Growing up in New Jersey, we had “junk week,” I think twice a year. It was when you could put anything you didn’t want anymore out on the curb, and the city would come pick it up. It turned the whole town into one giant free yard sale. Amazing!
My two favorite junk week memories:
1) My elegant mom dragging a mattress across the road calling triumphantly “It’s a Beautyrest!!”
2) Our next door neighbors, rumored to have some association with the Rite Aid drugstore chain, throwing away a mountain of still-in-wrappers cosmetics. I am not kidding when I say the mound was as big as the kind of autumn leaf pile kids gather to jump in, or those drifts of snow made on the side of the road after the plow goes by. Mascara, blush, coconut scented sunscreen, hairbushes, all brand new and untouched. Treasure, I tell you!
It’s not on the same scale, but I like when a whole street gets together to do garage sales all on the same day. That way people who don’t have enough stuff to bother doing a sale of their own still get to go for it, and for buyers it’s fantastic. Twenty years ago I hit one of those for my first apartment, and I still use the baking sheet I got there for 50 cents.
Just yesterday we bought two used DVDs for cheap in a local charity shop: Alien and Spiderman. Movie night tonight!
What are your favorite finds from stuff that other people have discarded?
July 26th, 2010
| Posted by Emily Winslow | 2010 Debs, Emily Winslow, The Whole World
| 10 Comments
The stereotype is that writers are cat people, not least because of the stereotype that writers are introverted and independent, like cats. I’m proud to fulfill those assumptions on both counts! I’m like a cat, and I’ve always had cats. This is my Minky:
She’s had a rough year, culminating in surgery for kidney stones. It took us a year to get from “cat suddenly starts peeing all over the place, in every open box, and even RIGHT ON MY ARM IN THE MIDDLE OF A SOCIAL GATHERING” to the proper diagnosis. We first treated it like a UTI with antibiotics, which played out pretty much like that hilarious old bit “How to Give a Cat a Pill.” (If you don’t know it, give yourself a treat and read it.)
Finally, we gave in to costly and invasive measures and the stones were found.
After the surgery, she became so relaxed that it was as if she’d gained weight. She’s a real lapcat, but pain and tension had apparently kept her from ever fully resting, even before the renegade peeing started. Now she sleeps heavily across our legs, pinning down whoever she’s sitting on. (“Can you get me a beer? I have the cat.” or “Can you change the channel? I have the cat.”)
Love you, Minky! Good girl.
July 19th, 2010
| Posted by Emily Winslow | 2010 Debs, Emily Winslow, The Whole World
| 5 Comments
We’re back! And jet-lagged. 34 book events/activities in 35 days; 10 states. Whew!
I significantly underestimated how tiring it would be. But had a great time 
July 12th, 2010
| Posted by Emily Winslow | 2010 Debs, Emily Winslow, The Whole World
| 6 Comments
I grew up in New Jersey, in a town that celebrated the fourth of July in a BIG WAY. We woke up to a twenty-one gun salute we could hear from our house, then spent the day in the park, wandering among a local pet show, contests, and circus sideshows, petting llamas and even riding an elephant. The centerpiece was a big circus under a tent, putting on two or three shows that day. In the evening, you had to stake out your firework spot early, and local dance classes entertained while we waited for it to get dark. I loved it! One of my all-time favorite holidays. Second only to Christmas.
Later, when I had a child of my own, we lived in California. I greatly enjoyed the very different experience of a July Fourth parade that I had there, and sent the following email to my family in 2002:
Besides the expected
- high school marching band,
- local teen dance class (on foot dancing to Mary Poppins’ “Let’s Go Fly a Kite”),
- beauty queen (“Miss Teen”) waving from a Porsche Boxster,
- assorted Scouts,
- community organizations (garden club, animal rescue),
- religious organizations,
- local merchants (*I* want to ride on the coffee shop float; thay get to sit at pretty tables sipping lattes!),
- and a few groups who we only caught sight of from the neck up (dressed as cowboys, old time baseball players, and medieval lords and ladies),
there were some unexpected aspects too.
The Asian population was well represented in various ways, including two attractive Chinese dragons (this is as it should be, but it is “unexpected” to me after my years of attending July fourth parades on the east coast). Sikhs danced with scimitars (fake, I assume), followed by a float representing the development of the Sikh community in the U.S. over the past century (with real Sikhs, carrying labels such as “engineer” and “teacher”).
Incongruous marketing efforts took the form of a local “haunted house” providing actors as dead pirates, and of a bevy of pink-clad Mary Kay saleswomen passing out fliers as they marched by. A bus labeled “Masonic Home for Adults” also took part, presumably full of adult Masons, though it is hard to be sure as the windows were tinted and closed.
The theme of this year’s parade, the turn-of-the-century (19th to 20th, not the most recent turn), inspired many of the costumes, as did traditional red, white and blue patriotism. One float had, with the best of intentions, wanted a Statue of Liberty. Presumably they doubted that any person would be able to hold a torch aloft for the entire parade, and so they costumed a mannequin. By this I mean a literal department store mannequin, all skinny and pinch-faced with a high fashion aloof expression. She must have been difficult to pose, for she was kind of hunched over (at least by the time she arrived at our point on the parade route), but her torch arm did, as they had hoped, remain high. The torch itself, however, was of such a shape that it seemed to have been made from an inverted bottle, painted. Lady Liberty inadvertently appeared to be acting out a barroom brawl, and about to smash someone over the head with a beer.
What did you do to celebrate the fourth of July?
July 5th, 2010
| Posted by Emily Winslow | 2010 Debs, Emily Winslow, The Whole World
| 3 Comments
I haven’t been counting the autographs. But I can tell you: out of 34 promotional activities scheduled for my month of release, I only have five left. Yes, I have so far done 29 promotional verbs of one kind or another: signed, read, talked, dropped-in, interviewed. I’ve been to bookstores and book club meetings and local TV stations. I have signed a fair number of books. This is what I’ve learned:
1) Don’t sign that first page right inside the cover.
At first that’s exactly where I signed. I wanted anyone picking up the book to SEE that it was signed without having to hunt for it. But, I have learned, a signed front page could have been “tipped in.” That means the author could have signed blank pages that were then bound into the book, instead of holding the finished book in hand while signing.
2) Do sign the page with both the title and author name.
Unless your title/author page has a really pretty picture on it, like mine does. Then, sign the facing page.
3) Everyone will ask if you have a special pen. I wracked my brain trying to imagine what a special “autograph pen” might be like. From those who cared, Sharpies seemed to be preferred, and they do sign nice, if a little thickly.
I haven’t yet been asked to sign anything bizarre, or spell a name in a confounding way. I think my best stories came from signing with Deb Sarah at the Union Station Barnes and Noble in DC.
I’d already done a few events, but this was the first one where I wasn’t doing a presentation to an audience. Instead, we were meant to snag passersby with smiles and chocolate and enticing plot descriptions. We got a few sweet, aspiring writers, who had lots of questions and, they explained, brand new DC jobs and no cash yet with which to buy books. We got one shy, almost obedient woman who was so instantly compliant to our suggestion that she buy our books that we accused the store manager of planting her there to raise our confidence.
My personal fave was the guy who agreed that he liked books, then agreed that he liked mysteries and crime, then agreed that he liked books set in England. I asked if he’d like me to sign one for him.
“Oh no!” he said. “I was just agreeing with everything you said!”
June 28th, 2010
| Posted by Emily Winslow | 2010 Debs, Emily Winslow, The Whole World
| 7 Comments
When I got my book deal, way back in 2008, I had to keep it secret until it was announced in Publisher’s Weekly. Now, there’s SECRET and there’s “secret.” I counted this as the kind of secret where I could tell my family. So I called my dad.
He was awestruck and silent. Then he said: “This is the proudest I’ve ever been.” Pause. “Except for the day I married your mother.”
Isn’t that just the sweetest compliment EVER??
I should add that I have three siblings, of whom Dad is equally proud, with whom I share the honor of second place.
Here is a pic of Dad’s first-place proudest day:
June 21st, 2010
| Posted by Emily Winslow | 2010 Debs, Emily Winslow, The Whole World
| 7 Comments
I’m on the road right now, doing everything I can in my book’s first month to nudge it along. I’ve been VERY lucky that it’s been front-tabled in Borders. I’ve been doing events at various indies, and am meeting with book clubs too, which is a real pleasure.
I didn’t want to lug my laptop around with me; it’s too precious and fragile. So right now I’m typing this on an iPad.
We got an iPad because my sweetheart is a gadgety guy. I don’t think he could not have one. Our excuse was that I needed it for the photos I showat events. We’d compared all kinds of photo frames, and the iPad does that job a lot better: great resolution, doesn’t need to be plugged in. And it’s a multi-use laptop replacement! Sort of.
It’s kind of driving me crazy.
Okay, this what I love:
It shows my pictures great.
It lets me keep up with Facebook and gmail and my blog (http://emilywinslow.wordpress.com).
I really need to be in contact with people, coordinating all these travel and event plans, and I can do it in a portable way. In case you’re wondering, a touchscreen keyboard pops up onto the screen whenever the need for typing arises. It’s fab.
But the keyboard lacks:
Arrow keys!!!!! Moving around in the text without typing depends on touching the text with your finger–which is fine, if the text is showing. Sometimes the text is bigger thethe window, and there areno scroll bars. I still haven’t figured out how to cope with this.
It also lacks a keystroke for “paste.” When you touch your text a certain way, you get the opportunity to “copy” it. I cannot figure out how to paste it anywhere.
I’m so crazy-busy that I haven’t tried it as an ereader yet. But if I was choosing an ereader, multi-use would sure be tempting to me.
Conclusion: I’m glad I have it; it’s better than lugging around my laptop.
I don’t know how easily I’ll be able to view this post fully or get around it to edit it. So I guess the typos herein will be part of the review in their own way!
June 14th, 2010
| Posted by Emily Winslow | 2010 Debs, Emily Winslow, The Whole World
| 9 Comments
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