Paris, Again

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Paris is home. If you are lucky enough to live to a certain age, and you've moved around some, perhaps you've had an address in a few cities, inhabited a number of dwellings.  But only a few can be called home: the house you were born into, the place that shows up in your dreams, wherever you and your family currently live, and, if you have ever resided there, Paris.

I lived there for two years, exactly half my lifetime ago.  I was in love.  He worked long hours, so I spent a lot--most of--my time alone.  My tutor was an older, very proper Parisian woman who lived in the 15th Arrondissement and who taught me many lessons along with verbs and dialogues, including the fact that Celine is preferable to Chanel.

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Each day I would concentrate on learning the dialogues by walking west along the Seine, crossing the Pont Marie and Ile Saint Louis, then heading east on the Quai de la Tournelle, angling up any given street toward Odeon or Saint-Germain-des-Pres, and eventually winding my way back home across the Pont de l'Alma.

After a recent and circuitous trip to see Bill Pullman play Othello in Bergen, Norway, I wound up back in Paris.  I've been there many times since moving away, but this visit felt urgent, intense, as if Paris had something my spirit could not do without.  The weather was February damp and cold, encouraging hours spent reading by the window.  The city has a special melancholy from November through February.  I was glad not to have missed it.

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Paris feels ancient, and it is.  Roman baths from the 3rd century exist at the Thermes de Cluny, and more recent layers of history are visible on every step of my walk.  One friend's apartment was built in the 15th century, close to the river in the 5th Arrondissement, and at night the lights of the tour boats would come through the windows and dance on the ceiling.  My building was Belle Époque, ornate with carvings and balconies. The windows in most buildings are tallest on the rez-de-chaussée andpremier étage, growing progressively smaller as the floors go up because before elevators the wealthiest lived closest to the ground and the servants lived up above.  I wrote in the maid's room on the top floor, and the window, although tiny, overlooked rooftops and chimneys, with a distant view of the Tour Eiffel.

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On this most recent visit, I took my regular walk every afternoon.  The sky stayed dark most days, but occasionally the clouds would part enough so the Seine and the building that border it turned the color of tarnished silver.  Paris always fills me with nostalgia.  The city doesn't change the way New York does, so it's easy to call up memories of past times: sitting for hours with Karine at Brasserie Lipp, having dinner with friends at tiny Restaurant Paul in Place Dauphine, meeting Peter Turnley at Brasserie de l’Isle Saint-Louis.  (When Angels All Over Town, my first novel, came out, Peter took my photo for Newsweek, and we became friends.)

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Paris reminds me of my mother.  She visited me when I lived there, shortly after she was diagnosed with a brain tumor. She had her chemotherapy treatments at the American Hospital in Neuilly during the time Rock Hudson was there dying of AIDS.  We had to walk through the paparazzi on our way inside.  My mother was poignantly starstruck.  On days when my she felt well enough she would carry the watercolors we'd bought at Sennelier and sit by the Seine just down the street from my apartment, in a narrow park lined with trees and full of interesting shadows, and she would paint.

Did I need to connect with thoughts of my mother?  And of my father, who had fought in World War II and told us stories of France?  Perhaps so, and I did.  I thought of both my parents, who had never been to France together.  It's odd the way each of them--my father had been shot down over Alsace, my mother had never been on a plane before flying to Paris to stay with me--was connected to France so definitively by flight.

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I didn't only spin back into the past.  Most of the time during this stay I remained present, in the actual day.  I wrote at the hotel and in cafés, and I made sure to walk a few unfamiliar streets.  I stopped into favorite bookstores and found others I'd never seen before.  Paris is books to me--ones I've read, and some I've written.  In 1985 I wrote Crazy in Love, my second novel, sitting at my desk in the cramped office under the eaves, and this year I worked on my thirty-third novel in a seventh-floor hotel room just a block away.

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Love locks are everywhere.  Padlocks left by people in love cram not only every inch of grate and rail on the classic spots such as the Pont des Arts, Passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor, and Pont de l'Archevêché, but also random little pieces of hardware all along the river.

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Did I also spend an afternoon, writing at a table in the corner of the bar at Closerie des Lilas, in an homage Islands in the Stream by Ernest Hemingway, from which my sister Maureen and I quote far too often?  Yes, I did.  And I called Maureen afterwards, and as I walked though the Jardin du Luxembourg she offered up lines from the book regarding that Tommy and red wine.

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My first day in Paris I went to lunch, and on my last night there dinner, at Le Stresa, a favorite restaurant in the 8th Arrondissement.  Owned and operated by six brothers, les Frères Faiola, it is tiny and great, and although it is Italian, it is so Paris.  I loved seeing the brothers, and was touched that they remembered me, right down to the year I lived on their street.  At the end of the meal I had fraises des bois.  They were delicious.

And Paris is still home.

Excellence in Reading

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mim's reading medal johnston riEmily May Beaudry was born on November 6, 1898 in Providence, Rhode Island.  She was the second oldest in a family of eight children, two of whom died young.  She wore her long dark hair in braids.  At school she enjoyed dipping their tips into the inkwell and writing and drawing with them.  That got her into trouble, and so did fighting, which she did to protect her younger siblings from bullies.

The family lived in the Thornton neighborhood of Johnston, a section of Providence known for textile mills (Thornton was named after a village in England, the hometown of one of the mill owners) as well as the natural beauty of Silver Lake and Neutaconkanut Hill.   Emily's grandfather's house had a basement kitchen where everyone could put on their skates and walk right outside onto the lake, and the hill was good for sledding.  Emily's many aunts were known for their grace on the ice, the way they could skate the grapevine and the reel.

The entire family worked at British Hosiery, one of the local mills.  Emily's mother, Gertrude, had grown up in Nottingham, England.  Her parents had brought her and her brothers and sisters across the Atlantic with other mill worker families--a hundred and twenty people in all--to work at the hosiery.

In December 1884 the family crossed the North Atlantic from Liverpool on the Cunard steamship Aurania.  They traveled in the cramped and difficult conditions of steerage; on that same passage, several decks up, in a different class, was Dr. Dugald Campbell, a Scottish doctor who may-or-may-not be the great-grandfather of J.K. Rowling.  The ship made landfall on the eve of Christmas Eve; when Gertrude's father asked the mill owner if they could go to a Catholic Church for midnight mass, the owner was dismayed; he had assumed that, being from England, these immigrants were not Catholic.

Gertrude went on to have eight children of her own; she named her second daughter Emily, after her mother.  Emily excelled in school.  She was high-spirited, and teachers sometimes scolded her, but she loved school.  Although she did well in all her subjects, her favorite was English.  She was a great storyteller in a family who loved to tell stories; a dinner at their house would be full of laughter and interruptions, and one person jumping in to finish the story another had started.  Books were expensive, and there wasn't yet a library in town, but she read everything she could at school.

When she was in eighth grade, on January 31, 1913, she won the Johnston, Rhode Island medal for "Excellence in Reading."mim's reading medal jan 31 1913

That was Emily's last year in school.  She had to leave before ninth grade, to go to work in the mill.  "At the hosiery," she would say, and never with resentment, or a sense of what might have been.  She had been a smart, spirited girl, whose education was cut short.  She had to help support the family.  This was just how it was done; there were no expectations of finishing school.  Whatever she may have hoped, whatever her secret dreams may have been, she put them aside and went to the mill every day.

Child labor was common.  Long workdays--twelve to fourteen hours--were the norm.  Wages were low, and the factories were loud and dangerous, with thundering machinery and poor light.  The workers breathed fiber-filled air as they spun thread and wove cloth.  The young millworkers perfected the art of spinning.  Weaving thread instead of stories...

IMG_8767Emily was my grandmother.  She lived with us from the time I was born, and I called her "Mimi" because I couldn't say "Emily."  She told lots of stories, but they were alway full of love--about how she and her sisters Florence, Josie, and Ida would take the ferry from India Point in Providence, down Narragansett Bay.  They would always intend to go out to Block Island, but they could never get past Newport--they loved it so much.  They'd cram into one small room at Mrs. Richardson's boarding house, and go to Easton's Beach to meet their friends.   Or she'd talk about Silver Lake, putting on skates in the basement kitchen and going out onto the ice with her aunts.  And her voice would lower, telling how the Grand Trunk Railroad bought up all those houses around the lake, including her grandfather's, and knocked them down, and then the railroad never came through.

I never heard her complain about the mill, or about having to leave school.  I never heard her speak of regret.  But she kept her medal in her bureau drawer, in the original box.  She would sometimes show me.  Other times I would sneak into her room and open the drawer and look at her medal, and I'd wonder how it must have felt to be honored for reading, to be an eighth grade scholar, and then to be sent to work at a factory.

Today is her birthday.  Happy birthday, Mim...

Old Photos of Child Labor between 1908 and 1924 (30)I don't have any photos of her as a child, so I sought out pictures of girls with braids who worked in textile mills around the turn of the last century.  I am posting two from this site, which contains old photos of child labor between 1908 and 1924.  I love these girls, they could so easily be Mim and her sisters.

Old Photos of Child Labor between 1908 and 1924 (24)

 

Connecticut College Magazine Photo Shoot

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IMG_6970 I was so honored to learn Connecticut College wanted a profile of me for CC Magazine.  Amy Martin, the magazine's wonderful editor, made it all happen.  Ben Parent, art director, and Bob Handleman, photographer, and Bob's assistant--and fine photographer in her own right--Lindsey Platek came over one August day and we had a great time on the photo shoot.  Ben Parent is a real visionary, and Bob is a great artist, and they made my little cottage at Hubbard's Point look so magical.  Not only that, Ben provided a great soundtrack, thanks to his band Rivergods.  Here are some photos from that day...

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There and Not There

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IMG_8573Late October, looking west from Chelsea, tonight's sunset is particularly iridescent.  I see the sky, and the Hudson River, and planes in their landing pattern at Newark Airport, and Dan Flavin untitled at the Dia Art Foundation, and I look through the stories of the new building and pretend it's not there, and I think of this poem, one of my favorites.  IMG_8574  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Evensong by Peter Kane Dufault

Last night when the sun went down and the light lifted up— it was levered off the last high land westward through tier after tier of cirrus and cumulus cloud, all the way to the zenith— such a finale of auroral cold fire no one could speak here. We stood like pillars of salt looking after it a long while till it faded into grey and dark-grey. Oh, how do we survive it, how do we survive, when more than we dared dream of is given for no reason, and for no reason taken away.

(From On Balance-Selected Poems 1978)

Strange Gifts and Surprises

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Fall in New York is an exciting time.  It feels like the best of what you remember about going back to school--so many thrilling new subjects to discover and things to learn, while outside the weather is crisp and the leaves are turning.  Theater can be wild at any time of year, but in October many new plays have arrived, and are in previews, and there is tremendous energy and excitement in the air. This is a blog about a play, but it's also about friends.  On Sunday I attended a preview of Sticks and Bones by David Rabe.  It won the Tony award in 1972; my mentor Brendan Gill gave it a rave review in The New Yorker on March 11, 1972.  This is the play's first production since then.  Directed by Scott Elliott, it stars Bill Pullman, Holly Hunter, Richard Chamberlain, Ben Schnetzer, Raviv Ullman, Nadia Gan, and Morocco Omari.  

The play tells the story of an American family in the aftermath of war, when their oldest son returns home from Vietnam.  It did what great theater can do.  It changed me.  It ripped me apart and put me together differently.  After it was over I saw friends in the lobby, but we couldn't speak.  I think we babbled something, but speechlessness had taken hold.  I know I wasn't in my body.  I was floating somewhere above this earthly plane where genius art and poetry and existential sorrow exist, where I lived for the duration of the play and quite a long time afterwards.

The timing of my speechlessness was unfortunate, because I found myself in a room with friends both old and new.  Bill Pullman and Holly Hunter first acted together in Crazy in Love, the first movie made from a novel of mine, and I got to know them while filming in and around Seattle.  Their performances in Sticks and Bones are breathtaking.

Bill inhabits his character with such ferocity, such wrecking ball swings of hope, shame, love, hate, the dynamics of a particular moment in the life of a man trying to balance suburban fatherhood with his own met-and-unmet expectations of himself, I felt completely rattled, illuminated, reminded, destroyed, and turned inside out.  It is  a brilliant, shocking performance.  Holly's character is so tender, vulnerable, grasping onto faith as every observable detail and every unseen nuance at home seems to shift and attack the life she's always counted on, and she nails it in her inimitable and savage Hunter way. Between the two of them, we have a fever dream of an acting duo that will raise your temperature and make you delirious on your way to a greater truth.

Beth Henley--with whom I was fortunate enough to work on Motherhood Out Loud (both Holly and Bill have acted in several of Beth's plays, Bill most recently getting a Drama Desk nomination for his portrayal of Fred in The Jacksonian) and Carol Kane, had come to the play, and I met up with them afterwards.  And then Bill, Holly, the rest of the cast, director Scott Elliott, and David Rabe came out to join us, and I could barely speak because I was still living in the world of the play, the emotions it had brought forth, and the seriously intense physical sensations of a wild ride.

In my post-play near-hallucinogenic state, I did greatly enjoy meeting Ben Schnetzer and Raviv Ullman.  Ben's character David is compelling, tragic, and full of secrets and all that is wrenching about war.  Raviv's character Rick seems to be holding the family together, until we realize he is every bit as affected as his parents and brother; his guitar playing provides a mystically tranquil and deceptively reassuring backdrop to one of the play's most devastating scenes.

In Sticks and Bones, David Rabe writes deeply of a time and family, a way of being that felt so familiar to me, having grown up during Vietnam.  The play caught so many details with such specific and almost magnified realism, yet managed to transcend everything actual--everything "real"--and somehow make it truer than true, realer than real.

I hope you all will see Sticks and Bones--if you're coming to New York and have time to see just one play this season, I encourage you to make sure this is the one.  It will shake you up and make you think and then make you stop thinking in the most thrilling of ways.

In a fun and somewhat surreal aside, earlier this fall I took a bus ride from Port Authority to Montclair NJ, with Bill, Holly, David, and Rachel, to see Bill's lovely and talented wife Tamara dance in Liz Lerman's gorgeous Healing Wars which, like Sticks and Bones, is about the trauma and effects of war.  There we all were, on the bus, with the crazy lights of the Lincoln Tunnel flashing through the bus windows, and then that heartbreaking view of the New York skyline, and then in the distance a crescent moon balanced over the Pulaski Skyway (which has always reminded me of a crouching panther) as we drove through the swamps of Jersey, on the way to see a great performance.  Life can be full of strange and wonderful gifts and surprises.

The Tiny Terrace in the Sky

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IMG_8459This morning the tiny terrace in the sky was a haven for golden crowned kinglets.

Every fall migratory birds fly south from their breeding grounds in the Canadian forests on their way to the tropics, and large numbers stop over in New York City.  Central Park is one big concentrated stretch of green from the air, and it attracts the migrants, provides a place to rest and forage before continuing the journey.

The tiny terrace is west and south of Central Park and has just one birch tree, one black pine, a hedge of ivy and Manhattan euonymus, and a small herb garden, but I am so glad to see the birds have found it.  IMG_8457

There is so much about New York that I love, but sometimes I can feel nature-deprived.  It is always possible to hike up to Central Park, or along the river in Hudson River Park, or Forest Park or Alley Pond in Queens, or Floyd Bennett Field or Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn, or Van Cortlandt Park or Pelham Bay in the Bronx, or the magical Staten Island Greenbelt, but there's nothing like sitting at one's desk, glancing up, and seeing a bird in a tree just outside the window.

I'm not the only one who likes watching birds; to keep the birds safe from Emelina, and to protect her from falling off the terrace, I make sure she stays inside with Green Tara.  IMG_8463

Birds face enough dangers on their migrations, and New York provides special challenges.  They crash into windows on skyscrapers; it's not uncommon, in the morning, to walk by tall buildings and find dead or injured birds.  Light can also be a magnet.  New York City Audubon and Project Safe Flight are working to improve things.

Creatures migrate.  It's how they survive.  Humans, too.

Meanwhile, up here, feeling grateful for the delicate beauty of birds and sky.

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Lanterns in the Night

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Rise_Festival_Preferred1-1024x680On October 18th Rachel Hartwig went to the Mojave Desert with her mother to participate in the RiSE Lantern Festival 2014.  She had been telling me about it, and I knew she was excited to go, and she told me she was going to release a lantern in my name, but I honestly had no idea how beautiful and meaningful it was until after she sent me this video (notice the words at the end.) photo-6-269x300

Rachel is a reader who has become a friend.  I first met her several years ago when she came to my reading at Warwick's in San Diego.  She and her husband Mike had driven all the way from Las Vegas.  I thought that was pretty incredible.  She made the same trip this year, only she brought a cheesecake for everyone who showed up at the bookstore, packed it in ice to keep it cold, and served it to the gathering.  The cake was delicious.

No writer expects anything from a reader; we only hope you'll enjoy our books.  But to think of Rachel going to the Mojave Desert to release a lantern in my name, with all the hopes and dreams and spiritual meaning it represents, is very humbling.  She also wrote this beautiful blog post.  I feel so honored and grateful.

 

 

 

Maisie and Tim: a Love Story

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I wouldn't exactly call Maisie a "problem cat" (there-are-no-bad-cats) but ever since she was a kitten, she has had a certain personality: contrary, cantankerous, particular in whom she allows to approach (no one.)  She was a rescue cat who had lived through the tragic circumstances of losing her mother too young and being left alone, sick, and flea-ridden until a kind vet in Old Lyme, Connecticut took her in.  I and the old girls--Maggie and Mae Mae--adopted her. Time passed.  We lived in New York, and for a while in Malibu.  The dynamic of those three cats was of love, but separation.  Each kept to herself.  There were occasional stealth attacks--Maisie, stalking the others like a wild cat, pouncing, letting out lion-sounding snarls.  Maggie would sit closest to me, on my desk while I wrote, and after she died, Mae Mae nuzzled her way in.  After Mae Mae died, I waited for Maisie to claim her spot on the desk, but she never did.  She was a loner cat, preferring to sit under chairs rather than on them, staring at me with her green eyes, coming out to be fed, but rarely petted.

Then along came Tim and Emelina.  Like Maisie, they'd been rescued from life on the streets, and we adopted them from West Chelsea Vets.

Tim and Emelina at West Chelsea Veterinary, the day we adopted them.

Tim and Emelina at West Chelsea Veterinary, the day we adopted them.

The twins moved in, and I was a little worried that Maisie, although now fifteen and less angry, would intimidate them--maybe even attack them.  They had such sweet personalities, loving to be held and petted, and often cuddling up with each other.  I watched Maisie carefully, ready to pull her away from the kittens if I saw too aggressive a swat.

Emelina took the hint and stayed away from her.  She made herself at home and kept her distance.

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But not Tim.  He loved Maisie from the beginning and was determined to make friends.  His initial approach, however, didn't go very well.

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But he's a brave and persistent cat, named for surfer Tim West, so he stayed close and watched.

And watched.

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And watched.  

And watched some more.  

Maisie noticed, and after a while she began to semi-tolerate his attention, sometimes throwing him a glance.

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After a while this happened:

Then this:

They made friends.

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Tim is also very sweet with Emelina, but this story is about him and Maisie.  Emelina does, occasionally, hang out with them.

But mostly, if Maisie lets anyone close, it's Tim.

He taught her about love.  She's almost a different cat.  Amazing that love can do that.

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Source: http://luannerice.net/wp-content/uploads/2...

Fall in Chelsea

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Chelsea, my neighborhood in New York City, is beautiful and charming at all times of year, but there is something about fall that suits it particularly well.  The side streets are lined with townhouses, and many gardens are decorated with pumpkins and chrysanthemums.  IMG_8330 IMG_2939 The restaurants, cafes, and markets are cozy on chilly days, and there are taste treats of warming deliciousness to try.  These photos were taken at Forager's, a favorite place to buy provisions.IMG_8337 IMG_8333

The gingko trees change color, and when the leaves fall, the sidewalks sparkle with gold.  IMG_2943

Startled by the Blue

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IMG_7692This marsh is part of Hubbard's Point.  Egrets roost in the trees, osprey build their nests on poles, fish and eels travel up creeks to spawn, and the banks are rich with blue crabs.  At this time of year migratory birds pass through, and the brush is full of warblers. One morning, walking along the banks at low tide, I found the most iridescent blue crab claw I have ever seen.  I stopped and took a picture.  I'm still startled by the blue.IMG_7694

Cats in Connecticut

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This summer the cats and I spent several weeks at Point O'Woods.  Maisie was born in Old Lyme, so for her it was a homecoming.  Emelina and Tim, the kittens, had never been, so it was their first time there all together. Being NYC cats, they're used to the confines of a Chelsea apartment.  Going to the country was summer vacation for them.

They enjoyed the view and sea breeze.IMG_6273 IMG_6745 IMG_6675 IMG_6458 IMG_6372

They found plenty of time for togetherness.IMG_6999 IMG_6555 IMG_7420

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And Maisie returned to one of her favorite spots, a place she used to sit with the old girls, Maggie and Mae-Mae, on the back of the loveseat next to the fireplace, proving that--indeed--you can go home again.

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A chance to meet with writing students...

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PSU_WhiteMountains_5579-720x404Speaking to students is one of my favorite things to do.  There is something about meeting  young writers, full of hope and ideas, and letting them know I believe in them, I know they can do it if they really want to.  That seems to me to be the most important factor: desire.  The desire to write, to express what's inside, to complete a work of fiction or non-fiction, to want it so badly you won't give up on yourself or the work. IMG_7356When I was a child, my mother was getting her master's degree in education, and she practiced on my sisters and me.  She would have writing workshops each summer morning, and we'd sit at the oak table in our cottage at Hubbard's Point.  She'd tell us to write a story about crabbing at the end of the beach, or swimming out to the raft, or to compose a paragraph about the clouds in the sky, or something beautiful or ugly or enchanting or disturbing we'd seen that week.  In that way, she helped us realize the dailiness of writing, the way our ordinary lives could add up to an essay or a story.

Years later I began holding writing workshops--one day each summer, never planned in advance, just when the spirit moved me--and I'd invite children from Hubbard's Point to come to my house for a few hours of writing.  Frequently the cats would join in, sitting on my desk (including Tim and Emelina, shown here in their favorite basket), and providing inspiration.IMG_6940

It is important to be steady and write every day--you must actually write and not just read about writing, dream about writing, or look online for other people writing about writing.  You have to do it. And you have to train yourself to be good at it.

Thursday I had the privilege of speaking to Joe Monninger's English class at Plymouth State University.  I met his students, told them what it's been like for me, talked about research, heard their questions about ways of writing, possibilities of publishing.  Outside, the trees were turning red and gold, maybe the foliage was at its peak, and the sky over the White Mountains of New Hampshire was brilliant blue.

Globe Talks: Immigration's Humanitarian Challenges

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AbouttheJFKLibrary2013-1 On Oct. 7 I will be joining a panel at the JFK Library in Boston to discuss undocumented immigrants & the humanitarian challenges they face.  This came about because of The Lemon Orchard, but it started even before, with the undocumented families that inspired my novel.  You can RSVP here: http://bit.ly/1sV5KWY

 

BESTSELLING AUTHOR LUANNE RICE JOINS GLOBE TALKS

ON IMMIGRATION’S HUMANITARIAN CHALLENGES

Luanne Rice, Paul Bridges, Jennifer Hochschild and Marcela García

Join The Boston Globe & The Kennedy Library

to Offer Insight on the Human Face of Immigration Reform on October 7

 

(Oct. 3, 2014) – New York Times bestselling author Luanne Rice will join an all-star panel at Globe Talks: Immigration’s Humanitarian Challenges at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston on October 7. Rice will share her thoughts on the humanitarian challenges that undocumented immigrants face, based on her own professional and personal experiences.

 

Rice shares her passion for humanitarian challenges facing undocumented immigrants in her most recent novel, THE LEMON ORCHARD. Her experiences with the thousands crossing the desert near her home in Southern California, her volunteer work with immigrants and research for her latest novel, give her deep insight to a cause and issue currently being debated in our nation’s capital.

 

Rice is incredibly honored to share the stage with pre-eminent immigration experts Paul Bridges, former mayor of Uvalda, Georgia and winner of the 2014 John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award; Harvard Professor of Government Jennifer Hochschild; and writer and Boston Globe contributor Marcela García, who will moderate the event.

 

While volunteering with the group Water Station in the Anzo Borrega desert, Rice saw firsthand the dangerousness of the treks through the perilously hot and barren desert. She will discuss her character Roberto from THE LEMON ORCHARD, who was based on a real man she knew and who experienced that treacherous trek and the challenges of assimilating as an undocumented worker. Rice will also shed light on what she learned about the extortion and sexual assaults by “coyotes”—human smugglers who bring immigrants over the border—and the post-traumatic stress disorder that often follows. She will talk about her own Irish decent, and look at the similarities in immigration history that transcend culture, location and time.

 

Luanne Rice is the New York Times bestselling author of 31 novels that have been translated into 24 languages. In her latest book, THE LEMON ORCHARD, she crafts the story of an undocumented immigrant who lost his daughter in the desert when crossing the border in search of a better life, a scenario that is both heart-wrenching and all too real.

 

Globe Talks: Immigration’s Humanitarian Challenges, will take place on October 7, 2014 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston. Immediately following the event, Luanne Rice will be available for book signings.

 

The forum is co-sponsored by the The Boston Globe and the JFK Library, and is free and open to the public. To register, visit the event’s website.

 

About Luanne Rice:

LUANNE RICE is the New York Times bestselling author of 31 novels that have been translated into 24 languages. The author of The Lemon Orchard, Little Night, The Silver Boat and Beach Girls, Rice’s books often center on love, family, nature and the sea. Rice is an avid naturalist and bird-watcher and is involved with domestic violence organizations such as the Georgetown University Law Center’s Domestic Violence Clinic. Born in New Britain, Connecticut, Rice divides her time between New York City, shoreline Connecticut and Southern California. Visit Luanne Rice online at www.luannerice.com

THE LEMON ORCHARD  Luanne Rice  Penguin Books

On-Sale: May 27, 2014  $16.00  978-0-14-312556-3  Also available as an e-book

Warwick's

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What a great night on The Lemon Orchard book tour!  I am very thankful to Warwick's Books in San Diego CA for welcoming me back again.  This wonderful independent bookstore is a haven for readers and writers. The evening started at dinner at La Valencia where I got together with dear friends (from left) Andrea Boyles, Mike McIntyre, and Phyllis Boyles.  They live here in San Diego, and I was really overjoyed to hang out with them and walk over to Warwick's together.  Mike is a writer, and I'm a huge fan.  IMG_5861

I was thrilled and honored to see my friends from Water Station.  They save lives by placing water in the desert, where migrants cross the border.  I volunteered with them, and my life was forever changed.  The work they do is very like that of Louella, in the novel.  Armando, on whom the character Roberto was based, once told me that while crossing the border he dreamed he died of thirst.  Then he dreamed of an angel who brought him water.  That very well could have been the people who work with Water Station.  From left: me, Paula Poole, John Hunter, Laura Hunter, and Brett Stalbaum.

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Rachel Hartwig is an incredible reader, and I am so lucky to know her.  She and her husband Mike drove all the way from Nevada to see me tonight.  Not only did they travel a long distance, they brought cheesecake for everyone at the bookstore!  What generosity.  Here are Rachel and I with what was left of the delicious Aphrodite cheesecake from the Market Grill Cafe.

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And here are Rachel and Mike: rachel mike

I loved meeting Deborah and Amy and their daughters Adilee and Madelyn.  As Deborah wrote in a note to me, "Amy and I have been best friends since we were sixteen, living in Vacaville, CA.  Over the years we have shared our love of books--mailing them to each other and sharing our favorite books and authors.  Three years ago we were able to become neighbors after twenty-four years of friendship.  Now our girls trade books too."  From left, Amy Josse, Deborah Walters, me, Adilee Walters, and Madelyn Josse.

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Julia Jones (left) and Suzy Cox were college roommates at the University of Texas.  They were wonderful to talk to; they wanted to hear the details of how I was inspired to write the love story between Julia and Roberto, and as sometimes happens at book signings, there was an incredible magic in line when I confided in them, and they in me, and we had a best friends moment.

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Evelyn Goodwin and Phyllis Hansen, shown separately in these two photos, drove together from a town east of San Diego.  They were so kind and supportive, and we had a chance to talk for a few minutes before the even began.  evelynphyllis

I was thrilled to see my friend and fellow author Machel Shull tonight.  It's her anniversary week and I know she made a very special effort to come see me.  Machel has interviewed me for her column in The Coast News, and I gave her a quote for her book.  She is a wonderful, kind, dear person; it was really great to reunite at Warwick's with her and Rachel--because this is where they first met, as my readers, now friends on Facebook and in life.   And congratulations to Machel on finishing her second book--I'm sure it will be as insightful and soulful as her first. 10509691_10204870184853522_410276047472674675_n

 

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Mitch Little came!  He was a great friend of my sisters and me when we were all young in Connecticut.  We knew him from Essex and Fenwick, where his family had a house, so it was really amazing to see him and his wife Stephenie a continent away in San Diego.  I spotted him in the crowd and would have known him anywhere.  IMG_5870

Group shot of old friends and new friends--the incredible people from Water Station and the UT roommates.  From left, Brett Stalbaum, Paula Poole, me, Laura Hunter, John Hunter, Julia Jones, and Suzy Cox.

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Here is Julie Slavinsky, Warwick's director of events.  She gave me this Warwick's special label bottle of wine, but even more, she gives writers and readers a chance to gather, to exchange ideas, to support each other.  She has such warmth and kindness--qualities that mean so much to writers on book tour.  I am incredibly grateful to Julie and everyone at this great independent bookstore.

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At the end of the event, we took an Ellen Selfie.  I thank everyone who showed up--on a gorgeous summer night, in the resort town of La Jolla, when they could have been doing anything else--looking at the moon, walking on the beach, dancing the night away--but instead came to the bookstore to hang out with me.  I had a great time, and it was because of you.

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Happy Mother's Day

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with mom at the old saybrook train stationI miss my mother.  I think of her every day.  There are so many things I want to talk to her about.  She had a unique sense of humor and I'll catch myself laughing at sights or phrases or stories that I know she'd so enjoy.  So much of what I love in life came from her: gardening, swimming in the ocean, cooking, poems, English literature, art.  I didn't inherit her talent for drawing and painting (although both my sisters did,) but I do have her love of art galleries and museums.  So often I'll see an exhibit and think of her, and wish she were there to see the artist's work with me. She loved the beach, and I'm sure that's one reason I'm happiest with bare feet, walking along the tide line.  We would spend summer days building sandcastles, finding shells and sea glass, swimming to the raft, crabbing at the end of the beach.  Often she would sketch while my sisters and I played and swam; frequently we'd all be reading, covered with sunscreen, lost in our books.

When I grew up and moved to New York City, I'd take Amtrak to Old Saybrook CT nearly every weekend.  My mother would meet the train, no matter what time it was; Sundays came too soon, and I'd never want to leave.  The photo above (taken in 1988 or so) shows us at the train station, waiting for the train back to NY.  I read her expression and know she wasn't ready for me to leave.  The picture brings back that moment and many emotions.

She died way too young, after a long illness.  After her death I was filled with memories of nurses and hospitals and the great sadness of losing her slowly.  But time has passed, and you know what?  I rarely think of her illness anymore.  The gift of time has been that I remember my mother being young and healthy, painting nearly every day, writing every night.  I remember watching Julia Child on Saturday afternoons, then cooking dinner together--sitting around the table at Hubbard's Point, enjoying the meal with my sister and her family, laughing and talking and feeling that it would last forever, that our family would go on forever.

I wrote about her in an essay called "Midnight Typing."  It appears in the collection What My Mother Gave Me, edited by Elizabeth Benedict.

Small Things

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photo-7I used to write here nearly every day, didn't I?  A few things have pulled me away, and I've been living more inside than usual.  But I've always loved my relationship with my readers, and the online world has been a way for us to connect.  It's immediate and intense.  Write, hit post, and there I am in your inbox.   I want to ask you: what have you been doing during this time?  What have you been reading?  What are the big and small things in your life?  The small things sometimes get overlooked.  We're so focused on the major events and hurdles, we can forget that the smallest, seemingly--at the time--insignificant--moments or choices can add up to major changes, dramatic life directions.  I'm serious: the littlest things.  Just as, on a hike, if you find a tiny stream and follow it far enough, you'll find the ocean.

Have you found the ocean since we last visited?

But see?  Even with that question I'm asking about the big thing, not the tiny stream, and I'm of a mind that it's the small, the overlooked, the near, the easily dismissed that keeps us in the present, where all good things happen.

Today I plan to pet my kitties and look into their eyes.  I plan to take a walk in the Ramble in Central Park to see birds passing through on spring migration.  I plan to pause and look at tree branches, at the buds that will soon, but not yet, be leaves.  I plan to stop into the book store and choose something I want to read.

But for now, this minute, I am here with you.  So hi, you.  I've missed you, old friend.

Love, Luanne

photo: 192 Books, wreathed in pear blossoms.

Source: http://luannerice.net/wp-content/uploads/2...

Springtime in Chelsea

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Chelsea's Callery pear trees bloomed overnight--literally, between dusk and dawn.  Every year I look forward to their flowers with such anticipation; the trees fill the parks and streets of New York City and symbolize true springtime to me.  Yesterday they looked like this: photo-19

 

 

 

 

and today they look like this:

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the townhouse gardens are full of daffodils and forsythia:

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and on West 22nd Street there is a window box full of purple pansies:

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Source: http://luannerice.net/wp-content/uploads/2...