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[Top is the UK cover - I wonder why they are different?] Last night, I finished reading Far North: A Novel
, a book writers should read just for its lovely use of language. It's a dystopian novel. The main character, Makepeace, is the only person left living in a city in the far north (Siberia). While there were certain approaches the author took that I didn't agree with (having a character from the past rather improbably turn up, letting a main character die and referring to it only in passing), all of that was made up for by the simply stunning use of language. Page 16: "There were a few last signs of human settlement along the riverside - a burned-out cabin, a wooden cross on a grave, some tumbledown walls..." [I admired how the author had the narrator describe them as signs of settlement, when they were really markers of death and absence.] Page 198: "I lay down to sleep thinking that as much as I missed what was gone, maybe this was the best thing: for the world to lie fallow for a couple hundred years or more, for the rain to wash her clean. We'd become another layer of her history, a little higher in the soil than the Romans and the people who built the pyramids. Yes, Makepeace, I thought, maybe one day your mandible will show up under glass in a museum. Female of European origin. Note the worn incisors and the evidence of mineral deficiency from a poor and unvaried diet. Warlike and savage. And beside it some potsherds." Page 224 [the narrator is in a long-deserted city, with no food or water, and has broken into what used to be a girl's bedroom]: "In the story of Goldilocks, the little girl sneaks into a bear den, eats the animal's food, and finds a place to sleep. That night I felt I was the story in reverse: a stinking, scarred bear, reeking of blood and gun smoke, turning up in a world of clean sheets and flowers."
This week, I put one of my old books on Kindle, about eight months after all the cool kids figured out how to do it. http://www.amazon.com/Learning-Fly-Novel-ebook/dp/B0030EG3BS/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_9 This isn't just any book. It was a Booksense Pick, an Otto Penzler Pick for Amazon and the recipient of starred reviews in Booklist and Library Journal. Library Journal also chose it as one of the best books of 2002. Foreign rights sold in the Netherlands, Japan and France. The book is about Free Meeker, a 19-year-old with a shaved head, a tattoo around her bicep, an unplanned pregnancy, and a jerk of a boyfriend. All she wants is a new life. And when she is involved in a multi-car accident and is mistakenly listed among the dead, and ends up with a dead drug dealer's bag of money - fate seems to be handing her her ticket out . Here's a selection of what some critics said: "Compulsive reading ... A classic tale of an innocent on the lam, Learning to Fly has the kind of plot that would have made Hitchcock smile in evil anticipation of its cinematic possibilities." - Penzler Pick, Amazon "The suspense becomes deliciously unbearable. With Learning to Fly, Henry soars straight into the big leagues." - Starred Review, Booklist "Features a most interesting plot, told with easy grace, choice characterization and mounting tension." - Starred Review, Library Journal "A sure-footed chase novel that starts with a bang and rarely slows down." - Seattle Times "A high tension thriller [with] an endearing heroine." - Denver Post "April Henry's debut, Circles of Confusion, garnered a lot of attention. This book proves that she's a talent tot watch, delivering solid characters, good plot, and a great sense of place." - Canada's Globe and Mail "Learning to Fly soars with suspense." - South Florida Sun-Sentinel "A carefully plotted look at what can happen when a person's dreams come true, she has all the money she can spend - but she can't shake off the ties of the past." - Dallas Morning News
Just saw this on PW: "As part of the sale of its business to business publications, Nielsen Business Media has announced that it is closing its book review publication Kirkus Reviews as well as Editor & Publisher. No details on the closing have been released yet. Nielsen is selling its major publications, including The Hollywood Reporter and Adweek to e5 Global Media Holdings."
The tone of Kirkus was often mean, but I still have mixed feelings about seeing a publication go down. And I took any book with a star from Kirkus extra seriously, given their normally crabby-pants reviews.
Their review of Shock Point
ends with this: "Henry writes with a quick-moving, superficial style and often glosses over awkward plot points with quick explanatory paragraphs. He delivers some shocking moments while making no attempt to examine realistic adolescent problems. A potboiler that may appeal to a wide range of young readers and could be useful for reluctant readers. " A. I'm a girl. B. Talk about mixed messages.
Are you a budding writer? Then you might be interested in bidding on one of the following items in an online auction to benefit Bridget Zinn, a YA author. She has had a crazy year, one that including getting an agent, getting married, getting diagnosed with colon cancer, and make her first sale. The services that would appeal to authors include: * Chapter critique of your middle grade novel by author Jennifer Cervantes * Critique of the first 20 pages of your manuscript By New York Times bestselling author April Henry * Foot in the Door Critique Package Critique of your whole novel, synopsis, and query letter by Through The Tollbooth * One Critique of a QUERY plus FIRST 10 PAGES of your Middle Grade or Young Adult Novel By Jennifer Laughran, Andrea Brown Literary Agency * One critique of a QUERY plus the FIRST 10 PAGES of your middle grade or young adult novel By Jill Corcoran, Herman Agency * One Critique of a Query Plus the first Ten Pages of Your Middle-Grade or Young Adult Novel By Michael Stearns, Upstart Crow Literary, LLC * Picture Book Critique from Picture Book Author, Jean Reidy Detailed critique of a fiction picture book manuscript up to 1000 words * Proofreading services for one query letter and synopsis By Martha Brockenbrough, Punctuation Activist 
This is Bridget. Auction items can be viewed at http://www.32auctions.com/view_auction?id=bridget&pwd=rules - or just go to www.32auctions.com and use the Auction ID: bridget and Password: rules (as in: Bridget rules!!) to view the auction. In order to bid on auction items, you will need to create an account on the site in order to bid. (Creating an account simply requires your name, email address, and a password, and it is required so that you can be contacted if you win an item.) Bidding ends 9 p.m. Central time on Dec. 11.
If you haven’t read Lips Touch: Three Times
, you should. It’s a wonderful book, playful, inventive, moving. The Oregonian featured a great story about its author and illustrator, National Book Award finalist Laini Taylor and her husband Jim. It begins, “She writes, he draws. Her hair is pink, and her laugh is infectious. His hair is red, and he laughs a lot, too. They live and work together in a little yellow house in the Cully neighborhood of Northeast Portland with a new daughter named Clementine Pie.” Read the rest of the story about Laini and Jim here.
Katherine Dunn is my hero First, she wrote Geek Love: A Novel
. Second, at Wordstock, I got to meet her and she said she was an admirer of my work! I seriously thought I could die happy right then. And here’s a third reason to like Katherine Dunn - she’s a fighter. Literally. And I’m not talking about the essays she has written on boxing. On Tuesday, she was walking home from Trader Joes when she was attacked by a purse snatcher.
When a young woman grabbed her purse, she clamped down on it. The woman began to kick her in the shins and slap her in the face. Katherine said [according to media accounts] "That's what gave me permission to hit her in the face." Her only regret? She was wearing flip flops and kicking seemed futile. "Next time, Doc Martens," she said.
But they were in a stalemate. "She didn't let go. I didn't let go." Dunn started to call for help from passersby. She yelled "Help, fire." Just like a character of mine in Heart-Shaped Box (A Claire Montrose Mystery)
, she had heard that passersby are more willing to get involved if they think it’s a fire. When some people responded, Katherine yelled that she being robbed. But the robber yelled "please help me, she's trying to rob me." Katherine described that vocal countermove as "just brilliant. She was very sharp, I have to say."
The passersby were confused. But then a neighbor came by and saw what was happening. At that point, all three women were tussling. Two employees came out of Trader Joes and said the attacker had just tried to shoplift at the store.
Finally, cops arrived. Katherine told reporters said the attacker must have been in a "really really desperate" state to attack her. She also thought she was under the influence of drugs. “I had scratches from her fingernails, a bloody eye where she had thumbed me — it was a helter-skelter affair,” she told the Oregonian. “Getting a tetanus shot, it made me feel young again.” She said she was proud of herself for putting her years of fight training to use, staying relatively calm and hanging on to her purse. She was a little disappointed not to bloody her attacker’s nose, but pointed out she was fighting with her rear hand. “I would normally lead, as all good boxers do, with my left hand,” she said. “But my left hand was tied up in the purse.” Read a recent essay about Katherine here.
My grandmother didn’t marry until she was 32, in 1920. I just figured she was a late bloomer. This weekend, when I should have been working on my editor’s revision letter, I goofed off by Googling my grandmother’s name. “Effie Satterwhite.” Google has obviously been scanning more books since the last time I looked, including one published in 1907 that listed the opinions of the Arkansas Supreme Court. One of which involved Effie. When Effie was 18, her father shot her boyfriend for kissing her. I’ve got booklets of family history and this is mentioned NOWHERE. My mom didn’t know it. She is sure my dad, who died in 2003, didn’t know. According to the court records, when she was 17, Effie started seeing a man named Jim Wallis. One night they went to an “entertainment,” and returned at 11 pm. The court transcript states, “She started to go in the house, but was stopped by Wallis who reached out his hand and drew her to him and kissed her. She put her hands against him and pushed him away. They walked to the end of the porch, and stood there talking until the clock struck eleven. Wallis looked at his watch and then turned and kissed her again. He then left the house.” Effie went inside, heard a door open, and then saw her father “going down the steps with a gun in his hands.” She heard the shot, and tried to run to Jim. Her father grabbed her, and said it was all her fault for hugging and kissing Jim. Finally he let Effie go to her boyfriend, who lay bleeding in the street. Jim told her that he was sure he was dying. A neighbor carried him into a nearby house. Jim’s father came and said he should have known something like this would happen. At the trial, Effie’s brother testified that a year earlier he had seen Effie and Jim together “in a very suspicious attitude, conducting themselves in what he thought a very unbecoming manner on the front porch.” He ordered Effie inside, and told Jim to never come back. But Jim did, the next day, and told Effie’s brother that he loved her. They continued to see each other until the night he was gunned down. My great-grandfather’s defense was that he was sure Jim “was trying to seduce his daughter and relieve her of her virtue.” But the jury found that the two intended to marry. My great-grandfather was convicted of assault with intent to kill, and his appeal was denied. Jim died in a hospital four months after the shooting. And my grandmother did not marry for 14 more years. My grandmother in 1920, shortly before she married at 32 - and 14 years after her father shot and killed her boyfriend for kissing her 
- Did Effie feel it was her fault for kissing and touching Jim? - Her fault that her father spent two years in prison? - Did she regret not having sex with Jim? - Or had she? - Did they let Effie visit Jim in the hospital where he lingered until he died? - Did everyone in town know, and whisper about her? Was she branded a loose woman? - How did the murder affect her relationship with her father? My grandfather had pernicious anemia and wasn’t a prime catch. They were 36 and 43 when my dad was born. She was 72 when I was born, and 90 when she died. She was slender, with a sharp mind and sharp opinions. She was prim, severe, judgmental, fanatically religious. She could whistle really well. Our written family history has stories my great-grandfather shooting a puma and catching horse thieves. Nothing about him murdering his youngest child’s beau. One of the last coherent conversations I had with my dad was about his grandfather. The man who murdered his own daughter’s boyfriend.
