WE ARE ALL WELCOME HERE Welcomes Me Back

I picked We Are All Welcome Here by Elizabeth Berg off my bookshelf because I had a writing question I thought it might answer in the first couple of chapters (How does a first person narrator tell stories about things that happened before she was born), and I two days later I put it down, not because it answered my question (though it did), but because I had read the whole book.  I’d read it before—I don’t know for sure if I would have continued had I not been on my re-reading kick, though I’m not sure I could have stopped myself, even though I knew everything that would happen—but even on this second reading, I finished in tears.  The best kind of reading tears: when an ending is sad and happy and painful and beautiful all at once.  It’s a book about a girl growing up with a mom who, as a result of polio contracted in her ninth month of pregnancy, cannot breathe or move anything below her neck.  But it’s also about civil rights in the 1960’s American south and friendship and Elvis.  It’s got lines that hit you with a hard thump in the middle of the chest, but it’s also got a lot of lines that make you smile, or maybe even laugh a little.  It’s not a book that I intentionally put on my To Read Again list, but I’m sure happy it made it’s way there on it’s own.  It’s a fierce and determined and stubborn book that way, kind of like its heroines.

Exciting...

I just got a copy of Sudden Flash Youth in the mail, a collection of short-short stories out from Persea Books, including my short story "Disorder."  Here's a description of the collection from Persea Books:

"A unique collection: the only anthology of short-short stories to focus on youth.

In these stories of no more than 1000 words, well-known and emerging American authors spotlight crucial moments of change during coming-of-age. Their young protagonists face matters of great consequence, such as the death of a parent, unwanted pregnancy, and bullying, as well as lighter, if perplexing circumstances: how to hold a prom when being home-schooled; what to do when the babysitter suddenly sees the Rapture. The stories are of this moment--a girl who falls in love and then is pressured to lose her virginity in a cyberspace world--and they also remember the past: slavery, the 1950s, the Nixon era, the Vietnam War. Whether action-packed or meditative, realistic or fantastical, these brief stories brim with the vitality and intensity of youth.

Among the contributors are Steve Almond, Peter Bacho, Richard Bausch, Daphne Beal, Gayle Brandeis, Richard Brautigan, Ron Carlson, Kelly Cherry, Stuart Dybek, Dave Eggers, Pia Z. Ehrhardt, Jim Heynen, Meg Kearney, Anne Mazer, Naomi Shihab Nye, Maryann O'Hara,Pamela Painter, Sonia Pilcer, Bruce Holland Rogers, Robert Shapard, and Alice Walker."

It's kind of exciting to see my name on the cover of a real live book, so I thought I'd share the new here.  Also, it's snowing like crazy, which is another great thing!

Official Re-Read Selection #2: HIS DARK MATERIALS

I mentioned in my last post that I’ve been on a re-reading kick lately, and because it has been so rewarding, I think I’m going to stay with it for a while.  I just finished the re-reading the last book in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy.  It was great to re-read a book I loved and to discover brand new reasons for loving it.  I so admire all three of these books for I find that they reward on so many levels.  They’re whimsical adventures full of twists and turns and action.  They’re complex philosophical reflections on society and religion and childhood and death and human nature.  And they’re guided by Lyra Silvertongue, a heroine I challenge anyone not to love for her determination and her stubbornness and her tendency, on occasion, to make up stories that aren’t entirely true for the sheer pleasure of invention.  I love it when a story can delight on so many levels, and I pretty much think Philip Pullman is a genius for accomplishing such a feat with this trilogy.  So there we are, one—or actually three—new additions to my Worth Re-reading List.

Next on my Re-Reading Adventure?  Pete Hamill’s Forever.  I’m not even one hundred pages in, and already I’m so glad I came back to visit again.