The launch party pictures are up, accessed through a link on the home page or from the Locked Rooms page. Sorry you weren’e2’80’99t there? The trip along the coast from San Diego to Los Angeles ought to be sold as a tourist trip, it’e2’80’99s such an adventure in Californiana. Long beaches decorated with neoprene-clad surfers,…

Coming down towards the end of the away part of the LOCKED ROOMS tour, just Los Angeles to go, which I reach not by the traditional Californian methods of automobile or plane, but by (gasp) train. Only a New York publicist would think of mass transit to get a person from San Diego to LA.…

Thanks to my fellow bloggers who turned out in Bellingham’e2’80’94and remember, Jacqui’e2’80’94mothers are designed to embarrass their daughters. It’e2’80’99s part of the job description. I got back to the hotel before eleven, and up again this morning for a 7:15 pickup. I am writing this in the SeaTac airport waiting for my flight to be…

Well, I have to admit, that when I’e2’80’99m up and throwing clothes into a suitcase at 4:30 in the morning, posting a blog isn’e2’80’99t the first thing on my mind. You will forgive me? The 7:30 am flight out of Houston arrived in Seattle a little late, thanks to the clever planning of the Houston…

It’e2’80’99s summertime, and the livin’e2’80’99 is humid. Greetings from Houston, the country’e2’80’99s fourth largest city (as the board on the way in from the airport cheerily informs a visitor’e2’80’94in lights, so it can be changed instantaneously with any shift in population.) A city with summer weather seeing rough matches in temperature and humidity, both in…

Yesterday, day four of the LOCKED ROOMS tour, was for my home town store. Capitola BookCafe is owned and run by four women who by this time I count as friends, although when they hosted my very first event back in 1993, I had only met one of them, our husbands being colleagues at the…

Kepler’s in Menlo Park is a bookstore with a fifty year history of social activism. It began during the days of the civil rights movement, kept stirring the pot throughout Vietnam, and survived more than one arson attack in its determination that a bookstore is not just selling carrots, but ideas. These days, Kepler’s might…

There are successful launches, where the bottle thumps against the prow and the boat slips into the water, and then there is what we did Wednesday night, when the champagne flowed like a fountain (literally like a fountain, at one point) and the vessel pirouettes as it dives for the sea. We had fun. A…

I just want to say (since I know that in the maelstrom of a tour, good manners are the first thing to vanish) THANK YOU, everyone, for your demonstrated enthusiasm. It’s the one thing that makes it all worth while. That, and the book sales… I’ll try to post as I vote, early and often.…

I’e2’80’99ve never been able to understand writers who don’e2’80’99t read the reviews of their work. Sure, it can be painful, like having strangers tell you that your child really isn’e2’80’99t as attractive, or talented, or even as nice as you thought. Sometimes you are possessed by the rage-fueled urge to pick up a phone and…