Past Updates
Autumn Update
I write this on the official pub date for the new Harry Potter book, an exciting day in the world of books and bookstores. I'm teaching in the woods of Maine but several copies have made their way here and are being devoured already. I hope that whatever you're currently reading, you're enjoying it as much as these Harry readers are loving their books.
I've just read and can't recommend highly enough "Carthage," a collection of poetry by Baron Wormser, Maine's poet laureate. Pulitzer Prize winning poet Stephen Dunn writes "From the outside, we recognize 'Carthage,' Baron Wormser's replica of a president befuddled by events he's helped create, yet cognizant enough to know that he can exercise enormous power." To order a copy, or to reach the author to arrange a reading, email Baron a baronw@gwi.ne
As for writing, I'm continuing to work on the new novel, "Large Hairy Male." These dog days are particularly inspiring for working on what is literally a shaggy dog story.
I've been doing a bit of traveling and want to thank the groups I've visited recently, including radiation tech students at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy in Boston; Women on the Way in Granby, Conn.; and Peg Gilles' book club in that same town. If no one were reading, I wouldn't get to do this for a living, so I'm very grateful to all those readers.
I'm also appreciative of some cool interest from two catalogs - Daedalus Books and Bas Bleu - that will be carrying Shelf Life on their pages. Visit these catalogs at www.daedalusbooks.com and www.basbleu.com
Thanks, too, to Audio Journal, Central Massachusetts' radio reading service for the visually impaired and print handicapped, which has featured Selling the Lite of Heaven on its "Backyard Bookshelf" program. Sari Bitticks did the reading on this closed-circuit radio station, which broadcasts piggyback on WGBH. It can be accessed by special receivers or on cable TV (it's the "background noise" on the local channels in Massachusetts' Worcester County). In 2002, the International Association of Audio Information Services named Sari the narrative reader of the year.
I'm pleased to be able to offer the links to two academic papers published last year in Polish American Studies. Edited by James S. Pula, Polish American Studies is the scholarly journal published twice a year by the Polish American Historical Association. The papers were written by the wonderful husband-and-wife team Harriet and Thomas Napierkowski of the University of Colorado at Colorado springs. The first deals solely with my writing, and the second mentions it while concentrating on Keith Maillard's wonderful novel The Clarinet Polka.
"Fathers, Daughters, and the Polka: Accordion Crimes and Misdemeanors in Hoopi Shoopi Donna," a paper by Harriet Napierkowski, Ph.D, is at http://web.uccs.edu/hnapierk/hoopi_shoopi_donna_hn.htm The paper was published in Polish American Studies, LXI (2), pp. 25-34, March 2004.
"The Clarinet Polka: Life, Literature, and Music," a paper by Thomas J. Napierkowski, Ph.D, is at http://web.uccs.edu/hnapierk/clarinet_polka_tn.htm The paper was published in Polish American Studies, Vol. LXI (2), pp. 9-24, Autumn, 2004. Thanks to PAHA for the permission to share these pages. Check out www.polishamericanstudies.org
I'll leave you with a thought from a bumpersticker recently spotted in West Springfield, Mass.:
Want what you have
Give what you need
Keep cool and thanks for reading!
Suzanne