Upcoming Events

Rita’s Book Club, Sept. 22 (private meeting)
I’m looking forward to a lively discussion on Aquidneck Island of The Stark Beauty of Last Things.

Progress … on my Novel in Progress

Yes, dear readers, I am STILL revising my work in progress. The work I’m doing at least feels substantive, as in, I’m not just moving commas, but at the same time, I am tearing apart a lot of what was written and unsure how things will hold together once I’m done. Sometimes when I’m revising I have a very good sense of what I’m about. Other times, like now, I can’t see the proverbial forest for the very specific trees I’m focusing on. All summer I’ve been working at the scene level and losing my grip on the flow of the whole…but it’s what I seem able to do right now. I would say I’m a bit more than half way through and until I get finished with this phase, and print it out and read it aloud from beginning to end, I won’t know how much of a mess I’ve made.

It’s OK. I wasn’t happy enough with the manuscript as it was, and I just have to trust that this effort will make it better. It’s also fascinating to me to see just how much I still don’t have right even on the plot level. In other words, that first draft (and even the slight revisions after that first draft) was truly just a skeletal suggestion of the novel. I had thought most of it was mapped out, but no. For instance, there were quite a few scenes that absolutely needed to be there that weren’t, and there was also a lot that didn’t even make sense. What can I say? It’s not easy writing a novel! So, at the moment, I’m simply happy to be working and not procrastinating.

So, what’s with those trolls?

Readers of this newsletter will remember my going on about the cool sculptures made of reclaimed wood created by Danish artist Thomas Dambo that are set in various locations around Rhode Island. Dambo’s intention with the trolls is to raise environmental consciousness and encourage people to get out in the woods and on the trail.

Well, lo and behold, just when my husband and I were in the Adirondacks this summer, a set of trolls arrived at the Wild Center, a fabulous nature-based museum set in the woods. Obviously, since we were already notching our belts with the RI trolls, we had to make the pilgrimage to see these.

Many others have become Dambo troll aficionados too, we discovered. As we walked the trails and discovered the hidden trolls, we compared notes about how many we had seen, and where. The trolls appear in 20 states in the U.S.; there are more than 170 globally. Each troll has a unique name and story, and they are numbered and tracked on an official Trollmap with individual location coordinates. Children are enraptured, and now there is even a book about them and branded T-shirts (oh well).

I’m a big fan of art that relates to the environment, and these creations tickle my fancy. Here are some shots of the Adirondack Wild Center trolls.

Barn Quilt Spotting

Another fad my husband and I latched onto a few years ago is hunting for painted quilt squares that are displayed on the sides of barns in rural areas. We began to spot these in northern Vermont and it became a game to see how many we could “collect.” We have read since that the practice began in the farm lands of Indiana. Those who display the quilts can join an official listing, and there are now “barn quilt trails” for those who want to view them.

I find this kind of vernacular art inspiring, and love that they reflect nature in the form of flowers, stars, and birds. At a recent stay in Vermont we took a couple of days to explore the countryside and capture as many images as we could. Mark made collages of a few favorites.

A serendipitous aspect of a journey like this is when you end up chatting with an artist. We spotted this trifecta of quilts on a barn and learned they’d been made by woodworker David Gonyon and his wife. David invited us into his studio. (And I just might have purchased the beautiful cutting board below as a gift for a lucky niece.)

Book Recommendation

The Stargazer of Nantucket by Julie Gerstenblatt

For summer, my suggestion of a novel with a strong sense of place, set almost exclusively on the ocean, is an immensely enjoyable fast-paced nautical adventure set in 1851. Nell and Peter Starbuck are trade captains gearing up for one last merchant voyage from Nantucket to San Francisco and then on to the ports of China. They are chasing a world record for the fastest clipper ship run on that route—but for Peter there are higher stakes he is keeping from his wife. Meantime, their daughter, Winnie, refuses to sit out this journey; she stows away.

Gerstenblatt keeps the plot lines spinning and the tensions high, but her true strength is in her empathetic and complex characters and the astounding research she brings to the novel, from the details of the merchant/sailor life of the 1800s to the logistics of what it took to transport goods across the world back then. Gerstenblatt also richly conveys the felt experience of a life at sea on a clipper ship: the storms! the food! the danger! the rats! – and made me believe every bit of it (with the caveat that I’m not a sailor so don’t really have a clue). Gerstenblatt also threads in some feminist and racial equality themes that I appreciated.

Enjoy! There’s nothing quite like a tall tale of the high seas during summertime.

Nature inspires

A couple of days in Vermont at a wonderful farm/inn, looking out at the Adirondack mountains and using the porch as a place of reading, writing, and reflection, was truly restorative.

I wish the same sense of serenity in nature for you as well.

It’s finally summer! Here in the northeast it goes by too quickly, and I want to grab every second of the warm weather and long days. I’m eager to jump into everything – picnics, outdoor concerts, sipping wine at the nearby vineyard, beach strolling – but at the same time I want that languorous summertime feeling that comes from doing absolutely nothing, where time feels infinite. I’m working on that balance, which I never feel I get quite right. If you’ve figured it out for yourself, I’d love to hear about it!

Writing News & Events

Publications: A fictional selection related to my novel in progress is included in an anthology published as part of a fund-raising effort by Linden Place.

Recent teaching: I very much enjoyed meeting with a memoir “incubator” class held by Project Write Now to give a presentation on setting. For me, setting is one of the most important and yet overlooked aspects of making fiction and memoir come alive.

The Craft of Writing: The importance of setting

I’ve discovered that there are very few writing craft books that deal exclusively with this topic, perhaps because setting is entwined in every aspect of fiction. Since setting is the environment in which fiction or memoir takes place, it establishes the time, place, and overall frame and context of a story, including its time period, social climate, and customs. In science fiction or historical fiction setting is a given, but in many novels and memoirs I’ve noticed that often there is very little in the way of setting.

Yet setting can be very powerful. At a minimum it anchors the reader to the story, but it can also connect the story’s elements, build meaning, deepen the reader’s emotional response, help readers visualize and invest in the story, reveal character, reveal theme, and so on. A book I recommend, that goes into depth on the subject, is A Writer’s Guide to Active Setting by Mary Buckham.

In thinking and researching the topic in advance of teaching the workshop, I developed a slide presentation. I’m happy to send it to any writers of fiction or memoir who would like a copy.

Nature/Life on the Coast

This past month I’ve tried to be more intentional in focusing on my natural environment. Both in the garden and in various walks, I try and observe a bit more closely and deeply. For my garden, I’m keeping a record of when things bloom each year, what tasks need to be done when, and learning, learning, learning. Gardening gives you many life lessons, like, you might want a riot of colorful flowers, but if you have a lot of shade, that won’t be happening. And like, you might do everything right, but the rabbits and squirrels will make a fool of your efforts. Gardening makes patient philosophers of us all.

I’m fortunate to live near the water, and not taking advantage of that is, for me, some kind of crime (though there is beauty to be had and observed everywhere, of course). The early morning before the breeze comes up, when the water is like glass and the air is fragrant and fresh, is my perfect time to start the day with a walk.

Celebrating Independent Bookstores

Book Recommendation

The Winterpoor by George Michelsen Foy

The cover perfectly captures the somber mood of this novel, the antithesis of a summer beach read. But it’s set on Cape Cod; features a cast of flawed, tortured, and compelling characters; is written in exquisite prose; and reveals the hardscrabble underside of a place synonymous with sandy glamour—so of course I loved it. It tells the story of Murdo Peters, an artist who works with his hands (on boats, etchings) and is helping to save a neglected and damaged boy while trying to stay afloat himself in both love and livelihood. Another aspect I admired was the way Foy intersperses newspaper excerpts to bring to the fore the political and social challenges facing the area, including development pressures and climate change, as well as stunning and precise descriptions of the natural world. These excerpts and poetic interludes work in harmony to elevate the human story and create a multifaceted picture of this world.

Because the prose is so dense and lush the story can at times be hard to follow. It’s not a book for everyone, but it’s for anyone who loves language. Artists will especially appreciate the descriptions of the etching process and Murdo’s artistic process and commitment: “He picks up the copper plate again. The teamed scratches catch light and throw it back off-angle. Murdo chooses a Charbonel black from a line of tins on a shelf at the forward end of the galley…. Puts on his work apron, fastens the ties behind his back, pours ink into a plastic tray. He selects a brayer, dips and rolls it in the ink, and wipes off the excess. Murdo loves the feel of the tools: the friction of the brayer’s platen against its fork, the slip of ink.”

Roy references a historical figure, John A. Noble, who worked as a seaman and became a lithographer. Noble was on a schooner that was towing out of the Kill van Kull, the waterway that separates Staten Island from New Jersey, when he was encountered the Port Johnston coal docks, a “graveyard of wooden sailing vessels.” He went on to create a tremendous body of work that can be seen in the Noble Maritime Collection at Snug Harbor, Staten Island. Snug Harbor is a place that I have visited often and dearly love, and so this aspect of the book enhanced my pleasure in reading it. Noble serves as Murdo’s inspiration and works to underscore Foy’s elegiac homage to a lost aspect of Cape Cod.

Happy Summer!!

Writing News & Events

Book Club: I thoroughly enjoyed meeting the attendees of the Hershey (PA) Library book club on May 13^th. The group asked many wise and pertinent questions related to my novel The Stark Beauty of Last Things. The wide-ranging discussion led to sobering thoughts about the impact of climate change and loss of open space, not just in coastal areas like Montauk, where my novel is set, but in many inland places as well. For instance, several participants bemoaned the loss of open farmland in their area. Another thread was about how money dominates our culture, in particular the way investors can buy up properties for short-term rentals and drive out local people in need of homes. One participant was experiencing this dynamic at the condominium complex where she lived, but told of an innovative new rule that would stem the tide. What a thoughtful, welcoming book group! A BIG thank you to Maureen Julian for the invitation.

Upcoming class: I’ll be joining a Project Write Now memoir class to give a presentation on setting. June 18^th.

Publications: A fictional selection related to my novel in progress is included in an anthology coming out as part of a fund-raising project for the museum Linden Place. More details next month.

I’m also pleased to announce the publication of a piece I was asked to write for the magazine On Montauk about the fascinating and largely unknown story of what is called “The Lindley House.” It tells of the woman who owned the house—Hilda Lindley—and of how, thanks to her, Montauk County Park came to be. It’s a story of perseverance, preservation, love, and sacrifice.

Since the publication is only available locally, here’s a short version of the story.

The Story of Hilda Lindley, True Environmental Hero

In 1951 Hilda and her husband purchased a very unusual summer retreat. It was an Army surplus blockhouse, built during World War II as a submarine spotting station, with 12-inch-thick concrete covered with clapboard and trompe l’oeil windows to fool enemies into thinking it was just a house. At the time Montauk was still relatively undeveloped, and the house was situated within more than 1,000 acres of open space known as Indian Fields, accessible only by a dirt track. There was no phone, TV, or electricity. The family used kerosene lamps for light and a generator to draw water from a very deep well into a holding tank.

All that was worth it for the serenity and closeness to nature it provided. The kids would go off exploring in the woods, ride horses among the cattle grazing from a nearby ranch pretending to be cowboys, or take a little rowboat or sailboat out on Big Reed and Oyster ponds. Idyllic.

Then, in 1970, Hilda learned developers planned to build 1,400 housing units in Indian Fields, spelling doom for the whole Montauk peninsula; all that beauty and majesty would be lost. She began a crusade to save the land. She found allies among both “summer people” and local year-rounders, and formed the environmental group The Concerned Citizens of Montauk (CCOM). It took years, but eventually the group succeeded. In 1972, Montauk County Park was created.

In a shocking and nasty twist, Hilda was told her home was condemned and she was getting evicted. Many felt she was being punished by the powerful forces that would have gained financially from the development had it not been foiled. Again the community and CCOM rallied. Again it took years, but in 1975 the county agreed to give her a lease—but for only 35 years. In 2010, Hilda’s family had to surrender the house they treasured.

I interviewed Hilda’s son John for the article. He said his mother never regretted the sacrifice she made to preserve the land for all to enjoy. Through CCOM (of which I am a board member) Hilda ushered in a local environmental movement that has led to many more successes on the East End of Long Island. Among these is that today, the Montauk peninsula is 70% preserved.

Art and Nature: Troll Update

In a previous newsletter I wrote about the very cool recycled wood sculptures that are placed in semi-secret locations around Rhode Island. I love nature-based art, and these sculptures are magnificent. They are the creation of Danish artist Thomas Dambo, made from scrap wood and old wooden pallets, and placed in natural settings around the world.

Dambo’s aim is for the sculptures to speak for the plants and animals that can’t speak for themselves, and to lure people out into the woods who might not otherwise go. It’s a fun excuse for a nature adventure.

In November my husband and I located Mrs. Skipper in East Providence. Along with many others on the “troll trail,” I aim to find all five that reside in Rhode Island. This month I was able to add two more to my “collection” when my sister and I located Eric and Greta in two different places within a park in the western part of the state.

Patch Birding & Landscaping

I’ve recently come across the term “patch birding.” It relates to the practice of repeatedly visiting the same area to observe birds over time. In this way you hone your birding skills by building an intimate knowledge of the land and the subtle shifts in bird populations.

I am only a very minor birder, but on my walks I’ve found that using the Merlin app (it locates birds by song) has forced me to slow down as I listen for and try and locate specific birds.

I’ve started applying the patch concept to landscapes themselves. There’s something wonderful about spending repeated time in smaller landscapes and really getting to know them. We all do this, of course, if we garden. We note when things bud, when they flower, and all the changes in between.

The patch methodology is something we can apply no matter where we live and no matter how much natural landscape there is around us. It’s about intentionality and regularity.

I keep photographic track of what’s happening in my garden and I take too many photos of what I see on my walks. I jot notes. I add bird sightings to my life list.

You don’t have to be so compulsive. You can just enjoy the experience.

Below are some recent photos of places I go regularly, Blithewold mansion, gardens and arboretum and Mount Hope Farm, which have different habitats and are the perfect size for watching changes and paying close attention.

Above, spring brings yellow daffodils and purple tulips at Blithewold.

Below, some recent sightings at Mount Hope Farm: a glossy ibis, great blue heron, a very muddy (snapping) turtle crossing the road and into a pond, and a lovely iris wrapped around a tree.

Book Recommendation

These two slim volumes rose out of a project to build community through writing by Midori Creativity and the Westport Writers group. Beautifully produced, the anthologies of stellar poetry, prose, and photography celebrate and explore how the artists interact with and are impacted by the landscape, water, and culture of the south coast regions of Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

If you’re not local, you can pick up copies via the website QR code. The work will transport you to this unspoiled and understated coastal area. The anthologies make wonderful gifts, too.

I love this quote from poet Mary Oliver. An instruction to writers, it’s also a guiding principle for how to be present in our lives.

For me it’s been a busy time, digging out from the late-winter snow and a cold and wet March and itching to get a jump on the garden. Even before the snow melted the snowdrops were poking up, and in a matter of weeks everything went from wet and brown to lush green, with spots of vibrant colors (daffodils, especially). Already the weeds have gotten ahead of me and the lavender needs pruning, and fast, before it’s too late.

Writing feels a bit the same – sunk in the winter doldrums but now perking up. Over the past month or so I’ve focused on reading and researching. For example, I’ve been dipping into genealogy and DNA research, and I attended an environmental conference with the aim of getting more information about marsh rehabilitation. All of that relates to my novel in progress. Finally I’m feeling ready to dive back into what seems like a never-ending revision.

Recent Events

American Association of University Women Luncheon

When I received the invitation to be an honored author at the annual luncheon of the esteemed American Association of University Women (AAUW), I thought it was a hoax. Writers have been getting spam emails daily in the last year, all generated by AI, that are so well written they are quite believable – except that they are a tad too flattering. Also, hilarious. For example, last week both Danielle Steel and Elizabeth Strout reached out to be my friend…sure, I’ll believe that!

It turned out that the invitation from AAUW was real. And despite my rather extreme phobia with public speaking I knew I had to accept. The AAUW is an amazing organization, in existence for over a century, and dedicated primarily to empowering women, especially through education. They give out fellowships and grants and are active on economic equity and social justice issues. The proceeds from the luncheon went to support the Rhode Island Center for the Book. What could be better?

I was asked to talk about my writing and the inspiration behind my books. As I was thinking about what to focus on, I realized that the first time I heard of the AAUW was in the ’90s, from the woman (Carol Morrison) who recruited me to the board of the environmental organization she led, The Concerned Citizens of Montauk (CCOM) .

Carol was both a personal role model and the inspiration for the character Grace, a school teacher and activist, in my novel The Stark Beauty of Last Things. How appropriate that I was speaking before one of the organizations of which she had been a member talking about the book that I dedicated to CCOM.

Upcoming Events

Hershey (PA) Library book club – Thursday, May 14

Research & Fiction

The main character in my work in progress is a young woman, Finn, who loves the water and being out in nature. She volunteers with an organization that is doing coastal habitat restoration. Why did I choose to have her engage in this activity? The answer is because it’s work that fascinates me, and by giving her this experience, I had to learn more about it myself. Some people like to write fiction that comes from their own lived experience. I like to write fiction that takes me to new places and lets me explore what’s outside my own experience. That often means doing a fair amount of research.

One of my all-time favorite novels is Spartina by John Casey. I fell in love with his descriptions of being out among the salt marsh in his boat. Ah, the sheer romance of it! For years I mistakenly thought the book was set in the Chesapeake. Imagine my surprise when I realized instead that it’s set here in Rhode Island, along the South Coast.. This only makes me love the book all the more.

Coastal salt marshes are valuable habitats that do many things, from improving water quality to storm protection to providing homes for fish and wildlife. Sea level rise especially has negatively impacted these marshes, and the RI organization Save the Bay has various projects underway to try and reverse this trend.

Of course, in order to be writing authentic scenes, I’ll have to help with some restoration work myself. Time to get my hands dirty!

Book Recommendation

Deep in the Green by Anne Raver

This is a little gem of a book. It was published long ago, and I wonder if a book like it would be published these days, because it’s not easily characterized. It’s a collection of short essays rooted in a sense of place(s), among the many where Raver put down roots. It is not a gardening book per se, nor is it quite “an exploration of country pleasures,” although it has plenty about gardening and plenty about pleasures, “country” and otherwise. In Raver’s hands the book is a meditation on life, love, and connection, written with wit, brilliance, and authenticity.

I’m loving this book so much that I’m posting this recommendation even before I’ve finished reading it. I’m racing through the pages even as I want to slow down and savor it. If you read it too, you’ll pick up all sorts of interesting factual tidbits, about ladybugs and hand cream and poppies, among many many other topics.

Clearly this will be treasured by gardeners but Raver has the rare knack of making herself accessible in a way that touches the universal in all of us. The book only deepens when she shares aspects of her personal life and family. She has a very special voice and writes with delicacy, emotional resonance, and wry humor. For any memoirists and essay writers out there, this is a classic.

Spring is late here in Rhode Island, but here’s what’s popping up in my garden so far:

Recent Events

Wine and Books Book Club – March 5

Bookworms Book Club – March 24

Upcoming Events

Elli’s Book party – April 12
See below for a short review of the book. Let me know if you’d like to attend the zoom party and I’ll send you the zoom link.

Sometimes An Island Zoom Party

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Association of University Women Luncheon – April 18

2026 Flyer Author Lunch

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Art / Politics

Bristol Art Museum show: When in the Course of Human Events…

In honor of the 250th anniversary of the United States, a current exhibition in my town had some fascinating work. The invitation was for artists to “reflect on what follows the iconic opening line of the Declaration of Independence, exploring what it means to experience human events in our contemporary world.” Some of the work related to what I’m exploring in my new novel, so I was eager to take a look. Here are a few that particularly struck me, all by women.

Book Recommendation

Sometimes an Island, Ellen Meeropol

This is a perfect novel for March, the month that celebrates International Women’s Day. It is told from many points of view, almost exclusively of women, whose connections are strong and supportive. Perfectly described as a “mosaic,” the novel has a broad sweep, moving among various locations and time periods, including the near future, and hopscotches among several interconnected families. As a reader of all Meeropol’s novels, I enjoyed characters I’d gotten to know from her earlier books appear in the book, as if at a gathering of old friends.

Like the sand spit referenced in the title, which is sometimes invisible beneath the surface of the water and is “sometimes an island,” Ellen Meeropol’s story explores climate change and the idea of impermanence. The novel confronts the grim reality that we are in the process of losing our earth, our foundation, and asks, How do we make a new world if we are even going to be given the chance? Meeropol’s prose is lovely, both in terms of her characters’ interiority and in descriptions of the natural world. I loved all the details of the off-the-grid sanctuary created in the wake of disaster, from how the playroom is set up to the solar power technology.

Though sadness is threaded throughout the stories, what comes through most is a sense of hope rooted in the bonds of community.

Upcoming Events

ASA book club – Thursday, February 26^th, 8 PM

Association of University Women - Saturday, April 18; Newport (details soon)

The Writing Life: Research & the Novel

When I started my novel, which involved delving into Rhode Island’s dark history of the slave trade, the dark history of our present day was less apparent than it is now. As I’ve been writing and researching, the seam of racism that extends throughout our history, from the time of the American Revolution to now, is all too evident. Then, as now, the rationales (for slavery and the slave trade then, for economic and political disenfranchisement now) are structural and, it seems, rooted in human greed. In the past it was trading in human cargo and forced labor; now we are enslaving people of color in ICE detention camps with an administration that talks about “getting rid of” a third of the population in order to have a white Christian nation. It sounds like the stuff of dystopian fiction, but it’s our real and current life.

Needless to say, I’m not finding these facts and themes easy to work with. Fiction that delves into social and political issues is dicey and often falls flat. Yet it seems to be what I’m driven to do. Thankfully there are some wonderful writers (like Toni Morrison, Nadine Gordimer, Barbara Kingsolver, and Brandon Taylor) who show the way. The most important thing, always, is a focus on emotion, the human response.

In developing my novel’s story I had the idea to have my characters involved in a project to bring the history of the slave trade to life. There were a few plaques along the Bristol waterfront that gave some historical context; some buildings involved in the slave trade still exist.

In the way that life sometimes imitates art, I learned there was already such an endeavor, something called the Middle Passage Port Markers Project, envisioning a memorial that would be a place of remembrance, reconciliation and healing. The local organization is part of a network of communities across the Atlantic and Gulf coasts and is also part of the UNESCO “Routes of Enslaved Peoples Project.”

This memorial, a dramatic sculpture titled Our Ancestors Come With Us, was recently unveiled with an installation and moving ceremony. It was inspiring for both me and for the fiction.

Book Recommendation

Minor Black Figures by Brandon Taylor

Although he’s written several other well-regarded books, I hadn’t heard of Brandon Taylor previous to Minor Black Figures . I’ll be reading them all.

I think Brandon Taylor is an extraordinary writer, mesmerizing and profound. This has something to do with his voice and also the quality of his mind. He’s very contemporary and yet there’s something very classical in his writing style and themes.

On the surface the novel tells the story of a young black painter trying to find his way back to his art who meets and hooks up with a white ex-seminarian who is struggling with a different loss of faith. The story takes place over the course of a summer. Wyeth (this choice of name, recalling Andrew Wyeth, is no accident) lives alone but shares a studio space with several others. Wyeth has jobs both at a gallery and for an art restorer, so the story centers on the art world and is set primarily in Manhattan. The characters are diverse in terms of gender, race, and sexual identity; Wyeth is gay and is also wrestling with being his authentic self with others as well as with the notion of “black subjectivity.”

None of that tells you about the quality of the book. It moves briskly but with little if any plot. There are no conventional stakes, although there are a few questions that propel the action: whether Wyeth will or won’t end up in a committed relationship and, near the end of the book, whether he will/won’t accept an offer to have a piece in a group show of artists whose work he despises. Mostly the book is full of shimmering details – I can’t think of a book that gave me the feel of being in Manhattan the way this one does. It’s also steeped in philosophical questions and tart dialogue, and the way he describes the minutia of art restoration and of the act of painting is breathtaking.

And speaking of details, as a writer, I absolutely loved a scene where Wyeth meets a friend at Kinokuniya, a wonderful Japanese bookstore I have frequented (thank you, Jane). There are pages of description, of the ledger-style notebooks Wyeth’s friend favors, a particular chalk that is “buttery smooth and resistant to breaking,” the qualities of certain papers, and whole paragraphs devoted to a discussion of my favorite pencils, Blackwing. I’m sure all writers, as well as artists, are fetishistic about pens, paper, and notebooks and will recognize themselves in this scene.

There’s something very Jamesian in Taylor’s writing, especially the character interiority and a focus on social interactions and the power dynamics in closed social circles. I should also mention that there is a lot of very graphic, honest, and direct gay sex. I found something of Proust in Taylor as well, in the way he stretches time and is always thinking thinking thinking. I’m a sucker for thinking in books, though I recognize that a surfeit of interiority of that kind is not for everyone.

If you do decide to check it out, definitely let me know what you think! I’m ready to start a fan club.

Once the holidays are past I’m always eager to hunker down and get back to work. The cold and dark make it easier to tune out the world and find that meditative place from which inspiration flows. While I love the other seasons, and am a warm-weather person, I find there’s something wild and bracing about winter that invigorates. Nightfall comes early, and I give myself permission to stop work, get cozy, and read before the fire.

From my studio window, Mount Hope Bay is more visible in winter with the leaves gone, and at this time of year the sun sets almost directly in front of me. I watch to see if it’s going to be a beautiful sunset, and if it is, I dash down to the water to take way too many photos and soak it all in.

Especially in these dark days, both metaphorically and (if you live in the north) in actuality, it’s so important to do what we can to nourish our souls.

The Writing Life: Unraveling Revision

In a recent meeting of my writing group, we talked about the revision process, specifically deep revision that goes beyond playing with word choice and sentence style and focuses primarily on structure or story. We asked this question: How do you know when what you’re doing refines and improves your vision versus when you are, essentially, making a complete mess of things? What if you lose the spark and creative impulse that drove you to the work in the first place?

What we came away with is that there’s no real answer. Only your own intuition and gut sense can guide you. There’s always a chance that at some point you’ll realize you’ve gone too far, that you’ve whittled away so much that all you’re left with is a toothpick.

Writing a novel is such an intricate and difficult process; it often proceeds by fits and starts over many months and years—at least mine do. It’s so easy to fall into a mental fog, and I speak for myself when I say that often I “lose the plot” in all senses of the term. Right now, as I’m working on a pretty significant revision, things do feel as if they’re coming undone. I worry that I’m unraveling so much that – to switch from wood-working to a knitting metaphor—I’ll soon have a mass of yarn at my feet and no discernible garment left at all.

Still, I plug along. I console myself that earlier versions of my work in progress are in my computer to go back to if needed. It also helps that I kept a journal where I played with ideas and themes before starting to develop the story. Rereading those initial inspirations help ground me.

It’s also hugely helpful to read about other authors’ processes and dithering. We all go through this. And we all have to find our own ways out of these labyrinths.

Life on the Coast: Win with Wind

One of the biggest environmental issues facing Montauk in the years just before I left was the question of offshore windfarms and a proposal to build South Fork Wind. Some didn’t want their ocean views ruined, some worried about the effect of turbines on wildlife, and the fishing community feared impacts on their industry. The environmental community cared most about the benefits of renewables (the windmill’s clean energy would replace an estimated CO₂ equivalent to emissions from 60,000 car a year) and was fully in favor once accommodations were made to protect birds, whales, and fish after studying their migration patterns. We could look to Block Island (R.I.) as well. That first commercial wind farm had begun delivering electricity there in 2016, and the community was touting its beyond-expectation success. Before the windfarm the island had relied on polluting noisy generators; with the windfarm the cost of electricity was less than a third of what it would have been. Even better, it turned out that the underwater structures of the turbines create artificial reefs that attract fish. It was a win all around, and on Long Island, over time, the objections melted away. The turbines are barely discernable on even the clearest days; the fishing community is mainly in support; and the wildlife—from birds to whales—are well protected.

So I was pleased when I moved to Rhode Island to learn that Ǿrsted, the company that put in the five-turbine demonstration project on Block Island as well as the 12-turbine South Fork Wind, had Revolution Wind in the works here. Then early last year the Trump administration abruptly pulled the plug on all wind projects, whether already in process or not. Revolution Wind was already 85% complete, would power 350,000 homes, and its 1,000+ union workers were suddenly out of work.

Trump is notoriously anti-wind power; he calls wind energy “the scam of the century.” Luckily the courts ruled in favor of allowing those that had already received federal permits to continue. Trump wasn’t willing to let go, however, and again in December halted five wind projects, this time citing national security concerns (claiming that the spinning turbines could interfere with radar). Thankfully this latest pretext for shutting down renewable energy was recently dismissed, and wind farms in New York, Virginia, and Rhode Island will be able to get back on schedule. I’m cautiously optimistic they’ll make it to the finish line and help with a continued push for clean energy for the planet.

Book Recommendation

A Walk in the Park by Kevin Fedarko

I focus on novels with a sense of place, but this nonfiction book is so spectacular a piece of writing that I just have to spread the word. The story is of two friends who, over the course of several trips and with a lot of help, succeed at a risky end-to-end traverse the Grand Canyon, one of the toughest hikes in the world. The book tells of the duo’s hubris and folly in attempting this initially without proper preparation and how, after mishaps and guidance, they come to complete the project. There are many reasons to read this book: for one, as a story of adventure and excitement, which will truly keep you on the edge of your seat and turning pages; but even more for the fascinating lore: history, geology, and the stories of the original peoples and tribes who have inhabited the Park from the earliest times to the present. For those of us who will never hike the Canyon, this book is the closest you will get.

Most compelling for me is the sheer gorgeousness of the writing:

“The light spilling down the limestone turned the face of each cliff into forked rivers of fire. There were pink pools and riffles, eddies where the rose-tinted currents coiled and spun, and whirlpools the color or a freshly opened cantaloupe. This was light made liquid, as if someone had melted down the stained-glass windows of every cathedral in France and poured the emulsion over the stone.”

Fedarko concludes the book with a plea against commercialization of the Park. “The longer we spent and the farther we ventured, the more deeply we understood that in the months and years to come, it might no longer be possible to complete a walk such as this without colliding against changes so profound that the land would never again be the same.…Haunted—that’s how we walked. Haunted by what we saw and heard, and by the knowledge that the future that was bearing down on the canyon was…already transforming the place.”

Although there’s an argument to be made that helicopters and trams can bring the experience of the Canyon to people who wouldn’t otherwise be able to access it, A Walk in the Park speaks most eloquently for the value of leaving some magnificent and rare places completely alone.

Snow and ICE

A few shots from recent snowfalls…and a recent vigil against a different kind of ICE.

“Perhaps our ability to behold is what sets us apart…The ability to stop, drop everything, let the line go slack…and just stand in awe.”
— Neil King Jr.

Events & News

I’m delighted that a short story I began while an Artist in Residence in 2024 at the Linden Place historic mansion, related to my current novel in progress, will be included in an upcoming anthology, out this spring. (More details soon.)

Nature and Environmental Gift Ideas

Yes, for sure, books books and more books. My other go-to small gifts are connected to my environmentalism and love of nature. Here are a few:

Swedish dishtowels are both environmentally useful and fun. They can be washed and reused over and over, saving on paper towels. I purchase mine from Audubon or Three Blue Birds (threebluebirds.com), which has quite pretty designs, but you can find them in many other places these days.

For a really eco-nerdy gift, consider a tree to dry plastic baggies! (Yes, some of us wash them out and then need a way to dry them other than waving them around in the air.) I was gifted this one from Hotcan, but there are plenty of sellers out there.

And of course, nature itself. I love love love Amaryllis plants. They come in various forms, from a bulb, to a stalk and bulb, to a fully flowering plant. (There are now some with a red waxy ball that doesn’t even require watering.) You have to gauge whether your recipient would enjoy nurturing a plant or is the type to be happier with a bloom. I find it a tantalizing to watch the plant develop, fussing over the blades that are too long, the bulb that never seems to flower…. For even more masochistic fun, after blooming put the bulb away somewhere dark to go into dormancy. It’s a thrill if you manage to bring them back to glorious life the next year. Then again, just as often you blow the timing, or do something else wrong, and the poor thing sits inert and reproachful. Warning: This gift can turn into an obsession!

This year I have a new gift obsession. Lavender! I grow lavender because it’s beautiful and I love the scent (especially intoxicating at night). I had no idea how huge the plants would get, and I have a lot of them. I also learned after the fact that I had to cut back the stalks as well as prune them overall to maintain them. Lightbulb moment: I could harvest the buds from the stalks and make lavender sachets! I wisely decided not to sew the bags themselves (they are easily purchasable). I am just tickled with my adorable creations. Next year…lavender tea?

The Writing Life

In a scene in my novel The Stark Beauty of Last Things, my character Clancy heads to the Montauk lighthouse, at the tip of Long Island, to witness a kind of grand illumination, when thousands of holiday lights are turned on. It’s hard to overstate the drama of the lighthouse lit up this way, especially in the deep cold of winter and with the roar of the waves as backdrop. The lighthouse, always majestic, becomes extraordinary. Not even professional photos can capture how it feels to be there and see it in person. Still, I thought I’d share these few amateur shots. Usually I went late at night, after the crowds, to soak in the solitude. Majestic.

My Top 3 Favorite Reads of 2025

Asked to choose by the Shepherd website, a reader-centric site that is all about books, I decided on my three favorites of 2025. These novels left me awestruck.

Shepherd is a great place to discover books by category, author, and more. Have fun exploring!

Happy Holidays

What are the holidays if not for an excuse to indulge in your inner child? I’m happy to leave you with a few interior photos from the beautifully decorated mansion near where I live, Blythwold.

“Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.” — A.A. Milne

Recently in a nearby town a worker was snatched by ICE and whisked away without any form of due process. When word of ICE agents got out in the community, about 30 people dropped what they were doing to protest--singing, chanting, and banging pots and pans. The following night close to 100 people came together to discuss what can be done. The police in my state of RI have pledged not to aid ICE in these raids and abductions. Even so, because federal agents don’t come under state or local jurisdictions, the police don’t have the power to stop ICE (or have the will to try) and in essence, passively assist.

At the meeting people expressed their outrage and anger, but another emotion was also voiced: gratitude. People felt grateful and proud that so many had come out to act so quickly. There was a sober spirit of solidarity, a commitment to devise an action plan, and the promise of even greater coordination among groups that were represented among the attendees.

So although these are very dark times, I came away from the meeting feeling encouraged and energized. That’s certainly something to be thankful for.

Events

Looking forward to the new year, I was delighted to be asked by The Association of University Women to be a featured author at their annual luncheon this coming April.

There are a few book club events in the works, too – more details soon.

Speaking of book clubs…. If you are in one and might like to discuss The Stark Beauty of Last Things, please contact me directly. I’m happy to make books available, along with a Book Club Readers Guide.

The Writing Life

I recently attended an excellent conference put on by Midwest Writers Workshop. They hold both in-person and online conferences, and I attended four days of online sessions. The focus was on the business side of writing, with an emphasis on agents, querying, pitching, and how the publishing submission process works. Attendees had the option of pitching to agents and having their first pages and their queries evaluated. Even though most of the material in the sessions was not new to me, I found it useful and energizing to learn the latest industry trends, hear agents’ perspectives, and connect with other writers. I was curious to get feedback on the commercial viability of the novel I’m working on, and I received some useful and encouraging feedback.

I thought the sessions were remarkably good, and especially given the low cost of this conference, I would highly recommend attending their future conferences to both aspiring and already published authors.

Art and the Environment

I’m always on the lookout for art that reflects nature, particularly when it is both beautiful and makes connections to restoring or preserving our environment. So I was delighted to learn about Danish artist Thomas Dambo’s installations in Rhode Island of outsize troll sculptures crafted from scrap wood and old wooden pallets.

Dambo, who has installations in five continents and 20 countries, uses his talent to promote environmental awareness. He made his first troll on the Puerto Rican island of Culebra in 2014. He views his giant whimsical creatures as “unspoken warriors of the plants and animals that can’t speak.” There are five trolls so far in Rhode Island, the beginning of a statewide public art trail, set in locations that take a little exploring to discover. This makes them not only an environmental statement but also simply fun, luring people into nature with their magical presence. Several more trolls are currently in the works, and of course I plan to visit all of them (luckily R.I. is the smallest state!)

Book Recommendation

Beyond the Door of No Return by David Diop

I found this to be a fascinating novel—complex, rich, and a bit odd. It’s a father-daughter story, a romantic adventure set in the 1700s, a critique of colonial violence, a mystery, and above all, a very moving love story. It reads like a fable, with stories within stories, a style which Publishers Weekly calls “a captivating intergenerational epic influenced by Senegalese oral tradition.” I was drawn to the novel because it centers on the slave trade (a thread in my current work in progress), and delves into race, hierarchy, and cultural traditions with great depth and nuance. The title refers to Gorée, the place on “the island of slaves” from which millions of Africans were shipped to the Americas.

The story begins with the death of the main character, Michel Adanson, and a diary he leaves his daughter, Aglaé. The diary tells the story of a trip that Adanson, a botanist, takes in Senegal in the early years of French colonization. Diop gives us such uncanny specificity about this world that I felt compelled to research; I discovered that many of the characters, including Adanson, are based on real people, and many elements of the world he creates, which seem fantastical, are historically accurate, including the conflicts between rival kingdoms and the role of the Senegal Concession and its reliance on the slave trade.

When Adanson arrives in Senegal he is focused only on his work and worries little about the black population. Over the course of an arduous journey (to locate a woman, Maram, with whom he falls intensely in love), he has a radical transformation. Love is part of that, but so is language. He learns Wolof, the language of one tribe, and feels himself thinking and feeling differently. For instance, he now understands that the people’s tradition of saying prayers before cutting down trees shows their respect for nature and recognizes that “the fact that Black people did not build ships to sail to Europe so they could steal our land and enslave us seems to me proof… of their wisdom.” Still, nothing is so simple in Diop’s world; Adanson will go through several other changes in perception and politics. A desire for fame and prestige will distort his principles, illustrating how it’s possible for humans to rationalize our worst acts against others.

The novel loses some energy in the denouement, after Adanson returns to France. Also we never to Aglaé and what she makes of the diary and its revelations. Still Diop, whose previous novel At Night All Blood Is Black won the Booker prize, leaves us with beautiful contemplations like this one:

“I realized that painting and music have the power to reveal to ourselves our secret humanity. Through art, we can sometimes push open a hidden door leading to the darkest part of our being, as black as the depths of a prison cell. And, once that door is wide open, the corners of our soul are so brightly illuminated that our lies to ourselves no longer have an inch of shade in which they can take refuge, as if exposed to the African sun at its zenith.”

Wishing you the happiest of Thanksgivings

“Still, in that library I experienced loneliness, real loneliness, but also exquisite artistic loneliness: You’re lonely but also exquisitely happy if it’s snowing outside and you’re working on a novel. There’s nothing more gorgeous than that.” — Kiran Desai

Happy Anniversary to The Stark Beauty of Last Things

This is the two-year anniversary of the release of my novel The Stark Beauty of Last Things!! I want to thank each and every one of you for your support, encouragement, and readership. The responses to the novel were truly way beyond my expectations, and I am deeply grateful.

The Writing Life: Making Progress

I wonder if people other than “creatives” experience what Desai is talking about in her quote, above, the exquisitely happy feeling of total immersion in one’s work (snow is not, I think, essential). For me this flavor of happiness can only be experienced when I’m alone, and usually alone for many hours. It has a different quality, more piercing, than other kinds of happiness.

Progress on my novel revision has been slow, and not generating much happiness—exquisite or otherwise—these days, but I’m muddling through. In tandem with the writing I’m still continuing my research, most of it via reading, but sometimes through museums and other kinds of exhibits. One such, that also combined my interest in nature-based art, was recently at Sylvester Manor.

I’ve been especially eager to visit Shelter Island’s Sylvester Manor since I began writing my current novel, which has a focus on the slave trade in the northeast. The lands of Sylvester Manor were home for millennia to indigenous Manhansett People, then owned by an Anglo Dutch sugar consortium to run a “provisioning plantation” for the Barbadian sugar trade. It was worked by enslaved Africans as well as indentured or paid Native American and European laborers. The estate’s grounds are estimated to contain the unmarked graves of up to 200 enslaved servants and laborers. Since the 1600s it’s been owned by eleven generations of Sylvester descendants, at one time a food industrialist’s summer estate. Then, in 2014, it was gifted to a nonprofit organization for a completely different purpose.

Currently the site includes a 1737 Manor House, a restored 19th-century windmill, an Afro-Indigenous Burial Ground, and a working farm. It offers educational, history & heritage, and cultural arts programs.

The estate is situated on beautiful Dering Harbor and Gardiners Creek, which serve as backdrops for large-scale art. Here are a few of the sculptures in the recent exhibit “Paradise Lost.”

As I walked the grounds of the estate on a day when there were only a handful of other people, I tried to imagine the place alive with work and workers. Provisioning plantations were the means by which plantation owners ensured a steady supply of goods for their highly profitable sugar plantations in Barbados. These filled the gaps in the supply chain, providing resources that were not produced on the sugar islands.

At 236 acres, Sylvester Manor was one of the largest such provisioning plantations in the north, and it is the largest that is still intact. It’s remarkable that the young man who inherited this property in 2013, instead of keeping it for private use or selling to a developer, had an inspiring vision for what it could be. You can read more about this very happy turn of affairs here. It’s now a historical, educational, and archaeological treasure that in 2015 was designated a Historic District of national significance on the National Register of Historic Places.

Book Recommendation

This Is Happiness by Niall Williams

Oh, how I loved this book! My primary interest in fiction is a sense of place, and this novel explores place in a variety of ways. It’s set in the Irish village of Faha in County Clare, which was also featured in Niall Williams’ previous novel, “History of the Rain” (longlisted for the 2014 Man Booker Prize). In this new work, the narrator, Noe (short for Noel), is a 78-year-old man looking back to the spring of 1958, a summer when, miraculously, it never rains and when “the electricity” is about to come to this rural backwater. Noe has dropped out of the seminary after his mother’s death, reeling from grief, and gone to live with his grandparents in Faha, where he’d spent time as a child.

This is a novel that is as leisurely as it’s possible to get. As if to emphasize how slowly time moves in a “forgotten elsewhere,” Wlliams never rushes his plot or his prose. Faha comes alive in his hands with lovingly detailed descriptions of both the place and the social and cultural intricacies: “In the fields the cattle, made slow-witted by the rain, lifted their rapt and empty faces, heavy loops of spittle hanging, as though they ate watery light.”

What I found most extraordinary, though, is how he plumbs the depths of single moments, somehow conveying the quality of existence and, for lack of a better word, transcendence, in a way few writers can (Proust being one). Here’s an example of what I mean, plucked out of several pages of a description of a humble man singing a song in a pub: “He sang. After the first few lines I couldn’t look at him. Nobody could look at him. It felt like an intimacy you weren’t entitled to, but knew it privileged you and you didn’t dare move in case you broke whatever had made it happen. He sang the love song in a way that made you realise a reality that existed not outside but alongside and even inside the one you were accustomed to.”

It’s not all heightened rumination, though. Williams has a few strategies that give energy and tension to the novel. A stranger, Christy, boards with Noe’s grandparents and befriends him. Christy is ostensibly in town to work on the electrification project but is really there to right a romantic wrong, a situation that keeps us guessing until the very end. There’s also is the tender awakening of Noe’s romantic desires: He develops crushes on first one, then another, and yet a third daughter of the local doctor. This story line enhances the comic sensibility that is subtly present throughout the book, tempering its elegiac tone.

This Is Happiness is wise, witty, wonderful and just perfect for chilly autumn afternoons beside a fire.

Happiness Is Community

I struggled to come up with a short pithy message for my sign at the recent No Kings! protest. Then I hit upon a way to inject some humor into what is a Halloween-worthy scary time.

“Every secret of a writer’s soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind, is written large in his works.” — Virginia Woolf

Recent Events

Book Expo

This past month I enjoyed being a featured author at the Barrington Library Expo. It was an exquisitely beautiful day, and most of the authors expected very little foot traffic; we figured we’d spend the day sitting around chatting with each other. Instead we were pleasantly surprised that there was a steady stream of visitors and gratified to know there are still so many engaged readers. Being an introvert, and lousy at self-promotion (I still can’t describe my novels in a short, succinct way that makes them sound in the least appealing) I usually pass on events like book fairs. Somehow, this one turned out to be a real pleasure, with lots of fun conversations with readers and writers alike. I shared a table with Rick Claypool, a writer of “absurdist horror,” a delightful person whose skewed sensibility enlivened the day for me.

The Craft of Writing: Structure

Recently I hosted a discussion at Barrington Books with Susan Buttenwieser, author of Junction of Earth and Sky (see my book recommendation in last month’s newsletter). I’d never met Susan before being asked to host this event and thoroughly enjoyed talking with her about her writing process and the inspiration for her novel.

I was particularly interested in how Susan arrived at the structure of her novel, which has alternating points of view and many different timelines. Because of the complexity of her storytelling, I suspected that she must have had the overall story and its frame in mind at the beginning and was, in essence, working backward from where she knew the main characters’ stories ended. I was wrong. Instead, Susan explained that she started with one character and a sense of a location and vague story inspiration (from the lives of her in-laws during the London Blitz of World War II). She played around with developing that character and discovering how and why she arrived at the particular moment in time Susan envisioned for her. Later in the process Susan moved the chapters around like puzzle pieces (via short notes on index cards) until a shape she liked emerged. Just goes to show that there are many ways of approaching a novel and its structure!

In writing circles, writers are often described as plotters or pantsers in how we approach a longer narrative (plotters being those who outline and have a structure versus pantsers who work from the seat of their pants). For me, though, it’s a combination of both approaches. I usually begin with a theme and take notes, basically talking to myself about what I’m trying to do and thinking through different ideas and storylines. I want only the vaguest overall structure to start (so there’s room to move within it). I don’t begin writing untiI I have found the voice of my main character, which can take quite a while. Once I begin writing, though, I work the way Susan described, seeing where a character takes me and staying as open to new possibilities as I can.

With my current work in progress, which I began working on through workshops I was helping facilitate through bookinc, I incorporated the somewhat more structured approach they espouse, while still maintaining as much fluidity as I could.

When it comes to writing a novel I think that there’s no right way, and I find I am continually refining (or discovering?) my process each time around.

Life on the Coast

The season has turned here in New England. It’s time to cut back the lavender and stow away the hammock for the winter. Here are some (very amateur) photos from some recent walks around my town this past week, plus the last remaining flowers in the garden.

Book Recommendation

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy

Wild Dark Shore is Charlotte McConaghy’s latest novel after the huge successes of Migrations and Once There Were Wolves. It’s a stunner, set on an island between Australia and Antarctica, loosely based on Macquarie Island, a World Heritage Site and research station where scientists have been studying environmental change. McConaghy sets up the novel as a thriller, and the story is an intriguing one: For years, widower Dominic Salt has been the island’s caretaker, raising his three children in this natural paradise. But due to climate change, sea level rise is happening so fast the island will soon disappear. A boat is going to be picking the family up in seven weeks, the timeline of the novel, and the family is packing up what they can of the precious seeds that have been kept in a vault in case the world’s food supply needs to be regrown after environmental catastrophe. All the researchers have left, and the family is alone on the island. Into this tense situation a woman, Rowan, washes up on shore, just when Dom discovers the island’s communications equipment has been sabotaged, cutting them off entirely from the outside world. McConaghy slides between all five characters’ points of view, alluding to but not explaining various mysteries that pile up and keep the suspense high. I found some of the plot aspects strained plausibility, but what’s undeniable, and makes the book a must read, is how McConaghy’s plunges you into this evocative setting and her truly endearing characters, most especially the youngest boy, Orly. McConaghy writes as hauntingly of their emotional and inner lives as she does the captivating penguins, birds, and seals they live among. Thematically the book is equally rich, weighing questions like, if the world is coming to an end, do you embrace love? What do you save, the practical or the beautiful? Besides an elegy for nature, Wild Dark Shore is about families, and parenting, and choosing hope despite grief and loss. This is a gorgeous, heart-pumping, heart-wrenching and mesmerizing read.

A Musical Bon Mot

I made a discovery of a major musical talent, guitarist and composer Hwajong Jim, and want to spread the word. (I study classical guitar and occasionally write music reviews, and was delighted to recieve this assignment). Check out my review and his debut CD, “Mystery Story,” at Minor7th.com. Enjoy!

“Beat [writers’ block] into submission. That’s the only way. How would you get rid of runner’s block? You go for a fucking run.” — Ryan Holiday

Upcoming Book Events

Thursday, Sept. 4: Barrington Books
This coming week I’ll be at Barrington Books for a conversation with novelist Susan Buttenwieser about her debut novel Junction of Earth and Sky. It’ll be fun to be the one asking the questions about someone else’s book! Susan’s novel is beautifully written, heartbreaking and heartfelt, and I’m looking forward to probing the inspiration for the novel and some of the craft decisions she made, including how she arrived at the unusual structure she used. (See Book Recommendation below for more about the novel.)

Saturday, Sept. 13: Book Expo, Barrington Library
I’m thrilled to have been asked to participate in this fun book fair. It’s a chance to meet avid readers, share my work with others, and meet and mingle with other Rhode Island authors.

The Writing Life

I set aside this summer for revising my current work in progress, and it’s going a lot slower than I anticipated. I hit one of those writerly road bumps that invariably occur, and did the wise thing, which was to set the manuscript aside for a few weeks.

A planned break from a novel usually results in new insights and a boost of energy…but not this time! Maybe it was the heat, which was intense even in the mountains of upstate NY, or maybe it was the dreaded “writer’s block”? In any case, despite hard hard work, the novel is still resisting me.

So I’m taking another brief break while we have house guests - maybe that will do the trick! (My grandnephew Cayden is taking an interest in my bookshelf!)

Other Diversions

On our travels this summer it became a game for my husband and me to collect what is called barn quilts. By “collect” I mean something akin to train spotting – scouting for painted quilts and jumping out of the car to take photos from the side of the road.

The “quilts” are paintings, on wood, resembling a quilt square, which are affixed to the sides of barns or other buildings in rural areas. I love this kind of vernacular, or Americana, folk art. We discovered several areas in northern Vermont and in the Eastern Townships of Canada that feature the barn quilts. They became prevalent in the last several decades across the country, particularly in the Midwest and South. (This article from Southern Living provides some really fascinating history). According to the article, barn quilts began hundreds of years ago when immigrants from central Europe painted them to identify and decorate their barns. They now have become part of a grassroots public art movement.

(See close ups of some favorites at the bottom of the newsletter.)

Life on the Coast: Rising Seas exhibit

A recent exhibit at Blythewood mansion and arboretum combined science and art in an arresting way to bring attention to the problem of rising sea levels from climate change and the impact it will have on the local area where I live. Bristol county is a low-lying peninsula south of Providence, RI, where past development along shorelines escalates the problem.

The themes of rising seas and coastal erosion plays a big part in my novel The Stark Beauty of Last Things, set in Montauk, L.I., where the environmental organization I am still part of plays a big role in bringing awareness and solutions to the community. Now that I live in Rhode Island, which is far more developed, I am even more acutely aware of the issue.

The artist, Linda Megathlin, used maps, scientific renderings of projected seawater inundations, and photographs of the shoreline, melding them with her own artistic imaginings. Her goal was to present the scientific projections in an artistic manner to educate the public about the need to plan now for how to mitigate climate change so as to lessen the impact to our coastline and communities. The compilations depict what rising seas might look like in 2060-2100 if nothing is done. More about Linda and her work.

Book Recommendation

Juncture of Earth and Sky by Susan Buttenwieser

Susan Buttenwieser is also a short story writer—and it shows. She writes with precision and specificity, and in her debut novel Junction of Earth and Sky, her structure is also storylike. She jumps around in time and among characters, focusing on pivotal moments to illuminate their inner lives. The story centers on Alice; her daughter Denise; and her granddaughter Marnie. There are scenes of Alice’s youth in 1940s’ wartime England and Rhode Island, where she is sent to live; of her daughter Denise; and of granddaughter Marnie, raised by Alice because of Denise’s messed-up life of addiction. The book opens with Marnie in deep trouble. We read partly to learn how and why her life has gone off the rails and to root for her to overcome her problems. Buttenwieser took an unusual step in not presenting the story sequentially, forcing the reader to do the work of making the connections about the causes of family trauma and the ways it plays out and impacts a family over decades. I fell thoroughly in love with both Alice and Marnie, and their bond is so beautifully depicted that it transcends the heartbreak in the book and leads, ultimately, to a transformative and joyful end.

“Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.” — Kurt Vonnegut

Book Store Crawl

There’s nothing like meeting true book lovers when you’re doing a book event. Recently, when I was the featured author at Inkfish Books on Independent Bookstore Day, I met a group of lovely young women on what they called a “book store crawl.” I was intrigued and asked them what this was, exactly. Isabelle Gillibrand, who came up with the idea, explained that like a bar crawl, a book store crawl involves going from bookstore to bookstore—imbibing books instead of brews. I was enthralled by the notion and asked if we could meet up for a conversation so I could hear more. Isabelle agreed, and we discussed the background of her ingenious concept.

A couple of years ago Isabelle got the idea to visit as many Rhode Island bookstores as she could for Independent Bookstore Day. RI is a small and compact state, so it can be circumnavigated in a single day. After hearing about her adventure, a friend accompanied her last year, and this year a third joined in the fun. The friends visited a total of eight bookstores, starting out at 8 am on the west side of the state, going across Jamestown to Newport in the south, then heading up the East Bay until making it to Providence, where they hit three different bookstores before ending their pilgrimage at 5 pm.

Isabelle’s motivation was clear. She wanted to patronize bookstores and show the love, a kind of “proselytizing” for books and bookstores. The friends wanted to celebrate how bookstores foster connection and build community. Books are the foundation of their friendship, and books and bookstores are at the center of their lives.

Isabelle is a lifelong reader. She grew up in a home where reading was encouraged no matter what the content. When she travels, the first place she goes to is a local bookstore. Bookstores are a place to “land,” she explained. Once, when she had to spend many hours in an unfamiliar city, she found a bookstore where she was encouraged to stay as long as she liked. It’s this kind of welcome that motivates her to give back.

I was interested to know what the experience in various bookstores was like on Independent Bookstore Day. For instance, Inkfish, where I was signing books, had a special drink and empanada pairing for the day. Isabelle said one bookstore she visited had a bingo game focused on banned books, another had gift cards hidden among the shelves, and a third held a raffle. Such fun ideas!

The friends make sure at least one of them purchases something at each bookstore they visit. At the end of the day they stack up their haul and take a photo. They all have wide-ranging tastes, as is evident from their end of day book stacks. (Isabelle is even a member of three different book clubs!)

As much as I was impressed by the novelty and creativity of Isabelle’s book crawl idea and her passion for books, I was just as impressed that she and her friends weren’t doing any of this to promote themselves on social media. The book crawl wasn’t about about getting likes or becoming influencers or getting any kind of attention for themselves. It’s about a sheer love of books and bookstores.

What a lucky day for me to have met this smart, creative, and thoughtful group of women.

The Writing Life: Research and My Work in Progress

In my current work in progress my main character, Finn, is doing research to learn more about her family. I have her spending time at the Historical Preservation Society here in Bristol, housed in a lovely stone building that once served as the town’s jail. I’m not using my imagination in these scenes – the real building and its interior are simply too perfect for my purposes.

Even when I’m making things up completely I find it helps to find real-life correlatives for the places I’m inventing. I often wander around a town looking for the “right” house or workplace for a given character. If I find something that appeals I might borrow some of its details to add to those I’ve concocted.

Finn is staying in a cute B&B. Which of these houses do you think aligns with what I pictured in my mind for her summer in Bristol?

Life on the Coast: A Secret Garden

There’s a very special place in Little Compton, R.I., Sakonet Gardens. A labor of love spanning decades, the garden is a paradise of perennials. Designed of small enclosures, with walls created from piled logs or boxwood, the rooms lead from one to another via different entrances and exits, until finally opening out onto a wild meadow on the Sakonet River.

During a recent visit I meandered among the small secret gardens, marveling at the artistry of the owners, who have constructed and nurtured the garden with plants from all over the world. The garden is continuing to evolve, and in the plantings the owners play with textures and shapes and even light, situating flowers and shrubs with an eye to what will show them off to best advantage.

As a very novice picture taker I was unable to capture much of the garden’s magic, but here’s a glimpse.

Book Recommendation

Good Dirt: A Novel by Charmaine Wilkerson

Good Dirt hit the trifecta for me: it is thematically aligned with my work in progress, a fun read, and a learning experience all in one. The novel is also fascinating on a craft level, because it blends styles, with elements of both the literary and the commercial. The primary story is of Ebby, an upper class black woman with a prestigious heritage, who has been jilted at the altar; those parts read very much like mainstream “women’s” or family novels. Ebby is also working on a project to bring to life the history of an enslaved ancestor. Not only are those parts exquisitely written, but they also teach about the enslaved pottery makers in the period before the Civil War, who created alkaline glazed stoneware vessels used for cooking, called “jars,” that are now highly prized works of art. There were only about 75 of these potters, and some secretly signed their work or inscribed messages on them as a form of resistance. (A little more about them, including one who was the inspiration for Wilkerson’s character, can be found here.) The historical story adds depth to the present day dilemmas of Ebby and her family, and the separate storylines come together in a satisfying and emotionally resonant whole. Wilkerson is a very smooth and engaging writer with an appealing cast of characters. Her previous book, Black Cake, was a best seller. I’ll bet this one will be, too.

Activism in Bloom: Signs from the recent “No Kings!” rally on June 14^th

“In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.”
— Margaret Atwood, Bluebeard’s Egg

Life on the Coast

One of the most striking aspects of place is the subtle variations in what is grown and in flower, even in areas that aren’t that far apart geographically. In my novel The Stark Beauty of Last Things, set in Montauk, L.l, I include two flora that are distinctive in the area and that I especially loved. One is “Montauk daisies” (aka Nipponanthemum nipponicum, which originally came from coastal Japan) and the other is the shadbush, or shad trees (Amelanchier arborea). Both grow all over the peninsula -- the daisies in fall, the shad covering the hills in the spring -- but neither was in much profusion anywhere else on the East End of Long Island that I could see, not even in East Hampton just an isthmus away. I love how plants and trees can be markers, signifiers for specific places and microclimates, as these spell “Montauk” for me.

Like any author, I love hearing from readers, and many have, with chagrin, let me know that my book contained a typo. Having never heard of shad trees, these readers logically thought I meant “shade,” not “shad”—though as I went on to describe the fluffy white, delicate blossoms, they must have been a bit confused.

Shadbush is sometimes called Serviceberry, Shadblow, or Juneberry, and there are wonderful stories associated with it. The one I heard most often is that the tree was named because its bloom coincides with the arrival of shad fish that arrive in the spring to spawn, or blow—hence “shadblow.”

Another is that the first settlers in New England often planned funeral services at the same time the tree bloomed, so its blooming was a sign that the ground had thawed enough to dig graves—hence “serviceberry.”

I’ve been told of an award-winning children’s book When the Shadbush Blooms by Carla Messenger and Susan Katz in which a young Lenape Indian girl fishes for shad and recalls a time when her great, great grandmother did the same. Supposedly many Native American tribes used the plant for food and medicine and to make arrow shafts. Perhaps the Montaukett Indians of Long Island did the same.

Had I known of this, I’d have found a way to weasel that bit of lore into my novel for sure!

Where I live now I rarely see either of these white beauties. I miss them.

Events & News

Feature article

My local paper, the Bristol Phoenix, did a feature on me recently.

Independent Bookstore Day

I was invited to do a signing as part of Independent Bookstore Day at Inkfish Books in nearby Warren, our next town over. Warren is a cute historic town with a fun, funky vibe. It was a rainy cool day, but spirits were warm inside the store.

Book Discussion

On May 15 I had a thoroughly enjoyable, free-ranging conversation with participants of the Writer’s Retreat: Living Your Creative Life, run by Sheila Lewis. Sheila is a marvelous writer as well as a vibrant meditation/writing coach & teacher, blending both creativity and spirituality. The group met at a marvelous homestead in East Greenwich, R.I., which dates back to the 1600s and was owned by a prominent Rhode Islander who fought in the American Revolution.

Book Recommendation

Ben Shattuck, The History of Sound

I read and loved Shattuck’s nonfiction book, 6 Walks, but didn’t realize he was also a short story writer until a friend recommended The History of Sound. The stunning collection of linked stories (in that they occur in pairs, with something in one story being reflected in a later story and timeframe) set in New England. Shattuck, a master of the form, has a disarming way of drawing you in immediately and keeping you turning pages, yet there’s nothing obvious or overly dramatic about his plots or his characters. These are the kinds of stories you have to reread over and over if you want to attempt to figure out how he pulls off his magic. The language is spare and subtly easy to read, with descriptions of nature that leap from the page. That specificity is part of the spell he casts, a way to make you feel enmeshed in this world and feeling its power. “A flock of starlings warped over a field. A migrating Cooper’s hawk eased up and over a stone wall and then shot in front of his truck, gliding into a shock of tupelos.” The stories are imbued with an aura of history, memory, regret…something that makes them stick and linger in the mind, tapping one’s emotional core. The History of Sound is haunting, enigmatic, unique, brilliant and beautiful.

As late winter turns to spring (still chilly here in RI), I’ve been spending time outdoors with my sister, who came to visit for a month. It was wonderful sharing some of my favorite places with her: Daffodils at Blythwold arboretum; the pond with lilypads at Mount Hope Farm; a cove at Fort Wetherill and the lighthouse at Beavertail in Jamestown; Colt State park; the fairytale cottage where my sister stayed.

“The book to read is not the one that thinks for you but the one which makes you think.” — Harper Lee

A Shout Out to the Communities of Women in My Writing Life

In keeping with Women’s Month, I’m inspired to highlight several communities of (almost exclusively) women that are key to my writing life. They are also wonderful examples of “literary citizenship,” the ideal of mutual support.

First is She Writes Press, a groundbreaking publishing company, led by extraordinary Brooke Warner, a true visionary, who is publisher, writing coach, writer, and strong feminist leader. She Writes Press publishes only women (to address the structural imbalance in the industry, which privileges male over female authors). Brooke and the press also create a thriving community for its authors so we can learn from, share, and elevate each other.

Second is the Women’s National Book Association, which has been “connecting, educating, advocating, and leading since 1917.” The WNBA includes women who relate to the world of books as writers, publishing professionals, librarians, book sellers, and more. It has chapters throughout the country, with programming determined by individual chapters as well as national activities. I am proud to have served on the board of the NYC chapter before moving to Rhode Island, and am now an at-large member.

I participate in two other writing communities that are almost exclusively women. One is a writing group based in Montauk. It was started by Ed Johann during the pandemic to bring people together. (Ed is also co- editor, with me, of the anthology On Montauk: A Literary Celebration.) This is a wonderful group of sharp, sensitive, and smart readers and writers.

Project Write Now, a nonprofit that seeks to “transform individuals, organizations, and communities through writing.” I am an instructor in book inc, their Writers’ Institute, which was started by Greg Phelan. (Greg and I met while we were Fellows at StonyBrook Southampton.) Like my writing group, this organization’s ethos is to focus on elevating what works rather than analyzing what doesn’t.

Last, I participate in several reading groups (poetry, fiction, nonfiction). Listening to discussons by super smart women, and in particular what they find striking and meaningful, also nurtures my writing.

I am beyond grateful to these communities and the incredible women within them solely for who they are and for what I gain from them every day. But their spirit of generosity is even broader. Writers from these communities have attended my readings and events. Project Write Now promoted my book on social media and held a special event for me. She Writes Press authors have reached out to do joint readings and we’ve attended each other’s’ events as well. I’m excited to be participating soon in a writing retreat spearheaded by a WNBA board member this May.

So I celebrate this writerly sisterhood. Let me know of communities you are grateful for, whether writing groups, library discussions, or book clubs.

The Writing Life

In following the tendrils of various topics that emerge as I’m doing research for my current work in progress, I came across a fascinating exhibit on Black dolls at Linden Place, a museum in my town. My novel looks at the slave trade in Rhode Island, and some of the dolls reflect the journey of enslaved people from different tribes in Africa. Others were crafted by enslaved individuals once they arrived in America, often from scraps of material and cast-off buttons. The dolls were part of a 7,000 collection from the National Black Doll Museum of History and Culture and included African wrap dolls, black cloth dolls, and “wedding celebration” dolls. According to Cara Massey, Executive Director at Linden Place, the dolls “offer a glimpse into the culture and lives of the black men, women and children who made, played with, and are represented by them.”

The exhibit was eye-opening. I had been thinking of dolls simply as playthings, but the exhibit had much to say about racial identity and attitudes. Dolls often represented mammies, butlers, farmers, and domestic workers, often caricatures. One surprise was the existence of black paper dolls. Those on display were from the Arabella Grayson collection of over 300 that she has been collecting for decades.

I was struck by one doll maker, Leo Moss, who repurposed white manufactured dolls with papier-maché. Many of his dolls have a distinctive tear on the cheek. Though Moss apparently never explained what he meant by the tears, it’s easy enough to assume they reference the situation of black children in America.

Even darker-hued dolls often had Eurocentric features. I was fascinated to learn that in the early 1900s Marcus Garvey, disturbed that black children didn’t have dolls that looked like them, built a company to manufacture black dolls. The dolls were commercially successful, and other makers followed. In 1993 the American Girl line of fictional historical characters introduced its first African American doll, Addy. She was accompanied by books that told her life story, which was that she was born into enslavement in North Carolina, escaped to freedom with her mother near the end of the Civil War, and settled in Philadelphia.

Book Recommendation

American Ramble by Neil King Jr.

Here I am, recommending yet another nonfiction book about walking that is also about a sense of place. This one combines quite a bit of history, especially of slavery, and so it dovetailed nicely with aspects of what I’m working on in my fiction.

King sets off to walk from Washington D.C. to New York City, an odyssey of just under a month that he undertakes when in remission from cancer. He wanders forgotten roads and has encounters with intriguing people along the way. Friends sometimes join him for a brief spell, like the one who shows up with a kayak for a specific crossing. King visits battlegrounds, cemeteries, Amish farms, and landfills. His observations are wise, witty, and often profound.

He writes: “That field and all it had to say … drove home how in the remembrances of our past we too often neglect the primacy of place and fail to honor the patches of earth where fateful events occurred. So much is plowed under, paved over, washed away.” In his wanders he succeeds in bringing the past of forgotten places back to life.

More broadly, the book is a meditation on finding transcendent moments. He writes, “I stood to watch the river flow and bend around the rocks and thought about how many of us manage to seize our more magical stretches, our extended periods of maximum freedom. Fishermen work seams–-seams between slow water and fast, between deep water and shallow, between sunlight and shadow. The eddies around rocks, the bubble lines along banks. That’s where the fish are…. All of us have little fissures in our lives that provide us greater than normal moments of freedom. You play the seams when you identity those moments and seize them.”

Happy Spring!

Honoring Black History

As a writer and a reader, a “sense of place” is what I’m after. Place— where a story is centered—is obviously present in all fiction to some degree or another, but it plays a larger role in some novels than others. Those like Weike Wang’s (Chemistry and Joan Is OK) rely much more on voice and humor than on locale. On the other hand, try and imagine Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë without the moors or State of Wonder by Ann Patchett without the Amazonian rain forest. And it’s not just about locale: “sense of place” also encompasses the history and socioeconomic milieu in which a story situates itself.

For my current work in progress this sense of place refers to coastal Rhode Island as well as to a unique, and chilling, aspect of its history that is inextricably entwined with Black history. In New England there were enslaved people of African descent from colonial days onward, a fact that is little known. Even less known is that Newport, and nearby Bristol, the small town where I live, was at the center of the U.S. slave trade from the late 1700s through the early 1820s. Bristol has a deep-water seaport perfect for ocean-going ships. The most notorious of the slave traders, the Bristol-based DeWolf family, alone brought an estimated 11,000 people out of Africa. It was the shock of learning this history—and the extent of the North’s overall involvement in the economics of slavery—that sparked the idea for my novel.

The Role of Research in Fiction

How to balance research and writing is always an issue for fiction writers, even when we are not specifically writing historical fiction. As I’m composing scenes I might find myself wondering about something or I need information, so I switch from the writing into reading and researching. Of course I find myself going down proverbial rabbit holes as I come upon fascinating material. For this specific novel my research has been quite broad, ranging from the slave trade, to the abolitionist movement in New England, to structural racism, and so much more. I just finished reading about the former enslaved woman who worked at the White House during the Civil War—Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker: The Unlikely Friendship of Elizabeth Keckley and Mary Todd Lincoln, by Lynda Jones—and Middle Passage, a novel by Charles R. Johnson about the final voyage of an illegal American slave ship. So many more books are waiting, and yet only a fraction of the research I do will end up in my novel’s pages. Nevertheless, and as has been expressed often, the research behind a work of fiction can be sensed in the way the viewer senses the mass of an iceberg from what is visible above water.

On a personal level, having woken up to how deeply entrenched the North was in slavery, and the complicity of everyone at the time, I am more aware of how the repercussions continue into our own day, and the increasing importance of the fight for racial and economic justice.

Events and News

With The Stark Beauty of Last Things now a year and a half old, there won’t be much in terms of news or events, and so I was especially surprised and pleased to see the novel show up in a roundup of recommended reads in the February issue of Rhode Island Monthly.

Also late in the game was a new five-star review from NetGalley (a book-review service that’s important in the publishing industry because the reviewers are usually librarians and other industry professionals).

The most recent one says:

”This is such a fine story about family, community and our environment, clearly invoking the title of stark beauty.”

But my favorite NetGalley review is this one:

“Wow wow wow!!! I hadn’t read anything by Celine Keating or even heard of her before this book, but boy am I excited that I’ve come across it. I would recommend this book to fans of Claire Keegan or Anne Patchett, and I’m surprised that Keating hasn’t become as popular as these other writers already!”

Two of my favorite novelists - wow indeed! (though it’s Ann, not Anne, Patchett).

Book Recommendation

Night Swimmers by Jody Winer

Usually I talk about fiction (with an emphasis on the environment), but this month I’m recommending a glorious chapbook, Night Swimmers, by Jody Winer. Jody is a personal friend, and this is my favorite of her collections. Night Swimmers is from Seven Kitchens Press, where each copy is personally created by the publisher.

With titles like “Forced Forsythia,” “Moon Snail Shell,” “Spring Snow,” and “Night of the Unseen Meteor Showers,” Winer signals an intense connection to the natural world, which she describes with exquisite prose. Sometimes there is grief and loss (“a lone female roosted in a lone tree, her swamp razed by loggers”); at other times there is the solace of natural beauty and the joy of connection, whether to humans or other creatures. These are themes in my own book, and resonated deeply for me.

From “The Hummingbird”:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

I am awed by how he takes 
what he desires, nectar from flower mouths
of trumpet vines and blue-pink salvias, as if
my garden exists to serve him. As if all I have is his.

And from “Domain of the Flameback Angelfish”:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

Tides floated us above Fire, Brain, and Staghorn
Coral, glowing violet, red, yellow, as if lit
From within. Sleek as sharks, we swam
in tandem. Lacy sea fans beckoned.

The collection ends with a profound statement of hope, “Insidious Joy”:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

Try as I do to shut it out
          joy weasels through a crack
in my blackout curtains
          where frigid daybreak
glows torrid orange
          and in the kitchen
a tart clementine
          startles my mouth
as I put away yesterday’s
          now clean plates
there seems no limit
          to hot bathwater
or wool socks
          coddling my feet
and if the dog sets free
          an exquisite miniature sneeze
while my fingers raise
          a book’s silky page
red sugar maples
          will dapple dead grass and Coltrane
blowing over the radio will make
          a sparrow by the window
hush then rev up

I found so much to love about the collection; it’s full of wit, startling observations, and complexity: “a tart clementine startles my mouth” …the dog’s “exquisite miniature sneeze” – priceless!

(To order the chapbook, click here >)

Library Love

February is Library Lovers Month: Let your library and staff know how much you appreciate them. Here are some bookish valentines for you!

Holidays over, like many, I feel the turmoil of this dark political moment, and my mind swirls with thoughts of “what can I do?” The chaos being unleashed by the current administration includes opening up fragile lands to drilling, rescinding approvals for wind projects, attempting to deny the right to citizenship of those born here, and more. As much as I’m eager to jump into action, I’ve needed time to process all that’s going on and consider where I can best be helpful. What’s most crucial to tackle at this time? The assaults on democracy itself? The rollbacks on environmental regulations?

My current novel in progress includes themes of racism, identity, and the anti-CRT (critical race theory) movement, and I’ve been absorbed in reading and research on these topics. Here in Rhode Island, people of color, both the formerly enslaved of African descent and the indigenous Native Americans were in essence driven out, whether from economic forces or racism. The parallels to today’s deportation efforts are obvious. Various churches and organizations are making plans to respond to federal efforts to round up immigrants at schools, churches, and hospitals. Likely this is where I’ll focus my efforts.

I’ve just finished reading Paris in Ruins, about the effect of the Siege of Paris (1871) on the future Impressionists. This period, right after the Franco-Prussian War, was a time of violence and chaos. Manet, Monet, and others had great difficulty doing their art. The artists were caught up in the politics as well as confused about how they should respond, artistically, to what they were seeing and experiencing. I’ve been struggling with these issues, as I’m sure many of you are as well.

On a daily basis I try to focus first on the writing and save time later for political news and activity. To do good work, artistic and otherwise, we need to keep sane – think of the instructions to put on your oxygen mask before that of your child.

I’m finding my oxygen these days in periods of utter stillness.

Events and News

Lunch with the Author

I was really tickled and honored when a friend asked me if I was willing to do a “Lunch with the Author.” The lunch would be his holiday gift to several friends who had read and enjoyed The Stark Beauty of Last Things. What a fun and clever idea. This was hands down the most creative book event I’ve done!

The Book Writers’ Forum

I’m co-teaching a new program offered by book inc (Project Write Now). The sixth-month course is a quasi-accountability group for writers to work on the submission process and explore publishing paths, agent searches, queries, and more.

Nature and the Environment

I saw a powerful exhibit recently at the New Bedford art museum related to climate change. Arctic Voices “illuminates the contrasting worldviews, philosophies and environmental attitudes that have shaped how artists from different times and cultures have represented the Arctic and its inhabitants.”

Book Recommendation

The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan

This delightful book chronicles novelist Amy Tan’s obsession with observing and drawing the birds that frequent her own backyard. It’s a lovely book even just to page through for her marvelous drawings and it’s got tons of fascinating information for those who are curious about birds and their behavior. Tan is also quite funny, too. Impressively, she took her first drawing lessons at the age of 64—talk about “still blooming!” On a deeper level the book is a model for the benefits of paying attention and being in the moment. I’ve been reading a few pages a day as a meditation and to find moments of calm. I absolutely guarantee it will lift your spirits as well.

Life on the Coast

The season calls for gift giving and celebration, but from everyone I talk to, these dispiriting political times are engendering despair and a desire to turn inward. My holiday wish for each and every one of you is that you make time for joy wherever you can find it – in music, in nature, in books, in holiday light displays – and particularly in the comfort of others. Coming together is more important than ever.

I’ve had to work a little harder this year to summon holiday spirit as well. Here are a few shots from around town that made me smile (at the bottom of the newsletter you’ll see some of our own “nautically themed” outdoor decorations).

The Writing Life

With the intense activity surrounding my latest book’s launch over a year ago now at an end, 100% of my focus can be on writing. I’m deep into revising a draft of a new book, working on new scenes, honing others, and doing research to fill in the gaps. I took a different approach to writing this novel than to my others, which I will talk with you about here in the coming months. For now, let me share some inspiration that I am gaining from the following book.

Book Recommendation

The Creative Act: A Way of Being, by Rick Rubin

The Creative Act: A Way of Being, by renowed record producer Rick Rubin, is a kind of primer, a meditation, and a book of inspiration. I read a little bit every day. Some of what Rubin has to say really lands for me personally while some is a bit simplistic. He includes an excellent list of the kind of thoughts and habits that inhibit work (like starting out with goals that are too ambitious) and posits the difference between a craftsperson (someone who knows what she wants to create and does it) and an artist: “If you begin with a question and use it to guide an adventure of discovery, that’s the work of the artist.” “An adventure of discovery” - I love that. The pages of my copy of the book flutter with the scraps of paper markers.

Rubin’s belief is that everyone is a creator in some way or other, in the sense that life is far richer when we live with creative purpose. The book is filled with short pithy quotes, the kind to type up and put over your desk. Here are just a few:

“Good habits create good art. The way we do anything is the way we do everything. Treat each choice you make, each action you take, each word you speak with skillful care. The goal is to live your life in the service of art.”

“The real work of the artist is a way of being in the world.”

“No matter what tools you use to create, the true instrument is you. And through you, the universe that surrounds us all comes into focus.”

At a minimum, the book is an exercise in observing and being attuned to the moment. For those so inclined, may this book guide you on your own creative path!

How to Buy Books

A few people have asked me where it’s best to purchase my books (and thank you thank you to those of you who have!). While the answer is, “anywhere books are sold,” I love when purchasers choose independent bookstores. For online purchases, I recommend Bookshop.org.

Bookshop supports independent bookstores in a unique way. As the customer, you choose the specific store you would like to get a percentage of any purchases you make. Pretty cool, right?

Book News & Events

To celebrate that The Stark Beauty of Last Things was chosen as a Great Group Reads my publisher is lowering the price of the ebook version to $2.99 (on Amazon and elsewhere) starting Nov. 20^th. The promotion will run for 10 days.  

Remember: It’s not hoarding if it’s books!

I was delighted to be featured on Canvas Rebel.  It’s a fun online website – check it out!

Turn to Nature

Late autumn always seems to be a period of reflection for me, and more so this year after our recent election. Like many others, I’ve found myself embracing the company of like-minded friends—to talk, yes, but simply to be together.  That’s also translated to a lot of walks! 

In the northeast we have been experiencing an unprecedented drought, with fires erupting in nearby states. This meant there was no bonfire at our friends’ annual Halloween gathering. It’s also meant day after day of gorgeous weather, with mostly cloudless skies. 

A bit too distracted to spend long hours at my work or even reading, done with garden chores and not yet sure how to engage with the world in a meaningful response to the moment in which we find ourselves, I’ve learned once again that physical activity, and soaking up nature’s beauty, help the most in quieting the spirit. 

Walking with friends is the best medicine for me right now.

Book Recommendation

Arroyo Circle, by JoeAnne Hart

Arroyo Circle is definitely a novel for our moment. Focusing on the environment and climate change, it opens with a raging forest fire and ends with a catastrophic flood. It centers on human beings with great empathy – and humor – in all our frailty. Hart is a masterful writer, adept at pondering overarching philosophical and scientific themes through the lives of relatable, well-drawn characters. Her writing is sharp, smart, and achingly beautiful when describing the natural world. 

The fast-paced, thoughtful story is set in Boulder, Colorado. Its main characters are Shelley, an “everywoman” who is just trying to get by, and Les, a solitary in a homeless encampment on the side of the creek that abuts her property. Les is AWOL as a scientist and a parent, an alcoholic philosopher whose ramblings are hilarious, mystical, and attuned to our endangered natural world. Like one of Shakespeare’s fools, he is off his head but speaks deep truths. I was impressed especially with Hart’s ease in describing and explaining natural phenomena through his point of view: “Dust and ashes rise in the wind from exposed ground, get blown on top of the snow, accelerating the melting, which exposes more ashen ground, which blows more dust on the snow, accelerating the melting. The system will keep repeating itself, and then the system will keep repeating itself. A lethal loop. A crazed red and silver striped dragon chasing its tail, creating dust devils….Turbulence was the best way of moving energy across spacetime, a fundamental organizing principle of physical systems, creating unimaginable power.”

The novel weaves in other threads – the COVID crisis, guilt and blame, homelessness and hoarding, lost and saved babies. Overall, Hart reminds us of how beautiful our world, and how careless we have been in failing to protect it.  And the story reminds us that whatever may be in store as a result, it’s the moments of connection and grace and compassion that may be all we can rely on to help us through.

Another recommendation: For those looking for perspective right now, I highly recommend this essay by Shannon Watts.

Playing with Fire

The sacred pause between the election and what comes next

Fire, by Judy BrownWhat makes a fire burn is space between the logs, a breathing space. Too much of a good thing, too many logs packed in too tight can douse the flames almost as surely as a pail of water would.So building fires requires attention to the spaces in between…

Read more

2 years ago · 375 likes · 31 comments · Shannon Watts

I’m thrilled to share my latest news: The Stark Beauty of Last Things was chosen as a Great Group Read!  

Each year the National Women’s Book Association’s team receives hundreds of submissions from publishers in the U.S. and beyond for consideration, and choses just 20. What’s so compelling is the list is shared with book clubs, libraries, and book stores to give readers the opportunity to learn about lesser-known authors. 

To put it mildly, I’m beyond honored to be among the stellar authors on this list!

And to celebrate, as a special promotion, my publisher will lowering the price on the ebook version soon - stay tuned.

Nature Is on the Ballot

The last four years have ushered in more environmental progress in the U.S. than in many decades, even if still slower than what we desperately need to see happen. Under another Trump presidency, however, environmental change will not just halt but actually reverse. Don’t take my word for it. Here are just the most egregious of the reversals in climate policy he has repeatedly pledged he will accomplish:  

1. The burning of fossil fuels accounts for a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions generated by the U.S. Recent regulations mandate that coal plants must either deploy technology to capture nearly all their emissions or shut down completely. This would cut over 1.3 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide by 2047, but Trump has said he will reverse these regulations. He will also greenlight the construction of “hundreds and hundreds” of new power plants. 

2. Of Biden-imposed limits on pollution from automobile tailpipes, as well as rules that the majority of new passenger cars and light trucks be all-electric or hybrid by 2023, Trump has stated that “the first order of business” will be to “unwind all of that.”

3. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 has put over $370 billion in tax credits to shift the U.S. to cleaner forms of energy.  (I personally benefitted when receiving a pretty nice rebate for installing heat pumps, and relatives similarly had the cost of roof solar reduced dramatically.) Donald Trump has pledged he will get rid of these tax credits.  

4. While the Biden administration has disappointed and angered me in approving oil and gas drilling, it has at least paused permits for new export terminals. Trump has promised to lift that pause and greenlight pipelines and other energy projects. He is also expected to revive drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other special and sensitive public lands. 

Overall, it is estimated that Trump’s policies will add four billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere, according to a study by Carbon Grief, a climate analysis site.

5. Also lost will be investments in environmental justice, those measures that aim to reduce pollution in marginalized communities and provide affordable and clean energy and jobs in low-income neighborhoods.

As Stephen Markley, author of The Deluge and Ohio: A Novel, has written: “This makes the 2024 election a singular event in the climate crisis…. Despite a number of headwinds, renewable energy capacity boomed last year, increasing 90 percent globally….We must accelerate that momentum at all costs.”

Please vote for the climate on Nov. 5^th.

Events

Earlier this month I was the guest author for Ashawagh Hall’s Author Night, in Springs, Long Island. Moderator Biddle Duke and I had a spirited conversation that ranged from the genesis of The Stark Beauty of Last Things, overbuilding on the East End of Long Island, and more.  

Last week I had a marvelous time with author Andrea Ezerins, author of Again and Again Back to You, at Charter Books in Newport. Our conversation, titled “From Inspiration to Publication,” focues on our novels and our publishing experiences.

What a lovely way to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the publication of The Stark Beauty of Last Things! Many thanks to Charter Books for hosting.

(Contrary to appearances, I do own other clothes! But this vest, a birthday gift from my husband, is just so autumnal I couldn’t resist wearing to both events.)

Novel Recommendation

The Width of the Sea, Michelle Chalfoun

Although this is a decades’ old novel, I think it deserves a wider audience for those, like me, who are drawn to themes related to the environment and the ocean. It pulled me deep into the fabric of the hardscrabble life of a New England community down on its luck with the crash of the cod fishing industry. The novel is set in Rosaline, a New England fishing community facing the loss of its traditional way of life and struggling against the imposition of fishing quotas, the closing of the local cannery, and an incipient tourist economy. Into this mix comes a crew of sailors to work on the restoration of a schooner destined to be the main attraction of the maritime museum, which intensifies the tensions in the town and becomes a breaking point for some.

The sympathetic but thwarted characters are all entangled in dangerous waters of one kind or another, from drug smuggling to physical danger to marital issues. I was as fascinated to learn more about the economics and lifestyle of the fishing life as I was moved by the struggles of characters caught in a complex net of change outside their control. Chalfoun writes with sensitivity and power, making The Width of the Sea an unforgettable novel.

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