Hey hey! Just kidding. But a super nice and well-known former Boston radio DJ and talk show host, Jordan Rich, interviewed me for his podcast, On Mic.
JR, as he’s called, worked as a disc jockey and talk show host throughout the Boston area for decades, including as the morning drive host for WSSH-FM (1982 to 1996) and as cohost of The Morning Show on WRKO-AM (1978 to 1982). He is co-owner of Chart Productions, a company offering a full range of audio and video production and coaching services.
When you hear how gorgeous his voice is, you won’t be at all surprised that he’s made careers in radio and podcasting.
He asked really great questions about my research process, crafting voice for my characters, and more.
Is this a way forward? Make a picture a day? Even if I can’t explain it. Post only those I love. (I love this one).
Because I’m getting sick of myself, I’ll tell you that. And sometimes afraid too. Like I’ll be found out by the bad guys.
I’m committing the cardinal sin of posting the same images everywhere, but in this time of extraordinarily bad news, maybe I can get a pass? Because it makes me insanely happy to see my book at an independent bookstore. Look! Will you goddamned look? Next to Jesmyn Ward no less.
I still can’t quite believe it.
Nor can I believe that I’m still finding typos. Today: two. And two improvements.
(Did I mention that Ken is my book manager? Poor guy).
Dog photo board at the bookstore
Next week stay tuned for a link to my podcast interview on On Mic.
Last night I dreamt of dogs — is it any wonder with this sweetheart in our midst?
Also, I had a recurring nightmare: the loss of my front tooth. In this one, I tug out my mouth guard and the crown comes with it, drops to the floor, and skitters across the room. This is the fourth or fifth such dream. And you wonder why I’ve given up corn on the cob?
Responses to my book continue to be causes for joy. Private messages have been uniformly positive. Thank you one and all!
Also (and this I did not expect), there has been a smattering of grief about not having been able to get an agent or a small press interested in my work. I’m assuming this will fade over the next weeks.
Novel with an old quilt of mine made for a long-time mediating friend in Cambridge Coming to you from Long Island with one of my Katrina quilts And also from New Mexico! hello Marti!This happened to me with one agent
The debate and subsequent drilling down on what Jamelle Bouie has called a “blood libel” has been just spectacularly grim. Dangerous. And you wonder, don’t you, how the Orange Menace’s rhetoric can be at once shocking and utterly predictable.
Apparently, he thinks Haitians come from Venezuela? Just a minor point in his stream of invective.
I’m doing another 25 Postcardstovoters.
My brother’s stroke anniversary is next week. Four years. There will not be cake.
C and his girlfriend come for dinner tonight and there will be cookies. And scallops. Shockingly expensive scallops. I shrugged and rationalized: this is our Christmas dinner.
You might know, I launched a novel. As in PUBLISHED. It’s 321 pages long and you might like to read it. This means I can officially call myself an author now. And, I’ve already earned enough royalties to cover the cost of my ISBNs. Pretty cool.
I signed up for dental insurance all by myself. (Yeah, I know). My new Medicare card arrived. So did my drug card and my Gap policy card. All my passwords are in one folder and I know where to find that folder. I’m on fire!
I finished reading Lonesome Dove, all 800 plus pages. I had to finish it this week because there was no way I was gonna carry it to California.
Can I just say — it’s long, it’s grim, it’s a Western for god’s sake — and it is one of the best books I’ve ever read. I really didn’t want it to end.
Two people from very different walks of my life told me this was their favorite book ever, otherwise I doubt I’d ever have picked it up. Even though I’ve read Stegner’s Angle of Repose twice (and liked it so much I proceeded to read almost everything else he wrote), I was not a fan of Cormac McCarthy and McMurtry’s book was giving me McCarthy vibes.
Anyway. My advice? Not so much that you should read this novel, but that if two people you know without prompting tell you that X novel is their favorite book, run — don’t walk — and pick yourself up a copy.
Another book brag — I was pleased to see I’d read 39 of the NYTimes “The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century” list. Maybe I should feel bad that the number isn’t higher? I’m fixing that with my next read: My Brilliant Friend, by Elena Ferrante.
(I was late to the McMurtry party and I’m also late to the Ferrante party).
She has TWO OTHER books on the list.
Lastly, can you guess what I’m starting to research with a view toward a second book (I decided against Lucy Audubon).
Hint: the setting is a lot closer than Charleston.
