SUMMER READING
I was one of those kids who took their summer reading list and raced to the store to buy the books and then shoved them on a shelf and forgot about them till the end of July. I was also that kid that spent the last two weeks of summer reading non-stop, eight hours a day, finishing my required assignments only the night before school started.
My older sister would encourage me along. She’d bring me an ice-cold Coca-Cola and promise me that even though I could hear all the others kids outside swimming and playing no one was really having any fun. Of course, she had finished her reading weeks before and savored her Halloween candy well into December.
Now, all grown up, I can think of no better way to spend the summer but to plop myself down on the beach and read. Since I no longer live in LA, the beach part is harder to pull off, but I still love the idea, pleasure and reality of summer reading.
My list is long this year — Chris Bohjalian’s The Double Bind, Khaled Hosseini’,s A Thousand Splendid Suns, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, Randall Kenan, Let The Dead Bury Their Dead, Patricia Marx’s Him Her Him Again The End of Him, Ann H. Gabhart’s Orchard of Hope and Virgina Boyd’s One Fell Swoop — and many, many more that have found their way to my bedside table now forming a wall between me and the bathroom!
But I find it rather fitting, or possibly ironic, that the very school I went to here in town has placed my book on their summer reading list. I can’t help but wonder how many girls will be reading about Catherine Grace and the folks in Ringgold — well into the night the day before school starts!
BOOK #2 DONE!!!
Hi everybody!
I haven’t been much of a blogger lately. OK, who are we kidding, I’ve never been a very good blogger. But that’s about to change. I just finished BOOK #2 (yet to be titled and would appreciate any and all title suggestions!). And now I am going to blog more — promise. Write that newsletter I’ve talked about and cook dinner once and a while. The kids are looking lean and hungry!
But come on now, I need you guys to enter my DQ contest or I”m going to be eating those 365 Blizzards myself. And for those who know me, and my sweet tooth, I’ll do it, every last one of them.
But for now, a glass of wine to celebrate the completion of Book #2.
BOOKCLUBS! Give Me A Call
These are the wonderful women who invited me down to their monthly bookclub meeting in Dickson, TN. Great fun and great food. And the best part, I have great new friends! Renee, the woman to my left (the one in the turquoise blue sweater) set the whole thing up — many, many thanks Renee.
So sorry I have been out of touch. I am desperately trying to finish book #2 and if I stay on schedule (and quit checking my email) I should have it done by the middle of June. But, I wanted to stop for a minute and invite all of you readers in a bookclub to drop me a line. If you’re reading Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen I’d be happy to phone in and join the fun. Okay, even if you’re reading another book, I’ll still phone in!
Southern Reading Challenge
Check this blog out. I love it. Maggie, the blog’s creator, has come up with all these wonderful reading challenges. Personally, I love a good challenge. And right now, it’s time for the Southern Reading Challenge 2008. Of course, I’m particularly pleased, or should I say, tickled pink, because Maggie has included Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen as one of her challenge picks.
Thanks Maggie and may this prove the best challenge ever!
novelchallenges.blogspot.com
WIN A BLIZZARD A DAY FOR A YEAR
Hi everyone! Yes, that’s right. You have the chance to win 365 Blizzards! And no, you don’t have to eat one a day — although I’d sure like to try!
All you have to do is write about your favorite Dairy Queen experience in 150 words or less. And we all have one, so don’t be shy. Then on JULY 1st (yeah I changed the date), I’ll announce the winner right here on my blog.
If you’re needing a little inspiration, you might want to head on over to your neighborhood DQ and order a Dilly Bar, Catherine Grace’s favorite, and I promise you’ll find those winning words!
Just post your entry on my BLOG and it will come straight to me.
Good Luck!
My Favorite Photo
I’ve been meaning to share this photo with you all for a long time. I was so taken with this little girl who appeared at my very first reading at Davis-Kidd in Nashville. We had quite a little chat!
Class of 1979
Look at my dear high-school friends who came out to support me! I was absolutely overwhelmed when they all appeared at Politics and Prose, Washington, DC’s very cool bookstore. This may be one of the best parts of writing a book — reconnecting with old friends.
The Week The Book Became a Bestseller
OK, OK. I admit it. When your first book is published you are over the moon, elated, delighted. It’s almost like having a baby. Well maybe not exactly but you get the point. Then, before long — weeks, days, minutes, really — you start watching the numbers. You go to Amazon three and four times a day (actually more but I don’t want to sound too crazy) and check your status.
You go in bookstores and ask if they have copies of your book — hoping the sales clerk hasn’t looked at the photo on the jacket cover. “You know I’ve heard it’s a really great book! Sure would love to see it in you store.” There, I’ve come clean.
But when you finally hit a best-seller list, it was all worth it. And this week I found out that Dairy Queen had, in fact, made it to the SIBA list — #14. SIBA, Southeastern Indepenedent Booksellers Alliance, is a mighty list and I was proud to be on it — if even for one week. Be on the lookout, though, because I intend to climb my way back.
Joshilyn Jackson, My BFF
Some people get giddy when they meet a Hollywood star. But having lived in L.A. for ten years, it takes a bit more than that to get my heart racing. Now put another writer in my path and you’ll find me stumbling for the right words to say.
Last week, I met best-selling author Joshilyn Jackson in Oxford, Mississippi. Joshilyn (author of the newly-released The Girl Who Stopped Swimming, Between, Georgia, and gods in Alabama) and I were doing a radio gig together — the famed Thacker Mountain Radio show. It’s a live program with at least 200 human bodies in the audience.
The really nerve-racking part of it is that you are carefully timed. I had precisely 12 minutes to talk about my book — no more, no less. And there’s no big clock in front of you carefully guiding you through your allotted time.
I thought I was the only one feeling nervous, anxious, sweaty, clammy. After all, I was the novice, the Thacker Mountain Radio virgin so to speak. But just minutes before the official hand signal queing me to take my place on stage, I thought about walking right out the back door. Who would even notice if I was gone? Heck, probably most everyone there had come to see Joshilyn anyway.
But then I saw her pat her chest with her hand as if she was trying to calm a racing heart. Ah, I thought, I love this woman!! This beautiful, clever, witty writer, whose books I adore, was just as nervous as I was!
We had bonded, friends for life, sisters in the sorority of authorial women. Now Joshilyn may not be aware of the importance of that connection, that singular moment in time but that’s not really important. Afterall, it’s just a matter of perception, and from where I’m sitting, looking through my rose-colored glasses, we are best friends forever!
And by the way, I did my 12 minutes right on time with no clock, no mess-ups, no fainting and no projectile vomiting!
The Women in Dickson, Tennessee
I want to personally thank the Burns Book Club of Dickson, Tennessee for having me down to their hometown last week for their monthly bookclub meeting. The fellowship, the food (oh my gosh you should have seen this cake from the local Dairy Queen — Dilly Bar on top and everything), the book discussion was all wonderful!
I have some new friends and that’s been by far the best thing to have come from this book tour.
Renee thanks for making it happen!
Lots of love,
Susan