Kicked off library board for “affirming traditional heterosexual perspectives"?

Teen read The Perks of Being a Wallflower when she was still Kid. I guess I should be glad it didn't make her gay, because four library board members in Wisconsin were fired for not “affirming traditional heterosexual perspectives," by getting rid of books like Perks or Brent Hartinger's Geography Club.

Do they really think that reading about gay kids makes people gay? Read more here.

Don't give up

Last Friday, I was at a fundraising event for affordable housing. I've done these for 10 years now. Affordable housing is just one piece of the puzzle of getting some people's lives on track. They had two authors speak, as well as a woman who a few years back was arrested for making meth and had her kids taken away. This spring she is getting her associate's degree and plans to get her bacehlor's. Her kids are back with her. The group that offered her a place to live also helped her learn how to be a parent. She is happy for the first time in her life.

Another story about not giving up is Garth Stein, author of The Art of Racing in the Rain: A Novel, who was sitting next to me at the event. When I first got to know Garth, he was the author of two midlist books, one of which was out of print (and the other of which I loved, which led me to email him and started our frquaintanship). Then he wrote a book narrated by a dog and sent it off to his agent. The day before Thanksgiving, Garth was walking into the grocery store to buy a turkey when his agent called and said he liked it but there was no way he could sell a book narrated by a dog and Garth should write something different, something more typical.

Instead, he fired his agent.

And then he couldn't get one for a long time. He had an unexciting track record and a book about a dog.

Then he met another writer who had written a literary book narrated by a crow, and he suggested Garth contact his agent.

And that agent loved it, and there was an auction, and now it's selling in 25 countries, and they are making a movie with Patrick Dempsey, and Garth is going to Italy next month tour.

But none of that would have happened if he had given up.

Where Have I Seen that Bookcover Before?

A crime echoes down through the years

I was looking through some old journals at entries I had written around my birthday. In 1993, a man shot two Portland visitor guides, killing one, and then carjacked cars, shot more people, etc. The living guide, a 23 year old college studnet, came to our hospital. Everyone wanted to talk to her, but the cops said not to let her until they interviewed her again. My beeper and cell phone kept going off. Bryant Gumble sent her flowers. Someone else snuck into the hospital to try to get a photo of her.

This is what I wrote in 1993:
"The police didn't want her talking to anyone until they had had her positively ID the guy. They also wanted, as evidence, the bullets from her chest and right arm. And for some reason, they didn't want us to tell the media that was the reason they couldn't talk to her. I spent all day on the phone, hedging over and over, while journalists of every stripe begged for a family member to talk to, or a still photo, or something they could show their viewers/readers.

And in between I sat in the hospital room and talked to her and the woman she called her "other mother," watched as that woman brought her lipstick and rubbed oil on her skin so it wouldn't look ashy on the TV screen, ran a pomade through her hair. Her arm was in a cast, part of it was gone, and she told me about how she had wanted to be a surgeon. I use the past tense, but for her it was still in the present tense, that her arm still had the fine motor coordination she would need to perform surgery. Every three or four minutes my beeper would go off and I would leave the room and talk to one more cajolling reporter. Some of them called her room instead of me, in spite the code of cooperation that exists in this state, but were given away when they asked for her by her full name. She was nervous and excited and not hurting much at all. Later, after the detectives finally came and took away the flattened bullets in two baggies, she held her own at a news conference, eyes black and snapping. How had she felt? What had it been like to hear the TV sets in the pawn shop behind her exploding as he shot at her again and again? Was she planning on going back to her job? We escorted her in and out, gave her tips on what to say beforehand. It went well. We left shortly afterward, after congratulating ourselves and her.

Two days later, she called, asking if one of us needed to escort her to the funeral for her co-worker who was killed the same day she was shot. Nah, we really didn't need to do that. The feeding frenzy was over, but she didn't realize it. Now the attention was somewhere else, for a while on the grieving man's family, then later on the victims of some new tragedy. Her arm? I don't know what happened to it. Maybe it works and maybe it doesn't. It will make a good story for new people she meets, but the general public - guided by the media - will never be interested in it again. Too small a story for a "where are they now?" piece. Maybe a sentance in a summary paragraph in a story about the many people touched by crime.
===
So today I got curious and googled her. Here's what I learned about what happened next.
- Within the next 18 months, she had a baby. In the next ten years, she had two more.
- A single mom, she met some charming, charismatic guy. She didn't know about his past convictions for domestic assault.
- He moved in with her.
- He choked her.
- They broke up.
- They patched things up.
- They broke up again.
- Smiling, he came by to get his things. When she turned, he hit her dozens of times with a hammer.
- When the cops came, he said he would kill her if they came in.
- They tasered him twice.
- At his trial, he said she hit him first.
- Now he's in prison.

I wonder what would have happened to her if she hadn't been shot that day?

A giveaway to celebrate Face of Betrayal

Face of Betrayal officially releases tomorrow!

Publishers Weekly says, “Wiehl, a Fox News commentator and legal analyst, teams with mystery veteran Henry (Buried Diamonds) on a sizzling political thriller. When 17-year-old Senate page Katie Converse goes missing on her Christmas break near her parents' white Victorian home in Portland, Ore., law enforcement and media personnel go into overdrive in a search for clues. Three friends at the pinnacle of their respective careers--Allison Pierce, a federal prosecutor; Cassidy Shaw, a crime reporter; and Nicole Hedges, an FBI special agent--soon discover that Katie wasn't the picture of innocence painted by her parents. It appears Katie was having an affair with a much older man, a senator whose political career could be derailed if the affair was publicized. The seamless plot offers a plethora of twists and turns.”

I say: it's time for a giveway!I'd love to give a couple of signed copies away!

It's so simple!
1. Comment on this post and let me know you're in. (If you're not on Blogger, give me your email or another way to get hold of you)
2. To get your name in twice, opy this post into your blog or Facebook or what have you.
3. Wait until April 19, when Teen will draw the winners.

Thanks for playing along!

See me, hear me (but no touch me, feel me) I’ll be on the Lars Larson show and at Powells April 7

If you live in the Northwest, on Tuesday, April 7, I will be on the Lars Larson show at 12:30 PST. Can I just say I am freaking nervous! That same night, I’ll also be at Powells in Beaverton.

If you want to listen to the audio steam live, click here . And pray for me! This is live radio. No do overs. No copy edits.