Oh, happy day! MacAdam/Cage will publish my short story collection - FAMOUS FATHERS - in Spring 2007, and my novel - SPEEDING IN THE DRIVEWAY - in Spring 2008.

Since I was eight or nine years old, I've kept kept company with other writers in libraries and bookstores. I dreamed that one day the books I needed to write would be on the shelf, wedged in with the Ys and the Zs, and, finally, I soon will have two books. In the nick of time. Between the Ds and Fs. Thank you for reading my work - please don't stop, and to PJ Mark - please don't stop.


This is a section from my novel that's about me finding comfort in the arms of books.

"In my grandmother's cellar there were boxes of books that had belonged to my father and my aunt. I was already a non-stop reader and this was like hitting the jackpot. I counted over 100 titles. Treasure Island, Thumbelina, A Boy's Salute to the Presidents, the burgundy-bound series - Cherry Ames Student Nurse, early editions of Nancy Drew before the covers were illustrated with the caper at hand. I found some old shelves, and cleared them so I could make a library. The heavy jars of tomatoes were moved to the floor, the tin cans of olives and button mushrooms stacked beside the washing machine.

The books needed to be ordered alphabetically, so I ran upstairs to see if my grandmother had index cards. She didn't, so I cut sheets of paper into 4 x 6 and made my own Dewey Decimal System. This way, visitors could find what they wanted to read. I made pink library cards for my sister and aunt, and one for myself. I begged them to come to my library and check out books so I could handle the transaction, so my library had readers. They played along with me for a week or two, but forgot to bring the books back and I'd have to go through the house and return them myself. They both ran up fines. Aunt Carmel read all the romance novels, and Bay lost her picture books under the couch or left them outside in the rain. She'd rather color at the kitchen table. Bay still doesn't like to read.

Nonna told the ladies in the beauty parlor about my project, and they clucked and cooed and called me "precocious." I looked the word up but it didn't describe me. I missed my parents, and what was the word for that?

That summer I would read everything twice. I read what my father and aunt had enjoyed as children. I treated the books carefully and didn't dog ear pages. I re-alphabetized them by title instead of author, dropping the The but not the A if a title began with an article, but this messed up the lovely ribbon of color made by the books-in-a-series. I went back to the Dewey. I hunted in the cellar for more boxes to make my library bigger. There weren't any more books to organize, but I began to understand that I could make a house by filling empty shelves because books, once you read them, never left you.

Bay and I slept in the sewing room on a pullout sofa, and I kept my arm around her like I'd seen my father do with my mother when I walked into their room late at night to see if they were still there."