New Novel Loved!!

Well, the highlight of this past week was having a terrific conference call with my UK editor and my agent about my new novel.
Everyone loves the premise and the writing -- just sprucing it up a little bit more with their great, insightful suggestions.
I'm so inspired after those kinds of calls I could light up the tree at Rock Center. And what writer doesn't like being reminded they are the new Anita Shreve? Oy, if only I had as many readers, right? ( Let's just say it again -- Book clubs, if you liked The Pilot's Wife, you'll love my current novel, Standing Still. And since you're wondering, the new novel will be called The Bird House, at least in the UK.)

New Kind of Literature Class

A nice article in the Philadelphia Inquirer today bout Lynn Rosen's class (which taught my novel this semester.) They spelled my name wrong but hey it's close!

Hispanic Hero?

Something that has been coming up recently is how much some people enjoy the activism in STANDING STILL -- shining the spotlight on the problems of illegal immigrants and the workers in Mexican slums. Some Hispanic readers view the kidnapper as I do -- as a rebel hero. Unfortunately, I don't think the book is available in Spanish!

I'm in the curriculum!

Friday night I visited Rosemont College, where STANDING STILL is part of the syllabus for a class on Crime Fiction. Very cool to be taught with the likes of Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez! A very interesting class, taught by a great prof, Bob Finnegan, with lots of bright kids in it. They spoke so eloquently about the characters' motivations and struggles, and understood the book on every level. It was really a joy to have such a deep discussion. The book is also being taught by Gregory Frost at Swarthmore College -- in a fiction class about writing a strong first chapter. Very cool!

Contest Winners

I sponsored an essay contest this Spring, and just finished judging the entries. Since the topic was women overcoming abuse or mental illness, the stories were sometimes heart-wrenching. Still, it feels really good to be helping other writers -- writing out the award checks made me so happy. Feels much better than paying utilities, lemme tell ya! Check out the winners at philadelphiastories.org

New Book Finally Handed To Agent!

Oh boy, that was hard. Now that I have been through the S&M practice known as "editing" I had to look pretty hard at The Next Book manuscript because I don't want to go thru that hell again. I workshopped the first 40 pages last year, and this year I spent a lot of time forcing myself to mull, reflect, re-read and then re-write several times, adding more plot, etc. I have two other new manuscripts in first draft-ville . . . I have to get back on those pretty soon but for now it feels good to have committed to, and polished, one.

Thousands of Editors

I am not the only one who has suffered through multiple editors. A quick survey of other authors in The Liars Club after a reading at Barnes & Noble revealed that the malaise is widespread. Lots of turnover, people job-hopping as the only way to get salary increases. One of the writers, Jon McGoran, whose pen name is D.H. Dublin, had the whole audience laughing with his witty reading from his new crime novel, Freezer Burn. Guess his work didn't suffer much after all those editors futzed with it!