George Garret, Teacher, Novelist, Poet

This morning's Boston Globe had George Garrett's obituary.

I met him at the 1993 Wesleyan Writer's Conference, my first conference ever. My first (unpublished) novel, Witness Be Wary was nearing completion, and the Writing Your Novel class at Harvard Extension had discussed writer's conferences.

In those days, I was unaware of these events. Such a newbie. Fifteen years ago! I remember driving down to to Connecticut, full of nerves and excitement. George Garret was critiqueing my 15 or 20 pages. What would he say? Would he like them? Would he trash them? After all, this was genre writing.

Such a nice, kind man, and he said wonderful things about my novel, such as that I wouldn't have any trouble finding a publisher, and it was the best thing he had read from his group--not true, at least as far as the publisher, but still good to hear. His main advice to me was, "don't repeat yourself." Trust the reader to remember information the first time. It's advice I've tried to follow through the next fifteen years.

The conference was sublime, even if the dorm was kind of proletarian. Garret's sessions were not only informative, but he was a showman, as well as Mr. Geniality. When he got going with other writers, it was fun as well as inspiring. Every night there were readings, and I walked up the hill toward the dorm afterward, drunk on writing and writers.

There were plenty of journalists there, all trying to become novelists, and I'm sure many of them did. It was an awesome conference, and George Garret inspired me to keep writing, even after Witness tanked without an agent. The odd thing is, that book, with all its flaws, got more favorable notice from agents than any of the others. Go figure. Plot was unbelievable and crazy. Characterizations equally unbelievable. My learn to write book.

Garret was always known as a great teacher as well as a productive writer who wrote varied novels, or as the globe quoted this morning, in his "quest never to write the same book twice." I think I've written the same book five times. Perhaps now would be the best time to, like Garret, try something new.

Thanks, George, for your encouragement, your humor, your love of the written word. I'm sure many students and writers are repeating these sentiments today.

Photo credit: University of Virginia

BEA

If the financial gods had been smiling, I might have been in L.A. at BEA in addition to researching to SoCal 1928 novel. Lots of hype in the papers from Jeff Bezos to Dennis Lehane. One of my fellow guppies went to the pitch session and got all kinds of requests for partial and full manuscripts. Our local MWA (Mystery Writer's of America) president, also an editor, is trolling the aisles. Must be fun, all those books and writers and publishers and publicists and agents and...and.

Right now I'm listening to Bare Naked Ladies.

For a writer's blog about BEA you can click over to read Jeri Westerson's account of the literary doings. She has a photo of the MWA booth among others.

http://www.jeriwesterson.typepad.com/

No rain yet. Off to a photography exhibit at the Addison Gallery. My old stomping grounds, the Great Plains are featured. And north Texas and around Boston. The old haunts. Lovely. A report later.

Grapeshot

The Escape Artist

La di dah! All the plants are in, with three days of digging and dirty fingernails behind me. Lily of the Valley in the woodland border was the last. I was a good gardener and watered everything with a transplant mixture. Our soil is rocky and planting, except in the raised beds, is always labor intensive. Those glaciers just left one helluva lotta rocks. Just one mosquito bite.

Annie the cat escaped and is enjoying eating grass and lazing in the sun. Nothing beats a nap outside, I guess. Birds are not pleased and are scolding her.

So everything is ready for a rainy weekend. After all that work, it would be nice to sit on the deck and enjoy the newly planted flowers, but they will welcome the rain, too. Pictures of the garden soon.

The bad bunny struck again, only this time he ate the most common of wild flowers, except that it is the one I bought, the goldenrod, not the one growing wild. Grrrr! So far he has struck the tulips, the verbena, the crocus, and the creeping phlox. And the goldenrod. What is one to do about such a naughty critter?

Grapeshot

American Dream

I blog the Burning Man Festival off and on, and this year's theme (2008) is American Dream, so pop on over to the web page and take a look.

The temple burns at the 2004 Burning Man Festival.

http://www.burningman.com/art_of_burningman/bm08_theme.html

Maybe you can design a sticker.

S.O. and I designed one of the stamps in 2004. Hard to grasp that 4 years have passed. Older and probably no wiser.

Grapeshot

Eyes Bigger Than Stomach

This is the Apricot Tart with the Cornmeal Crust that I found at Epicurious last weeek--the recipe not the tart. Hie thee to the Apricot King for the best dried apricots and other stuff as well, like syrup and hot pepper jam and their delicious, thick syrup that enhances any pancake, waffle or slice of French toast. www.apricotking.com

We went to the nursery (Brigg's) yesterday to buy bedding plants, and some perennials, and pretty soon the trunk and the back seat of the car were full to capacity of well, stuff that had to be paid for and planted. I always get carried away, and my eyes are not bigger than my stomach (fat chance) but bigger than the beds and assortment of pots we have to accommodate all this greenery.

So everything with the exception of one plant that goes into the wildflower border and the new hostas and impatience (add 10 lilies of the valley) are in the ground. What a job! As in work.

A most unpleasant discovery today. The bad rabbit who eats almost everything had done a number of some of the flowers and he ate the blooms! The verbena was a mass of leaves and stems. Grrrrr! Tomorrow I sprinkle red pepper on those particularly yummy plants. I thinned out some of the dill and coriander which reseeded itself from years past. We had the best salad with fresh dill and I sprinkled coriander (cilantro) on the chili. Yes, chili.

We discovered that we never had chili all winter. Not one bowl. I concocted scads of soups, but forgot to make the New York Times chili recipe. It's so good and so easy. I substituted half a jalapeno for the cayenne, and used half the amount of chili powder, because mine from Penzeys is hot hot hot! I fried up some tortillas and grated a bit of cheddar and was it ever tasty.
www.penzeys.com

So tomorrow I finish planting and Saturday it rains and everyone is happy. Except maybe that rabbit.

The cake plate is an old one with silver on glass, very pretty and until last week, stuck in a box and forgotten.

Fresh fruit season is here, and the tarts will be coming in and out of the oven thick and fast.

Yum!

Golden Globes - Glorious Gardening!

Not awards, not oranges, but my orange rhododendum which has burst into bloom (a cliche but so apt) this week. The other good news in the garden is that for the first time in this house the iris is honoring us with a bloom--it's been moved 3 times, and now I guess the right spot has been determined so long as I keep it cultivated.

Beautiful (sorry no picture) special dogtooth violets also came to life this year. Basically, I think I only lost one columbine, but the wild orchid doesn't look like it will bloom. I need to sneak into the woods and transplant a few more to my woods.

No sign of the baby ducks. Hummingbird is back, after the newly planted red petunias. She'll have to wait a while for the rest of the garden to bloom. Speaking of blooms, my sage will go crazy in a week. Beaucoup blooms.

We have a cilantro fest. It reseeds itself like crazy. Love it. Love it.

I found the pot for the rosemary. Thought I broke it last fall when I couldn't find it. Must have been another pot. We had some of the rosemary on the bistro chicken (yum!) the past two nights. http://wardstreetbistro.typepad.com/wsb/2008/05/grilled-mustard.html

Do try this recipe.

I need to find a sunny spot for the phlox I dug up at the state hospital. I am an inveterate collector of plants in derelict locations.

Today we're going to Briggs Nursery, a choice garden destination, for the annual trip to buy plants. It makes me happy just to think about it. Obviously, a heart "too soon made glad."

http://www.briggsgarden.com/

Aloha,

Grapeshot

Hideous Carnage

Drove by the cow's pasture after my workout to see where they were, and on the road leading to the pasture there was evidence of road kill, including a mallard duck, not normally seen as a roadside victim. On my way out, I looked again at the duck and then at the yucky mess a few yards away. Ye gods, it was a fox, and then of course the story unfolded, which was either the fox chasing the duck and not watching for traffic or the fox, having caught the duck not watching for traffic or some version of the story of the fox and the duck. This is Foxborough, to be sure.

I don't like to see wildlife, esp. a nice red fox destroyed, nor do I like to consider that this may be one of "our" ducks, but there is an entire flock in the farmer's mill pond, so it must be one of those, and I haven't seen ours for a while.

Worry is endemic.

Today, with lots of clouds, I'll introduce the wintered-over geraniums to the outdoors. Into the sun gradually. Other houseplants on front porch. They do like it.

To Montreal and Back- 60 crazy hours

Left half an hour late, not too bad for us, still making lunch hour at the CIA in Montepelier, Vt, and a very good lunch it was, too. We had Asian noodles (pot stickers) made of seitan, and they were so tasty. Second time I've had seitan at the CIA. Never see it anywhere else--beats the hell out of tofu. Second course was a chicken breast with a totally yummy salsa made of everything but the kitchen sink. They do know how to cook in Montpelier. Town of full of the old granola types, kind of refreshing after Boston.

Rain everywhere, then up to Montreal via the back (read bad) roads and just in time, whoppee, for rush hour.

With Grapeshot navigating, we found the hotel and checked in, chilled, had some drinks at the convivial bar, and wondered out in search of a lively neighborhood which we found, full of students and young folk ready for a Friday night on the town. . Still full from lunch, we ate some onion soupe with bread and cheese thereon. Always yummy. Now full, half-tipsy and tired, we wended way back to the hotel and bed.

Saturday morning in search of cheap non-hotel breakfast. Found a cute little place and the coffee was good but there were yesterday's croissants. Nobody ever asks, "ou sont les croissants d'autan?"

We bought subway passes and were off to the Museum of Fine Arts and the only Cuban art exhibit of its kind ever.

It was good, and instructive that it showed the long radical tradition in Cuba and the various strands that made up the culture, slavery, the native Americans, the sugar cane culture, such a varied mixture to produce Cuba.

I have to confess that a very long time ago two girls in the dorm room next to me got all fired up and went to visit Fidel, Raul and Che and assorted hangers-on at the then Shamrock Hilton, the glitziest new hotel in Houston. Word had it they goats and chickens were part of the entourage, but I do not know this for a fact. The young ladies interviewed the revolutionaries, and it made a big splash but the university was horrified, and well, back in the day. I found it terribly exciting and wish I had kept the pages of the Houston Chronicle which recorded things in very great detail. Fidel, Raul, and Che.

Another story involves an English history professor of mine, an Englishman, very dry wit, who told the story of driving around the hills of Cuba in a jeep (a dangerous thing to do back then) and as luck would have it, they were stopped by the revolutionaries and asked for identification, and Dr. Nelson pulls out his socialist party card, and then it's brother! comrade! Hermano!

Now my goal is to finally finish the novel Three Trapped Tigers which documents the music/art/party scene right before Castro came to power. It was good to be young and full of idealism, don't you think?

The exhibit was huge and varied and quite inspiring, and so we stayed at the museum for lunch and ate Croques Monsieur, the French version of grilled ham and cheese sandwiches, and they were very fine and arrived with a nice little salad as did ever so many things on the Montreal menus.

Window shopping on Sherbrooke Street. I have to tell you I found a tin (8 oz) of loose tea for $35.00. a humongous amount. Subway back to hotel, chill, change clothes, watch a little TV. The Canadian television ads are much less prudish or maybe just freerer than ours. Same goes for Europe. Our ads are really very circumscribed, which is a shame.

Off to a cozy little French restaurant for dinner. I had frog legs, which I do love and get to eat very seldom. They were delectable but might of had a soupcon more garlic.

Back on the Metro, which we were getting pretty good at navigating and to bed, alosh in food and booze.

Next morning, another stab at breakfast, another cute cafe and this time the croissants were fresh. I had apricot.

Navigated out of Montreal in light traffic and beautiful sun. Only one navigational glitch, which took care of itself. No cars at the U.S. Customs crossing, we just whizzed through, and drove in the beautiful green mountains thru New York, Vermont and New Hampshire. Took a ferry across Lake Champlain. Lots of folks enjoying le camping and le beau weekend. Stopped at Simon Pearce in Queechee for lunch. Beautiful glass, beautiful wood items, beautiful linens, and very nice lunch overlooking the dam.

Made a stop at the New Hampshire state liquor store for provisions, and arrived home at 6:30 to the pleasure of the cats who were happy to see us after only two days. Pets are always happy to see one, and there weren't even any mad (where were you?) meows.

We grilled "Bistro Chicken" tonight and it was so tasty, along with grilled eggplant, summer squash and zucchini and the first corn on the cob. Life is bon!

Toujours,

Grapeshot

Sone Thoughts of the Cow Culture

Iris's tiny baby is so small I wonder if it wasn't born a bit early. She acted so weird after it was born. Off sulking in the trees leaving the newborn alone in the pasture.

The breakup of the little herd must have been traumatic. Maggie's five month old calf was sold down the river, so to speak. The brown cow and her calf are both gone, as is the poor young bull that none of them liked. Iris's old calf is gone. Maybe she misses it. She was always such a good mom with the first one. I'm wondering if the half-grown black calf is perhaps a bull. He ? has cute little horns.

Meanwhile, there's hardly any cars at the farm house, and the windows are dark at night. The kids don't get on the school bus, so I'm wondering if some human trauma is at play. God, there's nothing like a writer's overactive imagination to start me stewing. I always have people at death's door or some great crisis when there is an easy logical explanation.

But I feel sorry for the cows. A herd that small is a self-contained unit, and losing 5 members must cause a certain amount of bovine anguish.

Can you invent something to worry about?

We've off to Montreal, the Paris of the north to see the big Cuban art exhibit at the Montreal Fine Arts Museum. I have been looking forward to this for sooooo lonnnnng. Something different for Memorial Day. We usually visit burying grounds.

The cats freaked when the suitcases appeared. I told them it's only for 2 1/2 days, but how do you explain "time" to a cat? Or a cow?

Be kind to your fellow creatures.

Grapeshot

More Open Salts

I do love these beautiful silver salt cellars, and it's hard to part with them, it really is. I saved a few for my special little girl, and kept a few of the tiny spoons that are so precious.

I bought a set that I had often admired in my in-laws home town which were never part of the collection, and I'm saving those. Doesn't seem fair to keep lovely things in boxes when someone perhaps has a collection she displays. I hope.

Off to the resale shop and then I will bake a delicous apricot tart using dried apricots and a crust with cornmeal. I hope this is good. The apricots are from the 'cot king in California. All his 'cots are divine, including the hot pepper jelly and the syrup. www.apricotking.com/

My 75 pages of Festival Madness have been tweaked until they just hum, and S.O. has offered two good suggestions. He's becoming a useful editor, having sat through a zillion hours of writing discussions and panels. Who knew?

Onward, onward and onward.

Grapeshot

The Salt of the Earth and other preoccupations

A few of my mother's salt cellar's. Pretty, aren't they? I wonder if Proust used the Limoges ones for his boeuf a la mode.

This week I bit hard on the bullet and pulled out all the leaves in our dining room table and unpacked my Mom’s collection of salt cellars AKA salt dips. 134 china, glass, silver, and what have you. They’ve been in boxes. Sold some when we moved, and now it’s time for the rest to go. I catalogued and photographed everything, documented to within a gnat’s bristle. Now packed up and ready to go off to the auction house along with a few prints and paintings and more cool that was also confined to boxes.

I also began printing Festival Madness in 100 page chunks, and imagine my horror—no, you cannot, when I discovered, 2/3 of the way thru the story, 75 pages of pure dull. So we are working on that, the editorial we, of course, we the writer. Arrrrgh!

This weekend we dart off to Montreal to see the cool Cuban exhibit at the Art Museum and pig out on French food. In other words, live the good life.

Busy as the busy little bee, that’s how doth. Prepping to bake two loaves of bread. Put up the hummingbird feeder. The Canada Geese and the White Geese who inhabit Glue Factory Pond (not too scenic a name for such a nice pond) all have babies, so we keep cracked corn in the car for drive-by feeding. No sign of baby ducks in the slough, but soon. . . . I am on a baby craze: calves, ducklings, geese and what have you.

Off to bake bread. And to create some excitement in those 75 pages. Which task will be easier?

More Cow News:

The little herd as been thinned, as we expected, but a quick count yesterday evening confused me. The two infants are there, naturally, with their moms, and Maggie is there, and the black calf and his mom Crooked Horn are there. Is that it? Don’t think I counted more. That means one cow, the bull and two of last fall’s babies are gone as well as Maggie’s December baby. Is this possible? More anon. I feel so possessive of these cows.

Frisky Scottish Highland Calf

This one was born a few weeks ago and is very independent and full of glad animal spirits.

Yet Another New Calf

For some reason, mostly because the bull was gone, I had resigned myself to a season of no calves. Well, the bull was busy before he left. First came Mary Ann's calf, brown and adorable. Old Maggie still had her Christmas calf who hadn't lost his babyish ways.

The women in my family will always find something to worry about, and they'll do the worrying for others if need be. Yesterday, ye gods, there was a little dark brown blob in the pasture off my itself. Could it be?

Another new calf. Lying very still with no mother in sight. Oh dear! The calf flicked at ear. Alive, at least. Where was the mother. Iris was off in the woods away from the little herd. Why was she in such an odd place? Alone?

Had the mother rejected the calf? Was the calf deformed, dying, unable to nurse? Worry genes revving up. Finally, after dinner I could stand it no more. "We've got to go see about the calf."

Drove over. Calf not in lie-down spot. Iris nursing calf. A huge sigh of relief.

Still pondering about Iris' desertion. A rough birth and she just had to recover a while? Waiting for calf to stand? Had she washed it? Yes, from the looks of things. Iris was a new mother last summer and did a credible job with her blond baby.

Will there be yet a third calf from the black cow with crooked horns? For the five years in which we've lived here, this is the first time the calves have been born in the spring.

If I can get photos, I'll post them tomorrow. In the meantime, mooooo.

Things To Do At The End of The Road

Collect rocks. Find wild flowers. Drink. Bird Watch. Fish for Trout. Plant a garden. Become a local history buff. Drink. Make friends. Learn to fix stuff. Listen to the train when it comes through town. Collect almost everything, including old beater cars and pickups, campers, bits and pieces of weird stuff that you have to learn to fix. Drink. Drive to the end of the dirt road. Hike a mountain. Drink. Sit on an old couch outdoors and watch the sunset. Drink. Smoke. Talk to your neighbors. Grill. Build your own pizza oven. Take photographs. Drink.

More Scenic Landscapes

I saw a few of these cool pink bushes blooming here and there in the desert. No idea what they are. The colorful bird turned out to be a Western Tanager. Saw magpies and meadowlarks, too. And more swallows. It's always amazing how the desert teems with life.

Just a Travellin' Woman

I've hit South Florida, Atlanta, and Northern Nevada in the past weeks, and Montreal and the Cuban Art exhibit loom.

Today, I was thinking of my first trip to Europe as a young bride, and how simple packing used to be if you were 23.

Drug-wise (in the pharmacy sense), I just packed my birth control pills. Clothes? Yeah, too many and they all required ironing. Europe, esp. northern Europe, had a cold summer and I packed for the tropics. Froze my ass. Biggest humiliation was that I was too skinny (103 lbs) to fit into any of the European sizes, so my mother in law, bless her, took me into the children's department and found me a skirt and sweater than fit. In those days (dark ages), there was nothing smaller than an 8 in the stores.

There were no hot rollers, no phone chargers to pack. Maybe a bulky hair dryer. I always had my hair "done," and again, the new inlaws were awed by my fine, oily hair and tut-tutted (nicely) about how the styling lasted about a day. The impossibly skinny daughter in law with bad hair came to be loved by all and returned the affection.

There was no airport security. I took along a suitcase big enough to hold the clothing of a regiment, including a hat, gloves and a spring coat. Do spring coats still exist? I still have an old Jaeger duster type of coat hanging in the closet. Never wear it.

No cell phones, of course, most of which don't work in Europe anyhow. We ate lunch at a two starred Michelin restaurant in Paris, Laperouse. Meat, fish, white wine, red wine, souffle for dessert and the bill was $20.00. We staggered out, amazed at our discovery. We had never spent $20. for a meal. I think it would easily be $200.00 now. For lunch.

The dollar has shit the bed. Sorry for the profanity, but sometimes language needs to be muscular. In those days you could get 5 francs or 4 DM for a dollar. High on the hog.

I will have to contact all the agents I sent email queries to, because there was a huge problem with my spam folder. And how the postage has gone up and one fears the agents will toss one's query into the waste basket because they don't want to add a 1 cent stamp to the SASE.

Sometimes I wonder is it worth it. Daily. Who knows?

Grapeshot

When The Pavement Ends, The West Begins

Here are some photos at the End of the Road. The scenery is en route to Soldier Meadow way the hell north even of Gerlach. We picked up some cool rocks and admired a few wild flowers.

The End of the Road

So here I am on Mother's Day at the end of the road in Northern Nevada on an unspecified mission. (mystery!)   Yesterday in Reno I finally made it into St Vincent's Resale Shop, mentioned multiple times in Festival Madness.  There was a really cool Mission desk for $50.00, but whatchagonnado?

Saw lots of wildflowers yesterday, none of which I could identify.  Cool pelicans all over beautiful blue Pyramid Lake.  Swallows darting over the road. 

Saw the Mother of All coyotes yesterday morning en route to Reno.  Big critter.  Must have had a belly full of rabbits.  

Lots of folks smoking in Reno, and funky old western buildings, sleaze, hot sun.  People are friendly, and I've been gone from the West for so long that this takes one aback.  Sad, really, to be startled by friendliness.  Very sad.   

I drink rum and sit on the porch in the evening, listening to the birds and petting a friendly cat.  So things are good at the end of the road. 

Grapeshot

Smoking Dreams

One would think that after 20 years of not smoking, the idea of nictoine and cigarettes would be long banished from my brain and one would be wrong.

Last night I had a smoking dream, and I was coughing all night, due to smoking, and how dumb I had been to start again and now I would have to stop which I would do after this pack was finished. Ah, it was about half full so there would be a few more good smokes.

Nicotine has a long memory. S.O. and I both have some weird intermittent hacking cough, which must be environmental or a low grade virus, something that doesn't make one sick, just cough.

The news this morning, coincidentally enough, was that for a woman who stops smoking it takes 5 years to return to some levels, 20 years to return to others, and 30 years before you can stop worrying about lung cancer. My doctor says 20 years, and I'll go with that.

The dreams still come after 20 years and maybe when (if) they stop, I'll be truly cured.

Off to Northern Nevada tomorrow for a shorter than planned trip. Life intervenes. No, I said that yesterday.

Read through the Festival Madness section about Burning Man and I think it's quite good and captures The Man. Probably 30,000 people are writing books about the man and they'll all be published before mine. Think positive thoughts. Yeah, sure.

Onward

A new calf

Most unexpectedly (for me) one of the Highland Scottish Cows bore a calf today. This is (I think) Mary Ann, who has a half-grown calf that is ailing. He lies in the pasture all day and flicks his ears. The poor little thing must have ear mites or worse. wish the farmer would take action and do something and am debating stopping by and mentioning same. Nothing like a nosy busybody, is there?

The calf with the ear problem is lying on the right, and the brand new calf is a darker brown and lying with his/her mother licking him. Cow mothers are very attentive, at least for a while. We fed them scraps today, and Maggie's baby will eat out of my hand which is unusual for the calves who tend to be more skittish.

The pair of ducks seems to be nesting close by us in the slough. The big obnoxious black birds appeared a few days ago and ate all the suet, even the suet in the feeder for small birds. Their beaks are so long they can reach in and eat it. Major bummer. Do not like those birds.

I had to refill the thistle seed yesterday, and noticed the trillium is blooming, and about 30 solomon's seals are coming up. Bleeding heart is also abloom, and some of the wildflowers look healthy, but the creeping phlox is a train wreck. Spare and no blooms. My heath really looks good. Maybe photos tomorrow.

I would ordinarily be arriving in Gerlach, Nevada right now, had the fates so decreed. Instead I'm leaving Thursday and coming back on Tuesday for a much shortened trip, and the fun stuff like Soldier Meadow and Squaw Reservoir will be what doesn't get done. So it goes, in the words of the immortal Vonnegut.

The Corrections just blew me away. I finished it last night and haven't read such a tour de force since The Poisonwood Bible. God what a joy a long novel that's really fun to read can be. One of life's great pleasure. Hallie Ephron has a new book out: 1001 Books for Every Mood: A Bibliophile's Guide to Unwinding, Misbehaving, Forgiving, Celebrating, Commiserating (and I'm looking forward to getting some good suggestions from that. There must be delights of good reading I probably overlooked or was never assigned. Just like Sinclair Lewis's Oil, also a great novel. I've had a good reading spring and late winter.

Submitted a short story to Glimmer Train and an agent wanted 3 chapters of Festival Madness. No great hopes, because I don't think FM is going to be her thing, but I'm sending them anyway.

Maybe if she likes it, she'll recommend another agent. I have the feeling it's more of a man's book. Crazy, huh?

Onward,

Grapeshot

Malice Domestic

The Agatha (named after Agatha Christie) Awards for 2008 were handed out a week ago at the Malice Domestic Conference in Washington (Arlington).

Here is a link to the winners.
http://therapsheet.blogspot.com/2008/04/and-malice-toward-all.html

Special congratulations to Hank Phillippi Ryan who won for the best first novel. Hank belongs to our local Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America chapters.

Her novel was a delightful read and it's always cool when the home team wins.

The Agatha are awarded for traditional mysteries, that an Agatha Christie born today might write. The Edgars, mentioned earlier tend to have a bleaker outlook about crime and murder.
I like both kinds of stories.

Right now I am liking (and admiring) The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. It is a real tour de force, and one feels so sorry for all the characters as they stumble through their sad imperfect lives. If Franzen wrote crime, he'd be in the noir section of the shelves.

Yesterday I made rhubarb bread and it was good. That sweet-sour combo is a dynamite taste sensation.

This recipe is very similiar to the one I used. Enjoy.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Rhubarb-Bread-I/Detail.aspx
Grapeshot

Old Farts at Wal-Mart

Ye gods, Wal-Mart has become super busy lately, and I guess that tells you something about the economy. We buy their kitty litter, which they are usually out of, but that's a different story.

After finding n0 litter, we popped into Dunkin' Donuts for, natch, a donut and coffee, and would you believe everyone in there was a senior and some of the folks, were senior-seniors. Looked like we had stumbled into a rest home cafeteria. Except for the guy (no spring chicken, either) who yakked to his lawyer on his cell phone the whole time, saying some pretty interesting stuff about lawsuits, his son, his money, yada yada. There is no vignette so small that it wouldn't interest a writer.

So found a tiny table amidst the wheel chairs and walkers and tired looking white-haired shoppers. Maybe Wal-mart has half-price perscriptions on Fridays. We bought Shout and Mouthwash and a bottle of Cranberry Juice.

Last time I was at Wal-Mart was on a Saturday. They place was mobbed, and people were dragging up multiple shopping carts. Looked like the world was going to end and everyone just had to buy a bunch of stuff first. Or something.

We bought one box of litter and two Polly Pockets dolls.

Thisbe (I missed cat blog day this week), has been extra pensive of late, and looks a bit out of sorts. I told her about the pope who visited Boston liking cats a lot. Thisbe has a white cross on her chest, and maybe she thinks she missed a special blessing or something. I don't know.

I'm leaving for Northern Nevada (nice alliteration, huh?) on Tuesday and trying to get out of town is always such a hassle. Idea for mystery novel set in a tiny town in the desert. I tell myself I won't write anymore mysteries, but if a plot comes, a writer answers.

So there.

Grapeshot

And The Edgar Award Winners Are . . .

Image from http://www.brittanica.com/


At a glitzy party in a NYC hotel ballroom, some of the best and the brightest in the crime writing genre came together to honor the nominees and winners of this year's Edgars: novels, short stories, plays and television programs.


I've been trekking from Bean Town to The Big Apple for years to attend the symposium and the agents and editors parties and some years even to the pricey banquet ("come dressed to kill") , but it's always an expensive undertaking, and this year my heart wasn't in it, so I went to Muse & the Marketplace instead for about the same money.

Earlier in this blog I posted the nominees, and now the charmed (and talented) few who bask in the winner's circle.

BEST NOVEL

Down River by John Hart (St. Martin's Minotaur)


BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR

In the Woods by Tana French (Penguin Group – Viking)


BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL

Queenpin by Megan Abbott (Simon & Schuster)


BEST FACT CRIME

Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy
by Vincent Bugliosi (W.W. Norton and Company


BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL

Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters
by Jon Lellenberg, Daniel Stashower and Charles Foley (The Penguin Press)


BEST SHORT STORY

"The Golden Gopher ' – Los Angeles Noir by Susan Straight (Akashic Books


BEST JUVENILE

The Night Tourist by Katherine Marsh (Hyperion Books for Young Readers)


BEST YOUNG ADULT

Rat Life by Tedd Arnold (Penguin – Dial Books for Young Readers)


BEST PLAY

Panic by Joseph Goodrich (International Mystery Writers' Festival)


BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY

"Pilot" – Burn Notice, Teleplay by Matt Nix (USA Network/Fox Television Studios)


BEST MOTION PICTURE SCREENPLAY

Michael Clayton, Screenplay by Tony Gilroy (Warner Bros. Pictures)

Congratulations to all. I read Megan Abbot's first book and thought it was brilliant. Loved Michael Clayton, too.

Link to Galley cat photos and more news of the Edgar's event
http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/awards/scene_the_edgars_prebanquet_reception_83875.asp

Grapeshot

Horray! Hooray! The First of May!

Mayday and we have golden sun, although it froze last night and fortunately I brought two sprouted seedlings indoors.

For a review of my novel, (remember my novel?) see the following link:

http://www.myshelf.com/mystery/08/shadowwarriors.htm

The germ of an idea for the book arrived in my head 15 years ago. It was first published as an e-book in 2001, (the late publisher RFI West) and finally (by me) in paperback in 2003. Although I have written 2 additional books (and now polishing a 3rd), I've had no luck getting an agent. Another rejection (for Festival Madness,) the latest book, today. Wish I knew what I was doing wrong. The query letters follow the prescribed form, everyone says the problem isn't the writing. I would say, alas, the stories maybe suck, but we never really get that far. I mean if the stories suck nobody knows that.

But I don't give up. Not at all. Polishing a short story, started (with beaucoup research) on my California 1928 novel, and ideas for a great YA (Young Adult). No, never give up.

Years ago, I took the train into Chicago on a miserable evening, and the heavy snow melted into slush and I had high heels on, and there wasn not a friggin' taxi in sight, so I walked through 6 inches of slush about a mile and a half to the hotel. En route, I had to tell myself about my great grandma who was far out in the pasture when she was bitten by a rattlesnake and she walked back to the farm house and her leg turned black and she lived on for years. She didn't give an inch and I won't either. I made it to the hotel with the iciest feet you ever want to feel. Never give up.

So, onward. Maybe not upward, but onward.