Sandra Novack

Thanks, Chicago Tribune!

2011-12-17T09:53:00.001-05:00

For the shout-out for best 2011 books. Link here.

Thanks, San Francisco Book Review

2011-11-25T08:55:00.000-05:00

http://citybookreview.com/2011/11/everyone-but-you/

By Sandra Novack
Random House, $26.00, 285 pages
ISBN 9781400066810

The rawness and honesty of Sandra Novack’s Everyone But You is exemplified by its artfully crafted characters. Whether it be through the dying wife and-mother in “Ants” or the idle, suspicious writer of “Save My Soul”, we are exposed to the intimate workings of the narrators’ minds. In this place, complex webs of doubt and regret are ultimately tempered with the blatant and beautiful contradictions of words spoken. Such is life.

“Who knows how many complaints the heart holds, quietly and forever?”

Most of the stories in this collection are first-person narratives, a fact that lends an undeniable self-consciousness to the book as a whole. The self-consciousness is, for the most part, masterfully meted out by Novack; her characters shoulder the weight of their own introspection, grappling to reconcile truths in complex relationships. The well-intentioned Bud of “Memphis” weighs the burden of his volatile, schizophrenic brother against his strained marriage with a resigned helplessness. “At some point”, Bud laments, “it is as though you are suddenly on the other side of your life, looking in on it as though it were a spectacle.” Likewise, if there is any weakness in Novack’s stories, it may be blamed on this same championing of the ego, the occasional flat paragraph where one can’t help but wish for certain plot details to materialize with less direct personal explication. This, however, does not detract from the fascination nor the poignancy in which these tales are steeped.

Reviewed by Lauren Papalia

Everyone but You: A Reader's Digest Recommends Book

2011-11-07T10:14:00.002-05:00

Everyone But You
By Sandra Novack | Publisher: Random House
Thanks, Reader's Digest!

In Everyone But You, Sandra Novack’s first collection of short stories (her novel, Precious, was published in 2009), she gives the subject of relationships a good going-over. Human affairs—be they among family, friends or lovers—are usually fraught in these tales, yet their tension can be magnetic. Oddly skewed and unpredictable, the narratives feature people who are often stubbornly unconscious of their own needs and desires, yet vulnerable enough that they are mostly sympathetic. In “Fireflies,” a impetuous, unknowable woman wreaks havoc on the life of a young man struggling to find his way. In “White Trees in Summer,” after an old woman dies, misunderstandings break out between her neighbors, local teenagers, and the elderly husband she has left a widower. Connections falter between people, even as they try to do their best. These scenarios could add up to a failure of storytelling if Novack’s characters weren’t as intriguing as they are confounding. Booklist wrote that the Everyone is an “…[electrifying collection of sexy, gutsy, imaginatively compassionate stories. Vividly tactile, funny, irreverent, and incisive, these stories of imperiled relationships are also richly plotted.”
- Review by Barbara O'Dair, Executive Editor, Reader's Digest Magazine

Enter to Win a Free Book!

2011-10-26T09:31:00.002-04:00

My girlfriend Laura Spinella is giving away a signed copy of her book, Beautiful Disaster! Details here, on the Girlfriends Book Club site.

New York City

2011-09-26T09:13:00.009-04:00

Tarot Card Reading Giveaway

2011-09-25T16:07:00.003-04:00

My first winner, Scarlet, has received her tarot card reading today! So if you are in line for one, please know I'll get to you shortly. My goal is to do one a day, in between my own writing and day-to-day things. Thank you for your patience, and, as always, I hope what information comes to you makes sense, in your world.

All My Best Wishes,
Sandy

A Few Thoughts on Tarot

2011-09-23T15:39:00.022-04:00

(This post is a work-in-progress, so keep checking back as I add to the write-up. As it turns out, what I know about tarot is sort of a lot, and it's complicated in terms of explanation because there's really so much to consider with decks, and readings.)

Well, since I am dizzy and have a fever and soar throat, and since once again my evening plans are canceled (plans which tonight involved reading Tarot and performing karaoke, plus exuberant drinking with friends), I thought I'd use this dreamy downtime to talk a little about the tarot. When I was a young girl just entering high school, I began reading. I was drawn to the imagery, and the storytelling aspect of tarot, as well as the witchy aspect of decks. (My family is very Hungarian, quite superstitious, not above the evil eye, charms, readings, or little, er, 'spells' for good fortune). Oddly enough my very first deck was one I still use to read people, The Cat People Deck, shown here.

I'm not lying when I say that, over the years, I've probably owned a hundred decks. I am constantly on the lookout for a new favorite deck, and love the variety of cards, the vast array of artwork, and the individual artist's spin on different decks. There are some decks I read from that bring about interpretations not classically associated with other, more standard decks, so it's always neat for me to get cards that I'm drawn to, and go from there.

Once I feel them--literally feel them, shuffling in hand-over-hand style (never shuffle a tarot deck like playing cards, never!)--I generally know whether I'll be a good fit for reading that particular deck. When the feeling just isn't there, I tend to give decks away, to other friends who read. There is an old myth that tarot should never be bought and always be a gift, but I don't ascribe to that and personally have never had any bad luck come about because I bought a deck for myself. Don't believe the hype on this, people. You want a deck, hey, go for it! That said, my very first deck was a gift, so maybe there is something to that whole 'when you get started, have the deck be a gift thing'. Hm. Will have to consider this more.

Having several decks can be useful, because the same goes for the people you read: some jive on an energetic level with a certain deck, and some don't. A friend I often read doesn't like the cat people pictured above, but adores the Scapini deck, and the readings we do with that deck always seem to make sense to her. There is a school of thought that ascribes to 'masculine' vs. 'feminine' decks. Both the Cat People and the Scapini deck are masculine decks, which can work nicely with masculine astrological signs and/or energies. I'm a Leo (masculine sign) so that makes sense, though I have a Pisces moon, which can explain why The Enchanted Deck, the only feminine deck I own, is also useful for me, on certain occasions. I find this deck works well for very sensitive individuals, with very 'feminine' vibrations. This is a beautiful deck, in general, with images taken from tapestries.

My all-time favorite deck is probably the Medieval Scapini, which oddly enough was rendered by an artist with no understanding of tarot at all. So this deck is by far the most unusual of interpretations, though, surprisingly, given that the artist had no idea of what tarot depictions generally were, he got more correct than incorrect and the places he deviates are just interesting. Here are pictures of the Scapini deck, see below:

I also tend toward the Crowley deck, again another very visual deck. This deck is always spot-on for me, and easy to read. But when I use this deck too often, I find I have troubled dreams. So I again save this one for rarer occasions.

The standard, and oldest, layout for reading has got to be the Celtic Cross, though it's important to realize there are all sorts of reading layouts, from single-card, three-card, circles, to elaborate spreads that cover the entire year and use a large portion of the 78-card deck. 78 is standard, in terms of number, but quite a few decks vary, with more or less cards. A typical Celtic cross spread can also vary in the ordering of the cards. For example, Card One is generally the signifier (the person being read), the card next to them (card 2) is the environment they are existing in, the nature of the question, the immediate influence on them. Card three, which crosses, is the obstacle, but from there, cards 4, 5, and 6 can vary. I generally place card 4 below cards 1-3, to show the underlying influence--the thing that makes the issue turn. Then 5 for the past (placed to the left of cards 1-3). Card 6 is placed above, for goal or destiny, and Card 7 is placed to the right, for future event. It's important to see things are interrelated when you do a reading. For example, if a card is strong enough to pull as a 'past' incident, it means it is inevitably exerting a presence/pressure on the current environment, the signifier, and the future event. If you think of the basic formation of this as a wheel (where things cycle) you start to see how everything in this formation is related to everything else. Make sense? There are variations to the basic 1-6 positions. Sometimes there is no 2 environment card, and 2 is the obstacle. Sometimes 3 is the goal, placed above 1 and 2, etc. Many of these variations are found in tarot literature. If you do the spread slightly differently, don't sweat the small stuff. It only matters that you are energetically 'tapped in.'

Cards 7-10 line the side. Seven generally gives further clarification on the signifier and their role and attitude and how it affects things. Card 8 represents immediate influences in environment, things happening or coming down on the person being read. Card 9 represents hopes and fears that need to be realized and/or addressed before the final card, 10, the outcome can manifest.

"Rules" of tarot:
Nothing is set in stone. If the signifier changes something radically, the outcome can and will change.

I often will cross cards in this formation with other cards, in order to get more clarification.

Court cards (Kings, Queens, Knights, Pages) can often refer to actual people in the signifier's life. Cups generally refer to water signs, Wands to fire signs, Swords to Air signs, and Coins to earth signs. Court cards can also just mean people with attributes associated with those signs. Pages, however, can be people, but can often mean that news is coming to the person being read. Knights, too, can be people or bring news/messages.

Cards can also change, in terms of importance. For example, when a woman has a strong bond with a male card, it can pull as a King. But if she is losing interest, he can be 'downgraded' to a Knight, for example. You have to use your gut on this, look at surrounding cards, and cross with a new card when more clarification is necessary.

In general, coins refer to financial/material issues. Cups to love/emotional issues. Wands to new starts and enterprises/activities. Swords to more intellectual issues.

Trump Cards (The Major Arcana) The Fool, The Magician, The Empress, etc. are cards of high significance. When a person pulls an abundance of trump cards, there are generally life-changing, long-term things going on. Trumps teach us our life lessons, on a karmic level.

The Minor Arcana, all the rest (court cards, pip cards Aces-Ten) generally deal more with day-to-day issues, events, and so forth.

Inverted (upside-down cards): There are ALSO several schools of thought on this. Some don't differentiate between upright or inverted cards and don't change the reading based on the position of the card itself, one way or the other. Some readers believe that an inverted card means the opposite of the original meaning. So, for example, the six of wands, which generally brings good news and victory would mean a loss or defeat. Still some within this branch of reading will further say that some cards can't really be reversed. The Sun, for example, is so tremendously positive that the meaning can't be negative, whether upright or inverted, but if inverted some of those positive energies might be diluted a bit. Still others see an inverted card not so much as the opposite of the 'upright' meaning, but as a delay in that action/state manifesting in the signifier's life. Personally, I utilize all these ideas, and it really just depends on my gut feeling, and the surrounding cards.

Surrounding cards can temper, amplify, modify cards. Remember when you are reading, you're reading the entire spread and how things interrelate, as well as individual cards.

Sometimes when I'm reading a card, I get two very different interpretations, or feelings about things going on. I always tell the person being read ALL my feelings associated with a card, as more often than not, multiple things are going on, and multiple things might apply. So there is not necessarily ONE correct thing to say about any given card. Be fluid here. It helps!

When reading trumps, I tend to frame my interpretation not only as what's going on, in terms of a big event, but also, on a karmic level, what's in need of learning as a life lesson. These cards help to teach and elevate the energy of a person. And as Martha would say, that's a good thing.

Do I read interpretations based on the little book that accompanies a deck, or a tarot book? This one is hard. I'm sure when I was learning tarot I read the books. But not so strenuously that it made me uptight. Mostly, I go by the images, and what they bring to me, as well as associations between the cards in the spread itself. And, as I said, there are some decks where I vary my interpretations as much as the cards do. I think the more you trust yourself, the better your readings get. Otherwise you are just going through the motions.

Can 'time' be told with the tarot? Or a time line? Personally, I always say a tarot reading usually lasts about as long as the person does or doesn't get read. Like me, for example, I pull cards everyday, and that's just about what things generally cover. If you don't get read often, your 'future' card may be longer out than my 'future' card, if you catch my drift here.

However, I've calculated certain things to the day for clients, back when I was reading lots of people, all the time. So a rule (and I might mess this up, as I always confuse wands and swords!): Counting from position 10 or 11 (the last position in the cross) go backwards. If a person has a question of 'when will this all come about,' coins are years (so an Ace of Coins would mean within the year, or closer to one year from now). Two=two years. A CUP means DAYS but only if the card before it is a coin. Otherwise, best I always learned, the cups are sort of a wash. Wands refer to...er. Here is where I mess up. I *think* weeks. So an eight of wands would mean within 8 weeks. Swords refer to months. So you're looking at the suit, and numbered, pip cards.

Do I read myself? I do. I won't lie. Should I? Eh. I always think there's a little too much attachment to outcomes and ego when a reader reads herself. Plus you want to reshuffle again and again. So I would advise against this, but...I don't follow my own good advice. Always best to have a neutral person read/suggest/pray/etc. for you. Energy travels more freely then, and hits the mark better. ;)

Damn. There was something else I wanted to write, and it just went out of my mind, like that.

Oh, now I remember: Ordering. So the Fool starts the karmic cycle that ends with The World, the completion of the trumps and life's lessons, only to recycle again (which is why the Fool is both childish/foolish, but wise in his own way). The pip cards operate in the same fashion. So, for example, an Ace of Cups is really the start of love/emotion and often can come from the self, or divine source. The Two of Cups branches outward, to emotion between you and another. The Ten of Cups is the ultimate fulfillment of cups in that suit, and brings a unity and happiness of family, community, etc. So tens (some say nines--I'm not going there, in this post) are generally the 'fullest' state, where Aces are starts. The Ten of Swords for example, is pretty much RUIN/END OF THINGS. So it's not always a great place to be, either! But it helps to study numerology, too, when reading tarot, as Twos generally refer to certain states, Ones to certain states, Tens, and so forth. Fives, as another example, bring struggle/discord in all the suits. So you can also look at a person's reading in terms of pip cards: Are they mostly at the start of things? Are there a lot of certain numbered cards?

In the same vein, if a person pulls an abundance of cups, there are a lot of more emotional things going on, than idea-related, etc. So again looking at the entire spread, and what is getting emphasis (if anything) helps.

And the Winners Are...

2011-09-23T09:12:00.002-04:00

Good morning, World. I am writing to you under the influence of Mucinex. 'Tis the season.

I have randomly selected the five winners for the Love Tarot Card Reading! There were actually quite a lot of entries, so if your name didn't get picked, thank you for playing!

Winners:
Al Hill
Heather Mays
Jan Davies
Scarlet Dennett
Cindy Murphy

I'll be in touch today, over e-mail, for how to proceed!

Yours, in Stuffy Misery.
Sandy

Thanks, Associated Press!

2011-09-21T07:48:00.002-04:00

Many thanks to the Associated Press for writing a review of EVERYONE BUT YOU. That really helps get word out about my collection, and I'm very thankful for the attention!

Update!

2011-09-20T09:17:00.006-04:00

Well, it's been a busy two weeks. First, EVERYONE BUT YOU launched, and I had a fabulous time reading at After-Words Bookshop in Chicago. Met some fantastic people and ate and drank afterward, which is always fun! Then I hopped on a plane to New York City, where I got to hug my agent and also read at The Center for Fiction. Awesome evening, great turnout. On Sunday I headed to the Brooklyn Book Festival, where there were wonderful panel discussions, readings, and a huge assembly of fantastic writers. This week I have two events, at The Book Cellar in Chicago, and at a library (note to self: Must check day planner, as what library I'm reading at escapes me completely at this moment).

I'm also doing this funky tarot card reading giveaway, which readers entered all of last week. Tarot cards, you ask? Well, yes. I've read tarot since I was in 9th grade. At one point, I even read professionally. I've been called everything under the sun when it comes to readings and my little conjuring antics: gypsy, witch, gypsy-witch, psychic, you name it. But mostly I like to think of myself as just plain old Sandy, dabbler in magic and all things extraordinary!!!!! :) I've probably owned over a hundred decks in my life, though I tend to stick to my tried-and-true favorites: The Medieval Scapini deck, the Cat People deck, the Crowley deck, and the Enchanted Tarot deck. Reading tarot is hugely beneficial for both everyday things and for figuring out where we all are on our life's journeys, and how to manifest things in our life differently. I'm thinking I'll do a post on readings before randomly selecting the winners this week. Stay tuned for more on this. Using today as a 'catch-up' day, but wanted to post an update for those who were wondering where I've been, and what I've been up to of late.

Later, gators. I wish you, as always, blessings and peace.

Thanks for the love, Booklist!

2011-09-01T09:40:00.000-04:00

Booklist Review

Everyone but You.

Novack, Sandra (author).

Sept. 2011. 304p. Random, hardcover, $26 (9781400066810).

REVIEW. First published September 1, 2011 (Booklist).

Novack follows her lauded debut, Precious (2009), with an electrifying collection of sexy, gutsy, imaginatively compassionate stories. Her female characters are frank and assertive, even when they’re clueless, and Novack writes equally convincingly from a man’s point of view. Vividly tactile, funny, irreverent, and incisive, these stories of imperiled relationships are also richly plotted. In the blisteringly funny and tough “Fireflies,” a hot number calling herself Lola picks up a guy named Harold as they watch a used-car lot go up in flames, ultimately teaching him a thing or two about the treacheries of love and the persistence of class divides. The arrival, via priority mail, of her long-estranged, now-deceased father’s wooden leg jolts a young woman into awareness of how empty her casual sexual conquests are. In “White Trees in Summer,” an elderly man who helped his acutely suffering wife die is harassed by teenagers. Novack’s keen and spirited tales delve into the crazy and cruel situations we helplessly devise and marvel over how unfathomable we are to each other and ourselves. — Donna Seaman

Thanks for the Shout Out, Poets and Writers!

2011-08-19T18:12:00.000-04:00

Nice little Page One shout out here.

Girlfriends Book Club Blog

2011-08-18T09:49:00.003-04:00

Did I mention that there is this awesome blog, called Girlfriends Book Club? It's filled with great posts from writers on process, query letters, promotion, and more. And I'm happy to be a new member! Here's my first post, here. I hope you enjoy the blog, and follow it!

Thanks for the Shout Out New York Times Magazine!

2011-08-16T07:40:00.001-04:00

And thanks to my publicist, Bridget, too. Nice mention of EVERYONE BUT YOU, here.

Update!

2011-08-04T14:08:00.006-04:00

Well, I got my first mixed review ever, and I have to say it honestly was painless. There is something about having work that was written between the years 2001-2003 out there that definitely creates a distanced feeling in me these days. I'm sort of like, "Hey, Dude, if you want to pick on the first stories I ever even got to story, okay by me!" Ah, I am feeling invincible today, so I can say that! I'm measuring my own personal progress and growth as a writer by leaps and bounds.

(Yes, it has been a good writing day, thank you for asking!)

In other news, I will be posting a list of my upcoming readings in the great city of Chicago, including an awesome launch in the city that will feature WINE and FOOD, which are always sure to draw a crowd, no? And it looks like I might be heading to NYC to give a reading at the fab Center for Fiction (Mercantile Library). This is also very, very cool. (I am half-tempted to fly in there every week, to take that course with Gordon Lish--how wonderful would that be?)

More later. Must get back to the page, which has been treating me very well of late.

Read "Save My Soul" at Five Chapters!

2011-07-15T08:06:00.003-04:00

Click here to read "Save My Soul," a story in my newest book, EVERYONE BUT YOU, available from Random House, 9/13/11. The collection is available for pre-order now!

It's Been a Spring, I'll Say That Much

2011-06-17T09:55:00.012-04:00

I feel a sort of freedom these days, which could be a reason why I'm posting this here on my blog and not on facebook. Of late, I've been finding FB a bit too constraining, a place where there is this very public persona of the person that is Sandy, rather than the more intimate, private me, which is suited to conversations with close friends, but is always ill-equipped for conversation in a room full of strangers. I had the thought, lately, that I could post here on my blog and just be honest, because who the hell visits THIS site anymore?

So I've had some major changes, in both my life and my writing. On March 9, I received a call from my brother, Tommy, one so frantic and breathless I thought he was having a heart attack right there on the phone and had somehow decided it was a good idea--though God would only know why--to call his baby sister, because I only live something like 700 miles away in Chicago, and so of course I could be right over, to help. These initial thoughts were jarring enough, that he was dying, that my brother was dying, right there on the phone, that there was nothing I could really do but tell him everything would be alright, though clearly it was not alright, clearly something was very, very wrong.

It took a few chaotic seconds to make sense of what he was saying through those labored breaths, and to realize that no, he wasn't dying. He was quite literally shivering, because he had just jumped into bitterly cold water. What had happened, he explained, was that my father was missing. A rescue crew was searching the creek that runs through my father's farm property in Pennsylvania. So certain was my brother that our father had been swept up by the high flood waters while trying to clear storm debris from under a bridge that he had jumped into the murky, turbulent waters to search for him. The water had shocked my brother. He had to get out, he said. The water, he told me, was too cold, too high. There's no way he would have survived, my brother said. Sandy, he told me, it's bad.

Hours passed, and I waited for the phone to ring again with any sort of news. It is an odd experience to wait at such a great distance, while the rest of my family--brothers, sister, mother, grandchildren, aunts and uncles--gathered. It was even worse to find out bits of new information from the television coverage of an event that so personally affected me. The helicopters flew low, overhead, at my father's farm, the reporters eager for a story. I went on-line and saw how flooded the creek was, how it had spilled over into fields I used to play in as a child. I could see the road that led to my childhood home, see my brother's truck parked there in the driveway, view the rescue team, the boats, the waiting ambulance.

After five hours they found my father, his body tangled up in tendrils of a willow tree that had fallen across the creek during a recent Spring storm. I had a simple thought of gratitude for that downed tree. It had kept my father on the property he loved, and kept his body from washing down the creek more than it had. It could have been so much worse, I thought, the recovery efforts could have taken days then, and not hours.

There is a lot more to say on the subject of my father, his death, and my trip home for a funeral, the suddenly changed shape of my family, and how this affected all of the family dynamics. For now, I'll simply say that I never cared to think how much my father held our family together--I don't think I ever gave him even the smallest amount of credit for that--but now I realize how the sheer force and presence of him somehow kept us all in check, for better or worse. When he was gone, it was a free-for-all. Tempers were high. Old sibling rivalries reared up. We simply didn't know how to be, without my father there to shape us, our actions, our words. We were like grown children again.

My father always used to talk about luck--that he was unlucky, that I was lucky--that these two fates were determined by some complicated equation having to do with both our Hungarian and Polish ancestors and our sins in previous lives. I frequently laughed when my father spoke of luck, though I held onto an old-world sense of superstition. I burned sage to bless my home. I read tarot cards, and palms. I mentally said a prayer each time I heard a siren. I raised my feet from the floor when driving across railroad tracks. But I had never entirely agreed with my father, too: I believed a person also made his or her own luck, too, good, bad or indifferent.

Still reeling from all that had happened, and feeling rubbed entirely raw, my husband and I came home and hoped that life -- our life, our very lucky life that we made, together -- would settle down. But within three weeks, my kitten came down with a rare virus that affects one in five thousand, and died. Within another two months, my older cat died. I would spend months in a state of quiet panic as I lay in bed at night, analyzing every complaint my body issued--a pain in my shoulder, a little tightness in my chest. When it stormed one day and my dog still insisted on going outside for a walk, I was paralyzed with fear and got no farther than the bottom of our steps before deciding that it was a considerably unwise choice to be outside walking a dog in a storm, that it was decidedly unlucky. I thought, really, lightening could strike. It could strike me.

I am still thinking about all this, about family and fate and sudden changes. I've been writing about all this since late March, cranking out loose material that is, to my surprise, non-fiction. And I think I'm going to go for it. I have even gone so far as to promise my agent work, if only because in promising her something, I mentally affirm a deadline and then hold fast to it.

For now, I am putting away the novel I started after PRECIOUS, Resurrection Fern. I had written about two hundred organized pages when my editor suddenly asked to see it, and the response toward the partial was tentative. There is nothing wrong with tentative, mind you. After all, it's a big book, and, truthfully, there were some things in that partial I hadn't worked out, things that probably made the writing feel less credible. What, for example, did I believe about God? About healing? In that fictional world of Wallo, I simply didn't know yet. But beside narrative 'kinks' not worked out, and general length (the book would have been close to 400 pages, realistically) there is always the fear that new writers who don't have initial 'break-out' successes have, that of essentially being dumped and forgotten about at their house--a very real issue for many writer friends I know.

I'd be lying if such hesitation at a critical stage of writing didn't make me lose some heart. When I sat down I doubted more and more. I suddenly worried not about my writing skills or belief in the overall story I'd dreamed up, but about what was 'MARKETABLE' and not, what was in line with what my audience might expect, and what was too divergent (and maybe best saved as say, novel four, but not novel two). I rewrote and rewrote just because I couldn't stop writing. Maybe that book is, as someone close to me said, the kind of book to put out, say, 4th or 5th, and not the kind of book to follow up my debut.

For as much as writers don't often talk about it, these perceived setbacks happen all the time in publishing. But then something happens--a father dies, a family changes--and it begins to feel like it was inevitable, that all that older writing was filling time before something even more pressing came along. Now I find myself thinking of my father's very simple credo, that it just is what it is. No point in holding onto something, just on the insistence that it NEEDS to be next, or because my life is generally so ordered that I seldom change plans, or direction. The non-fiction I've been writing feels pressing, so I'm going with it, gonna ride that wave, and so forth. And if that is in line with my first novel and therefore somehow more marketable in the end, well then, what can I say? For all the frustration that the novel was causing me, writing non-fiction these days has been like opening up a rusty old valve somewhere near my heart, and, though writing is never easy, well lately it hasn't been so hard, either. Maybe this is a sign to let go a little, to let my ordered world open up a little more and go with the great flow and cycle of birth and death and rebirth, to let myself be carried a bit, and trust that my father was right--that I'm not unlucky but lucky--and the fates have my back. Regardless, I am feeling very contented knowing that the new work can now land, quite freely, in the best hands possible for it.

Download a Free Story from EVERYONE BUT YOU

2011-06-10T08:10:00.006-04:00

Click here to download a free story from my new collection EVERYONE BUT YOU

Everyone But You

2011-04-25T18:36:00.001-04:00

From Poets and Writers: Publishing in the Twenty-First Century

2011-02-25T08:38:00.002-05:00

Great article here:

Memo to Publishers: 8 Things NOT to Say.

2011-02-24T14:46:00.000-05:00

Memo to Publishers: 8 Things NOT to Say.

Personal Update

2010-12-10T09:57:00.005-05:00

I am horrible at keeping this blog updated, and for those who check in, you can also find me on facebook, where I status update more regularly. The collection (which is still titled EVERYONE BUT YOU -- fingers crossed!) is just about to go into the final pipeline at Random House, and I'm grateful to both my agent and editors for their help and support. These stories were written between 2002-2005 (some written in my MFA program!), and there is that ultra self-critical side of me that looks back over older work and just hates it. I always feel like whatever 'new' thing I've got in front of me is much better and shows my growth as both a person and a writer. Looking at the collection again I've also learned that I much prefer the expansiveness of the novel form. I just love getting a bunch of narrative threads going and seeing if I can get them all to tie together and resonate in meaningful ways. So tinkering with the short story form has reminded me of this general change in me over the years, as well.

All this said, in a time when fewer books are being published (and even fewer collections) I am hugely blessed to have it in the world! No covers yet. I always get a little deliriously excited to see the artwork that accompanies any book, so I'm looking forward to that.

After a fun, crazy summer in Chicago, I've returned again to the new novel, which continues to capture my affection and interest (a good thing, as I really gave myself some downtime with the move and getting used to this area/exploring it). Since moving I've gone back to tweak a lot, too, as I've found being in a new place has changed my outlook for the main character, as well as the general shape and location of WALLO. Pleased with the changes, overall. It's slow going, but it's also a 'bigger book.'

I'm also tremendously thankful to the Christopher Isherwood Foundation for awarding my fiction a grant for the 2011 year. I received the nicest phone call from California yesterday, and it really did make my entire day! It's always so inspiring to realize how many people do care about art and the flourishing of letters. Shout out to them!

Boo (i.e. Rupert) has, in the words of my friend, Jean, gotten "OMG HUGE!" He is such a little stinker, too. I've included an updated pic of him which shows his almost 'mature' coat. His tongue is not nearly long enough to lick all that fur, but he tries anyway. The rest of the pet family is well, to some extent. Hobbes, our orange kitty, has lost a lot of weight, and at 12 the vet thinks it might be some sort of stomach cancer. Tests haven't shown anything, but I think she might be right. Chloe, our dog, too, is having a lot of issues with her back legs, though she is otherwise healthy. Caleb, Gracie, and Pip are active. And our guinea pig, Olive, is also happy and enjoying her fresh spinach and carrots each day.

"Truth in Fiction": The Day My Sister Ran Away, Forever

2010-08-06T11:14:00.004-04:00

-from the paperback version of Precious, available 8/31 from Random House

I’m often asked about the nature of truth in PRECIOUS, my debut novel. Perhaps it’s because readers are familiar with the adage that first novels are often thinly veiled autobiographies, or perhaps it’s because readers inherently understand that writers do not create entire worlds from the air—-there has to be some fodder, grounded in the real world. But, for whatever reason, at book club discussions and readings or over coffee, readers want to know what events in the novel are real events. I always respond quickly. When I was young, I say, my seventeen-year-old sister Carole ran away from home, and I’ve never seen her again.

After saying this for thirty years, it could be that the statement has become rote, or it could be that,through repetition, the feelings inherent in that statement-—the sadness or shame or anger—-are equally muted and dry. Because what happens next is generally this: the questioner pauses, hesitates. They might lean forward, as if expecting and sensing there is more to tell. It’s always then that my own old, dumbfounded silence creeps in, for it always seems to me that truth is difficult for a variety of reasons.

First, I didn’t write a memoir or an autobiography; I wrote a fiction. And as fiction, the work has to stand on its own; what I do or don’t say about my personal life bears little to no real importance except as an aside or endnote. Second, there is my family to consider, and their privacy. All of them are alive and well and there is the question of loyalty, which is something that always pulls me in various directions, all at once: loyalty to my sister and her memory, loyalty to my parents, and to myself. And there is even another consideration, that of my loyalty to readers, who, after all, only ask such questions after they have taken the time to become invested in the world of the book. “But is your sister okay?” they ask, genuinely concerned. “What happened?”

For this I have no good answer.

Then I think that I am the one who is hiding, because truths are painful for writers—-truths are painful for us all-—and truth, as I see it, is a precarious thing anyway, particularly when my memories are hindered by the long years, fragmented by time. I was five, I remind myself, when my sister ran away, and even that is a statement that I have later had to amend.

***

Hide and seek. The day Carole left was, to my still five-year-old, slightly criminal mind, a day of games. My sister was at work, but I had already decided (in the way I frequently made decisions for my older brothers and sisters) that when she got home we would play a game of hide-and-seek. Under the kitchen table I went. The kitchen was dim, the floor cold and smooth. I don’t know how long I waited; for children, especially, minutes can feel like hours, hours like days. I’m sure I felt anticipation at the thought of my sister’s arrival. I’m sure I felt that peculiar sort of giddy dread-—that wanting to be found yet also wanting to stay hidden.

When my sister finally did come through the door there was no friendly greeting to my mother (who I seem to recall was also there in the kitchen), but rather an explosion of yelling and tears. “That’s it,” my sister screamed. “I’m leaving.”

Next, where there should be more action-—a succession of movement, or dialogue or an escalation of an argument between what I eventually learned was my sister and father, the details of which I still don’t know to this day—-there is, in my memory, only white space, blankness.

***

I once heard a writer talk about the notion of truth in fiction. He was relating an event from his life, one that later inspired a short story. He and his girlfriend of two years had just had an argument about, over all things, how he stacked dishes in the dishwasher. The argument swelled in the way they often do. It was early and he hadn’t yet showered and dressed. The fight made him late for work. In his anger and haste, he dressed quickly, and, in the process of rummaging for clothes, he pulled out one blue sock and one black sock from the drawer. Later that morning, he looked down and discovered the mismatched pair. At the same moment, a song was playing at the store where he worked. I have always imagined it must have been a sad song, because he said that, for some reason, the music, coupled with the mismatched socks, led him to a further realization, a very plain truth: The relationship would fail.

Years later, he wrote a story about the end of a relationship. Most details of the breakup were different from those of his own. The couple was much older and long married. There was no argument over dishes or incompatibility. The reason for the breakup was not the same, though the feeling of loss was similar, I’m sure, and there were two lines, about, of all things, a pair of mismatched socks. The other lines—-all of them, really-—were crafted to bolster and sustain those two lines of truth taken from his personal life, that one little detail that, for whatever reason, was long held in memory and seemed to contain something worthy of a story. What the narrative afforded was a new context and meaning, a place to put a fragmented image, a way to breathe new life into a single, lost moment again.

***

This is the truth: I don’t remember how long I stayed under the table the day my sister left home forever. I don’t recall if I scrambled out and ran after her, perhaps wanting to soothe her or perhaps even wanting a bit of gossip—-to find out what exactly had happened to make her issue such a proclamation as, that’s it; I’m leaving. Or perhaps I simply kept waiting, magically willing away the chaos of the house, the tears and screaming. What I remember next is another fragmented image of that same day: I stood outside. It was a terribly hot day, very sunny. My sister rode off down the drive on her bicycle. That is the last image of her I hold in mind, the last time I ever saw her again.

In reality my mother might have been outside, too, or my father, or my brothers, but in memory, this scene is made very intimate—there is only my sister and me, her pedaling off, my watching her leave.

Then, more white space.

That day my mother, who was always well-meaning, didn’t want me to be upset, so she called my oldest sister, charging her with my care for the rest of the day. After Carole left, my other sister took me and a friend to a local amusement park. I remember sitting in the back seat,asking if Carole was going to come home, so I must have been worried. But I’m also sure that my worry quickly gave way to delight when we got to the park. I went on rides, ate cotton candy, had a hot dog. I must have forgotten about my sister at some point, dismissed the argument, in a naïve way, as simply a fight that would, in time, blow over and not as a terrible thing that would leave my family forever broken.

I must have laughed.

***

I never found out the exact nature of the argument between my father and sister, or discovered, at least in those immediate years following her departure, what could have been so terribly bad that she would want to run away forever. Indeed, even my sister’s departure on that bright, sunny day was too painful a thing to talk about at all, and, when pressed, everyone in my family seems to have a different story surrounding events, complicating the truth further and keeping it just out of reach. In my family, we argue about the nature of truth and memory.

“You’ve got it wrong,” my brother once told me at one of those rare moments when we actually talked about my sister at all. “You weren’t five when she left home, you were seven,” he said. “And I pumped the bike tire for her; it had a flat.”

I cannot begin to explain how this one statement devastated me years after the fact, how it trapped me in a lie I didn’t even know I’d committed. What was most upsetting was the realization that came with my brother’s statement: I could not remember anything of those two lost years that I had suddenly recovered, that span of time between five and seven. Yet surely things must have happened. My sister and I must have joked around. She must have brushed through my always tangled hair. I must have accompanied her to the mall, played board games with her, bickered. Because I remember myself as younger than I actually was, I have effectively wiped out time and history with her; I have lost entire years with my sister.

But why do I remember myself as younger? Was I particularly vulnerable in that moment, susceptible to the moods of the house? Is this why I remember myself as smaller?

This error of memory leads to even more questions and doubts: Why, for example, do I remember that the floor was smooth and cool under me? Was it really so dim in the kitchen on what I also remember to be a bright, sunny day? Most likely my mother or father had turned off the lights to help cool the rooms in those pre-air-conditioning days. But perhaps, too, I am adding details without realizing it, so that I can give this memory verisimilitude; the more detail, the easier the moment is to recall, the longer I am able to hold onto it. Perhaps I need to flesh in
details to moments that, for me, are all I have left of my sister, ones that are inadequate at best. Or maybe this is the inherent problem of memory and truth, that both exist only as fragments—-mere moments—-those isolated from the larger context and day. Who looks back over any remembered event, good or bad, and recalls every single detail?

I think that there is something in the brain that resists such fragmentation and that is the stuff of stories. What I can say are the following truths, these moments in a day that changed my life: My sister ran away from home and never came back. It happened on a very hot summer day. I was hiding under the table when she came through the door, crying. She rode off later on her bike, and I spent the rest of that day at an amusement park with another girl my age.

Now, let’s dwell here again, but with a new context, a new problem: A young girl has gone missing at a local park. Her mother grieves. Her best friend feels responsible. Down the street, in another house, a family is in crisis.

To say that the idea of a girl who goes missing is inspired by my sister is a true enough statement, accurate in a sense. But to say that the little girl is also me would be equally true, that I went missing on that day as well. Using images, ones taken from my own experience—-the bike, the lost child, the hot summer, the amusement park—-I have, in PRECIOUS, reordered them and given them a new context and meaning, woven together entire pages—-entire lies—-around what are a few true moments, those details long held in my memory. As a writer of fiction, I do this all in an effort to recover what is lost, to breathe life into something that is gone, forever, from view.

By Sandra Novack

This is from the personal essay, "Truth in Fiction" which appears in the paperback version of PRECIOUS, available 8/31 from Random House.

A Booklist Top Ten Debut
A Random House Fall 2010 "Reader's Circle" Selection

"Heralded by Booklist as one of the ten best debut novels of 2009, reviewers compared PRECIOUS to the works of Anne Tyler and Joyce Carol Oates, and called the novel compelling and beautifully written. Critically acclaimed author Novack has a natural, lyrical voice, and her setting is wonderfully atmospheric. With its focus on relationships between sisters, mother and daughter, and husband and wife, PRECIOUS has great discussion potential and will appeal widely to book clubs." -Random House Reader's Circle

There are accompanying "Reader's Circle" discussion questions, and the author is available for book club phone chats and Skype discussions. Please schedule with Random House's Reader's Circle for book club chats.

For reviews visit author website

Writing and Personal Update

2010-05-01T07:52:00.006-04:00

My revised collection was sent to my fantastic editor at RH a few weeks ago, a chunk of my new novel was delivered to my lovely agent, and my novel contest screening is *almost* done. April was a solid month.

May onward? Organize the rest of the raw material for Resurrection Fern! I have SO much raw material (hundreds of pages), and I realize I FUSS so much with every line. But, after last summer and getting derailed because of moving from GA to IL; renovating our new house and living in the basement for a bit; living minus a phone, internet, and computer for 1 1/2 months (all because of a bundled package and 'cable' issue!); and dealing with movers (beware WHEATON Company...they will eat up a month of your life fighting them for destroying your furniture); I AM BACK ON TRACK. And happy. Now, if I could just stop fussing so much with every line...

I am hoping to be finished by Fall. Summer is (usually) my super-productive time. Long days, lots of sun.

The novel has pretty big scope. Set in the David Lynch-esque town of Wallo, Resurrection Fern deals with a boy who has the ability to heal through the power of touch. Omniscient voice. Of course too literary, I'm sure. And LOTS of threads. And lots of characters, who have, if I'm being honest, driven both the book and me. I've had to apply my knowledge of Structure after they've had their way and say. This novel pushes me, everyday, to extend my literary boundaries. But, as I'm told: That's a good thing.

Phil and I are LOVING Chicago. We've found our 'fit' in Oak Park, with its beautiful houses, tree-lined streets, tons of activity and interest. Even today, one block from our house, we have a free Multicultural Festival going on, with live professional singers, dancers, performers, a parade (going by our house) and tons of ETHNIC food. And, it takes us just fifteen minutes to get to the heart of Chicago's art and business district, and the beach at Lake Michigan. Phil and I look at each other all the time and marvel over how lucky we are, how blessed.

We had to say goodbye to our beloved Persian, Tom-Tom, after 21 years of life. But we are welcoming a new Himmy into our home on May 15th. And we have our close friends coming to visit the end of May.

It's a great life today. Here's "Rupert", or, as I've been calling him, "Boo-Boy."

Wheaton Company

2010-03-07T13:07:00.003-05:00

Since I have a professional website and blog (that uses tracking through Google Analytics), I've noticed the increased traffic and flow of visitors looking for information on this company, sometimes under some pretty colorful searches, such as today's "Wheaton Moving Nightmare." Please do know that if you're visiting this site because of a horrible moving experience with Wheaton (or if you've hired them and are concerned about their general performance), you are more than welcome to contact me at sandra@sandranovack.com. I will gladly offer you the pics of the damage sustained during our GA to Chicago, IL move.

Paperback

2010-02-08T07:46:00.010-05:00

Update: My editor wants to do one more pass to change the font on the novel summary and make the font bigger. But: Nice! I'm so pleased with the design!!

I forgot to post this a few months ago. Sorry. I blame facebook for my inefficient blogging updates. This might be tweaked, in terms of nods and what appears on the cover. Here's to Target! And the new novel synopsis, which my editor did a fantastic job writing (Thanks, J.!). And a new essay that accompanies the book. And here's to a publication date of August, since let me tell you, last winter/spring a LOT of new novels were out. Finally, thanks to those who, a year later, are still buying my book in hardcover and (yay!) KINDLE. You guys rock!

JK Rowling: The fringe benefits of failure | Video on TED.com

2010-02-02T11:09:00.000-05:00

JK Rowling: The fringe benefits of failure | Video on TED.com

J. D. Salinger Dies at Age 91

2010-01-28T13:45:00.003-05:00

God rest you, J.D. Salinger, the voice of a generation.
1-1-19 to 1-28-10

Wheaton Moving Company: Beware, a List to Consider

2010-01-25T11:33:00.005-05:00

People have asked me about the damage done to the house, and the general experience with the movers. This is off the top of my head:

-Driver and crew arrived two or more hours late to Oak Park.
-Driver only hired two movers for Oak Park location drop off. This, in my estimation, is why so many items were damaged: They didn't have enough of a crew present to handle the larger items, and they were rushed because they already arrived late.
-Didn't call for additional crew members when my husband immediately informed them that they would need more people. In GA we had four movers, plus the driver, and that took all day.
-For this reason, my husband and I had to help move boxes out of the truck, instead of simply supervising. Again, I question what we PAID for then.
-I was trying to help show one mover where to put things when the other mover yelled at me, telling me that when he needs me I should be at the front door.
-When I insisted on drop cloths the driver said, finally (after requesting this all day): "Get a drop cloth so she gets off my dick."
-When husband helped movers move things (because they were late, and because of issues we were already experiencing, there was a running joke of "Well, I guess which one of us boys he (my husband) likes best." This because my husband isn't a "big mover guy?"
-Now that I'm thinking of it, driver also made an offhand comment about the fact that we lived in a "mixed" neighborhood.
-Two doors ripped off hinges, both our basement and back door.
-Hanging lamp knocked by mover, disconnected and broke a 1914 architect designed stained glass piece. We can't even get an estimate to fix this because it's one of a kind and have been in touch with antique dealers. Company didn't even address this item
-scraped a solid wood dresser along the front
-long scrape in bookshelf, running across front.
-long scrape on another hardwood dresser (found after fact and so no claimed but still!) They all had the same scrape patterning.
-scrape in spare bedroom set footboard and sideboard
-"fragile" box looked like it got thrown around...antique tractor toy ripped on side
-more bookshelves with long, flush scratches on side
-desk chair ripped up
-desk has long white mark from where they scraped the wall coming up stairs
-wall sustained damage from them hitting it with furniture
-scrape along fish tank
-wicker chairs had all the wicker ripped up
-knob broken off of an antique chair
-leather wrapped in plastic and then also scraped along the front, flush, the entire length
-two long and deep scratches put in a handmade desk
-nicks in an antique side table
-another side table so badly thrown around that the entire structure is knocked out of alignment, so that you can't open it
-screwdriver or some other instrument taken to flush wood (in other words, there were no brackets on this piece of furniture, no disconnecting indicators) and the movers in GA dug into the desk, leaving holes that ran about 1/2 inch deep and about 3-4 inches round. Can't use the desk at all (several items can't be used now, actually).
-glider scraped along side.
-hole put in a fabric chair, poked right through plastic
-about 50 boxes labeled "master bedroom" etc. put in other places, like the outdoor garage, so that my husband and I have had to lug boxes where they belong, on our own
-scratches, some longer than 6 inches in every single room of the house, from the dolly
-difficulty with claim, in that they didn't even address most issues and wouldn't cover even things we supplied written estimates to fix or reimburse for their fiasco move.
-wouldn't transport an item up the steps on day of move. Estimated an extra 500.00 (? I think) to have a crane lift the item and transport through second floor. ALSO wanted to take the item to storage and have us pay extra for delivery and storage THEN gave me hassle when I said, "Well if you can't get it up the steps, you can bring it wherever in the house..."
-Complained all day that our furniture was "too big." Like, please, just do your job.
-Arbitration place sides with the company over 95 percent of time
-Have had to file with Better Business Bureau AND hire an attorney. We will have to go to court over this.

Wheaton Company Damage to Our Belongings: Pictures on Facebook!

2010-01-19T13:33:00.005-05:00

Dear friends who are interested in the damage sustained by Wheaton Moving Company:

I am having great difficulty uploading photos from the computer to blogger, because there are so many and because the pic size is also large for each photo. But I did post many of them on Facebook last night.

So, if you have a facebook account, I have made the photos available for everyone to see, and that should mean whether you are a "facebook friend" or not. I think in that case you need only type in my name "Sandra Novack" and should be able to view pics. If you have an account and want to friend me (Again, under Sandra Novack and currently I have a pic up with me and our white Persian cat), I will gladly friend you so that you can view the damage.

In the meanwhile, I am still working on shrinking the pics down to something I can post here, so if you aren't on facebook and don't want to be, hold tight. I'll also be posting a list of damages (it's quite long), along with events of the day.

My very sincere apologies for any delays. You guys know I like to be on top of things, so this shrinking/photo thing is frustrating.

Beware: Wheaton Moving Company

2010-01-13T13:07:00.004-05:00

This is a short post, one of many that will be coming over the next few weeks. I wanted to send a "buyer beware" notice out about Wheaton Moving Company, website here, the company that moved our furniture and personal belongings from GA to Chicago, IL. If you are considering a move with this company, I STRONGLY URGE YOU NOT TO DO SO. This company damaged almost every piece of our furniture, scratched the newly finished hardwood floors in every room of our house, destroyed other furniture to the point where we can no longer use the items, and also made remarks that were quite offensive and sexist. We have now had to contact an attorney and file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau regarding their behavior and professionalism. And in the upcoming weeks, I'm also going to post detailed information about our moving day, along with pics of damage to our house and property (we have at least 60 pictures stored--you will be totally appalled when you see them).

Please check back for updates, both here and at Facebook.

But again, a quick warning: DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY. They are unprofessional and you do not want to go through the hassle we are going through, trying to have them admit their mistakes and damage.

Ten Questions to Never Ask a Writer

2010-01-11T17:42:00.009-05:00

This is reprinted from the lovely Lauren B. Davis's blog (blog listed below). It cracked me up today, even though I confess to one of the best writing days I've had in a few weeks, weighing it at about 12 pages today, ones that came out (gasp!) in an organized fashion. But see, I had a great writing day, and so I'm telling you about it (see point 3, we tell EVERYONE good news). If I grunt, that's probably not a good sign. I confess, too, to loving the idea that you can write many words, but then not have any organized. (For those who have seen my process posts, you understand why that strikes a chord with me, and why when I tell you I have written two hundred pages, or three hundred, that doesn't mean I won't cut a bunch of them, or that it won't take me six months to organize the material in a pleasing, hopefully graceful, way. And I'm excited about my new novel (though I AM behind) and want get it to my agent; thankfully both my agent and editor don't take three months to read, or I would die of anxiety. Publishing can be a bloodbath, I suppose, but it's still what I do. Though did I mention, I'm behind? Writing, but behind after the move? Ack.

Thanks, to Lauren...the post follows. And please check out her site!

------

10 Questions Never To Ask A Writer
• Posted by Lauren B. Davis on January 5, 2010 at 6:00am
• View Lauren B. Davis's blog (www.shewrites.com)

I wonder how many of you have asked a writer of your acquaintance what you thought was a perfectly harmless question, one intended to show your interest in that person and what they do, only to be rewarded by a mumbled response, possibly a trembling chin, or, horrors, a glower. You walk away thinking, What’s wrong with these writer people? Have they no manners? Well, sadly, some of us don’t, but it’s more likely you’ve stumbled upon one of the questions likely to leave us at…well, a loss for words.

I don't mean to suggest that writers are such fragile flowers that no one should approach us for fear of having us break down in puddles if asked the wrong question. Really, that hardly ever happens. But if you do detect a slight twitch, or an inadvertent sigh, perhaps it's because you've asked a perfectly well-meaning, seemingly reasonable question, one that if you asked anyone else wouldn't be a problem. However, as writers, alas, we've probably been asked that question a thousand times before, and wouldn't mind at all, if we had a decent answer, but we don't, and so we mumble and sigh and twitch and go and stand behind the potted palm where it's safer. It's embarrassing to stand there with a drink in one hand and a palm frond up the nose. Uncomfortable for everyone, really.

So, for next time…these are some questions writers dread, in no particular order:

1. How's the novel coming?

Well, probably not very well. Novels are wild, unwieldy beasts that resist being tamed. Really, do you want to hear how Faulkner spent twelve hours writing a scene about looking at young girl’s dirty underpants as she climbed a tree? Probably not, and that was the definitive scene in The Sound and the Fury, so imagine how much less you'll want to read about that eel-skinning scene I labored over for hours yesterday, only to erase today. To quote Oscar Wilde, "I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again."

There is also a story about James Joyce wherein someone came round to see The Great Man as he worked in his Paris garret

“How are you, James?” he said. “You don’t look so good.”

“I’m terrible.”

“Is it the writing?”

“Of course it’s the feckin’ writing! It’s always the writing!”

“Can you not write then? Are you blocked?”

“I’ve written seven words today.”

“Well, James,” said the friend, “for you, actually, that’s not bad.”

“I suppose,” said the Great Man, “but now I’ve got to figure out what order to put them in.”

Thus, it’s a question for which there is no good answer, and we know it.

2. Are you writing?

If I am, see 1. above. If 'm not, you really don't want to know. The only thing worse than having writer's block is talking about it. Having to listen to such panicked whining is recognized as torture and we wouldn’t dream of inflicting it on you.

3. Has your novel sold?

Sad to say, but it's unlikely. Publishing is a slaughterhouse these days, and even in the Good Old Days (if ever there were any), almost no one published, and of the minuscule number who did, almost none of those published a second novel. Having to answer that question over and over again is like rubbing glass in an open wound. Believe me, if there's good news, we'll be telling you. Heck, we'll be telling EVERYONE! Most of us write because we can’t stop writing – it’s a sort of mental illness – and thus we do so in spite of the searing disappointments. Try not to make us talk about it.

4. When's that new book coming out?

Let's put it this way: if, since the last time we spoke, I've finished the manuscript, submitted it to my agent, my agent has read it (which usually takes three months because they are busy, important folks), and loved it just as it is with no changes at all; if the agent has then in turn submitted it to editors and one of them has read it (think another few months or so, or more, since editors are also important, busy folks), and that editor LOVED it, and showed it to the sales force (the important people who really run publishing these days) and the sales force LOVED it just as it is, and made an offer....... even if ALL those things have already happened, it will still be around TWO YEARS before the book will actually come out, due to the editing and production process. So, if you've asked this question once in the past three years, you needn't ask it again. Also, see 3).

5. I just love the new Dan Brown novel (or Sarah Palin's memoir), have you read it yet?

My condolences, and no.

6. How come I can't get your books here?

And by ‘here’ you probably mean America. This one may not apply to all writers, but it will to a surprising number of us. Especially if we are, say, from Canada or Britain or Ireland or Scotland or New Zealand or Australia… doubly so if we are from a country where English isn’t the first language (and no jokes about Scotland, please). Although, with some justification, America views itself as the center of the universe, people do publish in other countries, and getting published in England does not mean a writer will find a publisher in New York, which considers itself (again, with some justification) as the center of the center of the universe. Without a publishing contract in the US, the book will not be available to the US market. You could, however, go on the internet and order books from bookstores in the US or Canada or gasp, even Australia. I do it all the time.

7. Is that story autobiographical?

Until my parents are all dead, the answer to that is no. I’m joking, really Mum, I am. However, it can be a bit insulting to a writer to have everyone think that a) you really were a junkie porn star homicidal trust fund baby and just kept it a secret, or that b) you haven’t the imagination to MAKE THINGS UP, which is, after all, what fiction writers are supposed to do, mostly. I will paraphrase what W. Somerset Maugham said, though, in that writers are not God, we cannot create out of nothing. Everything is inspiration and fodder, even cocktail party conversations.

8. Oh, you're a writer! Have I heard of you? Do I know your books?

I have no idea, but if not please don't make it sound as if I've failed. Might I suggest, if you're interested, you note one of the titles and buy a book?

9. How big an advance did you get? How many books did you sell?

Now really, didn’t your mother ever tell you it was impolite to ask someone what they make for a living? It will either be shockingly low by your standards, or shockingly high, neither of which is useful information. People in France, where I lived for many years, never ask these sorts of particularly American questions. They ask instead, “Where can I buy one of your books?” Which is a lovely question, since it implies they are a) interested in your work, and b) interested in supporting your work by actually BUYING a book.

10. What's the book you're working on about?

Two problems with this question: the first is that if I talk too much about it, I won’t write about it, so I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t want to answer that question. (Most people are pretty good about that and don’t take offense, but you’d be surprised, perhaps, by how many do.) The second problem is that I may not know. I write a story that pops into my head, but I may not know what it’s really about until a long way down the line. When I was writing The Radiant City, it wasn’t until I was through the first draft, and heard Rev. Ernest Hunt, the Rector at the American Cathedral in Paris, say, “Cynicism is the last refuge of the broken-hearted” that I understood I was writing about precisely that – whether disillusionment, the kind that breaks your heart, like terrorist attacks, or war, or genocide, damns you to a life of cynicism, or if it’s possible to continue to walk through the world with a compassionate heart. (The quote became the epigram of the book. Thanks Ernie!)

And although it’s not a question, there is one statement that’s almost guaranteed to send a writer scrambling to a safe nest behind the potted palm: “I’m going to take six months off from my job and write a book.”

Legend has it this statement was made to either William Styron or Margaret Lawrence, depending on who’s telling it, by a heart surgeon at a cocktail party. As in, “I just loved your book so much, and you’ve inspired me. I’m going to take six months off from my job and write my own memoir.” “Really,” replied William/Margaret. “Well, you’ve inspired me as well. I’m going to take six months off from writing and become a heart surgeon.”

I wouldn’t have the guts to say that, but I admit it, I do think it from time to time. It takes as long to learn to be a good writer as it does to do anything else – play the violin, perhaps, or architecture, or yes, heart surgery. And just like those things, having just a soupcon of talent doesn’t hurt.

So at this point you might be asking yourself what you CAN ask a writer. Well, we love talking about books we've enjoyed, as well as anything else that inspires us. And as writers we tend to watch the world pretty closely, since you never know when a story worth writing about may pop up, so current affairs are just as interesting to us as to anyone else. Then too, if we're well-brought up, psychologically stable folk (and some of us are), we probably think YOU'RE pretty interesting. You might not want to answer questions about, say, how much you make for a living, and I wouldn't dream of asking you, but I'd be fascinated to learn, for example, what you believe and how you came to believe it. I'd like to know how you met your spouse, and what you think about the death penalty, and why; and what you think about censorship, and that story about fly-fishing, and the one about the rescue dog, and what you think it means to be a good person... oh, there's a world of things out there to talk about, isn't there?

------

Update

2009-11-17T07:49:00.009-05:00

It's been forever since I updated here, as I've moved most everything over to Facebook. But, some news:

1) My paperback cover will be forthcoming! Please stop back to see what the cover will look like. We have a new marketing strategy for the book (and I like the list placement/release time strategy), along with a new cover, and are targeting TARGET, among other places that are important for paperbacks. You'd think by now I'd be 'so over it', and to a large degree I am (one does have to write again), but I'm excited nonetheless.

2) Novel writing is once again going well, after our move this summer. I fear I've set myself back because of all the crazy excitement with the house, but I'm confident I can make up for lost time, more or less. It feels very good to be back in Wallo, and I really love the characters, who are, I might add, driving the plot. In addition to writing a bit less, I had to turn down about eight appearances for the book, in other states. I cannot stress how hard it is to set up a very old house. Clearly, I am not a person who can multi-task.

3) I don't usually check Amazon, but since the PRECIOUS movie/PRECIOUS my book coincidence, I've been checking in more often. I am happy to report that after nine months, my sales seem to be going down, not up, which is a blessing. Of course some of this is because of the movie, I'm sure, but some because of word of mouth. And my KINDLE ranking was at 400 last I checked (which put me in the top 100 "general fiction" sellers on KINDLE!) and I don't think those sales are because of the movie at all.

The life of a book: You just never know.

4) We are very much looking forward to taking a much needed trip to PA, to see family over Thanksgiving.

5) This goes without saying, I suppose, but: We are loving (loving loving!) life in Chicago. This area is fantastic.

6) Oh, and! I finally got one of my foreign rights translations of PRECIOUS. It is positively exhilarating to see your work translated into other languages! I can't read the book, mind you, but it sure is beautiful.

Happy Halloween!

2009-10-31T16:54:00.002-04:00

From my witch haven, to yours.

Thank God for Paperbacks

2009-10-28T08:51:00.010-04:00

In a year of horrible economic conditions, dire book sales, mass lay-offs and general re-visionings of how publishers can produce literary novels without losing their shirts, some publishers have taken to not printing paperbacks after a hardcover run of a novel or memoir. This is understandably disconcerting to writers. Think of all the people out there who in tight economic times won't take chances on new writers, particularly at 25.00 a pop, but who might buy a paperback at 12.00. Having a paperback means there's an entire new audience to tap into and an extension given to the general life of any book.

So, after biting my nails and worrying about my novel, I feel particularly blessed to report that Random House is doing a paperback of my debut novel, PRECIOUS, and that we're going to get a new cover and package for it. Yay!

Thanks, Random House! You guys rock steady. And in honor of you, here's a Beatle's classic: here

PRECIOUS named one of the top 10 debuts of the year!

2009-10-19T13:51:00.002-04:00

Thanks to Booklist, for naming my debut novel, PRECIOUS, one of the top ten debut novels of the year. And thanks to a friend, for passing this along, here.

The Talent of the Room

2009-08-03T16:34:00.005-04:00

Given that I've been slogging through manuscript pages, here is an article written by Michael Ventur, that appeared in the LA Weekly, 1993. It's about the process of writing, and the talent of being alone in a room. I always think on it when I'm feeling a wee bit cagey at the end of the day!

***

People who are young at writing - and this does not necessarily mean they're young in years - ask me, now and again, if I can tell them something useful about the task. "Task" is my word, not theirs, and it may seem a harsh and formal word, but before writing is anything else it's a task. Only gradually do you learn enough for it to become a craft. (As for whether writing becomes your art - that isn't really up to you. The art can be there in the beginning, before you know a thing, or it may never be there no matter what you learn.)

"The only thing you really need," I tell these people, " is the talent of the room. Unless you have that, your other talents are worthless."

Writing is something you do alone in a room. Copy that sentence and put it on your wall because there's no way to exaggerate or overemphasize this fact. It's the most important thing to remember if you want to be a writer. Writing is something you do alone in a room.

Before any issues of style, content or form can be addressed, the fundamental questions are: How long can you stay in that room? How many hours a day? How do you behave in that room? How often can you get back to it? How much fear (and, for that matter, how much elation) can you endure by yourself? How many years - how many YEARS - can you remain alone in a room?

I know people who, when young, had wonderful talents: prose of grace and resonance that came without effort, sentences that moved intelligently with that crucial element of surprise, never concluding quite where one expected, so that you were always eager to read the next and the next. Promising work as they say. But to write anything that keeps the promise, to go beyond the letters, verse and stories of their youth, written with enthusiasm, friends and teachers praising them, little magazines publishing them - to take the next step meant that they would have to sit alone in a room for years. Some sat just for weeks. Some lasted months. Some kept saying that next summer, or next winter, or after they graduated, or when they moved to Europe (which they never did), or when they got a grant, or when they weren't so busy, or when they could afford a place that gave them the SPACE, because they needed an actual ROOM, it couldn't be just the bedroom or the kitchen... sometime in the foreseeable but not the immediate future, then they'd write the novel or complete that sequence of poems.

A few of these talented people would even arrange the room. A good desk, a clean well-oiled typewriter (a computer now), the paper, the pencils, the stereo, maybe a hot plate. But after the room is ready you have to sit in it. For a very long time. (Sometimes it takes weeks or months even to begin.) And that's the talent they didn't have.

There's no harm or blame in not having a talent. But it is very painful to have some of the talents, almost all of the talents, except the one you really need.

The teachers who fawn on your early work (if you were lucky or unlucky enough, as the case may be, to have such teachers) don't usually tell you about this because they're not writers, they're teachers. They may do some writing on the side, but few have staked their lives on writing. Their wages, their prestige, their social life, their surroundings, the rhythms of their days and of their years, are rooted in the profession of teaching, which is an activity done in a room with other people, surrounded by rooms filled with people, upstairs and downstairs and down the hall. You cannot teach the demands of solitude in such places. Even if you talk about it, you're not teaching it - the surroundings contradict the lesson.

The surroundings always ARE the lesson. That's the trouble with college. What it teaches, more than anything else, is how to go to college. Thus most writing courses, by their very nature, ignore the fundamental thing you need to be a writer.
That's why, although thousands teach such courses and tens of thousands attend them, precious little work results. You'll notice that the ratio of teaching to work accomplished is much better in med school or in truck driver's school, because those are skills that can be taught.

Nobody can teach you how you, in particular, are going to behave when you're alone for hours a day over long periods of time trying to deal with unknown quantities: who you are, what you have to express, what experience your expression draws on, how that experience relates to the solitude necessary for its expression; the form in which it comes out (which is never quite the form you planned on), and how that form changes as it progresses; and, first and last, who you are - all these are just a few of the unknown quantities that are locked up with you in your room.

If you're Sharon Doubiago, your room is your van; if you're the young Ernest Hemingway, your room is a café table; if you're Emily Dickinson, your room is your garden; if you're Marcel Proust, you write in bed; if you're William Faulkner, you compose AS I LAY DYING in a humid shack while you work days in a factory (or was it work nights and write days?) - but whoever you are, whatever shape it takes, that room is the center of your life and it's VERY crowded. Everything you are and everything you're not backs you up against the wall and stares at you. You stare back. And eventually you get some writing done.

The thing about the room is: it's likely you'll have to remain there for years before you even know whether or not you're any good - and it may be years more before anyone else knows. And that only if you're any good. Because you can have the talent of the room, you can spend years in the room, and still not be much of a writer. Or 20 years can go by and you ARE good and you don't get published; or you get published and nobody notices; or they notice, and they hate it; or you're a lousy writer, but they love it and you get rich.

Whatever. The only thing you know you'll have twenty years down the line is the experience of the room - how you behaved, what you felt, what you thought, what you dared, what you fled, how you lived life, how life lived you, alone, in that room.
Remember, even if you're financially successful at writing, and even if success comes young, you still have to spend the rest of your life in that room. Money and recognition make many things easier, but they don't change the basic conditions of writing. You may furnish the room better, but you will have to enter it alone and stay there till something happens. And if your livelihood and your family's well-being, now depend on your behavior in that room - then the quality of that behavior becomes crucial in many new ways. Your honesty, your originality, even the accuracy of your memory may very well become financial liabilities.

Most people can blame their sell-outs on the institutions they work for, or on the way everybody ELSE does business, or on the political climate, or whatever. The vast majority of us are simply hired to do a job and then ordered to cut corners, and we feel we have little choice. But nobody orders anybody to become a writer. And nobody becomes a writer without dreams of glory and art. Writers do their selling out consciously, alone in their rooms, where they can't help but know what they're doing, adjusting sentence after sentence to what's saleable, what the publishers or the editors or the studios want. It takes a while for those adjustments to become reflexes - a long while of whittling away what's best in yourself. When the process is over you have a face to match it, which is why most screenwriters and freelancers look the way they do.

When it's all over, if you've stuck and had some luck, you have a few things published that you're proud of and a pretty good idea of who you are. Without the first you probably wouldn't have stayed in the room so long, and without the second you'd have gone crazy a long time ago. "Crazy" defined as a writer would define it, at least while in the room: too unbalanced to work. If you can still write, then how crazy can you be?

Plenty crazy, is the answer. The room can become a hole. Your talent of the room, your ability to be there with all your soul, can overwhelm you. Then the rest of life becomes unreal, and worse than unreal - becomes a kind of unlife. So you find yourself writing with a very sophisticated consciousness but living in your relationships with other people far beneath what you write, because it's gotten so you only really exist in that room and you don't really care about outside. And since you write necessarily from memory - for writing in a sense IS memory, is what you cared about yesterday, or last month, or in your childhood - since these are the basic conditions of writing, your lack of feeling for the present may not show up in your work for a while. But when it does, you're through.

You may still be published, still make money, still be read, but people won't care the way they used to - and they'll know it, and they'll let you know it. The room, you see, is a dangerous place. Not in itself, but because YOU'RE dangerous. The psyche is dangerous. Because working with words is not like working with color or sound or stone or movement. Color and sound and stone and movement are all around us, they are natural elements, they've always been in the universe, and those who work with them are servants of these timeless materials. But words are pure creations of the human psyche. Every single word is full of secrets, full of associations, every word leads to another and another and another, down and down, through passages of dark and light. Every single word leads, in this way, to the same destination: your soul. Which is, in part, the soul of everyone. Every word has the capacity to start that journey. And once you're on it, there is no knowing what will happen.

Locking yourself up with such things, letting them stir, using these pure psychic creations as raw material; and deciding, each time, how much or little you're going to participate in your own act of creation, just what you'll stake, what are the odds, just how far are you going to go - that's called being a writer. And you do it alone in a room.

Representin' Nazareth, PA on Colbert Report (and Easton, by default!)

2009-08-02T19:03:00.003-04:00

I gave a reading here, and am less famous than this kid!

Large Print Rights/Book Cover

2009-07-31T13:40:00.002-04:00

New GROW puzzle (for those who are putzing around!)

2009-07-23T09:08:00.010-04:00

The object of a GROW game is simple: There are several squares with images on them (featured at the bottom of the island). Your job is to find the correct sequence of squares to make the island "grow" and to max out all the levels. So if you are choosing the correct combination, every element should top up or "grow" with every new choice you make in the sequence. If you win, there is always a "Congratulations!" sign that comes up, so you know. These games are surprisingly hard! But tons of fun. And GROW ISLAND has two ways to win, which is the first I've seen on the grow games. Click on this link and try!

And, if you grow so frustrated, here is the game solution sequence, posted on Youtube, here. I did not post the "alternate ending", since I like this solution better, but a quick GOOGLE search will direct you to the 2nd solution.

Have fun!

Precious--Dutch Rights Book Cover

2009-07-15T06:45:00.001-04:00

Posting from a Remote Location: Poem, "The Writer"

2009-06-22T20:51:00.001-04:00

Posted, with much love to all my friends, who go at it, and at it again. And to myself, too.

"The Writer"
by Richard Wilbur

In her room at the prow of the house
Where light breaks, and the windows are tossed with linden,
My daughter is writing a story.

I pause in the stairwell, hearing
From her shut door a commotion of typewriter-keys
Like a chain hauled over a gunwale.

Young as she is, the stuff
Of her life is a great cargo, and some of it heavy:
I wish her a lucky passage.

But now it is she who pauses,
As if to reject my thought and its easy figure.
A stillness greatens, in which

The whole house seems to be thinking,
And then she is at it again with a bunched clamor
Of strokes, and again is silent.

I remember the dazed starling
Which was trapped in that very room, two years ago;
How we stole in, lifted a sash

And retreated, not to affright it;
And how for a helpless hour, through the crack of the door,
We watched the sleek, wild, dark

And iridescent creature
Batter against the brilliance, drop like a glove
To the hard floor, or the desk-top,

And wait then, humped and bloody,
For the wits to try it again; and how our spirits
Rose when, suddenly sure,

It lifted off from a chair-back,
Beating a smooth course for the right window
And clearing the sill of the world.

It is always a matter, my darling,
Of life or death, as I had forgotten. I wish
What I wished you before, but harder.

Interview with Children's Writer: Mary Cunningham!

2009-06-15T08:04:00.020-04:00

I know we have some people who are interested in writing young adult/children's literature, and I am fortunate to say I know Mary Cunningham, author of the Cynthia's Attic series. I thought it would be fun to interview her on No Name Writer because I have this book on my reading list for our upcoming trip to Ohio:

Description:Colorful pirates, SuRana--a shape-shifting puma--and an old Cajun guide named Mud Bug join Cynthia and Gus as they explore the Curse of the Bayou. The latest quest for the adventurous, twelve-year-old best friends finds them in a Louisiana bayou. There, they search for answers in the disappearance of Cynthia's great-grandfather, Beau Connor, who was on his way down the Mississippi River to sell a flatboat full of produce. With the help of a magic trunk in Cynthia's attic, this time-traveling duo venture back to 1914 New Orleans. The warm welcome and advice from old friend, Gabriella, is small comfort when Mud Bug warns them to stay away from Buzzard Jack LaBuse, the meanest, orneriest pirate this side of the Mississippi, his gang of misfits, Snags, Darby, and Salty Sam, their thieving parrot mascot. A trip to the Connor's Southern Indiana farm reveals a strange connection between Beau and Buzzard Jack, and a family curse that might be responsible for Cynthia's great-grandfather's disappearance. Returning to New Orleans, a harrowing ride on a roller coaster sends them farther back in time to 1844, straight into the clutches of the evil pirate, fighting for their lives. A mysterious treasure and heart-stopping adventure lead to a final confrontation in the girls' mission to save Great Granddaddy Beau.

Interview with Mary Cunningham, author.

What was the inspiration for Cynthia's attic?

The inspiration behind the series came from a recurring dream I'd had for more than 20 years about a mysterious attic. After finally telling a friend about the dream, I realized it took place in the attic of my childhood best friend, Cynthia. Unfortunately, I stopped having the dream after that, but decided to write a 5-page memoir that turned into 4 young reader books (so far!).

The time-travel element is very important because I regret not spending more time talking to my grandparents and finding out what life was like in their childhood years. So, I decided to write books that would allow Cynthia and me (Gus) to travel back in time and have adventures with our ancestors, including our twelve-year-old grandmothers.

Did you always envision that the initial book would become a series?

I wrote the first two books simultaneously, and wasn’t sure there would be a third. “The Missing Locket” and “The Magic Medallion” were signed as a two-book deal. I had an idea (in my head-nothing on paper!) for a third book when I was asked by the publisher to submit a synopsis. I believe it took me longer to write the synopsis for “Cynthia’s Attic: Curse of the Bayou” than the first two books!

To your mind, what are the advantages of writing a series?

I love writing series books because I get to know the characters more with each book. Cynthia and Gus have grown immensely in the first four books, along with their friendship. It’s fun sending them on further exciting adventures and watching them tackle more difficult challenges.

The challenges?

The main drawbacks to writing a series are, keeping the stories and the characters fresh, and remembering who the heck people are! After the third book, I had one reviewer suggest I do a family tree in order to help the reader keep everyone straight. I’m in the process of submitting character descriptions with the 4th book, “The Magician’s Castle.”

What are some of the benefits and challenges of writing for younger readers?

I absolutely adore going to schools and talking to young readers, especially the ones who enjoy writing and are curious about the process. If you’ll excuse this rather tired expression, they feed my soul. 4th, 5th and 6th graders are so honest and enthusiastic, and it’s contagious, but you better check all your facts because they scrutinize every book.

What is your writing day like?

Totally and completely unorganized! I get out of bed with good intentions, but that usually falls apart after my first cup of coffee. Each morning I have to make a list of the things I want (need) to accomplish. Otherwise, I’m easily distracted. And, at this late date, I don't see myself changing.

I begin by answering/sending e-mails and then check my social networks. I contribute directly to 4 blogs that constantly need promotion. I usually spend 30-45 minutes doing “event” postings.

I also have a published, women’s humor book, WOOF: Women Only Over Fifty (DEC 2008) that requires marketing for a different target audience.

My ideal time to write is in the afternoon, which seems really weird! Most authors love writing in the morning or even late at night. Not me. I do my best writing from about 12-5PM. My husband says it’s because I get out of bed by 7:30, but I don’t wake up until 11:00.

Who are some of your favorite authors?

I've always admired Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird). It's beyond my comprehension how anyone writes just one book of such magnitude. And, wins a Pulitzer at that! I was a tomboy, so I love the voice of Scout. In fact, my POV, Augusta Lee (Gus), is an unapologetic tomboy and patterned after me. I also love the writing of YA author, Kerry Madden (Gentle's Holler), Georgia author, Terry Kay, (Taking Lottie Home), and am a huge Tolkien fan. Oh, and recently, I’ve become a fan of Sandra Novack! Love your characterizations in “Precious.” Very powerful read.

What are you working on now?

I’m trying my hand at an adult mystery and another time travel that will be either YA or adult. I purposely wrote the ending to the last “Cynthia’s Attic” book in such a way that I can, A. write book 5, or B. end the series with “The Magician’s Castle.” If I know me, a 5th book will be out in a year or two.

Do you have any advice for writers who wish to write for young readers?

Know your audience. Read books for whatever age group you’re targeting and pay close attention to how they relate to the reader. The worst thing you can do, especially if you’re writing for young readers, is to talk down to them. You’ll turn them off in an instant. Also, don’t preach, and for heaven’s sake, be subtle if conveying a lesson.

A little known fact about yourself?

I have a wicked sense of humor, but I'm not "quick on my feet." I'll think of the perfect comeback or joke…a day late. I'm also one of the least observant people on the face of the earth! Can you imagine? A writer being unobservant? My husband will say, "Wow! Did you see that woman by the side of the road with the purple cow on her head??" Uh, no…missed it.

I’ve truly enjoyed being a guest on your blog! Thanks!
Mary

Thanks for stopping by No Name Writer, Mary. Please visit Mary at the following locations!
http://www.marycunninghambooks.com
http://www.cynthiasattic.blogspot.com
http://www.woofersclub.com
http://www.amazon.com/Curse-Bayou-Cynthias-Mary-Cunningham/dp/1590805755

And drop by her blog (listed above, Cynthia's Attic Blogspot) on June 19th, when she'll be hosting Julianne Moore's blog tour for Freckleface Strawberry and the Dodgeball Bully

Shout Out!

2009-06-05T15:01:00.007-04:00

Thanks to Carrollton's Country Club for being so lovely and supportive today! And thanks to Carrollton's Creative Writing Club, for the same. Fun talks with both groups, and lots of great questions.

And speaking of the latter: for those of you who are interested in writing young adult fiction, keep an eye out: I have it on good faith that Mary Cunningham (author of Cynthia's Attic series) will be popping by No Name Writer to answer some questions about the challenges and benefits of writing for younger people, as well as information on how she got started, etc. Mary is starting a book blog tour (I hope I'm getting that right) with Julianne Moore, who did the book about the girl with the freckle-face. Title escapes me now (though I'll get it right when I "actually" post the interview and official information!). More next week!

How Much Do You Think This Cost the House?

2009-06-04T16:39:00.006-04:00

So, I was all excited to get Mary Gaitskill's collection Don't Cry in from Amazon.

And then I opened the book. Guess what? The press made a huge error and the collection starts not with a cover page and table of contents and publisher information, but with the first story. And the story is printed upside down! And the title, content page, etc. are also upside down, and they appear on page 20-some instead of one. Ha! How many suckers were printed like this? And how much do you think it cost the house? I was going to send my copy back, but I rather like it as a goof. A major, major house goof.

Personal Update!

2009-05-29T06:20:00.009-04:00

Friday, May 29, 6:39 a.m.

I feel as though it has been so long since I've posted anything new, so here is what's up and on tap for summer!

1) Travel!

2) Moving! Yes, folks, after five long (long, long, long) years in very rural Whitesburg, GA, we are finally moving. To a city! To Chicago! Just thinking about the food gives me a certain measure of giddiness. We are officially looking to move to Oak Park, the Frank Lloyd Wright district. Wish us luck here. And to my friends: You know how understated I'm being about all this, and what I really want to say about the past five years...S-A-N-I-T-Y is restored! BALANCE. Rest assured, I am never ever coming back.

3) Selling our house and packing. This makes me very exhausted just thinking about both. But whatever. No pain, no gain. We have officially dropped the house to our rock bottom price, and we have no intention of going lower, for ANYTHING. As is, Baby. Pay your own damn Realtor fees. Fuckers.

AND, MOST IMPORTANTLY...

Did I mention how much I love my fabulous, fantastic agent? Well, I do. I am back on deadlines, People! August 15 the story collection is due, and February 1 a novel draft is due. I know you might all be like, "My God, that's a lot to do in a short time" but I am actually pretty happy to be on a schedule again, because it helps me focus. Go figure.

So, what are your plans this summer? Goals? Intentional "No Goal" setting (it IS summer after all...)

Moving this Up!

2009-05-12T07:20:00.007-04:00

BLOG TOUR: Please pass along to friends, and visit the sites and comment! Blog tour will include Q&A, Interviews, Reviews of Precious, Guest Blog Postings, and Book Giveaways!

Monday, May 4, 2009:
Fizzy Thoughts
http://www.fizzythoughts.com/
REVIEW OF PRECIOUS IS UP: Thanks FIZZY THOUGHTS!

Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Book, Line, and Sinker
http://booklineandsinker.wordpress.com/
REVIEW OF PRECIOUS IS UP: Thanks BOOK, LINE, AND SINKER!

Thursday, May 7, 2009
Redlady’s Reading Room
http://redladysreadingroom-redlady.blogspot.com/
REVIEW OF PRECIOUS IS UP: Thanks, REDLADY!

Monday, May 11, 2009
Musings of a Bookish Kitty
http://www.literaryfeline.com/
REVIEW OF PRECIOUS IS UP: Thanks, BOOKISH KITTY!

Please stop by:

Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Bookworm with a View
http://bookwormwithaview.blogspot.com/
REVIEW OF PRECIOUS IS UP: Thanks, BOOKWORM WITH A VIEW!

Thursday, May 14, 2009
Pop Culture Junkie
http://aleapopculture.blogspot.com/
REVIEW OF PRECIOUS IS UP: Thanks, POP CULTURE JUNKIE!

Monday, May 18, 2009
Literate Housewife
http://literatehousewife.com/
REVIEW OF PRECIOUS IS UP: Thanks, LITERATE HOUSEWIFE!

Friday, May 22, 2009
Booking Mama
http://bookingmama.blogspot.com/
REVIEW OF PRECIOUS IS UP: Thanks, BOOKING MAMA!

Monday, May 25, 2009
Shhh, I'm Reading
http://shhhimreading.blogspot.com/
REVIEW OF PRECIOUS IS UP: Thanks, SHHH, I'M READING!

Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Book Addiction
http://heatherlo.wordpress.com/
REVIEW OF PRECIOUS IS UP: Thanks, BOOK ADDICTION!

Friday, May 29, 2009
Diary of an Eccentric
http://diaryofaneccentric.blogspot.com/
REVIEW OF PRECIOUS IS UP: Thanks, DIARY OF AN ECCENTRIC!
Other Events in May:

May 26, 2009
Talk and Discussion
10 a.m. - noon
Carrollton Cultural Arts Center
Carrollton, GA

More in June!

Bound South

2009-05-11T14:29:00.002-04:00

Congrats to Christina Yocca, of WI! She was the 30th e-mailer for the book giveaway!

Blogger Tour, Book Giveaway

2009-05-08T07:46:00.028-04:00

No Name Writer is back, with a new look and name overhaul. Because I get bored with myself, People! There is still some glitchy stuff to work out with the blogger skin (and some missing blog links and links that won't work, damn it!), but hopefully that will be fixed within the next few days. Do you like it? Please weigh in! And, oh, I pasted a PacMan game at the side, for you old-school techy geeks. You know you want to play.

Some brief updates first and then the long-awaited book giveaway of my friend Susan Rebecca White's book Bound South!

Phil and I are back from heading up North, on Amtrak. I can report that Amtrak is a great way to travel (but you know I hate to fly), and that we met many nice people. Phil is now a convert and thinks we should head out west, by train, for fun. On a total downer note, our train hit some guy in Alabama, which happens a lot, we hear. Two things to take away from that: Alabama and suicide. Figures.

So Fizzy Thoughts; Book, Line and Sinker; and Redlady's Reading Room have reviewed Precious positively. Thanks, Jill, Natalie, and Bonnie; you guys are great, and I really appreciate you pulling for the book, and for all your kind words. And thanks Lisa, for being so sweet and generous, too.

More to come with the blog tour.

BUT, it is now time for a chat about Susan Rebecca White's wonderful literary debut Bound South, which I recommend highly.

Because of travel and catch up with house crap/showings, I am sad to report that I am only halfway through this novel. I am in love with the book, and my slowness has nothing to do with anything other than stupid (stupid!) interruptions this week. What I can say so far: Susan has a wonderful voice that is simply stunning. This novel alternates between the POVs of three Southern women: an Atlanta mother straddling old and new ways of being "Southern" and re-defining herself in the process; a rebellious and artistic teen who is trying to find her sense of place; and their housekeeper's young daughter, who is searching for her missing father. I have to give props to Susan because she writes young perspectives so amazingly well--the insights and voices are always fresh, never "dumbed down" but also believable--and her prose alternates between being plain-old humorous and just so poignant and insightful. (I want to learn how to do that more in my own work! And she gave me, as a reader, guidance there.) Plus, Susan lets her characters curse a lot, which is a plus for this Yankee who also curses and lets her characters curse. And, oh, boy, Caroline (the rebellious and artistic teen) ALSO has an affair with her drama teacher, so I found much to relate to (given the plot in Precious). I admire the overall flow of the book, the way it weaves perspectives and jumps around in time. And did I mention? I can't wait to see what Susan writes next!

In short, two thumbs up for this baby. And, if you are the 30th person to write to me at sandra@sandranovack.com, you can own a gently used copy of Bound South, sent by me to you, with love and appreciation for the sharing of good books. US residents only, though, please. I can't afford that much damn shipping for overseas. But when I get seriously rich and famous (heh), I will open up these giveaways and unleash the fury of great new writers to a world-wide audience.

Couple of things:
1) In the e-mail title please put "Bound South".
2) Reminder that this is for US residents. You people in Ireland, go screw yourself. :)
3) I will post the winner next week on this blog (and in the interim will finish reading this wonderful book). When I notify the winner, I will also ask for a hard-mail address at that time. No sense having you exhaust your fingers typing addresses out, unless you are the winner.
4) Good luck and thanks for stopping by!

The Blog is on Break Until Next Week!

2009-04-30T08:01:00.007-04:00

The Blog is on a brief break, until next week, when I'll be adding posts and links to the blog tour for Precious. Thanks to those bloggers who already said they loved the book and are recommending it to their clubs! And thank you for talking up Precious at the LA Times Festival of Books! (You make me blush all the way out here in GA. My, my. Word does travel!)

On tap, too: I will be bragging about Susan Rebecca White's book, Bound South! Stay tuned, for a "gently used" giveaway of Susan's book, next week. It's one you don't want to miss.

Later, Gators!

GREAT talk:The value of nothing, by Amy Tan

2009-04-26T17:22:00.001-04:00

Upcoming Events--Please Join Me!

2009-04-23T08:08:00.005-04:00

Reading, Q&A and Signing of Precious
Friday, April 24, 2009
Time: 4:00pm - 5:00pm
Location: Science Auditorium, Berry College
Street: Ask at the Berry Gatehouse for directions to the venue
City/Town:Mount Berry, GA

Panel and Q&A with the LOVELY Susan Rebecca White, author of the acclaimed BOUND SOUTH!
Monday, April 27, 2009
Time: 7:15pm - 8:15pm
Location: Decatur Public Library
Street: 215 Sycamore Street
City/Town: Decatur, GA

BLOG TOUR: Please pass along to friends, and visit the sites and comment! Blog tour will include Q&A, Interviews, Reviews of Precious, Guest Blog Postings, and Book Giveaways!

Monday, May 4, 2009:
Fizzy Thoughts
http://www.fizzythoughts.com/

Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Book, Line, and Sinker
http://booklineandsinker.wordpress.com/

Thursday, May 7, 2009
Redlady’s Reading Room
http://redladysreadingroom-redlady.blogspot.com/

Monday, May 11, 2009
Musings of a Bookish Kitty
http://www.literaryfeline.com/

Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Bookworm with a View
http://bookwormwithaview.blogspot.com/

Thursday, May 14, 2009
Pop Culture Junkie
http://aleapopculture.blogspot.com/

Monday, May 18, 2009
Literate Housewife
http://literatehousewife.com/

Friday, May 22, 2009
Booking Mama
http://bookingmama.blogspot.com/

Monday, May 25, 2009
Shhh, I'm Reading
http://shhhimreading.blogspot.com/

Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Book Addiction
http://heatherlo.wordpress.com/

Friday, May 29, 2009
Diary of an Eccentric
http://diaryofaneccentric.blogspot.com/

Other Events in May:

May 26, 2009
Talk and Discussion
10 a.m. - noon
Carrollton Cultural Arts Center
Carrollton, GA

More in June!

2009-04-13T09:19:00.001-04:00

From The New York Times

Arts, Briefly
O. Henry Prize, PEN Announce Partnership
Article Tools Sponsored By
Compiled by DAVE ITZKOFF
Published: April 9, 2009

In an era of economic uncertainty and consolidation, even the short story could use a little additional support: the Anchor Books imprint of Random House said that it had partnered with the literary and human rights organization the PEN American Center and that it would rename its annual “O. Henry Prize Stories” collection the “PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories.” In a news release, Anchor Books said the new name would take effect with the 2009 story collection, which is edited by Laura Furman and features selections juried by A. S. Byatt, Tim O’Brien and Anthony Doerr. It will be published on May 5. The first collection of O. Henry Prize stories was published in 1919.

My Process

2009-04-07T07:21:00.019-04:00

I was going to post for Resurrection Fern, but, as it turns out, you can read everything too well, and there's a name issue for the book, one I know I'll have to change. But since my agent always says I'm such a clean writer (ha!) I thought I'd post on how my process usually works. Pardon the background: Precious is stored in our attic. Resurrection Fern is sprawling on my dining room table.

1) First I generally free write on legal pad, something like this:

2) Then when I free write enough, usually juxtaposing (and therefore having several items from several chapters, on the same page), I type up the legal pad and start color coding the "chunks" for, say, "Natalia's return chapter" or the "Let's drive" chapter, etc. After I chunk, I import all chunked material into their own file, and cross out on this list, so that I know I've "used" the material. During this phase there's a lot I cut, too, and don't use, because I decide it's crap. There are also a LOT of typos in this phase, because I only care about getting the material down, quickly...

Then it's usually back to the legal pad, to start arranging it longhand.

Then I type a rough form into the computer, print, and add more changes. This can last several passes, until the chapter is smoothed out. (You should see some versions of this--there's so much ink over the typed page, you can't make out the typed page anymore. When THAT happens, I sometimes have to go back and re-write the chapter longhand, just so I can get the order. But I spared you those photos!) This must have been a VERY early go, as Sissy was named Cecelia...I don't even remember that I did that.

Eventually there is order, and this is when I feel good about showing my agent, so she can say, "You are SUCH a clean writer!"

And, for a 288 page book, this much work generated, basically:

Can you believe I'd do this multiple times, for multiple books?!

Painting of the Week - "When I Flew"

2009-04-06T15:40:00.003-04:00

When I Flew
24" x 24"
Acrylic on Canvas

I'm posting this one because it is in a gallery far away and I miss it. I may have to ask for it back soon. Happy Monday and I hope everyone is starting to feel Spring arrive! www.stephaniebast.com

Hi, My Name is Stephanie

2009-03-29T16:26:00.005-04:00

Hello Sandy's friends and fans! This is Stephanie who is both long-time friend and fan of Sandy. I am also a painter and was asked to contribute now and then as a "guest blogger." I'm delighted to add some color to the postings! I thought I'd start off with a commission that I just finished. This woman (a life coach) was once talked through a meditative journey and at the end, she was told there is a big sign in front of her. What does her sign say? And she saw a huge GO in yellow. What came out of the vision she shared with me was this:

Tree of GO
40" x 30"
Acrylic and paper on canvas

I will most likely do a painting of the week for everyone and end with my website if you want to see more. Happy Saturday! www.stephaniebast.com

Back to Basics: Six Degrees of Separation and Grace

2009-03-27T10:08:00.013-04:00

How generous is the universe, I wonder? How do things flow in cyberspace? Or by word of mouth?

Personal Update:

I have to admit that lately I've been thinking not so much about my novel but about a few things that have happened, things that got me thinking about my sister, Carole, who I haven't seen since I was a child. First, my friend Steph posed a question at a reading, one that had to do with the possibility of finding her as a result of the book. The other is that my brother, Tommy, commented about how the book, which deals with a fracturing family, and their struggle to continue on through and after loss, seemed like (in his words) a call home to my sister. Yes, this even though it is entirely fictionalized. Then, out of the blue, a cyber shaman contacted me about my energy on the web, a personal note about authenticity and grace and blossoming. I realize this sounds a little odd, but when I read his e-mail I got shivers, and it made me aware (again) of how energy travels, not just when we're around people physically, but even over the web and in cyberspace.

I have looked for my sister on Facebook, thinking for sure she'd turn up there, but to no avail. Does she read blogs? Do GOOGLE searches for any of us, her family? Maybe, but possibly not lately. Did she walk into a bookstore and find my work, dedicated to her? I'd at least like to think she knows it's out there, but then I think: My mom and I are really the only ones in our immediate family who are readers, so maybe she doesn't know about the book at all. Maybe she's the type of person who doesn't think about books very often. Maybe she likes TV or movies instead. Who knows?

It's not wrong, I think, to want her to know that someone is still thinking of her--that we all think of her--and to have that reach her, to have words reach her. But I am getting to the point in the process where I need to just let so much go about the first work, like a flower you send down a river to travel on its own, or a wish made and then released into the air. Because holding onto things can also sometimes be bad. Because I have a second novel that needs attention, and that contracted story collection. Because in order to survive, myself, I need to get back to writing.

So this is the last I'm going to say, I think, about it. Maybe things will travel and be received. It only takes, what, six people to find someone, six strangers to reach something grand? Something like that? I believe in life's blessings, and I'm even the type of person to believe in a little magic now and then, and the kindness of life and the knowledge that messages can carry across distance. And that place is where I want to return to now.

Please send your good thoughts and energy, or weigh in about how you think the winds blow.

The book tour and misc. stuff

2009-03-25T06:51:00.002-04:00

My best readings had about 60-65 people and 35 people. My "worst" reading had four people! And I was the first to show up! And the others had about 15 at each so no complaints. I love reading, and Q&A has been fun.

Favorite question: Posed my Stephanie
Most confusing question: Posed by Phil's brother

I'm so amazed at some of people's questions and/or comments made one-to-one. Here's some to give you flavor:

"I love this book, but does there need to be cursing?"
Sandy's first thought: Why the fuck not curse?!
Sandy SAID: "Well I'm representing blue-collar working class, and my experience is that they curse. And teens curse, just for the pleasure...But I will think about that next time..."

"You know, you're much prettier in person. That photo on your book jacket makes you look OLD."
Sandy's response: "Tell me about it, and do you know how many photos that guy had to take just to get that one? I mean, I want to look like Jennifer Anniston (sp?), but it ain't gonna happen."

"Do you write like Jodi Picoult?"
Sandy's response: "No. I also don't sell books like she does, either."

"My friend and I are going to buy one book and share it, but only if Borders gives us a 30 percent discount."
Sandy: "Sharing is good--books, rides to work, food, shelter, etc. Times are tight."
Their response: "TELL us about it."

ALL-TIME Favorite: Five kids come up, huddled together, ages (guessing) 9-13.
Sandy: "So are you the writer groupies?"
Them: "YES!"
Sandy: "So you write?"
Them: "Short stories! And a novel!"
Sandy gives resources for them, a website that lists journals that publish teens...
Them: "Can you sign our arms?!"
Sandy: "Yes, but not your stomachs, because I don't want to get in trouble with the bookstore."

Some guy: "So, what's the truth in the book?"
Sandy: "It's like a watermelon, it's beyond truth." (My take on Bob Dylan's comment in I'm Not There)

Favorite goodreads comment:

This would be a GREAT book, if only...xy&z. And by the way, the ending doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Okay, that was a paraphrase, actually.

Favorite teen blog comment (paraphrased):

This book is kinda predictable. And there's a note that says this book is based on actual events, which makes me feel bad because it's really depressing, so the author must be really depressed.
Sandy's thought: Yeah, I'm suicidal, Dude.

Favorite e-mail sent to my mother:

"Joanne, I'm reading your daughter's book and I love it! I'm going to suggest it to my book club made up of child advocate workers for the courthouse!! They like to read literature about dysfunctional families and use it as a springboard for how they'd deal with cases they have in real life, and how they would respond to things going on with children!!!"
Sandy: "Hey Mom, ask them if, after they discuss the work, they would have taken your children away from you, I mean, Natalia!!!!!!!!!" (I am just kidding...anyone who knows my mother knows she is nothing like the character Natalia...they are night and day, actually.)

I've received some lovely, lovely e-mails about the book, which has been nice.

A Way to Think About Art and Genius

2009-03-06T13:49:00.002-05:00

Open/Public Reading Dates for March

2009-03-01T10:41:00.003-05:00

Open/Public Reading Dates

Hi all! Below is the list of public and open readings in GA (so far), NC, and PA. If you have scheduled a closed/private event, it will not appear here but will be on my website. I spoke with the manager at Borders in Douglasville (because my book was sold out) and he expressed interest in having a reading there, as the book seems to be moving. So hopefully I'll be updating soon.

Hope to see some of you at an event in your area!

Wednesday, March 4
12 NOON CARROLLTON PUBLIC LIBRARY
710 Rome Street
Carrollton, GA 30117-3046
(770) 836-6711

Thursday, March 5
7:00 PM BLUE ELEPHANT BOOK SHOP
2091 N Decatur Rd
Decatur, GA 30033
(404) 728-8955

Saturday, March 7
2:00 PM BORDERS
4475 Roswell Rd. - Ave. E. Cobb
Marietta, GA 30062

Thursday, March 12
Time 7:00 pm REGULATOR BOOKSHOP
720 Ninth Street
Durham, NC 27705
(919) 286-2700

Tuesday, March 17
Time 6:30 pm NAZARETH PUBLIC LIBRARY
295 East Center Street
Nazareth, PA 18064

Friday, March 20
6:00 PM MORAVIAN BOOKSHOP
428 Main Street
Bethlehem, PA 18018
(888) 661-2888

Saturday, March 21
2:00 PM DOYLESTOWN BOOKS
16 S. Main Street
Doylestown, PA 18901
(215) 230-7610

More thanks to Phil Kloer and Caroline Leavitt!

2009-02-16T08:02:00.006-05:00

Atlanta Journal-Constitution printed an interview and plug for Precious in yesterday's AJC. If the interview goes on-line, I'll post, but I wanted to say thanks to Phil for all his help and encouragement!

Also, a beautiful thing that happens: Since she read my book, writer Caroline Leavitt and I have become cyber pals. I didn't know Caroline at all before this, but she read Precious and gave me a great blurb way back when. She loved the book (thank you, C!) and asked if she could also interview me, and that interview is now up here. I feel very lucky that Caroline is so wonderfully nice, and I consider her a good friend now. A perk of writing!

Baton Rouge Review and Interview

2009-02-16T07:13:00.004-05:00

Thanks to Greg Langley, who was so taken by the book he read it in three days (with a small child at his lap!) and who did both an in-depth review and interview. Thanks!

****

Plot, characters carry Precious
by: Greg Langley, books editor

Novack sets this arresting yet engaging novel in a subdivision in a small Pennsylvania town in the 1970s — “one known for the predictability of its days, in a neighborhood with faint yellow light and tree-lined streets curved like crescent moons.” In this quiet refuge, the Kisch family seems to be in the process of disintegrating. The mother, Natalia, has run off to Europe with the doctor who is her employer. The angry father, Frank, is left behind with two daughters to tend.

Eva is 17 and beautiful, willful and overconfident. Part of that is because of her mother who, as she is leaving for the airport and the flight to Europe, gives her daughter some parting advice. “The day you give up your freedom, the day you lock yourself away, is the day you disappear. In your own skin you vanish.” Eva is angry with her mother, but takes the advice to heart.

“Since that day, Eva had joined countless women in America and gone on birth control.” With that the emboldened Eva sets out on a voyage of sexual discovery that earns her a well-deserved reputation at her high school. She has sex with a string of boys. She loses her taste for young men, however, when she starts an affair with one of her teachers, Peter Fulton. Peter is married with a wife and small daughter. Eva, not so sophisticated as she believes herself, is unable to see that she is being used. She feels, in fact, that it is her father who is exploiting her, making her help with household chores and tending her 9-year-old sister, Sissy.

Sissy is a dreamy child who manufactures imaginary worlds to cope with the loss of her mother and the dullness of her small town life where, “as darkness falls, children roam the streets with flashlights in hand, playing lightning tag and hide-and-seek in neighbors’ hedges.” That sense of security evaporates shortly after Natalia leaves when one of Sissy’s playmates, 10-year-old Vicki Anderson, goes missing in the park.

“This will mark the first disappearance, in a town in Pennsylvania where nothing ever really happens. This will mark the beginning of fear.”

As summer’s heat takes a hard grip on the town, the fate of Vicki remains unknown. Her story echoes in the minds of the people in the town, keeping them on edge and uncomfortable. Like everyone else, the Kisches are hot, sweaty and anxious.

Then one day, Natalia suddenly returns, hoping to salvage her marriage and reclaim her family.

Novack’s characters are so sharply drawn you expect to look up from the book and see them walking down the street. Natalia, in particular, is fascinating. A gypsy survivor of a German concentration camp, she is at once superstitious and practical, mystical and logical, full of life and bored. She lost her entire family in the death camp and was nearly killed herself, surviving an attempted hanging. Natalia is full of stories and wise, yet she does the most foolish thing in the world — she walks out on her husband and family.

“If the truth be known, Natalia herself felt that, in just over twenty years of marriage, she had taken care of others so well that she had no space for herself anymore.”

And so she leaves, then realizes her mistake. She has the courage to come back. But the homecoming is not the end of the story. Novack doesn’t offer such a simplistic resolution to her tale — Natalia’s return occurs in the first half of the book. This is a tale of a family facturing, falling apart then trying to put itself back together.

As the perspective shifts from Sissy to Eva to Natalia to Frank, each character gives voice to his or her impressions of what is happening. The backstory is filled in as the characters mull over past events and how they feel about them, yet things move forward toward a conclusion in real time. It’s a time tightrope that is tricky to walk, but it works.

The reason it works is that Novack engineers her plot so flawlessly that the reader is swept up in the flow of the story. Her fine writing holds your attention to the end. You want to know what is going to happen to these people.

You won’t get all the answers. Novack leaves some questions unanswered. Of course that is how real life is, full of loose threads we never figure out. This is a very good book, well worth the time it takes to read it, but be advised that you may come away feeling like there should have been more at the end.

****************************************

INTERVIEW (also by Greg Langley)

Writing is Personal for Novack

Sandy Novack read an account about a Roma (Gypsy) girl who was sentenced to death in a German concentration camp during World War II. The girl was to be hanged. Somehow she survived the initial execution attempt. But then she was hanged again.

“I was so moved by that child that died twice,” Novack said in a phone interview on Feb. 11. “I almost channeled her.”

The result, she said, was the character Natalia in her first novel Precious, out this month. The sad story of the girl’s death moved her to speculate what might have happened if someone had saved the girl after her first brush with death. What life might she have led?
Another thing that fueled Novack’s interest in the Roma people is her own ethnic background: she is Polish and Hungarian. Growing up in Pennsylvania, she heard stories about Gypsies and wondered if her background included some Gypsy ancestors.

Novack draws on her own life for inspiration. In fact, the three main female characters in her novel, Natalia and her two daughters, Eva and Sissy, are all based on different aspects of her own personality, she said. Like Eva in the novel, Novack had an older sister who ran away from home. She wrote the book for her sister, who never came back home.

“We all experience losses in our families,” Novack said. But life goes on for the survivors. “I’m impressed with how we are truly resilient as people.”

When someone vanishes or dies or moves away, it’s important to keep their memory alive, Novack believes. Her sister seemed to cease to exist. “They quit telling stories about her,” she said. It’s those stories that keep people alive in our memories.

“Language shapes thought. Language matters that way,” she said.

“I didn’t know my sister,” Novack said. She was only 7 when her sister left home. “I’ve always been a person who is interested in gaps, holes in stories, in memories,” she said. So she isn’t afraid to leave some loose ends in her novels.

Novack came to writing late in her academic career, first earning a B.S. in psychology. “I came on a writing class offered as an elective.” She tried it and not only liked it, “I switched to English.” In 2001 she went into an MFA program in English. She was daunted by the art. “I wasn’t very good,” she said.

“I just didn’t want to give up.”

So she mined her personal experience, wrote short stories and kept working on her novel at the same time. Eventually she got the book written and found an agent who sold the book quickly. Now she is working on a short story collection and another novel, both to come out in the next year or so.

And about her Gypsy ancestry. Her father had his DNA analyzed and didn’t match any group. “It turns out that my closest marker (match) is a Russian Jew from the Belarus,” she said. But even that is distant. Maybe, in time, a closer match will turn up.

“I still hold out hope that I’m real Roma,” she said.

Help Get Out the Word!

2009-02-09T07:42:00.013-05:00

Hi Blogging World!

My novel, Precious, is going to be released next Tuesday, February 17th. I'm asking if my friends in cyber space can help get out the word! If you click on the image below, the text will enlarge, and that can also be saved and reposted. If you happen to own a blog and want to pay it forward, please post! Or plug! Thanks to you!

I have always loved Rilke and his ...

2009-02-07T16:57:00.002-05:00

Notes To A Young Poet (or any artist):

Part I:

Paris, February 17, 1903

Dear Sir,

Your letter arrived just a few days ago. I want to thank you for the great confidence you have placed in me. That is all I can do. I cannot discuss your verses; for any attempt at criticism would be foreign to me. Nothing touches a work of art so little as words of criticism: they always result in more or less fortunate misunderstandings. Things aren't all so tangible and sayable as people would usually have us believe; most experiences are unsayable, they happen in a space that no word has ever entered, and more unsayable than all other things are works of art, those mysterious existences, whose life endures beside our own small, transitory life.

With this note as a preface, may I just tell you that your verses have no style of their own, although they do have silent and hidden beginnings of something personal. I feel this most clearly in the last poem, "My Soul." There, some thing of your own is trying to become word and melody. And in the lovely poem "To Leopardi" a kind of kinship with that great, solitary figure does perhaps appear. Nevertheless, the poems are not yet anything in themselves, not yet anything independent, even the last one and the one to Leopardi. Your kind letter, which accompanied them managed to make clear to me various faults that I felt in reading your verses, though I am not able to name them specifically.

You ask whether your verses are any good. You ask me. You have asked others before this. You send them to magazines. You compare them with other poems, and you are upset when certain editors reject your work. Now (since you have said you want my advice) I beg you to stop doing that sort of thing. You are looking outside, and that is what you should most avoid right now. No one can advise or help you--no one. There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple "I must", then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse. Then come close to Nature. Then, as if no one had ever tried before, try to say what you see and feel and love and lose. Don't write love poems; avoid those forms that are too facile and ordinary: they are the hardest to work with, and it takes a great, fully ripened power to create something individual where good, even glorious, traditions exist in abundance. So rescue yourself from these general themes and write about what your everyday life offers you; describe your sorrows and desires, the thoughts that pass through your mind and your belief in some kind of beauty. Describe all these with heartfelt, silent, humble sincerity and, when you express yourself, use the things around you, the images from your dreams, and the objects that you remember. If your everyday life seems poor, don't blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is no poverty and no poor, indifferent place. And even if you found yourself in some prison, whose walls let in none of the world's sound--wouldn't you still have your childhood, that jewel beyond all price, that treasure house of memories? Turn your attention to it. Try to raise up the sunken feelings of this enormous past; your personality will grow stronger, your solitude will expand and become a place where you can live in the twilight, where the noise of other people passes by, far in the distance. And if out of this turning within, out of this immersion in your own world, poems come, then you will not think of asking anyone whether they are good or not. Nor will you try to interest magazines in these works: for you will see them as your dear natural possession, a piece of your life, a voice from it. A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. That is the only way one can judge it. So, dear Sir, I can't give you any advice but this: to go into yourself and see how deep the place is from which your life flows; at its source you will find the answer to the question of whether you must create. Accept that answer, just as it is given to you, without trying to interpret it. Perhaps you will discover that you are called to be an artist. Then take that destiny upon yourself, and bear it, its burden and its greatness, without ever asking what reward might come from outside. For the creator must be a world for himself and must find everything in himself and in Nature, to whom his whole life is devoted.

Thank you!

2009-02-04T15:52:00.014-05:00

Today (not even my birthday!) I feel I need to think about people who have helped me.

1) My agent. I don't say I LOVE people (outside of family/friends) often, but I love her. By that, I mean, I trust her so much, and value her insights and opinions. And I just think she is way cool.

2) I am blessed by Phil, from a newspaper, because he has been wonderful and knows I am a total baby at interviewing. THANK GOD for people as kind as him. The world needs people like him.

3) I am soooo happy, as always, for my husband, Phil (who tells me I'm lucky to have people like the above), and my friend, Jean (who tells me I am super lucky to have a grounding force like my husband). All of you guys give me direction.

4) I am so very happy for my editor, who is generous all the time and funny and savvy. And my publicist, who is this lovely, lovely, wispy person who is smart and sort of glides along and plugs away and does everything right.

5) I am seriously grateful for Diane, who tells me I am exactly where I need to be. And she gives me sage advice that goes beyond anything I can see.

6) I am amazingly happy to have Stephanie, who painted a beautiful work, inspired by a line from PRECIOUS. Steph: I cried seeing it! I love it!

7) I am happy for those people on lists I know, those who think about others, all the time.

8) I am happy for all those strangers who have contacted me and are interested in the book. How nice. Thank you!

Resurrection Fern

2009-01-24T14:37:00.005-05:00

Today I gave Phil chapters 1 and 2 to read, which he's doing now. He'll get chapter 3 tomorrow, because I am still putting in changes. But it's completely nerve wracking to give anyone, even Phil, my work for the first time. It makes me realize, too, that for as much fun as I have composing, I have no sense of what is good. I wonder: Will he think it sucks? Is there too much of a tonal shift between 1 and 2? Is it boring?! Slow moving with August? Will he question the boy bringing things back from the dead? Did I even write that in a convincing way? Will my agent, whom I LOVE, hate it?! And it makes me realize, too, looking back at Precious I can't even say any of that was good anymore, like I've lost all sense of knowing anything.

Man that sucks.

So, with this in mind, I sit up here in my office while Phil reads and decides, thinking about other careers I could have, ones that would let me be less neurotic about myself, less of a wino, and, factored out over the years, would probably make me more money. Some thoughts:

Go back and work at the prison. It was a good job. And I could goof around all day, which made me happy.

There is still the circus to join. I have three degrees, so won't the circus hire me for something?

Work at Walmart. Becky in my book is fascinated by the Walmart, and why shouldn't she be, why shouldn't *I* be? Eighty aisles of everything you need, all in one store. And the blue smock...I could do it, I could.

My Crazy Family

2009-01-16T06:50:00.009-05:00

You know my father is VERY Hungarian (or, as our DNA also says, Egyptian and some other strange things, which is why he now refers to himself as "Faro", a derivation of "Pharaoh"). What you may not know is that my family plays some wicked Pinochle games. Phil and I play, too, when we're home, and things can get pretty cut throat. My brother Jimmy always made fun of us that we're so "into" the game (which he once considered for "old people"), so sometime last year, when we were home, we taught him to play. Since then, he's gotten the serious bug for the game, and sometimes demands games at 7:00 a.m. or 10:00 p.m., when he comes into my parent's house after work.

My father, being Hungarian, is very superstitious. This Christmas, I bought him a new deck of cards, and there has been some controversy as to whether I have hexed the cards, because either Jimmy actually won after playing with the cards (Dad USUALLY wins), or my dad had worse luck, or something, because there is now this serious "Voodo" hex thing they have going on with the card pack itself that I sent, and gypsy curses they are putting on each other, and the cards, so that each respective party wins.

This is all done in the name of a dollar, by the way.

Thought you might enjoy the pics that my brother sent me from his phone. My brother came into the house and found this "hex" waiting for him. Notice how Dad has used the deck in his curse, and the chicken as the great avenger, er...something. (Side note: In the old country, the chicken would have figured into a hex, too, but it would have been real, and my ancestors would have cut the head off and used the blood for something, so Dad is onto the real thing, I think.) ANYWAY, and then JIMMY retaliated with the chicken strung up on the rope. I'm curious who will win this war of supernatural forces and hexes. And who will win the Pinochle game, of course. And I'm a little worried about everyone's sanity, but, really, we were always crazy, all of us.

Readings and Events! Update to My Blogging Babes

2009-01-09T14:08:00.010-05:00

Thanks to the good people at Random House and my fan-freaking-tastic publicist and her assistant (they are wonderful), I now have readings scheduled in GA, NC, PA, and NY. Locally, I am already booked for a Borders, Carrollton Library, and The Blue Elephant Bookshop, and there are more venues on tap. In North Carolina, I get to read at one of my favorite stores ever, The Regulator. In PA, I'm currently putting in appearances at the Nazareth Library, signing books at the college, reading at the Moravian Bookstore, and The Doylestown Bookstore. And in NY, I'm doing a lunch event.

By the end of January, I will post a detailed schedule with times and addresses/locations, in case anyone lives in reading/signing areas and wants to come. That information will also be listed on sandranovack.com. Please get the word out when it is posted in full!

For now, I'm just doing an update, since I get e-mails from people asking. You guys are the best, and I'd love to see any and all of you somewhere soon. And, until then, too: I need to figure out what to wear! And what to READ! And hope I don't pass out. (Just kidding, I won't.)

New Year's Resolutions

2008-12-30T09:07:00.005-05:00

It's already that time again! So, here we go:

1) Finish my first few chapters of Resurrection Fern. Those of you who know me know I started it in the summer, and I have about 90 pages of rough material. But I don't write in a linear way, so the bugger is organizing, which I just started doing a little bit ago.

2) Lose my final few pounds. I've been very proud of weight loss, since I packed on the lbs. during novel writing. And I haven't gained over the holidays, but the last few lbs. are evasive, people! Like the scale doesn't want to move downward. Must try harder.

3) Wean myself off of technology a bit. Why? I don't think it's normal to wake up and go on-line first thing in the morning. Maybe it would be better to enjoy coffee with my husband? You know, the man I love more than anyone?!

4) Move.

5) Learn to breathe better.

6) Start a new hobby. I don't know what. Suggestions?

7) When and if we move, make an effort to join some type of organization that does good for the local community, or one that just gets me out of the house.

8) Make an effort to call someone I know and care about once a month, be it friends, my sister, my brothers, or in-laws. I don't know why I'm phone phobic.

9) Fly more often.

10) Finish most of the new book by the end of the year.

11) Make an effort to see a faraway friend or relative on a whim. Road trip!

From NYT: Holiday Boozing and Social Blunders

2008-12-23T11:57:00.005-05:00

Well, since Jean and I were just talking about how I once laughed at someone who was talking about the possibility of going into a coma (I heard comma, I swear), I've decided to post this NYT article, since it made me laugh and since the holidays are upon us, and the eggnog. I would say this could be me, but we aren't going to any more parties this year. And I can report that I managed the few that we did go to without any incidents or blunders. Whew. Escaped relatively unscathed this year!

-----
December 22, 2008, 9:55 pm
Really, It’s the Booze Talking
By Glenn Eichler

Alcohol is often called a “social lubricant,” which I always took to mean that it was friendlier than other lubricants like that party-pooper, motor oil. But “social lubricant” apparently refers to the fact that alcohol eases conversation by removing your fear of saying something idiotic, or, if you have no such fear, by dulling the fight-or-flight reflex of acquaintances who otherwise would be nimble enough not to get stuck talking with you.

The quotations below bear that definition out. Every single one of them is something I actually heard said by someone holding a drink at a holiday party. Or maybe misheard because of all the drunken holiday babbling. Or, O.K., maybe they’re things I might have heard if I ever got invited to any holiday parties, which I don’t because of my habit of following people around with a notepad waiting for them to utter something stupid.

“I don’t believe we’ve met. Oh, really? Right next door? Ten years?”

“We’re not really budgeted for a vacation this year, what with the exchange rate and my gambling addiction.”

“I have to apologize for not reading your new book yet. It’s just that the last one was so awful.”

“That’s a great outfit! It really shows off your breasts.”

“What I really want is a job where you don’t worry so much about money and prestige. Are there any openings at your place?”

“You know what I like about you? You gain weight in places that other men don’t.”

“I’m lucky in that my business is recession-proof. People will always need stool softeners.”

“So I told human resources flat out, it’s not sexual harassment if I can prove I’m impotent.”

“I haven’t seen you in forever! Whatever happened to that morals charge?”

“I would love to show you Italy like a native. The Italy of the Its.”

“I could be further up the ladder, but I won’t play their corporate games. Men’s Room, Women’s Room too many rules.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you have the air of a much more successful person?”

“Sometimes accidental electrocution can be a blessing in disguise, but try telling that to the other mothers in the playgroup.”

“You’re that pregnant man I saw on TV!”

“Have I shown you the pictures from my hernia operation?”

“Did anyone see a prescription bottle with a label reading ‘Do Not Take With Alcohol,’ and if so, were there any pills in it, and if not, do you know where the nearest emergency room is?”

“You know, in this light you don’t look cross-eyed at all.”

“Einstein didn’t talk until he was three either, but it sounds like your kid’s just stupid.”

“Did you have some work done? Because, you know, too little too late.”

“I don’t usually drink this much, but you’re insufferable.”

“I had pants on when I came in, right?”

“Aren’t holiday parties great?”

----------

HAVE A HAPPY HOLIDAY, EVERYONE!

Dear Santa: Let it Snow in Georgia and Not be 70 Degrees!

2008-12-20T11:20:00.002-05:00

Sandy's Holiday Book Picks!

2008-12-15T08:23:00.005-05:00

From Amazon: It's gutsy for a debut novelist to offer a modern take on Hamlet set in rural Wisconsin--particularly one in which the young hero, born mute, communicates with people, dogs, and the occasional ghost through his own mix of sign and body language. But David Wroblewski's extraordinary way with language in The Story of Edgar Sawtelle immerses readers in a living, breathing world that is both fantastic and utterly believable. In selecting for temperament and a special intelligence, Edgar's grandfather started a line of unusual dogs--the Sawtelles--and his sons carried on his work. But among human families, undesirable traits aren't so easily predicted, and clashes can erupt with tragic force. Edgar's tale takes you to the extremes of what humans must endure, and when you're finally released, you will come back to yourself feeling wiser, and flush with gratitude. And you will have remembered what magnificent alchemy a finely wrought novel can work. --Mari Malcolm

From Publishers Weekly:
A brutal view of India's class struggles is cunningly presented in Adiga's debut about a racist, homicidal chauffer. Balram Halwai is from the Darkness, born where India's downtrodden and unlucky are destined to rot. Balram manages to escape his village and move to Delhi after being hired as a driver for a rich landlord. Telling his story in retrospect, the novel is a piecemeal correspondence from Balram to the premier of China, who is expected to visit India and whom Balram believes could learn a lesson or two about India's entrepreneurial underbelly. Adiga's existential and crude prose animates the battle between India's wealthy and poor as Balram suffers degrading treatment at the hands of his employers (or, more appropriately, masters). His personal fortunes and luck improve dramatically after he kills his boss and decamps for Bangalore. Balram is a clever and resourceful narrator with a witty and sarcastic edge that endears him to readers, even as he rails about corruption, allows himself to be defiled by his bosses, spews coarse invective and eventually profits from moral ambiguity and outright criminality. It's the perfect antidote to lyrical India. (Apr.)

From Publishers Weekly: Cases rarely come much colder than the decades-old disappearance of teen heiress Harriet Vanger from her family's remote island retreat north of Stockholm, nor do fiction debuts hotter than this European bestseller by muckraking Swedish journalist Larsson. At once a strikingly original thriller and a vivisection of Sweden's dirty not-so-little secrets (as suggested by its original title, Men Who Hate Women), this first of a trilogy introduces a provocatively odd couple: disgraced financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist, freshly sentenced to jail for libeling a shady businessman, and the multipierced and tattooed Lisbeth Salander, a feral but vulnerable superhacker. Hired by octogenarian industrialist Henrik Vanger, who wants to find out what happened to his beloved great-niece before he dies, the duo gradually uncover a festering morass of familial corruption—at the same time, Larsson skillfully bares some of the similar horrors that have left Salander such a marked woman. Larsson died in 2004, shortly after handing in the manuscripts for what will be his legacy.(Sept.)

From Amazon: Enter once again into the echo chamber of Philip Roth's memory and imagination. In the second year of the Korean War, a butcher's son--a straight-A student wound tight with aspiration--flees Newark and his father's increasingly unhinged fears for his safety. Heading midwest, he finds a strange collegiate land of fraternities, football heroes, V-neck pullover sweaters and white buckskin shoes, panty raids, and mandatory chapel services, and, most startlingly, a young woman with desires of her own. Like another fiction grandmaster of his generation, Alice Munro, Roth seems able to spin infinite surprising tales from a few familiar building blocks, and in Indignation, his 25th novel, he has constructed a taut, haunting (and, as always, funny) story that ranks among his best. Reading at times like a buttoned-down Portnoy's Complaint (if it's possible to imagine such a thing), Indignation records a series of small explosions against '50s propriety and the dire consequences they lead to, capturing the misery of desire amid repression, along with the greater terror of being trapped in endless, relentless memory. --Tom Nissley

Ten Guilty Pleasures

2008-12-05T13:02:00.003-05:00

Ten Guilty Pleasures:

1) Bad horror movies like Food of the Gods and The Blob
2) Shoe shopping
3) Facebook
4) Writing about neighbors
5) Terms of Endearment and Beaches
6) 80s music
7) Every once in a while having a hot dog, loaded
8) Twirling my hair
9) Vicks--I love the smell of it, and have been known to just smear some on my chest, for the hell of it.
10)hmmmmmmmmm.

Care to add?

From the Associated Press

2008-12-05T11:55:00.003-05:00

Most have seen this already, but in case you haven't: it's grim news! Good year to buy books as gifts!!

Layoffs at Random House, Simon & Schuster
By HILLEL ITALIE – 1 day ago

NEW YORK (AP) — The economy has crashed down on an industry once believed immune from the worst — book publishing — with consolidation at Random House Inc., and layoffs at Simon & Schuster and Thomas Nelson Publishers.

"Yes, Virginia, book publishing is NOT recession proof," said Patricia Schroeder, president and chief executive officer of the Association of American Publishers. "It's a sad day."

At Random House, the country's largest general trade publisher, the man who helped give the world "The Da Vinci Code" is in talks for a new position, while the publisher of Danielle Steel and other brand-name authors is leaving altogether.

Stephen Rubin, who released Dan Brown's blockbuster thriller in 2003, is negotiating for a different job after Random House eliminated his position as president and publisher of the Doubleday Publishing Group. Bantam Dell head Irwyn Applebaum, whose many authors have included Steel, Dean Koontz and Louis L'Amour, is departing, effective immediately.

Random House, under the leadership of chief executive officer Markus Dohle, announced the changes Wednesday as part of a "new publishing structure" that will "maximize our growth potential in these challenging economic times and beyond."

Spokeswoman Carol Schneider would not say whether Applebaum, 54, was leaving voluntarily; Applebaum and Rubin, 67, have more than 40 years of combined experience in publishing. She said that layoffs are possible as the company's many imprints and divisions are shifted and split up.

"There may be difficult decisions to make and if layoffs are necessary they will be done as fairly and as quickly as possible," she said.

Simon & Schuster has been helped by President-elect Barack Obama's embrace of Doris Kearns Goodwin's "Team of Rivals," but not enough to save some 35 positions, about 2 percent of the staff. CEO Carolyn Reidy said in a company memo Wednesday that "today's action is an unavoidable acknowledgment of the current book-selling marketplace and what may very well be a prolonged period of economic instability."

Reidy added that "the entire publishing industry is coping with these truly difficult circumstances."

On Tuesday, a top executive at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt resigned as the publisher faces a credit squeeze and possible sale. Meanwhile, the head of Thomas Nelson Publishers, a Nashville, Tenn.-based company that releases religious books, announced that about 10 percent of the staff, "54 of our friends and co-workers," had lost their jobs.

"This will affect nearly every department in our company," CEO Thomas S. Hyatt wrote on his blog, http://www.michaelhyatt.com.

An overhaul has been expected at Random House ever since Dohle was hired last spring by parent company Bertelsmann AG, a German-based conglomerate, and began a planned months-long review of the publisher.

Last month, Random House said it would freeze pensions for current employees and eliminate them for new hires.

Under the new alignment, Random House will reduce the number of its principal divisions from five to three: The Random House Publishing Group, the longtime home to E.L. Doctorow and Maya Angelou; the Knopf Publishing Group, a literary institution that includes Toni Morrison and John Updike; and the Crown Publishing Group, known for such political authors as Obama and Ann Coulter.

Applebaum's Bantam Dell Publishing Group and Rubin's Doubleday Publishing Group will be dispersed among the three divisions. Bantam has long been in trouble as sales for mass market paperbacks dropped, while Doubleday has been hurt by the absence of Brown's long-awaited follow-up to "The Da Vinci Code" and by disappointing sales for a highly publicized debut novel, Andrew Davidson's "The Gargoyle."

Dohle said Wednesday that he is hoping to "create a new role" for Rubin at Random House, working directly with the CEO.

"As you know, Steve has successfully led Doubleday for almost two decades and is universally respected and admired throughout the industry for both his publishing expertise and management skills," Dohle said in a company memo.

Rubin, through a spokesman, declined to comment Wednesday.

Applebaum said in a statement he had been "honored to work with a long-standing team of extraordinarily skilled colleagues at Bantam Dell who, book by book, year after year, consistently have brought to the marketplace more top-level best-sellers than any other group of Random House."

Asked if he had been offered another position at Random House, Applebaum declined to comment.

Dohle is retaining at least one Random House tradition — allowing the divisions to bid against each other for books, a practice far more welcomed by authors and agents than by those worried about expenses.

"I want to stress the fact that all the imprints of Random House will retain their distinct editorial identities," Dohle said Wednesday. "These imprints and all of you who support them are the creative core of our business and essential to our success."

Also, Wednesday, The New York Times announced its 10 best books for 2008. Nine of them, including Toni Morrison's "A Mercy" and Jhumpa Lahiri's "Unaccustomed Earth," were published by Random House Inc.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-27T10:27:00.003-05:00

From our home to yours!

And so no one thinks I forget: The birds got extra feed today, and the cats and Chloe are getting drained hamburger and rice, as a special treat.

Yes, the Tree is Up!

2008-11-23T18:45:00.014-05:00

Usually we put up our Christmas Tree the day after Thanksgiving, which I think is pretty early anyway. But this year I got the bug last week. On Saturday, Phil and I drove to many, many locations looking for a tree. This one is a Noble Fir from Oregon (no, we didn't drive there for it!). I can't believe how lovely and fat it is. We had to sacrifice height (the tallest Noble they had was 8 feet) but the shape is gorgeous! Our second choice was a NC Douglas Fir, at 10 feet, but it was skinny, which didn't please me as much this year. So below: Pictures of us decorating, and us trying to get the animals all together in front of the camera. Good luck with that!! Caleb heard the camera click off, and he ran downstairs! Mom, I also threw in one of Tommy, up on the counter, as usual, but it might be too far away to see well. For an old-as-dirt cat, he is spry like a kitten.

Friday we'll put up outside lights. And I'll post here.

Where are you in holiday planning? Phil and I are eating here on Thanksgiving, and preparing less all around so as not to have too many leftovers. Christmas will be quiet but nice. We're not going home to PA because we'll be in PA in March (and possibly Feb!). We'll miss family, but it's nice to have a tree up at our house this year. I am going to try and get cards out, but Phil wants to send everyone an e-mail with a photo! (That's NOT festive, I said!)

"What Happened After the Ice Storm": A Short

2008-11-12T08:48:00.006-05:00

"What Happened During the Ice Storm"
by Jim Heynen

One winter there was a freezing rain. How beautiful! people said when things outside started to shine with ice. But the freezing rain kept coming. Tree branches glistened like glass. Ice thickened on the windows until everything outside blurred. Farmers moved their livestock into the barns, and most animals were safe. But not the pheasants. Their eyes froze shut.

Some farmers went ice-skating down the gravel roads with clubs to harvest the pheasants that sat helplessly in the roadside ditches. The boys went out into the freezing rain to find pheasants too. They saw dark spots along a fence. Pheasants, all right. Five or six of them. The boys slid their feet along slowly, trying not to break the ice that covered the snow. They slid up close to the pheasants. The pheasants pulled their heads down between their wings. They couldn't tell how easy it was to see them huddled there.

The boys stood still in the icy rain. Their breath came out in slow puffs of steam. Some of them lifted their heads and turned them from side to side, but they were blindfolded with ice and didn't flush. The boys had not brought clubs, or sacks, or anything but themselves. They stood over the pheasants, turning their own heads, looking at each other, each expecting the other to do something. To pounce on a pheasant, or to yell Bang! Things around them were shining and dripping with icy rain. The barbed-wire fence. The fence posts. The broken stems of grass. Even the grass seeds. The grass seeds looked like little yolks inside gelatin whites. And the pheasants looked like unborn birds glazed in egg white. Ice was hardening on the boys' caps and coats. Soon they would be covered with ice, too.

Then one of the boys said, Shh. He was taking off his coat, the thin layer of ice splintering in flakes as he pulled his arms from the sleeves. But the inside of the coat was dry and warm. He covered two of the crouching pheasants with his coat, rounding the back of it over them like a shell. The other boys did the same. They covered all the helpless pheasants. The small gray hens and the larger brown cocks. Now the boys felt the rain soaking through their shirts and freezing. They ran across the slippery fields, unsure of their footing, the ice clinging to their skin as they made their way toward the blurry lights of the house.

Writer's Block?!

2008-11-07T10:08:00.011-05:00

Update! All is better now. Switched over to the novel and felt the flow again. Which goes to show you: Your body always knows what you're supposed to be doing. Don't go against the flow. Leads to blockages! Go with the flow: And, ahhhhhh...Good things happen.

I am not normally someone who believes in writer's block. In fact, I have been asked many times what I do when I have writer's block and my response is always the same: There's no such thing! You just write, however badly, until you write something good and find your groove. And historically, those who know me know this: I am a writer who writes every single day. Made all my deadlines. No problem.

But I have been eating my words lately. It's understandable, I suppose, that I was less productive over the summer. First, I had (and still have) classes going on, which cuts into time. Second, what I learned is this: Writing under a deadline makes you TIRED when you finish. I mean you want to sleep. Like a bear. Just find a cave and call it a season and live off your fat for a while.

I really want to be writing the new novel, which I have started and in fact have a bunch of drafted material for. But I also need to be writing short stories, too. The short stories have been the problem and are tripping me up lately. Because, see, I keep writing in all these elements to them. Like they want to be novels! But they're not novels. That's problem 1 leading to blockage. Second (worse), I write and read what I've done and think everything SUCKS. Just sucks. Jean Marie has a theory about this, which is that now that the novel is being reviewed and is public, my hyper, hyper controlling critic is stepping in and shutting the fun, creative, playful (i.e. "inventive")side of my brain down. It seems likely. But it's getting on my nerves!

All this leads to my question, since I have so many artsy friends: What do you do when you feel "stuck" creatively? Take the time off and honor that? Push through? Try your hand at something else? Any and all comments welcome! I've never heard many people talk about this strange time, between a first book being finished and the period of limbo, before it comes out. When the world gets to weigh in and think things about it, and you.

Don't Forget to Vote!

2008-11-03T14:00:00.006-05:00

I know it's like preaching to the blog choir, but I still feel like I should post, in general, for all the people who visit me, looking for sex scenes.

Phil and I are going to be poll watchers for the democratic party tomorrow. We get up at 4:30 a.m. to get things situated at our house (shower, walk the dog, get coffee!), and then we head out to meet our Elections Officer at 6, then head out to Villa Rica for 6:30 and a 13 hr day. I'm guessing it will be closer to 14 hrs., but we'll see.

No matter what your political beliefs, don't forget, People: Your vote counts! Stay in line and deal with the waits, please. It's too important not to!

Uh, Can I Have Some Vegetables in My Vegetable Fried Rice?

2008-10-21T08:22:00.004-04:00

Maybe it's because I am PMSing. Or maybe this is yet another post I can file under, Life in the Rural South, Part 2456. But last night Phil and I had an argument about--yes, you guessed it--vegetable fried rice. Because all I order is vegetable fried rice when I order any kind of Chinese food, which would be fine, except the one Chinese place around here doesn't put any vegetables in the rice at all, and then they charge like 8.00 for vegetable fried rice. With no vegetables. Okay, I lie: Last time I found two little pieces of carrot, and maybe three pieces of cooked corn. But that was it. So after I called, placed the order, and DEMANDED vegetables in my "vegetable fried rice," for which the man told me I'd have to pay extra for "extra vegetables in the vegetable fried rice," and after I just about wigged out, I had the following conversation with my husband, on the way to said Chinese food place, which did nothing to lighten my mood:

Phil: [In academic, slightly reprimanding tone] Well I don't know why you're angry. You know that's how he makes his vegetable fried rice. What do you expect?

Sandy: What do I expect?! I expect f-ing vegetables, that's what I expect. Vegetable fried rice IMPLIES vegetables, does it not? So I'm supposed to be complacent and not expect vegetables just because this guy has a monopoly on Chinese food in Carrollton?

Phil: You're getting carried away with this don't you think? It's only a few vegetables.

Sandy: Only a few vegetables? What's happened to you, living here?!

Phil: Nothing. I just don't expect what I know I won't get. It's not anything to get carried away about.

Sandy: ME? GETTING CARRIED AWAY? [Voice rising...] HAVE YOU LOST ALL SENSE OF TASTE LIVING HERE? HAVE YOU DROPPED ALL YOUR STANDARDS FOR F-ING FRIED RICE? IT IS morally wrong TO NOT PUT VEGETABLES IN THE VEGETABLE FRIED RICE. IT IS morally wrong TO CHARGE ME EXTRA FOR PUTTING IN ANY VEGETABLES AT ALL!!!!!!!

This last part was said while I was slamming my fist against my leg.

But the good news: For the first time ever there were actual vegetables in my vegetable fried rice.

(I did not ask Phil if he indeed paid extra for this.)

From Publisher's Lunch

2008-10-15T18:45:00.001-04:00

National Book Award Finalists
Fiction nominees range from the 81-year-old Peter Matthiessen for a book the AP calls "an 890-page revision of a trilogy of novels he released in the 1990s" to debut novels from Rachel Kushner and Salvatore Scibona. The winners will be named November 19:

Fiction
Aleksandar Hemon, The Lazarus Project (Riverhead)
Rachel Kushner, Telex from Cuba (Scribner)
Peter Matthiessen, Shadow Country (Modern Library)
Marilynne Robinson, Home (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Salvatore Scibona, The End (Graywolf Press)

Nonfiction
Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War (Alfred A. Knopf)
Annette Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (W.W. Norton & Company)
Jane Mayer, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals (Doubleday)
Jim Sheeler, Final Salute: A Story of Unfinished Lives (Penguin)
Joan Wickersham, The Suicide Index: Putting My Father's Death in Order (Harcourt)

Poetry
Frank Bidart, Watching the Spring Festival (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Mark Doty, Fire to Fire: New and Collected Poems (HarperCollins)
Reginald Gibbons, Creatures of a Day (Louisiana State University Press)
Richard Howard, Without Saying (Turtle Point Press)
Patricia Smith, Blood Dazzler (Coffee House Press)

Young People's Literature
Laurie Halse Anderson, Chains (Simon & Schuster)
Kathi Appelt, The Underneath (Atheneum)
Judy Blundell, What I Saw and How I Lied (Scholastic)
E. Lockhart, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (Hyperion)
Tim Tharp, The Spectacular Now (Alfred A. Knopf)

Guest blog: (Ig-)Nobel Prizes announced!

2008-10-09T14:19:00.007-04:00

OK, Sandy's out of ideas, so after much pleading, she's convinced me (husband Phil) to do one. So this is the week that the Nobel Prize is announced. Although Sandy's book Precious won't be eligible until next year, I wanted to express my entirely unbiased opinion that it's entirely deserving.

But I also thought the occasion was appropriate to share the winners of this year's Ig-nobel prize, the annual award for science achievements that are improbable and uncanny but entirely revealing. Yes, a bit nerdy (I don't use the word dork), but still very cool. And yes, I've taken this from this Wikipedia article, but you can go to the source for more details.

Archaeology: Astolfo Gomes de Mello Araujo and Jose Carlos Marcelino, for showing that armadillos can mix up the contents of an archaeological site.

Biology: Marie-Christine Cadiergues, Christel Joubert, and Michel Franc, for discovering that fleas that live on dogs jump higher than fleas that live on cats.

Chemistry: Sheree Umpierre, Joseph Hill, and Deborah Anderson, for discovering that Coca-Cola is an effective spermicide and C.Y. Hong, C.C. Shieh, P. Wu, and B.N. Chiang for proving it is not.

Cognitive science: Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Hiroyasu Yamada, Ryo Kobayashi, Atsushi Tero, Akio Ishiguro, and Ágota Tóth, for discovering that slime molds solve puzzles.

Economics: Geoffrey Miller, Joshua Tyber, and Brent Jordan, for discovering that exotic dancers earn more when at peak fertility

Literature: David Sims, for his study "You Bastard: A Narrative Exploration of the Experience of Indignation within Organizations".

Medicine: Dan Ariely for demonstrating that expensive placebos are more effective than inexpensive placebos.

Nutrition: Massimiliano Zampini and Charles Spence, for demonstrating that food tastes better when it sounds more appealing.

Peace: The Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology and the citizens of Switzerland, for adopting the legal principle that plants have dignity.

Physics: Dorian Raymer and Douglas Smith, for proving that heaps of string or hair will inevitably tangle.

Congratulations to them all! My personal favorite is the discovery that exotic dancers make better tips when in their early stages of ovulation. It won the Ig-nobel for economics, but I think it says much more about Darwin's second great idea: sexual selection. Unlike just about every other female mammal that goes "in heat" during estrous, humans were long considered an exception. But this study uses a rather ingenious method to demonstrate that perhaps humans enter "heat" just like most other mammals (a finding that has now been supported by other studies.) Which reminds me that perhaps next time I guess blog, I'll share some risque tidbits from one of my favorite books, Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation: The Definitive Guide to the Evolutionary Biology of Sex by Olivia Judson.

Google Hits

2008-10-07T08:07:00.003-04:00

From Oct 1-Oct 6.
315 visits
440 page views

66 unique keyword searches. Yes, folks, it's time to post the keyword searches again. You'll notice Stephanie continues to be a favorite, though I think my favorite this week is 'how can i date Sandy Novack, author of Precious' and 'fish stories in 3rd person.' This week was pretty good, in that many of the searches were actually related to writing. Usually I get things like "cheese" and "couple making love," "making love sex," "sex scene," and "graphic sex." What I usually find from GOOGLE Analytics is that people must spend pages and pages looking at sex images. That, and that kids are always trying to steal information for papers and book reports, off the web. (Teachers beware.)

KEYWORDS

louise gluck no name writer
making love
"sandra novack"
"perhaps the world ends here"
big airplanes
"finalists considered for publication"
"gerald stern" "tell me what you know"
"peter j. fusco"
250 words stories
a line from a story that is in first person
awsome tees
bad mood stories
ben
elizabeth tallent no one's a mystery literary review
elizabeth tallent no one's mystery
fantasy story collection
fiction narrative competition
first narrative stories
first person story
fish stories in 3rd person
geek short stories
happy birthday, my best wishes + grateful
hopi lawrence namoki
how can i date sandra novack, author of precious?
how to build a fort in the woods
information for very old jet
joy harjo perhaps the world ends here critique
joy harjo perhaps the world ends here translation
kid pantoum ideas
kristen menger anderson
mississippi review glimmer train gulf stream
moses schulstein
my secret fantasy
name writer
name writing exercises
narrative short picture stories
narrative story collection
national geographic gypsy coins
noname
old airplanes
poem toiling in town now is horrid
ready or not story - book report
sandra novack
sandra novak
sandra novak "precious"
sandy fantasy secrets
savannah writer's conference
short stories for mood lessons
short stories for preaching on happiness
short story 250 words
short story exercise
short storys by sandra novack
stefanie bast art
stephanie bast
student job description writing exercise
summary of tallent's "no one's a mystery"
the orchard keeper critique
the tandem story
tutoring start to finish
what is it like to take the london house personality test
winners of chattahoochee writers conference contest
wonderful sister photos
writer personality
yehuda amichai like our bodies in print
short story first person pov collection

Back Home (part II)

2008-09-26T09:02:00.003-04:00

Back Home Again! I feel as though I am always saying that lately, but we just got back from three days in NYC. I want to give it up to Denise, Jennifer, Laura, Sally, Dennis, and the good people at Random House for the opportunity to meet and mingle. You guys are the best. Also had the opportunity to meet two other writers, and they were super cool. I wish them all best, and hope we stay in touch.

The hotel was very nice. My driver was very nice, and he told me not to worry so much. :) The UN was there and Palin (argh/barf) and crap, so traffic was unbearably bad. Visiting Random House was like oh so awesome. I was pretty (happily) overwhelmed. There are all these books. :)

The media event had 18 people or so (not including the three other writers, the publicists, the editors) from various places like O Magazine, Associated Press, LA Times, Salon, Library Journal, Washington Post, MSNBC news, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, Entertainment Weekly, Time, etc. I mingled when I could, tried not to drop food in my lap, and chatted about all sorts of stuff. For as nervous as I was, everyone there (those that I got to talk to, and I'm sure all the others) were very charming, educated, and just plain old nice. So there you go. Not so bad.

Came back to some good news regarding next year! Keep your fingers crossed, gang. There are some definite plans for relocation, coming from multiple opportunities. Yippppeeeeee!

What else? Pigroast (yes, I said it) this weekend, then Phil is heading out to GSA, and then he comes home and the week after goes to Chicago. I was thinking of going to Chicago with him, but you know I'm sort of wiped out and really want to get some writing done.

Back Home!

2008-09-15T10:57:00.002-04:00

Well, it's good to be back from D.C., if only because being in my own bed meant I slept well for the first time in three days (I am a sucker for what I "know" -- my bed is one of those things). D.C., however, was great. Got to visit the museums, re-read Kathryn Harrison's THE KISS, which just brought me to the ground, again. (LOVE her work.) Our friend, Gene Hunt, put us up, and he and his wife were very kind and sweet. Phil and I have known Gene for about--what?--thirteen years now? He's a curator at the museum and is so smart and gentle and kind, and he lets me make fun of him.

Phil and I got to see Jean and Jason and Eva, which totally makes flying worth it! Highlights: Jason had a butterfly on his head for fifteen minutes--that thing just loved his hair, and Jason posed for pictures in a way that only Leos can. Rode the merry-go-round, saw Eva's funny faces, ate sweets that were too good not to, and Jean can do this kick-ass thing with her tongue that is totally genetic. I wish I had my camera with me when she did, because that would be the post I'd use for this blog entry. At the end of the day and bottom line: Scared people have to fly, and what is on the other side of the flight is just often such a pleasure. Lesson learned. Fly? See friends? Yes, worth it.

That said: Could not get on the plane without wine beforehand, early on, when I was nervous. The two glasses I had at noon kicked me down. Then I took one pill and had a wine on the plane, around 7 and that worked. On the way back had two glasses of wine and one pill. Felt pretty calm. Mom: Didn't go into a coma.

Up on tap: I'm just home and realized NYC is next week!!! And now I'm there three days, to meet with various people and have a dinner and do the media event. Will report back, soon.

Hope you are all well!!!

New York City

2008-08-28T12:14:00.003-04:00

So even though I hate to fly and will need an Ativan (or three), I was thrilled to have been contacted by Random House's publicist today--she seems like a super nice lady, and I'm hoping she's handling the book throughout the process! I've been asked to come up to NYC for an author's lunch, and meet all sorts of people, from editors to reviewers and more. Wish me luck. It's just a few weeks away! I'm sure this is all super normal, but I'm still excited.

Thanks, Random House. :) You rock.

September

2008-08-27T08:50:00.002-04:00

The fall is upon us--I have no clue where the summer went. What are your plans for the next few months? Care to share, post, and live by?

Mine:

1) Change the names in my novel, so the attorney doesn't have a heart attack.
2) Uh, hello: There's still that short story I'm working on.
3) Get through classes with a smile, and still find time to write.
4) NOVEL, NOVEL, NOVEL. Writing goal: At least 30-40 more pages.
5) Tackle my fear of airplanes, with the aid of drugs.
6) Clean out my drawers and donate clothing I haven't worn in more than 2 years. Why do I hold onto the stuff?!
7) Get the hell out of Georgia.
8) One other short story.

I think that's pretty ambitious, but I will live by it for now and deem it all "Doable." Will let you know at the end of the year, if I've failed anything.

Big Old Jet Airplanes

2008-08-16T08:24:00.005-04:00

Yes, everyone knows I hate them. Hate isn't the word. More like terrified to the point where I can't look at them in the sky, or on the ground. Which means that I take trains for long periods of time (GO, AMTRAK!), such as when I spent three days, each way, getting to Montana for a writer's conference that only lasted five days. But there are drugs for people like me (which don't work unless I couple them with absurd amounts of wine--must speak to the doctor about this). Given that I'll have to travel for the book, I'm trying to get in the swing of things now. What's on tap:

In September, I am flying to DC, where we get to stay with our friends, Gene and Rebecca, and I have it on good authority that I will get to see Jean and Jason! (Yah!) Plus I can romp around a city I love. The thought of seeing friends makes it somewhat easier to spend 1 hr 30 min. in the air. Somewhat.

In October, Phil has been invited to the University of Chicago to give a talk. Very good! This would only be an overnight thing, but he asked me to go with him and turn the trip into a nice four-day weekend in the city. I might do this. I think I am going to do this. So okay. I think I can do this.

Then next year I am going to fly to Cincinnati. Phil has already booked the very cool B&B that he wants to stay at. And I'll get to do rounds at my old Alum (where I did my masters in literature).

And next year, I am going to fly to PA in March. This we might be able to drive to, though, so I don't want to get your hopes up.

We are also thinking of doing a big trip next summer, to Scotland or Italy or CA Wine Country or the Grand Canyon. If I can do okay on all these flights scheduled before (and whatever others come my way re: the book) then maybe I will be able to handle the flight to NY PLUS the flight overseas. Right now I sort of cringe thinking about this...that's a LOT of hours not spent on the ground.

And just to work on my extreme phobia (foot tapping even as I think of this) I am going to put up an image of a plane, even one IN THE SKY (both images--landed and in flight freak me out regularly).

Okay: Right-o. DRUGS.

PHOTO DELETED

Ah: My add on: I DID have a photo of a plane here, but I found all day I couldn't really get past the "plane in flight" image to get to my friend's posts. So, ugh...took it down. Not a great feeling when you hit the image of a plane and stop, without knowing what people said.

Yes, I realize this is a huge problem in my life. I do understand that.

The Economy, Cows and Horses

2008-08-12T09:12:00.002-04:00

This morning Phil and I took Chloe for her two-mile walk at the trail down from our house. On our way back country highway 16 what did we see? A runaway cow standing on the side of the road, just about to step into traffic. So we slowed down and started beeping, and (thank God) Chloe was alarmed enough that she started barking and this, more than anything, caused the cow to run off, away from the road. The cow was severely malnourished. My guess is it escaped from the nearby farm because it was starving and searching for food.

Phil and I then drove to another farm--one we knew didn't own the cow--and asked the owner if she might consider getting the cow and taking it in, since her cows were healthy and well fed. She didn't want to get involved, of course. I find this very upsetting.

With the economy down, Phil and I have noticed that many farm animals around here look entirely too thin--ribs showing, hips jutting out. We already called the Humane Society to report someone with malnourished horses. I have no idea if they intervened or not. We live in an area where people drag dogs along the highway (saw a corpse of a dog once, with a chain wrapped around its neck and its tongue sticking out--is this weekend fun for a slow night?). The other week we went to the pet store and some woman came in with a hamster that was nearly dead. She explained (with a laugh) that she accidentally left it in the car with the windows rolled up. She basically cooked it, and her response to this was, "Well, the kids only had him for three days." I was so upset I had to walk out of the store. I couldn't pull myself together the entire way home and most of the evening.

Is it just me, or is where I live the most fucked up place on the planet? Or maybe the world is just fucked up. At any rate: I am making the case that animals should rule the planet and starve the mo-fos who are starving them, or lock people in the car on a 90 degree day and see how they like it.

I am not in a good mood. We just called the Humane Society again, to report the farm that has the malnourished cows. Does it make a difference? I have no bloody idea.

Happiness Is...

2008-08-05T10:36:00.003-04:00

getting a personal note from a writer whose work you admire. Can't mention names, obviously, but what a thrill!

In other news, Phil's parents just left, after visiting for five days. We had fun at Callaway Gardens and got some nice photos of the family. Now Phil and I are settling back into our normal routines, which is always good and welcomed. I'm at work on the novel again and am also writing a short story.

Fiction Exercise: Writing Dreams

2008-08-04T08:37:00.001-04:00

Two pages.

Write down the first dreams you remember on any given day. Don't mention that they are dreams.

Objective: Remember that in dreams, you can't be held accountable for making everything plausible. Strange things happen, and not everything is explained. You can't remember all the details of your early dreams-maybe you can?-but don't let that deter you from writing two pages. Let your mind drift and create strange connections and images. This approach could be productive for helping you develop unique moments in stories.

Check: Read what you've written. Do you have something bizarre? If not, distort things.

--from Josip Novakovich's A Fiction Writers Workshop

Today I am Grateful

2008-07-29T09:06:00.017-04:00

Today is my birthday, and, at 36, I am feeling pretty dang good about where I'm at in this crazy life. The book is done, the collection is contracted. I've got ideas for new writing endeavors, most notably the second novel. I feel as though this year is going to bring a lot of long-awaited changes, and, even if that means a bumpy ride, I am so happy for the force of change in my life.

But mostly what I realized today is how grateful I am for so many people and things. So, in random order:

1) I am grateful that I wake up!

2) I am grateful that when I wake up, I walk past my fish tank and all the fish, already awake, swim over to meet me at the glass. Perhaps they are just hungry. But you know, maybe they like me, too.

3) I am grateful that my body works so well for me. I am happy to have arms for reaching and legs for walking and running. I am happy for my huge Leo heart. I am even happy for my weakening eyes. I hope by the time I am 80, my physical view will be cloudy enough to make the view from my heart completely vivid.

4) I am grateful for Philip Matthew every single day! Philip who rides the emotional waves with me and never gets angry, Philip who makes me feel as though July 29th is the most special day of the year, Philip who lavishes me with attention and gifts and flowers and fills my life with beautiful feelings.

5) I am grateful for my friends!!!! I am *hugely* grateful for them. I'm glad that the older I get the more I appreciate my history--those who have, over the years, persisted in my life. Those who have shared experiences. You guys help sustain me and always remind me of who I am, exactly.

6) I am grateful for my family! They have made me who I am. My dad has given me his stubbornness and general piss-in-the-wind approach to life and has added to my fiery drive. My mother has given me the ability to listen closely, to what isn't said. My sister has given me a gift of friendship and a joy that comes from knowing that even though we are separated in space and time (oldest and youngest), we are more compatible than most. I am grateful for my brothers, who cheer me and protect me as if I were still (and always) their baby sister.

7) I am happy for the birds. If I don't put out seeds for them every morning, they tap at my window to remind me (they do!). Perhaps they are just hungry. Or maybe I am Dr. Dolittle.

8) I am grateful for the ducks who waddle across the lake when they see Phil and me, and then come right up to our door. They send up a chorus, "WAH, WAH-WAH-WAH-WAH! WAH, WAH-WAH-WAH-WAH!" They get really PISSY about getting cracked corn!

9) I am grateful for my dog, who is always there, all day long, and who moves from room to room with me. I am also grateful that my very first friend was a dog--Rusty, RIP. He used to guard my crib when I was a baby, and run downstairs to get my Mom, if I cried. I think he fostered in me my love of all animals. I am even happy that my dog is a thief, and steals things, like bread and muffins from the counter.

10) I am grateful that I have a life made by choice and not necessity. I have chosen to be a writer. I have created that space. Regardless of how the book does, I am making the life I wanted, and that is a blessing.

11) I am grateful for all the support and encouragement I have found for my writing, not just in friends and family, but in my agent and editors and in the writers on Zoetrope, and in my old advisors, who, upon hearing about the book, sent notes of encouragement and congratulations. (This after I swore they wouldn't even remember me. I am always worried about being forgotten.)

12) I am grateful that Georgia has taught me a lot about myself--family and why that's important, my limitations, my sense of self.

13) I am grateful that the plants in my house grow and grow, to the point where I feel I have my own little jungle. I AM DR. DOLITTLE!!!!

14) I am grateful for the cats, even when they harass us at 6 in the morning, all of them on the bed, leaning over our faces.

15) I am grateful for strangers, who always tell their stories. I am aware that story telling is important to us all and is an essential part of human nature.

16) I am grateful that I am a LEO!!!! Pisces Moon. Libra rising. It's a funky combination, but it is all good, People. Yah, July 29th! Yah, 36! Jean is right: We do just get better--wiser, smarter, more aware.

Thank you for celebrating my birthday with me, and for sending the wishes across the distances. I love you all!

AWESOME Tees for the Geek Inside You

2008-07-24T10:32:00.004-04:00

I totally ordered these two tees, in celebration of my husband's profession. Phil also got the "Science, It works Bitches" one, but, unlike me, he's worried about offending people in classes. I've already decided I'm going to wear the "Stand Back..." tee when we go to DC in the fall and I get to hang out with Natural History Museum friends.

If I tried Science, for sure I'd blow something up.

You, too, can order these at the xkcd Store, on-line--in celebration of geekdom!

Guest blog from Phil: All the dairies I have loved

2008-07-22T09:06:00.011-04:00

This is what happens when you complain that the blog is stale and needs updating; Sandy volunteered me for a guest blog. So I've chosen to share my favorite dairy foods. Sandy asked whether it would "be funny?" Not ha-ha funny, really. I'll throw in random trivia.

Chocolates
I love all chocolates, but my favorite is 60-70% dark chocolate. Lately, I've been keeping a bag of Hershey's Cacao Reserve (the one with cacao nibs, which is technically a milk chocolate because it includes some milk but it's not as expensive as most true dark chocolates) in my bedside table. The little squares are the perfect size to nibble on while watching TV, and they have a really nice "crack" when broken. Sandy is not really a fan of chocolate, or sweets of most kinds; she prefers salty, sour, and spicy things (like pickled jalapeños and banana peppers, potato chips, and kosher pickles). Trivia: Hershey got famous for figuring out how to remove the expensive cacao butter from chocolate and replace it with gads of cheaper sugar. Then he sold off the butter for a profit!

I'm not usually a fan of white chocolate, but the one made by Vosges is awesome. It has sun-cured kalamata olives in it, and their brininess perfectly offsets the creamy sweetness. I also really like their Barcelona bar, which has salt and smoked almonds. I haven't yet tried their bar with smoked bacon and salt, but I imagine it's amazing because everything they make is awesome.

Cheeses
There is no such thing as a bad cheese. OK, I won't touch yellow American cheese. Blue cheeses are probably my favorite, and America's own Maytag blue cheese is the best. Creamy, tart, a little stinky... perfection. The French have a saying about stinky sheeses: Le pied de dieu, meaning "the foot of God." The little blue veins are Penicillus, the bacteria that also makes the antibiotic penicillin. My favorite creamy cheese is Hudson Valley's Camembert: nutty, silky smooth, and with a rind that's also just a bit stinky (thanks to another bacteria). And many aged cheddars from Vermont are the perfect hard cheeses. Sandy does like cheese, and we've spent many afternoons in a retching fetal position on the floor after eating gads of cheeses from Chapel Hill's A Southern Season. (Most humans are lactose intolerant if given enough lactose, but the Scandinavians are the most resistant; Asians and Native Americans--both very closely related evolutionarily--have the highest incidence of intolerance.)

Ice Cream
There's also no such thing as bad ice cream. I make a mean homemade version using raw eggs and Ben and Jerry's cookbook. If you'd like to try your own (and you have access to a machine), just use the basic recipe of 2 eggs (raw and whisked), 3/4 cup sugar, 2 cups heavy cream, 1 cup milk, tsp vanilla extract. Add additional flavors as you wish (instant coffee, cocoa powder, fresh fruit [first mash then steep with sugar and a little lemon juice], cinnamon, almond extract, etc.) Honestly, almond and cinnamon ice cream is fantastic! When not in the mood to make my own, I like Ben and Jerry's New York Super Fudge Chunk or Dairy Queen's vanilla soft serve. By the way, because I'm no longer able to eat whole pints for a snack, I've learned that a sharp butcher's knife makes it easy to slice a hard-frozen B&J pint into 8 chunks that are easily kept in a Tupperware container for easy (and more sensible) snacking.

Website: Live tomorrow!

2008-07-16T16:37:00.004-04:00

Update: 2. Here is the photo I decided upon, in color and black and white. I picked Steph's favorite and Phil's favorite. I know I look pale, and I know I look best when I smile, but serious was better for the book (I think, so did my editor) and this is the only one where my lip isn't totally screwed up.

Chrissy: I could not handle asking for retakes because I HATED getting this done...I could never be a model (ha, clearly!!!)

Update: Well, it went live with some glitches--namely the font change that the support people incorrectly made, which in turn caused some spacing issues, and so forth. That will all be fixed, hopefully by tomorrow. And some friends on Zoe told me that the contact link had some glitches...so that's another thing.

Preview here

There are three awesome songs on here, so don't forget to check out Eddie Vedder's "Rise" (track two) and "Guaranteed" (track three).

I am bleary eyed and sick of working on this thing.

Covers and Photos

2008-07-14T17:37:00.009-04:00

Update: No one likes my author photos because they don't look enough like me, which is to say I usually wear my hair up and in a baseball cap. Is that what you want to see, people?!

There were too many author photos, so I had to send some of them in e-mail. And I'd like to say that being big-breasted (which I am, damn it!) has its downside, such as making my stomach look fat because every loose top falls off my boobs. What I learned from this? Form fitting clothing next time! Also, the photographer kept telling me to quit holding my arms so tight against my body, presumably because it made my arms look big and fat. Ha. Maybe I am just fat. Deal with it already, Sandy!

Here is the photo of the book cover!!! I know my good friends on Zoe will be disappointed that I didn't decide on the "classic" looking black-and-white image, but people, it was depressing! And having a young girl on the front might have dissuaded male buyers, AND this image below really does fit with a lot in the book. I asked RH to change the font (which is now rounder and my name is a little smaller--it was too big before!). I know my family is disappointed I didn't take font option #2, where my name was on the bottom and the title was off-center. What can I say? It's hard to please everyone, but I'm glad you were all so demanding and honest. Thank you!

My editor told me I can share the shit out of our beautiful cover. :) So I'm finally allowed to post it.

Report from PA

2008-07-07T08:42:00.004-04:00

I forgot to mention that the blob is on vacation, visiting friends and family in PA. So I am writing in from a remote location--my mother's computer. I already got to see Jean Marie, who looks AWESOME, as well as her husband, Jason, who is, as always, passable. (Ha, ha.)

Why I love PA: People get huffy in the store if you are blocking what they want to reach for, such as hair product. People give you the finger. People cut you off when driving. People cut you off in conversations. At restaurants, people are too, too loud. They talk about Jersey a lot. They look like, oh, SO PA. Where my parents live is only 75 miles from NYC. That makes me want to weep, right there.

When I get back (late Friday night) I will be ready to post the cover for Precious, as well as (I hope) my author photo. There is a funny story attached to the latter, so check back then.

What we still have on tap: A trip to the casino. A dinner with my brother and his family, a visit with my sister and brother-in-law, a trip to Phil's parents, and today I might stop by and check out a shop or two in Bethlehem. We've been busy and well. The apples are in bloom, as are the rasberries and mulberries. My fingers are purple today.

Oh, and Adam: If you are checking in, thank you for watching over our house!! Hope the cats aren't their usual pain-in-the-ass selves.

How to Waste Time: GROW

2008-06-28T16:34:00.004-04:00

Well, it took me a while to search through Jean's blog archive (Man, Jean, Eva has grown so much!), but I found it. This can be filed under my "Curse you, Jean!" archive label (if I used them) but about a year ago I spent a solid week figuring out all these puzzles. Each has its own logic, and if you pick the right order, the puzzle grows. If you solve it, you will be told you did, and you will have used all your items successfully.

Now that I have a bit of free time, I'm going to solve these again. To try out one of my favorites, clickhere

HELLO, Where is TAPS When You Need Them?

2008-06-22T12:22:00.008-04:00

My cousin and his son visited PA this week/weekend. They're not in often, and so they stopped by my parent's house to say hello. Mom and Dad weren't home. My cousin and his fifteen-year-old kid decided to sit out at the picnic table for a bit and wait. So, what does the kid swear he sees? A pale figure of a woman in a dress, standing in the kitchen and looking out the window at them.

The house was empty.

Hey Jean, bet ya it was the window in the kitchen that you never liked...

I am totally going to write to TAPS and have them investiage the farm. I am sort of happy that stuff still happens there. Lots of times ghosts manifest when there's construction and stuff going on, or when there are kids in the house. I always thought maybe activity would stop or taper off. But no!

Oh, and another thing I learned from watching TAPS: Often there's more activity in places where there's high limestone concentration and also water -- just like my parent's house, too.

Updates!

2008-06-20T09:30:00.004-04:00

We are now in round three of cover design! And my lovely editor said she is just going to start from scratch with the art department. Here's the thing: They think the book is literary with commerical appeal. So see the art people like to stress the more "commercial" looking covers (sells more books!) while my agent and I really dig the "literary" look. It's a fine balance to strike.

I'm glad we will get it right, but in the meanwhile, RH needed to use an old (rejected) image to "hold" the catalog place. This means that a write up for the book will be circulating with an image that isn't going to be the final cover. Ugh.

I get my photograph taken on July 1! I hate having my photograph taken. But once I get this, and once we have a final image, I can go live with my website.

I am currently reading over the book again. And tweaking the book jacket write up. The latter is harder than it seems, since people read that, and decide whether to buy or not.

What else? Finished one tutoring project and hopefully will move shortly onto another one. But that one is lonnnnnggggg....

What have you guys been up to? I hope you are hitting the pool!