter Books, agreed to come aboard as editor, and Erik Lundy, a fine writer and the artist behind the Yellow Medicine andHogdoggin' ecovers, is tackling the art and layout. So I'm excited to see their first full issue later this summer.

Q: What's next for you? Will you be wandering out of Minnesota anytime soon to meet your adoring fans? (Please say, yes!)

A: Italian publisher Meridiano Zero is publishing Yellow Medicine this month (translated by Luca Conti), and I've been invited to a "blues and noir" festival. Yep. Music and lit together. So that's late in June. After that, planning to hit B'con in St. Louis this fall, and AWP next winter. I get back to the classroom this Fall after a sabbatical break over the winter and spring. Looking forward to it. But for most of my mornings, I'll be holed up here in the office, banging out the next novel, whatever it may be.

Thanks!

Thank, you, Neil! Loved having you here.

Dearest readers, You will love getting to know Neil's work. Here's a link to his killer blog, Herman's Greasy Spoon. And here's a link to his Amazon page, where you can get a whole lot of A.N. Smith e-goodness for .99 each. Would I sound like a shill if I told you that this is seriously kick-ass, quality crime writing? Trust me. Okay?

A gratuitous pic, just because he said I could use any pic I wanted.

The Critic Inside Me (or, How My Life Changed In a Day)

2011-06-09T02:18:00.001-04:00

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You already know what a sucker I am for Twitter. These past couple of weeks I've been pretty plugged in to the hivemind. Not sure why--it's just one of those seasons. Riding that wave of uncomplicated, virtual friendship and instant gratification feeds something inside me. Not always, but often. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I spend hours and hours alone each day, my own thoughts echoing inside my head. Perhaps it's that so many people I've come to admire--both in person and online--are there. So many of them make me laugh. Or think. I end up feeling less...alone.

My online self goes for the laugh much more often than the in-person me. I'm bolder, and much less reserved. Borderline professional, but I'm in a business where it's okay to push boundaries. I feel safe--like I'm on one end of a telephone, with thousands of miles between me and the listener.

So, I had this idea. I was high on it for a whole day. (I know I'm serious about an idea if I can contemplate it for more than half a day--it's the ADHD thing. If I make it more than three days, it's probably a novel.)

I've always wanted to do an anonymous blog or Twitter account. I considered doing one for the often-bizarre things Bengal (11) says. Or one for the cat. Or 140 character book reviews--maybe even 7-word book reviews. I did a Twitter account for Wardrobe by Sam. I think it's even still out there. But I gave it up after a few posts because I found it nearly impossible to figure out who might eventually follow it.

But @thecriticinsideme would be different.

Every one of us has a the voice of a critic inside us. (If you don't, you're probably one of these and have a whole other kind of voice in your head.) I don't just mean us as in writers, who have internal editors, either. We all have that nasty little voice inside that goes way beyond conscience. Beyond that which keeps us from violating the Social Contract left and right. I mean the voice that's made up of dozens, if not hundreds of voices: A critical parent or grandparent, a cruel sibling, a know-it-all aunt or uncle, a teacher who told you you would never amount to anything, the pastor's wife who told you that you wore too much makeup, the jerk on the school bus who made fun of your eyeglasses every day. Voices that touched the vulnerable parts of you--the parts you weren't able to protect. Voices that made you feel undeserving, and certainly not treasured.

Or maybe it's just me?

Despite years of hearing people--including therapists--tell me to shut down that collective voice and to not listen to it, I've held onto mine. Not so tightly as I used to, but tightly enough. It's with me every day. And I figured that I might as well make use of it. It's just there. Waiting.

How witty that voice could be! Not so much in a bon mots over cocktails sort of way, but in a let's-be-mean-to-the-dork way. If you tweet, you've probably noticed how incredibly mean some people are. It's always open season on pundits, journalists, celebrities. Even dumb criminals. Many, many people find sport in throwing barbs from a distance. And if they don't engage in it, they'll often stand by, paying an embarrassed sort of attention.

I envisioned myself mocking the ten pounds I've put on over the last year-and-a-half. Muffin tops are always good for a laugh. So are wrinkles. Wrinkles are such horrible things that people who have them often endure painful chemical peels to make them seem to disappear for a couple of weeks. And my pathetic organizational skills? My general inability to arrive anywhere on time is legendary in certain circles. There's perimenopause--I can feel myself gravitating toward purple caftans like a moth to flames. Also, I need to comment on my writing habits, my lack of self-discipline, my tendency to over write and obsessively edit. There's no end to the material.

Hey! Want some butter for those muffin tops? #fatass

6:30. You think dinner's going to make itself? #carryoutagain #worstmotherever

You let the boy watch television for 8 freaking hours?! #theregoesharvard #couchpotato

Doesn't that sound like fun? I'd probably get some followers just because it's a novel idea. If I got really personal, I'd get even more. People love a train wreck. I love the rush of immediate interaction and affirmation that social media offers. It's the same kind of rush whether the interaction is positive or negative.

Then, after a single, seemingly-unrelated conversation with a friend who is a victim of domestic abuse, I dropped the idea. Forever.

For decades, my friend has been living with a man who may or may not be a clinical sociopath. She had no idea that the twisted image of herself that he reflected back to her didn't reflect any sort of reality. He eroded her sense of self worth with agonizing slowness, until she completely lost sight of herself. She was good at hiding his abuse from others. She was no wilting flower. She has always exuded an air of extreme competence and laser-brilliant intelligence. But when she took the first steps to get away from him, and told me how he'd made her feel inside, I was stunned--not just at the entire situation, but at the enormous power of his lies.

He had told her, repeatedly, that she was foolish, forgetful, irresponsible, careless, stupid, unattractive, and clumsy. I'm sure there was plenty more, but you get the gist. He tore her down at every possible opportunity. He made a thorough job of it, too.

I think that when I told her that this man was--literally--the only person on the planet who saw her that way, it really shocked her. He had planted a world of self-doubt inside her. In fact, he had created a world in which he could seem to prove that these things were true. But none of it was real.

She's an amazing, brilliant, lovely, competent, loving, generous, creative person. She always has been. She is in a horribly dangerous situation, but she's handling it very, very well. Prayers are in order, if you're a praying sort. She would like that.

What does real-life, life-and-death situation have to do with my vain little twitter project?

It was a combination of my understanding that he had created an entirely false reality for her with his criticism, and her reaction to some random, self-denigrating complaint I made about myself.

One thing about women friends: they can really be there for a girl. Good ones will call bullshit on self-deception--sometimes in a kind way, but almost always in an honest way. They are excellent cheerleaders. Not because they're Pollyannas, but because they genuinely want their friends to do well, be safe, and be happy. So, when she heard me dissing me, she told me to shut it down. She said the nice things that I should've been saying to myself.

Why is it that the negative voices have such power over us, but the positive voices so often languish, unappreciated?

I suddenly saw the negative voices in my head as though they belonged to someone who wanted me to fail, wanted me to stumble, wanted me to look foolish, wanted me to think I was dumb.

I had to finally look at myself and say, "Hey. The empirical evidence--on the balance--says otherwise."

The way I feel about myself and my life has been radically changed for the better. And it seemed to happen in a day. (I'll probably start a series of mysteries involving chipmunks and a catering service. No one will die--just mysteries about cute little critters!)

Why in the world would I want to give voice to something that treats me like--for want of a more appropriate word--shit? I was about to lay out my insecurities for others' entertainment. Now, that actually would be a dumb thing to do. That voice doesn't speak the truth any more than the man who tortured my friend did.

I'm excited about the future. (And I was kidding about the chipmunks. I promise.)

We're not kids, but I think this list of--what? axioms?--is something that grown ups should keep in mind for themselves and the people around them, too:

Children Learn What They Live

If a child lives with criticism, he learns to condemn . . .
If a child lives with hostility, he learns to fight . . .
If a child lives with fear, he learns to be apprehensive . . .
If a child lives with pity, he learns to feel sorry for himself . . .
If a child lives with ridicule, he learns to be shy . . .
If a child lives with jealousy, he learns to feel guilt . . .

BUT

If a child lives with tolerance, he learns to be patient . . .
If a child lives with encouragement, he learns to be confident . . .
If a child lives with praise, he learns to be appreciative . . .
If a child lives with acceptance, he learns to love . .
If children live with approval, they learn to like themselves..
If a child lives with honesty, he learns what truth is . . .
If a child lives with fairness, he learns justice . . .
If children live with recognition, they learn to have a goal.
If children live with sharing, they learn to be generous.
If a child lives with security, he learns to have faith in himself and those about him . . .
If a child lives with friendliness, he learns the world is a nice place in which to live . . .

In the Handbasket: D.P. Lyle

2011-06-04T07:30:00.001-04:00

You know how there are some people that you meet, and instantly like? I met D.P. Lyle at my first Thrillerfest back in 2007, if I recall correctly. I had stars in my eyes and was incredibly goofy throughout the whole conference. But Doug is one of those smart, confident people who makes a person--fan or fellow writer-- feel immediately comfortable.

When I learned that there were two new D.P. Lyle novels coming out this month, I wanted to hear all about them. Particularly since one of the novels is the first in the Royal Pains series, a tie-in to the USA Network television program.

D.P. Lyle is not just a writer. He's been a practicing cardiologist for three decades, and has combined his medical expertise to write not only thrillers, but a number of award-winning books on forensics for writers and the morbidly curious. (I qualify as both.) You can read about his workshops, appearances, t.v. consulting and all the other cool things he's done at his website. Be sure to follow his Writer's Forensics blog, too, where he takes on fascinating and newsworthy forensics topics and often answers some pretty wild questions submitted by writers and readers.

__________

Welcome, Doug!

Q: Since this is your first visit to the blog, I'd love for you to tell us how a nice physician like you got involved in the shady business of crime writing.

A: I grew up telling stories as does everyone in the South. You have to tell stories. It’s part of the culture. Whether sitting around a checkerboard, a country stove, a campfire, or the breakfast table, stories are part of everyone’s life down there. So I always enjoyed a good yarn. I also felt that I had stories I wanted to tell, and I said that when I retired that I would write. Or see if I could. But approximately 15 years ago I basically said: If not now, when? I took some classes at the University of California, Irvine, and joined a couple of writing groups and began to write. Crime fiction was a natural simply because I like crime stories.

Q: Do you prefer writing one genre--fiction or non-fiction--over the other?

A: I like both. They are similar, but different. In nonfiction you must gather all the facts, do all your research, organize your thoughts, and then put the manuscript together. With fiction I think it’s the exact opposite. You first have a story in mind which you mull over for days or weeks or months, and then you do a little research, but basically you start writing the story. The story is paramount. At least for me, I will then do research as I go along. If I run across some information that I need for the plot or for a particular scene, I’ll jump in and do some research on that topic, and then go on with the story. The Internet has made that so much easier than traipsing off to the library and digging through catalogs and bookshelves.

Of the two, however, I think I like fiction writing best. It allows your imagination to take off, and I find it very satisfying to create a new plot or scene. There’s nothing quite like that feeling when you know you’ve written a scene that just works.

Q: When it comes to First, Do No Harm, the first novelization of a Royal Pains story, I know readers and writers alike will want to know how you came to be chosen for the gig. Was there a writing/audition process?

A: I have to blame my good friend Lee Goldberg for this. As you know, Lee writes the Diagnosis Murder and Monk novels. His brother Tod writes the Burn Notice novels and his partner Bill Rabkin writes the Psych novels. These are called tie-in novels because they are tied to a television series.

Penguin approached Lee about taking on the Royal Pains project, but he told them he was probably not the guy to do it but that I might be. He recommended me to them. So that’s basically how it began. After I spoke with my wonderful editor there, Sandy Harding, and my equally wonderful agent, Kimberly Cameron, I finally decided to sign a two book deal with them.

Q: Royal Pains is such a fun television series. Were you a fan, first? You've done a terrific job with the characters' voices in First, Do No Harm--particularly Divya's. Does it help to have live actors as models for the characters that you're writing?

A: Thank you. I’m glad you liked the characters and the story. Yes, I watched the TV show before I was ever approached to write the novels. Though I have problems with some of the medical stuff that Hank does–couldn’t happen in the real world–I really enjoyed the characters and their interaction. I liked the humor and I liked the other characters that surround the four main ones. And I thought it was an interesting premise.

As for having live actors as models, it’s a double-edged sword. I have these characters that are already created and so therefore I don’t have to come up with new characters out of whole cloth. But, it also means that I can’t tinker with them or take them in directions that I would like. You are constrained by the creators and the TV series as to what you can and cannot do. But overall it was fun.

Q: How real is the business of concierge medicine? Does it exist only in the enclaves of the wealthy, like The Hamptons?

A: Absolutely concierge medicine is alive and well. Here in Orange County, California, I have several friends who do that type of medicine and really enjoy it. Can’t see myself doing it, but it is a viable form of medical practice.

Q: Since I was able to read First, Do No Harm and Hot Lights, Cold Steel, the new Dub Walker novel, in quick succession, I was struck by the difference in writing styles. How do you shift gears from one style to the other?

A: Royal Pains is a comedy/drama based on a TV series. By definition, the stories had to be light, funny, and follow the series. I found the writing flowed very easily and the stories were much easier to create than the more convoluted plot lines required for a thriller. Once you get the story rolling, it almost tells itself.

Stories like Hot Lights, Cold Steel are what I enjoy writing most. It’s dark, it’s complex, it has some really, really bad guys, and hopefully has suspense from beginning to end. There is humor but it’s not the lighthearted humor that is seen in Royal Pains.

So, yes, the two writing styles are very different, and are intentionally so. One of the reasons that I agreed to do the Royal Pains stories was to learn a new style of writing. Another arrow in the quiver. I think writing different types of books helps make you a better writer, and I think that the voice and the style must fit the story. I also believe that writing different styles helps each of your styles become stronger. There are things that bleed over from one type of story to the other.

Q: Dub Walker is a character of many talents. Does he have any character traits that you'd like to steal for yourself? What have you learned about him since writing your first book in the series, Stress Fracture?

A: Dub and I are a lot alike and yet different. We both believe in truth, justice, and the American way. Like me, Dub does not like to see the bad guys get away with it, particularly if they are arrogant, greedy, and amoral. He has the ability to focus on the problem and relentlessly pursue it. But I think most physicians are that way and, while not a physician himself, Dub almost completed medical school, so he has that knowledge, and many of those traits.

Not only has Dub grown during these first two books and will do so in the third, which I have just finished–titled Run To Ground–but also the other main characters, Claire McBride and T-Tommy Tortelli, have evolved through the stories. Not a lot, since they are series characters, but they at least are exposed to different challenges, and different situations in each story. I’ve really enjoyed writing these stories, and I love all three of these characters.

Q:   Without getting into spoilers, I was blown away by the--shall we say--mechanism behind the murders in Hot Lights, Cold Steel. It has a science-fiction feel to it. What links do you see between fiction/science fiction of the past and current medical science?

A:   I’m definitely not the first person to say this, but current science fiction predicts future science fact. World literature is replete with examples, with, of course, the great Jules Verne being the classic example. He sent men to the moon and launched them from the East Coast of Florida. He sent a man around the world in a balloon. He found mysterious islands that were unknown before. All of these things happened after Mr. Verne showed us the way.

The science in Hot Lights, Cold Steel is indeed futuristic. Though many of the devices and procedures used in the story do exist today, in this story the envelope was pushed down the road a bit. Everything that happens in the story will happen someday. And that day is probably not too far in the future.

Q:   I noticed that your second Royal Pains novel is scheduled for this coming January. That's two books in one year. Plus, you have your Dub Walker novels and non-fiction work. Tell me about your writing process. How in the world do you tackle such an aggressive schedule?

A: The simple answer is that I have cats so I don’t sleep much. The truth is that when I practiced full-time as a cardiologist, I averaged working 80 or so hours a week. Either working or on call. One thing about cardiology is that if you’re on call you're up and running around to emergency rooms and intensive care units. It’s just the nature of the practice. So I was used to long hours. Now that I only practice part-time, and only do office work, I have a lot of free time. But that’s taken up with writing and I have found that I still spend 80 or so hours a week either with my medical practice or with writing.

It’s true that the second Royal Pains novel will be out in January. Fortunately it is completed and we are just beginning the editorial process. I have also completed the next Dub Walker novel, and my agent is looking at it now. I’ll run back through it again, and then send it off to the publisher. I also have a third question-and-answer book coming out in January. It is completed, and we are just now beginning the editorial process for that. In addition I am now creating another Samantha Cody novel in order to resurrect that series. It’s partially written and hopefully will be completed in another few months.

Q: In addition to writing, I know you spend a lot of time teaching forensic and craft classes for writers. Where will you be in the coming months?

A: I go to many writing conferences mainly to see wonderful people like you, and our other fellow writers. But of the many hats I wear, by far the one I enjoy the most is teacher. I love it. My older sister was a teacher for 30 years, and just recently retired. I have always loved school, either as a student or as a teacher, and right now I love teaching writers about forensic science, and about how to put a thriller together.

I have my two favorite conferences of the year coming up in July. The first is ThrillerFest in New York. I think that’s the best big conference each year. The two days prior to ThrillerFest we put on a craft school called CraftFest. I have been the director of the school since it started six years ago. We have an incredible cadre of teachers each year that come and offer their knowledge to writers. This year we have Ken Follett, Steve Berry, Michael Palmer, Gayle Lynds, Andy Gross, Hallie Ephron, and so many others.

Two weeks after that is my favorite small conference each year: Book Passage Mystery Writers Conference at the Book Passage Bookstore in Corte Madera, California. This is an excellent conference that is very craft oriented. It is put on each year by the wonderful people at Book Passage, and Sheldon Siegel and Jackie Winspear. Again a group of talented teachers come each year, and I’ve been fortunate enough to be a part of the faculty for the past several years. Anyone who is interested in either of these can go to my website and look under the Events Link to find the details for these conferences.

Thanks so much, Doug. I knew this would be an amazing interview! I've linked to the Kindle versions of the Samantha Cody novels on Amazon.com. One of the brilliant things about the ebook revolution is the way writers can keep their books alive for readers, and even give beloved characters fresh, new life.

Dearest readers--I'm also proud to say that D.P. Lyle, M.J. Rose, and I, plus many of your other favorite mystery and thriller writers, have essays in the Edgar and Anthony Awards-nominated anthology, Thrillers:100 Must Reads, edited by David Morrell and Hank Wagner. Check it out here.

Review: The Hypnotist by M.J. Rose

2011-05-31T06:00:00.002-04:00

I find it tough to review thrillers because, frankly, there often isn't much beyond an enticing, exciting plot to review. Thrillers tell fast-moving stories in which the hero/heroine is caught up in events that throw his or her life out of control. The trick for the thriller writer is to make the protagonist interesting and compelling enough to follow through the story--without hampering the action. Character development is often less crucial to the story than setting and plot development. I should probably say what I'm about to say more than once so I'm not misunderstood: This isn't a criticism of thrillers. I enjoy thrillers just as I enjoy traditional mysteries and the occasional sex-soaked erotic novel. A novel doesn't have to be a National Book Award winner to be a good read.

When I was offered the opportunity to review The Hypnotist, M.J. Rose's genre-blend of a thriller, I accepted it immediately. Rose honed her writing skills through a long line of popular erotic thrillers before publishing The Reincarnationist--a Dan Brown-style thriller with plenty of historical content--in 2007. I should note here that I only got ten pages into the DaVinci Code before throwing it against the wall. The plot, I hear, is brilliant, but I couldn't get past the amateurish prose. (Didn't see the film, either.) There's nothing amateurish about Rose's prose, and one of its most compelling qualities is its thorough character development.

The Hypnotist opens with a flashback--always a risky proposition, but one that works here--of a young Lucian Glass discovering that his girlfriend, Solange Jacobs, has been brutally attacked in her father's art gallery during a robbery. Twenty years later, in the novel's present action, Glass is forced to relive the trauma of Solange's death when the Matisse painting that was stolen in the robbery shows up--in tatters--at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. While Glass's emotional journey is at the heart of The Hypnotist, the plot is driven by the mystery surrounding an ancient Chrystelephantine sculpture of Hypnos, the Greek god of sleep. Hypnos is not only a valuable piece of art and culture, but may be one of the keys to a coveted set of Memory Tools--objects which ostensibly give a person access to their past lives. The custody battle between the museum, which claims ownership of the sculpture, and the Iranian government turns deadly when the Iranians decide that their best chance to acquire it is by terrorist means. Perhaps I've made the plot sound simple. It is not. Rose also covers an enormous amount of territory here--including the past-life regressions of both Lucian and a young girl named Veronica. Their stories are critical to the novel's violent, extensive denouement.

Rose is masterful at character creation, and the extensive cast of characters in The Hypnotist is one of the novel's greatest strengths. Unlike many lesser thriller authors, Rose creates characters whose personalities are able to drive a novel's action forward. In The Hypnotist, I was particularly drawn to Ali Samimi, an Iranian heavily involved in the not-so-legal plot to acquire Hypnos; he strains at and then slowly destroys the bonds securing him to his Iranian bosses. Samimi is one of those characters who looks much like an ancillary character, but creates decisive movement in the story. I wanted more of this man whose primary goal in life is "to find a way to stay in America." Samimi's every action is precisely aimed at that goal, resulting in some satisfyingly surprising plot developments. Somewhat less compelling is Emeline, who becomes Lucian Glass's love interest. Glass is intensely attracted to her, but he's not sure if it's because of who she is, or who she might be--the reincarnation of Solange. So many of Emeline's mannerisms and actions are like Solange's that her very existence plunges Glass into a constant state of emotional chaos. For reasons that become obvious near the end of the novel, Rose keeps much of Emeline's character hidden from the reader, but that didn't keep me from wanting to know more about her early in the novel.

From the ancient Middle East to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to Vienna and Los Angeles, Rose rarely lets the action rest. The story makes enormous jumps in the time it takes to turn a page. Distractible readers might find the many threads tough to follow, and with some four hundred pages to work with, Rose is able to take her time weaving those threads together. I confess that even I was initially a tad overwhelmed by The Hypnotist's sprawling plot. The story of how Hypnos arrived at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is a complicated one, and the history of the search for the Memory Tools is similarly complex. But the histories--though fabricated--are thorough. Rose has done her homework. My guess is that most readers who pick up such a hefty book will be not only ready for The Hypnotist's complexity, but will be grateful for it. There are plenty of plot surprises here. Some are even flat-out jaw-dropping, and delightfully over-the-top.

One of the staples of a high-profile thriller like The Hypnotist is a guarantee of beautiful people in beautiful places. What could be more glamorous than precious art, or the mysterious reincarnation of a lovely young woman? Lucian Glass is handsome, the child, Veronica, is bright and charming, the old men are authentically craggy. Much of the action takes place in the august Metropolitan Museum of Art, in the plush confines of the Iranians' "opulent" New York mission, or in the elegant rooms of a gargoyle-trimmed mansion. Even the dusty cavern where Hypnos begins its centuries-long journey has an exotic patina.

The Hypnotist is the third novel in The Reincarnationist series. It's often difficult to immerse oneself in a new series novel when one hasn't read previous installments in the series, but The Hypnotist--after a few slender reminders that the major players are Dr. Malachai Samuels of the Phoenix Foundation, which attempts to explore past-life regression through its hypnosis work with children, F.B.I agent Lucian Glass of the Art Crime Team, and the list of ancient Memory Tools that everyone seems to want--functions well as a standalone thriller.

Not to be sexist, but I think it's fair to say that the internationally-themed thriller business is dominated by men. It's refreshing to see Rose's work get the publishing exposure it deserves. Above, I referred to The Hypnotist as a genre-blend thriller. But maybe that's not a fair description. Perhaps The Hypnotist shouldn't be described as any sort of thriller...perhaps it's just a good book.

You can visit M.J. Rose at her website, or check out The Hypnotist here.

Cat in a Handbasket.

2011-05-30T23:11:00.001-04:00

The wonderful J.T. Ellison sent me the link to this perfect Handbasket pic on icanhascheezburger.com. I think we have a new mascot!

Shiny Object Saturday: Canon EOS Rebel T3i 600D

2011-05-28T13:52:00.000-04:00

My first SLR camera was a Pentax ZX-30 film camera. I put it away about six or seven years ago when it needed servicing, and picked up an inexpensive digital snapshot camera because I was mostly just taking random pictures of my kids. Since then I've had a progression of nice-enough digital cameras, but I confess that the jones for an SLR--this time digital--refused to abate.

Then came Mother's Day. I nearly burst into tears when I opened my gift from P: a Canon EOS Rebel T3i 600D.

I have so much to learn about this camera. For the time being, I'm incredibly grateful that it's relatively dummy-proof. I can set it on Automatic and it makes gorgeous pics. The portrait, detail, landscape, etc. modes are easy to use, too.

Here are some of my first pics:

Nora and I discovered this wonderful little cafe, Bizalion's, when she first started college in Great Barrington, MA. Baguettes to die for, yummy cheeses, gourmet groceries.

Wonderful things in the Wonderful Things shop in Great Barrington. They have room after room of yarn, knitting, crochet, and felting materials, books, and local handcrafts.

The owner told us that the store cat is 23 years old, but we found that hard to believe. He was incredibly lithe and well-toned. Purred like a steam engine.

I love this snapshot. Two beautiful women--Nora's friend, Fiona, and Fiona's mom, Mary. It was a gray, but dry day at graduation. Perfect for taking pictures.

You know how much I love my garden. This spiderwort didn't fare very well last year. It's recovered nicely, don't you think? This pic is like a little flower portrait.

Taken in my herb garden. The way the planter and flowers jump out here is awkward, and there's no composition at all going on, I know. The pansies won't last much longer because the days are starting (finally!) to get quite warm.

Eggs from my friend Claudia Rendleman's chickens. Took this indoors, mid-morning. No flash. I adore the colors. So Martha Stewart-ish.

Two more shots from Claudia's farm. I could have taken pictures all day. The second is a playhouse that the kids were using for a water gun fort.

I can't tell you how many times I shot this same fountain gargoyle/dragon thingy at Castle Park. I find it fascinating.

Yes, there's so very much to learn! The T3i 600D is also an amazing video camera. I haven't shot much video, but folks who talk about it online really seem to like it. There are a ton of youtube reviews. I've watched a few. I discovered today that I can adjust the fancy extended screen so that it folds into the back of the camera instead of sticking out. I call that progress.

One thing I'm looking forward too: using more of my own photos on the blog. I do use some stock photos, but I feel so icky when I use people's photos from the web--I always credit the link, but who knows what the chain of ownership is.

More as I learn...

I Want to Know: What the Hell is a Hipster?

2011-05-19T00:44:00.000-04:00

I just accidentally followed my own blog. Can I have a #facepalm, please?

On to the point at hand...

What the hell is a hipster?

My daughter tells me that a hipster is basically someone who is anti-anything that is considered cool by the culture at large. They include old hippies, young, under-employed urbanites, and people who drive rusting, authentically uncool cars that have cache (a woody? a Pacer? what?). People who don't bathe very often. They apparently try to appear like they're not trying. But they're definitely not preppy people. Do I have that right?

I just saw a Pinterest pic of a sweet little girl with the caption: "AH! hipster bangs!" What can this mean? The child's bangs are quirky and appealing, and not overstyled. Yet they are somewhat styled. Her tiny shirt has a pseudo-vintage look. I can't recall any fashion time period when a child would have worn something similar. Ruffles, yes. Waffle weave, no. Maybe pseudo-vintage is the key phrase here. I see nostalgia. I see charm. I see simplicity. Perhaps we are all craving simpler times--times which, ironically enough, probably never existed.

When I imagine a hipster, why do I keep thinking of Mother In Law #2, who had scads of money and a lovely house, but always went to the laundromat to do the family laundry? She also wore canvas shoes and an unruly, but sensible haircut.

Would Beatrix Potter have been a Victorian hipster? How long before we see a Beatrix Potter steampunk novel or film? Really, she would be perfect. Animals would all be mechanical. (I call dibs on this idea, right here, right now!)

Trying to figure this out makes my brain hurt.

On to Google.

Here's a link to something called The Hipster Handbook. It suggests that hipsters are young urbanites who disdain the mainstream. But it was released way back in 2003. Really? Have I been completely asleep for eight years? (As a parent of a teen and an eleven year-old, I haven't slept well in years. Maybe I was just distracted.) A more relevant exemplar might be the book, Stuff Hipsters Hate, which came out in 2010. There's also a blog of the same name. Its tag line is "Because it's cool to be a hater." (I'm starting to get it now, I think. The Stuff Hipsters Hate blog is on tumblr. How very hipster of it.)

A few things hipsters hate (from the Amazon blurb): monogamy, muscles, being asked about their tattoos, knowing their bank balance, enthusiasm.

My daughter also told me that they drink PBR. PBR? I have to add a WTH? Gross. Back in the day, the only time we would drink PBR was when we couldn't get a keg of something more expensive, or those cute little Miller bottles. Now I can't bear Miller, either. Must be all those years I worked for Anheuser-Busch. I'd rather drink Busch Beer--and that's saying something. Never did like beer made from corn. When we got Busch for our monthly case of beer allotment, mine always went straight to the guys who worked on my wrecked Chevette, which I drove, wrecked, for almost three years. Couldn't get into the front passenger door at all. I wonder what that says about me. Was I an early hipster? Probably not. I'm an obsessive hair-washer, and I have a deep and abiding loathing of dirty feet.

One thing I did see on the Stuff Hipsters Hate blog was a reference to Peter, Bjorn & John, a band whose music I heard on WFPL as I drove through Louisville. They kind of reminded me of Belle & Sebastian, one of my favorite bands. Though I think the blog spoke favorably of them. But would it be hipster-ish to like a band? I think not.

My shallow bit of research leads me to the conclusion that a distinct lack of enthusiasm for anything is a hallmark of hipsterdom. I'm thinking that hipsters are simply the counter-culture flavor of the recent decade. They were the early hippies of the sixties, the Beats of the fifties, the Bohemians of the twenties and thirties. The stuff they hate changes in direct relation to what the culture likes.

I couldn't be a hipster if I tried. I'm too old, too well-upholstered, too (to my surprise) mainstream. I like soap. And cars that aren't rusted or wrecked. I think decent, expensive beer is deck.

How do my conclusions sound to you? Have I misidentified the hipster vibe? Enlighten me, please!

It Burns

2011-05-17T00:56:00.000-04:00

Warning: This is not a very pretty, shiny post.

Bliss House is the tentative title of my nearly-completed WIP. I won't go into deep detail here--this isn't about the novel itself, but about some accidental research.

Jillian McAdam is a fourteen year-old girl who has shut herself away in the massive house her mother has just purchased in historic central Virginia. She's hiding from the world, afraid that she's become a freak because of the vicious burns covering a significant portion of her body. Bliss House may be a heaven or hell for her--it will turn out to be a bit of both, in the end.

I've looked at lots of photographs of burn victims, wondering what being seriously burned must feel like, and wondering what it would be like to almost die from devastating burns. I've pondered what it means to be disfigured--and what disfigurement really is. There are acceptable ranges of appearance that vary from one culture to the next. But the ranges are never very wide or terribly different from one another. Deviance from symmetrical norms is barely tolerated. And suffering as a fashion went out with hair shirts and self-flagellating monks.

My experience of a small burn wrought by carelessness is nothing compared to the anguish endured by the seriously injured, but it certainly got my attention.

As fond as I am of good research, I didn't burn myself on purpose. We had company at the house a little over a week ago, and I made pizzas. Lazy bum that I am, I didn't bother to remove the oven rack sitting just a few inches above the rack holding the pizza stone. As I used a spatula to ease the stone-cooked pizza onto a baking sheet for cutting and serving, I accidentally burned my forearm on the unused rack. I didn't think anything of it at the time, of course. Anyone who bakes more than once in a blue moon can tell you that the occasional minor burn is part of the drill.

It wasn't until the following evening that the burn became a problem. Bengal and I were taking a CPR class for Scouts at a local hospital when someone brushed up against my arm and tore off the fragile veil of damaged skin covering the more tender layers. I had to bite my lip to keep from crying out. The burn looked pink and stupidly innocent, but it hurt a lot. That evening, I started putting an antibiotic cream on it. Eventually, my daughter convinced me that I needed to cover it with a loose bandage and actual burn cream. Here's how it looks after a week:

It still hurts like hell if I touch it.

Now I must go back and extrapolate and imagine my character's day to day life and I'm not sure if I can do it. The wound on my arm is about one-inch square. Jillian, my character, is a year out from her accident, and while she may not be in immediate physical pain, the memory of that pain must surely be beyond horrific. She is irreparably scarred--in both body and soul. Fortunately, for Jillian, Bliss House offers her something close to comfort and healing. But that healing can never be complete. Her pain can never be forgotten. She needs only to look down at her hands, or to look in the mirror to live it all over again. Still, Jillian's story is fiction. It's not real.

In my research, I stumbled upon Angel Faces, a non-profit group that provides healing retreats and ongoing support for adolescent girls with severe facial disfigurement. Also, Firefighters Quest for Burn Survivors. They seem to have a real heart for burn victims. You might want to check them out.

A Mystery Writer's Prayer

2011-05-03T14:18:00.000-04:00

Dear God,

Please send me:

James Patterson's sales

P. D. James's longevity

Charlaine Harris's smile

David Morrell's wisdom

Louise Penny's powers of description

Daphne du Maurier's sense of drama

Otto Penzler for a mentor

Sue Grafton's pacing

Dashiell Hammett's clarity

Laura Lippman's awards

Agatha Christie's productivity

Graham Greene's brains

Harlan Coben's charm

Nora Roberts/J.D. robb's sex-writing skills

Jim Thompson's bloodlust

Mary Higgins Clark's fan base

J. A. Konrath's promotion savvy

Oprah for my BFF

Sara Paretsky's sense of place

Jan Burke's forensic science knowledge

and Elmore Leonard's (metaphorical) balls

If all that is too much to ask, please just send an elephant to sit on me so I'll stay put and finish my next book.

Thanks, Laura

Shiny Object Saturday: A Golden Calf by Any Other Name

2011-04-01T18:23:00.000-04:00

I've never been an enthusiastic jewelry collector. Like socks, I never can seem to find just the right thing to go with whatever I'm wearing. One of my sisters (both, maybe?) prefers to wear only fine jewelry, and she does have lovely taste. I, however, am eclectic, and you're liable to run into me wearing sparkly diamond earrings and a wooden WalMart bracelet. Whatever seems to work at that moment.

There's also the cost issue. If given a choice, I'll take a shiny new bathroom, a new roof, or a new front door over a diamond ring, any day.

That's not to say I'm against receiving jewelry as a gift. Oh, no, indeed. I love a sparkly prezzie as much as the next girl. I just would feel too guilty to buy it for myself--especially if the roof is in disrepair.

I like jewelry that has meaning. One of my very favorite pieces is my charm bracelet. Charm bracelets go in and out of style, but that doesn't matter to me. The only prohibition I have against wearing it is when I'm also wearing knit clothes. My sweet husband bought me a cupid with a bow and arrow that tends to catch.

Other charms: A revolver that I had fitted with a clasp so that I could remove it for air travel. Seriously. A book that's a memento from my BFF for the publication of Isabella Moon. A snowflake for our time in Michigan. A cross, a star of David, and a mustard seed, for faith. A Christmas tree for our 20 years of Christmas tree adventures (I'll talk about that some other time.). A maple leaf for Four Days, the film Pinckney wrote that was shot in Canada. A star for our time in Roanoke. A slot machine for my 40th birthday trip to Vegas with my sisters. Golf clubs. A watering can. A Fisherman's Wharf memento. A set of wedding rings for our tenth anniversary. And my two favorites: A miniature of the fountain in Cincinnati's Fountain Square; and a Longhorn head, which recalls a private joke.

Here's the Shiny Object:

The best (and maybe only) Agrijewelry website, ever. Such a thing could only be conceived in Texas, don't you agree?

I came across the site while I was doing web research on cotton bolls for a novel and was captivated.

I want this because we live down the road from a winery:

This, because we used to live on Pinckney's parents' dairy farm:

This, because it's gold. And it's a llama.

The cotton boll earrings. They're dangly, too. I love dangly.

Aside from the my Longhorn charm, the only other agriwear/jewelry I have is a spider pendant, because I've been told I'm spooky. And a few random rabbit pins, for Easter and whatever.

It seems I have gaps in my wardrobe. If you're thinking of my birthday, any of the above would suit me much better than cow socks. Definitely.

Letting Go-A Rebel in Sparkly Sandals

2011-03-22T19:40:00.000-04:00

There was this girl. Let's call her Bitsy.

Bitsy was the young woman my middle class self always wished she had been. Moneyed. Athletic. White-blonde, and very lightly freckled. East coast-educated, sorority-bred. Brilliant taste in clothes. Rarely wore more than one or two pieces of jewelry, and never carried a purse--only her wallet. She didn't have a gorgeous figure, but she had killer green eyes, and more confidence in her pinky than I had in my head and heart, combined. She was a rung ahead of me on the corporate ladder and was secretly dating a guy in the office. Together, they looked like an advertisement for WASP Weekly. I wanted to hate her, but I was conflicted because I didn't want to hate the thing I wanted to be.

Me: Just out of college on the 5-year, once-divorced plan. Sketchy taste in clothes, though I tried. (By way of a back-handed compliment, one jerk of a guy in the office said, "That's a great-looking coat. You didn't pick it out, did you?" I lied and said I had, but it was my mother who had suggested it.) Mostly I went for expensive, to be on the safe side. Fortunately it was the eighties, and back then expensive didn't really include trashy the way it does now. I drove a Chevette that had the entire passenger door mashed in because some drunk had crashed into it in the middle of the night while I was sleeping, and drove away. When I went to work, I parked as far away as I could from the entrance to the building. But everyone teased me about the car, anyway. I smoked cigarettes like a fiend so I could stay thin, wore inappropriate shoes, and wrote really bad poetry and prose at night in my studio apartment.

At work, I would watch Bitsy in action. She was every guy's buddy, could tell a dirty joke with a straight face, never cursed, and was competent at her job. She rarely had drama around her, and if she gossiped, I never knew about it. I envied her tan, too. (Now, though, I bet she looks like a spotted prune.) Sometimes I think, though, that Bitsy wasn't all that smart. I once went to her apartment with her to pick up something for a project and was surprised to see a decaying goldfish floating in a giant glass bottle in her living room. She explained that she thought it would look cool to have a goldfish in a bottle, and so had filled the bottom with colored rocks, and added water and the fish. But the opening to the giant bottle was only about two inches in diameter, and so she couldn't change the water without emptying out all the water and the rocks. The fish was traumatized the first time and got brieftly stuck in the bottle's neck. So she hadn't tried to change the water again and the fish soon died. I expect that was the first gray hole I noticed in Bitsy's golden aura.

Secretly, I didn't want to be on Bitsy's radar at all. I knew I was very much NOCD (Not Our Class, Darling) and was desperately afraid of her. How sad is that? Our culture ostensibly has no class system, but of course it does and has forever. Money and/or fame are the class distinctions here. No one really knows what old money is anymore. It's now just money. Period. But back when I knew Bitsy, the vestiges of old money habits and manners--even manners without a bank account--were still extant.

As I write this now, I truly feel ridiculous. Here are the words that came from Bitsy's mouth that stung me the most during the five years I knew her:

"Are those sapphires or something in your earrings? No one wears precious stones before 6 p.m." And then she walked away.

At that moment, I wished that a hole would have opened in the ugly beige office carpet so I could just crawl in it and die. My life was over. I was a hopeless, classless schmuck.

I held onto that useless bit of jewelry wisdom for more than twenty years, keeping it safe beside the match shoes to purse rule, the jewelry/clothing color rule of seven, and the no white shoes before Derby Day rule. (A day far more important than Memorial Day in Louisville, where I grew up.)
I firmly believe that cultural norms are important. A common language is useful. As is a common currency. I like that we all use the same kind of eating utensils, and feel a little thrill when I get to use chopsticks to eat Japanese food. It's nice that pretty much everyone keeps their grass mowed so it doesn't harbor snakes. There are a few practices that I don't see much of anymore and kind of miss: people dressed up for any dinner out that doesn't include a cafeteria tray or paper napkins; little girls wearing white gloves with their patent leather shoes, and boys in ties; slow dancing that isn't actually just sex-to-music-while-wearing-clothes. Yes, I'm old and kind of nostalgic that way. I'm not trying to hark back to the good old days in general, because there's never been a perfect time/place combination in the history of the world. I'm just thinking about a few little things that make me feel, well, absurdly happy. They aren't rules--or at least I think they shouldn't be. They're choice details.

I wonder if adhering to the no-stones-before-six rule made Bitsy happy. I wonder what other rules she had stuck in her head that made her life seem more civilized to her. Or did she learn those rules from someone who thought that rules about earrings necessarily separated her from people she didn't want to be close to, or associated with? How strange that we define ourselves through rules--even rules that may have long ago lost their meaning to the people living by them.

Today I'm wearing my cute little diamond solitaire earrings. It's only 5:37 and I put them in my ears around 2:00. I feel like such a rebel, wearing diamond earrings with the cotton pants and cardigan I threw on to go and pick up my son at school. I'm also wearing beaded Beverly Feldman sandals. They're not white, but it's March. March! And they're beaded--with flowers. There are voices in my head that screamed that I shouldn't be wearing sandals in March unless I'm on vacation somewhere warm and sunny. I'm living on the edge, I tell you. And I'm loving it!

I wonder what Bitsy's wearing. Teeny-tiny surgical bandages, I bet, from having her age spots zapped at the dermatologist's office. (Did I say that out loud? Shame on me.)

Twitter: 140 Characters is Just Enough Rope

2011-03-15T14:36:00.003-04:00

There's no law in the U.S. against making an ass of yourself. Yet. But there are always consequences (and please don't take the noose image literally, okay?).

Gilbert Gottfried aka the voice of the AFLAC duck is the latest celebrity to go down because he crossed the invisible, ever-shifting boundaries of cultural sensibility on Twitter. Maybe some of his less compassionate Twitter followers were ready for a few bon mots on Japan and tsunamis, but his paymasters at AFLAC, who do a great deal of business in Japan, were not. You would think a guy would give a thought to where his pay is coming from, wouldn't you? Perhaps Gottfried was just tired of having kids and drunks begging him to do that duck thing every time he stepped out of the house to grab a burger, and the Japan tweets were part of his wicked-clever exit strategy. I think he was just doing what comics do. Every culture has its clowns, and their job is to either momentarily re-direct our gaze from the grim horrors of reality, or to hold a mirror up to us so we can see how foolish we are. But timing really is everything, isn't it? And sometimes never is the best timing.

The market's ability to deliver truly egalitarian judgments is one of the beauties of capitalism combined with free speech. There's no need for pesky government legislation to punish breaches of taste and cultural correctness. That's the good news. The bad news is that public forums are not just minefields for celebrities, but for any one of us poor slobs who opens his or her mouth.

Posting on Twitter is like standing up in the middle of a jam-packed cocktail party and screaming to get people's attention. You must scream to be heard. And isn't being heard what Twitter (and Facebook, MySpace, Tumblr, etc) is all about? No one joins Twitter to keep up with family and friends. Facebook is good for that--like a 24/7 high school reunion where it becomes clear to you over and over and over again that the people you knew in high school are completely irrelevant in your current life. Twitter is different. It's a vast microcosm (yes, I mean to say that) of millions of people projecting the idea of Who They Want You To Think They Are.

In the past, I've highly recommended the book Hamlet's Blackberry for understanding human and Internet connectedness. When I was thinking about Plato's Allegory of the Cave for this piece, I went back to it to see if William Powers had mentioned it, but he didn't. I think it's very relevant when we think about what we're doing when we put ourselves out there in Online Culture Land.

Basically, we're casting shadows of ourselves for people to see. That's all they can see. They never see the real us. We do this in most aspects of our lives, but it's never more obvious than in places like Twitter.

It's important to note that most people probably do not lie about themselves when they get on Twitter. The information they share is simply selective. They self-edit just like they do when they meet people in person. Unless they're very like one particular person I'm related to and love very much, they're not likely to share intimate details of their or their children's lives with relative strangers. They share bits of their day, stories they like on the Internet, observations about human nature, pop culture, thoughts on books they've read, their winsome child's latest witticism. They poke fun at themselves when they do something silly. (Wait, I think I'm describing myself.) The point is that everything they're projecting is actually a reflection of themselves.

But as much as I like to get to know people, I honestly don't need to know too much. I don't want to know if you think your wife is a bitch. I don't want to know the state of your bowels or your moldy carpet or your priapism. Really, thanks. My guess is that you don't really want to know that my biggest personal concern right now is the grisly, irritatingly visceral onset of perimenopause. I thought not. (So I'll save it for a book. Maybe. That audience is more self-selecting.) Self-editing serves an important social function. It helps people maintain critical personal boundaries.

Some tweet for purely professional reasons. These folks keep the focus on their work presence and their industry. It's about them, but it's primarily about what they're selling. They're all about the platform and the brand. People are brand mad.

It used to be that there were a very few p.r. and advertising professionals who understood branding and could make it happen. Old Hollywood was all about the brand. Their stars were rarely allowed off of the studio lots without full makeup and adoring fans in tow. Their sexuality was always hetero and their nails were always clean. Or at least photographers were kept away when the star wasn't camera-ready. Legends were created that way. Someone was in charge.

Now, we're all p.r. agents. Our 140 character tweets must be witty or vaguely, cleverly, acceptably offensive. They must offer value if they are to be retweeted and repeated and judged to have value. You can smell the desperation when someone hasn't been retweeted in a while. Sometimes they'll disappear temporarily, or they'll start poking celebrities to get their attention. See me! Hear me! Know I Exist! I am the product! I am my own art!

All this is particularly true of writers and writer-hopefuls. It used to be that fans could just write to writers through their publishers. Writers were mysterious. Writers were cool and rare. Writers were special. Writers spoke through their books, magazine articles, and, for the very famous, their interviews. It was their publisher's job to sell the books. Oh, they might show up at a bookstore or two, or have a big launch party if they were in NYC. But writers didn't say much.

Now, you can't shut them (us) up. They're everywhere on Twitter, Facebook, et al. And most of them (like me) really don't have the vaguest idea of how to sell what we have to sell because we're trying to sell ourselves and our work at the same time. It's hard for us to know where one ends and the other begins. And most of us do it without benefit of professional makeup artists or copywriters. We are dangerous, but mostly to ourselves.

I'm going to stop writing about writers here because I'm sure to get myself into trouble. If I start breaking down Writer/Tweeters into the categories in which I often think of them, such as Bestselling Writer Who Is A Jerk In Real Life But Fakes It Really Well, Bestselling Writer Who's Too Needy, Mid-List Writer Who Pushes the Self-Effacing Envelope Way Too Hard, Agent Who Really Should Be Out Selling His/Her Clients' Books Instead of Tweeting About His Lunch, I will get people thinking about who I might mean and thus hurt people's feelings.

Writers, like everyone else, have tender egos. And nowhere is it more evident that we are all--writers, actors, comedians, pundits, parents, teachers, exotic dancers, film reviewers, auto mechanics, nurses, et al--egocentric creatures. That's how we're made.

If you are a frequent tweeter, I'd love to know why you do it. Entertainment? Instant gratification? Curiosity about your fellow travelers? Because your profession seems to demand it?

Why do we put ourselves out there if our livelihoods don't depend on it? We're social creatures, yes. But we're in uncharted territory here. Suddenly, we are all living in an 18th century salon or a cocktail party from hell. It's risky, and not for the faint of heart. Not only are we all called upon to act like p.r. people--we're all performance artists.

There has been one interesting development in the celebrity department of the brave new world of self-revelation. As our personal exposure has become more obligingly intimate, celebrities--particularly actors and musicians--have been forced to take it to the next level. Reality shows aren't real enough anymore. Plus, they're scripted, anyway. We demand to see their lives played out in micro-bits, and they seem to oblige. Some are more dignified than others, and keep their tweet-lives professional yet charmingly revealing at the same time (@SteveMartinToGo) comes to mind. Others, yuck.

One of the things that got me thinking about Twitter and personal exposure in general was Bret Easton Ellis's The Daily Beast piece on Charlie Sheen. (Read the piece. Ellis makes a coherent argument for what he's saying. Plus, you'll want to know what the whole Empire and post-Empire thing is about.) Here's a standout quote: "What Sheen has exemplified and has clarified is the moment in the culture when not caring what the public thinks about you or your personal life is what matters most—and what makes the public love you even more."

Really? Is this what matters most?

But any objection I have to Ellis's deification of Charlie Sheen, the guy with "the supposed propensity for violence against women," is beside the point. What matters to me here is the idea that the hordes who are fascinated with the ostensible uber-reality of someone like Sheen might actually believe they're seeing something real. Ellis writes, "Do we really want manners? Civility? Empire courtesy? Hell, no. We want reality, no matter how crazy. And this is what drives the Empire to distraction: Sheen doesn’t care what you think of him anymore, and he scoffs at the idea of PR. “Hey, suits, I don’t give a shit.” That’s his only commandment."

I call bullshit on that. Sheen has simply created a new vision of himself for us all to gulp down with our popcorn. Maybe he's convinced himself that the self he's revealing is the real Charlie Sheen. Maybe that's the beauty of it. His self-editing has fooled even our cultural elite into thinking he's the real thing. If so, he's brilliant and lives on a level that damned few (it can only be hoped) of us will ever achieve with our own paltry efforts.

Consequences can be unpredictable. Go figure.

Shiny Object Saturday: LED Cherry Blossom Tree

2011-03-07T09:38:00.000-05:00

I miss living in Virginia the most in springtime. At dusk, I could look out into the woods and see dogwood blossoms that seemed to float, untethered, among the trees. Some blossoms were delicate pink, and some were an ethereal, pure white.

Spring is springing here in Southern Illinois. There's a single dogwood tree out my kitchen window, which I see as a kind of a blessing. But, fear not. This weekend, I discovered that our local Rural King can fulfill my urgent desire for blossom beauty for just a hundred bucks. Happy spring.

Harbingers

2011-02-20T23:21:00.000-05:00

The dogs and I have been walking in the hour before dusk each day. I used to call the stretch of land between the woods where we walk the deer pasture, or the upper pasture. We do have a lower pasture--and it is pasture enough. Flat, big enough for a horse or two. It was seeded with rye (I think) by a neighbor who asked if he could plant, then cut it for feed. That was two years ago, and we haven't heard from him since that last early-fall mowing. But that pasture is too close to the road for dog safety and quite near the pond. The land gets marshy near the water, and I sometimes suddenly find my Wellies stuck in mud up to my calves.

I'm no farm girl, but I've finally figured out that the upper pasture isn't a pasture at all. I suppose we could graze a few animals up there. There are certain members of our family who think that--with the addition of a fence--a herd of alpacas would be perfect for it. (The idea of medicating, herding, cleaning-up-after, or breeding alpacas, let alone protecting them from the local coyotes, gives me hives like I haven't had since I was a tantrum-throwing toddler.) But I prefer to see it unfenced and wild. Because we let flowers and weeds and brambles and milkweed and yarrow cover it in season, and keep a path mowed around it for walking, I think it more properly should be called a meadow. It's so like the meadows I pictured when I read stories about living in the country when I was a child. Lucky me. Who knew I would eventually have my own meadow?

The dogs certainly don't mind romping in the cold. Hrothgar, the Lab, prefers the ground hard. If it's too mucky, or if it's raining, he tries to get away with doing his business in the front yard, rather than up the hill. He may be the only water-shy Lab on the planet. Scout, our grocery-store-cart, part-Rottie, part Rat Terrier, just wants to be out! out! out! Preferably carrying a stick! stick! stick! The past two weeks, though, have brought us an early faux-spring. The ground is soaked with melted snow and perilous with mole, vole, and (I hope not) groundhog tunnels. It's the wind that carries the real changes. The dogs are mad with investigation, torn between standing still and sniffing the air, and running off into the woods looking for deer, squirrels, and roaming dogs.

A few years ago, we had a long, warm spell in January, and the local apple and peach orchard trees were fooled into budding. Weeks of ice and cold followed, and the orchards and vineyards suffered a pitiful harvest. I'm hopeful that, now that the end of February is in sight, the real danger of freezing is past. Farming has always seemed like such a romantic pursuit to me. But it has to be one of the riskiest professions one can think of. I couldn't live with that kind of suspense and worry.

This week has brought us bats. I don't know where they come from. (I don't EVEN want to think it might be our attic.) They come out early, around five or five-thirty, before you could call it well and truly dusk. I only saw a pair the first couple of days. Now there are at least four or five. One always comes over to check me out, doing a quick flyover, then daring to come a little closer. I carry a big walking stick and have fantasies about being bitten, and then capturing or whacking the bat so I can take it to the hospital with me to check to see if it has rabies or not. Actually, it would make me quite sad to have to whack the bat. Ever since reading the children's book, Stellaluna, to our daughter about fifteen years ago, I've liked bats. That wonderful book almost replaced the nightmarish memory of my five-year-old self coming home with my parents and baby sister to a bright apartment hallway in which a bat was blindly trapped. I remember a broom and a lot of screaming. I don't want to know how it ended.

I spent many hours in the car today, so my walk with the dogs was like a deep breath of freedom. The afternoon was windy, overcast and gray, a big change from the layered sunsets we've been having lately. The sky was dull. The clouds were so thick they seemed immobile despite the wind. Without a brilliant sky to look at, I found myself listening harder.

(photo link/credit)

We live on the Mississippi Flyway, and I'm always listening for Canadian geese flying overhead. On Wednesday morning, less than a minute after I woke up, I heard geese close by. Sure enough, when I looked outside, I saw nine or ten down on the pond. We've lived here almost five years, and I had never seen geese on it. I was desperate to get a picture, but I was more afraid of frightening them away. P says that our pond just isn't big enough to attract them. It felt like such a blessing to have them there, that I don't need a photo to remember it. Today, after seeing several enormous flocks on my travels, I heard a scant few honking overhead during our walk. I stood still, waiting, hoping that they would land by the pond. But they didn't.

It sounds like such a cliche to write about trees creaking in the wind, doesn't it? I'm afraid there's no other word for what was going on in our woods today. It wasn't all the trees, but just a couple. They sounded like stiff hinges on a door. It was such a sad, strange sound. There was no single branch waving loose. It sounded like a whole tree crying out, dry and vulnerable in the wind.

I worry about our trees. I'm not used to untended woodland. So many trees are dead, or dying. Yet, there are thousands of new trees competing to replace them. I want to go out with a chainsaw and tidy things up--cut up the hundred or more broken trees and take out some of the competition, just like they do in our state parks. I want to do a thorough dusting and vacuuming. I want to be able to sigh with pleasure at the sight of our acres of well-tended woods. But, I digress...

Today the wind also brought me the sound of...spring peepers. I almost didn't hear them. Their distant singing blended with the wind, so I had to stop and listen closely. There they were, way, way down in a ravine. They haven't come up very far, yet. They seem to be only in the low places for now. I don't know why I've always thought of their tiny songs as belonging only to summer. We have an enormous variety of frogs and toads around here, and they bring a thousand different voices. But, right now, it's just the spring peepers, all by their lonesome. I haven't the faintest idea what they're eating (please say it's too early for bugs), and I hope they have sheltering plans for the cold that's sure to return.

We don't have a lot of land, but what we have is intense.

Sometimes I'm hesitant to go outside and experience everything our little corner of the earth has to offer. My senses are overwhelmed. Will it be too cold? Or too humid? Are the snakes up and awake? What if something bites? How many more trees are turning white with disease? Have transient dogs littered our pathways? Why is part of our hillside sometimes dripping wet, as though a wellspring is about to burst through? Are the coyotes we've seen recently setting up camp in the nearest ravine? Change is constant and complex. It comes in waves, and in layers, like the clouds. Or it comes in tiny voices.

Listen.

Winter Interest

2011-02-02T18:10:00.001-05:00

This past fall, a contractor brought a front yard (read: our garden) drainage issue to our attention. In order to keep our bungalow from ruin, it seems we need to have the whole area dug up and reshaped. A local landscaper came by to confirm and said that the existing plants would all have to be temporarily relocated. The good news was that we'll have more area for plants.

"It's not a bad situation," the landscaper told me. "You need some winter interest, anyway."

"Winter interest?" said I, intrigued.

"Evergreen plants," he said. "Bushes. Maybe some boxwood. Things that look good all year 'round."

I've never been a big fan of bushes. It's probably my suburban upbringing. In summer and fall, you could tell it was Saturday when you heard hedge trimmers buzzing all over the neighborhood. Bad neighbors would trim once a season, then let the bushes grow all higgly-piggledly so that they had a few random spikes poking up a month or two later. These were people to be avoided. Consequently, I've never wanted to deal with bushes. I just cannot take the pressure.

While I'm all for providing winter berries for birds, I'm not all that excited about having green plants outside all year 'round. I love the way the seasons' changes are reflected in the flora that live around us. I love that, in the winter, things turn brown--almost, but not quite lifeless.

Most of all, I love walking in the garden in late February and March to see the green peeking from the soil, as though it's testing the air, trying to decide when to fully commit to spring.

For now, I'm happy to have an all-brown garden. A garden-in-waiting.

Why I Write: The ADHD Edition

2011-01-28T07:45:00.006-05:00

I'm uncomfortable with the question, "Why do you write?" It's one of those seemingly innocuous questions that often comes up in interviews between questions about my favorite music to write to, and do I write in longhand or on a computer. I've given various answers at different times because I've never thought that there was a single useful answer for me.

Copywriting? Definitely for the money. Book reviews? The money was never very good, but they gave me excellent access to new books, allowed me to organize my thoughts about them, and taught me a great deal about writing. Poetry? Only if pressed. I'm a terrible poet. Essays? I like to assemble portraits of points in time. Blogs? They're a challenge to maintain (I like a challenge.), and fun to write. Fiction? I like to make stuff up, and if I tell lies in real life, I always get caught, and get all embarrassed.

Some professional writers I know were fortunate enough to start writing fiction very early in their lives. For many young writers, writing is a kind of compulsion, a place to automatically direct all the energy and confusion that must be expressed somehow, some way. Even at my advanced age, I'm jealous of those folks because I didn't start writing seriously until I was in my mid twenties. They've had so much more practice--and any serious writer knows that everything depends on their practicing the craft. As a teenager, I directed all of my energy and confusion into many inappropriate places--I do, however, get major points for life experience!

Thinking about one thing for more than a few minutes--sometimes moments--at a time is a challenge for me. Doesn't that sound silly? But it's true. (No blonde jokes, please!) I've spent much of my life on a quest for Grand Thoughts. Though most days I would settle for being able to remember what I was planning to say to the person at the other end of the number I've just dialed on the telephone.

(I want this hat for a Thinking Cap.)

I've written about my ADHD diagnosis here and there. It's been almost three years since I learned that there was a clinical name for the chaos in my head. To put it very simply, if you think of the brain as a big, colorful screen on which is projected your every thought and sensory experience, having ADHD is like watching that screen while someone else uses a remote to change the channel every 1.8 seconds. And then there's a quiz about what just zoomed by. Unfortunately, the chaos also spills out of my head at an alarming rate of speed--I can make any large, horizontal surface disappear while making dinner, paying a singe bill, getting dressed in the morning, making a grocery list, or just talking on the telephone. I trail lost thoughts and random objects behind me everywhere I go. I'm vain enough that I can usually get out of the house in normal-person clothes, and less-than-crazy hair, but, inside, I'm all lost buttons, untied shoes, and Alfalfa cowlicks.

I could go on, but I get bored easily.

So, how does this all tie into the why I write thing?

I write because writing is my drug of choice. When I'm writing, I am focused. Believe me when I say I've tried plenty of self- and doctor-administered medication in the past to get into a focused state. Usually I just ended up zoned or euphoric or jagged or weepy or just plain bitchy. Non of those states were very comfortable or productive. And I really, really like being productive. No, that's wrong. I really like being busy--productive is like the icing on the cake.

Writing is like a puzzle. First, of course, I get to make everything up. That's the truly fun and easy part because I think there might be about 8,000 people living among the detritus in my head. More than enough for a lifetime of stories and novels. Then, I get to move all the pieces and characters around. And when I set them down, glue them in, they STAY. In one place. When a book is bound and on the shelf, I can't mess around with it unless I want to get thrown out of the bookstore. Even when the books go out of print, they're out there. Somewhere. Permanent. Even if they're shreds in a landfill.

Writing is the way I make sense of the world.

There are a few other things I can do with unaided (read un-Adderalled) focus. I can garden. I think I could spend entire days digging in the garden--and I have stayed outside working until I was planting flowers by porchlight. I can teach--children or adults--and not realize that time is passing. I love the interaction and being able to tailor what I'm saying to what they need to hear. Often, I can read books with concentration. Lately I've found that I almost prefer listening to books while I do needlepoint. (ADHD folks are the original multitaskers.) And I can paint. Walls, that is. I can really lose myself in painting walls and doors and trim--often for days on end. But I think that only gardening gives me the same kind of satisfaction that writing provides.

Sometimes I wish that I had a more romantic answer to the question, "Why do you write?" I think there's probably one there, actually, because nothing is ever really as simple as we think it is.

One of the wonderful things about having ADHD is the ability to see many sides of things at the same time--sort of like living in a Cubist painting. The challenge is to make things of disparate parts seem whole. Again, it's the puzzle that's so attractive to me.

Just recently, a study about ADHD and dementia came out. It seems that one-third of all patients who suffered from a particular type of dementia had previously been diagnosed with ADHD. I found that study a little shocking, but not surprising. There are films I've seen and books I've read that I've forgotten completely. The good news is that, when I see or read them again, they seem new, yet comfortingly familiar at the same time. Unfortunately, with dementia, there's also plenty of anger and frustration that comes with the loss of memory. I'd rather be stuck with ADHD and be crazy old aunt who forgets birthdays only because she misplaces her calendar and can't go shopping anyway because she forgot to put gas in the car or deposit her pension check.

It's entirely possible that tomorrow I'll come up with yet another reason I write. But I'm glad I've gotten this one down. It feels right. And now this thought can't be lost. I've written it. It exists. It's out there. I can't take it back. Time to move on...

Writer Girl-Crush: Louise Penny and Her Marvelous Canadian Mysteries

2011-01-21T02:25:00.000-05:00

(Pics are all from Louise Penny's website.)

If you know my writing, it might surprise you that I go in for--devour, even-- picturesque mysteries. When people visit our house for the first time, they seem disappointed not to find pitchforks and pole arms on the walls, Bowie knives on the kitchen island, or a guillotine in the dining room. While it's true that I require annual doses of vintage Cormac McCarthy, Jim Thompson, and Charlie Huston, a girl can't live on brute-force fiction alone, no matter how beautifully written it is.

I have a deep and abiding fondness for Brit-style, investigative mysteries. From Lynley to Prime Suspect to Inspector Morse to Jack Frost to Dalgliesh to Poirot--I love them all. (I wish I could say that I enjoy all of Agatha Christie's work, but I find that she often holds back some bit of information so that the mystery can't really be solved by the reader. That bugs me.) It's not so much that the stories are formulaic; it's that they are usually comfortably paced and have a very strong sense of setting or place. And because they're generally set in a series, one can form strong attachments to individual characters.

Opening a novel by a writer one has never read before is a little like going on a first date. As a reviewer, I learned to be the aggressor. A book had to prove to me that it was worth my time in the first twenty-five pages, or I would spend the next few hours looking at my watch. Now that I'm no longer reviewing, I have the time to be more patient, but I still hope that I'll be seduced--and quickly.

After I began to read Louise Penny's fourth novel, A Rule Against Murder, I couldn't stop. I read it in a weekend, submerging myself in the world of Penny's series character, Canadian Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, who, even while on a brief anniversary trip with his wife, Reine-Marie, can't escape murder. Murder blots his scenery, whether it's an arm's length away, or in a charming, distant village. In the case of A Rule Against Murder, the crime happens at the inn where he and his wife are celebrating their anniversary. The case becomes a sort of country-house murder, with all of the suspects at hand. It's an intimate story.

Penny does intimacy awfully well. Her novels--at least the later ones that I've read--are written in a close third person that floats effortlessly from one character to another. There are no awkward white spaces. One person is observed, then becomes the observer. The tone doesn't change, just the characters' points of view. We know their likes and prejudices as well as their self-deceptions. This is particularly true of Gamache. He's fair-minded, intelligent, and professionally demanding. Also thoughtful and compassionate--something his colleagues don't understand and often mistake for weakness. A native of Quebec, he's acutely aware of Canadian politics, and the centuries-old struggle between the English and the French in Canada. (Penny explores that conflict in detail in her latest, Bury Your Dead.) He's always the steady center of everyone's world. Most of all, Gamache is kind. He works at being kind, and he encourages genuine kindness in the people around him. But he's kind without sentimentality. It's a kindness that feels real, the type of kindness that I wish I could embrace every day.

With A Rule Against Murder, Penny was well into the Gamache series, and I was far behind. But I didn't feel like I'd missed critical information from the three earlier novels. That can be a problem with a series and series' characters; it can be confusing to jump right into the middle of five or six books. But, like P.D. James, Penny is graceful about filling in the necessary blanks without dragging down the current story.

So, I read Penny's three most recent novels in order: A Rule Against Murder, The Brutal Telling, and Bury Your Dead. Now I'm reading Still Life, the first novel in the series of six. Still Life is also the introduction to Three Pines, the once-Loyalist village (invented) where most of the series occurs. Three Pines is within easy driving distance of Quebec, and has a business district consisting of a bookstore, a tiny grocery, and a bistro. Most of the houses are arranged on the other three sides of the village green, and there's a massive Victorian house looming from the hillside that may or may not be haunted. (Sounds remarkably similar to Miss Marple's St. Mary Meade. I like that.) The fact that the village is so small gives Penny's characters the freedom to be expansive. Life moves slowly, even when there's a murder. The characters are an ensemble cast, and Penny focuses tightly on different ones with each novel.

I could go on to describe the books' plots more fully, but it will be much more enjoyable for you to discover them yourself.

It's really Penny's skilled writing that I'm crazy for. Her pacing moves the story forward without unnecessary detours/digressions (okay, the bow-hunting disquisitions early in Still Life made me a little grumpy). I'm never left wondering, "how did we get here?" There are many moments of dark, nerve-wracking suspense. I'm thinking particularly of Bury Your Dead, whose last thirty or so pages had my heart doing that pounding thing--And then I cried a little.

Early in every writer's career, some sensible teacher will say (one hopes), "Don't give us too much description. Leave much to the reader's imagination." I think this is one area in which I hope to emulate Penny. Her descriptions are complete, yet rarely overdone or superfluous. She states what the characters look like, plainly and with straightforward prose. She notes the odd little objects that make up a life, or death. Clothes, hairstyles, scent. As a reader, it's helpful to know those things. As a writer, it's hard to judge when enough is enough.

I do go on, don't I? I warned you that I had a pretty serious writer girl-crush!

My last and favorite thing:

Have you ever felt like you were able to take away something important from a work of fiction? Here's the lesson that Gamache's mentor gave him when he was a young policeman. He was to remember to always say these things when they needed to be said. I memorized them, then wrote them down. I wonder if Penny came up with the list herself, or if they are a variation on something someone shared with her.

1. I'm sorry.
2. I was wrong.
3. I need help.
4. I don't know.

Simple, aren't they? Gamache uses the phrases like seasoning, throughout his work and daily life. They always move things forward, and keep his ego in check.

Moving forward with humility. That's a good thing, yes?

Read these books. Enjoy!

Shiny Object Saturday: The Cincinnati Art Museum

2011-01-17T01:10:00.000-05:00

I have a love/hate relationship with zoos. I love the idea of the contemporary zoological park--one that's dedicated to preserving life from around the planet. The tiny Mill Mountain Zoo in Roanoke, VA, is one of my favorites. It specializes in both plentiful and endangered species from Asia, mostly. Many of the animals there live in woodlands or mountains similar to the gentler Blue Ridge mountains near the zoo. I grew up with frequent trips to the Cincinnati Zoo, and have spent countless hours--happy, desperate, and even dramatic-- at St. Louis's Zoological Park. Still, I have a hard time watching the mammals and primates behind their fences and in their cages. It breaks my heart to see their repetitive, obsessive pacing along the bars or glass. I can't help but feel some kind of empathy. How many times have I felt so trapped, unable to free myself from somewhere I knew I didn't belong?

When I walk into most museums, I feel a similar twinge of guilt--of indecision about whether I should be enjoying myself. Every item in a museum has tendrils in the past. Nothing there is sentient, of course, but when I see bits of sculpture or jewelry or pottery unearthed from some funeral mound, or ancient grave, I can't help but think about the people who put them there. How could they imagine that some 19th or 21st century anthropologist or treasure hunter would dig up what they'd laid by for the ages? Perhaps I'm just superstitious, but I feel like those objects trapped inside glass boxes or raised up on pedestals and impaled with metal rods to keep them in prime viewing position retain the gravity of their pasts. It doesn't matter whether they were objects simply created for trade or art's sake, or they were faith-encumbered sacrifices to the future. They were vital to someone, somewhere.

Still, I'd pretty much rather be in an art museum on a frigid January afternoon than anywhere else on earth.

I spent this past Saturday afternoon at the Cincinnati Art Museum, the first art museum I ever visited. My children were with me. I'm not sure why I hadn't taken them there before. We were particularly drawn there that day because it was the last day for the museum collection's Arms and Armor exhibit, and Bengal, like his daddy, would do pretty much anything to spent quality time with a real suit of armor.

The museum itself has been around since 1886, and, like all of its peers, has seen periods of feast and famine. One thing that has led to its current survival and success is its significant concentration on Cincinnati itself and all the amazing art the city's inhabitants have produced and encouraged since the late 18th century.

There was far too much to explore in one afternoon, so we concentrated on the small armor exhibit, the Cincinnati Wing, and "Wedded Perfection: 200 Years of Wedding Gowns." (Bengal was very tolerant. He's watched many episodes of Project Runway.)

This was my favorite gown from the dress exhibit:

It was commissioned by a Japanese-American bride and made by an artist named Claudy Jongstra. It was designed by Arlette Muschter, from The Netherlands. Wool, silk, cotton, cashmere, linen.

Here's the back. The design is a phoenix, felted into the fabric. It reminds me very much of the work of my friend, Scottish designer Ingrid Tait.

I'm always drawn to decorative arts exhibits. Have you heard of Cincinnati's Rookwood Pottery? The museum has an enormous historical collection of its work. Founded by Maria Longworth, a terribly talented heiress, in 1880, Rookwood had a stable of designers that produced world class art pottery. Longworth herself came up with a way to create design beneath the glaze--a method that revolutionized the art and created an industry.

My phone camera photos turned out badly, so I picked this one up from a Cincinnati Beat article:

I'm not quite sure if this was a Rookwood piece, but I thought it was pretty fabulous.

How brilliant is this sculpture? I wanted to include it because the image of a baby's hand emerging from a sunflower is beyond surreal. Called "Loulie's Hand," it's a plaster model for a marble work by Hiram Powers. It's the hand of his five month old daughter, Louisa. The year was 1839.

An art museum is nothing without a painting or two. This is by Edward Potthast, 1924

"The Mother," by Elizabeth Nourse, 1888.

My daughter and I stood in front of this until we had to be called away.

I was overwhelmed by all we saw in two hours. There's plenty more to see. Certainly enough for many return visits. On the way to the car, I told my daughter that I would love to be a docent in a museum when I'm old. She didn't know what a docent was, and when I told her, she laughed--not unkindly. She just thought it would be dull. I don't think so.

SURREAL SOUTH 2011: The Ghosts and Monsters Volume

2011-01-11T16:57:00.001-05:00

There are writers out there who wouldn't edit an anthology if you paid them a huge sum of money. When we did the first volume of Surreal South in 2007, Pinckney and I had lots of enthusiasm, but little experience. Our work had appeared in several anthologies, and I remember thinking, "how hard could it be?' Well, it wasn't exactly easy, but it was a whole lot of fun. For that edition, we asked a lot of favors from well-published friends so we could come right out with a statement about our vision for the series. And those friends came through in a big way.

In 2009, we shifted our focus toward including more emerging writers alongside the better-know folks. We had many excellent stories from under-published and newly-published writers. We also had plenty of original work, which was a lot of fun.

We're looking for more of the same for this third volume. Given that we now have a bigger pool of submitters, we decided to get theme-specific. Ghost and Monsters are the flavors of the day. We're serious about that, so if you're looking to submit, please keep the theme in mind. As always, we see Surreal South as encouraging a bridge between the literary short story and commercial fiction genres.

Be sure to read all the guidelines before submitting. Can't wait to see what you come up with!

GUIDELINES AT PRESS 53

Moments of Bliss

2010-12-24T17:14:00.000-05:00

If you let them, traditions can be like welcome sighs in the midst of chaos. This year, our daughter, Nora, didn't get home for her college break until four days before Christmas. The house was already decorated, the gifts were wrapped, the cookies baked (mostly). For her whole life she's been an integral part of the preparations...until this year. I had put our gingerbread house tradition in the back of my mind, thinking that we probably wouldn't have time to make the houses we've been making since she was six years old. But her assumption was that we would, and I didn't hesitate to run out two days ago and by the boxes and candy supplies. Since we've been doing it for so long, I wasn't rushed or worried about how they would turn out. The creation is the thing. It's always fun, no matter the results. We were happy to include a couple of her friends, as we often do. The five of us (including Bengal) spent a happy Wednesday evening deep in sticky, candy bliss.

Thank you for all that you've shared with me this year. Your comments always delight me, and I treasure your kindness. Hope you find many moments of bliss--not just in this busy season, but in the whole year through.

Love, Laura

In The Handbasket: The Spellbinding Tia Nevitt

2010-12-21T17:41:00.001-05:00

From Writing Book Reviews to Reading Reviews of My Book

Hi, everyone, and thank you, Laura, for inviting me to your blog.

First, I want to state right away that Laura and I write in entirely different genres. She (as I’m sure you know) writes creepy horror stories, and my story, THE SEVENFOLD SPELL, is a sensual fairy tale retelling. But we both are eclectic in our reading tastes, and perhaps you will be as well. THE SEVENFOLD SPELL is the first in a series of fairy tale retellings, each standalone, which tells the stories of innocent bystanders who are caught up in the magic of the tale. The series name is Accidental Enchantments.

Laura and I have never met in person, but I’ve “known” her since 2007, when her first book, Isabella Moon, came out. Back then, I was running a book blog called Fantasy Debut, and Laura did a post on—guess what?—reading reviews as a former book reviewer. So when she invited me to write a post for her blog, she asked me to blog on the same thing.

The first week of reviews for THE SEVENFOLD SPELL was scary. The first review was a three-star review, where the reviewer liked the story, but didn’t love it. I was fine with this. I’ve written a strange little novella. However, the second review was two stars on GoodReads, and the reviewer had trouble with the sexual content.

GoodReads has a strange rating system, and two stars means “It was OK.” The only truly negative rating is a one star review. Still, we want as many stars as we can get! For a while, I was really racking up the two star reviews and my little heart was breaking. They all said the same thing—they liked it well enough, except for the sensual content.

Then, I got reviews challenging the historical accuracy of my setting, which is fair because I’ve been known to jump on writers who write about music while clearly knowing nothing about playing a musical instrument. Just desserts. I got reviews complaining that there wasn’t enough sexual content. I got reviews saying my heroine, Talia, was shallow. And that the romance had no depth.

However, for each negative review, I’m happy to report, I received two or three positive ones. Night Owl Reviews loved it and gave it five stars, and RT Book Reviews gave it four. Soon, I had a nice little collection of reviews from respectable sites to showcase on my website. Those positive reviews became like armor for my writer’s soul until recently, when the first two star I had seen in a while popped up, I was able to stop reading after the first paragraph and shrug it off. They’re kind of like publisher rejections, of which I’ve received my share, only this time—if I care to—I can discover why the reader is “rejecting” my work. Perhaps all those publisher rejections helped burnish my author armor as well.

All in all, reading my reviews was much as I expected. I learned some things from the negative reviews, which I am already keeping in mind as I write the next book in the series.

Note from Laura:

I adored The Sevenfold Spell! Tia's tale is just plain beautifully-written, naughty fun. Love the cover, love everything about it. And given that it's an e-book, it's available in seconds at a very sweet price. Readers--Whatever your tastes (okay, if you only read Cormac McCarthy and have no sense of humor, adventure or romance in your soul...then you're probably not here to read this, anyway!), you'll get a kick out of The Sevenfold Spell. I have to laugh, though, Tia, at the notion of historical inaccuracy in your story. It's a fairy tale! The wonderful thing about fairy tales is that they're magical. Wonder if that reviewer had problems with the fairies as well?

Link to Tia's website.

So You Want To Write a Novel, eh?

2010-11-30T00:18:00.001-05:00

The link to this video has been passed to and fro among my writer/publisher/agent Twitter friends for the past few days. It totally cracked me up, but I wasn't sure I would post it on the blog--at first.

It's very important to me that newbie writers feel supported in their efforts. Every writer starts somewhere, and needs lots of care and help on his or her writing journey. But there's a big difference between healthy enthusiasm and, well, delusion.

I think you'll get a kick out of this. Every reasonably established writer has endured many, many versions of this conversation. The only trope missing is, "Oh, man. The drama in my office would make a GREAT novel. I'll tell you all about it, you write it up, and we'll split the royalties."

The video was produced and is copyrighted by David Kazzie.

Enjoy!