Twin Cities
6
It's a dangerous thing to find out new things about one's self. I thought I could never live anywhere but Baltimore. Now I know I can. Read more [...]
Category Archives: The Memory Project
Conundrum
The inference seemed to be that no one would write a book a year naturally, that it is a market-directed pace. But it is my natural pace, more or less. I suspect I could go much faster. There is the case of 2024, in which I wrote a novel and two novellas. But I don't go faster because I am rather lazy. Read more [...]
Mildred Pierce, Anonymous
Perhaps there are a few people who love Mildred Pierce as much as Megan Abbott and I do, but they weren’t available on Facebook last week for this exchange on the miniseries, which we both just got around to in the past month. Read more [...]
Butter Boys
First of all, I do not recommend that you plug the search string fairy tale meat boy store string hat butterinto Google unless you want to see some really interesting ads for lubrication. But the search actually yielded what I wanted -- yet definitely not what I remembered, not at all, and it's not just the absence of lederhosen. Read more [...]
That Thing I Do
Writers are used to being asked certain questions. Do you write every day? Do you work on a computer? Do you outline? My friend Jan Burke once observed of the last question that the two camps regard each other with amazement. If one outlines, it's hard to imagine how someone could produce work without that kind of orderly process; if one doesn't outline, it's hard to give up the intuitive stye that has guided one through previous books. Read more [...]For Fat Girls, We Don’t Sweat Much
Jennifer Weiner and Jodi Picoult's audiences were far from ready-made. Yes, I suppose their work can be describe as popular fiction, if one wants to put a name to their genre. But, really, both women work in very particular genres, sui generis genres if you will. Jennifer Weiner writes Jennifer Weiner novels. Jodi Picoult writes Jodi Picoult novels. They worked tirelessly over a period of time to build their audiences. Read more [...]
But I Don’t Remember Where or When
A friend over on Facebook asked me to find an article I once wrote about Anne Lamott more than a decade ago; a more intrepid soul did the job for me.
I remembered the article well -- or thought I did. Read more [...]Don’t Tell, Don’t Show
I did something weird this week. (Yes, folks are thinking. You started to blog again.) Read more [...]
One-Word Resolution Challenge: A Tradition
The problem is -- it has to be one word and "Change" is kind of a duh resolution. I also feel strongly that the one-word resolution has to be a verb in imperative form. (To date, mine have been: Stretch, Maintain, Venture, Be. Are all these imperative? I'd argue that they could be.) Anyway, what I want to do is hard to capture in one word. I yearn to honor my good intentions -- to follow-up, follow-through. To be conscientious, to remember the little niceties. Thank-you notes, condolence cards, atta-boys. I want to be the kind of person who sends flowers and bakes casseroles and is never late with a birthday card. Read more [...]
What Bookstores Provide
Now, I pay pretty close attention to the world of books. I'm a writer and I'm a reader. I know what's going on in "my" world. But in the Booksmith, there were several books and writers that were new to me. I assigned myself a task: Buy a book that you might not buy, were it not for being in this store. Read more [...]