I’m incubating …

Incubating.  What does that mean, someone recently asked.  This person had first asked if I was taking a break, now that my new book is finished and in production.  Lord, no, I said.  Writing is what I do.  It’s what I think about when I’m up the creek without a paddle – e.g., in the…

Read More

How to pick the right title for a book?

If I knew the answer to that, I’d save myself a lot of angst.  Picking a title is easy.  Picking the right one, not necessarily so. Who picks the title?  Sometimes it’s me.  From my initial conception, Flirting with Pete was Flirting with Pete.  Same with Lake News, Heart of the Night, Not My Daughter, and…

Read More

To what are we most committed?

Commitments is my 42nd child – but every single child of mine is special to me. Their birthdays are cause for celebration, which is what I’m doing today. I’m celebrating the birth of Commitments as an eBook. It’s about time! Commitments was first published in 1988 and has been issued in every other format but…

Read More

How we got a cover for BLUEPRINTS

  If you’re reading this blog, you’re currently looking at the cover of my new book, BLUEPRINTS, which debuts this coming June. What do you think? Does the cover draw you in? This isn’t an idle question. It’s one that my publisher and I have been asking ourselves since this cover became “the one.” We…

Read More

Novel salad

There will be six of us for dinner Saturday night, including a couple of really good cooks, meaning that if I try to compete, I fail.  So what to serve?   I may write good books, but a gourmet cook I am not. My gut tells me that it’s best to go with simple and…

Read More

My Maine Childhood

I’m a Maine-summer girl. Some of my earliest memories are from visiting my dad’s sister’s place on Lake Sebago or my mom’s father’s cooperage in Portland. Then my mother died, and I was sent away to camp.  If that sounds cruel, listen up. I was eight when my mother died. And back then, believe it…

Read More

Notice any changes?

The new, gorgeous, trade paperback edition of Sweet Salt Air is now on sale! It’s the second generation, so to speak, which means it’s been improved upon. The changes are subtle. You may not notice them unless you study both editions side by side. I’m telling you about the changes here, so that you’ll know…

Read More

Page Change

Whoa.  I just looked at my last blog, and realized how long I’ve been gone!  Well, not really gone.  I’ve been here at my desk the whole time, plugging away at my new book.  But now we’re into October, and sweet corn is passé in New England.  What’s in?  Apples and cranberries (the picture below…

Read More

In praise of sweet corn

‘Tis the season. We’ve had fresh sweet corn around here for weeks now, but I’m in Massachusetts, and that corn is from Georgia, which isn’t to say it isn’t good, simply that it isn’t local. Locally-grown produce is a big part of Sweet Salt Air, and though corn isn’t a major player in the book,…

Read More

I hear you!

The notes you send have a huge impact on me.  The most  obvious instance occurred in June, soon after Sweet Salt Air came out.  One reader said she thought the book started too slowly.  I promptly turned to my work-in-progress, reread the opening with a critical eye, then switched Chapters 1 and 2 so that…

Read More