My article about the Publishers Weekly Top 10 list is up at the Huffington Post. For the post I solicited the opinions of Aaron Burch at Hobart, Kathleen Rooney of Rose Metal Press, J.A. Tyler of mud luscious/mlp, Adam Robinson of Publishing Genius, and Roxane Gay of PANK. Good talks at the GIANT, where some measured opinions are being laid down on the topic of women, publishing, and bias.
Archive for the 'Sue Grafton I guess' Category
I dreamt I was checking in at a blood donation center. The phlebotomist touched a growth on the back of my neck and said I should have it removed. I reached back and ran my fingers over it, surprised I had never noticed it before. I said that if he thought I should get it removed, I would trust his professional opinion. He shrugged. One of the other patients produced a shotgun and opened fire.
My copy of Easter Rabbit has arrived. Its little fictions are so small that it’s interesting to read the sentences for emerging patterns. A lot of his last lines are arraigned in a similar way, which makes the whole feel like a litany for meditation. Reading one a day feels good but it also feels good to read the whole book and let them fall on you. Flash fiction is cool because it changes depending on how you regard it.
Here’s a fun fact about Sue Grafton, who is writing that alphabet series of bestsellers (N is for Noose etc): she refuses to sell the movie rights to that series. She told her children that if they sell the rights after her death, she will come back from the grave and haunt them, “which they know I can do.”
Also she began the series during an ugly divorce while fantasizing ways to kill her ex-husband. Recently their youngest daughter was married, and he came to the wedding held in Grafton’s home:
“We were perfectly civil, while I’ll never forgive his ass for what he did to me. There was some real satisfaction in the fact that he came to my house — which is lavish — and I thought, ‘Eat your heart out, asshole.’”
Sue Grafton sounds like an unpleasant yet compelling person to be around. I’d ask her to be my roommate but I have a feeling she’d drink all the gin.
I made this zucchini bread yesterday, heavily modified. I substituted puréed pumpkin for the oil, a cup of whole wheat flour for a cup of white, reduced the sugar to 2 cups, subbed a cup of brown sugar for white, and increased the zucchini to three cups. It turned out really well, moist cinnamon flavor with a bit of pumpkin in the background. Dense breads are forgiving.
