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Monthly Archives: April 2009

The City of (among other things) Angels

Thanks to the good people at Target and Random House, I will be hitting the L.A. Times Books Festival next weekend. My job is to be smiling and shiny on the Target Children’s Stage at 4.40pm on Saturday the 25th. In L.A. (if you missed that part). If you too will be around the Fest, stop on by and give me a beauty queen wave.

A little more info here. Cheers.

So You Wanna Be a Writer, Pt. 3 (Prose for Body and Brain)

Occasionally, in conversations with some Worthy Aspirer, I will be asked about the mechanics of description. Specifically, how does one make something vivid? Being easily distracted, it is not hard for me to quickly frog my way into bigger discussions about the nature of metaphor or vicarious experience or even the nature of knowledge itself. Not that I really know anything about these things, but how hard is it to speculate and wonder aloud? I do think such meta-topics are important, but kicking them around isn’t always immediately and practically helpful to someone trying to describe a country road or a lonely dog.

So here is today’s (or perhaps, tomonth’s) hot tip Read the rest of this entry »

Hip-Hip for Olney, Illinoisey

So, I owe public thanks to the good folks of Olney, IL (home of the white squirrels). They participate in the One Community, One Book program, and this year they picked Leepike Ridge to be their community title. They foisted free copies on folks out of their local businesses and even went so far as to set up a life-size diorama of Tom and Argus (and corpse) in the front of their Super Wal-Mart. Of course, too many people did find the corpse disturbing, so it moved into schools.

They also brought me in for a day’s worth of events, and the kids kept me hopping throughout–catching biographical errors in paperbacks, prying their way backstage into the creative process, and helpfully suggesting future books, characters, concepts, etc.

And yes, I saw white squirrels in their natural Olney habitat. Two of them.

Thanks to all the people who made it such a great program (and especially to Pat Carlson for all the dirty work). Much gratitude. Cheers.