I was recently asked to give my thoughts about the question "Why Popular Culture Matters." My remarks and comments were subsequently published--kindly see them below. …

A poem, and then a few thoughts on metaphor...

Headstones carry last century’s news etched into granite gone

house. I wait while he kneels at his son’s…

The Thought for the Day is a quote about poetry-writing and the writing life taken from Rilke's only novel, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge.

http://writingwithoutpaper.blogspot.com/2012/02/thought-for-day.html

After nine years of working on my manuscript about my childhood in a bizarre, apocalyptic cult (tentatively titled The Angels Never Came), after the manuscript has won a nomination in an unpublished manuscript contest (2010 Doris Bakwin Award), after I have started a website for it (alexaara.com), I finally feel…

Ever go away on a vacation or business trip and unexpectedly have such an amazing time that you weren't ready to come home?  The prospect of that happening to me was so remote when I went to a writer's retreat in Thailand I went to great lengths to get an early morning flight home. Sigh.  I missed my children so much, yet, the freedom I felt was difficult to give up.  For the first time in what seemed like a gazillion years, I felt so happy that week.  I didn't realize how "unhappy" I was…

Facebook is the hot topic around Palo Alto these days.



While Facebook might be a lot of things, it isn't female-heavy.  There are NO women on the board, despite the fact that Sheryl Sandberg, the COO, is a woman who is vocal in supporting women's rights.  Yet, she is not on the board of her own company. This seems to make no sense.



 On the boards I have been on, members are supposed to provide at least one, and preferably all three, of the three" Ws," Work, Wealth, or…

http://mommiesinorbit.blogspot.com

Electric Nostalgia

Nostalgia thumps in my chest

When I stroll by a kid who reads

a book made of light,

with a choice  to zoom in

for a clearer view of the words

on its screen of rich gloss

One click bookmarks a page.

Another click whisks her away

To a social media heaven

Where instant messages

gather to reward her youth

Nostalgia flows through my thoughts

As I remember the time…

i am small in this place

slate looms large

thrown unbalanced

waiting for water

to start the slide

small boys know to run

at the noise, shelter

from the war.

I know no such thing,

my soul slides into mud,

i am small

Here's my link to today's guest post on The Green Phone Booth site.

When people hear that I write novels for teenagers, they often respond with a question that I find ever so slightly disingenuous: “How can you remember all that stuff?”

I really shouldn’t accuse complete strangers of lying to my face. After all, it’s hard to think of something to say when someone tells you her profession (“You’re a lawyer? That must be so…interesting”), and people might feel that a simple, “Cool” will…

my bank account

spending $34 at rocket to venus watching my friend make out with her boyfriend. i was supposed to be somewhere else saving $$$

the further i back away i am from a camera the better i look

in middle school on the bus, when my teacher put Platoon on in the VCR driving back from sea camp

rewriting my manuscript for the fifth, sixth , seventh, eight time, and not leaving it alone.

staying up till 1 am…

stoneybrook came out tonight to see dave l. read with me at the artichoke haircut reading cause i didn't want to go alone. i didn't even look for dave until he got up to read and then i told stoneybrook that he owed me a beer because i needed that help some. i can't look at dave l. because he's a good out-loud reader and i'll just think of when we watched touch of evil and read h.s. thompson's: TO WJZ-TV13. dave is cool because he knows more than two of me know about songs.

i said i'd…

Despite a chaotic work week, the Super Bowl, and layers of unfinished business surrounding me, this weekend I am determined to write at least the first draft of a column scheduled to make its debut in a soon-to-be-announced, new regional magazine. Am on the hunt for content, ideas, something to engage readers and leave them hungering for more (of me). The best part of this process is what happens next ~ obscure words and phrases start entering my brain, a long ago memory makes its surprise…

The new issue of Kings River Life is up and we again have a bunch of mystery fun!

First off we have an interview with mystery author L.F. (Louise) Crawford as the next part of our Road To Left Coast 2012 series, a review of her latest book & a chance to win a copy http://kingsriverlife.com/02/04/mystery-author-lf-crawfordreview/

Then we also have a review of the latest Richard Castle book, "Heat…

This blog post reviews the importance of being offline -- for me -- when I'm writing. Some suggestions and ideas here for anyone else who may struggle with internet a.d.d. :-)

http://www.pamwrites.net/2012/02/03/one-thing-at-a-time/

Among the highlights in today's new edition of Saturday Sharing: an online gallery of browsable books at the National Library of France, W.E.B. Du Bois's photograph album documenting African Americans' lives, free e-books from the New York Public Library (with your virtual NYPL library card), and newspaper articles about Houdini from the collections of the Library of Congress. The video feature is a segment from The Fabric of the Cosmos.…

ready for anything

only we are not,

steeled for years,

it still takes us by surprise,

when it comes.