Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope your day is full of friends and family, turkey and all the trimmings, good books and lots of yarn and love!

Ann

Miami!

It is very nice to step off a plane into 80 degree weather and see palm trees and ocean. Very nice indeed. 

The Miami Book Fair is one of my favorite events, writers everywhere I turn, in elevators and around every corner. Great to spend time with old friends and to meet new ones as well as doing a little stargazing. 

If you are in Miami, I'll be at the Fair all day on Sunday. At 11, John Dufresne, Joyce Maynard and Martha Frankel will join me to talk about KNITTING YARNS. Then at 4 I'll be on a panel for THE OBITUARY WRITER with writers Amity Gaige and Kathleen Kent. 

No rest for the weary: I fly home right afterward. Hopefully I can rustle up a Cuban sandwich before getting on that plane!

Tonight! Center For Fiction with Elissa Schappell!

Ann Hood & Elissa Schappell

On November 20 we're presenting Knitting Yarns: Writers on Knitting. The event celebrates a new essay collection edited by Hood, with contributions from 27 great writers, including Schappell. Want to know why they're great? Hood and Schappell have both published original short stories in our magazine, The Literarian. Check out "Hum" by Ann Hood (think houseguests from hell) and "Elephant" by Elissa Schappell. Both deliver an emotional wallop, in the best way. Now do you want to hear what Hood and Schappell have to say about the intersection of literature and knitting? Of course you do! So RSVP.

Titcomb's in Sandwich, MA

What a gorgeous day here in NYC yesterday. Practically balmy, with bright sunshine, a day that demanded I get outside and walk. So walk I did, enjoying the West Village streets and Union Square and lower Fifth Avenue. Still managed to get my writing time in. And three episodes of Scandal. Before my wonderful class and vino and brussel sprout salad with my chum. 

Cooler today but a bright sunny one for my train ride home, where I'll pick up my car and head to East Sandwich and Titcomb's with dear friend and KNITTING YARNS contributor Anne D. LeClaire. If you are on or near Cape Cod, I hope to see you there!

Rainy days and Mondays

Fell asleep last night watching the rain and mist out my bedroom window, thinking it looked like London out there. Woke to more of the same, which of course leads me to want to snuggle deeper beneath the covers. Alas, it's Monday so no snuggling for me. Off to an early train to NYC and lunch with one of my favorite people, then an afternoon devoted to writing before I teach tonight. 

It has been a tough few days here. On Friday my beloved uncle died, just a year after my aunt. I was lucky to have writer friends hold down the fort at a KNITTING YARNS event at Newtonville Books so I could see him Thursday night. And lucky that a few other events could be rescheduled so I could devote myself to family time. But such sadness fills me, even as I experience so much enthusiasm for KNITTING YARNS, with wonderful events in York and Portland, Maine and yesterday here in Providence. 

Upcoming events at Titcomb's in Sandwich on the Cape Tuesday; the Center for Literary Fiction in NYC on Wednesday; and Wellesley Books in Wellesley, MA on Thursday. Then off to Miami and the Miami Book Fair this weekend. I hope to see you at one of these!

No surprise that I've knit two Avery hats from Loop Yarns and am half done with a Hannah hat, also a Loop Yarns kit. Next up, cabled arm warmers. Knitting continues to hold its comforting magic. 

KNITTING YARNS and I are off to Boston

That is, after I lounge in my big bed here in Portland, drinking coffee until they kick me out. I love this city, and plan on shopping and eating lunch here before pointing the Mini south for Boston. 

Tonight, contributors Elizabeth Searle, Suzanne Strempek Shea, and Marianne Leone will join me at Newtonville Books at 7. Bostonians, please come and hear us read about all things knitting (which means, of course, all things in life)!

Onward to Portland, Maine!

Cousin Gina and I are tucked under lots of covers here at the Harbor Inn in York, Maine, where it's a chilly 23 degrees. Drinking coffee and looking out at the ocean. A lovely morning after a great visit to The Yarn Sellar last night, followed by dinner here at the inn. 

Soon we will raid the continental breakfast downstairs before I head north to Portland. Please come at 6 tonight to Harmon's & Barton's at 584 Congress St if you are in the hood!

KNITTING YARNS and I go to Maine!

Watching the wet snow fall as Amtrak slowly chugs its way from NYC to Providence. A great night last night with my wonderful class and now heading home to pick up my suitcase and drive north. 

Tonight I will be at Yarn Sellars at 6 in York, Maine. I love Carrie and that store! You will too!

Tomorrow night I will be in fabulousPortland, Maine at  Harmon's & Barton's, 584 Congress St, at 6. Thanks to Barbara Kelly for organizing what promises to be a fun event. (Anything Barbara touches is fun!) plus, I get to have lunch with two of my favorite writer buddies before and dinner and a sleepover with my dear college buddy. Sigh. I always love going to Portland. 

Thursday I turn the Mini Cooper southward to Newtonville Books where I'll be joined by other KNITTING YARNS contributors. Details:

Newtonville Books

With Elizabeth Searle, Suzanne Strempek Shea, and Anne Le Claire

7PM

Sleepover with Cousin Gina in Charlestown and then home Friday in time to unpack and repack and continue south to Long Island and the Williston Park Library where contributor Janice Eidus will join me at 7 PM. 

I'll snooze in the NYC pad and sleep late Saturday before heading to one of my favorite towns: Woodstock, NY, one of my favorite bookstores: The Holden Notebook, and joined by one of my favorite people, contributor Martha Frankel at 4PM. 

A dinner party there with Woodstock pals, then the long trek home. 

But that trek is worth it because at the end will be contributors Taylor Polites and Helen Bingham (knitting goddess who designed the patterns for KNITTING YARNS) at Books on the Square in Providence at 5. 

A busy yarn filled, friend filled week! Details are under EVENTS on my website. 

Now, I'm going to put my earbuds in, turn on the New Yorker podcast Page Turner, and knit my whitecaps cowl...

Today is pub date for KNITTING YARNS!

And we are yarn bombing the book!

Big Fish

My week here in NYC has been a wonderful blur of catching up--with friends, with reading, with deadlines, with editors, with knitting and Broadway shows. Last night saw Big Fish with my crush Norbert Leo Butz in another amazing performance. Critics panned it, and I think they're nuts. My trio cried through most of Act II. 

Today getting to see the real Girl With the Pearl Earring at the Frick, then to the Lee Woodruff fundraiser where I finally finally get to see The Boss!!!

Finished the Avery hat, which is awaiting its pompom. 

But can't start whitecaps cowl yet. Here's why:

New York, New York

Arrived yesterday en famille so one of us--not me!--could run part of the NYC marathon. Annabelle and I headed to the Brooklyn Flea in Williamsburg, but couldn't cross the street due to aforementioned marathon. No problem. Two hungry girls found solace with Chinese food delivered back at the apartment and some knitting time before we met up with the boys for a matinee of Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812. Go see it!!!!

(Knitting the Avery hat from Loop knits for AB and I love this pattern! So cute! Will post a picture when it's done)

No words can describe the originality and sheer brilliance of this play. And the actor who looked so familiar? I realized he gave Sam a tour of Juilliard back in college audition days! 

Left the theater and walked right into Barbra Streisand leaving The Glass Menagerie, Jim Brolin by her side. As a Marcus Welby MD fan that excited me but not as much as seeing Barbra Streisand up close! 

Turned down 7th Avenue and there was Victor Garber, he of Titanic and Alias. All in all, kind of a perfect NYC day. Finished up with dinner at Barbuto with my old pal, and that chicken just makes me happy. The potatoes even more so. 

And now this morning I get to stay in bed as long as I like. Nowhere to be for the first time in way too long. Coffee and a pile of reading by my side. Sounds of the city in the background. And the promise of hitting my fave knitting store later along with a few other shops. 

My family has had a hard week health wise. Lots of scares and one big serious surgery. I'm glad to cocoon today, to be quiet and read and knit. To smile from time to time over my Barbra encounter. To listen to my city.