This & That

I’m not sure how I learned about Par­nas­sus Books in Nashville, Ten­nessee. Prob­a­bly I was look­ing up some­thing about author Ann Patch­ett, who is one of the own­ers of the book­store. I have loved her books for years. And I adore her book­store. Even though I’ve nev­er been there. Some­thing about it imme­di­ate­ly tick­led my fancy—even

I had lunch today—in the mid­dle of a Min­neso­ta snowstorm—with Dori Wein­stein, one of my Writ­ing Friends. It was an excel­lent way to spend part of a very snowy after­noon. We man­aged to tack­le the sub­jects of mar­ket­ing, dis­ci­pline in a writer’s life, event plan­ning, pic­ture books, nov­el writ­ing, and series writing…as well as eat

This past week­end, I attend­ed the meet­ing of a moth­­er-son book­club. They had read Giant Pump­kin Suite. These young men—nine and ten years old—were sweet with their feed­back, and they asked excel­lent ques­tions about the book, the writ­ing process, and giant pump­kins, too. It was a mar­velous treat to be with them. I get a lit­tle verklempt

  Des­per­ate Times=>Desperate Mea­sures. That’s all I can chalk it up to. I am “doing” NaNoW­riMo, oth­er­wise known as Nation­al Nov­el Writ­ing Month. Every year in Novem­ber, bazil­lions of authors around the world com­mit to writ­ing a nov­el in the month of November—50,000 words is what they rec­om­mend, I believe. It seems like a rather arbitrary

Last week, I vis­it­ed my friend Mar­garet. Mar­garet lives in an assist­ed liv­ing care facil­i­ty. She is 88 and a dear. We talk books, the­ol­o­gy, music, his­to­ry, news, as well as life in gen­er­al. It’s always a good day when I go see Mar­garet. When I arrived last Wednes­day, she announced she was read­ing Giant Pumpkin

The first male flower arrived this week on one of the pump­kin plants. (We still have three plants in the patch—this will need to change soon, but we’re going to give it anoth­er week or so since there’s still room for three.) The male flow­ers arrive a week or two before the female flow­ers. If a

When you spend years writ­ing a book…YEARS…and then when it’s about to be birthed out into the big wide world…then come the REVIEWS. Or so I’ve heard, any­way. And now it has come to pass. It feels almost sur­re­al, hav­ing wait­ed so long. But Some­oneI­don’teven­know has read my book. And that some­one cared enough to review it.

Four of the eight giant pump­kin seeds we plant­ed actu­al­ly ger­mi­nat­ed (or hatched, as I like to think of it). They have grown at a fan­tas­tic rate these past sev­en­teen days. May 1st—Seeds start­ed in their lit­tle incu­ba­tor in the laun­dry room. May 5th— the pale green loops begin to appear! (Those lit­tle green things with two

In Giant Pump­kin Suite, Rose and Thomas find the mys­te­ri­ous seed their neigh­bor, Mr. Pick­er­ing, has start­ed on May 1st. May Day has long been the day I start giant pump­kin seeds—and by “long been” I mean this is my fourth year start­ing giant pump­kin seeds on May Day. I pull out my giant pump­kin bible: How-To-Grow World Class

Sev­er­al years ago I had a chance to inter­view Amy Krouse Rosen­thal. I knew (and loved) her sweet and clever pic­ture books. I had no idea about all of the oth­er “projects” she had going until I googled her in prepa­ra­tion for our con­ver­sa­tion.  There are many projects–each and every one is utter­ly fas­ci­nat­ing. I fell quickly