No Accountin' For It

I took the above photo to illustrate an issue that I grapple with on a regular basis. The way art is perceived is so subjective that I often find myself in a head-scratching, "huh? what?" frame of mind. There are so many artists, writers and performers who never get the break they deserve, but conversely, there are too many who get recognition for stuff that sends my aesthetic dander to the stratosphere.
The sculpture above sits at a public building in my town and undoubtedly cost a packet of money to have commissioned and installed. Yet, gratis, my dog produces nearly identical work every morning on my front lawn. In whose eyes does the bronze version look like anything worthy of commemoration?
The New York Times list of best selling fiction is rife with titles that are the literary equivalent of Mountain Dew. These books might give you a quick rush, but they'll rot your teeth. They are financial angels for author and publisher, but demons for readers. Fifty shades of high-priced marketing will, clearly, put any kind of sleazy, hackneyed crap on the best-seller list.
Where are the emperor's clothes?
Last week, the Art Institute conferred an honorary doctorate upon Kanye West. Really? The Chicago Tribune sang his praises with an op-ed piece titled "The Brilliant Kanye West" and described him as a "creative and wide-ranging thinker." Really? This is a guy who boasts about not reading. And don't even get me started on the ah, attributes of his wife and her family.
Great diversity in culture should be encouraged and celebrated, but the operative word is culture. Culture: "the act of developing the intellectual and moral faculties especially by education"--Merriam Webster Could someone please explain either the intellectual or moral merits possessed by Mr. West?
Oh, wait, it's all about the marketing, isn't it?
I recall that grand old adage, somewhat revised for this post: one person's art is another person's dog shit.

Promo, Promo

This may look like an ordinary display of books with my newest, TWELVE THOUSAND MORNINGS, front and center, but this display is at the LONDON BOOK FAIR. Kudos to my wonderful agent, April Eberhardt, for her work with the 2 Seas Literary Agency in getting my book to this mega event. How I would love to be there myself!
BTW, the book just to the left of mine, THE VINTNER'S DAUGHTER, by Kristen Harnisch, is a wonderful, beautifully written story. I highly recommend it, and I'm looking forward to her next book, due around the end of the year.

The Madison Conference

In 2013, when I first began writing TWELVE THOUSAND MORNINGS, I set a goal for myself: have the book published and ready to take to the best writing conference in the Midwest. I'd been to Writers' Institute at UW Madison twice before--the first time, I met my fabulous agent, April Eberhardt, and the second time, she and I were invited to give a presentation on our non-traditional agent/author relationship.
I met my goal, launching TTM on March 12, and left for Madison, books in tow, on March 26th. In the photo above, I am behind the table (gray sweater & pearls) and April is standing to my left. This was the opening ceremony, with all presenters on stage.
The weekend was terrific. I can't say enough about how well-organized this conference is. Laurie Scheer and her team are efficient, thorough, and unfailingly cheerful and polite. The venue (Madison Concourse Hotel) is lovely, and the presentations are interesting, informative, and cater to beginning writers as well as those with a lot of experience. I wish I had been able to go to every presentation offered.
In addition to a talk that April and I gave on our continued work together, I also gave two workshops, one titled "Seven Habits of Highly Effective (Imaginary) Characters" and another on "Editing for the Faint of Heart." In this second presentation, I stressed the need for proofreading and editing, since poorly edited work is bad news for everyone. I'm pleased to say that all my advice was well-received, and I came home feeling quite proud.
In addition to the honor of being an instructor at this excellent conference, I also had the pleasure of seeing one of my short stories published in the literary journal (Midwest Prairie Review) associated with Writers' Institute. The minute I got home, I showed my husband the high-quality print journal, pointing out my story with great delight.
And there is where I learned once again that the old adage "pride goeth before a fall" applies as ever, for smack in the middle of my story sat the ugly toad of a major typo. I cringe thinking of the people who took notes in my editing lecture finding that error and wondering why I don't follow my own advice.

Book Launch!

March has been a whirlwind, and I'm happy to report a very successful launch for  TWELVE THOUSAND MORNINGS. Lake Forest Book Store did a wonderful job advertising, setting up a lovely wine and cheese table, and rushing to bring in extra chairs as the crowd grew. I'm grateful to everyone who came out on a Thursday evening to help me celebrate.  TTM was the #1 bestseller for the week of March 12th, and held on in the top ten the following week.

It's a funny thing--when I spend months and months in solitary pursuit of a finished novel, I daydream about the launch and promo. I really do enjoy talking to people about my work. However, I also love that quiet time, just me and my fictional friends discovering a new story. Given our unpleasant spring weather (four inches of snow on March 23!!), being tucked up in my cozy office is quite appealing right now, but it's promo time, so I'm off to UW Madison for their fab Writer's Institute Conference. I know it will be fun, and I'll meet wonderful people and see old friends.

Yet, amidst all the dashing around and congratulations for TTM, a little voice inside my head has already begun nagging me about the next book. I know the inspiration for the story and the basics of the plot line. I've got names for most of the main characters. I've got empty spiral notebooks at the ready. The only hint I will drop at this stage is that this next book will have a lot of historical elements woven in with the story. I've set myself a daunting challenge. I hope I can pull it all together, but it will likely be at least three more long winters before I can celebrate another launch. It's a toss up as to which is more unsettling--the writing demands or the weather.

A Valentine Story . . . or Not

This is my mother on her wedding day. Those of you who have read my short stories and novels have probably figured out that my relationship with her was contentious. I shouldn't put that in the past, because she is still alive, more or less, as she approaches her ninth year in a nursing home. Alzheimer's has taken its extortionist toll on her, so that I feel pity even as I spend far more time on her now than she ever spent caring for me. In the past few months, I've finally begun to accept her by realizing that if she had been a friend, rather than my parent, I would have seen her in a different light.

As a child, she loved to draw. When she was seventeen, she left her home in Layfayette, Indiana, and came to Chicago to put her talent to use. She managed to land a job in the art department of J. Walter Thompson, the venerable ad agency. No small task in those days. Kudos, Mom. Her version of bedtime stories were tales of illustrating the big ads of the late 1940s--rushing to meet deadlines, carrying huge storyboards down a windy Michigan Avenue, coping with the harassment from the "boys" that women dealt with in those days and, my favorite, "How I Met Your Father." My dad also worked for J.W.T. (Little did I know that those bedtime stories were watered-down versions of Mad Men episodes. In too many ways, my parents were scarily similar to Don and Betty Draper.)
 
But I digress from the Valentine theme of this post. I recently learned that there was a component to "How I Met Your Father" that I'd never known. This past December, a few days before Mom's 89th birthday, I got a phone call from a gentleman who identified himself as an old friend of my parents. He'd heard from mutual friends that my mother was still "with us" but that my father had passed away. He remembered that mom's birthday was December 11, and wondered if it would it be all right to send her a birthday card. As we talked, I learned that he had dated my mom for a while, and still thought of her as "the cutest little thing." He was clearly quite smitten. As he told it, one weekend back in 1950, she talked him into throwing a party for a new fellow at the office. Turns out that new fellow would be Mom's next boyfriend, and eventually, her husband and my father.

That is such typical behavior for my mother. (Listen and learn, Betty Draper.)

My parents were married for over fifty years, weathering the trials of life together, partying and fighting in a manner befitting the Greatest Generation. Their battles could be ferocious; I often wondered why they stayed together, but each of them must have had their reasons. The dynamics of love and marriage are known only to the two people involved. My mother, for all her faults, knew how to capture the hearts of two men for more than half a century. Kudos, Mom.

A New Year

Liminalesque--of or relating to a threshold. What better time to consider the crossing of thresholds than at the beginning of a new year?
Periodically, I feel the need to justify this awkward title. Choosing Liminalesque for a blog title is a bit like choosing the Isle of Elba for a vacation spot: the charms are there, but they are not immediately obvious.
Liminalesque is a name I concocted from the word liminal. My husband was the first, but not the last, to point out that this flies in the face of common blog-sense. Even the root word of Liminalesque isn't in most people's vocabulary, and it is just plain stupid to have a blog title that no one can spell, remember, or pronounce.
Yet I am fixed on it, as attached to it as I am to my short, square hands. In my dreams, I may have long, tapered fingers, elegantly tipped with perfect, oval nails, but the truth is harsher. My ugly mitts and my cumbersome blog moniker are part of who I am. 
As we roll into 2015, I want to thank all of you who read my blog, and I encourage you to please leave comments. May the thresholds you cross lead to marvelous and exciting new places.

Christmas Gift

I just received this email, forwarded by my husband. It was from one of his friends whose girlfriend had been reading their copy of The World Undone:

Now I got a story for you, but even more so for Mary.  Cheryl had some work done on her car, and being disorganized she found Mary's book which had been at the shop since August. (I didn't know it was lost).  The mechanic didn't know where it came from but was happy that it found its owner.  He said it was the most popular reading item in the shop competing with a wide variety of periodicals.  One lady asked if she could stay even though her car was finished, so that she could keep reading the book.  She stayed there for over 3 hours.  Numerous people commented to the effect that "That's a really good book."  I believe a mechanic also found the book, for it's a bit oily now on the cover and dog eared.  Merry Christmas to both of you.  Pete

Merry Christmas to all!!