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Letter from Laura
December 2024
 

How to Punt

Let me tell you, webmistress is a frighteningly accurate term. It's not that Beth is bossy, mind you, or anything less than charming. But, a year after escaping journalism, I now have this self-imposed tyranny of monthly deadline to meet, and it's driving me nuts.

Yeah, yeah, I know - the letters on this site read like stream-of-consciousness riffs on whatever has caught my fancy at the moment deadline rears its head. The frightening truth is that I actually work at them. Sad but true. Finding the links alone can often take hours, especially if I get distracted by some of my favorite places on the Internet.

But this deadline has arrived in the midst of meeting two others, one for the New York Times and the other for the Washington Post, who actually pay me to write, whereas I won't give myself a dime. I can't say what I'm writing about for either paper, as they (very properly) ask that I not alert the entities about which I'm writing before publication. I'll link to the pieces here, however, as they appear. Assuming they appear. Nothing in journalism is ever a sure thing.

I also am in the final weeks of my class at Goucher College, with grades due on Dec. 11th. Not to mention revisions, and a day's work for a volunteer organization in which I'm active and -- well, you get the drift.

So I thought I'd end the year with a peek at what I'll be publishing next year. Click here to read the first chapter of the as-yet-unnamed eighth novel. Click here to see a lovely photograph by Jim Burger that recently appeared in a national magazine. (A woman glancing over my mother's shoulder asked: "Oh, are those Laura's children?")

Laura's signatureMeanwhile, anyone know anything about furriers? How U.S. Jews helped Eastern European Jews emigrate in the 1930s? Robbing banks? Just wondering. With book eight finished, it's time to start book nine.




Read Catching Up.
Read Let's Do the Time Warp (Again).
Read The Naked Dance.
Read Self Help.
Read Mistakes Were Made.
Read Play With Yourself.
Read Musings and Advice.
Read We Were Haranders.
Read Spying on Harriet.
Read Gone Baby Gone.
Read The Last Good Saturday Night.
Read In a Strange Kitchen.
Read The "D" Word.

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