Welcome

Update

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.

Please see my events link for specifics on other places 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.

Maybe you'd prefer to meet up this year at a retreat, conference or writer's week:

• I'll be a writer in residence May 7 to 12 on Maine's gorgeous Deer Isle during the Blackfly Writers' Retreat run by the magnificent Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance. Visit www.mainewriters.org for details of this second-annual five-day getaway that will get you inspired and writing in an incomparable waterfront setting at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts (www.haystack-mtn.org).
• As its new writer in residence, I've been helping Bay Path College (www.baypath.edu) organize its first annual writing weekend led by women for women at the campus in Longmeadow, Massachusetts. Dates will be July 31 to Aug. 2, and the event will feature a keynote address by bestselling author Luanne Rice. Faculty will be Elinor Lipman (fiction), Madeleine Blais (non-fiction), Leslea Newman (writing for children and young adults), Diane Lake (screenwriting) and Sarah Walker (humor). Please contact Briana Sitler – Bsitler@baypath.edu - if you'd like to receive a brochure and registration information.
• I'll be teaching in Ireland once again, this time in Dingle, Aug. 15 to 22. This writers' week is being organized by my wonderful poet friends Ted and Annie Deppe, who ran their first writers' week back in October in Howth. We had an enthusiastic group for the first such venture, with wonderful workshops, readings, author visits, a field trip and hikes filling our schedule. I'll be returning to lead workshops in fiction and non-fiction. –Please write me at sess7@comcast.net if you'd like receive full information about the week.

When you leave this site, visit another: my pal BJ Roche, journalism professor at the University of Massachusetts, avid freelance writer (what wonderful work she did for the Boston Globe, both in the magazine and newspaper), chicken farmer and all-around extremely cool soul has begun the site Fifty Shift: www.fiftyshift.com for those of us of that number – which I hit last Pearl Harbor Day – and up.

Leslie Pietrzyk wrote the connected short story collection "Pears on a Willow Tree," which I constantly recommend, and her fans and I are now frequenting her blog, www.workinprogressinprogress.blogspot.com. Lots of smarts of writers, and readers.

What some other friends are up to:

Leah Bloom, whose work I so enjoyed in a memoir class I taught in the MFA program at Emerson College in Boston, has begun a communications consulting business. Visit her site, www.leahbloom.com, to learn more.

Hazel Wagner of Atlanta can take your photos and turn them into marble coasters. I've shipped her pictures of Bisquick and Archie to make into sets for gifts. Check out her site at www.customcoastersbyhazel.angelfire.com.

In the same city, Mimi Schroeder formerly of the late, great Audubon Court Books outside Milwaukee, is now proprietor of Max Communications, a public relations group serving both authors and publishers. Visit www.maxbookpr.com.

Way up here in New England, friends and fans of Lewis Robinson of Portland, Maine, are celebrating the release of his first novel, "Water Dogs." His short story collection "Officer Friendly," which was his first book, is another that I constantly recommend. To read the New York Times review of "Water Dogs," click on http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/books/review/Doerr-t.html?ref=books. Lewis' site is www.lewisrobinson.com.

We're also applauding the release of another book of poetry by the prolific and magnificent Leslea Newman, poet laureate of Northampton, Massachusetts. Grab "Nobody's Mother" for yourself, your mother, your father, your sister, your brother… Visit www.lesleanewman.com for details.

Thanks for reading!

Suzanne

03/02/09

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