I'm visiting CAROLINELEAVITTVILLE!

I'm so grateful to the lovely and talented Caroline Leavitt for featuring The Lemon Orchard (and me) on her blog. The Lemon Orchard comes out July 2, but is available for pre-order now. Here's what I can't wait to read: Caroline's new novel, Is This Tomorrow, a May Indie Next Pick. And here's Caroline in a baseball cap:

To write

To write you have to like being alone. Ideas have to flow in and out like air through cracks in the cabin wall. Physical space isn't important; the flow can happen in a tiny room. What counts is internal space. The voices you hear belong to your characters. I clear my life, days and weeks and months at a time, and I lie about it. It embarrasses me to need so much solitude. So I write this today with a sense of coming clean. I'm a terrible one for canceling. I make plans because I love the people I make them with. But sometimes even a single appointment can worry me, or shift my focus to that day, that moment on the calendar, and I wind up saying I'm sorry, I won't be able to. This might be extreme. Some writers might need groups or gatherings or just plain old daily contact more than I do. I need solitude. When I wake up in the morning I get to my writing without speaking a word. Talking before work shifts my focus away. It's not that what I'm writing is important, or beautiful, or noteworthy--it's just what I do. The words are important to me, maybe no one else. I tell stories because if I didn't I would stop breathing.

One can never be alone enough to write -- Susan Sontag

Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer’s loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day -- Ernest Hemingway, 1954 Nobel Prize acceptance speech

The computer makes writing both easier and harder. It makes revision easier but it's a portal to the Internet which is a distraction. The internet has pluses and minuses. When I first discovered it I was distracted by it all the time. Email, constant contact--both wonderful and destructive, like the best addictions. Facebook provides the sense of a social life; Pinterest seems to me to be intuitive and wordless communication, a way to say who you are, or at least who you are at the moment of pinning a picture or poem; Twitter is immediate like speed or sugar; a comic artist introduced me to Tumblr, and I think I like the feeling of it. But let's face it, the Internet is hell on writing. My father, who sold and repaired Olympia typewriters, gave me an Olympia SM 9 when I was in school. I'm glad they still make ribbons for it. I've stocked up in case they stop. I think the sound of the keys comforts me; I know the cats like it. They sit close, as if the typewriter is a hearth. Most of the time I still write on my computer and sometimes on those nights I dream I am typing. Either way the stories get told. Life is writing and writing is life.

Road Odyssey

 

Here's a fascinating essay by Vanessa Veselka:   The Lack of Female Road Narratives and Why it Matters.

I thank my writing pal Joe Monninger for sharing it with me and therefore sending me on a remembrance-of-road-odysseys-past.    I went through a hitchhiking phase in my teens, and I sometimes have nightmares of a couple specific close calls.  One happened somewhere between Old Lyme CT and Hightstown NJ; it was early October, after a summer at the beach, and I missed one of my beach friends so much I decided to hitch down to visit him in boarding school.

In this space I normally write about the nature of summer friendships, the depth of love for my beach friends, but Vanessa's essay takes me to a different place, to the reality of what happened on the road.  There I was--17, maybe?--standing thumb-out on an I-95 entrance ramp, so convinced of my own invincibility that I climbed into the cab of an 18-wheeler.  I can't picture the driver, but I can see that truck--red cab littered with fast food wrappers and a dark curtain behind the seats.  "Check it out back there," he said.  "It's where I sleep."  That was the first moment my stomach flipped.

I felt brave, resourceful.  That made me reckless, but I only know that now, from the distance of many years.  If I think of my nieces doing what I did, I'd lose it.  Yet even after that ride in the big rig--and the driver's innuendo and invitation into the back and my opening the door and jumping out at a toll booth--I kept hitchhiking.  I got to Hightstown and later made my way back home.  When my younger sisters were visiting one of their boyfriends in Warren VT, I hitched north through thickly falling snow to meet them.

Right after our father died my sisters started hitching with me--great older sister, wasn't I?   The the three of us were heading back to Old Lyme from Newport RI and got picked up on Route 138 by some creep in a rattletrap who told us he had beagle puppies at home and would we like to see them?  We scrambled out at the next exit, climbed the ledge that bounded the ramp, and walked for miles along the crest until we got tired and called our mother to pick us up.

Nothing disastrous happened, except perhaps to our psyches.  Stepping so close to the edge, courting danger, has a serious half-life.  You might not be conscious of it, but the what-ifs visit your dreams.  When I was young I was searching for something--I'd push myself to do things that must have scared me at some level--when I think of them now I marvel that I survived, thrived, and wrote about them in short stories and novels.  I feel guilty for taking my sisters on that part of my own strange journey, but back then we were so inseparable it would have been unthinkable to leave them out.

Come to think of it, my new novel, The Lemon Orchard, is about journeys.  Traveling far from what is comfortable to find something you're not even sure you need...  Maybe that's just life; it's certainly been my life.

[Image: The Highwayman by Linden Frederick]

newtown

[My essay about the Newtown school shootings on WNYC]

from the minute i heard about the shootings at sandy hook elementary school in newtown ct, a small and beautiful town in one of the prettiest parts of beautiful connecticut where terrible things aren't supposed to happen, i've been thinking about the children and teachers who were murdered and their families.

the pictures of the children break your heart.  smiling, happy, talented--a video of one little girl playing the piano and singing.

one of their teachers, rachel d'avino (shown in the photo above), attended the university of st. joseph in west hartford connecticut.  i learned this when i called my favorite teacher, laurette laramie, just to hear her voice, and to let her know what she means to me.  laurette and my mother, lucille arrigan rice, also attended st. joe's and became teachers.  the devotion my mother and laurette had/have for their students has always inspired me.  once in 1978 or so a student brought a handgun into my mother's class and drew it on her and the class and she talked him into not shooting anyone, into putting the gun away, into letting her take him to the guidance counselor.

that story of my mother's was just a story--it wasn't headlines, it happened pre-lockdowns, pre-metal detectors.  my mother's life was threatened, but she just kept going, caring about her students, getting them help when she could, directing them to the school psychologist because she believed their actions came from inner pain.

i feel devastated to learn of rachel's death.  i didn't know this bright and dear young woman, but i feel the st. joe's connection.  i'm the daughter of a teacher, and i think teachers are our everyday saints.  i know laurette is one, i know my mother was, my friends joe monninger and doreen dedrick are, and i know that the teachers murdered in newtown are: rachel d'avino, dawn hochsprung (principal), anne marie murphy, lauren rousseau, mary sherlach, and victoria soto.

tonight i spoke with my friend sgt. rob derry of the connecticut state police to ask him about the first responders (the "good guys" some of the teachers spoke of)--who had to deal with the trauma of what they saw.  he told me that right now there are two state troopers assigned to each newtown family who lost a child, and tomorrow there will be a large law enforcement presence at all connecticut schools.  my grandfather was a hartford police detective.  i'm in awe and gratitude of the people who devote their lives to public service.

to quote my sister maureen rice onorato: "i've always been so amazed by people who work in schools, who help children every day, children and their parents...every day out there looking out for them."  we think of our mother, how much she cared...every day, all through the years.  she taught children who had children of their own, and she really helped them know they could go on to better lives.  she would come home and talk about her kids, and their lives, and we could feel her love for them.

thank you, love, and love, and more love.  oh rachel.

The Lemon Orchard

i am thrilled to give you a first look at the cover of my 2013 novel--THE LEMON ORCHARD. it will come out on July 2, but you can pre-order now if you like. it's never too soon to dream about summer reading!

Very thankful to my librarian friends for this lovely mention of THE LEMON ORCHARD in Library Journal: House-sitting for her aunt and uncle in Malibu, with only her dog for company, Julia seeks solitude so that she can quietly mourn her daughter's death. Then she befriends Roberto,who tends the nearby lemon orchard and has sorrows of his own: his daughter has disappeared, but he has yet to give up hope. Classic Rice and doubtless another best seller.

dream country news

exciting dream country news in today's variety ...

the letters! (a novel)

Dear Friends,

Time alone, a fresh piece of stationery, the right pen, the chance to think deeply and let feelings flow.  Before I wrote novels, I wrote letters.  To friends, family, people I love, people I wanted to know better.  Letters turn me inside out.  I’ve written letters that are truer than true.  I’ve told secrets in letters.  I’ve mailed letters filled with emotions so raw, I’ve wanted to dive into the mailbox to get them back.

The Letters, a novel written with one of my oldest and dearest friends, Joe Monninger, is out in paperback on August 28th.  It’s filled with real-live letters between characters we created.  Writing them startled and thrilled me.   I can’t wait for you to read them.

Here is more about our friendship and writing process:

JOE  AND ME

We met in 1980 at a café on Thayer Street.  I’d answered his ad in the Providence Journal.  He was a professional writer and for a fee would critique work.  I was burning to be published.  He was married to a woman in the Brown writing program.  I’d been married for two months to a just-graduated lawyer. We were all so young.

His name is Joe Monninger, and sitting at Penguins, he read my stuff.  I gave him a short story about three sisters whose father caroused with ladies of the town.  He showed me a story about a boy fishing with his dad, getting the fishhook caught in his palm.  His dad took it out, and the boy didn’t cry.

Instead of charging a fee, Joe invited my husband and me to dinner.  He and his wife lived on Transit Street, the top floor of a three-family house, under the eaves.  Bookcases lined the crooked stairs.  Joe’s office was on the landing, dark and cozy, no window.  His wife covered her typewriter with a pair of his boxer shorts.  She made boneless chicken breasts, bought from the chicken man who drove around Fox Point playing “La Cucaracha” on his horn, and she pounded them flat on the kitchen floor between sheets of wax paper with an iron skillet while we watched.

We had dinner often.  We drank scotch and told stories about our families and the dark side of nature.  Joe and I loved shark stories, and collected them.  We’d act out skits, our own form of improv.  “Be a couple at the prom,” I’d say, and Joe and his would shyly dance.  “Be Mim at the gift store,” they’d say, and I’d act out my grandmother being outraged at the price of a ceramic eggplant.

After dinner, they’d walk us down to the street.  Passing the bookcases, they’d grab volumes, press them into our hands.  Many of those books were biographies or collected letters: Carson McCullers, Virginia Woolf, Maxwell Perkins, Hemingway.  I’d take the books home and get lost in writing lives.

Fast forward: time went by, and our first marriages ended.  Joe and I remained friends along the way.  We wrote to each other, knowing how important our connection was: we had witnessed each other’s youth.  We had known each other’s first loves.  We knew the sources of each other’s writing, inspiration, fishhooks.

One day we had an idea.  I can’t remember whether it was his or mine.  But we decided to merge two of our great loves from the early days: literary letters and acting out scenes.  What if we took on personas?  Became characters?  We would write about people on the verge of divorce—we’d both been there.  We’d incorporate nature and art.  We needed names.

I became Hadley, after Hemingway’s first wife.  He became Sam, because I wrote him he had to have a short, punchy name like “Joe.”  Our last name is West, in honor of Tim West, a surfer from Half Moon Bay, who survived a great white attacking his board at Maverick’s one December day.

We wrote letters in character.  And The Letters, our novel, took shape.

We had a son, Paul, our good, beautiful boy, who dropped out of Amherst to go teach the Inuit in an Alaska village, and who died.  Our marriage couldn’t survive his death.  Our desolation and grief and love and rage streamed into our letters.  Hadley went to Monhegan Island off the coast of Maine, to try to quit drinking and start painting again.  Sam flew to Alaska to search out the site where our boy died.

Even now, we find it hard to believe we don’t have a dead son.

Joe and I never spoke on the phone, never saw each other, not even once during the process.  We never discussed or planned what would happen, how the story should unfold.  The writing had its own life, the writing was all.

Life is full of mistakes and kindnesses, and what love can’t heal, fiction can.

And I love Joe.  He’s my writer friend, the one who knows me best, who knows where the bodies are buried, and who tells me about sharks.  We wrote The Letters.  And we’ll keep writing.

Stars in the Night-Blue Sky

The night is blue and smells of lemons. Standing outside I listen to the waves and look up at the stars. I am far away from the place I grew up and it comforts and somehow surprises me to see the familiar constellations. "Arc to Arcturus," is one lesson my sisters and i learned. By following the curved handle of the Big Dipper, we found Arcturus, one of the brightest stars in the sky. It glows warm and orange, easy to admire with the naked eye, and part of the constellation Bootes. What is it that makes us want to identify the stars, find out way around the sky? Does it help us know where we are on earth, not in a precise latitude/longitude way, but our place in the universe? We are all here for so short a time. When i look at the stars I think of love. The stars tell a love story if only you spend the time to read it. This is how I want to live: at peace, guided by the stars. People far away look up and see the same celestial bodies at the same time, or hours apart. The sky brings us together, not only with the living but also the dead.

pensive

we are in a pensive mood these days.

sometimes the marine layer rolls in and softens all the edges. after the rain, the sky glows.

i'm writing about love in a lemon orchard, so some days i write under the lemon tree.

whether we are writing, or just hanging out on a fence rail or a tabletop, as i said, we're feeling pensive.

surely our friend the monk would understand...

my favorite blog

i came upon this blog about a year ago, and was instantly drawn in. veronique de turenne writes about malibu, nature, dogs, books, life with such heart, soul, and dry humor. she's a wonderful writer; i sent her an unabashed fan letter, and we became fast friends. we already have a tradition--having dinner on solstice nights. she introduced me to diesel, and it's become one of my favorite bookstores.check out yesterday's post, and click on the word "friend" to see why this particular post tickles me so. but then go back, and enjoy veronique's writing and photographs. you'll feel you spent the day--or a few years, depending on how far back you read--in malibu. not the glitzy, tabloid version, but the wilderness where the santa monica mountains meet the pacific ocean...the malibu i love. incidentally, to make the circle complete, my fascination with cheyenne is shared by one of my favorite writers--joe monninger.

Love times 30

oh love...feeling it so strongly right now, along with deep gratitude. look what Andrea Cirillo, my forever literary agent and great friend, made to celebrate LITTLE NIGHT--my 30th novel. this collage contains public book stuff and private friend stuff...book jackets, stars from my tv productions, some of the funnier quotes from my novels ("we rode six breasts abreast..."), the cats, our favorite literary lunch hangout--the The Half King, joan stein, motherhood out loud, hallmark hall of fame, lifetime, the literary guild, soundhound, good housekeeping, and so much more...and she wrote: "huge congratulations on a wild, honest, excellent, crowd-pleasing, soul-searching, mind-boggling, record-making, tender, brainy, brave & true journey to book #30!" THANK YOU ANDREA! and everyone at the Jane Rotrosen Agency (all of whom signed the card), and my publishers, and all my wonderful readers.

LITTLE NIGHT and the Monk

Here's a photo of my dear friend Brother Luke. He's reading LITTLE NIGHT, and he reads all my novels! We met many years ago when I was on book tour in the Louisville/Lexington KY area, visiting Joseph-Beth Booksellers and the late-great Hawley Cooke bookstores. (I miss Arlene, the store manager! Where are you now?) Drawn to the Abbey of Gethsemani by the writings of Thomas Merton, I first met Luke many years and many books ago. He is a brilliant musician and composer, an Irish poet with the best laugh in the world, and one of the greatest friends I can imagine having. He introduced me to his mother Alice and her sister Peggy, and when they came to New York City to visit we spent a day at the Metropolitan Museum of Art--two wonderful women. Luke and Alice came to Joseph Beth to see me speak, and afterwards we had dinner and talked and laughed. We speak often, don't see each other enough, and I certainly consider him family. I dedicated SILVER BELLS to him. And whenever I have a new book out, Luke heads straight to the shelves and is one of my first readers. I'm so grateful for his friendship and constant support. Love you, Luke...

My Cousin the Captain

My super-dear cousin Tom Brielmann, a captain for Delta Airlines, took this photo of LITTLE NIGHT and emailed me with the heading "Front of the Store at Logan Airport." He then followed a tradition--he always buys my book in the Delta terminal first day of sale, and gives it to a random passenger. Today it was a woman from NYC. I hope she enjoys it! (and thank you, Tom xxoo) (We're close, and he's always been generous, original, idiosyncratic, creative, a wonderful cousin, and a great pilot. I took my first flight with him when we were both 16.)

Providence

LITTLE NIGHT comes out tomorrow, the very same day the Transit of Venus will occur for the last time in our lifetimes. Coincidence? I'm not sure... Some of you know how inspired I am by nature, especially celestial events. The full moon on the ocean enchants me. I've never missed a Perseid meteor shower--every August 11th night you'll find me on a beach blanket, watching for meteors to streak across the sky. Sometimes it's raining or too cloudy to see, but I still try. This year the planets have been lining up at dusk, sometimes with the crescent moon, to cast a spell and remind us not to remain overly earthbound.

The title, LITTLE NIGHT, has layers of meaning...I hope you'll discover them when you read the novel. They're all connected to love, and the mysterious ways we move in and out of the dark with each other. There are secrets in the sky and in our hearts...tomorrow the Transit of Venus might help translate a little of both.

When I was a young writer I lived for a short time in Providence Rhode Island--the city of my grandmother Mim's birth. I and my then-love lived at the corner of Benefit and Transit Streets and became best friends with two writers who lived in an old Victorian house at the other end of Transit. They occupied the second floor, and there was a crooked staircase lined with books, and he wrote under one eave on the landing, and she wrote under another eave in the kitchen, and she covered her typewriter with his boxer shorts--long before computers--and we were all in love and great friends and talked about books and fly-fishing and our lives and worst fears and fascinations and acted out sketches of our families and first dates and everything else while eating cozy dinners and drinking much scotch.

There was something about that house. The fact it was on Transit Street explained some of the magic. The street was named after the Transit of Venus, a phenomenon observed in Providence in 1769 by Joseph Brown and his brother Moses using a telescope from the top of a tall wooden platform. The event was commemorated by the naming of two Providence Streets--Transit and Planet.

I wrote one of those writers today to ask about the street, and he replied: It was named after the Transit of Venus. And it happens once every 100 years. I don't know much more about it. Did you know it was scheduled for your book date?

Actually I hadn't put that together. But it seems auspicious, considering that LITTLE NIGHT is dedicated to him. We've stayed friends all these years, still bound by our loves of books, family, fishing, sharks, celestial events, dogs, cats, and a thousand million other things. We wrote THE LETTERS together. It's a paradoxically singular experience, writing a novel with another person, and I can't imagine doing that with anyone but Joe.

LITTLE NIGHT, long friendship, the Transit of Venus; it's all Providence.

starred reviews for LITTLE NIGHT

we're excited to share with you these early reviews, both starred, for LITTLE NIGHT: From Publisher's Weekly:

* Little Night Luanne Rice. Viking/Pam Dorman, $26.95 (336p) ISBN 978-0-670-02356-1 After bludgeoning her sister’s abusive husband with a burnt log, Clare Burke is whisked away to jail in the dramatic opening of Rice’s 30th novel (after Secrets of Paris). Based on Anne’s false testimony in defense of her husband, Clare serves two years for assault, the sisters become estranged, and the story picks up 18 years later in 2011 in New York City, where Clare is a blogger and birdwatcher. Though she’s never fully recovered from the trauma of her sister’s betrayal, Clare desperately wants to reconnect with Anne, who has since cut all ties with her family at the behest of her manipulative husband. But when Anne’s 21-year-old daughter, Grit, shows up on Clare’s doorstep seeking a family that loves her, Clare and her niece bond, though the subject of their common tie—Anne—is never far from either of their minds. The two support one another as they attempt to create a relationship and reconnect with the woman who hurt them. Poetic and stirring, Rice’s latest beautifully combines her love of nature and the power of family. Agent: Andrea Cirillo, the Jane Rotrosen Agency. (June 5) Reviewed on: 04/16/2012

Other Formats Compact Disc - 978-0-307-70494-8 Hardcover - 491 pages - 978-1-4104-4886-6

From Library Journal:

*Rice, Luanne. Little Night. Pamela Dorman: Viking. Jun. 2012. c.336p. ISBN 9780670023561. $26.95. F In 1993, Clare Burke attacked her sister Anne’s abusive husband, Frederik, and went to prison for assault. Once close, the sisters grew estranged after Anne lied in court about what precipitated the attack. Clare, however, never stopped missing and worrying about Anne and her two children, Gillis and Margarita (Grit), who continued to live with a man they often feared. Now working as a birder and blogger in New York City, Clare is stunned to receive a letter from Grit asking to stay with her for a few days. Days turn into months as the aunt and niece get to know each other and try to live in the present while understanding the past. VERDICT Best-selling author Rice’s 30th book is an outstanding read that both chills and warms the soul. Her descriptions of abuse are startling and unnerving, while her vibrant verbal paintings of birds and nature are calming and uplifting. This hard-to-put-down story about how family ties can be undone and sometimes retied is compelling and will undoubtedly resonate with fans of contemporary women’s fiction. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 12/5/11.]—Samantha J. Gust, Niagara Univ. Lib., NY

love, the beginning

today "how we started," two short stories (linked to "the silver boat" and "little night") i wrote to celebrate new love, first love, the kind of love that turns into forever love, was published as an e-special (for $1.99!--love don't cost a thing) tell me: how did you start? what was the beginning of your great love?

The old Blue Moon

BLUE MOON is now available as an e-book.  This gives me the chance to remember writing the novel, to be filled with all the emotions of the time.  The words "Blue Moon," as well as referring to the celestial phenomenon of two full moons during the same calendar month, is also the name of the old blood-and-booze soaked honky tonk section of Newport, Rhode Island.  My grandmother first told me about it--she was a "good girl," but as a young woman she and her boyfriend (who became my grandfather) were known to visit the Blue Moon district to meet their friends, cause some mischief, and dance up a storm.

I started writing the novel late one fall, when the weather had turned cold and storms had started down from Labrador, while driving in my car one day, I heard a radio report of a local fishing boat missing.  The Coast Guard search began, continued over Thanksgiving, and was about to be called off when flares were sighted.   Suddenly there was hope...but then the rumors began, that the flares had been set off by other fishing boats, doing anything they could to keep the search going.

That kind of love and loyalty hit me hard.  I decided to write about a family fishing business in Mount Hope (aka Newport) Rhode Island.  The  Keating clan owned a fleet of boats, then sold the catch at Lobsterville, their wharfside restaurant.   There are three generations of Keatings, all with their own loves, hardships, secrets, and joys.    I love that family still, and feel as if they're my own.

I  hope you'll download BLUE MOON and meet the Keatings.  Billy and Cass, married 10 years and with 3 kids, were known as "the batteries" --their attraction to each other  was so strong--and  I think I've gotten more reader mail about a certain scene in Billy's truck in a grocery store parking lot than for many other books combined--but who says married couples can't have fun too?

Sheila, the matriarch, is still in love with her husband, in spite of the fact he's been dead for years now, and she never stops dreaming of another dance at the old Blue Moon with him.

My kind of love.

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.

where i am right now

by "where i am right now" i don't mean geographically, although at this moment, in a micro-geographic sense, i'm typing on the bed with maisie curled up at my feet.  a cat and a keyboard: who could need anything more?  (except another cat; mae-mae is in the other room.) where i am right now might be summed up by the fact i'm collecting quotes about light.  here are two:

"in order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present." ~sir francis bacon, philosopher, 1561-1626

"though my soul may be set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light, i have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night."  ~ from "the old astronomer to his pupil" by sarah williams, poet, 1837-1868

aren't they beautiful?  and isn't light beautiful?  i'm living in a place that's sunnier than what i've been used to for most of my life, and nearly every day i look out to see white light bouncing off the pacific, illuminating lemons in the trees, casting shadows on the mountain and canyon.  but still i'm in touch with darkness, most of it inner--maybe all writers are?  maybe all human beings are...

i'm thankful for that darkness.  it's helped me understand the things people go through, the really painful stuff we all wish would just disappear, go away, or even better, never have existed at all.  i'm writing about this now, because during the next few months i'm going to ask you to come on a journey with me.

the picture above shows me with two brilliant young filmmakers: rubie andersson and tamara edwards.  when i'm not writing my new novel, i've been working with these young women to create a series of videos connected to little night.

the novel deals with a dark aspect of family life: domestic violence and how it affects everyone.  i've experienced it myself, and know that healing is possible, that the dark night ends and daylight returns.  little night is very much about how a woman wakes up from a nightmare--with the help of friends, family, and the right kind of love.

along the way, i've interviewed three women who've been affected--either themselves, or in one case, her daughter--by abuse.  tamara and rubie have done such beautiful, sensitive filming; they're in the process of editing, and i can't wait to show you the results.

charlie

every day at 5 pm a red-tailed hawk flies over the hillside. when twigg crawford was visiting, he named the hawk 5 o'clock charlie.  recently he requested that i post some photos of our daily visitor, so these pictures are for him (and you.)

i take photos with my iphone, no telephoto lens obviously, but there's something about seeing this hawk from a distance that brings poetry into my life every day at 5.

as you can see, charlie has found--or is in the process of finding--love.