nostalgia – Page 2 – The Debutante Ball

Interview with Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar + THE MAP OF SALT AND STARS giveaway

I’m so thrilled to welcome my friend Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar to the Debutante Ball this week! Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar is the author of the novel, The Map of Salt and Stars (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, 2018) and a member of the Radius of Arab American Writers (RAWI) and of American Mensa. Joukhadar’s work has appeared in Salon, The Paris Review Daily, The Kenyon Review, The Saturday Evening Post, and elsewhere, and…

Saturday, December 1, 2018

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Attacus Atlas & Other Inventions: Gratitude

Tuesday, November 20, 2018

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At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us. — Albert Schweitzer I’m so grateful to so many this past year, for lifting me up when I was feeling low. Writing is often a lonely venture, and this time last year, I was discouraged….

Attacus Atlas & Other Inventions: Distracts, Distracting, Distractions

Tuesday, November 6, 2018

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“Morning comes whether you set the alarm or not.” – Ursula K. LeGuin Well, I’m in the thick of the stew now, aren’t I? I’m trying to expel 50,000 words from my brain onto the page by the end of the month for NaNoWriMo and trying hard not to be sucked in to the countdown until the Midterm Elections. By the time you read this, if you read this, We…

Attacus Atlas & Other Inventions: Under the Influence

Tuesday, October 16, 2018

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This week the Debs are to discuss the books & authors that most influenced us. And this is especially difficult, since I love to read, and I am fond of both fiction and non-fiction, poetry and prose, forms both hybrid and pure journalism. So many authors, so many books. So little time. But I will try to thank them and tell you why. With regard to my forthcoming debut novel,…

Attacus Atlas & Other Inventions: Ode to the First Draft

I really want to write a rant to all the devastations of the day: the Kavanaugh vote in the Senate, the FBI’s incomplete investigation, the senator from Maine’s weak speech justifying her vote against women, the Senate’s dismissal and nullification of Dr. Ford’s courage. But I have to write for the Debs, it’s that time of the week where the Debs must cull their thoughts for the topic at hand….

Tuesday, October 9, 2018

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Attacus Atlas & Other Inventions: Chronicles of an X-American (part 1)

Tuesday, October 2, 2018

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Chronicles of an X-American (part 1) The best training is to read and write, no matter what — Grace Paley I’ve always been a poet, and it’s always some tributary of poetry that I return to when I have my teeth, metaphorically, kicked in. I started writing poems, mostly nature poems, when I turned nine. I was fast with my first drafts and slow to revise. Only my fifth-grade…

Attacus Atlas & Other Inventions: The Twice-Born Book

Tuesday, September 11, 2018

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The Twice-Born Book: I wrote my first book because I wanted to read it – Toni Morrison I’m a voracious reader. I admit it. I started young – one of my favorite books came in to my possession when I turned nine. A friend of the family gave me Anthony B. Lake’s A Pleasury of Witticisms and Word Play. Inside those pages I learned all about anagrams and palindromes,…

Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda… or Not.

Sometimes I like to sit down and think about all the parallel universes where other Kaitlyns are going about their daily lives having walked down paths wildly divergent from my own. Here’s a peek at a few of those other universes. Before I (TO THE ENDLESS DISAPPOINTMENT OF ADULT KAITLYN) Decided I Hated Science: Kaitlyn Sage Patterson is an equine veterinarian. She lives on a sprawling farm tucked up against…

Friday, November 10, 2017

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It’s Pub Day!! And I Like My Life, even the sad parts

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

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HAPPY PUB DAY, ABBY! Big congratulations to our very own 2016 Deb Abby Fabiaschi on the release of her wonderful debut novel, I LIKED MY LIFE. I loved every page of this poignant family drama; it is a thought-provoking, sad, important book about love and loss and how one picks up the pieces to move forward after unexpected, inexplicable tragedy. It also shows the value in finding the little bits…

My Brief Stint as a Jet-Setter

Tuesday, January 10, 2017

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I was an awkward 6th grader, living in Dallas, Texas, when I got what just may be the single most attractive, glamorous invitation of my whole life: I was asked to go on a private plane to Disneyland. It was unthinkable really, way too good to be true. Not only would this be the coolest trip ever, but I had been invited by the coolest girl in my class. When…

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