Pete Hautman says...

No Limit and Mr. Was: the Corrected Editions

2012-01-19T09:41:00.001-06:00

My two YA books about poker player Denn Doyle have been reissued with new covers. I'm very happy about this because every copy of the previous edition of No Limit was missing three pages! The cover designs are quite different from my other books. I wanted them to put a warrior goddess battling dragons and zombies on the cover, but that's why I'm not doing graphic design anymore.

Mr. Was has also been repackaged in a (slightly) revised edition. I think I changed about five or six lines of text to correct some time-travel-related anachronisms (an oxymoron, I believe). I'm pleased that the new edition is coming out now, because Mr. Was is the precursor (not prequel!) to The Obsidian Blade (check out the video!), which will be arriving in April.

Free Book Reports

2012-01-12T07:23:00.001-06:00

Looking at the “webstats” for my website, I’ve noticed that for the past three years the single most popular page (other than the home page) has been the free book reports. Why is the book reports page so popular? I’ve never done anything to promote them, and the link to them is not prominently featured on my home page. How are people getting there?

The answer is revealed in the webstats, which list the key words used in Google searches that lead to the book reports page.

Imagine yourself at age fourteen. It is 2:20 a.m. You have been playing World of Warcraft for three hours. Your book report on Godless is due in six hours, and somehow you never quite finished reading the book. Time to get creative! What do you type into Google?

godless pete Hautman book report

And what pops up first on the search results?

Score!

Except…Pete Hautman’s book reports turn out to be not all that good. I would love to know if any of them have ever made it to a teacher’s desk.

Weather Report

2012-01-11T14:30:00.001-06:00

In Minnesota we love to complain about the cold and snow. This year Minnesotans are kvetching about the warmth and dryness. Not me though. I like it. So does Mary. It was 54 degrees yesterday. I went for a run in shorts and a T-shirt, and I got overheated.

Last year

This year

New Website!

2012-01-11T06:56:00.000-06:00

Amanita muscaria

I finally got around to buffing up my tired old website. Although the new site is not awesome, it's clean and easy to navigate. I added a bunch of stuff like videos, free book reports, and (ta-da!) a mushroom page.

Of course, being that it's a new site, there will be glitches. If you spot any, please let me know!

Check it out:
petehautman.com

Why I Wrote a "Romantic Comedy"

2012-01-02T08:45:00.016-06:00

What Boys Really Want is now officially available in bookstores.

This is an unusual (for me) book—a romantic comedy, of all things. Allow me to explain.

Way back in the latter years of the last millennium, I suggested to my partner, Mary Logue, that we write a book together. "It will be fun!" I said. "I have an idea."

The book would be loosely based on a true story. Many years ago, when I was in high school, one of my shirttail relatives (second cousin once removed, I think) decided to earn some money by writing, publishing, and selling a small handbook to his classmates. The title of the book was something like "How to Please a Boy." He printed hundred or so copies, and had some success selling them at school. Later, I learned that his book had been cribbed from the "Wendy Ward Charm Book." (The Wendy Ward Charm School was a popular program offered by Montgomery Ward department stores. It taught young ladies how to dress, behave, enunciate properly, and attract a mate. It was quite popular in the sixties and early seventies.)

With this fuzzy and possibly inaccurate background story, Mary and I began work on our book. It would be a he said/she said story. I would write the boy's parts, Mary would write from the girl's point-of-view. We wrote about six short sections—maybe twenty pages in all—before the project sputtered, coughed, rolled over and died. The problem, as I recall, was that it was my idea, and I was too directive, too impatient, and too everything else. Also, Mary was working on her own book, and our togetherness project was taking up too much of her time. So we set it aside.

Fast forward five years. While organizing my computer, I came across the abandoned manuscript and reread it. I liked it. I asked Mary if I could take it on solo, and she gave me her blessing. I fiddled around with it for a few more years. After a time the story came together, and now, thirteen years after its inception, it is a book. You will find traces of Mary Logue in the first two chapters, but after that I must take full responsibility.

What Boys Really Want is available as a bound book, or in ebook format. You can get it here:

Indiebound
Amazon
Powells
B&N
Or (best choice) your neighborhood bookseller.

Can We Control Sex?

2011-12-29T07:11:00.000-06:00

Three more days until the official release date of What Boys Really Want, and only three more days to enter the drawing over at Miz Fitz’s blog for a chance to win a free signed copy.

The image to the right, BTW, has absolutely nothing to do with the book. I just like it. Science and Invention was a 1920s magazine published by the sci-fi icon Hugo Gernsback. (You can find a gallery of other S&I cover art here.)

Miz Fitz Recommends Monkey Fists

2011-12-10T06:30:00.001-06:00

Miz Fitz is giving away a signed, first edition hardcover of my new book, a romantic he said/she said comedy called What Boys Really Want. If you are not familiar with Miz Fitz, please check out her blog. If you find the experience to be disorienting (many do), allow me to explain:

Miz Fitz is the blogging identity of Lita Wold, one of the two protagonists in What Boys Really Want. Under the guise of Miz Fitz, the fictional Lita offers dubious advice to the desperate and confused. So, yes, this is getting somewhat meta.

Anyway, I've been having a lot of fun channeling Miz Fitz, and spending way more time on her blog than on my own.

To enter Miz Fitz's contest, you need only visit her blog and send her a holiday-related question by December 31. The winner will be chosen using random operations. As of this writing, your odds of winning are excellent—so far, Miz Fitz has received only one entry! Your book, should you be selected, will arrive the first week in January.

In an semi-unrelated note, since I know you are all desperate for last minute holiday gift ideas, Miz Fitz suggests this lovely item—the "perfect stocking stuffer." I think they are called monkey fists because nothing is better for creating "monkey bumps."

Gilliam on Kubrick and Spielberg

2011-11-30T13:03:00.000-06:00

Here's a short clip of Terry Gilliam talking about Steven Spielberg (not my favorite director) and Stanley Kubrick (God). I like it because I agree with what he says, and because the point he is making applies no less to literature.

A Brief Interview with Miz Fitz

2011-11-29T11:42:00.000-06:00

In her own words, Miz Fitz's blog, "What Boys Really Want," offers "pithy, straight-from-the-hip advice" to her readers. Since she has generously recommended my new novel on her blog, I requested an interview. It did not go well.

Pete Hautman: First, let me thank you for taking the time to drop by to share your thoughts.

Miz Fitz: I am happy to do so, as it may increase my own blog traffic. Blogging is by nature incestuous. One cannot afford to be too fastidious.

PH: I could not help but notice that the title of your blog is the same as the title of my new book, What Boys Really Want. Was that intentional?

MF: Rest assured, I am in communication with my lawyers. They tell me you do not have sufficient resources for it to make it worth my time and effort to bring a lawsuit.

PH: Oh. Thank you. I think.

MF: You are welcome. Do you have a question?

PH: Yes. What do boys really want?

MF: Read my blog.

PH: I have read your blog.

MF: Have you learned anything?

PH: I learned a lot! For example, it had never occurred to me that some girls shave their toes. Do you shave your toes?

MF: Are you always so rude, or should I take this personally?

PH: You are very touchy.

MF: I prefer the term “discerning.” Goodbye.

I Have Been Inattentive...

2011-11-16T17:34:00.000-06:00

...because I've been hanging out over at Miz Fitz's blog lately and not posting much here. Why? Frankly, I find Miz Fitz to be more interesting than me, which is in itself interesting, because I find myself to be endlessly fascinating. Writers.

What I like about Miz Fitz is that she can say things I can't, because she is "fictional." I've been thinking a lot about the concept of "fiction" lately, in part because I'm giving a talk at the Illinois Association of Teachers of English (IATE) conference in February. The theme of the conference is "Truth." I'm thinking that the title of my talk will be "Truth: It's All a Lie."

The other presenter at the conference is Ellen Hopkins. Why do I find that amusing?

Also amusing is the cover of the British edition of What Boys Really Want. I love that dotted line. Also, the hyphens.

BTW, Miz Fitz needs some questions. I would really appreciate it if you would take a moment to ask her one.

Gillette

2011-11-08T08:35:00.000-06:00

I had a great trip to Gillette, Wyoming last week—five days of presentations to junior high students, about 2500 teens total. Kind of amazing when you consider that there are only about half a million people in the entire state. That's...um...some small percentage of one percent of Wyomingans (Wyomans? Wyomanese? Wyomites?), but close to ten percent of all the 7th, 8th, and 9th graders in Wyoming. My thanks to the students and staff at the Wright, Sage Valley, and Twin Spruce schools. Everybody was really nice, and nobody fell asleep or threw rotten eggs.

My host and handler for the week was uber-librarian Sue Knesel (above right), who started me off with a trip to Devil's Tower, and took me to, I think, every restaurant in the greater Gillette area. Thanks, Sue!

In other news, the mysterious Miz Fitz is having a contest over on her blog. The stupendous prize is an ARC (advance reading copy) of my upcoming novel, WHAT BOYS REALLY WANT. All you have to do is send her a question before the end of November, and then hope she picks it. Since only a few people have discovered Miz Fitz's blog, your odds of winning are quite good.

Cognitive Dissonsance

2011-10-04T10:38:00.000-05:00

The Obsidian Blade Cover Art

2011-09-22T13:01:00.003-05:00

Nothing I like better than a really cool book cover with my name on it. This one will be out in April. Meanwhile, I'm working furiously on Book Two. "Working furiously?" What does that even mean? I am not angry. But I am, apparently, having a bad adverb day.

Video coming soon!

I Only Found One Mushroom This Weekend...

2011-09-06T07:39:00.000-05:00

...but it was a fifteen-pounder.

Meanwhile, intrepid blogger Miz Fitz weighs in on offensive odors and breast size. She is also very upset that something bewildering has happened to her blog. All her posts are suddenly appearing out-of-order, and some seem to be missing. Miz Fitz considers this to be a tragedy of epic proportions, and she plans to give the folks at Blogger a Piece of Her Mind.

The Korean edition of Godless...

2011-08-29T12:40:00.000-05:00

...has a very cool cover.

What Boys Really Want

2011-08-24T07:12:00.000-05:00

I have a new book coming out in January, a romantic comedy called What Boys Really Want. To celebrate, I've created a pseudonymous blog featuring the literary stylings of one "Miz Fitz," who suffers no fools. Check out the new blog!

Drawing Dead...

2011-08-04T09:48:00.000-05:00

The Kindle Version

The Nook Version

...is now available on both Kindle AND (finally) B&N's Nook. This e-publishing is more confuserizing than I thought it would be. My brain architecture seems to be incompatible with computer-think. Or maybe I'm just impatient. Anyway, it's done. Both versions are priced at $2.99. All the words are the same, but the Nook (ePub) version is a little nicer looking on the page due to Kindle formatting restrictions.

The Return of Drawing Dead

2011-07-25T17:01:00.004-05:00

Original Cover Design

Most of you who visit this blog know me as the author of several "young adult" novels, but I’ve also written eight novels for "old adults." The first five of these are now officially out of print (boo-hoo), so I’m reissuing them as ebooks, beginning with my first published novel, Drawing Dead.

I began writing Drawing Dead while I was taking a writing class from Mary Logue, to whom the book is dedicated. In fact, I’ve dedicated several of my books to Mary, which says nothing good about my number of close personal friends, but a great deal of good about my relationship with Mary.

Drawing Dead was a critical success. It got a bunch of good reviews. Marilyn Stasio, in the New York Times Book Review, opened her piece with, “Whatever Pete Hautman was doing before he wrote Drawing Dead, he was wasting his time.” It was selected as a NYT Notable Book for 1993, and I thought I was gonna be the next Stephen King.

I wrote four more books in the Joe Crow/Sam O’Gara/Axel Speeter series. Those books were also kindly reviewed, but sales were modest. I became interested in other varieties of literary experience, and eventually they went out of print, to be consigned to the backwaters of eBay and your friendly neighborhood used bookstore curmudgeon.

Now, thanks to the miracles of digital technology, you can read Drawing Dead on your kindle, Nook, iPad, or other device. For the Kindle version, click here. For the Nook version, click here. The other four books in the series will be available soon—assuming I sell enough copies of Drawing Dead to justify the expense of converting them.

My Hack-job e-Cover

For those of you who have read only my YA work, I should mention that in Drawing Dead the “f-word” and its variations occur 159 times. There are other discourteous words as well. Just so you know.

If you’d like to check out what sort of literary conceit you might be subjecting yourself to, Amazon lets you download the first four chapters to your device for free.

*Right now it’s only available on Kindle and Nook, but the other e-formats will be available soon.

About once every ten or twenty years, I write a poem.

2011-07-18T11:03:00.000-05:00

A Note From the Dog*

When the freezer died

And all that meat

had to be eaten quickly

I was delirious with joy.

When you lost your job

And stayed home all the time

I could not have been happier.

When you had your cardiac event

And the doctor told you to go for a walk

every single day

I was ecstatic.

What ever would you do without me?

*FYI, I write fiction. My freezer works fine, I haven't had a job in 25 years, and I have experienced no cardiac events.

About Mr. Was

2011-07-11T08:39:00.002-05:00

Mr. Was, published in 1996, was my first “young adult” novel. Although not conceived as a novel for teens, when I finished writing the book I discovered that the main character, Jack Lund, was a teenager for most (but not all) of the story. This happened more or less by accident. Mr. Was is a time travel story. It covers much of Jack Lund’s life, and it happened that his experiences as a teen made for better storytelling.

Since then, Mr. Was has been through several editions. At this time, it is available in mass market paperback for $6.99. That is about to change. In a few months, a new trade paperback (large format) edition of Mr. Was will become available for $8.99, replacing the smaller mass market version. It will have a cool new cover design, and will include several minor corrections to the original text.

The timing of this reissue is fortuitous. The Obsidian Blade, the first book in my sci-fi trilogy, The Klaatu Diskos, will be released in April, 2012. The Obsidian Blade employs several of the concepts first developed for Mr. Was, and although it is not a “sequel” in the usual sense (the characters and settings are all different), I nevertheless think of it as a continuation.

Some people say that Mr. Was is my best book. I do not agree, but I will say that during the writing process, Mr. Was surprised me in ways that none of my other books have.

Here is a link to the first chapter of Mr. Was

Green Magic and Solid Objects

2011-07-05T09:31:00.003-05:00

In a perhaps doomed effort to stimulate myself to post more regularly, I am going to undertake to enrich the lives of those hapless few who find themselves dallying here, by suggesting certain nourishing literary endeavors.

Hrrumph. Sorry. I have been reading Jack Vance again. It is, of course, impossible for anyone who is not Jack Vance to write like Jack Vance, but it is also impossible to resist attempting to do so. Clearly, I have failed on both counts.

Those of you who have read more than a few of my books may have noticed that one of the recurring themes in my work is the careful examination of my own navel.* That is, I like to write about the thing I am writing about in a manner analogous to a painter painting an image of a painter painting. Allow me to avoid making myself clear.

Two short stories that I love, and revisit often, are “Green Magic,” by Jack Vance, the tale of an ambitious magician who seeks to expand himself beyond his mortal capabilities, and “Solid Objects,” by Virginia Woolf, a story about a young politician whose life is changed by the discovery of a lovely lump of driftglass. Essentially, they are the same story seen through different ends of the telescope.

Both are allegories concerning the creative process—at least as I read them. Both are brilliant. Both are available free online:

Green Magic

Solid Objects

*Speaking of navels…on the morning after after our first date, Mary Logue called her sister to make a report. “He has an Audi,” she mentioned, referring to my car. Mary’s sister, hearing the word outie, said, “You learned that on your first date?”

A Milestone!

2011-06-19T09:11:00.010-05:00

As of today, one thousand people have viewed Part One of the Blank Confession book trailer to hear me performing Eddie Murphy's version of "Roxanne," and watch me getting hit with a stun gun.

I am so, so sorry! But one thousand! That's almost as many views as Lady Gaga's Bad Romance video has received.

Well, almost. I have 389,549,053 to go.

Morels

2011-05-19T07:35:00.000-05:00

Yes, it is morel season here in Minnesota and Wisconsin, and I've been spending a lot of hours in the woods. So far I've found wood ticks and morels in roughly equal numbers. We've had a long, slow spring, and while there are a lot of mushrooms out there - or so I've heard - I have not been collecting bushels. More like a few ounces here and there, just enough for a few meals.

Yesterday I was at Byerly's and saw that they had morels for sale. Three point five ounces of mushrooms so raggedy and dried-out that, had I found them in the woods, I would have left them to rot. The price? $19.99. That's not the per pound price, that's for 3.5 ounces!

So, today, I am going out again, my pant legs soaked with DEET for the ticks, and an optimistic number of bags to be filled. Wish me luck.

Anoka and Club Book

2011-05-09T10:02:00.000-05:00

Mary and I had great time at our final Club Book appearance. The Lyric Arts Center in Anoka is a lovely venue, and we had a nice audience, thanks to a whole bunch of folks from Edina High School making the journey north.

Anoka used to be a charming little town surrounded by farms. These days it is still a charming little town, but now it is surrounded by a wasteland of suburban development--much of which is stalled out due to the economic downturn. Still, the downtown area is vibrant in a "you can get anything you need on Main Street" sort of way.

The only problem we had was Representative Matt Dean, who stood outside the theater the whole time wearing a sandwich sign that read "I hate Neil Gaiman" on one side, and "Reading is for Pencil-Necked Weezles" on the other.

Speaking of Club Book...

2011-05-05T05:45:00.009-05:00

Pencil-Necked Little Weasel

Earlier this week, Minnesota Republican House Leader Matt Dean went on a rant against "wasteful" spending. Here's a quote from an article in the Minneapolis StarTribune:

"Dean also singled out a $45,000 payment of Legacy money that was made last year to science fiction writer Neil Gaiman for a four-hour speaking appearance. Dean said that Gaiman, 'who I hate,' was a 'pencil-necked little weasel who stole $45,000 from the state of Minnesota.'"

Neil Gaiman's witty and civilized response is worth reading. Go, Neil.

Last year, Gaiman was a featured Club Book author, for which he was paid a generous honorarium. He performed admirably, to a full house, and his talk has been broadcast and rebroadcast more times than I can count. You can still stream it on MPR. Bottom line? The Metropolitan Library Services Agency and the Washington County Library System, who booked and paid for Mr. Gaiman, got their money's worth, and then some.

This Saturday, when Mary and I do our Club Book event in Anoka, we will be speaking to fewer than 100 people, and our presentation will NOT be featured on MPR. The Library Foundation will still get its money's worth, but the scale is not the same. Neil Gaiman had the star power to reach far more people than we will, and he was worth every penny he received. Which, incidentally, he did not keep for himself. Not that he didn't deserve it. Also, I like him because he is a mushroom hunter.

Club Book, the Finale

2011-05-04T11:20:00.001-05:00

Mary Logue and I are doing our final Club Book event on Saturday, May 7, at 11:00 a.m., at the Lyric Arts Center in Anoka

Club Book is a series of readings and talks by authors including Walter Mosley, Cathy Wurzer, Mark Doty, Sandra Benitez, Heid Erdrich, and others. Mary and I are delighted and honored to be part of this amazing series.

Club Book is one of the many remarkable cultural and educational programs made possible by Minnesota's Legacy Amendment. That's right—if you live in Minnesota, you paid for it with your tax dollars, so you might as well take advantage!

Our plan is to talk about some of our recent books, read a few short excerpts, talk a little, bicker a little, laugh a lot, and and enjoy ourselves

Please stop by if you are able—we'd love to see you there!

He Was a Good Dog

2011-04-29T17:00:00.000-05:00

Rene

1994 - 2011

I Like This

2011-04-23T07:11:00.000-05:00

This nice little graphic summarizes the first part of THE BIG CRUNCH. I plucked it from unshelved.com. You can order it from them as a signed, 11x14 print for twenty bucks.

I love the idea of super-brief graphic condensations of novels. My favorite is Lucy Kinsley's version of The Twilight Saga. There is something so good-hearted about the way she pokes fun at a series that she loved enough to read in its entirety.

Have a lovely Easter!

Libraries of Minnesota

2011-04-22T11:20:00.000-05:00

Last night, at the Downtown Minneapolis Library, we celebrated the launch of Libraries of Minnesota, another beautiful book in the Minnesota Byways series by the MInnesota Historical Society Press. Hey, I managed to fit "Minnesota" in three times in one sentence!

The book contains photos of—um, I think a zillion—Minnesota libraries, along with essays by six Minnesota children's authors, including me. Photos are by Doug Ohman. If you love libraries (and you should), you'll like this book.

Other than that, I got nothing.

April 20, 2011

2011-04-20T09:01:00.000-05:00

Last year at this time I was picking morels. It IS pretty, though.

I Be Jammin'

2011-04-17T07:29:00.000-05:00

Last night Mary Logue and I attended the 23rd Annual Minnesota Book Awards Gala at the Crowne Plaza in St. Paul, the "seventh most literate city in the country." My novel Blank Confession was a finalist in the Young People's Literature category.

It was a fabulous event—books, booze, dessert, and seven hundred people. I must have known about two hundred of them, putting my name recollection skills to a brutal test. Author David LaRochelle, a tall, handsome, distinctive-looking man who I know quite well, approached me...and I drew a big goose egg. FAIL!

The event was organized by The Friends of the St. Paul Public Library, with the lovely and prodigiously competent Alayne Ferguson at the helm. The event was, in my experience, unique in that while about thirty people had the microphone at one point or another, nobody blathered on for long. Even the current and former mayors of St. Paul kept it down to three or four minutes. Carol Connolly provided one of the highlights of the evening when she accepted the Kay Sexton Award for Contributions to Minnesota's Book Community. St. Paul Pioneer Press book columnist Mary Ann Grossman was great too, as she presented the Reader's Choice Award to her Star Tribune counterpart Laurie Hertzel.

The best part of the evening for me, of course, was the strawberry jam with my name on it.

That's right—I won. The hand-blown glass award, designed by artist Dick Huss, is intended, I think, to represent a flame. But I prefer to think of it as strawberry jam preserved in glass. Yum!

Snowmelt Report: April 15

2011-04-15T09:46:00.004-05:00

This is getting VERY exciting! (Okay, I have no life.) Back in early March I predicted April 16th as the date when the last trace of snow would be gone from the white mountain across the street from our house. Well, today is April 15th, and I am feeling more confident than ever in my prediction.

Here's what it looked like 35 days ago:

Since I'm on a roll here, allow me to venture another prediction: The Rapture will NOT occur on May 12th.

P≠NP

2011-04-12T08:42:00.001-05:00

I did something scary this morning. I sent the final revision of The Obsidian Blade (Book One of The Klaatu Diskos trilogy) to Candlewick, where it will be sent straight to copyediting. Why is that scary? Because the next two books in the trilogy must be true to the first volume, and I HATE being locked in.

This is a problem for me, because according to the Myers Briggs Type Indicator, I am decidedly a "P." Loosely interpreted, that means that where decisions are concerned, I like to stay on the fence as long as possible. For example, Mary might notice me wearing running shorts and putting on my running shoes, and say, "Are you going for a run?"

"Probably," I say. Because until I am out the door and running, I might yet change my mind.

Likewise, until the moment I hit the SEND button and dispatched my manuscript twenty minutes ago, I took comfort in the fact that I could still change the name of my protagonist from "Tucker" to "Tiberius," and reorder the chapters one more time, and rework that troubling scene on the roof of Kosh's black barn.

Here's another thumbnail from my notes:

That's Tucker (not Tiberius) confronting a disko in a 2000 year old tomb.

And below is today's Snowmelt Report. I'm sticking with my final melt day prediction of April 16th. Just because I'm a "P" doesn't mean I don't know how to be stubborn.

April 10 Snowmelt Report

2011-04-10T17:37:00.001-05:00

Seventy-plus degrees today. The lilacs are budding.

Mary and I had fun at our first Club Book appearance, in Chanhassen. Were you there?

Club Book!

2011-04-09T08:43:00.001-05:00

Mary Logue and I are doing the first of our two Club Book events on Sunday, April 10, at 2:00 p.m., at the Chanhassen Library.

Club Book is a series of readings and talks by authors including Walter Mosley, Cathy Wurzer, Mark Doty, Sandra Benitez, Heid Erdrich, and others. Mary and I are delighted and honored to be part of this amazing series.

Our plan is to talk about some of our recent books, read a few short excerpts, talk a little, bicker a little, laugh a lot, and and enjoy the summery thunderstorm that may be going on outside. (NOAA is predicting seventy-two degrees—woo-hoo!)

Please stop by if you are able. If you can't make it to Chanhassen, we are taking our show to the Lyric Arts Center in Anoka on May 7th at 11:00 a.m.

Under the Radar

2011-04-08T14:43:00.001-05:00

The April 11 edition of The New Yorker is a good one for cartoons. There were at least four that made me laugh, like the clown pointing at a defendant in a courtroom and saying, "J'amuse!"

The one that really hit me hard, though, was a man behind a desk speaking on his phone, asking, "How do you know if you're under the radar or washed up?" Because that phrase, "under the radar," is frequently used in (positive) reviews of my books. It's a military reference - "under the radar" meaning to fly in low and undetected, and presumably be less likely to be shot down. Which is good for the aircraft. But what does it mean in a literary context? Is it good for the book? Or does it just mean it isn't being read? HellifIknow.

Speaking of snow...

Yes! You can see our house peeking through the trees in the upper right hand corner. And Mary's head almost sticks up above the snow pile. The ramps and daffodils are up. We have squirrels in the attic. I think they've been there for a while, but they were under the radar until a few days ago, when they started chewing on something located immediately above our bed. Now they are on my radar in a big way. I am looking up recipes for squirrel pie, squirrel ragout, squirrel etouffee, and squirrel-on-a-stick.

April 5 Snowmelt Report

2011-04-05T12:43:00.000-05:00

A super slow melt this year - that's good for minimizing the flooding.

Last weekend I had a wonderful time at the 11th(?) annual Colorado Teen Lit festival. I'm expecting photos, and will write more about that fabulous conference when they arrive....

March 31 Snowmelt Report

2011-03-31T18:46:00.000-05:00

We are making progress, though not as quickly as we would like...

Chisago Lakes

2011-03-30T08:47:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I enjoyed a lovely visit to the Chisago Lakes area, about 45 minutes north of the Twin Cities. I spent a couple of hours at the high school (Go Wildcats!), and did a late afternoon program at the Chisago Lakes Area Library.

Below, a picture of me holding an invisible basketball.

And here I am with media specialist Mary Berning.

The visits were funded by the Minnesota Legacy Amendment for Clean Water, Outdoor Heritage, Parks and Trails and Arts and Cultural Heritage. This great program is bringing authors and other artists to regional libraries all across Minnesota, and I'm proud to be among the authors involved.

My Mom Will Be Watching

2011-03-25T09:03:00.000-05:00

I will be appearing on Almanac tonight to talk books with Cathy Wurzer. 7:00, tpt channel 2 if you're in the Twin Cities area. If not, I think you can stream it.

March 23 Snowfall Report

2011-03-23T09:44:00.000-05:00

March 21 Snowmelt Report

2011-03-22T10:39:00.000-05:00

Mary is getting impatient! First full day of spring and you still can't see our house (behind the right side of the snowbank). Our neighbor's roof is showing, though. And green spears of iris are poking up on the south side of the house.

In other news, for those of you in the Twin Cities area, I will be appearing on Almanac (tpt channel 2) this Friday evening to talk about books, including The Big Crunch and Blank Confession. It will probably be snowing outside. Good night to sit in front of the TV.

March 18th Snowmelt Report

2011-03-19T08:55:00.000-05:00

The Twilight Saga: I think this abridgment is brilliant...

2011-03-18T13:35:00.006-05:00

...and I've had it floating around on my desktop for the past year or two. I would like to see more of this cartoonist's work, but I don't remember where I got it, and I don't know who she is. Anybody recognize her work? Help!

(click for bigger)

UPDATE! I have been informed that the artist is Lucy Kinsley. She's good.

"Certain Time-Traveling Cybernetic Organisms"

2011-03-12T09:21:00.000-06:00

I've mentioned before that I often make crude little sketches for visualization purposes. The SF trilogy I'm now working on, The Klaatu Diskos, features certain time-traveling cybernetic organisms known as "maggots." Here's a preview.

Speaking of visual aids, here's one for those of you who live in the snowless south: a shot of Mary standing in front of the snow pile across the street from us, in the church parking lot.

We are taking bets on when it will completely melt. My guess is April 16th. Which is also the date of the Minnesota Book Awards. Blank Confession is one of the finalists. I have some tough competition, though:

Misc. Book News

2011-03-01T07:39:00.000-06:00

The Big Crunch, I'm pleased to say, has been receiving more than its share of excellent reviews. I just read one on the Kirkus Reviews website that is particularly nice.

In other news, The Obsidian Blade (the first book in "The Klaatu Diskos" trilogy) has been delivered to Candlewick Press. We're looking at an early 2012 publication date. I'm deep into book two now, trying to tie together human sacrifice, post-physical intelligences, Amish Jews, the origins of Christianity, and tomato hornworms. Have faith.

"Pick of the Week"

2011-02-24T13:29:00.012-06:00

Here's a nice, brief video review of The Big Crunch from "Pick of the Week."

Take that, Arthur Quiller-Couch!

2011-02-10T10:05:00.005-06:00

I’ve only mentioned this about a dozen times, but I’m working on an SFF trilogy called “The Klaatu Diskos.” I started writing it back in June of 2003 with these two sentences:

During the period subsequent to the Postdigital Age, discorporeal Klaatu artist Iyl Rayn attempted to enhance her status within the Cluster by conceiving an unconventional entertainment. She contracted the services of Boggsian corporeals to construct a network of portals, or as she called them,“diskos.”

Remarkably, those clunky opening sentences—chock-full of fuzzy, polysyllabic, nearly nonsensical words—have survived more than thirty drafts. I’m pretty sure that when I wrote them I had no idea what they meant, and for the last eight years I’ve been trying to make them make sense. This is an example of how far some writers will go to avoid murdering a darling. I had a couple of deranged sentences I liked, and even if it took me nearly a decade, even if it took nine hundred pages, I was determined to extract a plot from them.

This is not unusual, at least for me. I am capable of killing off my darlings—dozens have perished in this trilogy so far—but I can also be fiercely protective of them, often for spurious reasons, and occasionally to my detriment. In this case, my stubbornness is paying off. The first book in the trilogy, The Obsidian Blade, will be coming out in about a year.

Black Painting by Ad Reinhardt

Creativity can be defined as the willingness to take a crazy-ass idea and beat it over the head until it cries "Uncle!" If you look at the lives of artists, one theme that recurs again and again is the artist’s willingness to back himself (or herself) into a corner, then fight his way out. Examples would include the painter Ad Reinhardt (I will use black paint on a black background), the composer John Cage (I will restrict myself to using random operations for my music), Patrick O’Brian (I will write twenty novels about the same two guys on the same boat doing the same stuff over and over again), and Michael Flatley (I will wear funny costumes and only move my feet).

Embracing an odd premise and refusing to let go is one of the ways I kick-start my imagination. Maybe you do something different, but it works for me. So there.

Speaking of…aargh! Can’t find a segue…I’ll be at Wild Rumpus in Minneapolis’s Linden hills neighborhood this Saturday, February 12, at 1:00 p.m., to talk about The Big Crunch and Blank Confession. Please stop by if you are able. Have a pastry and coffee at Turtle Bread—the Twin Cities second-best bakery (It used to be the best, and it’s still damn good, but in recent years Rustica has taken the lead.)—then pop over to the Wild Rumpus and pick up a book for yourself, your kid, your niece…your cat.

It’s supposed to be a nice day. By which I mean, ABOVE FREEZING.

Radio, Radio

2011-02-01T09:22:00.001-06:00

Yes, more cold and snow. Another ten weeks until the first ramps (wild leeks) show themselves, and more than three months to wait for the morels. This is the part of winter where my head sinks down between my shoulders and I type while wearing fingerless gloves and a stocking cap. I feel like Doctor Zhivago.

To hell with the cost of fuel - I'm cranking up the thermostat.

If you aren't doing anything else this Thursday morning (February 3) at 10:00 a.m., tune in to KNOW 91.1 in the Twin Cities. If you're out of town, you can stream it on the Minnesota Public Radio website. I'll be talking with Kerri Miller about The Big Crunch and Blank Confession. Kerri is an awesome interviewer - I never know what she's going to ask me. Strange things occasionally pop out of my mouth.

The Red Balloon Bookshop

2011-01-23T13:21:00.019-06:00

We had a great turnout at The Red Balloon Bookshop on Saturday - several other authors showed up to support one of their own, which I appreciate more than I can possibly express. There was no cake, but we had chocolate eclairs and Nestle Crunch bars - just as good! I didn't get any pictures, but I saw some cameras in action, so if you were one of the ~~shooters~~ picture takers, send me a pic or two and I'll post.

I signed several books for the store while I was there, so if you want a signed copy, swing on by the Red Balloon.

My next public appearance will be in Minneapolis at Wild Rumpus, 1:00 p.m., Saturday February 12th.

Hey! Fellow blogger Daughter Number Three came through with an image. Note the balloons. They are red, and this is at the "Red Balloon." Spooooooky!

It Comes; It Goes

2011-01-21T07:39:00.001-06:00

Nineteen degrees below zero in the Twin Cities this morning. That's nothing to my cousin John, who is dealing with -38 up in Fairbanks. He's planning a trip to Minnesota to warm up. Really.

The good news is that while the cold may have come to Minnesota, my own virus-type cold is gone, and I'm looking forward to my book signing at The Red Balloon Bookshop tomorrow afternoon, when the temperature is supposed to rise to a balmy ten degrees ABOVE zero. People will be wearing shorts and flip-flops. Pack your sunscreen, John!

The event at Red Balloon will be at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, January 22. That's tomorrow, if you're reading this today. I mean, "today" as in the day I'm posting this. If you're reading this tomorrow, then the event is today.

EVENT: Book discussion and signing: The Big Crunch and Blank Confession.

PLACE: The Red Balloon Bookshop, 891 Grand Avenue, Saint Paul, MN 55105

PHONE: (651) 224-8320

TIME: 2:00 p.m., Saturday, January 22, 2011

(If you can't get there, but still would like a book, call them and they'll have me inscribe a book for you.)

A Not-So-Good Morning

2011-01-17T07:59:00.000-06:00

I woke up this morning with a tire spike lodged in my throat. You know what a tire spike is, right? You should alway keep a few dozen in your car in case, y'know, you are being pursued by Lord Humungus and his horde.

Just toss a few handfuls out the window and your pursuer's tires go kablam. If Mad Max had carried a sufficient quantity of these babies, the movie would have been over in half an hour.

I am referring, of course, the "The Road Warrior," aka "Mad Max 2," a film that stands out (along with "The Wizard of Oz" and "When Harry Met Sally") as a masterpiece of pacing.

Anyway, I woke up with a tire spike in my throat. I am expecting it to migrate into my sinuses soon.

Colds. Bah!

I am expecting to be well - or at least non-contagious - by Saturday at 2:00 p.m., when I'll be appearing at The Red Balloon Bookshop in St. Paul to sign copies of The Big Crunch and Blank Confession. Please come if you can. (I promise not to infect you. I have mastered the Vampire Sneeze.)

Check out these reviews for The Big Crunch in the StarTribune and the Pioneer Press... (Aargh! The link to the Pioneer Press article has expired. Take my word for it, it was a fabulous review!)

A Video Interview from 10/19/10

2011-01-06T08:24:00.023-06:00

Here's a link to a rather slow-paced but not-unpleasant interview I did when I visited Ohio last October. I just watched it for the first time. I must learn to smile more.

I don't know why the video isn't properly framed--something is screwy with the embed code, and when I try to fix it it just gets worse. To watch it properly framed, you can click here.

Perfect Boiled Water

2010-12-31T08:01:00.000-06:00

Everybody thinks they know how to boil water. Many - if not most of them - are deluded. Boiling water is not as easy as it appears to be. However, by following a few simple guidelines, it is within anyone’s reach.

1. Use a metal pot. Wooden and plastic pots will not work!

2. Fill the metal pot with a quantity of water that is less than the total volume of the pan.

3. Use real water! Gasoline, alcohol, and lacquer thinner will boil, but you will not get boiling water from them.

4. Put the pot on the stove. This is important. You must use a stove! Refrigerators, dishwashers, and KitchenAid stand mixers will not boil water, no matter how long you leave it on.

5. Turn on the burner directly beneath the pot. Turning on the wrong burner will not boil water!

6. Give the water time to come to a boil. On most stoves, you can adjust the amount of time required by changing the burner setting (consult the manual that came with your stove).

7. Do not watch the pot! Watching the pot of water will increase the time it takes to come to a boil! Simply glance at the water from time to time until you observe large numbers of “bubbles” rising to the surface.

8. Once the water is boiling, you can let it boil for a while, or you can turn off the burner – it’s up to you!

Coming soon: How to Make Ice Cubes.

Remember the Penguin?

2010-12-24T10:21:00.000-06:00

It's snowing again.

A Self-Indulgent Post About Book Shelves

2010-12-20T09:57:00.005-06:00

There are many ways to arrange books. If you are an interior designer, you might arrange them by color and size. A history buff might order them according to period, or by publication date. Someone with limited shelf space might stack them every which way, to take up as little room as possible. You could arrange them by author, by page count, by publisher, or by frequency of use. You could employ the liquor store technique, arranging them by quality, putting the best books on the top shelf.

Not long ago I was making a promotional video in my basement with Max and Nick, two men in their early twenties. Max was directing, Nick was operating the camera. (Click here to view Part One of the movie we were making)

Making a movie—even a very short video—involves a lot of sitting around and waiting. During one of these periods (waiting for a battery to charge), Nick was looking over my bookshelves. He became excited when he found my almost-complete collection of Philip K. Dick novels and story collections. Max was interested in Dick’s writing, too.

As was I, when I was their age.

My books are arranged, roughly, in alphabetical order by author and by genre—sci-fi against the east wall, crime fiction in the next bookcase, comic books to the west, and so forth.

It occurred to me, watching Nick and Max flipping through the Phil Dick books, that it might be interesting to arrange my books according to the age at which I first read them.

First would be my tattered copy of Brave Cowboy Bill, a Little Golden Book from the 1950s. Among the last, as of this writing, would be Explorers of the New Century, by Magnus Mills.

Here’s a list of books that made a big impression on me, roughly arranged by the age at which I read them. (OCD much?) I’ve tried to be honest here, even though a few of the titles make me squirm to think that I bought into them at any age. I only allowed myself one book per author.

Age 4-7

The Little Engine that Could —“Watty Piper” and others

Brave Cowboy Bill —Kathryn Jackson

8-12

Danny Dunn and the Anti-Gravity Paint — R. Abrashkin and J. Williams

Charlotte’s Web —E.B. White

A Wrinkle in Time —Madeleine L'Engle

Tom Sawyer —Mark Twain

Lord of the Flies —William Golding

“The Hardy Boys” —“Franklin W. Dixon”

Wild Trek —Jim Kjelgaard

White Fang —Jack London

12-16

Strangest of All —Frank Edwards

The Source —James Michener

The Lord of the Rings (Trilogy) —J.R.R.Tolkien

Cat of Many Tails —Ellery Queen

From Russia with Love by Ian Fleming

The Human Comedy —William Saroyan

Atlas Shrugged —Ayn Rand

The Pearl —John Steinbeck

Cat’s Cradle —Kurt Vonnegut
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold —John LeCarre

Tai Pan —James Clavell

Brave New World —Aldous Huxley

17-25

The Idiot —Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Teachings of Don Juan —Carlos Castenada

The Sun Also Rises —Ernest Hemingway

The Puppet Masters —Robert Heinlein

Triton —Samuel R. Delany

Nausea —Jean Paul Sartre

Martian Time-Slip —Philip K. Dick

The Immoralist —Andre Gide

Madame Bovary —Gustave Flaubert

The Savage Mind —Claude Levi-Strauss

The Structure of Art —Jack Burnham
Rogue Moon —Algis Budrys

Junky —William Burroughs

Mushrooms of North America —Orson K. Miller

Dune —Frank Herbert

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test —Tom Woolf

The Stranger —Albert Camus

25-30

Rebecca —Daphne du Maurier

In Cold Blood —Truman Capote

The Big Sleep —Raymond Chandler

“Solid Objects” —Virginia Woolf

The Elements of Style —William Strunk and E. B. White

Dubliners —James Joyce

The Left Hand of Darkness —Ursula LeGuin

The Adventures of Alyx —Joanna Russ

Baby is Three —Theodore Sturgeon

A Sweet, Sweet Summer —Jane Gaskell

The French Lieutenant’s Woman —John Fowles

The Great Gatsby —F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Stars My Destination —Alfred Bester

The Postman Always Rings Twice —James Cain

30s

Deliverance —James Dickey

Dog Soldiers —Robert Stone

The Book of the New Sun (tetralogy) —Gene Wolfe

The Cream of the Jest —James Branch Cabell

Unknown Man No. 89 —Elmore Leonard

Leaving Cheyenne —Larry McMurtry

Wild Seed —Octavia Butler

Falconer —John Cheever

The Talented Mr. Ripley —Patricia Highsmith

40s and 50s

The Remains of the Day —Kazuo Ishiguro

Lyonesse (trilogy) —Jack Vance

The Silence of the Lambs —Thomas Harris

Expendable —James Alan Gardner

The Ice House —Minette Walters

Maus —Art Spiegleman

The Fourth Durango —Ross Thomas

Duchamp —Calvin Tomkins

Spin —Robert Charles Wilson

Explorers of the New Century —Magnus Mills

Stats

Total Books: 72

Books by men: 60

Books by women: 12

Books by Americans: 45+

Books by British and Irish authors: 10+

Books by authors of other nationalities: 10+

Books by African-Americans: 2+

Books written before I was born: 25

Books written by authors who are deceased: 40+

Books by gay authors: 10+

Sci-Fi/Fantasy books: 20+

Crime/Mystery books: 10+

Listed authors I’ve read more than one book by: 61

Listed books I’ve read more than once: 33

True Love

2010-12-14T09:19:00.004-06:00

I just got my first look at the paperback edition of How to Steal a Car (available January 1), and I love love love the cover, oh yes I do.

And now...

2010-12-12T15:25:00.000-06:00

Our Christmas Card

2010-12-11T07:12:00.001-06:00

This year, in honor of the beached economy, Mary and I ordered a very small quantity of holiday cards. You probably didn't get one. Don't feel bad. Neither did my mom. Anyway, here's the card.

The poem is by Mary Logue, of course. Photo and design by me. The Adelie penguin is by Rowbike inventor Scott Olson. (You can buy your own penguin.)

I'll post a new picture of the penguin tomorrow - after we get the 18 inches of snow we've been promised.

And Now for Something Completely Different

2010-12-10T07:10:00.000-06:00

Thirty years ago, as a Christmas gift for a friend, I wrote a novella based upon the characters and world created by Kenneth Grahame in his classic book The Wind in the Willows. I called it "Beneath the Wild Wood."

"Beneath the Wild Wood" is not an attempt to “channel” Grahame. I took considerable liberties with character, setting, and language—though no more than did Grahame himself. It was never intended as a commercial venture, and has since been seen by only a handful of readers. I thought that some of you—after cursing me roundly for messing with a Sacred Classic—might enjoy reading a sample from this unpublished work.

You can find the first few (unedited) chapters posted here, on the NCTE's "National Gallery of Writing."

Cognitive Dissonsance

2010-12-06T06:26:00.000-06:00

Three of my brothers are wildlife artists. Every now and then, one of them gets bored painting the usual idyllic wildlife scenes and starts messing around in Photoshop. I just received this somewhat disturbing image in an email from Bob. It has a bit of that "a tarantula on an angel food cake" feel to it.

The Free, Full-Fat, No-Exercise Lady Gaga Diet

2010-12-02T06:21:00.000-06:00

Sorry. I put that headline up in a desperate attempt to lure more traffic to my blog.

Ahem.

In a wholly successful attempt to avoid writing this morning, I ran across this clever little graphic online.

I smiled, even though it offends my sense of rightness. It is not a "correct" Venn diagram - "music I used to like" is not a proper subset of "music I like." But never mind, it's still funny.
Naturally, I spent the next half hour looking at other Venn diagrams.

And then another half hour making my own diagram. (I tried to use some of the online Venn diagramming tools, but they were too confusing for five o'clock in the morning, so I just hacked this together with the crappy little drawing program that came with my scanner.)

I'll be reading selections from both books at the Second Story Reading Series this Saturday afternoon at 2:00 p.m. If you're in the Twin Cities, please stop by!

Suddenly, December

2010-11-29T07:19:00.000-06:00

Yet another commercial message from our sponsor, the publishing entity known near and narrow as “Pete Hautman.” Pete wants you to know that Saturday will be your last opportunity to acquire a personalized copy of Blank Confession before the solstice.

Second Story Reading Series

When: Saturday, December 4, 2:00 p.m.

Where: The Loft Literary Center

Who: Pete Hautman and Steve Brezenoff

Pete will read short sections from BOTH of his “BC” books: Blank Confession and his January, 2011 novel, The Big Crunch.

Steve will be reading from The Absolute Value of -1, and maybe something from his next book, too.

There will be snacks. It will be fun. Please come - you will be glad you are there and not at the Mall of America.

The Second Story Reading Series is curated by Swati Avasthi and Heather (H.M.) Bouwman, two talented YA/MG authors who recently published their own excellent first novels. Check ‘em out here and here.

"Was that a dodo?" he said flightlessly!

2010-11-26T07:52:00.013-06:00

Once a year, on Thanksgiving, I revisit the Turkey City Lexicon.

Never heard of the Turkey City Lexicon? Then you are probably not an SFF (sci-fi/fantasy) writer. The TCL was collected and published by the Turkey City Workshop, a sci-fi writers' workshop out of Austin, Texas. It's a collection of terms describing Things That SF Writers Do that, probably, they shouldn't. I'm not talking about drinking and driving and eating too much (like many SF writers may have done yesterday), but about writerly things like overusing adverbs and revisiting tired plot devices. You can find it here on the SFWA website.

A couple of my favorite items include:

Fuzz An element of motivation the author was too lazy to supply. The word “somehow” is a useful tip-off to fuzzy areas of a story. “Somehow she had forgotten to bring her gun.

You Can’t Fire Me, I Quit An attempt to defuse the reader’s incredulity with a pre-emptive strike — as if by anticipating the reader’s objections, the author had somehow answered them. “I would never have believed it, if I hadn’t seen it myself!” “It was one of those amazing coincidences that can only take place in real life!” “It’s a one-in-a-million chance, but it’s so crazy it just might work!” Surprisingly common, especially in SF. (Attr. John Kessel)

As you can see, these errors are not exclusive to SFF writing.

Recently I have been watching the first season of "24" on Netflix, which provides many examples of this little TCL gem:

Idiot Plot A plot which functions only because all the characters involved are idiots. They behave in a way that suits the author’s convenience, rather than through any rational motivation of their own. (Attr. James Blish)

Because I've seen so many TCL items represented in crime fiction, I've decided to add a few of my own crime-fiction-related items to the Lexicon. Although I've never been to Austin and I don't know any of the TCL creators, I call my addendum "Turkey City Noir."

Ross Thomas A character who drinks enough to put an elephant under the table twice over—but remains competent and functional.

Mike Shayne Any character who get knocked unconscious three or more times in one book, and who suffers no ill effects that cannot be treated with a stiff drink.

Kinsey Milhone Any female sleuth who drives a cute car.

Perry Mason A mystery in which the killer can reliably be guessed by simply choosing the most unlikely suspect.

Burkism Ending a chapter or scene with a bizarre metaphor or image, as, “…my knuckles were round and white as quarters on the steering wheel.” Or “…her calves clicking with light in the bright air.” (examples from Black Cherry Blues by James Lee Burke)

Bottoms Up A book that opens from the point of view of a dying person.

Jesus Plot A character presumed to be dead near the beginning of a book turns up alive.

Thin Man A character who does not exist.

Hailey Mary A book with six or more viewpoint characters, all of whom are rushing headlong toward the same disaster. (after Arthur Hailey, author of Hotel and Airport.

Effing Cozy A cozy that contains the F word.

One Bad Thing After Another A novel in which each chapter brings a new personal disaster (loss of child, loss of limb, loss of husband, public humiliation, sudden weight gain, loss of job, etc.) until, at the end, one good thing happens that makes it possible for the protagonist to go on with his or her miserable life.

DoG PileD A mystery in which the protagonist represents a small minority, every member of which will buy the book. (from Disabled Gay Portuguese Detective.)

Slippery Witness A plot that hinges on the detective putting off, for various and trivial reasons, interviewing the one witness who holds the key to the mystery.

My Thanksgiving Post

2010-11-24T08:20:00.005-06:00

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Most of us will be having dinner with family and/or friends. I hope you are looking forward to it. I am.

Everybody’s Thanksgiving expectations and experiences are different—yet the same. I was looking at this Norman Rockwell painting and wondering how many of us have ever had such a Thanksgiving. Thinking about how odd it was that even though that painting does not resemble any of my Thanksgivings, it still produced a twinge of nostalgia in me.

At the same time, it made me feel like a voyeur peering in at some vaguely alien scene: Who are these people? What are they thinking? Is that really a turkey, or the last dodo?

It got me to wondering what other people’s Thanksgivings are like, which made me think that you might be wondering the same thing. If so, here’s a preview of what my tomorrow will look like.

(Warning: This might be one of my most boring posts ever!)

Mary and I will be driving through a (probable) snowstorm to my cousin Bill’s house. He and his wife, Sherrie, have volunteered to host the Hautman Thanksgiving celebration this year. There will be about forty of us—three or four survivors from the eldest generation, maybe two dozen of us baby boomers, a few younger adults, a few teens. No babies or toddlers this year—my parents' generation was notoriously fecund, we baby boomers have been more circumspect, and the young ones have yet to breed.

There will be nearly as many dishes as there are people. Our Thanksgiving is a loosely organized potluck. There will be turkey, of course. Possibly two. There will be venison and ham and maybe a few ducks (we have several hunters in the family). There will be sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, and “dressing.” There will be cranberry something, assorted salads (including Charlie's broccoli salad), appetizers, at least one green bean dish, a mystery dish (Put some on your plate, taste it, turn to the person next to you and ask, “What am I eating?”), and plenty of beverages—cousin Tom will bring his award-winning home-vinted apple wine, and there will be a dozen or more assorted bottles of commercial wines—everything from proseco to reisling to pinot to cabernet—some plonky, some divine, depending on who brought it. There will be beer and soft drinks. There will be coffee.

The food will be excellent. Some dishes will be fantastic. There are several talented, adventuresome cooks in the family, and the quality of the viands improves every year. But our Thanksgiving is not really about the food.

It’s not about saying thank you, either. There will be no invocations, no toasts, no prayers. That practice disappeared when my generation reached adulthood back in the 1970s, and my parents and aunts and uncles realized that ninety percent of their offspring had no interest whatsoever in organized religion. It might be more like ninety-five percent—I’m not sure.

With so many people involved, there is no way this can be a “traditional” sit-down dinner—no carefully planned courses, no wine pairings, and no beautiful table setting. It will be a scattered and disorganized buffet, with people sitting wherever they can find a space—a card table, the sofa, the floor.

Although the food will be good, most of it will hardly be tasted, because everybody will be talking between (and during) mouthfuls. Our Thanksgiving is about seeing each other, catching up, making contact. I will see relatives I haven’t seen since last Thanksgiving, and I might meet an "orphan" or two—cousins' friends who happen to be in town.

What do we talk about? It would be easier to say what we don’t talk about. We don’t talk about politics much. Or religion. Not because we actively avoid those topics, but because most of us simply aren't that interested. In all the Hautman Thanksgivings I’ve been to, I don’t recall any serious arguments. No shouting, no fistfights, no shocking revelations. When I hear stories about other peoples' pyrotechnic Thanksgiving dinners I feel somewhat drama-deprived. Perhaps we have a dark, seething, river of decay running just beneath the surface, and our apparent civility is a desperate form of denial. There are indications of such pestilence, certainly—we have our share of family secrets, feuds, and embarrassments—but for some reason these things do not, thankfully, come up at Thanksgiving.

There will be a few serious conversations fitted between the jokes and laughter, but most interactions will be brief and superficial. That’s a good thing. I have just as many flat-out irritating relatives as anybody else. I may be one of the more irritating ones. Still I enjoy seeing them all.

Do I love Thanksgiving? As much as I look forward to it, I’m always relieved when it’s over. We’ll get there mid-afternoon, talk and drink a bit, start eating around five, and by six I’ll have talked to everybody for a moment or two, at least, and I’ll be working on my exit plan.

That’s it. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Blank Confession: In Stores This Week

2010-11-15T09:02:00.012-06:00

On Saturday, November 20, at 1:00 p.m. I'll be signing books at Once Upon a Crime in Minneapolis. If you can't make it, give them a call (612-870-3785) and have them set aside a signed and personalized copy for you. Once Upon a Crime is one of the Midwest's premier booksellers - they'll be here long after the last B&N has closed its doors. Especially if you give them your business.

Saturday, December 4th, at 2:00 p.m. I will be at The Loft Literary Center for a reading from the new book. It's free, and there will be snacks. This is part of the fabulous Second Story Reading Series curated by Swati Avasthi and Heather Bouwman. Each reading features two readers, one "established" YA or MG author (that would be me), and one "rising star." In this case, the rising star is Steve Brezenoff, who has written a YA novel with the excellent title The Absolute Value of -1. Last chance to get signed copies for the holidays!

One more thing - on Saturday, January 22, at 2:00 p.m., I'll be at The Red Balloon in St. Paul to talk and sign copies of both Blank Confession and The Big Crunch.

CRUNCH VIDEO - the Redactor's Cut

2010-11-12T08:40:00.000-06:00

Okay, so I made a book trailer for THE BIG CRUNCH and posted it on YouTube, and put it here on my blog and on Facebook. And I spammed everybody in my address book, and a whole bunch of you watched the video. Thank you!

But then I got a kind note from a middle school teacher (my BFF Dana), who said nice things about the video, but said that she would not be able to share the trailer with her students because it contained the acronym "WTF."

I was embarrassed, to say the least. In an effort to blame my own lack of judgment on Mary Logue, I said, “How come when I showed you the video you didn’t tell me to take out the WTF?”

She replied, completely serious, “What does WTF mean?”

Huh.

Anyway, I guess I'd been thinking that “WTF” fell into the same category as “LMAO,” or “Jeez." I was wrong, and should have known. The last thing I want is to make a video that teachers are not comfortable sharing with teens. So what to do?

MAKE A NEW WTF-FREE VERSION OF THE VIDEO!

That’s right. Here it is, the “Middle School Approved” version of the THE BIG CRUNCH book trailer. I think it’s actually a little better.

(Some of you might be wondering if this is a "censorship issue." It is not. It's about creating an invitation - an advertisement, really - that works. My use of the WTF acronym had nothing to do with the book. It was just me trying to be amusing.)

Hey! I Made Another Video!

2010-11-09T08:14:00.001-06:00

This one is to promote THE BIG CRUNCH. I promise, this time there will be no singing.

YARN Interview

2010-11-06T14:27:00.000-05:00

The Young Adult Review Network (YARN) recently posted an interview with me. They had some good questions. You can read it here.

Boys and Girls

2010-11-02T08:59:00.000-05:00

In a recent interview I was asked how I am able to write in the voice of a teenage girl, as I did in How to Steal a Car, Sweetblood, and my soon-to-be-released love story (from both the boy's and the girl's perspective), The Big Crunch. I said something like this: "I start with the assumption that boys and girls have almost everything in common. Boys and girls are not really that different from each other."

To expand on that thought, consider this: An alien life form arrives on Earth. This alien is a silicon-based crystalline intelligence about the size of a mustard seed. It derives energy from magnetic fields and communicates by means of UHF waves.

The alien observes both a mouse and a stalk of corn, and determines that the two creatures are identical: Both are enormous, grotesque, carbon-based entities that feed upon each other. The differences between the two—one is motile, the other is not, one contains a higher level of silicon, one squeaks while the other rustles, etcetera—are of no importance to the alien, who leaves the planet believing that Earth offers only a single life form of little or no interest.

The DNA of chimpanzees and humans is 96% identical. The fact that we regard chimps as being vastly different from ourselves has to do with the relative importance we place on a few minor variations having to do with body shape, hairiness, climbing ability, and so forth.

So it is with boys and girls. We all eat, sleep, love, cover ourselves with fabrics, feel pleasure and pain…the list of similarities is nearly endless. Those differences upon which we place so much importance—slight variations in communication techniques, body shape, reproductive equipment, and taste in movies—are relatively minor. But those minor differences are, subjectively, major.

When writing from the point-of-view of a female character I rely upon a lifetime of close observation, in-depth studies of scholarly texts and laboratory experiments, reading chicklit, and extensive interviews with a variety of female simians. Then I show my work to Mary Logue and she tells me where I went wrong.

Perfect Hash Browns

2010-10-23T08:16:00.002-05:00

The classic American breakfast, eaten millions of times every morning in cafes and restaurants across the U.S., most often includes eggs, hash browns, and toast. The hash browns are the iffiest part of the meal. Just about any breakfast joint can turn out a decent version of eggs-over-easy, but good hash browns are another story. Still, they are always worth ordering, because when hash browns are done right, they are fantastic: crispy brown on the outside, and soft and yielding on the inside – without being gooey. The shreds of potato should retain their shape without being completely separate from each other – that is, you do not want a homogenous mass of smooshed potato, and you do not want matchstick potatoes – or worse yet, something that looks like a forkful of pale worms. When you find a café that makes proper hash browns, all is right with the world.

My early attempts to make hash browns at home were disasters. After dozens of unsuccessful efforts, I came to the conclusion that restaurants used Secret Ingredients or Special Equipment or Advanced Techniques or Black Magic to achieve that crispy-creamy hash brown magic. So I did what most sane people do when confronted with the unattainable. I gave up. I turned to grits, to oatmeal, to pancakes, to scrapple…

But what I really wanted with my eggs was some fantastic hash browns. Sigh.

A couple of years ago I bought a cheap Japanese slicer and went crazy for a while slicing everything edible. Also, my fingers. I decided to take another run at the Holy Grail that is Perfect Hash Browns.

I am pleased to report that I have had some success.

Perfect Hash Browns (for one*)

What you need:

• A medium-size potato**

• A nonstick skillet (any size) with a cover

• 1 tablespoon butter

• Salt (to taste)

Excellent hash browns can be made from any potato variety, but for perfect hash browns, I recommend a mature russet. In other words, a “baking" potato.

Step One: Peel and shred the potato. I use a Benriner slicer, but you could use a cheese grater, the shredding disk on a food processor, or a knife (tedious). How fine or coarse the shred is up to you - there are many versions of "perfect."

Whatever tool you choose (Secret Technique coming), shred the potato into a big bowl of water. Stir it around a bit. See how milky the water becomes? That starchy stuff coming off the potato is (ahem) potato starch, and will turn your hash browns into a gluey mess if you let it. You can leave the potatoes in the water for a few seconds, or for hours.

11111Pour the shredded, soaked potatoes into a strainer. Rinse them under running water to get rid of most of the starch. Now (here comes the Black Magic) dump the wet shredded potatoes onto a clean dish towel, gather the corners of the towel together, and twist the towel to wring the water from the potatoes. Give it a good twist. Lots of water will come out.

Put a tablespoon or so of butter in your a nonstick skillet. (You could use a combination of butter and oil, but do not eliminate all the butter – that’s what gets you that nice hash brown color.) Heat skillet. When the butter has melted but is not yet brown, sprinkle the shredded, semi-dry potatoes into the pan. Spread them evenly. Neaten up the edges if you wish, but DO NOT press the potatoes down with the spatula – you want hash browns, not a potato hockey puck. Loose is good. Those air spaces allow the heat and steam from the pan to wend its way up through the shredded potato. Add salt. Sometimes I throw in a pinch of white pepper, but that’s just me.

Turn the heat down to medium-low and cover pan. Let it cook for about eight minutes, then take a look. If the potatoes are brown around the edges, they are ready to turn. If they aren’t getting brown, turn up the heat a bit and give it a couple more minutes. If the edges are black, you had the heat too high. Start over.

Shake the pan to make sure the potatoes aren’t sticking, then flip. You won’t need a spatula. Or maybe you will.

Cook for another five to ten minutes. Leave the skillet uncovered for this stage – you want the top of the hash browns to stay nice and crispy.

Slide onto a plate. Perfect!

Even better!

*To make hash browns for several people, use a bigger pan, but keep the depth of the potato layer about the same. Flipping can be tricky. Good luck.

**This basic technique also works with other vegetables: zucchini, sweet potato, winter squash, beets, parsnip, etc.

Pumpkin Update

2010-10-22T08:47:00.002-05:00

Just back from two days of library visits in Columbus, Ohio. The squirrels have been busy.

Columbus was great. I got to spend hours with librarian (and soon-to-be-published novelist) Julie Scordato, visit six libraries, and eat ice cream at Jeni's. As usual, I forgot to take any pictures. Oh well.

While I was there, I did a video interview with Doug Dangler for Writers Talk. You can view it here.

Or not! I guess my interview isn't posted yet. Check back in couple of weeks. In the meantime, you can watch John Green's interview instead.

Halloween Horror

2010-10-18T10:26:00.000-05:00

Yesterday there was a beautiful five pound pumpkin sitting proudly on our front steps. Today? The squirrels had a feast.

Duck Stamp!

2010-10-16T14:39:00.008-05:00

The winner of the 2010 Federal Duck Stamp Contest has just been announced. Two of my brothers entered this year – Bob and Jim. Out of 236 entries, their paintings were numbers one and two. Woo-hoo!

First place went to Jim for his painting of a pair of white-fronted geese.

Second place went to Bob for his painting of a single white-fronted goose.

Third place? To quote from the movie A Serious Man, “Who cares?”

My brothers are so amazing cool I can hardly stand it. Mary isn’t home at the moment, so I’m going to go jump up and down with Rene and Jacques (the poodles) now. Jacques knows something is going on – he’s giving me the stink eye.

Late-breaking news: Jim finished in a tie with brother Bob after three rounds. Jim's entry won the tie-breaker.

Ten Reasons Why Not

2010-10-16T08:15:00.005-05:00

There are a lot of writers - both published and unpublished - who want to write novels for teens, better known as "YA" novels. Having worked with several such writers, I've noticed that in many cases their motivations are often not exactly, shall we say, useful. Or realistic.

Herewith, the Ten Worst Reasons to Write a YA Novel:

1. For fame

2. For fortune

3. To tell teens how they should act

4. To tell teens what it was like when you were a kid

5. To gain the respect and admiration of your peers

6. To gain the respect and admiration of your children

7. Because you think it will be easier than writing an adult novel

8. Because you think it doesn't have to be as good as an adult novel

9. To relive your teenage years

10. To revise your teenage years

The best reasons? I'll leave that up to you.

Doing Good Work

2010-09-30T12:05:00.003-05:00

Author Swati Avasthi (Split) is conducting an online auction of books, manuscript critiques, and other good stuff to support the Family Violence Prevention Fund. Among the many items up for auction is includes a set of "The Bloodwater Mysteries" written by me and Mary Logue, and manuscript critiques by several well-known authors, agents, and editors.

Check it out! This is a great way to help out a fine organization, and maybe score something good for yourself, too!

The Fly Agaric

2010-09-28T13:39:00.003-05:00

This morning I came across a patch of about fifty of these beauties (Amanita muscaria). Some people have been known to eat them for the hallucinogenic effects. I've never met anyone who wanted to try it twice.

Mushroom Soup

2010-09-24T08:18:00.007-05:00

It has been a great fall for mushroom hunters here (Minnesota and Wisconsin). Here's a "hen of the woods" (Grifola frondosa), also known as a maitake. I've found several of them this year. This specimen weighed about seven pounds, which translates to a big pot of intensely flavorful mushroom soup.

Hen Soup

2 pounds fresh hen-of-the-woods (maitake)

¼ cup finely minced shallot (or onion)

2 tablespoons butter

1 quart water plus 1 quart homemade chicken stock (you could use all water)

1 teaspoon fresh thyme (or ¼ teaspoon dried thyme)

¼ teaspoon pepper

1 cup milk or (gasp!) cream (optional)

1-2 tablespoons olive oil

Salt

Garnish

Cut up the mushroom, dividing it into two piles. Pile One should include all the raggedy bits. Pile Two should consist of the nicer bits—small whole “caps,” nicely diced pieces, etc. Things you want to see in your spoon when you eat the soup.

In a medium-size pot (a three or four quart pan with high sides) sauté the shallots and mushrooms (Pile One only) in butter. Don’t be afraid to let the mushrooms brown. Brown is good!

Add the thyme, pepper, and stock. Bring to a simmer and cook for thirty minutes.

Pour the whole mess into a blender and pulverize it. Give it a good sixty seconds. You want to get it to the point where it will pour through a strainer. Return the mixture to the pot. (Don’t bother with the straining—you pulverized it sufficiently, no?)

Heat a sauté pan REALLY HOT. Add olive oil. It should start smoking almost immediately. Throw in Pile Two (the nicer mushroom pieces) and let them cook for a few minutes without stirring—you want them a little crispy on the bottom. Turn off heat and add a ladle or two of the blended mixture. Stir it around to deglaze the sauté pan, then pour it all back into the pot with the rest of the blended mixture. Simmer for about ten minutes.

Add milk or cream, if using. Salt to taste, then cook on low heat just long enough to bring it up to serving temperature.

Serve, with garnish.

The garnish is mostly to tell your guests that you have been paying attention, and to interrupt the unrelenting brownness of the soup. A little chopped parsley is sufficient. Maybe some crumbled bacon. If you want to get fancy, a dollop of crème fraîche is sure to impress.

Blank Confession Video: The Final Chapter

2010-09-19T15:35:00.003-05:00

I had a lot of fun making these three short videos. I learned a lot about what works, and even more about what doesn't work. I also learned about the painful reality of working within a budget. Like most authors, I'm paying for my own book trailer. Of course, I have no idea whether it will make anybody buy a book, and I probably never will know. Good thing it was fun to do!

If you haven't seen the first two parts, either scroll down a few posts, or click here and here.

I'm working now on a different sort of book trailer for The Big Crunch, which is coming out in January. It's going to have animations, clips, more stupid jokes, and best of all, I am NOT going be on screen.

One more thing - I want to thank Max Selim, who organized, directed, and edited the Blank Confession videos, and Nick Grady, who did the camera work. Max has some cool shorts posted on his YouTube channel. Check him out!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

2010-09-15T19:16:00.001-05:00

Here are my two favorite "one star" reviews of my book INVISIBLE from Amazon.com. I love the internet!

HORRIBLE, July 13, 2010

By	Lisa - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: Invisible (Paperback)

HORRIBLE PACKAGING! The book was jammed in this small box! the pages are bent and curled, the cover is crumbled and creased! it was awful!

Invisible, March 5, 2010

By	Barbara A. Ibarra-scurr - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: Invisible (Paperback)

This is a review about the company in Colorado that sold me the book. I have been ordering books for years on line and this was the first time that it took over 15 days to get to me when it usually takes less than five. I will not order from them ever again and want my comments noted.

Blank Confession Video - Part Deux

2010-09-10T06:30:00.006-05:00

The battle to bring BC2 to the tiny screen has been fierce and long. We had do deal with actor meltdowns, the gaffer strike, a missing Best Boy, uncooperative aspect ratios, insanely complex bit rate issues, and an epic legal battle with a lawbot named Bork over miniseries rights. In order to get our PG13 rating, we had to edit out the vampire sex and overdub certain off color remarks made by one of the characters. We also took out the Quran burning and the Marlboro Lights product placement. Censorship. Bah!

If you have not viewed "Blank Confession Part One," please do so now lest you miss the heavily nuanced elements in Part Two.

"Blank Confession Part Three" is coming soon, whether you want it to or not!

Like Hate Love

2010-09-08T08:03:00.013-05:00

The new trade edition of Sweetblood went on sale last week, triggering conflicting pleasure/pain receptors in my hippocampus which, you should know, has nothing to do with higher education for semiaquatic ungulates. The cover of the new edition features candy-colored lips and pointy teeth against a deep purple background. It looks delicious. I like it. I hate it. I like it. I hate it. I like it. Somebody stop me, please!

Thank you!

Some history: The first edition of Sweetblood,

way back in 2003 when there were only a gajillion vampire novels (as opposed to today's kahunkabazillion), was a graphic designy image of a twenty-something woman with tasteful blood spatters across the cover and the tagline "A Vampire Novel." It was an okay cover, although I thought the tagline to be slightly deceptive inasmuch as there are no "real" vampires to be found in the book. Still, it was about vampires. Sort of.

Anyway, I figured as long as the cover encouraged more people to look at the book, it was okay. I liked it. I sort of didn't like it. It was a book cover. Whatever.

A couple of years later, the book was issued in small format paperback, and the designers took a different tack: this time, they used a photograph of a young model who perfectly represented the character I had in mind when I wrote the book. It suggested a goth-like, vampire-ish story about a character, and I loved it, I loved it, I loved it, despite the clunky typography. How often does that happen? Hardly ever.

Back to the new cover and the love/hate thing. From an author's point of view, there are three things a book cover should do:

1. It should look good.

2. It should sell the book.

3. It should be true to the book.

The new Sweetblood cover, IMHO, easily meets condition #1. It looks stupendously lickable. I think it will accomplish #2 as well - at least I hope so. As for #3...I dunno. I think most people who buy the book based on the cover will be expecting fangs and blood. Some of them will be disappointed.

I think the neck-biting promise made by the cover takes away from the story. Imagine yourself sitting down to watch, say, "Eat Pray Love" after being told it was a movie about carnivorous alien invaders. The whole time, you'd be looking for flying saucers and waiting for Javier Bardem's lips to peel back and reveal an extra set of jaws. Kind of distracting.

On the other hand, being told that "Eat Pray Love" was about an alien invasion is probably the only way I'd ever pay to see it.

Like. Hate. Love.

It's Heeeeere...

2010-09-02T07:02:00.005-05:00

After months of rigorous casting and set-building, hundreds of rewrites, filming under the most treacherous conditions imaginable, and a lengthy negotiation with Pixar over the use of proprietary CGI effects, "Blank Confession: The First Sequence" is now available for viewing. Parts Two and Three will be released over the next few weeks. The 3-D version will be released in selected theaters only in Botswana and the Falkland Islands. An extended Director's Cut is in the works, and we have sent promotional packages to select members of the Academy.

Suitable for viewing with or without popcorn.

Blank Confession (the novel) will be published on November 16, 2010, by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.

"Poached by an Angel"

2010-08-21T06:23:00.008-05:00

A perfect poached egg is a thing of beauty—an aesthetic and nutritional miracle that is, happily, within anyone’s reach. The technique is simple, and even the priciest organic chicken eggs cost less than a quarter apiece. One would be hard-pressed to name a more versatile and inexpensive delicacy.

Recently I served a poached egg to my friend Susan. She looked at the egg perched on it’s mound of hash browns and said, “It looks like it was poached by an angel.”

Alas, for every angelically-poached egg, there are many thousands of less-than-heavenly poached eggs.

The phrase “perfect poached eggs” gets about half a million hits on Google. There are a lot of people who think they know how to do it. I have looked at all 500,000 of these sites, and I am sorry to report that nearly all of them are flat-out wrong.

I have poached a lot of eggs, using every technique available to me, including adding vinegar and/or salt to the water, swirling the water before adding the egg, using water at various temperatures and pans of various sizes, bringing the eggs to room temperature before poaching, and employing assorted mechanical poaching devices. I have poached eggs individually and en masse. I have poached medium, large, extra-large, and jumbo eggs. I have poached eggs in the oven, on the stovetop, and in a microwave. I have poached emu eggs in the outback. Okay, not true about the emu eggs, but I have poached.

My first few hundred attempts were not perfect, but over the past few years I have developed a simple technique that produces a perfect or near-perfect poached egg most of the time.

The egg: Of course, if you have access to a good farmers’ market—or better yet, if you have chickens—freshness will not be an issue. The happier the chickens are, the better their eggs will taste.Freshness is the key. Learn to read and interpret the date on the egg carton. In the U.S., there is a three-digit number on the carton that tells you when the egg was packed. This number, from 001 to 365, is the “Julian date,” with 001 representing January 1, and 365 (or 366, during leap years) indicating December 31. The “sell by date” is usually thirty days after the “pack date,” or about five weeks after the egg leaves the hen. For poaching purposes you want an egg that is not more than two weeks old. If the egg is older than that, make yourself an omelet.

The grade of the egg is somewhat important. Grade A eggs can be fine for poaching, but Grade AA eggs usually work better. Egg grading is an arcane business, but it does take into account the firmness of the albumen (the white), and that makes a big difference to the appearance and texture of the final product. Shell color, however, is irrelevant—that depends entirely on the breed of hen, and is no indication of quality. Any size egg will work—keeping in mind that the bigger the egg, the longer it will take to cook. I usually buy whichever size has the most recent date on the carton.

The pan: I use a ten-inch non-stick skillet. A smaller pan will work, but its lesser volume means that the water will cool more quickly when you add the eggs. Adjust cooking time accordingly.

The water: Use plain tap water. No vinegar or salt! I don’t know what it is with these vinegar-adders. Acidulating the water does nothing good for the egg’s texture or appearance, and everything bad for the taste.

The cooking: Fill the pan to within ½ inch of the top and heat the water. When it reaches a boil, turn it off and let it sit for a minute while you prepare the egg for immersion.

Your egg should be cold, straight from the fridge. Anyone who tells you different is wrong. A cold egg will hold its shape better. Crack the egg into a small bowl. It is important here to understand the structure of the egg. (This is not biology class, so don't worry - I’m not going to get into a discussion of the chalazae and vitelline membrane and so forth.) I think of an egg as being composed of four parts: the shell, the firm white, the loose white, and the yolk. The “firm white” is the thicker albumen that surrounds the yolk. In a fresh egg, this will comprise most of the white. The “loose white” is the thinner, more liquid albumen—the part that spreads out around the edge like a frill when an egg is sautéed. The older the egg, the more the “firm white” breaks down to become “loose white.”

When cracking the egg into the bowl, take care that the sharp edges of the shell do not tear into the firm white. This is important! Tearing into the “firm white” will produce a lopsided end result. Be gentle. Respect the egg.

Carefully lower the egg into the hot water. The water temperature will be somewhere around 180-190° F. Believe it or not, the precise water temperature is not that important, so long as it is at least 160°, and less than boiling.

If you have performed your task well, and if the egg is fresh, it will look something like this:

Once the egg is in the water, do something else for five or six minutes. Fry some potatoes, slice some bread, make a cup of coffee, check your email—whatever. Now look at your egg. The white will be opaque. The loose white will have spread out a bit. Carefully trim the loose white away with your spatula. Slide the edge of the spatula between the egg and the bottom of the pan. The egg will be quite jiggly. At this point, the process becomes very personal. It’s between you and the egg. If you like your egg quite loose, lift it carefully from the water and serve at once. If you like it on the firm side, you can turn on the heat for a few minutes. Not too hot though—the water should never boil. If your water gets too hot, the egg white will become unpleasantly firm.

I mentioned before that the exact water temperature is unimportant. I lied a little. Sorry. The final texture of the egg can vary tremendously depending on time and temperature, but because one person’s perfectly poached egg is another person’s slimy nightmare, I cannot make specific recommendations. David Chang (Momofuku) poaches his eggs for thirty minutes at 160°. Thomas Keller (The French Laundry) poaches eggs at about 205° (a simmer) for less than two minutes. Two completely different approaches, both producing excellent, albeit different, results.

IMHO, the slower the poach, the nicer the texture. It is possible to slow-poach an egg to the point where the yolk is nearly (but not quite) solid, while the white remains soft and yielding. This is the Momofuku ideal. A fast poaching results in a much firmer white contrasting with a runny yolk, as preferred by Thomas Keller. I like an egg that is somewhere in between.

Like I said, it’s personal. I considered giving exact water temperature, timing, egg size, and water volume…but really, this is worth learning to do by feel. There are so many variables—altitude, egg temperature, cookware material and weight, barometric pressure, moon phase, pollen count, etc.—that the more precise the instructions, the more likely you are to fail.

To test the doneness of your egg, lift it from the water with a slotted spatula** and look at it. Experience is important here. After a few tries, you will learn to gauge the doneness of the egg by the way it behaves on the spatula.

Cooking more than one egg at a time: Some cooks recommend lowering each egg into the water individually. Bah. That is counterproductive and completely unnecessary. You can crack two, three, or four eggs into a bowl together and slip them all into the water bath at once (gently, please). The eggs will not stick together, and they will all get done at the same time. One thing to watch out for though, is that multiple eggs will lower the water temperature more quickly, so you will have to add more time or more heat than you would for a single egg.

Serving: Recently, I have been enjoying my poached eggs on hash browns.* They are also quite nice on toasted bread, or eaten with a spoon from a small cup. You could swing out and make Eggs Benedict, or even serve them cooled to room temperature on a green salad.

Concerning perfection: Not every poached egg will come out perfect. Sometimes you will tear the albumen when cracking the egg, and get a lop-sided result. Sometimes the white will be too runny, and your egg will come out looking like a shallow disc with the yolk jutting up from the middle. These eggs will taste just fine, despite their lack of visual appeal.

“We aspire to perfection, but we do not insist upon it.”

* My article on “Perfect Hash Browns” will be coming soon.

** The slotted spatula will make it easier to keep the egg from sliding off as you lift it out of the water.

The Egg and I

2010-08-20T05:50:00.005-05:00

I am delighted to report that my fifteen seconds of internet fame have nearly expired. My part in the Humble, Texas affair is mostly over, and I hereby return this blog to its weirdly eclectic mix of food, mushrooms, writing, and other distantly-related topics.

Many years ago, when I was in my twenties, a friend of mine told me he was looking for a mentor—an older, more experienced man who would help him in his career and in other aspects of his life. I asked him how he planned to find such a person.

He said, “It’s easy. These old dudes, when they get into their fifties and sixties, they realize that they have learned a lot of stuff over the years, and that they might be dead soon. It’s like a biological imperative—they don’t want their knowledge to die with them, so they look for a younger guy to share it with.”

I thought that was an odd way to look at it. But now that I am well into my fifties, I find myself experiencing that urge to share. Therefore, tomorrow, I am going to tell everyone who visits this blog how to properly poach a freaking egg. Stay tuned!

Speaking of eggs, Part One of my “Blank Confession” video will be posted here very soon—I'm aiming for a week from Monday.