It's been a while since I checked in, so I wanted to give you an update on all things My Life with the Lincolns related.

You have another chance to win a copy of My Life with the Lincolns (one of five, actually!) To find out how, visit my KidsBuzz page.

I was delighted to hear from Sharon Hrycewicz, a librarian in Downers Grove, where my characters live in My Life with the Lincolns. She has passed the book around to several people in town, including John Mochel, whose hardware store is mentioned in the novel. I am so excited that I'll get to visit Downers Grove in a couple of weeks and connect with readers there in person! In the meanwhile, I did an interview with Sharon, which you can read here.

I will be doing a few Midwestern book events and school visits soon. Here are the ones that are open to the public; if you're in the area, please come say hello!

Thursday, April 8

9:30-11am, discussion of The Book of Dead Birds, Wisner Center at the Cascade Township Branch of Kent District Library, Grand Rapids, MI

4-5pm, Writers Talk, Grand Valley State University, Room 2263 Kirkhof Center, Allendale Campus

Sunday, April 11

4pm, reading/book signing, My Life with the Lincolns, Nicola's Books, Ann Arbor, MI

Tuesday, April 13

7pm, reading/book signing, My Life with the Lincolns, Barbara’s Bookstore, 1218 South Halsted St., Chicago, IL 60607

Wednesday, April 14 (my birthday!)

7pm, reading/book signing, My Life with the Lincolns, Anderson's Bookshop, Downers Grove, IL

I so look forward to returning to my home town and seeing people I haven't seen in years. Hopefully Asher will be patient with all the traveling!

A few years ago, I did an event for The Book of Dead Birds right before Self Storage came out, and I remember feeling a stab of sadness over the fact that I wouldn't be giving readings from that book any more, since my new novel was stepping into center stage. Turns out I didn't have to worry--The Book of Dead Birds seems to have a strange little life of its own, even on the cusp of yet another book coming out. I will be reading from Dead Birds this Sunday (edit--it's actually this SATURDAY, the 13th, at 2pm) at the La Quinta Museum as part of their Salton Sea exhibit (and will be discussing it in Michigan next month--more on that to come.) If you're in the desert, please swing on by! :)

You can read my very first interview about My Life with the Lincolns, and even win a copy of the book, over at my friend Tricia (I know her as Pat) O'Brien's wonderful blog, Talespinning. If you blog or tweet about the contest, you have an even greater chance of winning!

A great review from School Library Journal... :)

It's the summer of 1966, and sixth-grader Mina has her work cut out for her. Her overactive imagination has convinced her that because her father's initials spell "ABE," the Edelmans are the Lincolns reincarnated. Now she must save her family from their fate. This means making sure that she doesn't die of bilious fever, that her dad doesn't get assassinated, and that her mother doesn't go crazy. Mina is unclear what bilious fever is, but frequently sprays herself with OFF!, just in case. Her father, inspired by the history of discrimination against his Jewish heritage, decides to take her, without her mother's knowledge, to civil-rights protests in nearby Chicago where they participate in an all-night vigil and get involved in real-estate testing to prove racism in rentals. Mina's parents grow apart, and her father forms a friendship with a fellow protester and African American, Carla. At the end, Mina is ready to let go of her notion of reincarnation and wrestles with issues of injustice and discrimination. Brandeis seamlessly intersperses serious topics with laugh-out-loud humor. Mina is a budding journalist, writing a newsletter full of Lincoln lore to promote her father's furniture store, Honest Abe's. Her voice is clear and unique; her view of life's confusions is endearing and funny. The setting is perfectly captured, from Johnny Carson on television to bouffant hairdos. While the book's humor may be the first attraction for young readers, this is also a solid addition to historical-fiction collections.—Connie Tyrrell Burns, Mahoney Middle School Library, South Portland, ME

Today, I decided to do a search on Abraham Lincoln over at Etsy to see how other people have been inspired by Abe. Apparently, he is quite a muse! Lincoln appeared...

as a pimp:

in pennies:

in the desert:

several times as a zombie (here are just a couple of examples):

and, well, I'll let you decide what this is:

I think my favorite, though, is this girl holding a "go lincoln" sign. She reminds me so much of my character Mina from My Life with the Lincolns!

I have to admit, I was hoping for a scandal. Some nice juicy scandal in the Olympic pairs figure skating competition--something that would keep people talking about pairs skaters for the next few months, so when my novel Delta Girls (which features an Olympics hopeful pairs skater) comes out in June, people would be hungry for more tales of skaterly scandal. Alas, the skaters behaved themselves; the gold medalists were a sweet married couple from China who now plan to have a baby, and while the woman from one of the American pairs teams is dating the man from the other pair, there is nothing scandalous about their situation.

The men offered a bit of drama--a broken lace in the middle of a routine, a slightly diva-ish rant from silver medalist Evgeni Plushenko about how if someone can win the Olympics without a quad, it's "not men's figure skating. It is dance." And of course the ice dancers from Russia brought loads of controversy with their outrageously offensive, culturally insensitive "aboriginal" routine and their use of ropes to aid their lifts in their free dance, but that wasn't the sort of newsmaking scandal I was hoping for. (An aside--ice dancing has gotten so much more interesting, hasn't it? When I was a competitive figure skater, I turned up my nose at ice dancing--it seemed so boring to me without the big jumps and throws, etc.--but I'm digging it now. White and Davis' Bollywood routine knocked my socks off.)

By the time the women's figure skating rolled around, though, I was no longer hoping for a scandal. I was just rooting for Joannie Rochette, the Canadian skater whose mother died unexpectedly on Sunday. I think about myself two days after getting the news of my mom's death--I felt like a skinned creature, all my nerves exposed to the wind--and can't imagine how she was able to perform with such poise and grace and courage under the circumstances. When she finished her passionate, assured program and flung her arms open, surrendering to tears, I wept, myself. I hope that when the shock of the news fades, when the adrenalin rush of the Olympics is over, when Rochette has time to face her loss head on--cold and stark as any span of ice--the memory of her performance, and the way the crowd embraced her, will be a balm.

Happy birthday, Abe!

Don't know how to celebrate Lincoln's birth? How about pick up a copy of My Life with the Lincolns on cd? The audio book--my first!--actually came out on February 9 (you can see the slightly different cover below); I meant to post something about it that day, but my baby came down with a fever--his first--and I was too worried and distracted to do so.

I think it's unusual for an audio cd to come out so soon before the physical book, which comes out in a little over a month, but this gives you a chance to have a sneak peek (er, listen!) You can find links to various booksellers through my website or hit up your favorite local store.

Abe's pretty spry for a 201 year old, don't you think? :)

I'm excited to unveil the updated version of gaylebrandeis.com. My sweet husband Michael just uploaded it last night. He had planned to noodle around with the site during his paternity leave, but so much of that time was consumed with dealing with my mom's death, and he didn't have a chance to get to it. I was about to hire a web designer, but Michael had a recent jolt of inspiration and dove head first into the project. I love what he came up with--it's clean and bright and has a groovy retro vibe (and he was able to re-use a lot of the content from the last version of the website--thanks, Eula!) We still have a few changes and additions to make, but it's ready to rock now. Check it out and let me know what you think!

The picture on the front page is me at close to eight years old, taken from my old modeling composite (the sort of calling card that agents use to try to get their models work.) You can see the front and back of the composite below, and you can read about my brief and awkward jaunt as a child model in my essay Shoot.

If you've tried to pre-order My Life with the Lincoln on Amazon over the last few days, you've seen that the "Pre Order" button has disappeared. You may have noticed that the "Buy" buttons on various other books have gone missing on Amazon, as well. This is all because Amazon has decided to be a bully and stop selling all books published under the Macmillan umbrella (which includes my publisher, Henry Holt Books for Young Readers, as well as St. Martin's Press, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, among others) because of a pricing dispute. I'm too tired to go into the details here--and actually I should be sleeping right now, since the baby is blessedly asleep--but you can read the details of the kerfuffle on the LA Times' book blog, Jacket Copy. Needless to say, it is quite worrisome for authors with books that have just come out from Macmillan or are coming out soon, such as my friend Ariel Gore's new book, Bluebird: Women and the New Psychology of Happiness--a book I can't wait to read, and one that I find myself wishing I could share with my mom. I linked to Powell's website, since hopefully this hullabaloo with Amazon will remind us to support the wonderful indie booksellers out there (and perhaps it will help to break writers--including myself!--of the compulsive-and-often-torturous-even-though-we-know-it's-pretty-meaningless past-time of checking one's own Amazon rankings.) Of course I do hope that Amazon will stop rattling its saber before My Life with the Lincolns comes out, but I have to remind myself that Amazon really only accounts for a small portion of book sales, plus I think that my book has its best chance in brick and mortar places where booksellers can put it directly into the hands of young readers.

Some more reviews are coming in. Kirkus (which is sadly going out of print soon and whose reviewers are notoriously hard to please) says

Brandeis has created an appealing, quirky protagonist, still childlike in her sensibilities and understanding. Convinced that she is going to die young, like her almost-namesake Willie Lincoln, she diagnoses the pain in her developing breasts as incipient heart failure. She worries that her mother will go crazy and her father will be assassinated. Middle-school readers will know better but enjoy this humorous first-person glimpse into her misconstrued world. Adults don’t see so clearly, either. In her first novel for young readers, the author goes beyond usual stories of the civil-rights movement, demonstrating well-intentioned but tone-deaf gestures of white supporters and the discomfort of change.

Booklist calls My Life with the Lincolns an "informative, clear, personal and passionate novel." And the PhiloBiblos blog has a fantastic review here.

Watch for a contest coming soon and a website relaunch (my husband Michael is doing the web design, which is very cool. He didn't think he'd have time, but it's coming together beautifully!)

Update: It appears Amazon has come to their senses. Pre-order away. :)

It's wild to think that My Life with the Lincolns will be out in the world in less than two months! I recently received two copies of the hardcover; it looks gorgeous and feels so good in my hands. With everything that's been going on, it's been hard to think about book promotion, but my mom always assumed the role of my de facto publicist (sometimes to my great embarrassment, I must admit), and I know that she would want me to do whatever I could to get the book out there. If she were still alive, I wouldn't be surprised if she were to don a Lincoln hat and wear a sandwich board of the book cover over her chest! So, in her honor, I will share a few things...

An awesome blurb from Julianna Baggott, author of Ever Breath and The Prince of Fenway Park:

"Gayle Brandeis has written a richly complex novel in the voice of her brilliant, courageous, funny, young heroine Mina Edelman. Through her whip-smart perceptions, we watch one family struggle through the turbulent 60s -- the Vietnam War, feminism, and some of the most heated moments of the Civil Rights Movement in Chicago. Just as Mina sees deep connections between the nation's struggles in the 60s to those of Lincoln's presidency, readers will naturally draw correlations to present-day America -- essential ones."

My first review, a decent one from Publishers Weekly (although I think they make the book sound deathly serious; of course it deals with serious issues, but it's actually quite funny):

My Life with the Lincolns Gayle Brandeis Holt, $16.99 (256p) ISBN 978-0-8050-9013-0

In her first novel for children, adult author Brandeis entwines two historical periods through the voice of narrator Mina, who is convinced that her family members are the Lincolns reincarnated (“my three main tasks were: 1. Get through age 12 without dropping dead [like Lincoln’s son, Willie]. 2. Stop Mom from going crazy. 3. Stop Dad from getting shot in the skull”). Mina’s overexuberant father invites Mina along as he joins the civil rights movement in 1960s Chicago, and they are soon participating in marches and prayer vigils, while becoming increasingly involved with a black woman and her son. Brandeis doesn’t sidestep the brazen and discomforting inequality that existed, nor the often violent reactions to integration. She weaves in tidbits of Lincoln’s life, while subtly showing readers how history repeats itself (even as Mina works to avoid just that). Familial tension, heightened by disagreements over their involvement in “the movement,” leads to an emotional climax at—where else?—the Lincoln Memorial. This strong showing should leave readers with a trove of Lincoln trivia and gratitude for the contributions of civil rights pioneers. Ages 10–up. (Mar.)

And a link where you can hear the first couple of minutes from the audio version of the book.

It's not a sandwich board, but I think my mom would approve.

Receiving the bound galleys of one's own book is usually a thrilling experience. It's when the book really feels like a book for the first time. When I received the galleys for Fruitflesh, my first published book, I was so overcome at the sight of my name on the cover, I thought I might pass out or throw up. This time is different.

I recently received the galleys for both My Life with the Lincolns, my YA novel coming out in March, and Delta Girls, my novel coming out in June (you can see the cover here, now that I have a digital copy.) Of course it was exciting when they each showed up on my doorstep, but it was also bittersweet. For those who haven't seen the posting on my other blog, my mom committed suicide six weeks ago, one week after my son Asher was born. I had dedicated Delta Girls to her but hadn't told her; I had wanted to surprise her with it when the galleys came out. Now I deeply regret not telling her, and not sharing the manuscript, which she had wanted to read, with her earlier. I see the simple dedication--"For my mom"--and it takes on a whole other meaning now, and it breaks my heart. I never imagined she wouldn't be here to see it, herself, or that it would become a memorial of sorts.

We never know how much time we have with our loved ones; it makes me want to pull all of them even closer now.

I hope you will read my friend Peggy Hong's breathtaking piece: Embracing the Other, a talk she gave this past Sunday at a Unitarian church in Milwaukee. Here is a taste:

I believe our task as evolving social beings is to make ourselves more comfortable with discomfort. I believe we should deliberately place ourselves in situations out of our comfort zone. Once that becomes comfortable, go to a new place and push the envelope further.

For instance, if you are white, place yourself in situations where you are the racial minority. Go to a black church, shop in a black or Latino neighborhood, ride the city bus, go to a foreign country and stay in a hostel or a 2-star hotel instead of a 5-star resort, work for an organization run by people of color, move into the central city where thousands of beautiful houses wait for refurbishing, teach for MPS.

But go not to convert, but to be converted. Go not to lead, but to follow. Go to educate yourself, not to educate others. Go in humility, not in pride. Go not to be loved, but to love.

Important, powerful words.

If you're in the area, I hope you can swing by!

When I was in college, I belonged to a briefly-lived guerilla theater group called Normal Jungles--we would go into public places and do strange little performance art happenings. I recall us crawling around on the floor of the Redlands Mall, whispering "Put your zucchinis on the porch" to people; eventually we met in a circle in the center of the mall, yelled "Smash all your avocados!" at the top of our lungs and then walked out of the mall as if nothing happened, leaving a lot of confused people in our wake. I am a huge fan of Improv Everywhere, which performs guerilla theater "missions" in public places, but on a much grander, yet more accessible, audience-friendly scale than our weird attempts at the avant garde. This particular performance involves fruit, too, so how I can I not love it? Forget about smashing your avocados--let's squish our fruits together!

Diane Ackerman's book, A Natural History of the Senses, is one of my favorite books of all time, so I was thrilled when the San Francisco Chronicle invited me to review her latest book, Dawn Light. You can read the review here.

Update: Just wanted to mention that I received the loveliest email from Diane Ackerman in response to this review. I had wondered if she'd have a chance to read the review, but never imagined I'd hear from her. It made my day and then some!

I love this quote from Michael Chabon about the parallels between writing and cooking:

As a cook, I came into this inheritance of different traditions, of the American tradition, my Jewish tradition, my mother's family and the family she grew up in. My cooking kind of emerged from both a written inheritance, actual recipes written down by my mother and grandmother, and also in the cookbooks that became important to me, and I also involve my own approach, my own changes in recipe.

I think in a way, that's sort of what you're engaged in doing as a writer, too. You come into this inheritance of things that have been done and the ways in which they have been done, and people who influence you sort of pass along what they think is important, and what they think you need to know how to do. But over time you begin to make changes, what you think are improvements or alterations, because you like the way it comes out better. In that sense, there's less a question of rejecting or accepting the past, less an anxiety of influence kind of thing, than there is an evolution of your own culinary style as applied to language and storytelling.

You tend to make the things you like to eat. For example, I don't care for fish terribly much, so I don't waste a lot of time trying to figure out how to prepare it. As a writer, I try to write books that I think I would love to read. You cook the foods you'd love to eat, you write the books you'd love to read.

For the last few years, my dad has been filling up notebooks with what he calls his "wonders"--his musings about the animal world, the human world, the world of language and other amazements. As part of his 90th birthday celebration, the family decided to compile his wonders as a bound book. The Book of Wonders came out looking gorgeous (and it was so wonderful to see the surprise on his face when we presented it to him on Saturday. I wish I had a clearer image than this one to share! At least you can see the cover clearly below; the guy doing the limbo is my dad in 1969--the coolest cat ever. My mom is looking pretty groovy herself in her straw hat and sunglasses behind him.) You can order the book here and fill your own life with wonder(s).

Some family kvelling...

Check out the video of the alternative high school program my brother-in-law Craig established in Toronto:

And my dad (who will be 90 in 10 days) recently published this letter to the editor in the North County Times:

I thought, when I started reading George Will's column in the September 10th NCTimes about California's problems, that I wouldn't have to grab my dictionary. He always has at least one "big"" word, usually more, that I and probably most people have never seen before. Now why does George do that? Is he just showing off? Not George. He's a rabid Chicago Cubs fan . So am I. Cubs fans have nothing to show off about. To give George his due, maybe he's trying to lift us to his vocabulary level.

At any rate, George did it again. This time, in explaining California's massive problems, he used the word "dystopia", I suppose I should understand that word. But I don't. So I reached for my Webster dictionary which defines dystopia as "an imaginary place which is depressingly wretched and whose people lead a fearful existence," Wow, this is horrible. Let's hope it's only imaginary.

George, I know you're being a bit melodramatic to illustrate your point that California is a lousy state. But, c'mon, surely you can find something a little positive to say about beautiful California.

Maybe a nice "big" word?

Buzz Brandeis
Oceanside

I feel very lucky to be part of such an engaged, passionate (and fun!) family.

Here's a fun way to be engaged, yourself: take the OMG GOP WTF?! quiz sponsored by CREDO mobile (a great progressive cell phone company). This week, every right answer will send 10 cents to CODEPINK.

Here it is: the cover for My Life with the Lincolns! I wish I could figure out a way to share the entire cover so you could see the back and the flaps as well, but I haven't been able to convert the pdf into a jpg file. I absolutely love it. It's not what I had been visualizing (I had seen an image of Lincoln sitting in an Eames chair in my mind) but this is perfect; I love the groovy 60s (but also very current) vibe of the font, the colors, etc.

I got my first blurb, as well, from Lauren Baratz-Logsted, whose latest YA, Crazy Beautiful has just been released and looks fabulous (it's a contemporary retelling of Beauty and the Beast.) Here's the blurb:

Gayle Brandeis expertly marries a humorous manner to serious matter in MY LIFE WITH THE LINCOLNS, an original and timely Civil Rights Era novel about a young girl learning to take part in a cause greater than herself. It's a winner.

I received my first blurb for The Delta Girls, too, from the wonderful Jo-Ann Mapson:

Readers will fall in love with the women of The Delta Girls and cheer at the choices they make to keep their children safe. Brandeis transports the reader into California's verdant Delta country, where whales make wrong turns, where orchards bloom and must be picked in a matter of days, and reveals the lives of laborers and the industry behind them. I loved this book and wanted it to never end.

I'm so grateful for both blurbs!

As those of you who have followed this blog know, The Delta Girls has taken me on quite a wild ride. Well, the ride has taken a new turn--my second editor has left Ballantine/Random House, so now the book is with its third editor. I just spoke with her yesterday; she seems wonderful, and I trust I'll be in good hands, but it's all a bit discombobulating. At least the book hasn't been "orphaned" (such a sad term for books that lose their editors and no one else steps in to care for them); I am hopeful that my new editor will be the same sort of champion and advocate for the book that the two previous editors would have been. The manuscript is actually in production now--I should be receiving copyedits in a couple of weeks, and will hopefully get to see a cover image soon--so there isn't much true editing to be done at this point, but I definitely want to have someone in house rooting for the book. We'll see how it all unfolds. I'm sure there will be more unexpected twists and turns along the way!

When I was in NY on my honeymoon/familymoon, I had the chance to meet with my lovely editor at Ballantine, Lea. It was wonderful to be able to put a face to a name--she's just as sweet as she had seemed in her emails and phone calls (and she took us to an amazing lunch at a vegetarian restaurant called GOBO: Food for the Five Senses. I'm still drooling over the tea-smoked seitan and the cold honeydew soup!) She gave us a tour of the Random House building (which is designed to look like three books inside two book ends); the lobby is awe-inspiring, filled with floor to ceiling book shelves featuring first editions of books they've published, from Moby Dick and Tom Sawyer to more current award winners. It was humbling and exciting to feel myself as a small part of this grand tradition.



I had a chance to meet Lisa, the publicist I worked with for Self Storage, as well as a bunch of other people I've had contact with over the last couple of years, which was very cool. And I met Anna, the woman who will be designing the book cover for The Delta Girls; she was just finishing reading the novel, and I was so happy to hear how enthusiastic she is about it. She told me that had the book been named Pears, she might not have been able to use pears on the cover, since they like to go against expectation, but now that the title has changed, she can bring pears into the mix. She showed me that she had actually been looking at images of pears that day; she had a whole screen full of different pear pictures on her computer. She said she especially enjoyed working on food-related covers, which was wonderful to hear! Lea told me that Anna's her favorite designer there, and showed me a couple of the books they've worked on together. You can see them here. She said that she knows Anna will come up with the perfect cover for The Delta Girls, one that will capture the spirit of the book, even if the title doesn't. I can't wait to see it!

Look what I got in the mail--the first pass pages for My Life with the Lincolns! It's so cool to know what the book is going to look like on the inside. Supposedly the typeface is going to change a bit, but I love how the designer has used the Lincoln hat motif throughout the book. Yay!

I also have a potential title for what I still think of as Pears. I spoke with my editor at Ballantine today (who I'll get to meet in person next week--I can't wait!) and she said the copywriting team came up with The Delta Girls and the publisher is very excited about it. Now, this is completely different from anything that I would have come up with on my own. When I first heard it, something inside me withered a bit. I thought it sounded like a book about sorority sisters (when I brought this up with my editor, she said they hadn't considered that and she would talk to the team about it.) It doesn't have the juiciness, the poetry of the titles that you all so generously recommended (thanks again for all of your input!) In this economic climate, though, the publisher is looking for marketability, not poetry, and they think The Delta Girls will sell.

I certainly know how a title can hurt a book--even though I love The Book of Dead Birds as a title, many readers have told me that it was off putting, that they never would have picked up the book if they hadn't had to for a book club or a class, and I'm sure the title did limit its audience. Part of me cringes to think about my title being chosen by committee, being chosen with numbers, not language, in mind, but of course I'm grateful to be in this position and grateful that they want my book to reach as many people as possible.

I ended up writing a new scene that makes The Delta Girls work on a couple of levels (right now, it's just connected to the fact that most of the story takes place in the Sacramento Delta) and if my editor gives the okay to include the scene in the novel, it will definitely help me make peace with the title. The final decision has to be made by noon tomorrow (Eastern time)--I'll keep you posted. Thanks again for all of your help and support.

The New York Times recently featured a wonderful essay by Mark Dow, No Choice About the Terminology, in their new Happy Days blog (which explores what happiness means during times of economic downturn.) The essay made me happy indeed; it delves into people's quirky and precise relationships with language, and it helped me fall in love with words all over again. I especially appreciated these lines:

We write things down, and hold on to them, for many different reasons. To stop time and keep the “edge of marveling” honed, or at least handy. To create pockets of order. To prove to ourselves that we exist. To be able to immerse ourselves in whatever matters to us but is gone.

I love how both reading and writing can keep the "edge of marveling" alive in our lives; this essay certainly did that for me.

While I wrote about my wedding over at Mama, Redux yesterday, I thought this would be the right place to share the poetry we used during the ceremony.

Our four "chuppah sisters"--my sister Elizabeth, Michael's sister Mette, and our symbolic sisters, Nancy and Jenn, each stood at a corner of the chuppah (the ceremonial Jewish wedding canopy) and read this poem. I included their initials so you can see who read what part; it was so lovely having their four voices chiming all around us, at times joining in chorus:

The Chuppah
by Marge Piercy

E The chuppah stands on four poles.
M The home has its four corners.
J The chuppah stands on four poles.
N The marriage stands on four legs.
ALL Four points loose the winds
that blow on the walls of the house,
M the south wind that brings the warm rain,
N the east wind that brings the cold rain,
E the north wind that brings the cold sun
J and the snow, the long west wind
bringing the weather off the far plains.

ALL Here we live open to the seasons.
M Here the winds caress and cuff us
contrary and fierce as bears.
N Here the winds are caught and snarling
in the pines, a cat in a net clawing
breaking twigs to fight loose.
J Here the winds brush your face
soft in the morning as feathers
that float down from a dove’s breast

E Here the moon sails up out of the ocean
dripping like a just washed apple.
Here the sun wakes us like a baby.
ALL Therefore the chuppah has no sides.

M It is not a box.
N It is not a coffin.
J It is not a dead end.
ALL Therefore the chuppah has no walls.
M We have made a home together
open to the weather of our time.
We are mills that turn in the winds of struggle
converting fierce energy into bread.

J The canopy is the cloth of our table
where we share fruit and vegetables
of our labor, where our care for the earth
comes back and we take its body in ours.

N The canopy is the cover of our bed
where our bodies open their portals wide,
where we eat and drink the blood
of our love, where the skin shines red
as a swallowed sunrise and we burn
in one furnace of joy molten as steel
and the dream is flesh and flower.

E O my love O my love we dance
under the chuppah standing over us
like an animal on its four legs,
like a table on which we set our love
as a feast, like a tent
under which we work
not safe but no longer solitary
in the searing heat of our time.

Later in the ceremony, my anam cara, Catherine, read this poem:

Honey Locust, by Mary Oliver

Who can tell how lovely in June is the
honey locust tree, or why
a tree should be so sweet and live
in this world? Each white blossom
on a dangle of white flowers holds one green seed—
a new life. Also each blossom on a dangle of flowers
holds a flask
of fragrance called Heaven, which is never sealed.
The bees circle the tree and dive into it. They are crazy
with gratitude. They are working like farmers. They are as
happy as saints. After awhile the flowers begin to
wilt and drop down into the grass. Welcome
shines in the grass.

Every year I gather
handfuls of blossoms and eat of their mealiness; the honey
melts in my mouth, the seeds make me strong,
both when they are crisp and ripe, and even at the end
when their petals have turned dull yellow.

So it is
if the heart has devoted itself to love, there is
not a single inch of emptiness. Gladness gleams
all the way to the grave.

Marge Piercy and Mary Oliver are two of my very favorite poets, so it was wonderful to be able to incorporate their rich, wise words into the ceremony, and to have them read by such beloved friends and family.

I just posted a bunch of personal news over at Mama, Redux (a boy! a wedding!), but thought I'd share some writerly news here. I recently found out that My Life with the Lincolns, my first YA novel, is going to be released as an audio book when the book comes out in February! I'm so excited--none of my other books have been recorded in this format before. I can't wait to see who they'll choose to give voice to my character Mina. You can actually pre-order the audio book already on Amazon, which is so cool. I hope to see potential covers for the book soon--I will keep you posted.

Still no news on the Pears-title front, but I'll keep you posted on that, as well. Thanks again for all of your great suggestions and support!

Hi everyone! Sorry for my long absence--between the Antioch residency (amazing), wedding planning (fun but hectic), starting the summer session at UCR and other various life-related distractions, I haven't had time to blog. I hope you are having a wonderful summer!

I heard from my PEARS editor yesterday. I guess I can't really call her my PEARS editor anymore because Ballantine wants me to change the name of the novel. I'd grown very attached to PEARS (I'm even going to have marzipan pears on my wedding cake), but I know how important it is to have a resonant title, so I've been listing potential alternatives, and would love some input. I am hoping the title will speak, even subtly, to both threads of the story--those following the mother and daughter who end up at a pear orchard in the Sacramento Delta, as well as the pairs figure skating team bound for the Olympics. And of course I want something that will inspire people to pick up the book (Ballantine thought that PEARS wasn't evocative enough.) These are my top picks so far:

--How to Pick the Perfect Pear
--Lifting
--Compulsory Moves
--Picking Pears
--Pear Season
--Pears on Ice
--Ripening (or maybe Ripeness or Ripe)

Let me know what you think, or if you have any other suggestions. If I come up with other top picks, I'll let you know

I have a pub date now, which is exciting--July 10, 2010, almost exactly one year away. The book will be released as an original trade paperback instead of in hardcover first. With the economy the way it is, this makes a lot of sense to me (USA Today featured an article titled Trade paperbacks thrive in tough times earlier this year.) Most readers I know tend to wait until a paperback is released to buy a book, so hopefully this will bode well for the novel; my editor told me that if a hardcover doesn't do well (and none of mine have), bookstores are less likely to order many copies when the paperback comes out a year later--original trade paperbacks have more of a clean slate. So we shall see how this goes!

Thanks in advance for your help--I love the idea of this being a collective experience...