If you know me moderately well, you know that the environment is one of my chief concerns. Its dilapidated state terrifies me. I do a lot of little things daily in an attempt to reduce, reuse, and recycle, to spread the word and lead by example, but sometimes it feels like I’m really just cancelling out some of the thoughtless or destructive behaviors of the people around me who don’t seem to care. It feels painfully, heart-breakingly Sisyphean. Well, this weekend I did something that will make perhaps my largest impact to date. I Continue reading “Electric Car Diaries: Putting My Money Where My Mouth Is”
Month: May 2014
In Which I’m Interviewed About Writing…
One of the writers I met this month at DFWCon, Laura Gokey, asked me to do an interview on her blog about writing, and I was happy to oblige!
Thanks, Laura, for the opportunity.
You can find my interview by clicking here.
Also look around on her site at the fun stuff, including some YA book reviews and descriptions of her own interesting fiction projects.
Fashion Friday 5/16/14
We are in the midst of sending off our seniors, evicting them from high school, like you do, with a mixture of joy and relief and bittersweet melancholy. I’m not sure how I do this every year, and I can’t imagine what it will be like when my own kids and all their friends are graduating, but ah well. Till then, I’ll just keep practicing with my students.
To hide my misty eyes and to celebrate the incredible spring weather we’re having, I’m highlighting my new favorite hat, which was a birthday gift this year from one of my dear friends.
I love hats. Evidence of this is clear, not only in my Fashion Friday posts from when I first started the series last year, but also in a recent piece I wrote for Bayou City Magazine. (And here’s the companion post to it here on my blog.)
Have a good weekend, and wherever you are, I hope you’re having some delightful spring weather!
***
If you’d like to contribute to our occasional Fashion Friday series, fabulous! Click here for information on how to do it.
DFWCon 2014 Debrief
At this year’s DFW Writers’ Conference, Donald Maass spoke eloquently about “the 21st Century Novel,” citing interesting statistics about what sustains a good long run on the NYT Bestseller List these days. The upshot is that books with staying power, books that last not just two or three or eight weeks on the list but which stay there for months and even years – the blockbuster books – are not just “commercial fiction,” and they’re not the hardcovers. The trade paperbacks, the literary fiction, are selling at blockbuster levels. And there’s an emerging label in the industry we should take note of: “literary/commercial fiction.”
Huh?
Maass stated what many of us already know intuitively: there are two elements of literary fiction which make books of all genres a success, and those are Continue reading “DFWCon 2014 Debrief”
Fashion Friday 5/2/14
This is just a quick post. I’m out at DFWCon, a writers’ conference in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. One of the other writers here has some kitty cat shoes from ModCloth. Had to share! My cat-obsessed daughter is going to love these…
***
If you would like to be a guest contributor for our Fashion Fridays series, please click here to find out more and to see past posts.
Sappho's Torque 