Readin’ and Writin’

Posted by on Jul 30, 2011 in dish | 0 comments One thing about summer that I love is the time to catch up on reading. During the school year, most of the reading I’m doing is either keeping up with (or ahead of) my students, which often crowds out any meaningful time to read what I want to read. As a result, I’m usually woefully behind on the new hot books. It takes me forever to get to the old hot books—for instance, I just finally read...
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Downsizing

Posted by on Jul 23, 2011 in dish | 0 comments Four pounds doesn’t seem like much when you’re hefting it in the grocery store. Heft that thing in a travel bag through a bunch of airports (Atlanta’s being a standout problem), up and down elevators and across pedestrian bridges in hotels, it gains mass the way most of us do during Christmas cookie time. Four pounds of laptop over your shoulder starts carving a groove in said...
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Just a Few Notes…

Posted by on Jul 16, 2011 in dish | 0 comments Revision time! My notes arrived from Dream Agent (Longest. Email. Ever.), so now I need to revise. Which is fine. I like revising. Really! The notes themselves aren’t that awful. Fixes here and there that several sets of sharp eyes managed to catch. Validation of nagging worries that I tried to ignore, but which kept creeping in. A roadmap for some progress. Little things. Really! Not at all...
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Knotwork

Posted by on Jul 8, 2011 in dish | 0 comments Sixteen years ago today, I stood in a custom-fitted raw silk dress (thanks, Mama), hand lightly resting in the crook of my Daddy’s arm, smiling at Mr. Man, handsome in his morning coat and striped trousers. Within a few moments–a few breaths, really–we were slipping Celtic knotwork bands on each other’s hands, promising to be true and steadfast, in the name of the Father, the Son,...
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New York State of Mind

Posted by on Jul 3, 2011 in dish | 0 comments I’m writing this from my new apartment in El Barrio. It’s nice: One decent-size bedroom, a living area, a full kitchen, and a shoehorned bathroom, parquet floors, natural light. You know, something that would rent for more than I pay for my 4 bedroom, 2 bath house on a quarter acre in the ’burbs because even though I’m in Spanish Harlem, this is MANHATTAN, baby! It’s worth the outrageous money...
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RWA National: Homework

Posted by on Jul 2, 2011 in dish | 0 comments Met with Dream Agent yesterday for our one-on-one. Thursday’s agency get-together in the Film Center Café was interesting and instructive (how often do you get to talk with agency folk and authors about agent-author relationships, etc.?), but this meeting was the meat of my week at RWA National. I sit down at our teeny table at the bar, and Dream Agent pulls out the longest email I have ever...
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