UK Sunday

UK Sunday

What I miss most about the UK are my Auntie Monica's Sunday dinners. Close second? Reading my Uncle Dave's weekend magazines: a psychoanalytic examination of inspiration, advice on how to avoid a diva war...

Oh, sure I can read them online, but without the yorkshire pud, it's just not the same.

Eye on the Prize

Eye on the Prize

Now you can deftly deflect questions about your meager writerly income. Hail, Lord Archer!

Oh, yes, in other news, the Orange Prize…

School Daze

School Daze

On a recent high school visit:

Eager Student: Is there a particular font you use?

Pants: Yeah, I’m pretty crazy about Garamond.

Slacker: Pfff. I used that one in like, grade seven.

In other French news (Claude Garamond, French -- admire the segue people, admire the segue), Buchet Chastel have just sold the Dead Girls French pocket book rights to Editions 10/18. I love that my book will now have a publisher whose name is a fraction! Vive la France!

Sophomore Jinx?

Sophomore Jinx?

Or just a whole lotta belly-aching? I know, I know, no one wants to hear published writers moan about how hard it is to write. Fellow sophomore, Laisha Rosnau (she's only a technical sophomore, since I'm pretty sure her poetry collection, Notes on Leaving, counts as third base) sent me this tidbit to motivate me through the writing of the sacrificial novel.

Owed to Joy

Owed to Joy

Are you getting your recommended daily allowance of serious women writers? If you haven't read Joy Williams, well, that’s just a crime. Breaking and Entering is a virtuosic novel that combines vivid, intricate characters, a compulsive, page-turning narrative and absolutely thrilling language. Did I mention the structural accomplishment that makes up for decades of loathsome flashbacks by lesser writers? Suffice it to say, the central conflict of this novel is not whether Manolo Blahniks and can be worn with a Fendi bag.

Frey Him!

Frey Him!

Sheer will power has prevented me from posting my seven-volume stream-of-consciousness tirade against James Frey (entitled: Liar, Liar: Pants on FIRE!) So here's a related question: why do people continue to defend this idiot? Is there a ground swell of support for Olympic doping? Are car thieves now lauded as heroes of our time? When did we decide that cheating and stealing were wrong, but lying, hmmm, well, that’s a hard one.

Le Voila!

Le Voila!

What happened to January and February? Ah, yes, sucked into a churning vortex of novel writing and thesuperficial.com.

Dead Girls has just been published in France by Buchet Chastel, and I've been invited to read at Festival America in Paris (the city, not the Hilton) this fall.

John and I are gearing up for India. Any day now, we'll be drinking the pink slimy stuff that's supposed to keep us cholera and Ecoli free. I'm packing so many emergency pharmaceuticals, my knapsack will double as a giant maraca.