Wellington Leg:

Terri’s debut novel, WILD GOOSE CHASE, is out from Midnight Ink. The official publication date is February 1,2008. This is only the beginning for Terri; she has two more books coming in 2008, one from Berkley Prime Crime and then again from Midnight Ink.

Since I’m Terri’s older brother the staff at the Druidical & Literary called on Culture Editor Niagara Malloy to develop questions for Terri.

Q: This is your visit to Wellington Leg. How does the Towne compare to say, suburban Long Island? I’m guessing the Towne residents don’t have nightmares about getting lost in their neighborhood, entering the wrong look-a-like bi-level, and finding Jimmy Owens in their bed.

Q: Tell us about your protagonist, Dewey Pellicano: She’s a twenty-nine year-old victim of the Silicon Valley Dot Com bust, who inherits a quilt shop after her mother’s death. She only wants to get rid of it. She’s trapped, with her wicked sister-in-law, when the potential buyer has her femoral artery sliced open with a quilting tool. Dewey has to deal with unexpected truck sex, illegal money lending and, to her ultimate horror, modeling in a fashion show.

Q: How can readers buy WILD GOOSE CHASE? With the usual coin. Look for it at your local book store. It’s readily available online at Powell’s, B&N, Amazon. Put in a request at your library.

Q: When you go to quilt shows do you have an entourage? There is a group of women in orange Crocs and denim jumpers that walk in front of me with rotary cutters at the ready, but I don’t know them.

As for Entourage, that would make me Vince. His hair is better than mine. I’m in desperate need of an Eric type to answer my cell and scream at people. My agent, Jessica Faust, is much prettier and taller than Ari. I don’t think she’s like him at all except for maybe that episode when he was bribing people to get his son into a private school. You would totally rock the Johnny Drama role, bruddha.

I do have a Vice President in Charge of Sharpies, and a custom-made pen holder.

Q: Your series for Berkley Prime Crime is a rubberstamping mystery. What’s the title and release date for that one? Stamped Out will be published September 08. It’s the story of April Buchert, for whom the discovery of a skull brings back all sorts of unpleasant memories.

Q: Tell us about your second Midnight Ink title. Old Maid’s Puzzle is due out in September. Dewey is trying to make a go of the quilt shop. She has to deal with a Stitch ‘n’ Bitch group that turns deadly. As they do.

Q: What authors do you admire?

Laurie R. King, Laura Lippmann, SJ Rozan are favorites. David Thayer, natch.

Q: Why did the Yankees allow the Mets to get Johan Santana? I didn’t know Carlos’ son played ball. I thought he played the flugelhorn.

Q: Other than Eddie’s Book Nook where are you appearing for book signings? The main event is the Fabrics ‘n’ Fun Book Launch on February 23^rd. I will be giving an author talk called There Will be Blood, my life in quilts. More info and my full schedule will be on my website, www.territhayer.com and Midnight Ink’s web page, http://www.midnightinkbooks.com/author_events_detail.php?eventid=3373.

Q: What are you working on now? The third in the Quilting Mystery series. It’s called Ocean Waves. You can look forward to rogue waves, mountain lions and raccoon love.

Q: I’ve heard there’s a quilt pattern that resembles Rudy Giuliani viewed from space: is that true?

There is a quilt block called Contrary Wife, but it predates Rudy by a few years. I did hear Judith Regan has contracted to do a tell-all on the quilt world. People will be shocked.

Q: Do you blog? I’m an itinerant blogger. Once a week, on Saturdays, at Killer Hobbies, http://www.killerhobbies.blogspot.com, and in the rotation at Inkspot, http://midnightwriters.blogspot.com.

Are you in a writers’ group? I am. We don’t have a fancy name like the Tuesday Kill Your Darlings Club or anything, but I give them complete credit for my success. Becky Levine and Beth Proudfoot are brilliant editors and critiquers. Their input is priceless.

Terri, add anything you’d like as a closing. I’m looking forward to the day we can go on tour together. I’ll even let you borrow my Sharpie holder.

Amen sister. Niagara Malloy reporting for Wellington Leg After Dark.

<p> Here’s an interview with Keith Dixon, author of the ART OF LOSING from St. Martin’s Press. Keith is an editor at the New York Times.

THE ART OF LOSING is a first person narrative. Did you set out with that approach in my mind when you began the novel?

From the ready-set-go I knew that I wanted this novel to have the immediacy of a first-person narrative—it’s really all about one person’s experience, the push and pull of his angels and demons, and I felt that a third-person narrative wouldn’t accurately convey the urgency of the stresses and strains.

 

Tell us about yourself, how writing fits in with the rest of your life.

Writing’s an essential part of my day—I write three hours a day, seven days a week, every day of the year save two: my anniversary, and my wife’s birthday. (Truth be told, I usually manage to sneak in a page on those days, too.) I’m drawn to the craft because I’ve always loved books, because I love the transformative quality of literature, because I love the obliteration of the self that comes with the work. And the work is made all the more interesting by the fact that I’m totally in control of it: I get to decide exactly where I want it to go, which is a far cry from the rest of my life.

 

What sort of books do you gravitate to as a reader?

I’ll read anything that’s well-written and made with an attention to the basics of the craft: I’m just as happy reading Philip Roth as I am James M. Cain. Too, I’ll happily leap from genre to genre, magic realism to stark realism, comedy to tragedy. So long as the chops are there, I’m interested.

 

Guilt is the subtext of THE ART OF LOSING. Is obsessing about money a commentary on the larger question of values?

Absolutely. The writing of the book was a response to a broader paradigm that had taken hold of my own life, that of recognizing that one’s artistic success in no way guarantees commercial success. I had spent an awful lot of time obsessing about the fact that my writing was getting positive attention from the critics but was making me no money whatsoever. This sucker-punches you right in the confidence-bone: you begin to think, Why aren’t I making any money at this? What’s wrong with me? Then you realize that the failing is not yours—all you can do is write the books as well and truly as you can. Once you start thinking first and foremost about the money you’re making off them, you’re in big trouble. I think we all at some time or another face a situation that asks us to compromise our values, and more often than not that situation involves money.

 

 

A lot of readers are writers and they enjoy understanding the process of writing book length fiction. Did you plan THE ART OF LOSING from an outline or wing it from an idea?

I’m a wing-it writer. I write the first sentence without knowing what the second is going to say, and so on. I think that’s because I get the same pleasure from writing that most readers get from reading: I love the sense of discovery, the feeling of a new world opening up right before your eyes. To plot the book out on an outline would not only deaden my enthusiasm for the work—it would kill the book outright. The excitement of watching the thing unfold is what sustains me through the writing.

 

You have a solid grasp on horse racing and the vagaries of gambling on the ponies: did you haunt the OTB for research?

I did lots of research—and yes, some of it at the OTB (I work in Times Square and they have one on West 48th Street just south of Rockefeller Center). I also hit the track myself, and interviewed extensively with one friend who once worked as a professional Las Vegas and Atlantic City gambler, another who professionally gambles on the horses at Belmont and Aqueduct. It’s a world unto itself, with its own language, its own rules, its own mythology. Fascinating, but also a bit threadbare, and certainly reeking of anxious hopes.

 

THE ART OF LOSING might have been sub-titled FATHERS AND SONS. Tell us about the novel’s slant on parental expectations.

So often the stresses between age and youth are that of experience versus desire. The old want to convey all that they’ve learned; the young will not listen because they’re too busy talking about their hopes. The old want to be young, and the young want to be old—or rather, the young want to have experience behind them, and of course the only way to gain experience is to make mistakes and learn, and get old. The novel’s slant on expectations might be characterized thusly: the old cannot bestow experience on those who will not listen. And Michael Jacobs sure as hell doesn’t seem to be listening. He’s too busy listening to the gibbering voice in his head, which wants independence, success, an audience and money all at once. Poor fellow—he’s in for nothing but trouble.

 

Free will is the philosophical cornerstone of western religious belief. Without spoiling the plot I wondered if you came to the end of your story believing Mike had surrendered his?

Indeed Mike has surrendered his free will by the book’s end: because at the end he is yoked to a horrible mistake that will inform his every move for the rest of his life. This is what true guilt is: not an ache of the conscience, but a recognition that your life is no longer your own. The true penitent cannot serve himself, but only the process of reachieving the state of grace that he’s lost.

 

What can you tell us about your next project?

I’m appallingly far into a novel about, strangely enough, writer’s block. And about literary envy. It tells the story of two novelists each committed to the other’s destruction. I’m having a wildly fun time writing it.

 

Thanks, Keith.

Daniel Judson, author of THE DARKEST PLACE, took the time to answer a few questions.

Tell us about writing The Darkest Place.

My previous novels were all first person narratives that ran about 75,000 words each. My career had come screeching to a halt and I knew I needed to write a big book to get myself back into the game. The story I had in mind was a much larger story than I was used to telling, one that would require me to write in the third person and to alternate between the points of view of three very different characters, which I’d never done before. To pull this off I knew I’d need to do a lot of planning, so I spent about two months working on a detailed outline, charting the arc of the characters not only over the course of the story but also scene by scene. By the time this was done I really knew the characters inside and out, had the plot and theme worked out, and was ready to finally start writing. But around page 80 in the manuscript something strange happened: I was suddenly off the outline, heading in a completely different direction from the one I had planned. A crucial minor character had emerged – came out of nowhere, actually — and opened up all kinds of new, and better, possibilities. The really interesting thing for me is that I ended up exactly where the outline said I would be but had gotten there via a route I hadn’t foreseen. So the first act and the third act of the novel went more or less as planned, and the second act, the bulk of the novel, was just this free-for-all. It was both exciting and very, very nerve-wracking. In the end it took me seven months to write the book, and it came in at close to 120,000 words. I knew when I had finished it that I’d stepped up my game significantly. I also knew that I probably couldn’t go back to 75,000 word first person narratives again, at least not for a while.

Using the back streets of the Hamptons is working against type. Is this your favored technique for storytelling?

There are back streets in every town, and Southampton is no exception. It just amazes me that some people refuse to believe that the East End of Long Island has a seedy underbelly simply because it’s a playground for the wealthy three months out of the year. Like the wealthy are somehow above crime. And Southampton really isn’t all mansions and polo grounds. Working-class people live there year round – struggle to live there, to make a living and raise their kids and keep their homes. When I was out there I lived in border-line poverty, a wannabe writer scrambling to make rent. I saw my share of desperate people, felt my share of desperation. So for me writing about the back streets isn’t working against type, it’s telling it more or less how I saw it.

What happened after the release of your first two novels? Tell us how they were received?

My first novel, The Bone Orchard, was nominated for a Barry and a Shamus Award. My second novel, The Poisoned Rose, its prequel, published the same year, won the Shamus. The only other author to get two Shamus nominations in the same year was Laura Lippman, so that was exciting. My then-publisher and I had parted ways long before my first book was even in the stores, and not knowing any better, I wrote a third novel that no one would publish because it was the third book in a series – the final book in a trilogy, really – and no publisher would publish the third book in a series when they don’t have the first two on their backlist. We’ve since gotten the rights for two Mac novels back, so maybe someday someone will bring out all three in one volume, like Philip Kerr’s Berlin Trilogy.

Some of the writers you’ve expressed admiration for include Donna Leon and Henning Mankell. Would you expand on why they in particular appeal to you?

I enjoy it when an author creates a strong sense of place, and Leon and Mankell certainly do that. I like the feeling of having almost been somewhere when I finish reading a book. Every year I reread The Stranger by Albert Camus. I love the second chapter of that book, when the narrator does nothing but pass a Sunday. It gives me a sense that I’ve lived a day in his life, and for me, really, that’s what reading is all about. Same thing with Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. As Frederick Henry and Catherine Barkley escape the war, I’m with them all the way, feel what they feel, see what they see. Some of the scenes from that book are as vivid as actual memories of my own. I love it when that happens. Leon is so good at capturing the small details of Venice life, in a very Hemingway kind of way, and I admire that. Mankell does that, too, but, really, what his books taught me is how to slip into the mind of the killer for a few crucial pages and leave the reader with a strong and lasting impression.

St. Martin’s Press went back to the well to promote The Darkest Place. This is unusual. Can you share what happened behind the scenes?

I tend not to bother the good people in publicity, so I can’t speak to what’s happening behind the scenes. I think SMP’s persistence in promoting this book is a testament to how much they believe in it, and I’m very grateful for that. So far my relationship with St. Martin’s has been the stuff dreams are made of.

<> Tell us about your next project.

I’m working on another Southampton novel, what my editor and I call “a geographic sequel”. It’s a stand-alone, featuring a new hero, but borrows some of the supporting characters from The Darkest Place.

Thanks, Daniel.

Debut novelist Cornelia Read shares some thoughts herewith.

Tell us about what moved you to write A Field of Darkness.

I would say the two main inspirations were seething angst and guilt, not necessarily in that order.

The angst was because I’d been laid off from a dot-com editing gig a month before my husband lost his job, and there was just no work in the Bay Area in 2001. I was virtually camped out on craigslist, scouring the employment listings all day long. About six months into our paycheck famine, I saw an ad for a new mystery writing group that was starting up here in Berkeley. I never thought I’d make any money at it, I just hoped it would keep me sane.

As for the guilt… well, I’m pretty much the self-hating WASP poster child. As my protagonist Madeline Dare says in Field, “my money is so old there’s none left.” I gave her my same Social Register/Puritan background stuff—an appalling ancestry of psycho Indian killers and evil robber barons. We’re both totally broke, but still struggle with the legacy of ill-gotten privilege we have entrée to.

How did you meet Lee Child?

I met Lee at the Book Passage Mystery Writers Conference in the summer of 2004. I’d signed up for a manuscript consultation with a faculty member, and was stunned when it turned out to be with Lee–my first choice.

He read the first twenty pages of the novel, then titled Sore Excuse, and was very encouraging about my prospects. I had an agent, Rolph Blythe at Dunow, Carlson & Lerner, but we were still working on revisions together and hadn’t yet submitted it to publishers. Lee said he’d be happy to read the full manuscript when Rolph and I were happy with it, and offered to write me a blurb.

I sent it to him that November, and he not only wrote a very generous blurb, but listed it as one of his five favorite reads of the year for Mystery Ink Online’s annual survey of authors and readers. I know that was a tremendous help in getting the attention of publishers, when Rolph sent it out two months later. Huge.

I was even more gobsmacked when Lee asked me to go on tour with him this year. The man is a saint, though he’ll deny it vehemently.

Where will you be appearing on your tour?

Lee and I have four joint appearances scheduled:

Saturday, May 20, 2006

2:00 PM

The Poisoned Pen

4014 North Goldwater Blvd.

Scottsdale, AZ 85251

480-947-2974 / 888-560-9919

sales@poisonedpen.com

www.poisonedpen.com

Sunday, May 21, 2006

2:00 PM

Murder By the Book

2342 Bissonnet Street

Houston, TX 77005

713-524-8597 / 888-4-AGATHA

order@murderbooks.com

www.murderbooks.com

Friday, June 2, 2006

12:00 NOON

Seattle Mystery Bookshop

117 Cherry Street

Pioneer Square

Seattle, WA 98104

206-587-5737

www.seattlemystery.com

Monday, June 5, 2006

1:00 PM

Mysteries to Die For

2940 Thousand Oaks Boulevard

Thousand Oaks, CA 91362

805-374-0084

www.mysteriestodiefor.com

I have a number of solo gigs scheduled as well:

Wednesday, May 10th

7 p.m.

M is for Mystery

86 East Third Avenue

San Mateo, CA 94401

650-401-8077 / 888-405-8077

www.MforMystery.com

Thursday, May 11th

7 p.m

Cody’s Books

1730 Fourth Street

Berkeley, CA 94710

510-559-9500

www.codysbooks.com

FRIDAY, MAY 12^TH

7 p.m.

BAY BOOKS & COFFEE

316 Alvarado St.

Monterey, CA 93940

831-375-1855

3:00-5:00pm

MYSTERIOUS GALAXY

7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd.

San Diego, CA 92111

858-268-4747

12:30 p.m.

STACEY’S BOOKSTORE

581 Market St.

San Francisco, CA 94105

415-896-1606

Some authors avoid reading contemporary fiction. What do you like to read?

My tastes are pretty eclectic, though crime fiction is my main jones. I adore Lee’s Reacher novels, and am a huge fan of Victor Gischler, Martha O’Connor, Joshilyn Jackson, Laura Lippman, Domenic Stansberry, Elaine Flinn, Harley Jane Kozak, John Lescoart, Nelson Demille, Ayelet Waldman, David Corbett, Ian Fleming, Ken Bruen, Sheldon Siegel, Jim Thompson, Denise Mina, and Cara Black—just for starters. In the meantime, I’m working my way through a 1945 edition of Emily Post’s Etiquette, and re-reading John Gardner’s The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers.

My prize possession, however, is a beat-up paperback of Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution to Brest-Litovsk that once belonged to Sean Connery. He loaned it to my first stepfather’s second wife when they took an acting class together years ago in L.A.—probably fifty years ago now.

A case of pork and beans is on sale, but the cans are dented. What do you do?

Buy the entire case, hide it from my mother, and then present it to her wrapped up in Chinese newspaper and a big fat red bow on Christmas morning–or her birthday, whichever comes first.

I would then gather my siblings around for a group prayer session, in the hopes that Mom will not serve the can-contents in question alongside her “gazpacho”—a soup that will live in infamy, made in the blender out of last night’s salad, a dented can of V-8, and parsley flakes.

Especially for Thanksgiving.

You seem at home in the first person POV. Is this where you think you’ll stay?

I once heard Ayelet Waldman say at a mystery writers’ conference that she was “too self-centered to write in third person.”

She’s moved on from that stance, since her excellent Daughter’s Keeper was written in third person. I’m not sure I’ll ever manage to make that leap.

I mean: I I I I I. It just looks so neat-o, that letter… it’s, like, the alphabet’s answer to the Doric column, aesthetically.

You have a wonderful eye for details that define economic status; will class warfare be a subtext in your future work?

It is such a huge subtext in my actual life, the whole enigma of class. As Madeline says in A Field of Darkness, “no snob like a poor relation.” Probably another thing I will have difficulty moving on from, in writing fiction. I’m fascinated by the subtleties of tribal identification in America. My husband was an anthropology major in college, and I’ve often told him he’s the only one who can make sense of my family’s bizarre kinship rituals.

Kristen Weber has left Mysterious Press. How has the transition to a new editor been for you?

I adore Kristen and miss her a great deal, but Les Pockell, who’s taken over for her at Mysterious Press, has been tremendously enthusiastic and supportive. He’s the one who came up with the final title for Field last fall, which was excellent as I am HORRIBLE at titles. It will be really interesting to see what he’s like to work with as an editor, after I turn in the second book in the series.

Is the Internet a part of your publisher’s marketing strategy? Do they call it the World Wide Web?

I think Time-Warner Book Group (now Hachette) does a great job with online marketing, though I did my website on my own with the fantastic Heidi Mack of xuni.com. Heidi also designed the new group blog I’m taking part in with Patricia Smiley, Jacqueline Winspear, James Grippando, and Paul Levine—http://www.nakedauthors.com. She’s amazingly talented.

Any thoughts for our fans in Japan and the Czech Republic?

You guys rule! Thanks for reading!!!!!

Thanks Cornelia.

It’s been a while since I posted an author interview. Today Sara Gran is with us through the miracle of cyberspace and email to share some thoughts. Her novel Dope was released by Putnam a few months back garnering major praise in places like Newsday, the San Diego Union Tribune, New Orleans Times-Picayune, Boston Globe, Tribe’s blog and Sarah Weinman. Sara is the author of Come Closer and Saturn’s Return to New York. Reading her books is like discovering the drawing that you found in your attic is by Salvador Dali.

Q: Come Closer is being released as a paperback. What’s the release date and who is bringing it out?

Berkeley is releasing it May 2. There’s a long strange story behind that that I recently posted on my blog, but suffice to say, I am totally thrilled that the book is being reincarnated yet again. These guys are a sister imprint to Putnam, who published Dope, and I could not be happier with the whole operation. These guys are always professional and always kind, which is all us writers want from our publishers, and almost every day they seem to go above and beyond and do something unexpectedly wonderful.

Q: Dan Conaway blogged about Dope before anyone knew he was Dan Conaway and before anyone knew he was blogging about your novel. Was that weird for you or fun for you to know what Mad Max was on about before all was revealed?

I have a funny story, which is, I was pretty sure that was Dan before he told me, when I still didn’t know him very well. As you can imagine I was extremely proud of myself, but I shouldn’t be; Conaway has a very distinctive and wonderful way of writing which was easy to spot. It was very fun, I only wish he would do it all over again.

Q: If I had the money I’d make Saturn’s Return to New York into a movie because of your main character’s mother. How did you manage to capture the Village locale through her eyes so well?

Thank you, David. The kind and wonderful Domenica Cameron-Scorcese is doing exactly that. My own mother lived in the village for years before she was married, and we had always spent a lot of time there, so there was some stealing from my mother there. Also, I think there’s a uniquely New York way of feeling affection for a neighborhood that translates well from one neighborhood to another; what I mean is, even though I’d always lived in Brooklyn, it was fairly easy to translate my strong feelings about Park Slope into strong feelings for the West Village.

Q: Dope’s final scene is mentioned in many reviews and some of the reviewers seem confused or disappointed with it; did the book end the way you envisioned when you started?

Yes, that’s exactly the ending I had in mind from the beginning. Some things reviewers kvetched about were quite helpful—for example, a few folks noticed that the narrator often spoke improbably given her level of education, and I will definitely be more careful about that in the future, and I’m grateful to people for pointing that out to me. But the ending? They just didn’t get it. Of course, I need to take some responsibility for that: if that didn’t seem like the perfect ending, the only possible ending, I didn’t do my job well enough. It’s hard to argue with the reader. Possible, but hard.

Q: Can you tell from your book store appearances who your audience is? Crime fans, literati?

You know, I couldn’t tell too much from the readings, but from letters I’ve gotten, it’s mostly other writers, mystery and literary. Fortunately there’s enough of them to be an audience in and of themselves; or maybe those are just the people who are getting in touch with me. I’ve also
heard from a good number of former addicts who have read dope, which has been quite moving.

Thank you Sara.

I ran into Bob Dugoni over the weekend. His thriller The Jury Master is out from Time Warner Books; this is his second book but first first from TWB, soon to be Hachette Livre. I met Jennifer Royce from TWB their senior sales rep for the Pacific Northwest. She is looking forward to the deal with Hachette closing over the next few weeks.

Bob will be in the Bay Area next week at Stacy’s, M is for Mystery in San Mateo and Book Passage in Corte Madera. If you’re a fan of legal thrillers, get on over to one of these venues and catch his reading.

This is my first post, so I beg your indulgence. Several weeks ago I purchased a powerful new home computer from Best Buy, a remarkable store in both dimension and auditory input. I was directed from the collection of designer refrigerators by a helpful fellow from Merrill Lynch. Having installed my powerful home computer I subscribed for Internet service using the Earl’s Own Dial-Up and Home Counties telephonic services privatised at some point by a deluded Parliament. Don’t get me started as Joan Rivers says! The service fellow was an Elvis impersonator and terribly amusing.

As chair of All West Book and Literacy Society, I was keen to begin reading the online diaries of those interested in literature. They span the globe! Once freed from the shackles of our local rag, whose book reviewer shall remain nameless, I proceeded to utilize RSS feeds from the earl’s recently renovated garage at the rear of his property. To celebrate we rented Red Dawn and consumed popcorn.

Being utterly new to this endeavor I was shocked by the Salon article in which one young fellow attacks another young fellow and the many comments ensuing therefrom. Yes, there have been All West meetings where members have become physical, usually Virginia Wolfe supporters, if I may say, unmoored from civility by her prose. We had to cancel the entire Female Eunich program after Mrs. Aemilia Bell throttled Lord Carver-Ulmstead atop the punch bowl table. Not a drop was spilled! The earl says we should charge admission. My dear fellow, we do.

I am a bit shocked by the bickering, more pleased to see the sort of discussion that The Rake and Tingle Alley have sponsored. Splendid! More of that, less back biting. The Earl will be pleased to learn that my cousin, Ursula, is blogging the NFL this season. There is, apparently, a dearth of linebacking skills she deplores in real time. Ursula is quick to note the plethora of three deep zones on long yardage plays. It’s all fascinating.

Hello. This is the Forty Third Earl. I want to assure you that Watership Down is a real place, not a figment of the imagination. Yes, there are a lot of rabbits. They create quite a nuisance. lovable as they are. The local pub has been taken over by a Norman fellow who makes a decent rabbit stew. Of course, being foreign, he goes too far with the herbs and spices. What’s wrong with a little celery?

I was reluctant to get involved with a ‘weblog.’ After our chief writer’s essay about the cake song, one of my personal favorites by the way, the committee urged me to ‘post.’ I suppose he imagines that people are amused by iconclastic outbursts. This is a literary blog. Marlow, Milton, Dante, Goethe, Jane Austen. That is what we believe the audience is waiting for. Consensus. Is that now a dirty word?

Plenty of excitement here in the west country. Conservative MP Virginia Bottomley is scheduled to address our book club at the Royal Crescent in Bath. Her topic is Decency is Not a Four Letter Word. Hopefully this year’s event will not see a repeat of last year’s fiasco. You may recall that Naked People invaded the venue, and the Right Honorable Lady had to be evacuated by Royal Marines. Rest assured that a considerable police presence is in the offing. Also, the weather is cooperating with a cold front advancing from the Irish Sea. Too brisk for frolicking au naturel!

I am hard at work on my major essay, The Frivolity of French Thought in Literature. A surfeit of material has slowed my progress. Thank you so very much for your consideration.

Raelynn Hillhouse is interviewed by this reporter over at Collected Miscellany. Link on over for the full transcript. Meanwhile, the mass market paperback of The Rift Zone is available. Good book, good writer. She has even more exciting news, to wit, she’s in LA for meetings with Jennifer Lopez’ production company and Mel Gibson’s.

At the end of my interview of literary agent Whitney Lee she invited me to lunch if I’m ever in Los Angeles. As the authorial equivalent of dogsbody, unwashed novitiate or wordy desperado, my first thought is a melange of scenes from all of those Woody Allen movies in which, babbling, I would shred my drivers license while graceful natives dining al fresco look on in horror. I dream of success that involves never leaving the house, a world in which lunch is convened without the necessity of my being present, where moguls jostle in silk suits and, yeah, uniformed dwarfs serve telephones. My agent, her glasses low on her aquiline nose, would toss Sonny Mehta a haughty glance before rejecting his ten book deal. Don’t insult us, she would say, while ordering a minuet of arugula with a pear champagne salsa.

Los Angeles. I can’t just go there. Whitney Lee would want to know why I was in town, and what the hell would I say? The conditional offer of lunch was predicated on more than simply being there, that I floated ashore on a desert thermal with the sort of free will deficiency we associate with rock stars or members of the Manson Family. That being in the Entertainment Capitol I can no longer conjugate Squeaky and Tex from Grumpy and Doc, or understand that choosing the right restaurant is the equivalent of being accepted at Harvard? No, some other spontaneous event must propel me back to the azure shores of the Golden State, something hefty, enough to risk Severe Tire Damage before merging onto Century Boulevard and driving fifty miles only to realize I’ve never left LAX. Just because I can spell arugula doesn’t mean I know what it is.