My twentieth high school reunion is coming up–class of 88, Murphy High School, Mobile, Alabama–and as I was browsing the reunion site yesterday I came across a familiar name, Margaret Brown. She was a year behind me in school, and now she’s all grown up, and it turns out she’s been busy. Months ago, I watched a wonderful film called Be Here to Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt. My husband and I talked about it for days after, but it never occurred to me to put the director’s name together with my old high school days....
Monthly Archives: August 2008
A Real Boy
If I had a martini for every time someone has suggested that my husband Kevin is a figment of my imagination, I’d be on a permanent bender. When I mention Kevin in public, the response is frequently, “But I’ve never actually seen him.” People I’ve known for years will come up to me at parties and ask, “When do I get to meet the mysterious husband?” That’s because he rarely comes to any of my readings. Really, who can blame him? After a while, all of them run together, and besides, if we hired a babysitter every time I...
Muhammad: The Taboo-du-Jour
Apparently there’s a hot new taboo out there in the publishing industry: Muhammad. In this disturbing Wall Street Journal opinion piece,Asra Q. Nomani describes how concern over possible offense to Muslims and fear of terrorist threats led Ballantine to cancel the publication of Sherry Jones’s debut novel THE JEWEL OF MEDINA, “a tale of lust, love and intrigue in the prophet Muhammed’s harem.” Nomani’s article traces the trouble back to Denise Spellberg, an associate professor of Islamic history at the University of Texas in Austin, who, after receiving a galley of the book in April, made a “frantic” phone...
Wade Goes 17 Across Part Deux
My old pal Wade, whom I met in Arkansas, but who hails from Houston, has been guest-blogging for the last couple of days on the enormously popular blog Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle. Here’s Wade, on today’s puzzle: Almost every single clue had its way with me. I verbed; it nouned. I past-tensed; it adjectified. I pluraled; it said, HA! Looking at the wrong word, fool! There’s this guy there named Noam Elkies, who appears to be one of the smartest guys on the planet. Just for an example of how smart he is, he was made...
Dame…& looking forward to
Nice review today in Dame Magazine by Caroline Leavitt, who calls NO ONE YOU KNOW “a mesmerizer that delves into how little we sometimes know about the ones we love.” And I’m looking forward to seeing Christopher Barzak’s THE LOVE WE SHARE WITHOUT KNOWING hit the shelves soon. I recently received an ARC from the publisher, and I can say without reservation that this is one of the best books I’ve read this year.
The international bestseller about one woman’s search for a missing child…
"Mesmerizing." ~Library Journal, starred review.
Stop dreaming, start writing!
