John Updike, 1932-2009
In case you didn't hear, we lost John Updike this week. I haven't read much of his work in years, and regrettably, I have yet to read any of his…
Clara Susan Dicks and a couple pages too
Stephen King has written about the importance of a supportive spouse to a writer, and I couldn’t agree more. While on our honeymoon two years ago, I spent hours by…
25 Things
My friend, Kate, sent me a note entitled 25 Things via Facebook. Included was a list of 25 random facts pertaining to her with a request for me to reciprocate.…
Kind words
My editor sent me the first blurb about Something Missing, written by M. Ann Jacoby, author of Life After Genius. She writes: “A quirky and endearing first novel that makes…
The end is in sight
Exciting news. I discovered how my latest book will end. I haven’t reached the last chapter yet, but in wrapping up a crucial chapter late last night, I caught a…
Pieces of me
Nicholson Baker has a new book, a non-fiction piece about World War II entitled Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization. I heard him speak about…
Punctuation matters
It's always so lovely to find someone who shares the same pet peeves as me. This is why I was thrilled to find the "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks, a…
Good week
A couple of days of good news on the book front. Yesterday my editor informed me that we made a deal with Japanese publisher Random House Kodansha for the publication…
Nicholson Baker and me
My book club meets today to discuss Nicolson Baker’s The Size of Thoughts. It was my turn to choose the book, and Taryn, my agent, turned me onto Baker’s work…
I have no idea what pants I’m wearing
A friend of mine recently noted that I was wearing sweatpants out of the house. “And?” I asked. “I just would never wear sweatpants in public,” she said. “And I…
