Monthly Archives: December 2011
Third Day of Christmas
On the Third Day of Christmas, we started exercising again, exchanged a sweater for the right size, baked potatoes and picked up a roasted chicken, mailed a late gift, worked the jigsaw puzzle, secured the back door against high winds, listened to Adele again, consumed more caramels, took out more recycling, and invited three guys to play computer games and spend the night. I am not working. I have a friend who chucks out her tree on the 26th every year, but we keep ours until Epiphany, and… Continue reading
The Magnifying Glass
December Sunlight
I have this theory that the problems of our lives expand to fill our attention. Whatever the scale of the problem–how to pay the bills, or grade a pile of papers, or manage the withdrawal of troops from Iraq, or clear out a house to sell, or medicate a child’s fever–we focus our energies on that problem and try to solve it. The nitty-gritty problems of our lives fill up our concentration and our hours, like ants under the lens of a magnifying glass. … Continue reading
Dear 168 Book Pirates
Dear 168 Book Pirates,
Perhaps you feel an extra bit of joy as you read my book, knowing you outsmarted the system and took it for free. You might think that I’ll never know, or that it’s a compliment when you want a book enough to steal it, or that I don’t need the $2.49 I would have earned if you’d paid to buy Prized on Kindle. You might think there’s nothing wrong with downloading pirated books for free since so many others do it, too.
Share Term… Continue reading
Prized Black Rice Soup
Readers tell me that Birthmarked makes them hungry. They read about dark, crusty bread right out of the oven and their tastebuds swoon. Unlike Harris’s Chocolat, that richly seductive book that makes me crave sweetness, (not to mention the even more troublesome movie version with Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche, (whose name, once you’ve become dessert-minded, invokes “ganache”)), my books tend towards the hardy and wholesome food groups: breads, soups, blueberries, and an orange. An exception is the mycoprotein, provided as sustenance to people living outside… Continue reading
On Writing “Tortured”
My short story “Tortured” (Birthmarked 1.5) came about as a dark experiment, the sort that goes wrong and stays with you.
At first, I was faced with a unique writing challenge. The tie-in story was intended originally for readers who already knew Birthmarked (Book 1) but who had not yet read Prized (Book 2). It was a precarious window. I pondered: how could a story add something to both books and yet stand alone enough to work as a short story? When would it take… Continue reading