And so we left the House of Heart's Desire on Friday morning to ramble our way down to Liz Hand-- no, wait that's wrong*: In the morning,  we went to the Stonington Farmer's Market, looking for fresh eggs and smoked fish in that delightful fishing town at the end of Deer Isle.  And that is why we got such a late start heading down the coast to Liz ( Read more... )

And so we have arrived at the House of Heart's Desire: big house in Maine near Blue Hill, looking out over the Reach to Deer Isle, alone here, settling in to do nothing but read, cook & Write for 10 days.

Came upstairs the first morning (yesterday) to find Delia still in bed, finishing Ysabeau Wilce's new Flora Segunda novel, FLORA'S FURY. Since ( Read more... )

Tuesday was epic: We packed up & cleaned up our friend's house (always like to leave a place looking better than when we arrived, if possible! #keytosuccessfulmooching), drove down the  Maine coast a piece - heroically stopping at only one antique shop along the way - for lunch with Liz Hand at her enchanting little writing cottage , which we left ( Read more... )

I am full of bliss. Delia is already hunkered down on the sunporch, working on WIZARD'S APPRENTICE. Tomorrow we may go to Blue Hill to look for books with colorful Maine sayings in them, which she needs for the book. And to see what the trees along the road look like. Again. Can't get too much of that. And if she considers picking blueberries ( Read more... )

On Weds. we went into Blue Hill for the afternoon farmers' market. Not much to buy but chanterelles (aww!) as the rains have been very hard on the gardens. Then we met up with old friend Jonathan Lethem, who's just started a used bookstore called Red Gap, right next to Blue Hill Antiques - part of their annex, really, right down on Water Street ( Read more... )

After a rather frantic couple of weeks - Delia's birthday on June 22, launch of her book on June 25 w/2 NYC events, then pack up the luggage, la la la for a trip that included Boston, Readercon, Chicago's ALA (for her), Damariscotta, MA (for me), the IAF Maine Salon (Brunswick, ME, where we reunited as Laurie J. Marks kindly drove Delia up from ( Read more... )

We found internet in a restaurant in the fogbound fishing village at the end of Deer Isle, where we are eating the world's largest (and best) strawberry shortcake . . . and Delia says I should post this, from a letter to my family, because she's tired of being the one who always writes the travelogues. As she has set herself the rather tiring task ( Read more... )