Past Updates

Hello!

On April 1, I'll celebrate release of the paperback of "Sundays in America: A Yearlong Road Trip in Search of Christian Faith." Join me that night at 7 at the West Springfield Public Library in West Springfield, Mass., for a reading and signing. I'm very grateful for the kindness of so many faithful readers, and so many new ones, for keeping me so busy since the book was published by Beacon back in March of last year.

...and that includes the season of fall. I was seven hours north over the weekend, on Maine’s gorgeous Deer Isle, for a weekend retreat run by the magnificent Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance (www.mainewriters.org), on the beautiful drive saw enough leaves starting to turn. 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.

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.

I visited Edwards Books yesterday and saw stacks of proof that "Sundays in America: A Yearlong Road Trip in Search of Christian Faith" is now in print. Janet Edwards has enthusiastically ordered something like 250 copies and I stood there thinking how it was just about two years ago that I started wondering what makes one Christian religion different from the next – and Tommy, as he often does, suggested "Write about it." The result is this book, my eighth, and my third of non-fiction.

Hello and greetings from New England, which is a big change from Florida, where I've spent the past three and a half months. I've just finished a semester as a visiting writer in the Creative Writing Department at the University of South Florida at Tampa (www.usf.edu). Big thanks again to Rita Ciresi (www.ritaciresi.com), director of USF's Creative Writing Program, who suggested me for the post, and USF English Department Chair Hunt Hawkins, who hired me, and to the wonderful students in my Fiction III and Fiction Writing classes.

Here's an early look at the cover of the book that'll be out in March from Beacon Press. I did the final edits at Beacon's Boston headquarters a few weeks ago and got a look at this final version of the cover that day. I also met with my new publicist, Gina Frey and she and I are beginning a calendar of readings and signings for the new book. Anyone who'd like to book a "Sundays in America" reading or signing at a bookstore, library, social club or book group is invited to contact me (sess7@comcast.net) or Gina (gfrey@beacon.org). I'll be traveling throughout the country to promote the book next spring and soon will be adding the first few dates to this site's events page.

Yes, I normally update my website more frequently than every six months! I apologize to those who've been checking, and I'm very happy to finally have the time to be posting some. Just yesterday I sent my editor the final chapters of a new book, "Sundays in America."

Greetings and wishes for peace this season, some of the type demonstrated here by sweet young Bisquick, our new pup, who came to live with us a month ago and is shown here meditating on Cape Cod last weekend during his first visit to the ocean.

Hello from New England, where I'm enjoying gorgeous fall scenery during a rare few days at home. Since April, I've been traveling each week to research a book on Protestant churches in America. Having been raised Catholic, I literally was told the ceiling would fall on me if I ever entered any other type of church. I'm both testing that theory and getting a great education about the rest of Christianity by attending Sunday services in churches from here to Hawaii.

Dear Readers:

Every author should have such an enthusiastic relative as I have in my sister-in-law Karen, who recently answered my long overdue "Hi, how are you" phone greeting with "Do you have a new book out yet?"

If you missed your chance to get there this year, make plans for next spring. Inspired by the beading main character in "Becoming Finola," Beadventure Travel has asked me to teach a memoir workshop in Ireland next spring. Here's the brochure, and our invitation to join us in April/May of 2007 for writing, beading and sightseeing!

"Too bad about Tatnuck."

I read that in one email. And then in another.

Hello Readers!

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.

All that romance, mystery, drama, and other page-turning adventures from a year in a bookstore is now available in paperback. Beacon Press has created a slightly redesigned and slightly shining cover, and it still features the Van Gogh! If your usual book source doesn't have it yet, the paperback can be ordered by using the ISBN 0-8070-7259-1 The price is $14.

I'm not changing the photo this month, because the weather really hasn't changed much. Check back in June...

In the meantime, visit the "News" page on this site and enjoy the thorough and fascinating writing of Grazyna J. Kozaczka, an English professor at New York's Cazenovia College whose paper "The Invention of Ethnicity and Gender in Suzanne Strempek Shea's Fiction" is used with gratitude to both her and to The Polish Review (www.piasa.org/polishreview.html), which published this piece in its Vol. XLVIII, No. 3, 2003.