Blog

First, you get the rust…

As you've heard me complain, getting back into the writing discipline is hard, hard, hard. But I've been making myself churn out some words every day - knowing that they maybe total trash - following the theory that you let the tape run and eventually clean water...

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More than 140,000 responses…

from women of all ages, religions, and ethnicities. Read some of them here. And please do what you can: donate your money, your time, get a friend registered. Wear a button.And vote.

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The book is dead

The book is dead!Long live the book!In other words, kiddos, there's been yet another high profile story on why publishing is a dying industry, focusing on the multi-million dollar deals that don't pan out. Sure, it's hard. But guess what? We midlist authors keep on...

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Christie speaks!

Wow! Today's New York Times reveals that a box containing 27 audiotapes of Agatha Christie talking about her life has been discovered!The reels contain dictation, seemingly done in preparation for writing her autobiography. And what does Dame Agatha, grand mistress of...

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My pride (Cat Lovers for Obama)

In the lioness sense, that is. Just bought this here. But, hey, if you order the button for fun, you should also go here and make a real donation, too. Every little bit helps!

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Cats against Palin …

Thank you, Paul Krugman for this link and quote (in yesterday's NYT blog):We already had Dogs Against Romney. Now we need Cats Against Palin:When asked to reveal something about Palin that no one knows, one woman offered, “She doesn’t care for cats very much,” and...

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… the king is dead, long live…

What's in a name? If you're Dr. Hector Carpentier, an impoverished young physician in 1818 Paris, everything....(my review of Louis Bayard's The Black Tower in today's Boston Globe).

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… and finally

Let's not forget those who died seven years ago today. And, let's face it, how the Bush Administration could have averted these attacks.The warnings were going straight to President Bush each morning in his briefings by the CIA director, George Tenet, and in the...

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How We Write: Getting Started with Caroline Leavitt

Caroline Leavitt is the kind of friend a writer needs. Highly accomplished (eight novels - see her home page) and unfailingly generous with her time and good thoughts, she's also about 100 pages into her latest novel. But when she and I sat down to discuss writing,...

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