Inspired by the perigee moon of March 19...
My essay, Life out of Balance, appears in today's Huffington Post. I would be so grateful if you felt inclined to leave a comment at the bottom of the Huffpo page, and send the link along to your friends. Thank you very much!
Are you free for lunch?
I've donated "Lunch with the Author," a signed copy of The Silver Boat, and the chance to have a character named for you in my next novel, to the most wonderful event: Bid to Save the Earth: Christie's Green and Runway to Green Auction. Just click on the link to place your bid...
The auction benefits four environmental charities, including NRDC--Natural Resources Defense Council--the amazing organization that does so much to protect our planet... I'm a member of NRDC and feel so proud of the work they do.
About that lunch. I'd love to meet you at one of my favorite restaurants: 
the Red Cat in New York City,
or, if you'd prefer to meet in LA, Shutters on the Beach (my all time favorite beachside hotel and restaurant)
or Ivy at the Shore (shown at the top, the terrace cascading with bougainvillea.) Bring a friend if you'd like; we can talk about books, writing, life, inspiration, wildlife, the sea, the earth, ways we can help...
Please check out the details, as well as the auction itself and other incredible items (go flying with Harrison Ford, meet Lady Gaga in Miami, sit courtside at a Knicks game with Jay-Z, attend opening night at the Metropolitan Opera in a box for eight, or take a tennis lesson with John McEnroe, among many other tempting .)
And I really hope we can have lunch!
My essay about being in California when the tsunami hit, on today's Huffington Post book page.
We've been posting videos on this website for some time now...but I'm at the beach shooting a video for The Silver Boat and can't wait for you to see it (soon!)
Mike O'Gorman, my friend and video director, shot footage on the beach and by a fireplace with white tiles of dolphins,
sea horses, starfish. 
I talk about characters, sisters, a few secrets from the novel. The sea is so blue, the sun shining, and while we were shooting, a pod of dolphins swam past. I built a sandcastle, and the waves washed it away.
Then we went swimming, because how could we not?
Author Spotlight from Baker & Taylor Forecast
Luanne Rice
New York Times best-selling novelist Luanne Rice is used to mining her own life to tell tales of family, friendship and love. But for her 27th book, The Silver Boat (Viking, April 2011), Rice says her writing is more personal — and darker — than what readers have seen before. The Silver Boat follows a trio of sisters grappling with addiction, strained marriages and a parent who isn’t around to give answers. Rice chatted with Forecast from the East Coast, where she splits her time between New York City and a beach cottage in Olde Lyme, Conn., which inspired some scenes in The Silver Boat.
Forecast: The Silver Boat centers around the larger-than-life role a house can play in our dreams and family dynamics. What drew you to that? Luanne Rice: My grandparents had a beach house where my sisters and I spent every summer. One of the most touching things for me is we come from a working class family, so I was really in awe that they pulled the money together to buy the land and build the cottage. I had this sort of vision of becoming the family matriarch myself and keeping the house going the way my mother had. But when my mother died, it was like the light went out of the house, and my sisters and I had different ideas as to what to do with it. It made me reflect on what a house means—Is it just a setting? Real estate? Is it a repository of dreams? We put it on the market, but didn’t clean it up—this was psychological—let it look like a small-scale Grey Gardens. It didn’t sell. I eventually decided to buy my sisters out, and it’s wonderful having it.
FC: A ghost ship appears as we follow the sisters’ search for clues to their father, a boatbuilder, presumed shipwrecked in Ireland decades earlier. What is it about the sea that conjures up such feelings of being lost or haunted?
LR: I grew up in New England, where the coast is strewn with shipwrecks. There is so much mystery about the sea; it’s vast and the elements are so intense. On a foggy day, you’re not sure what you’re seeing, and that makes you feel anything is possible. When you lose somebody, and it’s so unfinished, with so many questions, you want so badly to have that person back. When their father disappeared, it makes sense they would look to the sea.
FC: You’ve written more than two dozen books since your first novel was published in 1985. What keeps you going? LR: My mother always encouraged my writing. When I was a child, she would hold workshops
around our family’s oak table. She’d have us write down descriptions of rocks and sand. I felt like I couldn’t stop writing. There was a long spell when I got things back in self-addressed envelopes. My mother was so thrilled to see me become a writer and get published. I miss being able to tell her news of jacket art. Writing can be an isolating job; it’s me and the three cats. But I am very active on my website and forums and it’s wonderful, because you can open up a screen and suddenly all those people are there.
— Interviewed by Emily Achenbaum Harris; photo © Adrian Kinloch.
With The Silver Boat coming out April 5th,I've been thinking a lot about the novel's settings, particularly Martha's Vineyard.
As a child I spent much time there with family friends. Later I found summer jobs, ways of staying on the island for blissful summers while writing about my experience. My go-to positions were babysitting and being a chambermaid.
My favorite times were spent on Lucy Vincent Beach, playing or swimming with the kids, or riding my bike there on my days off.
I was fourteen. Beach nights were secret and wonderful. Older kids would build a bonfire. Someone always had a guitar. We would surfcast and swim; one July night I felt the the scrape of something cold on my leg, and I had no doubt I'd just been touched by a passing shark.
On rainy days I'd take the kids to the Flying Horses in Oak Bluffs, the oldest platform carousel in America. It arrived on the island in 1884. I'd ride the merry-go-round with the kids and feel free and happy and somehow nostalgic in a way I hadn't yet understood.
All of these experiences went in deep. When I wrote The Silver Boat, about three sisters who return to their island home, the only place they've ever been happy together, I drew on memories, dreams, that elusive nostalgia, and love of my own private Martha's Vineyard.
The character of Harrison--the sisters' best childhood friend--seems to be a favorite of early readers of the novel. I can't wait to introduce you to him--and the real-life best friend who inspired him.
The novel continues in Ireland, home of the sister's long-gone father, and the site of a family secret, but that's another blog post... (and so is Harrison!)
Today at Shutters I received the first copy of The Silver Boat, and I am thrilled, and it seems so appropriate to have had my first look right here, because this is a place I really enjoy writing.
So many thanks to Pamela Dorman Books/Viking and the wonderful team that created my book. Many talented people are involved in every aspect of production.
Pam is a genius publisher and editor. Not only that, she is a close friend. We started off together long ago; she was my editor for Crazy in Love and several other titles, and we are overjoyed to be working together again. When I somehow managed to e-mail her my thanks while jumping for joy, she wrote back: "I love it, too, and for us all, it has been a labor of pure pleasure."
Pam and her team have made the hardcover truly beautiful; it feels like a gift, turning the pages, seeing another new and wonderful thing. The typeset, the frontispiece,the title page, the luminous cover.
How fitting to be seeing this at Shutters. This is my favorite hotel, and I often come here to write. The Silver Boat is set on Martha's Vineyard and in Ireland, connected by the Atlantic Ocean. It is wonderful to be seeing the first copy while gazing out the window at the Pacific.
Sometimes I write in the lobby, other times on the balcony. When in the sun I wear my lucky cap with this logo:
Right now, because the sun is just starting to go down, I think I'll put on my cap and read The Silver Boat outside, in a cozy wicker chair...
What an amazing first night!
As many times as I've seen In Mother Words, last night I felt I was seeing it for the first time. The play is so funny and touching, and the monologues weave into each other while managing to stand alone as their own contained worlds. The actors were brilliant, absolutely wonderful. Everyone stood up at the end, and I felt so grateful to be part of it. Congratulations to all the incredible playwrights! I am honored to be in your company.
beth and joan
So many high points. Here are two: Beth Henley, whom I've loved and adored since her Pulitzer Prize-winning Crimes of the Heart, one of my favorite plays and films, and the best three sisters since Three Sisters, (as you may know, I have a penchant for three-sisters stories,) told me she loved my monologue. Yikes! That made my night, if it hadn't been made already. (Photo of me, Beth, and Joan Stein.)
I love Beth's monologue, Report on Motherhood--such a true, deep, constantly surprising conversation between a girl and her great-grandmother. I'm proud to have worked with her and so many writers I admire.
jane k
Another high point: meeting Jane Kaczmarek right after the play. She is lovely and brilliant, and it was so funny because we hugged right away--an actor and writer do sort of bond without ever seeing each other, because she's living in my words, bringing them to life, and I'm handing her a piece of my heart, waiting to see what she'll do with it. Watching Jane perform My Almost Family I felt breathless and cried because she hit the deepest part of what I was going for--made it seem worth cherishing.
The photo above is of the cast, creators and producers, and director. From left: James Lecesne, Susan Rose Lafer (creator and producer,) Saidah Arrika Ekulona, Lisa Peterson (director,) Joan Stein (creator and producer, my dear friend since she produced Crazy in Love,) Jane Kaczmarek, and Amy Pietz.
[The play is now Motherhood Out Loud.]
Opening night for In Mother Words! Tonight I'll go to the Geffen Playhouse in Westwood, attend opening night and enjoy the celebration. My wonderful agent, Andrea Cirillo, sent me the flowers and, yes, red panties, you see in the photo above.
My piece, My Almost Family, is about my experience as a stepmother. The monologue went through several incarnations, and at one point it included a line spoken by the character's husband's ex-wife, a line-in-the-sand moment in which the mother phones the stepmother to ask if she's missing any panties, it seems one of the children may have stolen them. The stepmother asks, "What do they look like? And the mother replies, "Red with black lace, very trampy."
Ah, the pleasures of trying to merge a family. I wound up cutting that line, even though it got laughs, because the heart of my piece is serious and more than a little sad. The new family--the stepmother's--didn't stay together. There were too many old wishes and ties, ways the original family had of doing things, stolen panties being the least of her problems. Andrea knows me so well, and she knows all my writing, and the different lives this monologue has had.
So I thank Andrea and the agency for the flowers and...the red panties, black lace, very trampy...as well as loving "Break a leg!" wishes. Tonight will be exciting. Jane Kaczmarek will read my piece, as she did on Sunday, when I saw the play for the first time. I loved and was so moved by the way Jane did my monologue.
My Sunday night theater party of close friends included Robert Loggia, who played Jane's father in Malcolm in the Middle, proving once again it's a very small world. We enjoyed ourselves greatly--the production is gorgeous. Break a leg to everyone in the show!
(I just realized the photo of the flowers and "accoutrement" is sideways, but somehow that seems just right.) The show runs till May 1. Everyone please come! Bring your mothers, daughters, and sisters. If you don't live in LA, fly out. You'll definitely laugh and cry and adore the magical fairy-lit courtyard where you can drink wine, coffee, or a lovely sparkling water under the balmy sky.
(In group photo: Kenji Thielstrom, me, Mary Guterson, Audrey and Robert Loggia, and Julie, a friend from Shutters.)
Blue sky, sparkling sea, marine mammals.
Bright Sunday. The Pacific is calm after days of high winds, whitecaps, pounding waves. Yesterday a storm swept through, and shore birds were restless. 
Today there's a feeling of excitement and peace. The birds seem more settled. The ocean surface is calm enough to see dolphins swimming by, black blacks and dorsal fins glistening in sunlight, making their slow way along the coast. The sea lions continue barking--the sound is haunting at night, or in the fog, but somehow joyful during this brilliant day.
Most exciting for me: the sight of spouts a few hundred yards out. The whales go by, gray whales on their annual migration north. A few years back I had the unimaginable pleasure of spending time with the whales in their winter grounds, Laguna San Ignacio--beautiful, pristine, unspoiled, thanks to the efforts of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
"The Whales Go By," by Fred Phleger, an oceanographer at WHOI and later Scripps Institution of Oceanography, was one of my favorite books of childhood. Perhaps my lifelong love of whales began in those pages. One of the best Christmas presents I've ever gotten was this now vintage and out of print book...lovingly searched out and given to me by a good friend I'd told of its deep meaning to me.
Books and stories can change the lives of young readers--and old readers, too. Today I read a friend's essay on friendship and fishing, and feel transformed.
Back to marine mammals: aside from the whales swimming by, I have an orca in my bathtub. Katie Jones, cetacean researcher and friend of J-pod in the San Juan Islands, tells me it's a transient.
St. Joseph College, West Hartford CT I know for sure that Miss Laurette Laramie (my high school history teacher, mentor, and great friend,) had a LOT to do with my receiving this amazing honor. Laurette graduated from St. Joe's, as did my mother, Lucille Arrigan Rice. My mother always said she could never have received a better education anywhere, and that St. Joe's gave her strength and belief in herself, and the knowledge that she could make of her life anything she wished. She chose art, literature, motherhood, and teaching.
Laurette taught me history, but even more, she taught compassion--for ourselves and for everyone on the planet. She encouraged awareness and consciousness, and a sense of our own abilities to make a difference. In her class at St. Thomas Aquinas we read the daily New York Times, opening our world view; during the holidays we paid special attention to the Neediest Cases stories, entering the lives of families affected by hunger, poverty, illness, and in reading about them, care about them and find a way to help.
I know how Laurette feels about St. Joseph College--she loves it. She is a vibrant scholar and activist--in this case her activism included so kindly and lovingly weaving, unknown to me, the scenario that makes possible this wonderful gift--an honorary degree from the college that shaped her life.
I'm grateful to St. Joseph College, President Pamela Trotman Reid, PhD. and Sister Patricia Rooney, as well as to Laurette Laramie, the late Kathleen Stingle, and my mother, wonderful St. Joe's grads who've influenced me so much.
I do have my own, private St. Joe's moment. When I was little, my mother would take us on frequent visits to the campus, to visit her former professors, Sisters of Mercy. I must have been about 5. We were in the Grotto, an ivy-covered secret garden, and I found a blue button. Remind me to tell you the story sometime. It involves a vision of the Virgin Mary.
Have you ever seen such interviews? They're a phenomenon in Westwood, and I would feel remiss if I didn't share them with you. Everyone has a mother, and it's clear no one lacks for words on the subject. Here they are, Mothers on the Street.
Writers love to talk--and write--about mothers, too. Their own mothers, themselves as mothers, their daughters as mothers, their grandmothers as mothers. It's a rich tapestry for all of us. If you are in Los Angeles, I'd love for you to see In Mother Words at the Geffen Playhouse.
The show begins previews tonight and opens on February 23. The journey to the moment has been as exciting, funny, and poignant as the show itself. It all began with a group of up writing about our experiences with motherhood. I'm the show's stepmother, and my piece is "My Almost Family."
My work--on the same stage as Beth Henley's? I'm in awe.
Hello Cherished Readers,
I recently received a comment from Terry, of a book group at the Bloomington Branch Library of California, telling me they'd chosen The Silver Boat as their next read. I'm so happy about that! Terry asked if there is a reading group guide, and there is, and I link to it here.
Thank you dear readers, librarians, booksellers, and book clubs everywhere. I'm thrilled and grateful you want to read my new novel. The story is personal, as all my stories are. If they didn't come from my heart, I wouldn't know where to find them. I'll write about that much more, on this website, in days to come...The Silver Boat will be published April 5.
When my mother came to Paris for her chemotherapy, it was her very first time on a plane. The trip was full of meaning. Lucille Arrigan Rice, my mother, was one of the greatest readers ever to live. She had been born and raised in New England and never traveled beyond Washington DC to the south, Quebec City to the north, and New York City to the west. Her reading had taken her everywhere in the world so perhaps she hadn't felt the need to visit places other than through literature. The cost was also an issue; it wasn't so uncommon for teachers, typewriter men, and their children, to think flying was only for the Air Force and rich people.
I was living in Paris and couldn't bear not being with her during her treatment for a brain tumor, so I arranged for her to have chemo at the American Hospital in Neuilly. 
She loved Paris immediately; she'd felt a bond with the city since, when pregnant with my youngest sister, she'd spent labor reading Paul Gallico's Mrs. 'Arris goes to Paris, and eventually the baby grew up to marry a Frenchman (here is the baby and her husband, Maureen and Olivier Onorato, in Arcachon, France, where they lived their first year of marriage many moons ago.) (Photo by Amelia Onorato,) 
Anyway, the Gallico book is a magical reference tool in our family, so my sister's marriage, and now my mother's visit to Paris, all seemed quite blessed and cosmic, but that is another story.
My mother was enchanted by Paris but wanted to go to England. Her grandmother, Gertrude Gibson Harwood Beaudry, was English, so we'd grown up with teatime, silver spoons commemorating Queen Elizabeth's coronation, and a habit i shared with my sisters of practicing English accents while walking on the golf course, pretending it was the Yorkshire Moors. I also invented an imaginary English family, wherein my father was the fabulously dashing Max Gardiner, I had nine brothers and no sisters, and my own bay thoroughbred, on whom I rode hunt seat jolly well. But that too is another story.
Flying across the Channel, my mother was moved to remember my father's service during WWll, how his squadron had given air support to the troops landing on Normandy beaches on D-Day. During our London stay we would visit places my father had stayed on leave from the base at North Pickenham, including a Catholic church hit by a buzz-bomb while my father was at Mass.
Upon landing in England, my mother's smile grew huge, as if she had finally come home. We took a taxi to the Basil Street Hotel, where we had a tiny suite and our own butler. My mother tired easily, so she had to drink bouillon in bed and sleep a while before we could set out to see London.
I had planned an itinerary that I thought she would enjoy, but it went out the window as soon as she woke up. "I want to go straight to Doughty Street," she said. "What's there?" I asked. She looked disappointed in both herself and me, as if she'd failed me in my education and I'd failed myself by not enquiring further. "Charles Dickens' house," she said.
We went straightaway. Dickens had lived in the Georgian terraced house at 48 Doughty Street for two years: he and Catherine moved in right after their marriage in April 1837. Home to the Dickenses and the three eldest of their ten children, two of their daughters were born there. The family moved to larger houses as Dickens became more successful, but none of those other residences survive.
The interior was Victorian, and we wandered--my mother blissfully--through the morning room, drawing room, and brilliantly scholarly library. The house contains the most comprehensive collection of all things Dickens, including first editions and a painting, Dicken's Dream, by R. W. Buss, the artist who'd illustrated The Pickwick Papers.
I was overjoyed to see early editions of Dombey and Son, a novel my sisters and I loved for its own merit but also because in Franny and Zooey by J.D Salinger, it was the novel Zooey was reading at the kitchen table when Jesus appeared and asked him for a small glass of ginger ale. A small glass, mind you.
My mother adored Dickens. Not just as the literary giant he was, but also, simply as an avid reader, because he wrote such engaging, addictive stories. My mother said, "He wrote such cliffhangers. The books would be published in serials, and readers would be waiting at the loading dock to pick up the next installment." It thrilled her to know that he had written The Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, and part of Barnaby Rudge while in residence there.
After reluctantly leaving as the house/museum closed for the day, we went to Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, which was both charming and incredibly touristy, because a woman in the museum had told my mother that Dickens had frequented the pub. My mother couldn't eat, she was too sick, but she leaned back and soaked in the atmosphere, imagining Dickens at the next table--perhaps writing, perhaps thinking of his latest chapter.
Our next stop, the following day, would be at Samuel Johnson's house, as she was quite obsessed with Dr. Johnson and was, back in Connecticut, caring for a stray tiger cat she'd named Boswell after the diarist and author of The Life of Samuel Johnson. But today, in this post, I savor that memory of my mother and our visit with Charles Dickens. It is, after all, Dickens' birthday... Lucille would be the first to bake him a cake.
I am so happy that Blair Brown will be reading THE SILVER BOAT for audio. Blair has read many of my books-on-tape (I mean CD) and I love the warmth and wisdom in her voice. We live near each other, so I get to experience her wonderfulness first-hand. Aside from her incredible film work, and her iconic TV show, THE DAYS AND NIGHTS OF MOLLY DODD, she is a Tony Award-winning actor. Whenever she appears on or off-Broadway, I attend the play and am always amazed by her deep and true performances.
A few years back Blair starred with Jill Clayburgh in The Clean House, by Sarah Ruhl. The set was magical, an orchard, the interior of a house, dream-like. Blair was transcendent as ever, and it is moving to remember seeing her perform with Ms. Clayburgh. 
Both New Yorkers, we first met in Pasadena, California, where she was filming FOLLOW THE STARS HOME. I was so excited by that; I never imagined our connection would continue through so many audio books.
THE SILVER BOAT audio will be released the same day as the novel, April 5, 2011.
It started with a phone call. Actually, it began with love... Joan Stein called me. She said that she and Susan Rose Lafer were putting together IN MOTHER WORDS, a show about motherhood, and would I consider telling a story about being a stepmother?
Because the request came from Joan, I didn't even hesitate. We have been great friends for many years, since she discovered my second novel and produced CRAZY IN LOVE for TNT. We clicked instantly, over that story of three generations of mothers and daughters, and have shared the joys and sorrows of each other's lives ever since. The photo shows her giving an interview about IN MOTHER WORDS on NPR, and totally captures her warmth and enthusiasm.
Joan knew I love my three stepchildren and thought I might draw on experience to tell my story. I decided to focus on M, my beautiful and amazing stepdaughter, who provides love, humor, and pathos at every turn. A girl after my own heart. She is a walking/talking Greek Tragedy with romantic comedy undertones. I adore her.
I've gotten to know the lovely and dynamic Susan Rose Lafer, and to feel her deep support and belief. She and Joan conceived of IN MOTHER WORDS and have been passionate about the project since the beginning. Their devotion to the work has been so inspiring and heartening. It's amazing, as a writer, to feel so backed by such great women.
Lisa Peterson, brilliant director, joined the project at the start. Under Lisa's guidance, I wrote and shaped my monologue, MY ALMOST FAMILY. She is kind, precise, open, and has an eagle eye for the right word, the wrong word, the necessary, the extraneous. I have learned so much from Lisa.
I've met and worked with many of my fellow writers during workshops in New York. We are: Leslie Ayvazian, David Cale, Jessica Goldberg, Beth Henley, Lameece Issaq, Lisa Loomer, Michele Lowe, Marco Pennette, Lisa Ramirez, Theresa Rebeck, Luanne Rice, Annie Weisman and Cheryl L. West. I revere these playwrights, have attended so many of their plays. We have true treasures, theater icons, writers of heart and soul among us. To be part of their company is humbling.
Here's the great thrill: IN MOTHER WORDS will open at the Geffen Playhouse on February 23, 2011; previews begin on February 15. To have written, trimmed, experimented, listened to our pieces read back to us, cut here, added there this last year or so, has been a glowing time for me: a slice of life in the theater. Can you imagine how I've longed for that, dahling? I moved to NYC when I was young, and Brendan Gill, drama critic of the New Yorker, became my mentor. He taught me that going to plays, for a writer or anyone who dreamed of more, was as necessary to life as breathing. I believe that to my bones.
We got the word just before the holidays: IN MOTHER WORDS would be opening at the Geffen Playhouse in LA in February. 
When Janice Paran, our fairy godmother/dramaturg asked for character descriptions to give the theater, I knew this was really happening.
The Geffen Playhouse has special meaning to me. I've attended many shows there and find it one of the most charmed, magical theaters in the world. From the minute you walk through the warmly lit courtyard, you know you are entering another world. Their productions are fantastic, and I never leave the theater without losing myself in the play's realm, left my own life for ninety stunning minutes.
I began this note with "love." Love is all over this production. In my own piece for M. In all the monologues, the threads of motherhood, parenthood, new babies, old grandmothers, weave together into a tapestry of love. More than anything, I wish my mother were alive, so I could take her opening night. She was a writer, had a play produced in her youth, and--perhaps because of the times in which we lived--gave up her own art to raise three daughters. So much of what I do is inspired by MY mother's words.
Please come to the Geffen and see our show. You'll definitely laugh, and you'll probably cry, but isn't that what happens when you sit in the dark and immerse yourself in a show that reveals the truth about real, true, extraordinary, singular, ineffable, surprising, unending love? The photo at the top of this page shows the Geffen's enchanting courtyard...how can you deny yourself an LA night of theater, beneath the twinkling lights and amongst the stars?
I haven't even told you the cast! Click on the links to see...
(With M and her son in Connecticut)
(M at an early reading of IN MOTHER WORDS.)
(This is Part 1 because Part 2 is sure to follow...)
New author photo for The Silver Boat, taken by Adrian Kinloch. We had a great photo shoot, with beautiful blue sky and a cool Atlantic breeze. I wanted my blog readers to be among the first to see...
I'm spending a little time in California.
There's a place I love to stay, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. I write to the sound of the waves; fall asleep to them, too. When I think back on all my novels, so many (including my forthcoming The Silver Boat) have long sections written in this hotel--in fact, in this very room. It makes me happy to be here. 
Writing as a moveable feast. Do the ideas come differently in far-away places? I think so, a little. I like to write in different rooms. There's no place like home, but I love to dig in here, without everything around me being quite so familiar. I show up in the lobby every morning, and write as I watch the world go by. Friends visit for tea, or to write together. 
(with Audrey Loggia and Saffron Burrows.)
By day, it's right for writing; at night, it's quite a different scene... 
Exciting, filled with music and conversation. Very cozy, all through the seasons, to sit by one of the two fireplaces and dream.
It feels like my home away from home. (It's possible to have more than one of those...) Every day I see dolphins swimming past. The beach is wide; I walk along the tide line every day. Yesterday I found a sand dollar. I could watch the shorebirds for hours. 
Sometimes I do.
P.S. My home away from home is Shutters on the Beach...
I love winter. It’s partly the drawing in, staying warm, keeping together with family and friends. But just as much, it’s bundling up, walking in the snow, feeling icy weather, watching changes in nature. Leaves are down; more light and sky are visible through the branches. On clear nights, the stars seem to catch on the boughs, swinging so close to earth you feel you can almost touch them.
There’s nothing better than the winter beach. Storms push the tides higher, and equally tug them out so far the tidal flats seem to go on forever. Rolling waves, high wind blowing foam of the white crests, while rafts of water birds—buffleheads, surf scoters, brants, red-breasted mergansers among other winter residents—take shelter in coves.
Two years ago I experienced the Winter of Magical Birding. A nature photographer friend and I saw everything. One brilliant freezing day we went down to Barneget Light. We stood on the long stone jetty observing Harlequin Ducks, their brilliant masks and notable white dots visible as they fed in the seaweed just below our feet on the jetty’s leeward side.
Another excursion into the Catskills brought sightings of fifty, a hundred, White-winged Crossbills and Red Crossbills. It was an irruption year, and the small passerines had flown down from the boreal forest in search of a fine cone crop. The day was cold and snowing, and we were surrounded by forest. The crossbills thronged in a stand of blue spruce, attacking the cones, and I’ll never forget the bright sight and the sounds of seeds being cracked, their hulls clicking as they fell to the ice-encrusted snow.
The third and greatest sighting occurred on Jones Beach, where a young male Snowy Owl had decided to spend a few days. We arrived just past dawn, watched the rising sun’s light turn the owl’s white feathers golden. More than any other bird I love the exquisite and mystical Snowy Owl.
Snowies live on the tundra, and when lemmings, their preferred food, are scarce, they fly south and search out flatlands that remind them of home. Beaches are perfect, and they have the requisite food source: mice and voles.
That day my feet and hands froze, but it was worth it. I walked down the beach, watched the waves crash, saw a surfcaster catch a late-in-the-year Striped Bass, watched seagulls breaking quahog shells and eat the clams inside, and saw an enormous flock of Snowy Plovers fly in from the east. Even better, I spent long hours with the Snowy Owl.
Late afternoon when the sun went down, the light glowed rose pink, illuminating the owl’s feathers. He stared straight at us, all the hunger and mystery in his yellow eyes, and suddenly took flight. Wide wings spread, he flapped once, and went into a silent glide over the thicket of dried beach grass. Darkness came fast, and he was lost to view.
That might be my favorite metaphor for winter. The nights are long, and it might seem light will never return. The dark brings contemplation, inspiration, a feeling of things vast and unknowable. But I’m filled with anticipation, the way I felt as a child with a glittery Advent calendar and a fresh window to open every day, a new candle to light each week, knowing Christmas would come.
Winter lasts long, but it’s beautiful, and then there is spring.
Yesterday I spent the day at the ALA Midwinter meeting. Early in the morning I had breakfast with booksellers. We met at the U.S. Grant Hotel, and the conversation flowed instantly. Put book lovers and coffee together and off we go. We talked about The Silver Boat, and I was thrilled to hear they plan to recommend it for book clubs. I love and am honored to know that readers discuss my novels, using my stories to reflect on issues in their own lives. No Woman is an Island; that's my motto.
Publication of The Silver Boat, once seeming forever-off, is just around the corner in April. It was wonderful to convene with such great book people. Tom Benton of Penguin (a recipient of Publisher Weekly's Sales Rep of the Year award) organized the breakfast, where nourishment came much more from the booksellers' warmth and love of books and my appreciation and love of booksellers than the (absolutely delicious) muffins.
Heading to the Convention Center, I was greeted by the elegant, kind, and incredibly delightful Dominique Jenkins, whom I absolutely adore, and who did so much to ease my day and welcome readers to my booth signing. She stayed so vigilant on my behalf, waiting to hear from a friend trying to park outside, guiding her (a Facebook friend turned actual friend) Machel Penn Schull, through the maze of displays so we could finally meet. Machel is a talented, dear-hearted, compassionate friend and writer. 
The Penguin booth was a haven where along with Dominique, I got to hang out with Howard Wall, instant best-friend since the Penguin 75th anniversary party at Vroman's and the Keeper (librarian in his own right) of Penguin History; Alan Walker (rock star when not overseeing major events such as ALA...humble rock star at that; it took my mentioning guitar lessons for him to tell me just a little of his music life. The man and his band have played everywhere,) and the luminous, efficient, and visionary Tanya, with whom I enjoyed deep conversation between signing copies. Publishing people are angels, pure and simple.
Many visitors to the booth commented that it was great to know that I'm back at Viking, working with Pam Dorman. Over and over I heard how wonderful Pam is (it's so true,) and people who know our history together remarked that Pam knows me so well, and is doing such an amazing job publishing The Silver Boat. I couldn't agree more.
Hildy Barger, one of the first people in line, told me I was her favorite writer, completely making my day and causing me to hand Dominique my camera and ask her to take Hildy's and my picture.
The librarians! Many stopped by to talk about and pick up signed advance-reading copies of The Silver Boat. They were so kind and enthusiastic, and I thank them all. Two have inaugurated what I believe to be The Silver Boat's first official Book Club selection.
Here we are, Robin Hoklotubbe of the County of San Bernardino Library and her friend Carole Macias. They belong to the Girlfriend Book Club in Corona, CA, and I'm so excited to know they've chosen my novel to discuss.
Another librarian told me she has sisters and is going through something similar to the sisters in The Silver Boat, having to do with the death of their mother and the sudden reality of being left with her house, a place where they'd all gathered and been happy, spent holidays together, and now what? Having gone through that situation in my own life, I've drawn on it in fiction.
I was happy to meet Meredith Myers of StandUpLibrarian.com, whose business card reads, "So a comedian walks into a library and decides to work there."She wore the cutest hat. She's not your grandmother's librarian, but then again, who is? Librarians are hot. That's the truth.
At one point I was interviewed and asked who my current favorite librarian is. Very difficult question. But Amy Rhilinger of the Attleboro (MA) Public Library is up at the top of the list. Amy uses her art and creativity to enhance the reading experience; recently she instituted a poetry program for middle schoolers, and any librarian who gets an eighth-grader into W.B. Yeats, Mary Oliver, Charles Bukowski, fringe poets, romantic poets, haiku poets, activist poets, any poets-- is great by me.
The Gala Author Tea, (sponsored by ALTAFF) was enchanting, literary, and so important: encouraging love, use, and support of libraries. I shared a panel with Conor Grennan (Little Princes: One Man's Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal); Paula McLain (The Paris Wife); Richard Louv (The Nature Principle.) We were welcomed by Marilyn Johnson, (This Book is Overdue! How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All.)
The writers' presentations were varied and incredibly interesting, and I feel so lucky to have signed books from all. Susan Schmidt, Division Councilor of ALTAFF, gave me perhaps the most wonderful introduction I've ever had. Thank you, Susan, for seeing me that way...
After the tea, it was great to speak with Carol Fitzgerald. Founder and president of Bookreporter.com, among other sites, Carol gives so much time, wisdom, and support to writers and readers, bringing us together. She is dynamic and wonderfully warm, and I only wish we'd had more time to spend together.
P.S. I love our surprise visitor in the photo, but she was on her way before I could get her name. Hi! I love you.
