new books, new look!

this spring i have four publications, including my new hardcover LITTLE NIGHT, and to celebrate, we have redone the website.   i'm so thankful to adrian kinloch, photographer and web designer, and andrew duncan, marketing manager at viking, for working so hard and making the site so beautiful (and easy for me to use, so i can share lots of writing, photos, and videos with you.)  lindsay prevette, publicity manager at viking/penguin, and meghan fallon, of viking publicity, have been wonderful in providing material for the new site and getting the word out about  all our news.  ted o'gorman continues to be amazing, both as writer of his own fiction and in keeping my site and facebook running well.

tomorrow, april 17,  BLUE MOON will be available as an e-book for the first time ever--the novel was first published in 1993, and was based on a true-life fishing boat incident off the connecticut and rhode island coastlines.  the novel has been out in paperback, and was made into a cbs movie of the week, but this is it's e-debut.

THE SILVER BOAT comes out in trade paperback on may 29--the novel is very dear to me, and i must admit i love the cover and its shingled beach house.  it's set on martha's vineyard, one of my favorite places, and deals with three sisters visiting their beloved summer cottage for the last time.

HOW WE STARTED is an e-special--  two short stories linked to LITTLE NIGHT and THE SILVER BOAT.   the first story, "miss martha's vineyard", visits the characters harrison and rory of the silver boat, back when they were young and trying not to be in love.  the second, "paul and clare," is a prequel to little night, and tells about their dreams of love, nature, new york city, and how they're destined to be both so right and so wrong.

i hope you'll enjoy the changes on my website, and i can't wait for you to read these four new releases.

on another, thrilling note, there was a starred review of LITTLE NIGHT in today's publisher's weekly.

The Rocks at High Tide

The Rocks at High Tide is one of my first published short stories.  It is one of many three sisters stories I wrote early on, and a predecessor to my first novel, Angels All Over Town.  It came out in ASCENT.   I was so fortunate to be plucked from the slush pile by the brilliant editor Dan Curley.  He went on to publish several other stories of mine, and helped me connect with the editors of other literary magazines.

Dan was wonderful.  I remember having a story accepted at another small magazine about the same time as my first publication in ASCENT, and Dan insisted that I let him claim me as his discovery, that he be able to say that ASCENT published me first.  How flattering that was to a young writer.  I'd thought no one could possibly care about such a thing.

He was a great champion of fiction writers, and I am so grateful for all his support and guidance.  We met only once--he was reading from his own fiction at the library in his hometown of Bridgewater, Massachusetts.  He'd mentioned the reading casually in one of his letters, and  I knew I'd get there no matter what.  And I did, and we met, and our work went on for many years, and when he died--so many years ago now--it took me a long, long time to get over.

Please click on the link below to read the story.  (Thanks to Mia Onorato, an incredible writer herself, for ransacking the bookshelves at Hubbard's Point, finding the magazine, and scanning the story to me.)

The Rocks at High Tide