I was in my kitchen, minding my own business – by that, I mean doing dishes – when my ten-year-old daughter asked me, “Mom, what does ‘he was trouble when he walked in’ mean?” Hmm. How much truth does a girl her age need? “Well, some boys are really charming, but they're trouble. They'll smile … Continue reading Player Hate: What Every Ten-Year-Old Girl Should Know?
What do you do when a society is so affluent and bored that the narcissism of small differences rises to the level of existential threat? First, you solve a mystery. When Steve jobs died in 2011, I wrote a blog post, not unkind, about how he was affecting world domination by putting a computer in … Continue reading The End of the World as We Know It: A Literary Mystery
∴ The first lines of my new story ∴ The lines are pink. Lines, plural. There are two of them. And they are pink -- cultural short hand for anything girly, frivolous, knock-up-able.
Trying to find a literary agent is a lot like dating when you are thirty-five and childless. I was thirty-four when I met my husband. I was not desperate. I was not willing to settle. But, I wasn't wasting any time either. I told him early on, I was interested in getting married and having children … Continue reading Finding an Agent: An Ugly Step-Sister Story
Once upon a time, I went on a cruise to Alaska with my mother and sister and got an idea for a book. We stepped off the ship in Ketchikan and onto a row of exactly 17 jewelry stores. Who takes a cruise to Alaska to buy jewelry? My mother apparently. My frugal, shops at … Continue reading Once Upon a Time: How A Lot of Stories begin
