Welcome

A big hello from Bondsville...

... as I update the site with one hand and pack for Maine with the other. I'm heading off to teach at the University of Southern Maine's Stonecoast MFA program and looking forward to seeing so many wonderful students and staffers there. The ten days will be my longest time spent in one place since March 7, when I began promoting "Sundays in America: A Yearlong Road Trip in Search of Christian Faith. I'm very grateful for the kindness of so many faithful readers, and so many new ones, for keeping me that busy over four months! My newest venues include churches - both those I've written about in Sundays, and others that simply want me to visit and talk about the book. In a few weeks I'll be visiting a few that were subjects in Sundays: Metropolitan Community Church of Richmond, Va., and St. Sebastian in Baltimore. Please see my events link for specifics on those, and other readings and signing. If you're a church member, bookstore owner or book club host and are interested in having me visit, just let me know at sess7@comcast.net.

One place I'm no longer regularly visiting is Edwards Books. I'm so sorry to write that the wonderful family-run independent bookstore where I worked for the past seven years closed in June after 34 years in business. I don't know how to properly thank the Edwards family - Flo, Ray, Janet and Christina - for welcoming me onto the staff at a time when I really needed to get out of the house. In so many ways, they really were the hand of God in my life, and in our community. To read about the closing, visit stories that ran in The Republican of Springfield, Mass., by my dear friend Michael McAuliffe, and my dear husband, Tommy Shea. The account of my first year at Edwards was my first memoir, "Shelf Life: Romance, Mystery, Drama and Other Page-Turning Adventures from a Year in a Bookstore," which was published by Beacon in 1994.

Do you blog? Have you read Sundays? I'm very grateful to those who are mentioning the new book in their posts. Nan at the blog Letters From a Hill Farm is so enamored of Sundays in America, she's savoring it and reading a chapter a week, then posting her impressions. I was wowed to find Nan's postings, as I was to find this soon after returning from a reading at Booklovers Gourmet in Webster, Mass.

If you want a sample of the journeys in Sundays, be sure to check out my Beacon Broadside blog posts on Barack Obama's former church and Christmas Eve in Bethlehem. If you want a look at some of those churches, check the "Sundays in America: Churches" link to the left.

I've been continuing to write for Obit, a fantastic online forum for ideas and opinions about life, death, and transition that you'll find nowhere else. Obit has just been redesigned. Visit www.obit-mag.com to find my stories. You can also read and comment on Visions of Heaven, look up your birth date in Died on the Same Day and discover who checked out on the day you checked in. Relive historical moments through video and photography in Final Cut and Photo Finish. Join a discussion about favorite graveyards. Whether centered on a person, a place, an object or an idea, life's constant change presents an opportunity for examination, discussion and celebration.

As for what I'm reading, check out Girls Just Wanna Have Fun contributor Mary Ellen Lowney's feature on Western Massachusetts authors and their summer reading selections. An addition to that list:

• "Comfort" by Ann Hood. I join Leslea Newman in anticipating a heartwrenching but transforming read in this extremely intimate exploration of grief. Visit Ann's site at www.annhood.us
• John Sheirer's "Loop Year: 365 Days on the Trail." Ever walk the same path a few times? John walked his each day for a year, encountering much on the path and in his mind as the year turned. Visit his site at www.johnsheirer.com

As for what I've been viewing, I was so thrilled to take in "Then She Found Me," a perfectly funny, heartfelt and memorable film directed by and starring Helen Hunt, and based on the first novel of my beloved mentor, Elinor Lipman. Don't miss this film when it comes to your town and see why The New York Times raved.

I'll close both the suitcase and this update with a bow to one of my favorite writers, Nuala O'Faolain, who died in May and whose columns I especially loved.

Thanks again for reading.

Suzanne

07/07/08

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