tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36378068665801182002024-03-13T14:58:10.141-07:00annhood.usUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger469125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637806866580118200.post-73690884767481110352021-06-23T21:40:00.000-07:002021-06-23T21:40:08.754-07:00Summer<p> I can’t believe I haven’t posted here in four months. But time became weirdly elastic since March of 2020. Today I kind of looked around and thought, wait, it’s 2021? I was putting on make up and heading to meet friends for lunch. Again, I paused. This is so normal. This is so weird. I’ve been having that feeling a lot. In NYC (where I am so grateful to finally return to) Michael and I wanted to have a drink at Dante, the much talked about bar down the street, and decided to actually SIT AT THE BAR. We walked in and I froze. There before me was a real bar, with real people having real cocktails, talking and laughing. I felt like I had stepped into a time machine. I’m not sure how long this strange feeling will continue. Maybe forever. Probably forever. We just came through a historic pandemic. I used to read about the Spanish flu and wonder how people got through it. Suddenly I was like those long ago people. (Have you read SO LONG, SEE YOU TOMORROW by William Maxwell? One of my favorite books)</p><p>I got both jabs, then booked dentist, doctor, colonoscopy. (My mammogram was already booked or that would have been one of those calls) Colonoscopy was yesterday, and you don’t visit this blog to read about that but ok, the prep isn’t fun, but the procedure takes only a couple hours of your day, from showing up to eating your crackers and drinking your apple juice. I’ve lost too many friends to colon cancer. And not to be a public service announcement, but please do this fir yourself and everyone who loves you. </p><p>As you know, I like to read real books. Not kindles or whatever. I sniff my books and caress them and study them. BUT! My niece Melissa gifted me an audio book of THE DEATH OF MRS. WESTAWAY by Ruth Ware and said: The book is good but the woman who reads it is great. Boy, was she right. In two weeks I listened to all the Ware books, all read by Church, while I knit nine neck warmers for our graduating class at my Newport MFA. Bliss! Start with that one, by the way. The neck warmers were mistake rib in Rowan Big Wool. </p><p>Strange things I’ve done: bought tickets to Broadway shows, bought plane tickets, booked hotels, eaten in restaurants, hugged people, had dinner parties, gone to Pilates, shopped at Target without a mask. </p><p>Normal things I’ve done: see above. </p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637806866580118200.post-85943605683598581482021-02-22T08:33:00.002-08:002021-02-22T08:33:08.676-08:00Lots of news here!<p> Yes, we are still mostly staying inside with our pod, but I still have a lot of exciting things coming up that I think many of you will enjoy too.</p><p>First, I am so excited that my new YA novel, JUDE BANKS, SUPER HERO, will be published by Penguin on May 18. It's available for pre-order through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Bookshop, or your favorite independent book store. Here's a description of the book, which will appeal to adults too:</p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Katie was Jude's favorite person in the world. And not many brothers say that about their sister and mean it. But to Jude, Katie was everything--the person who made him learn how to say "I love you" in every language, who performed dramatic readings of </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Romeo and Juliet</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">, who obsessed over every item on the diner menu looking for the most </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">authentic</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> diner meal. The one who called him "Jude Banks, Superhero," because to her, Jude was the best.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">She was also the person who died. Out of nowhere, and without a goodbye. And Jude believes he was the one who killed her.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Now, twelve-year-old Jude must figure out what life looks like without his favorite person. With Mom checked out, and Dad just trying to do his best, Jude enters a world of grief youth groups and dropped-off lasagnas. It's only when he meets a girl named Clementine, who also lost a sibling, that he begins to imagine a world where </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">maybe</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> things might be okay. But Clementine is nursing a terrible guilt, and even though Katie called Jude a "superhero," he isn't sure he can save her.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">In her signature prose, Hood crafts an extraordinary story of grief and resilience, asking the important question: How does a family begin to heal?</span></p><p><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Amazon Ember, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">I will be posting Zoom events as soon as I get the schedule.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Amazon Ember, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">Lots of Zoom conversations coming up!</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Amazon Ember, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">I will be talking with Jeff Porter, whose memoir PLANET CLAIRE is the second one I've published in Gracie Belle Books, my line of grief memoirs with Akashic Press. If you haven't yet read PLANET CLAIRE, I know you will love it as much as I do. It's sad and funny and hopeful and romantic. The Zoom talk is through Buffalo's fabulous bookstore, Talking Leaves. Details here: </span><span style="font-size: 14px;">https://www.tleavesbooks.com/</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Amazon Ember, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">On Friday, April 9, at 5PM I will be at the fabulous Brattleboro Literary Festival's Cocktail Hour via Zoom with Julia Cooke discussing the good old days of being a flight attendant! Julia has a new book coming out about all things Pan Am, and my own memoir about flying for TWA, FLY GIRL, will be out in May 2022. So fasten your seat belts and join us! Details available at </span><span style="font-size: 14px;">https://www.brattleboro.com/downtown/brattleboro-literary-festival/</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Amazon Ember, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Then on May 7, I am Zooming via Porter Square Books with Danielle Dreilinger to discuss her fascinating new book, THE SECRET HISTORY OF HOME ECONOMICS: HOW TRAILBLAZING WOMEN HARNESSED THE POWER OF HOME AND CHANGED THE WAY WE LIVE. Details here: https://www.portersquarebooks.com/</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Amazon Ember, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">And teaching, teaching, teaching! All via Zoom, of course.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Amazon Ember, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">One of my favorite writers conferences to teach at was the Iceland Writers Retreat in Reykjavick. Iceland is an extraordinary country and IWR is an extraordinary conference. Like everyone else, they are going to be online this year, and I am lucky enough to be teaching a workshop on my favorite writing device, the objective correlative, AND to be on a panel. The workshop is on May 1 at 12:45 and is followed by a Q and A. The panel is at 4:15 that same day. Details and registration are here: https://www.icelandwritersretreat.com/</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Amazon Ember, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">I am teaching a month long online workshop on Writing the Personal Essay through the </span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Fine Arts Work Center in </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Provincetown's online classes, 24Pearlst. The dates are April 12-May 7. I love teaching this class and if you want to try your hand at or improve on writing personal essays, please join me here: </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Amazon Ember, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">https://web.fawc.org/24-pearl-street/workshops?tid=All&field_acdemic_year_tid=164&field_session_value=All</span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> </span></p><p><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Speaking of The Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, I was scheduled to teach a memoir workshop there for a week last summer, which got moved to this summer, which got moved to online this spring. I miss being in that beautiful, special place but am delighted to Zoom my class the week of May 10-14 from noon-2. Registration here: </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Amazon Ember, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">https://web.fawc.org/</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Amazon Ember, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">More immediately, Hester Kaplan and I are teaching our prompt based lunchtime workshops for fiction and non-fiction writers on Monday, Wednesday and Friday </span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">from noon-1, weeks of March 1 and March 8. Very few spots still open so email me here to save one!</span></p><p><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Yes, there's more exciting news!</span></p><p><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">The low residency Newport MFA that I founded and co-direct is accepting applications for our June residency, which will be online. But things are looking good for us to resume in person for the next one in January 2022. Our guest faculty in June includes bestselling, twice Oprah Book Club writer Jane Hamilton and award winning essayist and non fiction writer Emily Bernard! </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Applications and information here: </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Amazon Ember, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">https://salve.edu/graduate-studies-and-continuing-education/mfa-creative-writing</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Amazon Ember, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">And last, but certainly not least, mark your calendars for the Newport MFA Weekend Writers Workshop, June 25-27, with award winning, best selling writers Andre Dubus III (teaching Fiction), Nick Flynn (teaching Memoir) and David Yoo (teaching YA). Registration is not open yet but I will post link here as well as on Instagram and Facebook as soon as it is!</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Amazon Ember, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">A busy spring, albeit from my sofa! Not too busy to immerse myself in reading Barbara Pym and Elizabeth Bowen novels, keep knitting my Wool and the Gang's Julia sweater Billie Jean, and take Annabelle on college visits--tours have been suspended so we are just driving around campuses to see what she does and doesn't like.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Amazon Ember, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Stay safe, everybody! I hope to see you at some of these events or workshops!</span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637806866580118200.post-66396864640611966642021-01-12T09:13:00.002-08:002021-01-12T09:13:39.105-08:00Happy 2021<p>When Michael and I walked out of our NYC apartment last March, never did I imagine that almost a year later I wouldn’t have walked back in. Or that hundreds of thousands of Americans would be dead. Or that democracy would be threatened. Growing up in the 60s, I was acutely aware that I lived in a time during which history was being made. That is pretty much how I have felt at least some part of every day these 306 days. But such grim, sad history! I remain hopeful that we will all get our jabs and be able to re-enter the world. That democracy will prevail and a sense of hope and security will return. I hope you and yours are all safe and healthy during these strange times. </p><p>Here are quite a few things to lift your spirits or keep you busy or distracted or to inspire you. </p><p>Last fall my son Sam, his girlfriend Katherine and I were lamenting that everything like theatre, readings, writers conferences, and the like had all been cancelled. If only we could invite our favorite actors and writers and teachers into our living rooms! That’s when the proverbial light bulb went off: why not help others do just that? And so Craft Talks was born. Sam and Katherine filmed six of the most beloved, bestselling, award winning novelists in the country giving craft talks. Andre Dubus III, Laura Lippman, Sophfronia Scott, John Searles, Bill Roorbach and yours truly. Go to Crafttalks.com to sign up for unlimited access to these talks and get your novel written!</p><p>More for writers: the Newport MFA, the low residency MFA that I founded and co-direct, just finished its January residency. I really think we have the best low residency MFA around and I’d love for you to find out more by emailing me or going to the Newport MFA website!</p><p>Ok, final opportunity for writers here. Hester Kaplan and I are starting our weekly workshops via Zoom again in February and we’d love to have you join us. They began as a way to create a writing community during these challenging times and to stay inspired and writing through prompts and discussions. We meet three times a week from noon-1 and cannot wait to start up again after a holiday hiatus. </p><p>All of you readers—which is most of you!—I'm so excited to announce the second book in my Gracie Belle Books imprint with Akashic Books: PLANET CLAIRE by Jeff Porter is the story of how humor, memories, and love got Jeff through the loss of his beloved wife. Order it now from your favorite bookstore or online!</p><p><br /></p><p>For weekly reading, I highly encourage you to subscribe to my wonderful husband’s newsletter. It’s free and fabulous, with recipes and recommendations for all sorts of things. Go to Ruhlman.substack.com to sign up. </p><p>I have read a lot during these 306 days, typically more than my vow of reading a book a week. So far this year I’ve read Actress by Anne Enright, Excellent Women by Barbara Pym, Snow by John Banville, and a new book about my beloved Beatles, One, Two, Three, Four by Craig Brown. Recommend them all, plus my 2020 favorites HAMNET by Maggie O’Farrell and Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart. </p><p>And for my knitters, I hope knitting has brought you the comfort it has brought me these months. Before pandemic I had knit exactly one sweater. Since pandemic: almost five. This newest one is Billie Jean by Wool and the Gang. Knit in moss stitch on big needles, it’s perfect knitting for binge watching the news, Schitts Creek, and season one of The Morning Show. </p><p>This is a long post, but I hope it gives you lots of ideas and distractions for the weeks and months ahead. Stay safe. And as always, read, knit, cook, and hold the people you love close (if only metaphorically for now). </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637806866580118200.post-41846691930522346722020-11-23T09:41:00.006-08:002020-11-23T09:41:51.058-08:00The Most Unusual Thanksgiving in the Most Unusual Year<p> When my son Sam was seven months old, my cousin and I decided it was time for our family to come together at Thanksgiving. There is power in having the only baby around--everyone wants to see him all the time. So in 1993 we hosted out first all family Thanksgiving, with Sam taking on the lead role over the turkey. I lived then in a second floor apartment of a beautifully restored Colonial house on the East Side of Providence. My landlord and landlady were a single mother's dream: supportive, fun, kind. I was very off kilter, having moved from my beautiful duplex on Leroy Street in Greenwich Village just two weeks before Sam was born. Thankfully my parents lived nearby because the man of my dreams had gone AWOL. But that Thanksgiving, GJ and I created a memorable dinner in my small kitchen with its blue and white table and chairs, Sam happily eating and getting adored by two sets of aunts and uncles and his doting grandparents. Unsure what to do all afternoon with half a dozen geriatrics, we decided to have a fun activity for everyone, which was making hand turkeys. That Thanksgiving was such a success that we have repeated it every year since, in that same small kitchen, in different rented Victorian houses with much grander dining rooms, in the dining room with the enormous hearth in the house where I lived with my family for twenty years, and for the last four years in my loft with giant windows that let the silvery November light in. We've added to our guest list over the years--cousins, friends, partners, new children--so that even as we've lost most of the older generation and most of the partners eventually became exes, the celebration still grows somehow. Until this year.</p><p><br /></p><p>We'd imagined a scaled down Thanksgiving on my roof deck, which is big enough to socially distance many more than the nine people coming, sitting in three pods. No buffet. No hugging or dancing or singing Italian songs. But still, like that first small one at my blue and white table, we'd all be together. Then Rhode Island's cases spiked. The CDC warned us not to travel. Dinner should be limited to just our immediate families, the one we live with. With guests coming from Vermont and Boston and NYC, with this virus raging, on Friday we made the smart, right decision to follow the rules. For the first time in 27 years--since he was born--Sam would not be home for Thanksgiving. There would be no drunken Thanksgiving Eve as people arrived from far flung places, like Scotland and California and Puerto Rico. There would be no toasts, no Nantucket scallops from our friend Bruce, no cocktails made by Matt. GJ and I would not be making plans for the dinner and the day itself.</p><p><br /></p><p>It's easy during this hard year to focus on all of that, all of the things we <i>won't </i>be doing together. And believe me, I've had more than a few crying jags since Friday, more than a few "pity parties," as Gogo called those times when you just feel bad for yourself. But yesterday morning, Michael and Annabelle and I sat down and vowed to have a lovely, happy Thanksgiving. We each got to choose our favorite Thanksgiving foods (which is why I'm baking a blueberry pie), we set up a Zoom cocktail hour with all of the people who usually come and celebrate with us, we bought a turkey, and champagne, and we planned our day.</p><p>How lucky I am to be "stuck" with the man I love and my fabulous daughter. How lucky I am that, so far, the people I love have been spared this terrible virus. How lucky I am that we have food aplenty, and a warm home, and each other--and by each other I mean all of those wonderful people staying wisely in their own homes this year. Next year, "God willing," as my father used to say, we will fill this loft to its high ceilings. We will dance and sing and cook and eat and drink and remember the year that we had to be apart. </p><p>Be safe, all of you lovely people who read my meandering musings here. Don't take unnecessary risks with you or your loved ones. Be thankful.</p><p>Meanwhile, I am knitting Ferrymen gloves from Churchmouse Yarns and Teas. I am reading "We Keep the Dead Close" and "Ghost Wall," and recommending "Shuggie Bain" and "The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane," both which I loved. I am playing lots of cards--cribbage, hearts, and pitch. I am reminding myself to cut the pity parties short, and thank the universe for this crazy, mixed up, gorgeous world</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637806866580118200.post-88155456279121262222020-10-17T12:18:00.000-07:002020-10-17T12:18:39.925-07:00Autumn Already<p> It says a lot about these past few months that I have not posted here since the end of July. We have been in the most lovely blur of beach and sunsets, osprey and seals, egrets and swallow murmuration, even as the pandemic continues on relentlessly and our beautiful country grows ever more divisive and frightening. On August 1, we decamped to my favorite sleepy beach town in Massachusetts where I rented houses for several summers when my kids were younger. They have such fond memories of those summers here, many of them centered around the local ice cream stand. As each of my teaching and speaking commitments got cancelled, the idea of a month at the beach became more and more obvious. That month has turned in to three, as we could not leave this sliver of happiness by the sea. Happily, Michael fell in love with the town as hard as I did all those years ago, and our days--with Sam and Annabelle--melted one into the next, full of good food (local corn and tomatoes and pole beans, now new potatoes and broccoli and Brussels sprouts), evening cocktails (here's a link to one of Michael's Friday Cocktail Hours, but watch them all! https://ruhlman.com/2020/08/14/friday-cocktail-hour-the-mai-tai/), bocce games on the lawn (with stray balls falling into the river and Sam having to find them), games of Code Names and Hearts and Pitch and the Name Game on the screened in porch, reading on the aforementioned porch or in the hammock (my top recommendations: HAMNET, THREE HOURS, SHUGGIE BAIN), long walks to the beach, cocktails and picnics on the beach, reading on the beach (you get the idea--we spent a lot of time on the beach), late nights sipping whiskey and talking. And writing, writing, writing.</p><p>Sam and Katherine went back to Brooklyn in mid-September, but we have stayed on, happily watching summer fade into autumn. How the light on the ocean changes with the seasons! The leaves are turning, the air is crisp, we need sweaters now when we sit on the deck for our evening cocktails and Cribbage. The truth is, we don't want to leave. But Annabelle's school has started up in person half time (much to my consternation) and Providence beckons. So we are treasuring these last days here--today a walk to the beach with our books in hand. Tomorrow apple picking again. Our dinners of burgers or hot dogs on the grill have become pot roast and baked pasta. The sweaters I knit all summer are coming in handy.</p><p>We will return to Providence, and with colder weather and the coronavirus, retreat inside again. I fear for our country and our democracy; I fear for our planet; I fear for all of our health in the coming months. As I know many of you do. But these magical days we've had here will help get us through the coming ones. Remember your own magical times and hold them tight. Keep knitting and reading and loving. Hold your family and friends close, even if only figuratively for the time being. Stay hopeful. That's what listening to the geese fly south, watching swallows swoop overhead, breathing salt air and feeling the waves break on your ankles remind us to do. Stay hopeful. </p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637806866580118200.post-43864218411918574852020-07-26T04:15:00.001-07:002020-07-26T04:15:20.069-07:00On an early Sunday morning<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Sometimes, like this morning, I find myself thinking about how the world has changed these past almost five months. When Michael and I left NYC that mid-March day, we never imagined how the different the future would be. This week, we would have been in Ireland, one of my favorite places, where for six years I’ve taught and laughed and been with friends old and new. As someone who really does not like hot weather, when I step off the plane in Ireland, the cool air, even the rain, greets me and I smile big. Our week in Dingle has become a tradition, and this morning I am missing the wild ocean there, the green fields of sheep, dinner at the Chart House, Dingle gin and tonics, the pubs and the colorful buildings, visiting the folks at Dingle Crystal, Guinness, the little cheese shop, fish and chips, dinner at World Village, Murphy’s ice cream, friends...I could go on and on. If you’d like a glimpse of this special place, read Michael’s article about it in Saveur. He captures it beautifully.<br />
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It’s easy to fall into thinking that in these uncertain times, I may never be in Ireland again. I confess, there are moments when I do think things like that. The happiness of being in Ireland and Tuscany and Mexico and all the places I return to every year can feel far away, even impossible. The excitement of seeing new places—we were going to Ecuador at the end of the summer, planning a long dreamed of visit to St. Petersburg, Russia—seems almost too hopeful to allow myself to dream about.<br />
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But usually, usually, I instead take quiet times like this morning as everyone, even the cats, are asleep and the hot summer sun is peeking through the shades and the ceiling fan spins above me, to walk the hilly streets of Dingle in my mind. There is a light rain and a crowded pub with music playing. The air is cool and fresh. The ocean is right over there. My gin and tonic has a slice of orange and juniper berries. I’m there.<br />
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On other mornings I may walk the rocky path to dinner at Spannocchia in Tuscany, past centuries old stone buildings, black and white pigs, cypress trees. I can almost taste the local wine, the pizzas hot from the pizza oven. We roast chestnuts in the hearth, drink liqueur made from walnuts that grow outside our house.<br />
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Or maybe I walk the streets of a small Mexican town hand in hand with Michael. We stop at the mezcaleria, or for street tacos, or the best mole. We look at art and wander local markets, travel back roads to visit weavers or painters or agave farms.<br />
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What will our world look like in another five months? Will I spend a glorious week with writer friends in St. Petersburg (Florida, not Russia!) teaching and eating cheeseburgers, staying up too late in our pajamas, hearing readings that make us laugh or break our hearts, surrounded by the warmth of old friendships made deeper and stronger over more than decade there?<br />
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Will we sit in Manhattan restaurants, Broadway shows, our favorite movie theatres? Have our friends over for whiskey sours, my students crowded together for posole in our tiny apartment? Will we board an airplane and take off for someplace new, feel the excitement of stepping into a city we’ve never wandered before? Or the comfort and joy of one we know and love?<br />
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This hot, humid July morning I dream of all of those pleasures returning. I dream of Ireland and Italy, of Mexico and Manhattan. I dream new dreams.<br />
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The cats are awake, nipping my toes, urging me out of bed to feed them. The Sunday NYT is waiting downstairs. Later I’ll struggle over the sweater I’m knitting, finish Maggie O’Farrell’s gorgeous new novel HAMNET, bake blueberry muffins. I hope you find time in your day, every day, to dream. To remember the streets you love to walk, to smell the air there.<br />
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<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637806866580118200.post-25843475322379146182020-07-04T08:39:00.002-07:002020-07-04T08:39:51.202-07:00Fourth of July<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
A Fourth of July without family cookouts and fireworks is upsetting to a lot of people. For me, I'm grateful. You see, the Fourth of July is one of those holidays that kind of tears up my heart.<br />
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My father, love of my life, was born on July 4, 1929. For much of my life, the Fourth of July was about celebrating him, with a nod to Independence Day. Dad was a patriot, and as such felt truly proud that he was born on the same day as the United States of America.<br />
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As a kid, I would wake up on the Fourth of July to the sounds of John Phillip Sousa march music playing loud in the back yard. From my bedroom window I could see Dad in the backyard, already at the grill with a cold beer in his hand. I'd call <i>Happy Birthday! </i>down to him, and he would grin back up at me. My father had the widest grin, the bluest eyes, the blondest hair, the softest beer belly, and the biggest heart.<br />
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Way before noon, people started showing up. My mother did not like parties, drinking, or people acting foolish, so she did not love the Fourth of July. She left it up to Dad to grill the food and refill the cooler with ice and beer and party away. It was hot in our scruffy back yard, but soon enough the party spilled onto the front sidewalk and into the street. One year, the WW II vets among us put pots and pans on their heads, grabbed mops and brooms, and marched around the block singing. Illegal fireworks filled the sky with smoky red and blue from Roman candles and sparks of light from sparklers. In other words, anything could and did happen on the Fourth of July at 10 Fiume Street.<br />
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When I was in my 20s and 30s, after I'd made some money as a writer, I rented beach houses for my family every summer at Scarborough Beach in RI. So the parties moved there. And they only got bigger as cousins got married and years worth of high school and college friends came too. Now that we had a big, sloping lawn, the annual bocce ball championship began, a mostly drunken, highly competitive game that went until dark. I have a picture of Sam at three months old, dressed in red, white and blue, smiling up my father on Dad's birthday party at the beach; a picture of me, seven months pregnant with Grace, my head tilted against Dad's, grinning.<br />
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Like all things, those celebrations at the beach ended. In 1996, Dad was diagnosed with lung cancer, and he died the following April, three months before his sixty-eighth birthday. That year, we all decided that we needed to go somewhere that didn't celebrate the Fourth of July. Even though grief advice is often that running away is not a good thing, I have found the opposite to be true. Mom, Cousin Gina, Niece Melissa, four year old Sam, nine month old Grace, and I flew to Mexico, where we stayed at a luxury hotel on the beach in Ixtapa.<br />
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For four days we ate tacos with our toes in the sand, swam in the pool, shopped at the outdoor market, and drank margaritas. On the 5th of July, we realized we had managed to miss the holiday, and felt so grateful that we immediately ordered more margaritas. dad would have approved.<br />
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Ever since then, I have had to think ahead, plan my escape. For several years I taught out of state at a writers conference over the Fourth. I took other trips out of the country--London or Italy or anywhere, really. If I had to be home, I said no thank you to invitations to parties and cook outs and kept my family close, gazing up at the fireworks exploding above us. "Isn't it nice how everyone puts on a firework show for my birthday?" Dad would say. In 1986, I was invited to the hundredth birthday party of the Statue of Liberty, celebrated on the Fourth of July. We had ring side seats on Governor's Island, with lots of food and drinks, and a perfect view of the 40000 pyrotechnic device fireworks show. They lasted for twenty-eight minutes, dazzling us and two million other spectators. At one point Dad squeezed my hand and whispered, "Really. This year they've gone way overboard to celebrate my birthday." I leaned my head toward his until we touched, and the sky exploded before us.<br />
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2020 finds us living in such uncertain times. On March 11, Michael and I were in our apartment in NYC trying to decide where to eat before we went to see the play <i>The Lehman Brothers </i>on Broadway when Sam called and told us that Broadway had just shut down. I remember looking at Michael and saying, "This is really bad." Four months later, we are still saying that as the coronavirus spreads and spikes across the country and the world; as protests over racial injustices shake us awake; as our country, of which I have always been so proud, sits on a dangerous precipice. On that Fourth of July in 1986, France's president, Francois Mitterand, said: "May our children's children find themselves celebrating together in 100 years time." Yet today, we can not even travel to France, or anywhere in the EU. In this time of so much uncertainty, when there is no normal anymore, firework displays have been cancelled and large cook-outs are not allowed because we can not safely social distance.<br />
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Sam is in Miami, which is a hotspot for COVID 19. Michael is self quarantined in NYC after visiting his son in Syracuse to celebrate his 21st birthday. So Annabelle and I will watch Hamilton (again! Thank you, Lin Manuel Miranda) and eat ribs (thank you Chez Pascal!) and corn and heirloom tomatoes. That's all just fine with me. I don't know if there is a heaven, though I like to think there is. I like to think Dad and Mom and my brother Skip and my daughter Grace are all there together, looking down at me here. I hope there's beer there.<br />
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In my mind, John Phillip Sousa is playing, loud. Dad is grinning up at me, a beer in his hand. I can hear the clink of bocce balls knocking together, smell the acrid scent of fireworks right after they've been lit. Happy Birthday, Dad. Happy Fourth of July.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637806866580118200.post-91488221874204396272020-06-15T03:37:00.001-07:002020-06-15T03:37:07.301-07:00The Insomnia Files<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I know I’m not alone in having a lot of trouble sleeping during these strange times. It’s a topic I’ve discussed with lots of my friends, all of pacing, fretting, podcast listening at all hours. I imagine looking down from space and seeing all these women in pajamas moving all night. My own sleeplessness takes a couple different forms—waking at 2, then 3, then 4, and finally falling asleep around 5 or 6; or waking at 4, usually in a full panic. Sometimes I convince myself I have COVID 19 because I can’t catch my breath, only to realize it’s anxiety that’s taking my breath away. Sometimes I worry about everything from how Annabelle is going to safely go back to school in the fall in a school with 1200 kids to financial ruin to Sam being in Miami where cases are spiking to the upcoming election, and sometimes I worry about all those things. Oh, and there’s more too, but you get the idea. Some things help. Like I need the sheets and blanket tucked in nice and neat, the loft chilly, my pillows in the right position, and a cat or two on my feet. Hermia was the most dependable for the latter, but I think I was keeping her awake because she’s been sleeping in the couch. When I was an international flight attendant, we would hang our scarf on our hotel room door so others could see who was awake and come for a visit or even go out somewhere. I wish there was a way to hang my scarf so others could see who was awake, worrying her way through the night.<br />
<br />
Days are a different story. I’m almost joyful as I move through them. Reading the NYT, drinking coffee, and doing the Spelling Bee in bed with Michael every morning. Writing my novel. Having lunch with Annabelle. Teaching the daily writing workshop with Hester Kaplan every weekday at 1. Knitting in the afternoon. Reading on the roof. Playing cards with Annabelle and/or Michael: cribbage, pitch, Hearts. Cooking. Six o’clock cocktails. Dinner and a movie. Reading some more. In between there’s lots of time zooming and texting with friends, lots of time for dreaming of moving to Ireland or Italy, of sitting in a Broadway show again with Michael and eating at Barbuto with him, of hanging out with Sam and Katherine in NYC again, of walking from the West Village to the East Village and eating Vietnamese food then going to see a play at the NY Theatre Workshop. Yes, dreaming big dreams and dreams of what used to be normal.<br />
<br />
So today I woke at 4. Now I’m getting sleepy again. Hermia has left the couch and is cuddled up beside me. I will sleep for an hour or so. And in a few nights I’ll sleep blissfully the whole night through. In between, well, these are strange days and nights. We are all doing the best we can. Be gentle with yourself. Hang your scarf out and know all over this big world, lots of others have theirs out too. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637806866580118200.post-2803553404964929372020-05-15T08:26:00.001-07:002020-05-15T08:26:07.650-07:00Day 64<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
When I left our sweet apartment in the West Village on March 12, I never imagined that 64 days later I'd still be sheltering in place in my loft in Providence. But here we are, five of us and four cats. We've watched rain and wind and spring sunshine. We've played more games of cards and Catan and Code Names and Celebrity than I can count. We've watched dozens of movies, and the end of Survivor, and caught up on Top Chef. We've cooked chicken tikka masala and enchiladas and risotto and roast chicken and tuna and fish tacos and chicken Marbella and pork chops. We've made festive cocktails, every day at 6, a time to come together and talk about our frustrations with how this terrible pandemic has been handled and our fears for the future and our daily triumphs and family stories and jokes and sometimes we have the cocktails on the roof and we lift our faces to the sun and we feel grateful. We've celebrated two birthdays--16 and 27--one wedding anniversary, and Mother's Day. We've had insomnia and bad dreams and crazy dreams and we have slept blissfully through the night. We have read books, so many wonderful books. (mine: <i>Mrs. Palmfrey at the Claremont </i>and <i>A View of the Harbor </i>by Elizabeth Taylor, not the actress but the British writer; <i>The Light Years </i>by Jane Elizabeth Howard; <i>The Essence of the Thing </i>and <i>The Women in Black </i>by Madeleine St. John; <i>Our Spoons Came From Woolworths </i>by Barbara Comyns; and I've just started <i>The Springs of Affection </i>by Maeve Brennan and I recommend every single one of these books. Every one!) We've made movies of Friday cocktail hours (go to Ruhlman.com and you can see them too!) and of <i>When Will My Life Begin </i>(on YouTube with Katherine Guanche) and how to make my spaghetti carbonara (also at Ruhlman.com and the recipe is in <i>Kitchen Yarns)</i>. Coming up: How to Make an Indian Feast. We've zoomed. A lot. Cocktail parties and writing workshops and theatre classes and meetings and parties and library talks. I brush my hair and put on make-up and a brightly colored top. I leave my pj bottoms on because only half of me is in that little square. We knit sweaters and hats and a baby blanket; we sewed masks; we made complicated origami. We organized cupboards and closets. We put together IKEA bookshelves. We went on bike rides--two miles, five miles, fifteen, twenty-five. We baked bread and cookies and cake and brownies and breakfast stratas. We wrote. We wrote for the LA Times and the NYT and the Washington Post. We wrote cookbooks and memoirs and a YA novel and short stories and five pages a day of a new novel. Some days we feel sad. Or scared. But mostly, mostly, we remember how deeply we love each other, how grateful we are to be here together, to have food and yarn and books and so many decks of cards that wherever you sit you can pick one up, shuffle and deal and in no time be moving a peg around a cribbage board. We are grateful for all these cats, who sleep on our laps or our feet, knock things off tabletops, chase their tails, hiss at each other, literally climb the walls, but eat together--all four of them adjusted to their new routine. Like us. Like you. Be grateful. be silly. Be somber. Be careful, because sadly the world, our beautiful world, is not safe right now. Write a poem. Knit something. Escape in a book. Cook comfort food. Forget about calories and haircuts and grudges. Pet your cat. Hug your children. Kiss your partner, a lot. Live this crazy life.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637806866580118200.post-71588461175844578972020-04-20T08:27:00.001-07:002020-04-20T08:27:46.716-07:00Sheltering in place<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I hope you and yours are safe and healthy and taking this time together as a precious thing, despite the challenges they present. We have five people and four cats together, and are always figuring out both together time and privacy. But I wouldn’t trade it for anything, even with cat fights at 4AM. We are being very cautious and that means mostly staying in and avoiding social contact. I so want to hug my cousins and friends, but have opted to be risk adverse for all of our sakes<br />
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We are cooking a lot, and watching movies, and playing games, and doing jigsaw puzzles. Some of us go on bike rides, but I’m doing daily online ballet classes with The Ballet Coach, who is absolutely wonderful. I’m also knitting a sweater, and had to have one rescue FaceTime with my most beloved knitting teacher/friend. With life slowed down, I find I’m in closer touch with people I love.<br />
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Of course, as writers, Michael and I are used to being home all day. So our writing practice continues daily. Please enjoy my piece from the LA Times and his from the NYT.<br />
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<a href="https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/04/17/travel/food-tours.amp.html">https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/04/17/travel/food-tours.amp.html</a><br />
<a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-04-11/knitting-stress-relief-pandemic">https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-04-11/knitting-stress-relief-pandemic</a><br />
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I write this as a big week for my family draws to a close. Sam and Annabelle both had birthdays, yet we also marked the 18th anniversary of my Gracie’s death. Michael and I chose to get married on April 20 as a way to bring more joy into this week. Today we will celebrate our third anniversary with oysters and champagne. Even though a virus rages outside these walls, I am grateful for the love within them.<br />
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Stay safe. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637806866580118200.post-77436001255440458712020-04-10T13:55:00.001-07:002020-04-10T13:55:57.515-07:00Let us now praise Elizabeth Taylor<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
No, not that one! The British writer of days of yore.<br />
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But first. How is everyone? These are such strange times. Scary. Confusing. And for some, days spent being sick or having sick loved ones. Pictures of Central Park as a field hospital shock and upset me every day. All of the images of death and illness do.<br />
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We are all here sheltering in place. Five humans, four cats. This brings me peace, and joy, to hold my loved ones close. Lots of movies, games, reading, knitting, cooking. Lots of laughter and also hard talks as we navigate this pandemic. I know you are all experiencing the same.<br />
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So back to Elizabeth Taylor. The perfect way to spend hours. Delightful. British. Please just try MRS. PALFREY AT THE CLAREMONT.<br />
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This is short but I wanted to just post here for anyone needing to touch base with another soul. We are all in this together. I hope we emerge in tact, stronger, more compassionate for each other and our planet. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637806866580118200.post-49062465674771919222020-03-23T11:03:00.000-07:002020-03-23T11:03:00.777-07:00The Other Side<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Hello Everyone!<br />
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For me and my husband, staying at home all day and writing is what we do anyway. Since we both have big book deadlines, the hours kind of fly by--him at one end of the table, me at the other, or on the sofa, or even from bed. We are safe, hunkered down with Annabelle and the two cats, eating well and reading lots of very good books (no end of world books for me, thank you!). The three of us watch lots of movies together and play lots of games, but when Annabelle is talking with a friend we turn on Last Tango in Halifax for British escapist TV.<br />
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All of this sounds lovely, despite the crisis outside our door. And it is lovely. Except that there is a crisis outside our door. The National Guard. Everything shuttered, except thankfully our nearby grocery store. Sam leaving NYC as it becomes the epicenter for the virus with a peak predicted in a few weeks. Annabelle moving to online learning. My own teaching moving online--a learning curve for me. These are not normal times, and despite the loveliness, they are also not really lovely. they're scary.<br />
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Yesterday, we drove to the beach. It was a cold day, and windy, and the salt air was just what I needed. We walked up and down the beach, and then came home and made a dinner of Michael's homemade pasta and bolognese from Persimmon, one of our favorite local restaurants who, like all restaurants, has had to shut down. Then I had a good cry--worried about my kid getting home safely and being healthy, worried about keeping my little family healthy, worried about how all my speaking engagements for the next three months have cancelled, worried about maintaining my beautiful little home, worried that I am suddenly in a high risk group for this thing (wasn't I thirty-five just yesterday?), worried that I'm making good decisions about how to handle this thing. I cried and then I took a deep breath and a big swallow of wine, and moved on with the sweater I'm knitting, the book I'm reading, with moving forward despite this thing.<br />
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I've heard a lot of people setting goals--high ones, impossible ones--as if sheltering in place requires super hero achievements. But I would like to offer this: it requires different kinds of achievements. The ability to stay still, to think, to be creative--or not. To feed our families. To read books. To knit sweaters or dish rags or anything. To talk to the people you love. To take care of yourself.<br />
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Today I did something I've wanted to do for a long time. I started a sour dough starter with unfiltered pineapple juice and flour. In a week, I should have dough to make two pizzas. I have the time to nurture this starter, to feed it and tend it. It will take patience. And then there will be pizza.<br />
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<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637806866580118200.post-67905074270813369552020-03-21T10:16:00.001-07:002020-03-21T10:16:32.310-07:00Sheltering in Place<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Well, dear ones, here we all our, hopefully sheltering in place. What strange times! I’m happy to tell you that Michael, Annabelle and I are hunkered down in Providence. And Sam and Katherine are safely sheltering in Brooklyn. It breaks my heart to not have them here with us, but this is the time for common sense and care.<br />
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Our days have taken on a lovely routine. Michael and I are both under book deadlines, so after the good part of the morning in bed with coffee and newspaper and conversation, we get to work. Annabelle sleeps the sleep of a teenager. Late afternoon we pick a movie from our movie box (made by Annabelle from an empty Friskies cat food box) where we’ve each submitted three movie titles. Whichever movie is selected we watch with no complaint (rule 1) and no person has two of their movies in a row (rule 2). This has given us insight into what each other most likes when the scrim of group consensus or trying to please interferes. As a result we’ve watched movies from Dirty Dancing to Pan’s Labyrinth. After the first movie Michael and I have a cocktail while we all three play a game. Then it’s cooking and dinner and a second movie. I knit as we watch and Annabelle does origami. There’s time in every day for a walk and for reading. So as you can see, it’s hard to complain. And easy to feel grateful.<br />
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Last night we had a cookout on our roof with our neighbors. We all stayed six feet apart, ate burgers and wurst, and watched a beautiful sunset. I’ve been calling and texting loved ones every morning to stay connected and send love.<br />
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Thanks to the wonderful EI, I’m reading HARNESSING THE PEACOCKS by Mary Wesley right now, having also read WOMEN IN BLACK by Madeleine St. John, and ALL MY PUNY SORROWS by Miriam Towes. On deck is I CAPTURED THE CASTLE by Dodie Smith.<br />
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I am happily knitting a sweater! Big needles. Gorgeous pale blue chunky yarn. Pattern from Mason Dixon knitting, a pullover adaptation of a cardigan recipe. Will it fit? Who knows? But it’s a fun knitting project!<br />
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Tonight’s dinner is fried chicken by Michael, sweet potato fries by Annabelle, and corn heated up by me. We are going to drive to the beach tomorrow and pick up lobsters from The Matunuck Oyster House, and stopping at Persimmon to pick up their bolognese sauce. Yesterday’s wurtzes were from The Wurtz House. It’s important to support local restaurants as they’ve had to shut down and need our support.<br />
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We all need each other’s support right now. Knit. Read. Play a game of Uno or Clue or Hearts. Be creative. Eat well. Say I love you, often. Wash your hands. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637806866580118200.post-82150649378836727232019-11-25T09:10:00.001-08:002019-11-25T09:10:58.999-08:00Come study with me!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
If 2020 is your year to start that novel or memoir, or to finish it, I will be teaching far and wide and would love to see you again or meet you for the first time!<br />
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I don’t have all the dates here, but they are easily Google-able.<br />
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My January workshop at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg FL is full. So think 2021!<br />
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Online workshop, “Writing the Personal Essay”, through 24Pearl Street is offering a discount if you sign up early: EARLYWINTER20<br />
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The Newport MFA is accepting applications for June 2020! Poets, memoirists and fiction writers!<br />
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I’m teaching memoir writing at The Provincetown Fine Arts Center June 8-13.<br />
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I’ll be teaching non fiction in Dingle Ireland through Bay Path University the first week of August.<br />
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And I’ll be in Truro at Castle Hill August 17-21.<br />
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Finally, I will be teaching non fiction at Breadloaf in Sicily in mid September!<br />
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I hope to see you in Newport or Cape Cod, Ireland or Sicily!</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637806866580118200.post-5516663380999875962019-11-24T18:36:00.001-08:002019-11-24T18:36:26.036-08:00Holidays<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Are you getting that strange combination of exhilaration and sadness that comes as the holidays near? It’s no coincidence that I’ve been knitting like mad, even as I plan the thanksgiving menu and shop covertly for Christmas gifts. On the one hand, I’m tickled that the vintage wrapping paper I ordered arrived and is even better than it looked online. On the other hand, the weight of all the losses is sometimes so heavy that I literally can’t get up. I’ve learned to give in to that impulse, to give myself those dats under the quilt knitting socks and watching that British baking show, as long as I’m also ordering turkeys and hiding gifts and planning trips. As long as I’m knitting those socks and reading books and delighting in my kids and my darling husband.<br />
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For example, a bad cold and those holiday blues settled around me this week. But on the front end I got to see Sam’s new play (yay Sam and What Will the Neighbors Say?), see Annabelle’s play (yay Annabelle, techie extraordinaire), see The Slave Play and Cyrano. And eat, drink and be merry with my sweetheart. On the other end, Annabelle and cousin GJ and I saw the extraordinary show Guac at the 92nd St Y (yay James!), eat the best chines food in NYC at Hua Yuan, go to the Museum of Math (who knew?) and spend a lovely evening drinking whiskey with friends (yay again James!). In between, my uncle died and I sat with my cousins and remembered, so many things we remembered.<br />
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It’s raining here. Hard and cold. How silly it sounds to be grateful for this blanket from Uzbekistan that I’m beneath, these cats in my feet, my daughter studying for a pre calc test, my son celebrating his girlfriend’s birthday, this book I’m about to disappear into, that second sock waiting to be cast on, my husband—my love—two hundred miles away but home from the miami book festival, those turkeys I will roast, the wine I will drink, the friends and family who will be here and fill this loft with love.<br />
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If this week is hard for you, take time to hide. Take time to remember. Take time to truly be thankful. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637806866580118200.post-68424267950937611822019-11-06T06:57:00.002-08:002019-11-06T06:57:58.863-08:00Homebody<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It’s finally autumn, and by that I mean the leaves are all red and gold and the weather is my favorite weather—hovering just under 60 degrees. I love autumn and like the song says, I love autumn in New York. Just spent five glorious days there with my fabulous husband, enjoying the city and the weather and each other. That meant lots of plays—THE HEIGHT OF THE STORM, LINDA VISTA, and MACBETH—and I loved them all. Also lots of good food—a memorable dinner at Gabriel Kreuther and the best ramen at JeJu Noodle Bar. Lots of walking and back at our apartment lots of reading and card playing, whiskey and chocolate.<br />
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But now it’s home in RI for a couple weeks (with a few dips back to NYC to teach). And it’s lovely to be here with Annabelle and the cats, writing writing writing and cooking up a storm and knitting as the afternoon turns into evening. I’ve finished ferrymen mitts from Churchmouse Yarns and a mistake rib cowl in orange cashmere from Purl Soho and started a spotted hat from Mason Dixon Knitting and—are you ready?—a SKIRT (also a Churchmouse pattern). I will keep you updated on how that turns out!<br />
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I am finishing the book MEET ME AT THE MUSEUM, which is so charming I’m totally smitten. Also, I’m fascinated by bog people so there’s that too. And thank you to the reader here who pointed out the Helen Philllips book I mentioned here is THE NEED, not The Help. Oops!<br />
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A big pot of lentil soup is on the stove and I’ll be making vats of Gogo’s sauce and meatballs to replace all that I had to toss because my refrigerator broke! That hurt. But I have a shiny mostly empty one now, begging to be filled.<br />
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I hope your autumn is treating you well. Knit. Cook. Read. Repeat. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637806866580118200.post-36943270651856500212019-10-26T08:05:00.002-07:002019-10-26T08:05:39.342-07:00Soup<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Last night I made enchiladas suiza for dinner after our pumpkin carving. Cousin GJ has been coming over to carve pumpkins with us since Sam was a baby—26 years. We had nights when it was just the three of us, nights with Grace, a crowd carving with the kitchen fireplace ablaze, new friends, old friends...a tradition that like all traditions adjusts with life’s changes. But on a night close to Halloween, pumpkins will be carved and autumnal food will be eaten!<br />
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When autumn—my favorite season—arrives, I think soup. Even living alone on Bleecker Street in NYC, I always had a pot of soup on the stove come autumn. I like to eat soup for breakfast, lunch and dinner, which is what Annabelle and I do whenever I make tortellini en broda. The thing about soup, beside the obvious comfort factor, is its versatility. For example, this week I made black bean soup from a NYT recipe titles The Best Black Bean Soup. It is too. I think what elevates this soup is the step of pushing the softened carrots and onions to the side and toasting cumin and coriander for a minute before combining them with the veggies. It’s even better with Ranch Gorda beans, but I didn’t have any so used supermarket ones and it was still delicious.<br />
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All week my soup sat on my stove. I ate it with tortillas. I ate it with sour cream and grated cheddar. I ate it with avocados. By week’s end, the pot was low. So I cooked up some rice, made my enchiladas, and served the last of my soup (which was thicker and less brothy) on top of that rice. By the way, I used rotisserie chicken for the enchiladas and made my brilliant husband’s overnight broth. So it will be a weekend of that tortellini soup, enough to fill a thermos for Annabelle’s lunch on Monday.<br />
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Sam is coming home for a visit and requested I make lentil soup. So next week’s soup pot already has a plan.<br />
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Emily Post wrote about the power of soup in early twentieth century etiquette book. Bring a grieving person broth, she told us. I say let soup comfort and nourish you through the first chill of autumn and snowy days of winter. Stay in your jammies. Eat soup. Knit. Read. Feed your soul.<br />
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On knitting: I was happily finishing my mistake rib cowl in orange cashmere on the train to NYC Thursday, almost at the eleven inches end point, when I looked down and realized I was almost out of yarn! So I’m tnik-ing like crazy to have enough yarn to bind off, all the while hoping my cowl will still be big enough. I finished my ferryman fingerless mitts from Churchmouse Yarns in denim Donegal Tweed and they are gorgeous! I love this pattern. It was just the right amount of difficulty, speed, and oh I can do that. Next up is a hat from Mason Dixon knitting that requires reading one of those pattern grid things. Wish me luck.<br />
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If you haven’t already, you must read THE HELP by Helen Philips. I could not put this book down! Last night I started the second Caz Frear crime fiction novel, STONE COLD HEART. I’m so in love with her detective, Cat Kinsella. There’s nothing like British crime novels in bed after your soup and knitting.<br />
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By the way, my husband has a podcast! I’m so proud of him, he is always on the cutting edge of stuff. It’s called From Scratch, which is also the name of his new cookbook. The photos alone in it will send you straight into the kitchen. I hope you check them both out. And more news: my own KITCHEN YARNS is coming out in paperback first of December. The recipe for that tortellini soup is in there!<br />
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The leaves are showing off here, and I’m in deep nesting mode. I hope you are taking care of yourself. Put a pot of soup on your stove. Comfort.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637806866580118200.post-69364077518638437242019-10-17T06:29:00.002-07:002019-10-17T06:29:17.513-07:00Autumn!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Some people like the sultry weather of summer, others come alive when daffodils poke their heads out and trees fill with blossoms, and surprising to me there are even those who love the cold and snow of winter (people who like things like skiing and snowshoeing!) Me, I love autumn. The leaves of course. The crisp chill at night and the particular blue of an autumn sky. The food—sweet potatoes and Brussels sprouts. Oatmeal with dates and gigs and nuts. Apples! But I think why I love autumn most is the A student in me still starts the year on the first day of school. Sharpen your pencils, line up your books, get started. For one so long out of school—me!—that means getting back to my 2 2 2 schedule: write two hours, read two hours, knit two hours. Then I head to the store and buy stuff for dinner—stews and soups and braised things. Since the weather finally changed, Annabelle and I have has pasta fagiola, tortellini soup, pork chops. I’ve been eating roasted sweet potatoes (a little butter and salt) and pumpkin seed bread smeared with avocado for breakfast. I’ve lined up my knitting projects: orange mistake rib cashmere cowl from Purl Soho, Ferrymen fingerless mitts from Churchmouse Yarns in blue Donegal tweed, striped hats from Mason Dixon’s new field guide, socks and even a skirt! After dinner Annabelle and I cozy up on the couch and I knit while we watch The Gilmore Girls, an endless pleasure before book and bed. One of us has a wee dram of whiskey.<br />
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Some may be reading this and wondering where the husband is. Another delight of autumn is that NYC comes alive on stage, and we’ve been going to plays every chance we get. Mostly we have long weekends together as he launches his podcast From Scratch (subscribe!) and his new cookbook of the same name (a glorious gorgeous book, the only cookbook you’ll need said The Barefoot Contessa). The recipes are terrific and the pictures are stunning, all taken right in my loft. Plus he’s writing a new cookbook with the chef Gabriel Kreuther and the next French Laundry cookbook...the guy can barely come up for air. When he does, we get Chines food delivered and hide out in our Greenwich Village pad, emerging for shows and friends and drinks and movies. We just saw Pain and Glory and were gobsmacked. Tonight, after I teach, we are going to see Parasite, advance tickets in hand as it sells out every show.<br />
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I’m fulfilling my love of British crime novels by reading Caz Frear—Sweet Little Lies and now Stone Cold Heart. My stack of books to read this fall is a beautiful thing that includes Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont, The Child Finder, Mr. Fox, and more. Also, Annabelle has started a book club with her aunt, me, and our dear friend. We read the fantastic We Were Liars and next up Turtles All the Way Down.<br />
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This weekend my beloved and I will be at the Brattleboro Literary Festival in Vermont, where the leaves should be putting on quite the show. Tonight it’s dinner with friends at Gene’s, a favorite old school Italian place of ours before I teach, movie after. Tomorrow I’ll be writing, getting in my two hours, while Michael interviews a chef in the Bronx for his podcast, lunch with the chef, then onward to Brattleboro. En route we will keep reading the masterpiece Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates out loud. Hopefully I’ll get some stitches done on that cashmere cowl. And there it is: 2 2 2.<br />
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I hope your autumn is full of soups and yarn and good books. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637806866580118200.post-35348199969870823602019-09-24T18:09:00.004-07:002019-09-24T18:09:57.745-07:00To Grace at 23<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
You are an artist living near your brother in Bushwick<br />
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You are a hipster in Portland Oregon.<br />
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You went to RISD. You went to Reed. You went to Oberlin.<br />
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You are six feet tall, as the pediatrician predicted.<br />
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You are fearless.<br />
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You and your brother are still best friends.<br />
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You speak Mandarin.<br />
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You are funny.<br />
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Your hair is long, or pink, or shaved.<br />
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You still wear glasses, maybe like John Lennon.<br />
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You love the Beatles. Still.<br />
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Maybe you draw pictures for The New Yorker. You love Charles Addams and I bet by now also Roz Chast.<br />
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You are so smart. You are so ironic. You are 23. You are 23. You are 23. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637806866580118200.post-49306645344497694262019-09-22T19:53:00.002-07:002019-09-22T19:53:20.602-07:00Autumn<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I can’t believe I have not written here since May. Yet in some ways I can believe it. As you know, my mom died last year. But you probably don’t know how paralyzed by grief I’ve been. I’m writing at a glacial pace. My energy level is about as low as it can be. Everything is taking so much more time than usual. Yet I also know that grief is exhausting. It’s time consuming. It reeks havoc with you. And so, here I am. Undone.<br />
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Still, I’ve had such a wonderful summer. And my life is pretty darn good. I just am grieving hard. Giving myself time for that. <br />
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Summer. A trip to Northern California where my wonderful husband is working on the new French Laundry Cookbook. Which means I had the opportunity to eat at The French Laundry, for a meal and a night I will never forget. Champagne outside under that Northern California sky. Romantic dinner with astounding food and wine. That just began a trip that was practically perfect in every way: staying in a lodge in Big Sur, playing Yahtzee with Annabelle and her pal; hiking there the next day; visiting my old roomie in Santa Barbara where we had an unforgettable Fourth of July; dinner with my dear buddy Matt in LA...what a way to kick off summer.<br />
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And what a way to end it—five weeks in Europe with the people I love most (Sam, Annabelle, Michael...added bonus of GJ for a week and darling Katherine!), eating and drinking and card playing our way through Ireland, France and Italy. A dream trip.<br />
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And knitting and reading too. Socks (that’s the knitting) for the first time in ten years. I forgot how much fun they are! I have an autumn (and winter) worth of projects lined up—mitts and more docks and cashmere cowls and a skirt and...)<br />
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Have you read Barbara Trapido? Four books that had me charmed all summer. The new Kate Atkinson. WE WERE LIARS. Caz Frear’s British procedurals. A PLACE FOR US. PICTURES AT A REVOLUTION. ASK AGAIN, YES. Every one of them a must must read.<br />
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Today is officially the first day of fall. I’ve put my self on a familiar schedule. Write two hours. Read two hours. Knit two hours. This schedule works for me. Slowly, slowly. Grief abates. It doesn’t leave. It shouldn’t, should it?<br />
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Here’s to autumn. Today I saw red and yellow leaves here and there. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637806866580118200.post-70865818888647901492019-05-23T14:36:00.000-07:002019-05-23T14:36:07.252-07:00Up, Up and Away!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I'm delighted to announce that I am working on a new book about my days as a flight attendant, back when flying was still glamorous. It’s been such fun researching the origins and development of that job over time, and to relive my own days in the sky. Michael and I were lucky enough to go to the opening of the new TWA Hotel, made right from TWA terminal 5 at JFK, my own place of departure for trips to Cairo, Athens, Rome, Paris, London, Madrid, and more. As soon as we walked in to that gorgeous building, designed by Eero Saarinen and opened in @1962, memories washed over me. The indescribable feeling of walking through the Jetson-like tunnel to my gate as part of a TWA 747 crew, all of us dressed in our Ralph Lauren uniforms and pulling our roller bags along. No one but flight attendants had those wheelie suitcases back then! And standing under the departure board as it click click clicked. I admit I got teary a few times! There’s an old spiffed up Constellation parked there and used as a bar, where we sipped champagne. Jean-George Vongerichten has opened The Paris Cafe there, awash in pale pinks and oranges and the sunlight or airport lights that spill through the gorgeous windows and he gave us a tour, adding tidbits on the building’s history and on TWA and the renovation.<br />
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I can’t wait to return and actually stay in the hotel! And I can’t wait to write this book and share this story with all of you. For those of you who have asked where my next novel is, it’s coming along too. The title is THE MUSUEM OF TEARS.<br />
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Happy long weekend, though I know it’s a solemn one too. We are heading to Indiana yo eat lots and lots of fried chicken. You’ll read all about that in Michael’s New York Times piece about it, and my own piece in Food and Wine. May yours be filled with comfort food too.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637806866580118200.post-90770735601535180962019-03-28T08:09:00.001-07:002019-03-28T08:09:06.032-07:00Fourteen years ago today...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
...we adopted Annabelle! Last night I found myself remembering where I was on that night 14 years ago. In Hunan China. In a hotel with 10 other families, all of us waiting for morning when a bus would pull up and we would climb in and go to a government building and get our babies. How did I even sleep that night? I remember looking at the crib in the hotel room, empty, as if waiting for a baby to fill it. I remember arranging stuffed animals in it, folding and refolding the baby blanket knit together square by square by loving friends. I remember laying out the baby clothes, the diapers and bottles, the tiny shoes. We are spicy food with bad Great Wall if China wine. How did I even sleep that night?<br />
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Most of the people I loved supported the decision to add to our family after Grace died. But a very few worried it wasn’t the right thing to do. Me? I knew in my bones that it was exactly right, and I never once thought otherwise. This morning I realized that Grace had been dead almost exactly three years when we boarded that plane to Beijing, and the pain of losing her was still searing hot and ever present. But suddenly something else was moving in: joy.<br />
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At 10:00 the bus arrived and in no time we were being rushed into a room in that government building. Orphanage workers with babies ran down the corridor outside the room and before our guide closed the door I saw Annabelle, scared and confused, race past. If they hadn’t called us to come out I might have run after her. In no time our name was called and Annabelle was in our arms. I knew immediately that I would kill for her if I had to. The love I felt was that instantaneous. She was mine.<br />
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Somehow fourteen years have passed. Unbelievably, that baby in the purple footy pajamas is a freshman in high school, fluent in French, voracious reader, math whiz, card shark, loyal friend, fierce defender of what is right, hardworking student, musical theatre lover, loyal sister, teasing companion to my husband, cat owner, purple haired, curious traveler, my sidekick in all things, my daughter. My love and gratitude for her and for the mystery of this glorious mess called life knows no bounds. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637806866580118200.post-34911209768932243502019-03-21T08:39:00.000-07:002019-03-21T08:39:11.106-07:00Spring!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I’m wearing my sandals! I don’t care if it’s only 40 degrees, I see sunshine and feel air tinged with warmth rather than chill. Last summer in Greece I noticed women wearing white Birkenstock’s and I fell in love with the look. As soon as I got back to NYC, I got a pair and wore them until my toes got numb. I’m so happy to have them on again.<br />
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More important news to share than my footwear is that I’ve started a new book project that has me dizzy with excitement: a memoir about my years as a flight attendant! No COFFEE, TEA OR ME (though I did reread that as research last week), it will not only share my own dreams and experiences but also cast a light on the evolution of the job and aviation. Tuesday I had lunch with one of my favorite people, Kate, a TWA flight attendant (hostess) in the late 1940s, and loved listening to her stories of flying. I’ve got a summer of visiting friends, searching archives, reading up on the topic—all so exciting I’m walking on air! 🤣<br />
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I’m also preparing for a lot of travel through spring and into summer, from teaching in Iceland to a romantic getaway in Portugal, a week in California driving down that gorgeous coast, a week in Truro with Annabelle, and then at the end of summer a month in Ireland and France and Italy with my wonderful husband and kids. The travel is a good mixture of teaching and just plain old fun. If you have the travel bug yourself, check out the writing workshop in Dingle Ireland where I’m teaching and my own Spannocchia Writers Workshop. It would be fun to see you there!<br />
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Speaking of where I’m teaching, if you’ve dreamed of someday writing that novel or memoir, and want to make that dream come true, I hope you’ll consider applying to the low residency MFA program I founded. It’s kind of a dream of mine to have built The Newport MFA, where students come to campus for a week in June and January for workshops, craft talks, readings, and time with our community of writers; the rest of the time is spent working one on one virtually with a faculty mentor. So you can write your book without disrupting your life! I’d love to have you join us if you’re ready!<br />
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I have been knitting like crazy. Have you? That usually signals not just the need for a new hat or a baby gift but something more going on for me emotionally. So no coincidence that my mom’s house goes on the market today after being in my family for over a hundred years. I cannot go there and see it empty. For some, that would be a necessary step in the grief process. But it would slay me. At night I find myself closing my eyes and touching things in the house: the stamps kept under the ashtray, the coffee mugs on a metal tree, the extra pillow behind the family room door should the need for a nap strike. I want to keep everything in its place in my mind, reminding me once again that grief is personal. There’s no rule book. No right way. We each find our own messy path through it. Be kind to yourself if you’re grieving, and gentle with others in grief.<br />
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So a ZickZack scarf, a skirt, a baby hat—all flying off my needles.<br />
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Please please read Barbara Trapido. I’ve just discovered her and am in love!<br />
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Now to pack for our late night flight to San Juan to visit Sam, whose theatre company What Will the Neighbors Say is in residency developing a play. In our future is a trip to the interior for roasted pork, a pool party, a lunch in Old San Juan, a hotel with an infinity food, and lots of time with each other. So precious, this.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637806866580118200.post-91411667602771866472018-12-06T08:46:00.001-08:002018-12-06T08:46:10.810-08:00Holidays <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This week I have been blessed with some of the best reviews of my career for my new book, <i>Kitchen Yarns: Notes in Love, Life and Food. </i>It has been picked as People Magazine Book of the Week, Amazon Best December Book in both memoir and cookbooks, Washington Post top ten, Real Simple December Book, and even more! Just shows how food—eating it, cooking it, writing about it—is love and comfort. I hope you like the book, and that the recipes make you and your loved ones happy.<br />
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But with all this joy comes a sadness over missing my mom. I’ve been plowing ahead all year, getting done all the things that need to get done, working hard to keep grief in check. But the holidays always kind of keep us from sticking to that plan, don’t they? So it’s lots of pj time, knitting, reading, and keeping people I love close for me these days. Gobbling up Jane Gardham novels. Knitting hats like crazy. And binge watching The Great British Baking Show. Whatever brings comfort, right? I hope you are all doing the same, taking care of yourself during this happy sad time of year.<br />
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To celebrate my birthday my husband, kids, and cousins are spending the weekend in NYC: <i>To Kill A Movkingbird, King Kong, </i>Andy Warhol at the Whitney, Sam’s play <i>Sources of Light Other Than the Sun, </i>dinner at The Beatrice Inn and brunch at Untitled, birthday cake and lots of love. 💕 Even when sadness strikes, I remind myself I’m one lucky girl.<br />
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Tonight I’m making Gogo’s sauce and meatballs for dinner. Food. It keeps us close. Cook something that makes you smile. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637806866580118200.post-31698925665321984692018-11-15T04:19:00.002-08:002018-11-15T04:19:25.913-08:00Gracie Belle Books<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I am so proud of Gracie Belle Books, my new imprint at Akashic Books dedicated to publishing beautifully written, unflinchingly honest books about grief. Our debut book is NOW YOU SEE THE SKY by Catharine Murray, a memoir about the life and death of her young son. But really, like all good memoirs, it’s about so much more: love, family, faith, hope, and the power of the human spirit. Tonight I will be with Catharine at Books on the Square in Providence at 7PM. I hope if you are nearby that you’ll join us there. You can buy NOW YOU SEE THE SKY at your favorite independent bookstore or Barnes and Noble, or order it here:<br />
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Now-You-See-Catharine-Murray/dp/1617756660/ref=nodl_">https://www.amazon.com/Now-You-See-Catharine-Murray/dp/1617756660/ref=nodl_</a><br />
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For many years writing students have Come to me for help with their memoirs about grief over the loss of their child, spouse, parents, sibling, or friends. I have nurtured and read so many gorgeous stories that explore this part of the human condition: the loss of someone precious to you. In so many ways these stories are everyone’s story, as inevitably we all experience deep grief. However I found that even those Raiders who got an agent or put the manuscript in and editor’s hands, were told there was no market for books like this; or that people wouldn’t read them because the story was too sad; or there were already enough grief books out there. I know, as you probably know, that there could never be enough books about this enormous human emotion. Every year – – no! Every day! Dash – There are more people beginning their own grief journey. And the more books that we can put in their hands the more we come together to help each other navigate grief.<br />
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Catharine had been a student of mine long ago at a writers conference in Maine. Even then I was struck by the beauty of her writing and the depth and breath of her sorrow. It took Catharine years to finally turn the pages that I first read into the gorgeous memoir that became now you see the sky. I was so honored when she asked me to read the manuscript as an outside reader for her MFA thesis. When I finish the book I put it down, moved and impressed but also frustrated because I knew that this beautiful book would most likely not find a home. I was so tired of having gifted writer is unable to place they’re beautiful books.<br />
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And so I took a risk. I emailed Johnny Temple at a Akashic books and basically told him what I’ve written here. Would he consider an imprint that published these important, necessary books? I know Johnny and I know that he has a generous heart and an open mind. I hit SEND and held my breath. To my utter delight, Johnny immediately said yes. And Gracie Belle Books was born.<br />
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As many of you know, I lost my own five-year-old daughter Grace in 2002. I resisted writing my own memoir about my grief but as time passed I began to write essays that explored an illuminated my own journey. Eventually those essays were knit together to become my book comfort: a journey through grief. My own brave publisher, WW Norton, and my wonderful editor Jill Bialosky took a risk on that book and on me. Now I have the opportunity to do the same, giving voice to writers who can articulate this most human emotion and leave the reader spellbound, wiser, empathetic, and hopeful.<br />
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The imprint is named for my Gracie. The logo is a drawing of little wire rimmed glasses like she wore. I’m so happy to honor her in this way, by bringing more stories into the world that will help us all on this path called life. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com