Okay. I have a confession to make. I’m going to be the disappointing Deb this week because I don’t actually have a whole lot of easter eggs in Architects of Memory. Some authors love leaving easter eggs hither and yon, but I’m just not in that group. Some of the names can be tracked to real people, literary figures, and characters on shows I’ve watched, but any connection more than…
The Secret Life of Minor Dramas & Other Catastrophes
We Debs are going behind-the-scenes this week, and I’m rubbing my hands together in anticipation. I LOVE behind-the-scenes. I love fictional shows like The West Wing and Unreal and The Americans that imagine the goings-on in mysterious professions. I love documentaries like The War Room, Miss Americana, and the new Michael Jordan-centered series, The Last Dance that show us famous people being seemingly real and unguarded. And finally, I love…
Hidden Secrets in The Talking Drum
I’ve hidden a few secrets in The Talking Drum that close family members and friends will probably be able to identify. The character, Percy, a Vietnam veteran, owns a German shepherd named Bridgette. Percy is never seen without his dog and the two are regulars in the community. Coincidentally, or not so coincidentally, growing up we had a German shepherd in my household named Bridget. She was very protective of…
Interview and Book Giveaway: Martina Reaves, Author of I’m Still Here
I am pleased to introduce Martina Reaves to the Debutante Ball this week! Martina Reaves grew up in a Navy family and lived in thirty-four places before she finally settled in her current home in Berkeley. She became a mediator in 1986 and in 2007, she dropped writing legal documents and began writing fiction and memoir. She loves creating serenity in her home with her wife, Tanya, and their son,…
My favorite indie bookstores
I love independent bookstores. Who doesn’t? The curated selection! The friendly booksellers! The atmosphere! I miss a lot about life outside my house, and dawdling through a bookstore with a coffee and my baby in a stroller ranks pretty high on my list. (I’m gonna cry through writing this one, aren’t I). It’s only natural that some of my favorite indies are in Baltimore, where I currently live. There’s the…
All Hail the Independent Bookseller
In this time, readers and writers everywhere are concerned with helping independent booksellers survive the pandemic. Indies matter for many reasons, and here are a few: Indies create community. The curate and promote events. They support local and debut authors. They take part in book festivals and literary soirees put on by other organizations. They’re generally good local citizens. Booksellers leverage their individual tastes to keep our reading diverse. It’s…
My Favorite Independent Bookstore is a Booklover’s Paradise
I met up with Santa Claus in the fiction section of R J Julia Booksellers in Madison, Connecticut. This was a few years’ back, the weekend of Thanksgiving and I was on my way home to Massachusetts after visiting my parents in Bridgeport. My timing was perfect because Ol’ St. Nick was making his rounds to find out who among us bibliophiles had been naughty or nice. He regaled us…
What Wine to Drink With? Guest Author Alice Feiring Tells Us
Alice Feiring is an outspoken author, journalist, and spitfire wine industry participant. Formerly the wine/travel columnist for Time and the Wall Street Journal Magazine, Feiring also writes for prestigious publications of every stripe, from The New York Times, The World of Fine Wine, to Afar. Over the course of her career her contributions to the world of wine journalism have earned her such major industry nods as a James Beard Foundation Award, a Louis Roederer International Wine Writer, Born…
Quick Truth – The financial realities of writing
Being any type of artist takes support, emotional and especially financial. I have found that being a writer definitely requires financial sacrifices. For me, I recognized that I had to change my lifestyle in order to write my novel. I could not continue at a high pressure, high stress 40+ hour job and have the ability to craft the novel resting on my heart. I shifted to working freelance, and…
Cash money non-millionaires
I don’t often like to talk about money. I’m from an upstate New York yankee-type culture where discussing how much money one makes is like tossing a pair of underwear up in a tree and starting a discussion with your neighbors of who it might belong to. (Everyone thinks you’re a weirdo.) Writer culture, too, treats money as a hands-off topic, and in a way, I think it should remain…
