Category: LHA

Short story author and Syracuse University professor George Saunders won a MacArthur “genius grant” yesterday. Yay George! Because Syracuse’s newspaper, the Post-Standard has not only a book critic, but a blog about books, I can alert you to an online piece Saunders wrote for the New Yorker. (Thanks for the link, Laura.)

George is one of many, many working writers in the region. I’ve mentioned them before, but it’s a topic near and dear to my heart. Who else can you run into at the library or coffee shop? Bruce Coville, for one. Tammy Pierce is moving up here (December?) and Suzan-Lori Parks. Who else has ties here? Tobias Wolf, Mary Karr, Joyce Carol Oates, Alice Seybold, Jay McInerney, John Berendt, professor Gwyneth Bolton, poet and professor Bruce Smith, Raymond Carver, Steven Crane, F. Scott Fitzgerald, mystery writer John McDonald, and scholar Alison Lurie. Norma and Harry and Anne Fox Mazer. SCBWI maven Ellen Yeomans.

Who am I missing?

Central New York has a rich artistic and literary history and is a magnificent place to live. Maybe you should move up here. Now.

I have a question for you readers in the area – where is the best public space to write in Central New York?

If you don’t live around here – where do you like to write? Be specific, give addresses (but only if it is a public space).

This is an amazing story.

Make sure you look at the slideshow…. their beautiful faces…

Yeah, it’s here: Talk Like A Pirate Day. Savvy?

My mom’s doctor visit yesterday wound up taking way longer than either of us had planned because the doctor wanted a bunch of tests, blah, blah, blah. I think there is a rule that old people must have a specific number of annoying tests performed on their bodies a year, and Mom had fallen behind on her quota. The good part was in the middle of it all, we had a chance to go to Dunkin Donuts. There is something very soothing about hanging with my mom while she drinks coffee and eats a plain doughnut.

Like fantasy? Then hang with Firebird (LJ version or MySpace), the love child of my Editress Major, Sharyn.

Today’s writing job – figure out the still-snarled plot problem in chapters 10-12 of the The New Book. It’s raining, which makes work easier, and the distractions should be few. If I’m a really good girl and figure the problem out, I’m going to the gym early.

I would have loved to watch Eudora Welty eat a doughnut and drink coffee, too. I must read all of these!

Stay away from spinach, me buckos, and don’t let the scurvy sons of mothers get you down.

So, Kansas? Wonderful place, great people, I’d go back in heartbeat.

But Missouri? Not so much.

Let me explain. On Thursday, I took a flight from Syracuse to Chicago, then another flight from Chi to Kansas City, Missouri. I don’t know why they call it that. It’s like putting Jersey City in Pennsylvania, but nobody asked me my opinion. Arrived in KC at noon. Was supposed to fly out at 2pm, headed for Hays, Kansas. (named after a fort – Fort Hays. That was in Kansas. Not Missouri or New Jersey.)

Flight status? Delayed. Delayed. Delayed. Delayed. Delayed.

Four and a half hours later… canceled. gulp I had to call the very, very nice people who organized the trip and not only cancel my dinner plans with them, but give them palpitations because I was supposed to give three presentations and the keynote at their conference the next morning, and I couldn’t guarantee I’d be there. The airplane guy promised to put me on a very early morning flight and get me to Hays on time. (He looked a little shady.) He gave me a voucher for the hotel (a Radisson, v. nice) and a voucher for ten dollars (ten whole dollars!) for a hotel dinner. Oh, my God!! The choices!! The staggering abundance! Well, I could have….. a miniature garden salad – Yes! And a glass of water, wa-hoo. I was rocking out on that big fat ten dollars. Thank you so much for the love, Mesa Stupidhead Airlines.

After not much sleep and much staring at the alarm clock, I got up and arrived at the airport well before the sun for my early morning flight.

Which I did not have a seat for because the same shady guy who gave me ten bucks for dinner, thoughtfully booked me on the mid-afternoon flight to Hays. Which would get me there just in time to wave good-bye to all of the conference goers.

I don’t know if it was the murderous look on my face, or the fact that the lasers shooting out of my eyes melted the basket of plastic luggage tags, or the flexing of my massively intimidating biceps, but a lady who worked for US AIR (which subcontracts the Hays route to Stupidhead) was able to get me a seat. Bless her.

I arrived in Hays at 8:45 am. Was swept into a waiting minivan (cue the action movie music, throbbing bass line from James Bond, preferably), and arrived at Ft. Hays State University at 9am, tires smoking. At 9:15, they turned on the microphone, and I started talking.

Many, many thanks to all the students who made the day so much fun for me, and the teachers who had to work hard to bring them there. Thanks also to everyone who showed up, period. I had a blast.

There was only one bad thing (other than the stress caused by Stupidhead). Because of my abbreviated time in Hays, I didn’t get to see the buffalo.

Guess I have to go back. But not through Missouri.

If the Action Philosophers comic book series had been available when I was in college, I would have been a philosophy major. At the very least, I would have earned a better grade. Seriously – this is great stuff. Thanks to Stef/Jared/Grinch/Dave for making me read it. (Note: the creative geniuses behind the series are grads of Syracuse University.)

I am in Kansas-prep mode, preparing for the conference on Friday. The nice thing about this conference is that there will be teenagers there, in addition to teachers. I am having fun reviewing my material for their presentations. The website for my hotel claims that there is a buffalo herd down the road. I sure hope so.

Banned Book Week is coming up September 23 – 30. I believe that one of the greatest strengths in America is our ability to read and think what we want, without interference from the government. In many places around the world, people do not have that right. Read more about Banned Book Week!!!

The ALA has a great place where you can vote for your favorite challenged book.

My poetical thought for this autumn day:

Gary and Jim sell me thin-skinned apples
– trees bristling like greedy porcupines –
melancholy, sour-sweet apples.
Winter stalks.