Past Updates
Greetings to everyone...
I love this season and the whole back-to-school feeling it provides, spurring us to new starts of all kinds. For me, those have included research for a new book I hope to soon propose, and I’ve been doing all that while continuing to promote "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 since the book was published by Beacon back in March.
Please see my events link for specifics on where I’ll be reading and signing. If you're a church member, bookstore owner, educator, book club host or hostess, and are interested in having me visit your congregation, customers, students or club members, just let me know, at sess7@comcast.net.
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. Visit www.obit-mag.com daily. I’m also working on a few pieces for the November/December issue of The Bark, "The New Yorker of dog magazines" (www.thebark.com).
I’m also getting ready to run a workshop at a residency in Ireland Oct. 15-22. It’ll take place in the lovely town of Howth, near Dublin, and still has one opening available... The details are on my events page. If you’d like to fill that final slot, just let me know.
My friends have been keeping as busy.
I’m thrilled to see that Luanne Rice has a new book – "Last Kiss" – which shares its shoreline setting with that of two previous Luanne books, "Beach Girls" and "The Perfect Summer." Her website, www.luannerice.com, tells me that "Last Kiss" is "the haunting story of a close-knit community grappling with a heartbreaking mystery, and of a woman rebuilding her world and reclaiming a love she believed lost a lifetime ago." The website also features a beautiful video Luanne made as a thank you note to her publishers upon the release of this 25th book of hers. Enjoy the video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=95GRcWacH_A
Allan G. Hunter (www.allanhunter.net), whose fascinating new book "Stories We Need to Know" I mentioned here earlier this year, has yet a newer book on the shelves. Look for his "The Six Archetypes of Love: From Innocent to Magician," just out from Findhorn Press.
My multitudinously talented artist pal Judi Kauffman has a review of her new book, "By The Batch," reviewed on this site: http://rubberstamping.about.com/od/reviews/fr/ByTheBatch.htm.
If you’re headed to North Carolina, make plans to stay at Rosemary House B&B (www.rosemary-bb.com), which is located in Pittsboro and run by Karen Pullen, a dazzling writer who graduated this summer from the Stonecoast MFA program at the University of Maine (http://usm.maine.edu/stonecoastmfa/), where I teach.
And a new writer and artist friend, Beth Eisen, this past weekend on Deer Isle told me about a project called Leave No Plastic Behind – Maine, http://www.myspace.com/lnpbmaine, which will challenge artists – and others – not to bring plastic into their lives for three months, and to transform into art any single piece they can’t avoid. I’m going to participate, and hope you will, too.
I’ll close with this "Spoonful of Irish" taken from a packet of sugar: "An rud is annamh is iontach." That, according to the sugar packet, translates to "What is strange is wonderful." Ain’t that the truth.
Thanks for reading!
Suzanne