Lucy is three years old, my grand daughter is nearly two and my grandson is almost five. During their visit, Lucy sat as closely to them as they liked. She watched them play, and she hovered if there were tears. If the tv went on, she curled up next to them, and rested, her snout on an arm or against a leg. It was sweet, as if she knew, “This is my boy and this is my girl.”

Now that Marigold McGrath is out in the world, my mornings and evenings include glances at the reviews ticker, and fretting on how to do more for my book. Thanks to the incredibly generous and outrageously clever Eva Natiello, I summoned the courage to approach our local bookstore. Then, joy of joys, came my first ever experience with my novel being in an actual book store!

Like the birth of my grandchildren, seeing my book on a shelf, between other writers’ books, has been mind blowing. Is that what they mean when they say the journey is more meaningful than the destination? Who knows? It’s been humbling and daunting.

Below is a clip from Eva’s insights on how to harness the energy of an Instagram book tour which Marigold will be starting in a week or so. I originally posted this for my last book some time ago, but if you’re in the marketing trenches, I do find Eva’s thoughts incredibly helpful.

About Spotted Dick.

This dessert appears early in my book. Because Marigold is American, she does react to the name. We can’t help it. It’s just cultural. Spotted Dick is a steamed, also known as suet, pudding. The word ‘dick’ is actually derived from the word ‘puddick’ (you know, like pudding) hence, the abbreviation, dick. It’s desperately British and is served swimming in custard. It became a thing during the nineteenth century and there are various ways to make it. Many of them involve hours and hours and, needless to say, suet. I am not someone who has hours to spend steaming pudding, nor am I accomplished at making anything that involves suet. So in the spirit of a twenty first century hack, here is a link to Nancy Birtwhistle’s online recipe for Quick Spotted Dick. If you do decide to make it, don’t be afraid. Spotted Dick is quite tasty, very gentle and somewhat reassuring.

As for being remiss-

I often am. I think more of us are remiss than we’d care to admit, but, in that vein, it is worth reminding ourselves, that there is always someone somewhere to whom we owe a debt of gratitude and without whom, some of the good things in our lives might not otherwise have happened.

To that end, I’d like to salute some great writers’ and their new releases:

My pal, Eva Lesko Natiello’s The Dog Sitter

My good friend and colleague Trish MacEnulty’s The Furies of Winter

and the incredible Substack of Jackie Pick’s Word Circle Chronicles which never fails to make me think and to make me laugh.

These three women are fabulous, and their work is just as good! So go on then, steam that pudding and have a great read!

A few weeks ago, The Making of Marigold McGrath kicked into high gear. Here she is in a pretty green sweater, from an earlier version, standing in Paris, using a camera that was simply too current for the book.

Yet when I was writing Marigold’s story, I saw her as someone like this…

At the time, while getting to know her, I wasn’t bound to historical accuracy. The girl in this photo more closely resembles someone who loved Carole King’s Tapestry album and Wendy Wasserstein’s Uncommon Women and Others… But what was important to me about this little picture was the Rolleiflex camera, her concentration and her disregard for her own appearance. I wrote a few times to the person who’d posted it, but there was never any response. And it wasn’t important, it was just something which had caught my eye and my fancy.

In the novel, Marigold starts out with a Brownie, then she’s gifted a Leica. Only after she’s been in London a few months does she branch out and begin to tackle the Rolleiflex. The Leica is her go-to instrument and its not without some effort that she begins to enjoy working with the Rolleiflex. As the story developed, I continued looking far and wide for pretty girls, photographed in the 30’s and 40’s completely absorbed with their Rolleiflex cameras.

Here’s one. But she’s with some guy… and I didn’t want some boy adjacent in the cover….

Here’s another

But there were just too many issues with this one here, as well.

You can’t judge a book by its cover, goes the old saying, but all of us know, it’s what people do. Because most people, book shoppers included, do judge a thing by its initial appearance, and in the world of book covers we really don’t have more than three seconds to get the reader’s attention. The gal who ended up being on the cover, shown below in close up, still with a contemporary camera model, is so lovely (albeit a bit skinny) that I was sure she was some kind of AI cut out.

Reader, I was wrong! She’s an actual person, shown in various poses on a website called ArcAngel where one licenses the image one should like to use. It features countless WW2-ish scenes, Victorian scenes, Roman scenes, Edwardian scenes, you name it.

The thing about this Marigold which I find arresting is that her coloring, her eyebrows and her gaze are not unlike my mom’s, so there’s an aspect to this girl I find knowable, if not reassuring. Marigold, if she were a real person, would have been seven years older than my mother, so somehow, chronologically, it all seems to work out.

So, it was back to the camera. Marigold’s is a 1936 Leica III. There was much discussion around the lenses and what not,

but the real challenge was to get Marigold, her camera and her setting exactly where it just felt she should be.

Here she is below, in all her book cover glory.

Shaun Loftus and her team at The Book Whisperer are responsible for this beauty. I met Shaun six years ago when Naked Truth or Equality hit the scene and it was immediately apparent how super smart and on it Shaun is. Consequently, I knew that if I ever had my druthers to get it together with another book, I would seek her out. But After Naked Truth, came Well Dressed Lies, which I thought I could birth myself. And no, reader, if you’re not really methodical and detail oriented enough to understand what you’re doing and how to do it, then you’re only doing your book a disservice.

At it’s essence, Marigold’s story is about her coming of age and seeing the world as it is, rather than as she prefers it to be.

What you see on this cover with the plum colored cardigan is where you’ll find her when the book goes to market, looking at us, as we look at her, looking at us.

“To take a photograph is to align the head, the eye and the heart.” - Henri Cartier Bresson

The Making of Marigold McGrath will be available everywhere, April 29th.

It’s been eight weeks since I lost the power to concentrate … It happened- as I imagine it has for a good many people- as the Epstein files unfolded. Then there was the posturing over Greenland, followed by the murders by ICE, their abduction of five year old Liam, not to mention the old guy in his underpants and crocs, only to have one’s head spin with another 3 million Epstein files which we know barely scratch the surface.

Women who’ve survived abuse, assaults and just general awfulness, have written of being re-traumatized alongside Epstein’s survivors. Others of us, whose experiences barely compare with the survivors’ nightmares, have found our brains stunned by frustration and despair that all of this, all of this, is outrageously familiar on a dreadful, perverted, horrendous level.

When I was a girl, I was very plucky, seemingly worldly, pretty, but not a great beauty. We lived in New York City and my mother would admonish me, “You be careful at that bus stop. It’s the heart of the white slave trade, you know.”

To which I’d roll my eyes and saunter out the door, too proud to confess I had no idea what the white slave trade was.

Sometimes, she’d say, “You be careful, or you’ll wake up in a bathtub, covered in ice, with the hospital’s phone number written on a note resting on top of it!”

And I’d blithely nod, “Yeah, yeah,” then make arrangements for an evening out with my chums.

And yet, growing up, there were some close calls. I once stayed with a girl whose grandfather chased me through their house- not for a game, but in his efforts to grope and do worse to me. I was fourteen years old, and astonished myself at how swiftly I could run and squirm and get away. It was scary and nerve wracking. By the third time he went for me, I had learnt to never be within his arms’ reach, no matter where and no matter what.

By the time I got to college, the perils and what could happen were exponentially more dangerous. Now, looking back through a 60 year old’s wizened lens, it’s fair to say that much of that time was regrettable.

In my book, Naked Truth or Equality, there is a sexual assault which occurs at a masked ball in 1869. Historically, the incident involved two girls. The girls were raped and abducted and afterward imprisoned in a brothel. Naked Truth is historical fiction so for simplification’s sake, I conflated them into one girl, who looks little more than 13 years of age. But the assault is something which truly happened.

When my protagonist, Tennessee Claflin (who had witnessed the incident) reported it in her newspaper, she was sued for libel by one of the assailants, who was named Luther Challis. An ugly trial ensued and ultimately she was acquitted. But in her initial reporting of the incident, she used the phrase ‘token virginity’ which resulted in an obscenity charge.

Tennessee and her sister, the more famous Victoria Woodhull, (who was the first woman to run for President in this country) with whom she published Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly were one of the first defendants to be prosecuted under the nefarious Comstock Laws.

Which is really my point.

When women stick up for themselves and speak out - the patriarchy just doesn’t like it very much. Perhaps one of the most appalling details in all of this Epstein stuff- and there are SO MANY to choose from - is that we have not evolved!! What is going on? When will society, people, all people, all men and women declare that enough is enough is enough is enough?

My anecdote about my friend’s lecherous grandfather took place in Tehran, about two weeks before the bombing of a cinema which killed 400 movie goers, kick starting the Iranian Revolution. But I had returned home by then, filled with memories that have stayed with me to this day. Darting around the dining room, wriggling away from this man, I was too naive to give voice to what I was fleeing, but instinctively, I knew, that despite his playfulness, there was something cruel waiting in the darkness. Another striking exchange I had on that visit was with my friend’s beautiful cousin, I will call her S. S. was a student at UCLA at the time, and I asked her if she would stay in Los Angeles or move back to Iran after she finished school. She said, “Oh I will come back to Tehran. American men don’t respect women. Not like the Persian men do in Iran.”

It was nearly 50 years ago that she said this. Reader, I’ll just leave that with you.

Despite recent events, there is no way to know what will happen next in that country.

For too many girls, the evil hand of coercion still waits, ready to reach out and grab them, no matter how they might try to escape.

Stand with survivors. Release the the rest of the files.

Fifty one years ago, my dad had a little talk show which was broadcast out of WNET in New York. It was thirty minutes long, Monday through Friday. It ran for about two years and change, until it was replaced by the McNeil Lehrer News Hour which eventually became that venerable institution now known as PBS News Hour.

Recently, my brother gathered the surviving tapes of the show and mounted them on YouTube.

Cleaning out my email, I came across a spreadsheet of the episodes and their topics (mind you, these shows were broadcast 50 years ago)

1. The Working Class - the real Silent Majority

2. Is there a future role for Revolutionaries?

3. Morality and Government - to Resign or not to Resign

4. Black History Reconsidered

5. CIA and the 4th Amendment Spying on U.S. Citizens

6. Mobil vs. Environmental Protection

7. Jews and American Politics

8. Banking - Changes in the Industry and the Need for Further Regulation

9. The Plight of the Syrian Jew

10. Does our Present Penal System Work?

11. The True Nature of Politicians

12. There is a High Probability of the Existence of Intelligent life Elsewhere in the Universe and Contact with them could prove to be Highly constructive.

Wide ranging conversations to do with Hemingway, World Hunger, the PLO, feminism and the state of the New York Times. During the show’s run, it was mandated I watch it whenever possible. Reader, you can imagine that for a ten year old, watching Roundtable, was a very, very slow kind of torture. Now- I look at the guest list, people like Angela Davis and Pat Moynihan, Germaine Greer and actors and poets and it’s breathtaking, because the kernels of these conversations, and what we talk about now, today, ARE LARGELY UNCHANGED.

Which is my point. I can’t believe that we have moved so very little forward over a half century. Technologically, what with AI et. al, we are living in a world that many of those folks who appeared on this show might never have imagined. And yet, on a human level, we have only moved forward the very teeniest amount, because we are so insistent on continuously moving backwards as humans, rather than moving forwards. It’s really sad, I think. The white washing and actual eradication of history- history (!)- is just mind blowing.

It’s both complicated and simple. Insisting on an either/or position has done little to move anyone’s understanding forward.

When her novel, The Fraud was published, the magnificent Zadie Smith appeared on Terry Gross and observed, “We are adults, we can hold conflicting ideas at the same time.”

And yet, that’s not very much in vogue these days, is it? What follows are a couple more paragraphs from their conversation where Zadie says,

“What is going on in America is the long term consequence of a kind of binary argument that happens online and is the opposite of thought in my view. It’s the opposite of history, the opposite of understanding. It’s like a childish football game. You win, I lose…History is something we participate in together. We are all involved in history and all have something to gain from understanding what happened, exactly what happened.”

Terry’s response was, “In America, people are obsessed with their ancestry and they want to know their personal history, but in the meantime, history is being white washed or eradicated from (being taught) in schools.”

Zadie Smith: “It’s like a kind of magical thinking. I know when I’m studying Jamaica, that I can have a profound sentimental feeling and say, ‘I’m writing about my ancestors,’ I know I am… but my duty to them goes beyond the personal. I would hope the duty I feel towards them, any human would feel. Of course, my interest comes from the fact, that my ancestry is from there, but to me, it is a human interest, and when I’m writing those pages I want to do absolute justice to the truth.”

My feelings about history and the horrors from the last couple of years - from Maine to the Middle East - are dreadful reminders that many shameful, tragic lessons, be it the Holocaust or Rwanda or Darfur, Vegas or Uvalde, or Sandy Hook remain unlearnt.

Yet as bleak as so much of this year has been, there were a series of firsts, which at the age of sixty one, are always welcome!

I had my first black bear sighting.

I made my first attempt at creating an avatar.

I received my first no merci, from an agent for the latest manuscript I’ve started querying.

I performed my first efforts at using an electric hand sander on my deck in preparation to re-stain it.

The list goes on: a first at cooking a bone-in leg of lamb; attending a town council meeting in the place where I live; reading my first JoJo Moyes novel,

and my first go at being serious about Pilates.

In the meantime, I continue to struggle with keeping the issues and politics which divide my family away from our time together. It’s difficult, but politicians do not deserve to hold that sway over our lives. So we go on, muddling forward, in a word that I learned for the first time, this morning. We coddiwomple, which means (according to AI, haha!) “a wandering purposeful mindset.” I mean, what’s not to love about that?

I learnt this word courtesy of villaamerica, which is the Instagram handle of a delightful gal who moves through New York’s art world.

Here’s to 2026. Let it be filled with joyous coddiwompling filled with firsts, with wonder and with love.

I interviewed Gail Lehrman about Across Seward Park last year. You can find our discussion here.

It’s the story of a New York family’s struggle to climb out of poverty at the turn of the twentieth century. The burgeoning labor movement, World War I and the Spanish civil war punctuate this breath-taking saga. Gail’s exquisite story telling deftly moves the characters’ triumphs and heartaches across what is nearly a century with grit, moxie, and New York City chutzpah, resulting in an incredibly satisfying read.

The second book, Mary Not Broken is an unflinching account of one woman’s trials whilst coming of age in 1930’s Mississippi. Desperate to escape the prospect of an arranged marriage, Mary flees with her soulmate, to chase their dreams in New York City. Alas, when those dreams are destroyed, Mary finds herself back in Mississippi, betrothed to a man she truly dislikes. While religious fervor is doled out with astonishing domestic violence, readers take refuge in Deborah’s lush family settings, where good food and feisty, singular characters populate the scenes. This is story telling of the highest order. We are offered sensate pleasures to relish one moment, only to recoil from the abuse Mary must endure in the next. But she is a formidable protagonist. Yet, by the time she reaches Chicago, happiness has become a foolish pipe dream. But it turns out, that she is mistaken, because there, she is shown empathy and love, where there just might be a happy ending. As an aside, this powerful book is part of a trilogy. The second installment, Glory Unbound is currently in the syllabus of an English class at Houston Christian University, alongside Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Richard Wright’s Native Son. This should give you an idea of the wallop that Deborah’s beautiful writing packs. For anyone looking for a mighty female protagonist who weathers every obstacle thrown her way, Mary Not Broken is that book.

Finally, Micah Thorp’s Aegolius Creek begins with the worst nightmare that everyone near wooded areas fear. It opens with a forest fire.

Moving backwards to the fire’s source is a riveting family saga, divided into equal parts courtroom drama, King Lear mashup and old-fashioned thriller. As the narrative picks up, Micah Thorp does not take a false step, and the pages do that extraordinary thing which happens in fiction that’s really, really good. They start turning themselves, and the book becomes impossible to put down.

These are novels about American families which beautifully exemplify how wildly diverse our country is. They’re reasons to celebrate, and a reason to give thanks. Happy Thanksgiving everybody.

Gobble, gobble!

Emerging from hiatus has taken eons longer than I thought it would.

Many years ago, the very brilliant Francine Prose said that for every day you spend away from something (ie writing) it will take you that much longer to go back to it. And part of me knows that she is right.

At the beginning of this year, compounding my dazzling proclivity for laziness, I had a pesky case of pneumonia which just wouldn’t quit. It lasted a good month. It was then followed by a cough that girls like Mimi in La Boheme end up dying from. Even attempting a podcast was unthinkable.

But Reader, I am pleased to report that I didn’t die!

Now, half a year later, the voice has restored itself. I’ve resumed listening to high energy folks describing how to get an agent and getting a book deal and so slowly, slowly, I’m getting it together. As for Marigold, my work in progress, there was a brief wading into the waters of rejection. Now, I’m resolved to swim in it.

Those of you who’ve been in the querying trenches, I humbly salute what you’ve been through, and for those who’ve come out the other side with offers of representation, or indeed, publication- even without an agent, I really salute you.

For me, the submission thing is so unnerving, that I’ve even considered throwing in the towel and becoming a tidy person instead. But I’m not ready to become a tidy person.

I’ll have to keep writing and just start submitting.

From the Beagle Diaries:

If you look at the left -hand corner of this photo, you’ll see a sprayer on the mantlepiece. Written in sharpie is the name Lucy. All that’s inside is water. No one likes a scolding with squirts of water. Thus, the sprayer lives -poised for readiness- on the mantle. Because our home life is pretty conflict free, I rarely use it. But, if Lucy is particularly belligerent, I’ll say, “Where’s that sprayer?” Forgetting that it’s at the mantle, immortalized every time I take a picture of my beloved hound sitting on the ottoman.

Being the teen Beagle that she is, Lucy keeps us on our toes. Being the anxious parents we pretend not to be, she now sports a GPS, that tells us where she is should she give us the slip. It’s helped a lot, but it is a little bit absurd. Yet the incessant barrage of media and outrage with which we’ve been inundated has rendered so much of life caught between complete absurdity and a breathtaking darkness.

At least, there’s always, always a choice as to which way we’re going to lean.

Angry Dead Women New and Improved is coming soon, on a social media platform near you.

My mother died when she was seventy nine years old. If I end up as she did, that would mean I have eighteen years left. I don’t think of this as being either tragic or morbid. It’s simply data, which one is free to do with as one likes. But what’s been striking about the last decade or so (she passed away in 2007) is the frequency with which I find myself thinking about her and the extraordinary way that she moved through life. And god love her, my mom could really take the cake- and I mean that in any old way you you might imagine.

In honor of Mother’s Day, here are some of my favorite mom-isms which have stayed with me through out the years.

Upon learning that I was no longer a virgin: “Oh Carrie, I never thought you’d be a statistic.”

On taking me to lunch in Italy, during my sophomore semester abroad: “Oh Carrie, do you have to dress as though every day is Halloween?”

On any given afternoon, when I was too old to even react to this comment : “Would it kill you to brush your hair once in a while?”

So, thinking about motherhood, and just life, brings to mind a movie I saw years ago about kids learning to play instruments with the Suzuki method. At one point, a little boy, perhaps he was eight or nine years old, says to the film maker, “You just got to accept that at the beginning, you’ll probably be lousy at it.”

While children are not instruments and parenting does not a musician make, I have found that in most cases, learning to accept that at the beginning, I’ll probably be lousy at a thing, is a difficult lesson, but one that is often true. And it’s important not to be discouraged, because simply by staying with a thing (such as becoming a good parent) will eventually yield results that are usually reserved for those who seem to have a preternatural flair, such as being with children. Hopefully, if a person sticks with it long enough, they’ll zoom past that cousin or friend which all the kids seem to prefer, but who’s to say? It really depends on so many things, such as timing, location, and humor, in addition to leading by example.

I always marvel at some women who, when they hold a baby, are such naturals, that it’s extraordinary. As if they were meant to have a baby in their arms all the time! The babies coo and stretch, nuzzle and relax. Then there are those of us, who - for whatever reason - remain unsure. Is the baby comfortable? Are we going to drop it or hurt it? What if it simply doesn’t like us? The first time I got married I was five months pregnant. There was a woman at the wedding who had a newborn daughter and she said to me, “Here, you hold her. That’s going to be you soon.” The baby was so tiny and - well, fragile, really- that I couldn’t quite figure out what I was doing with this child. Trying not to drop her or hurt her, I guess.

All of us come from somewhere, so it goes without saying that each and every person has had, (no matter how brief the relationship might have been) a mother. Everything comes from the mother ship. And, wow, how fascinating is that? Mountains of books, dedicated to wrestling with the loss of her, the toxicity of her, the magnificence of her, the cruelty of her, the inspiration of her, is just- well, it’s largely where it’s at!

At first, my current WIP was a mother-daughter story. Originally, it was going to be a relationship that was prickly, and then, there was going to be a reconciliation, but one which would be compromised by historic world events.

The big relationship with the mother doesn’t happen now. Nor is it a plot spoiler to say, I ended up killing her off by about page twenty or so, because, from a story telling perspective, motherless children are much easier to place in dicey situations. They just are. Look at Dickens, most of his enduring characters are motherless. This is true with the Brontes, as well.

Marigold, who is the protagonist of my WIP, loves the movies and goes to them all the time. Naturally, this involved my watching all kinds of stuff that Marigold may have seen. In my story, when Marigold loses her mother, it’s 1937, and Barbara Stanwyck was in something called Stella Dallas. It was directed by King Vidor and was an absolute vehicle for Stanwyck’s talents.

Stella is an impetuous, headstrong conniver, who ends up with someone higher up in the social echelon. Eventually, the marriage falls apart, and Stella sacrifices everything so that their daughter can enjoy the benefits the father has to offer, and which she, Stella, does not.

There is something so troubling about this plot. It’s adapted from a novel that was written in 1923, and then first made into a film in 1925.

The most recent adaptation was in 1990, starring Bette Midler. The inference is that Stella was too vulgar to conform to the virtues of the middle/upper middle class. At least for herself, yet she wants her daughter to certainly have the best of everything, so she SACRIFICES their relationship in order for that to happen.

What we are left to understand is that the good mother, is the sacrificing mother, even to the point of pretending to despise her child so that she (the child) will leave and go to the father. That’s the critical detail. The daughter never knows that the mother hasn’t stopped loving her for a second. And all I have to say about that is, “C’mon! Who does the child want to be with? The well heeled surrogate, or the person for whom there is only one true connection?”

My god, it’s complicated. And this is not to say that there aren’t many mothers, who are really pretty dreadful when it comes to fulfilling their function.

Yet Reader, I ask you, which mother is more satisfying in fiction?

After weeks spent chewing on this mother-daughter conundrum, I decided to give my protagonist something else to sink her teeth into, and like a coward, sidestepped the whole mother-daughter thing. I am just not ready to write about a mother who is anything less than perfect. And reader, believe me when I say, I know that is just nonsense.

My own mother was deeply flawed. It was part of what made her the extraordinary, spectacular gal that she was. It is always what has made some of my anecdotes about her, that much better.

So, reader, let’s give those who birthed us, or raised us, or simply became the ones that challenged and inspired us, a salute. Let us raise our glasses, or tip our hats and give thanks to the wealth of material that simply by knowing them, shaped what we became.

Towards the end of her life, one thing my mom used to say was, “One day, Carrie, you’ll understand, what it is to love you as much as I love you.”

These are the times I wish she were still alive. Because looking at my daughter, who is now a mother herself, I do understand.

And there isn’t a moment, when I don’t want to say, “Thanks, Mom. I love you, too.”

WQXR is on in the kitchen, and guess what? The guy whose dulcet tones hold forth between the music is actually named Jeff Spurgeon and not Jeff Sturgis. How do I know this? Because I’m writing this little missive and looked up his name.

All this time, I had his name completely wrong. Like a lot of things, I got it wrong.

I’m in that group of people who do get it completely wrong some of the time. Whether any of the madness swirling outside my tranquil home proves to be wrong or not remains to be seen. Every part of my being says that it is, (ie wrong). But sometimes, it is me (or is it I) who is wrong.

So, ignoring the political landscape, and in the spirit of to-do’s for 2025, below is my list. I will

become a better writer

become a better cook

become way tidier

become breathtakingly solvent

become largely adverb free

and be generally more compassionate and graceful all the way around.

Many of you reading this have already accomplished the above. You might be asking yourselves, ‘What’s so hard about that?’

Well, Reader, one thing is my unfailing ability to hurt/offend someone’s sensibilities at any family gathering and the other is my continued pesky discomfort with the Oxford comma. I have resigned myself to the former, but have yet to make my peace with the latter.

And a huge part of what’s become so challenging as of late, is that the world seems to have shifted on its axis in such a way, that things we once understood as non-negotiable no longer seem to matter. So, those of us who are in this predicament of getting stuff wrong need to decide what does matter. Hence, my list above.

A few days ago, I had the pleasure of typing The End for my work in progress, which then catapulted me into that weird vaacum of what I call The Wait. For me, this occurs when some people I don’t know from Adam read the manuscript and weigh in on whether they actually like it or not.

So what I do, while twiddling my thumbs, waiting, is to fool with said manuscript, trying to make it better, finding horrible typos and the like. It also involves my incredible, dare I say, phenomenal efforts at procrastination. One of my favorites is the much loved, but often despised:

INDUSTRIAL COSMETIC COMPLEX

You know, those huge, epic quests for failproof, affordable cosmetic procedures. Many of the people I admire hold these procedures in contempt. Many of the people I admire have also had extensive work done.

At the start of the pandemic, when I’d finished my debut novel, I asked several different surgeons if they wouldn’t remove a detail of mine which I’ve always found to be IRKSOME. These are my cheek pads ie, the ones on my face. This is because, from the beginning of time, I’ve always had an abundance of buccal fat.

Since the instagram face craze, the elimination of buccal fat has really come into its own. However, it turns out, that because of my age, buccal fat removal is not really an option.

Instead, every surgeon said, “No, what you need is a face lift. Let me give you a proposal.” Ahhh, that timeless preoccupation and self doubt which comes with the desperate need to be- reader, you know the rest.

So much of it is nonsense, and merely a pathetic bunch of delay tactics, designed to keep one in the loop of the industrial cosmetic complex…

So what does this have to do with today’s events in Washington?

It has something to do with getting through it. Things happen which feel desperately wrong all the time. From the inhumane treatment of those who’ve come here to seek refuge, to the outrageously tacky calling public servants idiotic names, to the grossly unqualified candidates to lead various departments of the cabinet.

They’re things which are happening that can’t be changed by any one of us. But these are also things which can be rejected, by each and every one of us.

In October 2023, I became an atheist. However, faced with the next four years I’m now looking for solace. The Corners is Nadia Bolz-Weber’s substack and her prayer for January 20th, 2025 fits that bill.

Also, Suleika Jaouad’s sublime piece called Moondancing after Midnight from her substack Isolation Journals describes a moment that all of us with dogs treasure when it snows. I know that last night, I did.

If perchance, you’re looking for something clunkier, foolish and just emblematic of a person who sometimes gets it wrong, I offer you my Medium essay, I was a Failed Phone Sex Worker.

I do believe we are all connected and that we are also each other’s keepers. I lamented today’s events with an fb group and one comment, from someone I don’t know, was really comforting. This is the comment below.

“Ma. Can you give me a hand?”

It was the last week of September when nature reluctantly concedes that Summer must turn to Autumn.

Priti glanced at her son through the rearview mirror. He was leaning against the open hatchback of her Dodge Voyager, and his brown eyes met hers. Eliot was nearly 20 years old, but she still saw a boy not much more than seven. His elbows jutted out in that helpless sort of way, with his bony shoulders buried inside his hoodie. She sighed and unbuckled her seatbelt, then helped him drag the filing boxes, all of them too heavy for just one person, onto the top stair. He wedged the boxes inside the street door.

Priti said, “Don’t forget we have counseling today.”

“Yeah.” He mumbled.

“Bye hon,” She got back in the car and then lowered the window. “I’ll be back at 4.30!”

Elliott watched her make the left on Lenox. He turned and pushed the buzzer then took a step back and peered up at the building. “Shit,” he muttered. It looked like there wasn’t an elevator.

A window opened above him. It was Brad, golden haired and smiling. “Yo, loser! Get your ass in here.”

Elliott entered at the loud buzz. The hallway was dank. Linoleum floors had peeled and cracked along brown shiny walls. Scattered flyers were strewn across a shelf below the letter boxes. But there, in front of him, was an elevator with an illuminated G on the panel above the button.

“Thank god!” Elliott dragged the boxes inside, wrinkling his nose at the smell of cat piss and pressed the number 3. The elevator lurched upward.

Brad had left the door of the apartment open and daylight poured into the hallway. Somehow, Elliott got the boxes across the threshold where he found Brad studying four monitors with various data, graphics and animation awaiting his next command.

Walking across the room, Elliott felt the carpet cling to every step as if it was wet from beer the night before. “What’s up with the floor?”

Brad shrugged, then said, “Dude! You got the stuff.”

“Yeah. I said I would, didn’t I?”

Brad began to unpack battery backups, wires, cables, buffalo drives, thunderbolt docs, chips cards and other components required for their exercise. Elliott peered out the window overlooking Second street. All of the buildings were much the same as the one he stood in now. Probably built after the Depression, once they were bustling, but now were mostly empty.

There was a fire hydrant and a struggling crepe myrtle on an otherwise deserted street. Where were all the cars? They’d both had their licenses suspended, for stupid stuff, really, the year before. A cop car slowly drove by and turned the corner onto Lenox. Otherwise, he could not see another living soul. Elliott felt a small shiver and lowered the blinds, then turned them shut, just in case. Looking for the outlets where he’d plug in his power strips, he took in the surroundings. The room was bare save for Brad’s bicycle, two massive swivel chairs and a long folding table, like the kind they had in church basements. Well, he wasn’t in church now. He watched Brad set upon the monitors frantically typing onto various keyboards.

A passthrough led to the kitchen. Elliott went in and opened the fridge. Two gallons of Mountain Dew and a twelve pack of Narragansett. A large pan of a mostly eaten lasagna was abandoned on the stove. Next to that was a massive bong, half-filled with dirty water, a lump of something smokable in its bowl. There wasn’t anything to light it with.

“Where are the matches?”

“Look in the drawer, Elliott.”

He did and found the igniter neatly placed with various sundry items.

Elliott took a deep hit from the bong. Slowly exhaling, he studied the lasagna. It brought to mind a diorama of the Grand Canyon that he and Brad had made during fifth grade. He opened a beer and went into the other room. On one of the monitors was a deep fake of elected officials, naked, their bodies writhing, coupled in such a way that Elliott was unsure whether to be aroused or repulsed. “Unbelievable, man.”

Brad chuckled, “Right? It’s totally sick, yeah.”

“Dude,” Elliott shook his head, “Remember when the old speaker was pissed, when they made her seem drunk?”

Brad nodded, “Deep fake it till you make it, baby!” Then he typed something on the keyboard and scratched the patches of his chin which refused to join his beard. His fingernail caught a flake of something unsavory and he pulled at it, briefly examining the flaw. He flicked it away and sipped from the venti mocha latte Uber Eats had delivered the day before.

Elliott continued staring at the screen, hypnotized by the porn.

“Elliott,”

“Yeah?” Elliot’s eyes remained glued to the screen.

“Elliott!”

“Yeah, Brad.”

“What’s the assignment?”

Elliott and Brad’s initial encounter had been on the first day of kindergarten and was now a lifetime away. Neither of them had done well in school, yet they had excelled at building a life long friendship. But once high school was over, they were unsure how to keep their parents out of their hair. It was waiting in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles that they saw the ad. “BEGINNER to MASTER! BEST AI TRAINING COURSE AVAILABLE ONLINE!”

“Dude!” Brad pointed the sign out to his friend.

“Hey bro.” Silently, they both checked out the link on their phones. Elliott scratched his head, “But how are we gonna get the dough for this?”

“Ask your sister.”

“No way, Brad.”

“Ok, I’ll ask your sister.”

Elliott’s sister Megan was four years older. When Megan had graduated high school, she’d completed a cosmetology program at vo-tech, at the same time as enrolling in a small business marketing course. Consequently, Megan was now in her third year as a savvy social media influencer. If there was an eyeliner, she demonstrated it. If there was a tequila, she drank it. If there was a hair product, she tried it. Megan had procedures such as Botox and lip filler performed on her while streaming on Facebook. She had blind dates and test drove cars for her fans on Instagram, and uploaded the highlights for her many, many followers on TikTok.

So when Brad asked her to subsidize their AI certification course, Megan jittered her ankle for a moment and placed her well manicured index finger on her chin.

“And what will you do for me in return?”

Brad thought Megan was awesome. Elliott thought she was terrifying. He knew that she knew they were always broke and would probably never have the cash to pay her back.

“Twenty percent.”

She flipped her expertly straightened, highlighted hair over her left shoulder and laughed. “Twenty percent of what? Nothing?”

“No, no, no. Twenty percent of whatever we make from doing AI.”

“And how are you going to advertise these AI services? Tell me that.”

“Well,” Elliott cleared his throat. “Mom’s the guidance counselor at school. We can ask her if she’d put some flyers in the lunch room. And we’ll advertise on Insta. Maybe even your Insta page. What about that?”

Megan looked at her brother and his best friend, Brad. They really were losers. But maybe this would be the leg up that they needed.

“Okay,” she said. “But you’re gonna have to get me some Molly for this weekend. I hate buying that stuff myself.”

That had been two years ago when during their training they discovered they had a flair for creating deep fakes. But then, less than a year ago, not long after their licenses were suspended, they’d been busted for posting some beautiful, unattainable girls at the high school, deep faked as super porn stars. It so stunned the authorities that they failed to charge the perpetrators with much of anything at all. Which was really the desired outcome. No one knew that they had been hired by the boys in the AP chemistry class to do the coding. At the time, Brad and Elliott were only learning the software so hadn’t charged more than a few grand for the assignment. Besides, those kids were rich, and coming up with that kind of cash was hardly exploitation.

Silently, Brad and Elliott watched the now vintage deep fake of the former Speaker of the House. She slurred her words, and she certainly looked drunk. No matter that she was a known teetotaler, and over 80 years old. This clip of the speaker had been the ruse from which they learned how to create their own flawless deep fakes.

Elliott reclined back in a chair. “What have you been up to?”

Brad smiled modestly, “Well, I’ll let you see for yourself. It’s on the next screen.”

Elliott pressed enter. An internationally renowned climate activist, sitting astride a Harley Davidson, dressed in a leather bikini and white ten gallon cowboy hat appeared on the screen.

“Whaaaat?” Elliott chuckled.

“It gets better, keep watching.” The activist was young, just barely eighteen, which was how old both Brad and Elliott agreed, all females should be. After that, they might as well be their moms.

The activist on the motorcycle opened a bottle of tequila, took a massive swig and then poured it over her breasts. She tossed the bottle over her shoulder and brought a huge cigar out of the side of her white knee high boots. Then she lit the cigar, blew smoke into the pov of the viewer, and with a sweeping motion, set herself on fire, the entire image going up in flames.

“What do you think?”

“Hmm.” Elliott’s parents were NRI, and his mother had been friends with the young woman who committed the last act of Sati. An image of the girl, sitting on a pyre burning her away flashed through Elliott’s mind. It had been years ago. His mother was younger than he was now, but self immolation and immolation itself tended to be a loaded topic. “I’m not sure about the fire.”

“Bro’, that’s the best part.”

“Yeah, well, unless you end it with you know, like the Grateful Dead skeleton, or, I don’t know, some kind of zombie thing or Ed Hardy, it’s a little tricky. But the effects are awesome man. I mean.” He held up his hand. “Swear to god, respect.”

Brad sighed and stood up. “I can’t believe you don’t like this. It really hurts my feelings. I mean, geeze.” He went over to the bathroom.

After a moment, Brad’s efforts became audible and Elliott shouted, “Run the water, Brad!”

“What?”

“I said Run the water!”

When Brad re-emerged, Elliott asked, “Did you wash your hands?”

At this Brad smiled and said nothing, folding his arms across his chest in reply. “What time is Angel coming?”

“He should be here now.”

“What’s the directive?”

“He’s giving us the script. We’re using Trump.”

“Trump? Oh man. Why not, well, you know, someone less well-”

“What, obvious?”

“Man. How much?”

“It’s a cool 100.”

“100 what?”

“Bro, it’s 100 g!”

“Oh man. Whaaaaa’?” And the two of them started laughing as they had not done since they were little and simply racing around their yards making up games and just being crazy.

As if on cue, there was a buzz at the door. Brad stood up to get it and Elliott peered out the window. A black mustang pulled away from the curb, blue smoke trailing its wake. Beautiful car, he thought to himself, but it really needed its muffler fixed.

He was aware of speaking at the door. “You’re Angel?” Brad asked.

“And you’re Brad.” Was the response.

Elliott turned around. The person in front of him might be someone out of the Matrix or something. He couldn’t tell if Angel was a man or a woman, and he didn’t want to be caught asking, either.

“Elliott?” Angel asked.

“How you doin’.”

“Let’s get to business.”

Angel carried a sleek valise, checkered grey and black, the kind Megan liked to covet. Angel sat down and opened it. Inside were two leather folders, one green and the other gold. Inside each of those were i-pads. Everything appeared flawless, immaculate. Angel smiled at the two boys, and took out a vape pen. “Do you mind?”

Wordlessly, the boys shook their head. Angel inhaled deeply. On Angel’s exhale the room was briefly cleaner, as if they were not in a space which hadn’t been cleaned in over a decade, but rather in a meadow just before winter became spring.

“Do you prefer Venmo, Zelle, or Paypal?” Elliott realized Angel was speaking to him.

“Uh,”

“We can do a crypto thing, too, if you like.”

“No, no, no. Uh, Zelle. Let’s use zelle. Right, Brad? It’s our cell phone numbers.” Eliott swallowed realizing that Angel had yet to blink. “and you’ve got that… er information.”

“Great! Ok,” Angel handed them each a tablet. “This is the script. We have five recent rallies where the candidate spoke at length. You will replace his words with what’s here on the i-pads.”

“But if people have seen these recently-”

“Oh, no, you’re going to recut the camera work, so that it appears to be b roll, or when he believes the microphone isn’t hot…”

Brad and Elliott exchanged a glance.

Angel smiled, “Like the Access Hollywood reel, only better.”

“They’re poisoning the blood of our country!” Trump shouted. Eliot looked at the script on the i-pad and typed in the code to replace Trump’s words. The speed of the new words was a little off, but he knew how to adjust that. Now Trump said, “You must not oppress or mistreat the foreigners amongst us. For you were foreigners in Egypt.” Elliott watched for Angel’s reaction.

“That’s pretty good!” Angel patted his shoulder. “You’ll fix the speed, right?”

“Yeah,” Elliott’s palms would not stop sweating. He started coding the next group of text on the list.

“As of November 1st, my golf courses will be divested and donated to become sanctuaries for the local or state wildlife agencies where they are located. We know that the ecological impacts of golf courses undermine the native habitats where they’re developed. As of this morning, I have signed over all of my international holdings to the world wildlife foundation, where they will be allowed to return to their natural state.

“I have given Mara Lago -as a donation to compensate for any taxes owed — to the Florida Historical Society.

“By this time next week, I will have taken a vow of silence, wherein I will live out my days as a Buddhist monk at the Zen Mountain monastery in Mount Tremper. Since 2016, when my landslide victory brought about a time of prosperity and greatness in our country unlike anything in history, possibly the greatest period of history in our country,”

Elliott looked at Angel, “You want me to include that?”

Angel shrugged, “What can I do? It’s Donald Trump.”

“Ok.” Elliott resumed typing into the keyboard.

“Many people have been harmed and many families have been torn apart. As an agitator and an, I must confess, an unrepentant provocateur, I’ve come to realize that the only way to mend the damage done to the people of this country, is to withdraw my candidacy, to shut down my social media presence and to retract any callous, spiteful, or nasty thing I’ve ever said or done. Peace be with you. God bless America.”

“Oh man,” Brad looked up from his keyboard. “Oh man, we can’t do this.”

Angel looked from Brad to Elliott and then back to Brad again. “Don’t you want the money?”

“Oh yeah. I mean yes! We need the money. We need to pay Megan back, and I’d like to fix up this space.”

“This space?” Angel looked confused.

“Yes, I mean, yes. Second and Lenox, I — this is my first apartment.”

“I see. Well, if you have the money, how will it help the apartment?”

“I could make it nice. I could make it home.”

“I see.”

Angel looked at Elliott. “Do you have a problem with doing this, Elliott? Because Brad still hasn’t explained why he doesn’t want to. Do you have a moral problem with the candidate saying these things?”

“Which ones?”

“The words on the script.”

“Well, no.”

“Do you think the words in the script are morally repugnant?”

“No.”

“Your parents were immigrants, weren’t they?”

Elliott nodded. “Yes, they were.”

“So, which position is correct? Were they vermin, poisoning our national bloodline, or something else?”

Elliott whispered, “Why are you asking me this?”

Angel stood. “Listen guys. I’ll give you ten minutes to find your way in understanding what we’re doing here. It doesn’t matter how you feel about the candidate. What matters is what you’re going to do about it. Do you think he should have a problem parroting Jesus Christ?”

Neither Brad nor Elliott answered this.

“All right then. You’ve got ten minutes. If you haven’t started by then, you can kiss the money, social media and Megan’s patronage, along with her following goodbye. Think about. I’ll just take a moment now. I have a few calls to make.” With that, Angel turned, and strolled out the apartment.

Elliott said, “Brad.”

“Yeah?”

“Am I imagining things, or did Angel’s coat float like in the Matrix?”

“You’re not imagining things. It floated.”

“Is Angel a dude, or a woman?”

“I have no idea. I think we should call your sister.”

“What? Why? No way. I’m not calling her.”

“Ok I’ll call her.”

Brad took Elliott’s phone and texted URGENT. Then he called her.

“I told you never to call me!”

“Megan, it’s Brad. We have a problem.”

He pressed the speaker. Brad and Elliott began shouting over each other, trying to explain what had happened with the high school girls, how much they admired deep fake, and how they wanted to honor their arrangement with Megan, but that money was so hard to come by.

“Then Angel came, and man, I thought he got our names from you, Meg. Do you know some dude, named Angel?”

Brad said, “Is he a dude, or is he a woman?”

Meg sighed, “Who cares? They’re probably trans.”

“Yeah but,”

“But what?”

“He wants us to deep fake stuff from the Bible!”

“That’s weird.”

“Yeah! And if we don’t do it, he’s gonna, Meg, he said he’d-”

“No, I think he’s a she,”

“Whatever! Angel said he’d make your social media disappear.”

“Well,” Her voice was like ice. “that’s not happening, you douchebag. So just do what Angel wants, ok? Because if anything happens to my following,” Megan’s words slowed as if they were a barely concealed growl, “If anything happens to my fans, you can both kiss your dumbasses goodbye. You idiots.”

Elliott’s palms were still sweating when he heard the roar of the mustang on the corner of Second. He knew his mom was coming to get him for therapy. She had been so pissed, so pissed! When she’d learnt about those high school girls.

“Ok,” Brad said, “I’ve got five loaded, only three more to go.”

The door buzzed and Elliott went to let Angel in.

He heard the elevator doors open. Like before, he could swear the hem of Angel’s coat swirled like in the Matrix. It was so weird.

“Uh, so this is what we have to show you.” Brad wiped his hands on his jeans and gestured to the seat next to him.

Angel smiled over at Elliott and sat down. “Ok, let’s see.”

There was the crowd, and as Angel had requested, the camera work looked as if it were b roll, not the stuff one saw on tv.

Trump spoke to the crowd and said, “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, and forgive each other.”

“Uh, I deleted the part that you wanted me to, um the just as in Christ god forgave you.”

“Good. I don’t want people to confuse the good stuff with religion.” Angel winked at Brad. “Are you guys hungry? I just ordered in a few things. I hope that’s ok.”

“You did?” Elliott hadn’t noticed Angel carrying a delivery of anything.

Angel shrugged, “It’s in the fridge. It’s nothing really.”

Elliott went into the kitchen. Everything was as he’d last seen it. The bong, the lasagna, the empty beer bottle. Yet when he opened the fridge, every kind of sandwich, berries and melon, cookies, fried chicken, sliced pineapples and such had been arranged on trays waiting for them to eat. “Uh, Brad?”

“Yeah, hang on. I just want to show Angel our next item here.”

It was a clip of Tucker Carlson interviewing Donald Trump who said, “Well, if your enemy is hungry, then you should feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink.”

Brad turned to Angel, “like you said, I left out the rest.”

Angel asked, “How big is this apartment?”

“Oh, it’s a two bedroom.”

“Can I take a look?”

“Yeah, the bedrooms are just on the other side of the bathroom there.”

“Thanks.” Angel went into the passage leading to the bedrooms.

“Dude!” Elliott hissed through the passthrough.

“What?”

“Dude! Something very weird is going on.”

“What?”

“Look at this. Look at this!”

Brad got up and crossed the living room. “Oh fuck. What is this?”

The toilet flushed, and Brad raced back to his seat. Elliott texted his mother that he was running late for therapy.

Angel said, “What you’re doing is really great. Many people for all kinds of reasons are really taken with the candidate. By having him say these things, in a public platform, it forces them to reconsider various positions they might have had. You know what I mean?”

Brad nodded wordlessly.

Angel said, “So, Elliott, I know you have an appointment you have to get to don’t you?’

Elliott nodded, “Yes, I do. It’s therapy with my mom.”

“Well, I’m ready to pay you both. I’m just thrilled with your work. Would you just give me your Zelle info again? Oh, and one more thing, for this to be done- for us to complete the transaction and for me to sign off, I need you both to just do a recording into my phone.”

“What?”

“Oh, and if you do, there’s a bonus.”

“Really?”

“It’s a hundred percent bonus. Who doesn’t like double the money?” Angel smiled again and held up a cell phone. “Ok, I’ve pressed record. What you need to do, is to confess and then apologize to the high school girls. To their mothers, and fathers, but most especially to the girls.”

Brad said weakly, “I thought love meant never having to say you’re sorry.”

Angel laughed, “Oh Brad, everyone knows that’s bull shit.” The room suddenly cooled. Elliott felt as if the world had slowed. “Now apologize.”

The stillness in the room sent a shiver through Elliott’s heart. He whispered, “I’ll go first. Uh, my named is Elliott Thakkar. I’m sorry for creating the deep fake which placed you in those porn films.” He swallowed, afraid that he might faint or burst into tears. “I did it for money and for a dare and because I’m really shy and uh- I didn’t think it would matter to you. But,” Elliott’s voice cracked. He realized he was crying. “But it was really wrong. I know you’re going to have to deal with this, possibly forever.” The tears were coming too fast to blink them away. “And I’m so sorry. It was a shitty thing to do. I’m sorry.”

Elliott wiped his eyes, and saw that Brad was staring at him in horror.

Angel said, “Your turn, Brad.”

“My name is Brad Saperstein. What we did, what I did, was a terrible thing. Anything I can do to make it up to you, I promise I will do that thing. I am sorry. Please forgive me.” Elliott looked over at Brad. Tears were running down his cheeks too.

“That was lovely, guys.” Angel put the phone away and gathered up the i-pads. “You did the right thing. I think your Mom is outside, Elliott.” Angel said. “Oh, and before I forget. You both need these. It’s so much better to be able to skip the line, isn’t it?”

Angel placed both of their drivers’ licenses, reinstated and good for another four years onto the table next to the keypads. “Don’t worry about the restoration fee. It’s been taken care of.”

Angel walked to the door. “I’ll let your mom know you’re on your way down, Elliott. Take care, guys. Remember, it’s always critical to make amends.”

The boys sat staring at their new drivers’ licenses. They had more money in their bank accounts than they ever could imagine.

Finally, Elliott stood up. “I gotta go.” He put his drivers’ license in his pocket.

“Yeah,” Brad put his hands in his pockets, embarrassed at the earlier show of emotion. I’ll see you, dude.”

After Elliott left, Brad bolted the door and headed to his bedroom. Inside, he gasped. The space had been magically transformed as if it were showcased on HGTV. What was home in his mind had been actually brought to life. An enormous TV was hung upon the wall. The remote for it was beside the bed. Brad flopped down and turned it on. “This is the six o’clock evening news.”

What an exhausting day it had been! Presently he nodded off to sleep.

“Tonight, we bring you live coverage of Former President Donald Trump who has once again shocked the nation, suspending his campaign and dropping out of the race. But first, in local news. Only this morning, delivery man Dino Pismopolis warned his boss the store’s van needed new brakes. Tragically for Priti Thakkar and her son Elliott, those brakes were not replaced. Mrs. Thakkar and her son were killed instantly when their Dodge Voyager crashed into that van head in a head on collision at the corner of Second and Lenox at 4.30 this afternoon. Our next local story also comes from Lenox Street, where at number 25, an electrical fire, is believed to have started in a third floor apartment. The building which was slated for demolition had five remaining tenants all of whom died from smoke inhalation. Now over to our correspondent covering what looks to be pandemonium outside of the Trump Campaign Headquarters…”

The above story was inspired by actual events which took place last year. Here is a link https://medium.com/aimonks/the-ai-pandemic-navigating-the-uncharted-waters-of-digital-ethics-and-youth-conduct-7ba2401c54f2

And yet, the gerontocracy which has dominated American politics demonstrates how difficult it is to let go and pass the torch. But Joe Biden’s elegant gesture in doing just that strikes all the chords which are humbling and optimistic and possible. This song was sent to me by my very dear friend Sue. Watching and listening to it, like Sue, I cried. The italics below were written by Keb’Mo’, the singer.

"My mother just recently passed at the age of 91. She was smart. She was strong. She was a leader. This video is dedicated to her and amazing women everywhere that are getting the job done." -Keb' Mo

Most of my life has been spent regretting that I didn’t get off my ass to achieve something measurable in the domain of professional accomplishment.

But turning sixty, I see that differently now. Mo Rocca’s book, Roctogenerians is a much needed dose of optimism in the face of aging and accomplishment. Portraits of everyone from Laura Ingalls Wilder (whose Little House books were published only after she turned 65) to activist Mary Church Terrell’s campaign fighting segregation at the age of 86 is testament to the fact that there is no predetermined age wherein we begin living less. We are alive (god wiling we still have our marbles) right to the very end.

My beloved mentor’s brilliant book is a meditation on this very thing, that we are creative sentient forces of nature until we stop breathing (or utterly lose our marbles, whichever comes first). I read the book in one sitting, because the truth of her perspective is bracing and vibrant. It’s an absolutely wonderful book.

Heavy hitter Ann Patchett says "Getting to Know Death could just as easily be called Getting to Know Life. As a meditation, it is both unsentimental and full of wonder. As a piece of writing, it stands beside the best of Godwin's fiction. Extraordinary."

With the exception of my older brother, Gail is the person on earth who has known me the longest. Our friendship is more than fifty years old and I credit her with shaping my passion as a reader. She has also been breathtakingly kind as I’ve crawled into this business of writing.

I’m working on a novel about a girl who lives in London during the Blitz. One of the most difficult aspects of staying with this story has been the unspeakable violence and destruction of the second World War, which are not unlike current events in some locations across the globe.

I lived in England as a young girl, and when I think back to those days, it’s incredible to me how not a single adult went into detail about what they had endured during the war. It might be referred to in passing, but that was about it. As the years went by, nearly all of the British grown ups I knew lived well into their eighties. They were elegant, witty, fascinating people, but they rarely discussed the war.

This morning, a woman I described this to asked if it wasn’t their stiff upper lip? Her question brought to mind several accounts I’d read of those who survived Auschwitz. “You never let them see you break down,” one old man said. “Never, never.” “If you hate them more than you fear them,” said another, “then it isn’t so hard to be brave.”

The men’s comments were made decades later, during the 1970’s, with its bucolic suburbs, sulky children and the hustle bustle of middle class life. “If you have nothing pleasant to say, don’t say anything at all,” was the common wisdom I often heard. Making the leap forward, another fifty years, I sit at my laptop, brooding over my protagonist. I consider those who lived through that war, and those who survived the Holocaust. Then there are those who are weathering events happening now. What an incredible life force one must have to make it to the land of being really old!

In Roctogenarians, 93 year old Warren Buffett is quoted as saying, “You need to be able to detach yourself from fear or greed. You’ve got to be able to come to your own opinions. But you don’t need a lot of brains.”

I think Warren Buffett is right on the money. Read Roctogenarians and Getting to Know Death. You will be so glad you did.

Last week, she ran away.

It was before eight o’clock on Sunday morning and the weather was caught in a springtime rain that’s somewhere between miserable and nurturing. Our yard is fenced. For the most part, the deer in the neighborhood are indifferent to this, but we really thought we’d Beagle proofed it and that she wouldn’t find her way out.

Gosh, were we wrong. I had a thousand things to do and needed to start the day. My husband was still asleep when I came downstairs to let the pooches out, start the laundry, make the coffee and begin the usual rigmarole. Five minutes later, Toby came back in, but Lucy did not.

There are several good places to hide. The side of the house has a large shrub, inside of which a critter can have alone time. Under the deck is filled with possibility, and of course the side of the garage is great, because our neighbor’s compost is quite close. I’m sure a hound can stand there and take in deep breaths to imagine everything that’s turning back into earth. But Lucy was in none of those places. She had managed to wheedle her way into the composting neighbor’s yard before. It’s a beautiful piece of property, with a stream and glorious plants of all description. It also has a covered area with some food for the feral cat who comes by from time to time.

For Lucy, the set up is irresistible. More than once, she’s slipped under the fencing to partake in this delectable buffet. However, on that morning, she wasn’t there. I heard barking on the other side of the property behind their house, which is divided by a tall stockade fence that she had managed to slip under.

“Lucy, Lucy!”

I heard her bark again. I grabbed the leash and headed to the side street to try and meet her on the road along the back. There is no other way to access it. To have hopped in the car would have been useless. “Lucy, Lucy!”

By the time I got there, she had gone. I walked up and down that street, calling her name. I ran back along our street, still calling, then over to our house in the hope that she’d returned. By now my husband was awake.

“She’s gone,” I told him.

Lucy is microchipped, but I don’t know how that works nor how one notifies the people who have her information. I did know that the cops in our neighborhood are really great, so I called 911.

“What’s your emergency?” the woman said.

“I don’t think this is an emergency, but my puppy is missing!” I could barely keep the hysteria out of my voice. “She’s a Beagle.”

When I was little, we had a beagle named Baby Jane. She used to gallivant with our bloodhound named Delilah. There were loads of deer near our house, and very few fences. Needless to say, my parents failed to hang on to Baby Jane. But that was fifty three years ago.

Since turning 60, I’ve had the following revelations.

1. It is possible to live to be 60. Personally, I had believed that would never happen.

2. Living to be 60 indicates that you may not be as much of a dumbass as you feel, that you do indeed have some experience at remaining alive.

3. However, life is short. If you think about the big picture, there really is not much time at all. For all the years in which the days and months felt interminable, when I look back at them, they’ve gone by in little more than a flash.

I had just hung up the phone with the nice police officer when I saw my husband walk Lucy up the driveway with our older dog, Toby, bringing up the rear. I called 911 back and thanked them for talking me down. Truly, the police in our town are very kind.

Since then, the backyard fence has been met with greater scrutiny. Additional security measures have been implemented. But Lucy still walks back and forth, back and forth, looking for an opening that she just might squeeze through.

As for time and the big picture, consider this, Reader:

If you are sixty and you live to be eighty, and you see your loved ones four times a year, that means you have eighty visits left. It goes by so quickly! This has forced me to realize that much of it (i.e. the things we long to do), might remain unattainable, and that sometimes, one must simply surrender. Because there isn’t a lot of time. Do what you can to master and realize that thing which is closest to your dream. The other stuff will have to wait. If there’s time to spare, you can embark on those ventures later.

I first tinkered with Substack about a year ago. Since then, I’ve wrestled with its learning curve whilst striving to become all things to all possible readers and followers everywhere. There’s been Instagram, Facebook, Medium, and now Substack. I produced an Audiobook with a cast of more than twenty actors, and I began my podcast, Angry Dead Women. Needless to say, doing all of this at the same time is impossible to sustain, let alone light properly.

I had hoped to release episode 8 of AGD in the middle of Women’s History Month, and now there are only a few hours left in March. So without further ado, here are some Angry Dead Women along with writer Tonya Mitchell’s journey on having her manuscript edited by Kim Taylor Blakemore. Tonya’s novel, The Arsenic Eater’s Wife is a brilliant gothic thriller, inspired by the real life story of an American woman married to an Englishman and how it all goes wrong. It will keep you guessing right to the end, I promise. Kim also edited my last book, and leads Novelitics, which is one my writing groups. Kim is someone I credit with improving my writing, too. As for my on camera lighting, I’m still working on that.

In the coming weeks I’ll be on hiatus, hunkering down on re-writing the first draft of my work-in-progress. It’s a World War 2 story. I had no idea there is so much I didn’t know about that history and I am amazed that today’s leaders seem to govern as if they don’t know it either. In the meantime here is a personal offering, which are my Beagle Diaries. The next newsletter and episode of Angry Dead Women will be when my new first draft of the novel is completed. Until then.

The Beagle Diaries

November 2023

Last November we attended a fund raiser for Brendan’s Meadows which is a charity that rescues dogs. We adopted our beloved Toby from them nine years ago, and these folks do great, important work. We hadn’t been at the fundraiser more than a few minutes when someone handed me a green piece of paper. On it were two photographs of a dog. Beagle puppy, it read, 5 months old needs family asap.

There has been so much bad in the world. So many people treat each other just horribly. For all the terrible things that have happened since October 7th and all the terrible things that have happened since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, not to mention all the things that are going on in Asia and in Africa, what can one person do? On a macro level, it’s been horrifying. On a micro level, I’ve decided I am done with religion and have relinquished my faith.

I cannot overstate what it is to lose one’s optimism, especially on a spiritual level. For the non-believer, liturgy, mystery and ritual are diminished. They’re now gimmicky techniques to manipulate our human craving to believe in something. I, for one, no longer want any piece of it whatsoever. I loved my faith, but after October, it came to an end. 

Holding that green piece of paper I looked at my husband and started crying.

Sometimes he declares that he’s the nicest guy I’ve ever met. That afternoon he most certainly was. “Robert,” I sniffled, “we can’t let her go homeless!”

One week later, Lucy came into our lives and it’s been chaos ever since. Someone once told me, they’re called rescue dogs because they’re the ones who do the rescuing. But my way of thinking, is if everyone in the world could do one small thing, like say, adopt a puppy, the world might be a better place. 

Chapter Two

The Holidays

Like many folks, we prefer to think of ourselves as normal. Sometimes, our kids lament that because we are blended, we come from broken families, and that it’s other people who have happy, normal, well adjusted lives. Explaining that what they see is mostly an appearance which is presented to the world is often a lost cause. It’s usually better, or at least simpler, just to agree. 

Now, they are grown up and have flown the coop. They are all solvent and good looking, with robust relationships of their own. While we may not be the Cleavers or any other seemingly perfect tv family, for all intents and purposes, we’re a success story. But it wasn’t always that way, and holidays, to be honest, especially for us blended families, can be very tricky indeed. 

So, it came as no small disappointment when Thanksgiving was a bust. We had to leave the dogs at home for the drive to our older son’s in-laws. He and I are diametrically opposed when it comes to many issues, particularly politics. So much so, that what started as a line in the sand, ended up as a skirmish which deteriorated into more tears on the way home. I had thought we’d mended our fences despite the disparate political sentiments, but evidently I was wrong. Now I was in a world without god and a stepson who hated me as much as he did when he was twelve. Puppy hugging ensued, but the sorrow wouldn’t quit, so medication was prescribed. 

To complicate things further, two weeks before Christmas, I tested positive for COVID. 

My daughter’s family was arriving from London. She is pregnant and we didn’t the want the risk of her getting COVID, at least not from me. They stayed in New York while I was in New Jersey, and thank god for Lucy. A Beagle can be perfect when it comes to home health care. 

But when our quarantine had ended, Lucy met my grandson and mistook him for a Beagle, too. Eventually, she learned that while he is the same height as she, and only two years old, their shared puppy qualities meant they must learn to co-operate when playing together. As for their behavior, they’re both working on that, too.

And then my grandson and his parents went home. It was 2024 and time to face whatever was coming next. 

Chapter three

Early Spring. 

My house is an Airbnb and guests stay on the second floor, just above the living room, where the dogs sleep. To ensure the evening is quiet, I sometimes sleep downstairs with the dogs, because nobody pays money to hear a Beagle all night. Toby, Lucy and I pile onto the sofa, and we simply rest, our little pack existing as one.

But my Beagle is no longer a slip of a thing. She’s been spayed, weighs in at 20lbs and has a lusty appetite for whatever she sinks her teeth into, be it paperbacks, hardcovers, tv remotes or slippers. 

This naughtiness also includes her pleasure at irking our other dog, Toby. There are times she walks up to him while he’s resting on the couch and she simply starts barking. Barking, barking, like a Beagle, barking. These sessions invariably end with a time-out in the crate. Particularly yesterday, when Toby failed to respond, and she bit him on the tail. 

Interestingly though, he has come to believe, that she is his dog. When she steps out of line, he corrects her, when she randomly barks at him, he gives her what-for with his growling. But make no mistake, Lucy is quick to lend a helping a paw wherever we might need one. In addition to a myriad of landscaping pursuits, she loves to bring her digging talents inside, and offers to repot various plants around the house. Just in case, you know to be helpful.

But all the while, my husband and I marvel, amazed at our beautiful Lucy, because she’s little, she’s alive, and she’s boss. 

Whether I can patch things up with my stepson remains to be seen.

It is more important that his relationship with his dad continues to flourish unimpeded by a pesky stepmom. And on the world stage, current events are not much improved. Yet what is saving me, indeed rescuing me, is my Beagle’s indifference to all of this. She needs love and she needs care and she seems to need us. Perhaps almost as much as we need her. She has- at least for the moment- saved me. It turns out I didn’t need religion, after all. I just needed a puppy. 

My previous post was about being clobbered by tech- and I regret to inform you, I’m still writhing from the walloping I got.

But because it’s International Women’s Day, we’re taking no prisoners!

Love, joy and respect to all women and to those who love them everywhere, not only today, but every day. Because after all, we’re in it together.

There was a movie I saw years ago about kids learning to play instruments with the Suzuki method. At one point, a little boy, he was eight or nine years old, said to the film maker, “You just have to accept the fact that you’re going to sound lousy for a while, before you become good.” Then he played an incredible piece with extraordinary panache. I think about that film clip from time to time. When one has an aptitude for responding quickly and picking things up, the harsh reality of a limited skill set can feel overwhelming.

That was certainly my experience with the subjunctive tense when learning French. It was also the case when grappling with the concept of layers in CAD (computer assisted design), and it’s been true with the rule of “Don’t put it down, put it away.” This is in addition to an infinite number of details that are a part of our everyday lives.

“You do a thousand things, none of them well.” An employer once told me. His comment still echoes more than twenty years later. Not because it was hurtful, but because it was true. Yet, as a person who does do a thousand different things, I can assure you, dear reader, that only part of it is true.

So far, this year of the Dragon, has brought its share of challenges. Egregious billing accompanied by inexplicable goobledy-gop from web hosting services amidst the daunting climb of making a mark and selling my books. Both the relationship with tech and selling one’s work feels like the part of learning an instrument when one still sounds lousy. But it is the year of the Dragon and that is what I am.

In this episode of Angry Dead Women, I start a face book group and learn how to conduct myself when a social media book tour is happening.

And get this, while those things are occurring on-camera, believe me when I say, that off-camera I am taking my relationship with tech by the horns whereupon I will wrestle it to the ground, until I am satisfied that I understand how the heck it works.

Meanwhile, book marketing does require some courage. To that end, last week, Jaime Kinyon held my hand as I strode into bookstores hoping to peddle my wares. At the first shop, the manager was on a zoom call and not available. At the second I garbled my words, then hightailed it out of there before the manager could respond. Afterwards, driving to Princeton, dear Jaime gently coached me on what to say in an effort to prevent my fainting or hyperventilating at our last stop. Just before we went in the store, I said, “You should speak.” Then I hid in the stacks only to emerge at the cash register whereupon I bought more books than I could hold.

So both of these tasks, tech and marketing have yet to be mastered. But by the close of this calendar year, dear reader, I tell you, the mastery will be done. Perhaps not well, but most certainly, it will be done with panache.

Being a dragon, I think that should mean something. It might be the year wherein I will finally get some resonant traction going with

a) social media b) general exposure and c) book sales.

Marketing of oneself remains a perennial problem for many, many people. Most of us, at one time or another have given Facebook a crack, but jeez Louise, some of us find the ever changing buttons, the polarization and just unsavory aspects so arduous, that the whole thing is now pretty daunting. So much so, that it’s become necessary to re-learn how to love it.

To that end, the beginning of Angry Dead Women’s next three episodes will be dedicated to MARKETING…. as opposed to dead gals in history. Today’s installment features Facebook groups and why you might love having one.

If you are one of those people, please stay tuned while my friend Sam describes how Facebook groups have worked for marketing his band, The Chain Gang Band. He does so very calmly and simply and I am sure you will find Sam’s comments as helpful as I have.

When you’re ready to ramp up and create a Facebook group of your own, below are two YouTube videos I thoroughly recommend.

The first is from Lyfe Marketing, the second is by a guy named Jerry Potter.

Following my chat with Sam there’s a brief discussion with my good friend and colleague Diane Hatz, whose journey with her debut novel bears keeping mind. Diane has done a soft launch and she’s also done the hard launch.

Beginning again needn’t be a step backward. Beginning again is merely a re-set, an adjustment, and something always worth pursuing.

When the year has been fraught with dreadful news, a pesky case of COVID shows up only days before the holiday, and the kitchen range goes kaput while the step children remind you how much they still loathe you, sometimes, the very best solace is to find some light reading. Here, in no particular order are a few offerings to consume and to share.

The Sybarite Essayist and publisher Adeline Dimond has put together some of the snazziest pieces you will read anywhere on the web. From how to cook a freaking steak to the power of purple sunglasses, these stories have the power to charm and delight you.

Sexting at 60. Valerie Anne Burns’ modest albeit steamy account of a brief encounter between genuine grown ups is the perfect, vicarious visit to passion with an almost stranger.

Middle-Pause are the folks who produce the publication where Valerie Anne’s piece appears. Snippets of wisdom, humor and experience provide readers with vibrant relatable articles. Middle Pause also did me the honor of publishing My Fond Farewell to Viagra which has, to date, enjoyed an incredible reception.

Take off Your Pants is Libbie Hawker’s pithy, go-to classic of a primer. If you’re a writer, this manual on plotting vs. pantsing helps de-mystify the process of outlining when putting a novel together.

The books of writer Jacqueline Vick are an absolute tonic for mystery enthusiasts who just need a laugh and some diversion. She currently has various promotions for her e-books now through the end of the year. I cannot recommend Jackie’s Frankie Chandler and Harlow Brothers series highly enough. Enjoy! and you’re welcome.

The Substack for Kit’s Musings and Doodles is where the wickedly funny Kit Irwin promises to tickle your funny bone, right, there.

An American from Paris is the Substack of my pal, Noemie Andrusier and offers an unlikely combination of erudition and coziness. Check out her ruminations on Proust, on family and all things which interest her. I love everything Noemie writes. I think you will, too.

Finally, Donald and the Terrible, Horrible, no good, very bad Election was how I met the amazing Jackie Pick. Originally published by McSweeney’s during the 2020 election, the ex-President’s current travails make this brilliant piece more relevant than ever. You can find Jackie’s Substack, The Word Monkey Chronicles here.

There are no writers without readers. Give the readers in your life something to read. The writers will thank you for it.

But my three late beginners are Grandma Moses who began her illustrious journey as a painter at 78 years of age.

Evelyn Gregory began her second career (after retiring as the vice president of a bank) at the age of 71.

“Today on my flight from Detroit I was asked by a woman how long I’d been flying. I told her how fortunate I was that Mesa was willing to hire me at seventy-one and that I’ll be starting my fifth year this coming May. She said, ‘Maybe this is something I can do when I retire.’ She’s a registered nurse. It excites me to see someone get interested in the profession after watching me on duty. I even had a college president on one of my flights express a desire to do this when she retired. I always encourage people to pursue their dreams, no matter what their age.” -Evelyn Gregory, Mesa Airlines.

Finally, debut novelist, Gail Lehrman, has burst upon the scene with the brilliant, heart wrenching, family saga, Across Seward Park. She did so at an age which is somewhere in between Evelyn and Grandma Moses.

Here’s some of what we talked about that isn’t on the Podcast. Enjoy!

How did the idea for the story of Across Seward Park come to you and how long did it take to germinate in your imagination?

I can't point to an Ah-Ha moment when I knew what the book would be about. It was a process. It started with my main character, Irv’s voice, which came out of a two paragraph exercise I did in a writing workshop. It was a voice, an idiom that I left behind when I moved from New York City to the west coast, but I could still hear loud and clear in my ears.

There were other things that I missed from New York, like loud arguing. People on the west coast are so polite. I thought, I want to write a book about people who argue. There were pieces of my cultural history that I felt close to and the social and political energy of my parents' and grandparents' generations, as well. All those things were rolling around in my head when I started to write. A couple of characters came in and went or morphed into other characters, then I started to do the actual research and that shaped everything that came after.

Were there times while working on the book when you thought to just throw in the towel? What made you keep going?

The book took eight or nine years to write. Sometimes I’d spend weeks battling a single paragraph. But I discovered early on that all the time I spent working and re-working a single sentence, my good old subconscious was doing its thing. I’d wake up and, boom, there was not only the right sentence, but the whole next step of the book.

After a while, I started accepting those frustrating times as part of the process. Just get your butt in the chair, put down words, something, anything. Eventually, the answer will show up and you can move on. It’s so satisfying when it happens. I just really enjoy writing, even when I’m pulling out my hair.

Tell us about your research process and how you chose what bits of history to select and/or feature and which ones to throw away or simply disregard.

What I found available on-line blew me away...Oral histories recorded in the 1970s from the actual organizers... Every issue of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union newsletter from 1910 forward...the history of the garment cutting knife...a newspaper advertisement from 1920 on the correct way to answer a telephone... It was like digging up buried treasure. And, of course, one thing leads to another, so I could follow links from one site to the next and run into pieces of history I didn’t even think to ask about.

When we went home to New York for a visit, I was able to go to NYU’s Tamiment Labor Library. It was my first experience doing live research. I was sitting at a little desk and they wheeled out this carboard box full of original letters, pictures, pamphlets from 1910 through the 1950s. There was something awesome about holding the real things in my hands. Some of the information was completely new to me, like the fact that the International Ladies Garment Workers Union created an education department staffed by university professors to teach workers American history, philosophy, public speaking, writing, a complete curriculum. That went right into the book.

I had a similar experience researching the Spanish Civil War. I held the handwritten letter of a young man who’d run off to fight in Spain trying to explain himself to his mother back in New York. It was incredibly moving. That, too, made it into the book. It all gave me the rhythm of how people talked, what they thought about, what the world was like for them.

What advice would you have for someone who might have a novel inside of them and who is unsure of how to begin?

This is my first (and only) book, so I don’t know that I’m qualified to give advice. My experience was that the more I wrote, the more I wanted to keep writing. I guess I’d say just start and don’t worry about where it’ll end. Writing a novel is an exercise in delayed gratification. The trip is more important than the destination.

Describe a typical day’s writing for you. Do you manage to work on your manuscript every day, or have there been times where you just need to put it down for a while and then come back to it?

I’m retired, so I had the luxury of a free schedule. I worked on the book everyday, almost always starting first thing in the morning. I could go for about four or five hours and then I was fried, but I fell asleep most nights thinking about where I’d pick up the next day. Over the years, there were breaks of course, vacations and such. Mostly I wrote everyday, five or six days a week. As you know, this final year we had a Zoom writing meet-up every morning at 7AM. That was fantastic for the final push, not to mention the companionship.

What is the best thing that has happened to you as a consequence of your writing?

First: the friends I’ve made along the way. They’ve been an absolute gift. Second: I’ve learned to listen to my inner voice with respect. I’m not so quick to dismiss my thoughts as trivial or dumb. That’s a really big change.

To learn more about Gail, check out her website: GailLehrmanauthor.com

Alma Mahler was a composer, a writer, possibly a genius and certainly a muse. In 1941, she fled Europe with her third husband, to the United States. However, years before that, her first husband, Gustav Mahler, worked with Enrico Caruso. Caruso was married to a woman whose sister lived at the house below on 9th street, which is only blocks from my home in New Jersey.

Many years later, the house was owned by a guy who sold me his dining room table. This was a few years ago, almost sixty years after Alma Mahler died in New York City, next door to the building where Gloria Steinem has lived since 1966. Gloria gave my brother, who is older than sixty years old, his very first record player. All of us everywhere, are somehow connected.

Of all the folks described above, only Mary Ann Shadd is mentioned in this week’s podcast. But my point is, that while we are often pigeonholed and categorized, categorization often conveys only a part of truth, because the thing you might be noted for, is not necessarily relevant to one’s audience.

All of us, whether we’re readers, viewers or simply bystanders, need a feeling of connection for something to sustain our interest.

It’s both complicated and simple.

Last night I attended a publication party for the brilliant Kim Taylor Blakemore’s latest offering, The Good Time Girls Get Famous.

Previously, Kim has written extraordinary historical thrillers wherein the protagonists are so isolated and unable to connect, that the reader is swept into narratives wherein one literally holds one’s breath. The Good Time Girls, however, are not like that at all. They are whimsical, absurd and deliciously funny, which is because, gentle reader, The Good Time Girls have each other.

What is currently going on around us and the horrors of the last month - from Maine to the Middle East - are dreadful reminders that too many of History’s shameful, tragic lessons (be it the Holocaust or Rwanda or Darfur, Vegas or Uvalde, or Sandy Hook) remain unlearnt.

Still, despite mankind’s shocking propensity for violence, I do believe we are connected and we need to come together.

We need community and we need each other. To that end, I bring you Angry Dead Women: Episode 3, About Community.

How about in flying saucers?

And what about the stuff that defies understanding?

For this episode, Sam describes unidentified aerial phenomena. Afterward, my guest, Kerry Cathers discusses an ex-wife who’s been overlooked, a mightily devoted daughter and how you can verify criminal techniques when writing historical fiction.

If you’d like to read more about Mileva Maric, here is a fascinating primer: https://allthatsinteresting.com/mileva-maric.

To learn more about Margaret Roper, I thoroughly recommend Reading the Past with Dr. Kat on YouTube.

My next episode will be a post dedicated to community. followed by a series of interviews featuring authors who’ve published their books over the last year. If you, or someone you know would like to appear on the show, please do not hesitate to reach out to me here.

Have a great Halloween, and thanks so very much, indeed.

Angry Dead Women is also on YouTube! You can catch up with previous episodes and other clips, here: https://www.youtube.com/@carriehayz

Subscribe now

But first! A bit of actual news….

Last night, on the Booklife Prize site, Well Dressed Lies was bestowed with the following sticker:

By the time you open this, the quarterfinals may have been as far as my little book goes, but it’s a huge milestone for me, and it’s always gratifying to receive a nod from folks in the biz.

Now, back to my podcast!

My pilot episode has only one angry dead woman, that being Cheerio Meredith, who was my grandmother. Cheerio, by all accounts, was such a go-getter, that she couldn’t have wasted much time being angry. Here is a photo of the two of us, taken more than 60 years apart, and somehow, it feels as though we’re connected by more than the color of our shirts.

In addition to a gentleman named Sam Costanzo who will be my co-host, the pilot also features an interview with a woman named Adria Firestone. Adria is an extraordinary coach and motivational speaker. When I finished my debut novel, I needed help getting over a crippling fear of speaking on camera. She helped me with that and other persnickety hang ups, too numerous to mention. I invite you to check her out. Working with Adria has the potential to be life changing. I kid you not.

Originally, I’d hoped to send this out via Sub stack’s podcast dashboard, but readers, I just can’t figure it out… and god knows, all of this is a process.

So, without further ado, I give you… Angry Dead Women, the pilot podcast.