Category — News/Updates

If you’re in the Richmond area, I’ll be speaking at the James River Writers Conference this week on dialogue.

I’ll be participating in a panel called “Putting Words in My Mouth: Dialing Up the Dialogue” with fellow writers Frankie Bailey, Jonathan Miles and Irene Ziegler.

My personal rule of thumb is to keep it simple.  Always use “she said” or “he said.”

Use “-ly” adverbs sparingly.

Forget about using quirky or different verbs for “said” like “she announced” or “he trilled.”  Just keep it simple.

Try to avoid the present tense “I say.”  I used to do that all the time until a teacher said it just sounds weird.  “Who says ‘I say’? That’s just ridiculous,” he said.

The conference is currently sold-out, but call if interested in the waiting list.

My mom called the other day to tell me, “You should be like Julie Powell.”

She had just seen the movie “Julie & Julia.”  And she loved it. It was awesome.

She proceeded to give me the full summary of the movie and the real-life back story of Julie Powell, the writer, for the next fifteen minutes…

“It’s about Julia Child and Julie Powell, the writer. She’s a girl who had a boring day job — just like you! — and she started blogging. Do you know how to blog?”

“Mom…”

“So she started cooking and she started blogging. And then she started blogging about cooking…”

“Mom…”

“You should do that. You could start a blog. You could be famous.”

“I know, Mom. I know who Julie Powell is.  She was in the anthology I edited, remember?  She wrote the funny one about ‘Rubber Chicken’? About how everything at her wedding tasted like rubber chicken?”

Crickets.

“Well…you could still do that.”

Anyway, if you’re a Julie Powell fan, you should check out her essay, “Rubber Chicken” from Altared: Bridezillas, Bewilderment, Big Love, Breakups, and What Women Really Think About Contemporary Weddings. 

Here’s an excerpt

“Rubber Chicken” by Julie Powell

Though I was young, I was already something of a foodie, by which I mean that I had developed a cluster of firmly held culinary prejudices, a mishmash of New York snobbery and reactionary regionalism that, considered together, added up to a telling, not altogether flattering self-portrait.

…I abhorred every meal I’d ever eaten at a wedding or benefit.  I was better than that.  This was to be the first night of the rest of my life, my first night as a hostess and wife, and the food served on that rented china atop those be-tableclothed tables under the live oaks was going to be the proving ground for a lifetime of hospitality, grace, and good taste.

What I didn’t realize was that I was messing with a law as immutable as entropy or gravity.  Hundreds of guests + unreasonable expectations + catering - billions of dollars = rubber chicken.  Hubris, that was my problem.

Now, go buy it so I can be rich and famous like Julie Powell.  (Kidding, sort of.)

BUY THE BOOK:

Altared: Bridezillas, Bewilderment, Big Love, Breakups, and What Women Really Think About Contemporary Weddings
Price: USD 11.16

85 used & new available from USD 0.10

If you’re in Richmond on Thursday, April 30, I’ll be participating in The Writing Show. You should come on by.

This week’s topic is Building A Writing Career: Literary Magazines, MFA Programs, Writers Conferences, Contests and the Necessary Art of Rejection.

I’ll be sharing the panel with the lovely and talented Thom Didato, editor of www.failbetter.com and Mary Flinn, editor of Blackbird. Both are fantastic online publications and Blackbird was kind enough to publish my short story, “The Boss’s Boyfriend,” a few years ago.

Should be an interesting discussion. I’m looking forward to what everybody has to say.  A lot of changes are going on in the industry and I’m curious to see what the editors have to say about it. 

For instance, I’m starting to wonder more and more, why don’t authors just publish immediately to the Internet?  Will the Kindle change publishing?  Will people post their manuscripts directly to their websites and have people download them for a small fee?  Or like what Stephen King’s doing with the Internet and self-publishing?  Who knows….all I know for sure is that changes are coming fast and furious.  

I work at daily newspaper for my day job.  It’s the biggest newspaper in the state.  And we’re seeing massive changes on a daily basis with users going to the Internet.  A year ago, we thought print wouldn’t go away.  Now, elimination appears imminent.  

Book publishing is much slower and probably won’t see the changes as soon as we are…but I can’t help but think the waves of change we’re experiencing at the newspaper will come to book publishing eventually.

Welcome to my new DIY website.

I’ve been wanting to update my site for a long time and finally…here we go.

On the new site, you’ll find:

• Short stories.  Did you know I write short stories too?  Now you do!  Check out “Fine Young Woman”, a short short originally published in Meridian, below. Or click on the short story category for more published stories.

• Online-only exclusive material…..

• News, updates, maybe even some audio and video if I get really fancy.