tipped off by the uber-delicious RKB, i learned that my memoir, The Sky Isn’t Visible from Here, is available for pre-order on amazon. i ran around the office, like a jackass, howling: I HAVE AN ISBN! MY BOOK IS $23.95! and everyone cheered. and then i paused and mentioned that the jacket wasn’t up, the […]

i’ve been fond of pen and paper and what the combination can do since i was nine. there is something delicious about a foreign stamp, an APO address, crepe paper, fragrant ink, and the husky envelope awaiting to be opened with my teeth. i’d shiver watching the confetti, the glitter, the Lisa Frank and […]

i don’t talk about my day job here because, quite frankly, i want to keep it. also, i don’t dig mixin’ business with pleasure but consider this a commercial break because i simply adore samara o’shea’s for the love of letters. i’ve talked about my affection for letter writing. when i was a child, […]

i’ve just landed a wonderful opportunity - i will be hosting a radio show on Blog Talk Radio come this spring. it will be all about books but it won’t be books as usual. we’re putting readers, you, in the driver’s seat. it sounds vague, i know, but you’ll soon see what i mean […]

check out me making cake!

we have burned your room. we have placed your clothes on a pyre where they will cinder to scraps and the wind will lift them like butterflies. we have cut your hair and the curls furrow in the carpet like little ants. we have locked the doors. sorry, you have been denied re-entry. you are […]

& check out grist’s terrific recap.
mr. inhofe and mr. barton, might i kindly suggest that you actually take the ear plugs out of your ears and the bricks out of your head? but no worries, you have the greatest scientist in your corner, ready to prove that climate change is all “hogwash” - fiction […]

Masha Hamilton’s forthcoming novel, The Camel Bookmobile, originated from a real book distribution network the author found in northeast Kenya, where camels bring “books to a semi-nomadic people who live with drought, famine and chonic poverty. ”
So how are the likes of Susan Cheever, Peter Ho Davies, Jennifer Egan, Neil Gaiman, Terry McMillan, […]

summer came by my office for a little picnic lunch and introduced me to the wonder that is mr. bento. and after almost bawling into my re-heated butternut squash lasagna, I decided, that by god, this woman (meaning me) needs a chocolate cake. Nigella’s chocolate cake. Pronto. Stat. ASAP. This weekend.

cooking for me is something like church. it’s quiet, nurturing, and there is something particularly gratifying about preparing food as a gift for the ones you love. i’ve been known to whip up pavlovas (nigella’s, of course), orange crunch loaves and piping hot dishes of butternut squash lasagna with a light pesto béchamel sauce. […]

reading: Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West
just finished: Maggie Nelson’s The Red Parts & Alessandro Baricco’s Silk
viewing: The Namesake (movie)
viewing this week: The Host - there is something deeply unsettling and wonderfully frightening about the movies coming out of South Korea, this moment.
received & considering: my 10th college reunion details […]

color me smitten. i have found my stationery love and it’s dear dahlia. i’m working on a campaign for one of my books, a letter writing book, and i’ve decided to order up loads of beautiful stationery for not only a contest giveaway, but as gifts to a few great bloggers who dig crafting […]

maggie nelson’s memoir, the red parts, is why i love books, period. because in that intimate relationship between writer and reader, there is this private, solitary act of storytelling (without the grand audience and preconceived perceptions that come with) - a story that is rendered and a story that is read on both the writer […]