She works hard for the money
It’s funny when you open your morning newspaper and there’s a big story about your particular raging anxiety right there on the front of the Style section. Although I did not know he was working on such a thing, there’s this spot-on story today by my colleague Neely Tucker about how authors have to do…
Read MoreBiz crawl at the bottom of my mental screen
Time for the business news. The National Retail Federation, the big D.C. lobbying group that represents 15,000-plus American retailers, usually releases its Christmas season forecast around this time — Sept. 20 or so. I went looking for it this morning and couldn’t find a word about it. A business reporter I know told me she…
Read MoreCompromises
Michael and I have seen a few movies lately. I thought District 9 was intriguing enough and mostly original — though I wonder if the novelty of structuring movies around “found video” and “news reports” is wearing thin, or if it’s just so commonly accepted now as a narrative device that I need to get…
Read MoreMy one-man book club meeting, now in progress
Between work and Tinsel pre-pub jitters and promo stuff, I keep forgetting to develop the part of my brain that can think of anything remotely worthwhile to type here and send off into the ether. So, until I get things rolling again, how about some book reports? I have three quickies… Finished reading Lorrie Moore’s…
Read MoreBlahg
I guess it happens to everyone — the best of blogging intentions go astray. What’s happening now is that I’m in the full brunt of writing about the fall TV season, and there’s a lot of Tinsel pre-pub stuff going on (good stuff). Please stand by. All two of you. (Three?) I’ll play catch-up this…
Read MoreThe Full Metal Jacket
We are just a typo-fix away from a completely finished Tinsel book jacket. I think the designer, Michaela Sullivan, did a fantastic job of finding the right mix between the glitzy gaudiness and the moody blue serenity of Christmas. Also, they want to use a metallic-finish paper for the jacket. It’ll be shiny!
Read MoreAre you Sheetz or are you Wawa?
Some nice feedback on this Style section feature I wrote on the east coast/mid-Atlantic convenience stores chains. You got your Sheetz and you got your Wawa. Which one do you like better? Me, I dig both. Mostly I just dig driving around for no reason, thinkin’ while drinkin’ enormous diet sodas. Even though I know…
Read MoreTinsel’s first review
The patented, automated self-Googler Narciss-o-Meter netted the first review of Tinsel this afternoon, in the Aug. 24 issue of Publisher’s Weekly. It’s not a wild rave, but my editor loves the phrase “the gift book that keeps on giving.” I like words such as “impeccable” and “solid.” PW reviews books way before their release date,…
Read MoreVirgin Birth (The Making of a Book), con’t
Note: This is the second part of a series of blog entries between now and the end of the year, in which I talk a little (or a lot) about how Tinsel got made. You can read Episode 1 (“the Idea”) here. Today’s entry is about writing the proposal. If it bores you to absolute…
Read More75034: Frisclosure
The Dallas Morning News came out today with its semi-annual foreclosure data for the first half of the year. Frisco, the suburb where I reported and set my book, Tinsel, has a high rate — the highest in the D/FW area it appears — especially in the 75034 ZIP Code, west of Preston Road, where…
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