Life Beyond the Final Draft

Well, Footlights has been at the publisher's since early summer. No galleys yet. Although I've had lots of opportunities for marketing/publicizing, I have no book and little hope of publication this year. So I am starting a new project--well an old one really.

Luiza is a character that has been following me around from Boston to Long Beach (CA) to New Mexico. Her file, working title--Pernicious Academia--grows regularly. Her character ages and develops--as we non-characters do--through pain and joy and all that happens in between. I'm enrolled in an online workshop with the UCLA Extension Writers' Program specifically to tighten up Luiza's stories and fit them into a collection. So far, the critiques have been helpful; the online experience less than dynamic.

I've also revised Prairie Madness and will be submitting it to my publisher soon.

The real world--the one in which friends and family die; a dog disappears; and tough decisions must be made--seeps into my writing world. I continue to read.