He Was a Good Dog

Rene

1994 - 2011

I Like This

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

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

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

I Be Jammin'

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

Chisago Lakes

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

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

March 21 Snowmelt Report

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

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

...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"

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

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.