Listening to DeVotchKa, All the Sand in All the Sea I watched the movie Eat, Pray, Love for the thirtieth time last night and I noticed something that I had never paid attention to before, the male entitlement rampant in the film. The flash back of Liz's, Julia Roberts, wedding where the groom, Stephen, played …
THE CENTRE CANNOT HOLD
Listening to Free, Florence + The Machine I was thinking about the first verse of a Yeats poem, The Second Coming. Turning and turning in the widening gyre, The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and Everywhere …
Perfect Day
Listening to Chapelle Roan, Good Luck, Babe. Checking in. It has been a while. What can I say? Sometimes, life happens, with a vengeance. I always planned for A Calamity of Wings to be the first of two books. The storyline came to me in the middle of writing the first draft of Calamity, but …
The People We Meet
Listening to The Killers, Read My Mind My great-great-grandmother was born with a veil across her face, a caulbearer. This happens when part of the amniotic sac remains on the baby’s face or head at birth, resembling a veil. According to my late grandmother, she could see spirits. She was a medium. I’ve often wondered …
BIRTHDAY SEASON
With one of those birthdays coming soon, the kind that makes us pause and reflect on life, I do and do not resonate with my age. The girl of my childhood, she still exists inside of me, so much like Gardenia Beam from Gods of Delphi. There is a part of me that still feels …
AVAILABLE NOW, GODS OF DELPHI
My middle grade book, Gods of Delphi, is now available at my Amazon store. Here is the synopsis: GARDENIA BEAM is one misstep away from boarding school. Her plan, to prove to her parents that she’s responsible and isn’t growing up wild in their rural Alabama town, has hit a tiny glitch. She needs help …
READY FOR FALL, YA’LL
Listening to Spitting Off the Edge of the World, Yeah Yeah Yeahs I’m briefly checking in. I’ve been busy with book 5, putting the finishing touches on it and doing some final rewrites. I am thrilled that the singe the earth heat has dipped this morning in way that I can feel the autumn breezes …
ON SALE FOR A LIMITED TIME
Listening to Instant Crush, Daft Punk and Julian Casablancas For the first time in weeks, it was cool enough here to read on the deck and not melt into goo. The heat has been intense to say the least. What better way to get relief from it on national Ice Cream Day than to take …
THE JOY OF COOKING
Listening to Hard to Explain, The Strokes This week I’ve been exploring old and new recipes for a book I’m revising. It dawned on me that what was needed was a deeper dive into the foods that ground my character in this world and connect her to a culture that she is in many ways …
CHOCOLAT THE MUSICAL?
Chocolat is one of my favorite movies. I watch it at least once every year. The story of Vivianne and her daughter Anouk begins when they arrive in a small French town wearing striking scarlet cloaks. There, Vivianne opens a chocolaterie. Vivianne is from a matriarchal line of wanderers, compelled to forever follow the north …
Firehound Books 