Rosamond Gifford was the only child of a wealthy lawyer, who inherited a fortune in 1917, invested it with care, and left a greater fortune when she died in 1953. The first grant of the Rosamond Gifford Trust was a set of incubators for premature babies; her most recent grant brought me to Syracuse to…
Read MoreWhen I was in high school in the late sixties, a book came out that changed the world of backpacking. These were the early days of REI, when that company was run out of a smallish house in s Seattle suburb, and a person could wander the rooms in a glorious fantasy of compact tents,…
Read MoreAs I’m sure you remember, when Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes are in San Francisco (in Locked Rooms) reference is made to Arthur Conan Doyle’s visit to the city the previous year, during his Spiritualist tour. Well, it seems that the good doctor visited Russell’s very neighborhood during his trip: a house not 100 yards…
Read MoreAt long last, Beekeeping for Beginners is available on audio, here. Also available in libraries, I understand. (It will be out in print as an extra in the Pirate King paperback, later this spring.) Enjoy!
Read MoreLast year we began our series of lectures on religious topics named in memory of my husband, who taught comparative religion in California and before that in Africa. Please join us for the 2012 Noel King Memorial Lecture, next Thursday at UC Santa Cruz. This year’s discussion is centered on the ethics and religious implications…
Read MoreA writer’s life is not all words on a page. A working writer finds herself doing an extraordinary number of odd jobs, such as the day I spent tracking down the identity of an insect the publisher intended to use as the illustration for a new edition of Beekeeper’s Apprentice: No, I said firmly, that…
Read MoreI promised yesterday that I would post today on the question of Independent Booksellers and their relationship with eBooks, and here we are. Yes, Indies sell eBooks, more and more Indies all the time. They (and I, frankly) have too long been frustrated by watching their customers browse the shelves, stand reading a book for…
Read More(Because this post has become a bit longer than I’d intended, I’ll divide it in half, with the first part All About Laurie, and the more important bit tomorrow.) Twice a year, publishers send their authors a royalty statement (and, with luck, a check to go with it.) These are daunting documents, page after page…
Read MoreYou know you’ve been doing too many events with a writer when:
Read More2011 has been a busy year. A ridiculously busy year. A year so nuts, it has forced me to declare 2012 The Year of No. Meaning that if you’re about to ask me to write a short story, participate in a seminar, or show up at your festival, I can only say that if you’re…
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