Two years ago, at some point in February, I got on a train to NYC to see what Christo had down to my hometown. I took the 1 or the 9 up from Penn Station and walked into the Park on the west side. I looked left and right, and had two thoughts: One, the wide, empty boulevards surrounded by relentlessly uniform flag-type things had turned the ( Read more... )

I know of one person who knows of this LJ who has read my novel "Stay With Me." That's because I sent it to her, and she's a good person, and can read a thousand words a minute. But on the off chance that anyone else has read it, I wonder if I may ask for questions. Houghton (my publisher) has asked me to draw up a list of questions for a reader ( Read more... )

Well, I’ve found something that perfectly captures why it’s great to work at home. And it’s not sitting around in your pajamas, an idea so revolting I have no idea why anyone would do it. So, click, enjoy and think about a way to start working from the desk in your guest room.

My mother used to say that if a mid-life crisis was the fall-out from realizing that your dreams and talents were, in fact, finite, then what men have at 40, women are forced to face at 12 or 13. A girl of that age confronts a body that makes her (or fails to make her) an object of desire. At the same time, she starts navigating through a ( Read more... )

Although it made me feel a bit like one of those people Tom Lehrer rightly mocked in The Folk Song Army, I went to the Peace march in DC on the 27th. I don’t know that I’m for a complete pull-out of US troops, but after reading Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s book on the execution of American policy in Iraq, I’m against allowing this administration to ( Read more... )

If you are a writer, there are many good reasons not to keep a blog. It wastes both time and material. If I am going to sit down at my desk, I should be working. And, if I’m lucky enough to have an interesting thought, I should save it for a character or a plot or an image. Writing, if you are an old fashioned true believer, is not done lightly ( Read more... )