Happy April, friends.
I hope you guys all filed your taxes on time. If you're overseas, I hope you are having fun watching the collective smoke from over here in the U.S. as we all race to file our taxes (and other things).
The photo above is from a visit to Disneyland I took with my parents yesterday. I want to take some time to express here how magical it is watching your 70-something parents re-discover something like a theme park, which they've previously only experienced through their children's eyes. The combination of nostalgia and wonderment is extraordinary.
Lots to talk about this month, so let's hop to it! (Hop. Easter bunny. Get it? Oh never mind.)
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Here's what I read this month. This month's featured bookstore is Seattle's Third Place Books. Click on the cover to buy the book from the bookstore. Thanks!
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 Oh, this collection. I love this one so much. Finishing this book is like closing the cover on an album of people you may not have ever had the chance to get to know otherwise.
But there's also a sense of familiarity to these people. You may know facets of them, if you don't know them in their entirety.
I think it's like this: The level of imagination Hua engages in order to pulll you into these worlds allows us a certain amount of "but what happens to them later?" and this allows them to feel even more real. Some of these stories are poignant, some are fanciful. But all of them are believable.
Absolutely worth a read.
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I read Dick Francis between heavier books. The pacing is quick, the characters are well drawn, they're easy reads. But I also re-read them (I think I've read all the Dick Francis novels now) because I learn something about people every single time. Weirdly, the books that feature a recurring hero (I think there are only five in total, spread out over two heroes) are the weakest for me: it's like Francis doesn't feel the urgency to paint a complete picture because he knows there may be other novels later down the line that feature this hero.
Francis is gone now, so his Kit Fielding and Sid Halley (Halley is the hero in Whip Hand) will remain one-dimensional in comparison to his other characters. But this one's still pretty enjoyable.
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 This book took me three long weeks to read. I was totally taken in by the opening and was pretty invested in the characters, and while it's worth your time to read this book for lots of different reasons, don't read it if you're looking for a dystopian thriller--it doesn't move at that pace.
This is a big old chunk of a novel. It's over 500 pages and covers a lot of ground. It's told in an inventive patois, and the world-building is fascinating and complete.
I'd pay a lot to see this book as a movie. Newman is a master of texture. But she's not the fast-paced storyteller we've come to expect from books that take place in post-industrial dystopia.
Still, you won't be sorry you picked it up. Just be ready to settle in and let Newman take ahold of your imagination.
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This month's art fail
Oh, you guys...I am at that stage in my work-in-progress where my character has finally started to gel. (Yes, yes, I may have been a little backwards in the process of this particular novel.) The point is, I spent an irrational amount of money and time picking out the notebook her best friend chooses to present her with right before a major voyage.
I'm not proud of it. But I'm also perfectly willing to admit I enjoyed it, every last minute and dollar. Why, yes, some of these may end up being presents for people! Heh. What? No, it's not over yet. I still haven't found the perfect notebook for Juniper.
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Where to find me this month.
SO MUCH HAPPENING!
April 28: Find me at Pomona College's Oldenborg Lunchtime Colloquium Series. I'll be speaking on Communication Across Cultures. Learn more here.
April 29-30: I'll be teaching critique workshops and more at Mt. San Antonio College's Writer's Weekend, a free event for area students and instructors who want to learn about writing and the publishing profession. Learn more here.
May 9: I'll be talking to students at Evergreen State College via Skype for a session on revision. I just want to put this out there as a reminder that writers can do Skype visits, too, or Gchat visits. The other day I did a couple with some classes in New York! They were loads of fun and I'd welcome the chance to do so again!
May 19-21: I will be appearing in MICHIGAN!!! as a faculty member for a new, awesome, writers retreat. I am so excited to do this, as you can tell by the all-caps. It's a women-only retreat, and I am super psyched to be joining my friends and colleagues Ami Hendrickson and Kim Jorgensen for it. I'll get to meet another faculty member, Shawn Ayoub Ainslie, and I'm looking forward to learning from her too. There are two days left to sign up before the price goes up, so if you'd like to participate, I'd love to see you. Here's the information.
Keep an eye out for the June issue of The Writer magazine, where I'll be appearing with an essay on how I lost my writing mojo. (I KNOW. It was awful.)
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The Last Word
I actively dislike roses. I'm not quite to the point of chopping down the weird tree-bush rose thing that I inherited in my yard, but I really, really dislike them.
At first I thought it was because of the things they stand for: delicacy, thorniness, their status as paragons of beauty and perfection; their cloying perfume--but then I realized that couldn't be right, because for a time there St. Ives made a shampoo and conditioner that smelled of roses, and I had some solid perfume that I used that was rose-scented.
And then I was reminded of the significance of the rose in Beauty and the Beast, and The Little Price, both stories I loved.
And then I finally remembered a fairytale I came across when I was younger. It involved a bird who was in love with a tutor who was in love with a haughty young woman. The bird would do anything for the tutor, but the tutor loved this woman. The woman set the young tutor on a quest, with the prize being her love: He was to find a red rose for her. The problem was, this was a kingdom of only white roses.
The bird, seeing the tutor suffer for this terrible woman's love, did the only thing she knew how to do: She pressed her breast to the thorn of a white rose. Her blood turned the rose red, and the bird perished for her trouble.
The tutor presented his lady with this red rose, but she turned him down still, and the red rose ended in the gutter. The bird's life had been given for nothing.
This story, I think, is the reason I hate roses. Uncovering the reason I hate roses so much reminded me of the power of stories.
What's at the heart of your most passionate dislike, or love? Is there a story there, too? Tell me when you get a chance.*
*And, if someone can track down this story for me, I will send you a present. First come, first serve.
That's it for this month, you guys. Thanks for reading, and see you next month!
xoxo
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