Let's Hear it for the Humanities

In all the panic about becoming employable, David Brooks makes a great case for studying the humanities. My advice for my own children's careers? Show up, do your best, and doggedly pursue what fascinates you.

Keillor on Publishing

Have to share this article by Garrison Keillor. It pertains to what I am beginning to appreciate: I joined the publishing world at the end of one era and the unfolding of something brand new; unpredictable, exhilarating and scary. While I’m not quite as pessimistic as he is, Keillor’s lingering sentences remind me of summer afternoon walks before I had a cell phone ringing in my pocket and mail delivered every second instead of once a day—with Sundays off. Wonder if Keillor could have predicted the auto-populated Google ads for self-publishing that ironically interrupt his words?

HEALER: Coming in September and the Tour is being planned!

HEALER is officially on my website now, follow this link Healer to see the final cover choice and read the preview! And thanks so much to Carol Fitzgerald of ReadingGroupGuides.com for her early praise in yesterday’s newsletter: “What have I been reading? Well, as you know, I “read ahead” a lot. I just finished Healer by Carol Cassella, which will be out September 7th. Readers may know her from her previous book, Oxygen, which was featured here. Healer is the story of Claire, a woman whose fortune has been changed by some financial decisions her husband made without her knowing. It’s set in the fictional resort town of Hallum where Claire, her husband, and her daughter are forced to move from Seattle to downsize their lives. Claire finds work in a clinic there, where she can use her medical skills as her husband tries to rebuild his career; he had developed a cancer drug that was found to be flawed. I found myself racing to get back to this book, which is always a nice feeling. Cassella develops her characters beautifully and tells their stories so well. She told me a bit about this book when I was in Seattle a few months ago, and I could not wait to get my hands on it. You will enjoy it.”

Interview with Bill Kenower--Catching Magic

Last month I spoke to Bill Kenower for Author Magazine. Our half-hour conversation was edited into a short segment for Author Daily Minute, an online repository of interviews Bill has videoed with a wide variety of talented writers. It isn't often that an interviewer's question teach me more about myself than I knew at the start. Before we met, Bill said he didn't like too much preparation because he enjoys showing the process of thought, catching it on film so viewers can witness the author exploring his or her own thoughts. That turns out to be his magic gift.

Bill is a writer himself--a man clearly in love with the power of words, who thinks deeply about the process of creative writing as well as a slew of other fascinating human dilemmas. Consequently, we not only had one of the best interviews I've ever been involved with, but spent another two hours over lunch discussing parenting, healthcare, politics, publishing, and the endless challenge of translating dreamlike images into printed words that hopefully make some sense to readers. If you love writing and books, Bill's blogposts are worth bookmarking. Rich with insight and wisdom, they are a writing education in themselves.

Listening to Readers

I’ve started up a Q & A on Goodreads, (www.goodreads.com) and anyone visiting this blog is invited to join me there. I sent an email to the people on Goodreads who’d read my book inviting them to give me any feedback on Oxygen. I’ve had some really nice responses, and made a connection with some readers I’d never otherwise meet. But most fascinating to me is the sense I am getting that readers are sometimes reluctant to write freely, telling me whatever they think.

OK, I can sort of get that, because I go all sweaty-palmed and short-of-breath when I get to meet an author I admire. But here’s the thing: without readers there would be no books—or at least no published books. The reader is the client, and I am the service provider. That’s not to say I can take every criticism to heart; indeed letting too much contrary opinion into my writing mind can kill any creative impulses I have. But my own objectivity about my work will always be limited. If I wanted to write in a vacuum, I would have stuck to diaries. If I want to grow as a writer, I need to listen to challenges. And compliments are welcome, too.

There are a thousand reasons to write, and nine hundred and fifty of them are so subliminal I’ll never haul them into the light of day. But one reason I can nail down is the unspoken, even anonymous connection that writing builds within a community of people—the community who choose one particular book over another, because something that intrigued the author enough to spend years developing it also intrigues them. So why, I ask, stop at that secondary level? Why not jet-propel right on into the next reverberation—the reader’s take on it all?

I have to throw in here, at the risk of sounding gossip-prone, that a movie celebrity once used my health club while he was filming in Seattle. I won’t tell you who he was except to mention that he actually did do his sit ups on a slanted plank from the head down position! Enough said. The guy had a security guard present to be sure none of the regular folks (like me) talked to him. The regular folks who made him rich and famous. Now, rich and famous is not my goal, but at least in that instance I decided NOT to spend the eight dollars to see his next movie.

Balancing Life? Hardly!

Thank you to Seattle Woman Magazine and Judith Tingly for this article. It tells more truth about this last year than any other interview I've given. Balance? There is no such thing!

http://www.seattlewomanmagazine.com/articles/july09-6.htm