Once the Elizabeth Mansfield site gets going and there are actual discussions on there... I'm proofreading "An Encounter With Venus" for an eBook release this year (the 4th of the first set of 6), and this is the book my mom wrote where she was venting about having to take care of dad after his stroke ( Read more... )

Honestly, I don't know what forces (or Forces) are at work here - if it's my personal "magick" acting on the Universe, or Yaweh or any of the pantheon I worship, but get this:

Today is the day when we finally start purging the basement (which really looks like something from an episode of "Hoarders" at this point. Things are stacked 5-6 feet high ( Read more... )

is resurrect my mother's website.

The backstory: That is one of the conditions of an eBook publisher with whom my agent's been negotiating. Since the demise of the (what I like to call) "classy" Regency in favor of the current trend for "soft-core porn" Regencies, her dead-tree publisher is not going to any effort to republish anything anymore ( ( Read more... )

Last month, I took a class in portrait quilting from Bisa Butler. I didn't do the Marylin Monroe class project other than color in the paper. I thought about things for a few weeks and then jumped right in on the "portrait of my mother as a young woman" (working title of the quilt so far)

( photo under the cut )

This will probably turn into an essay at some point in my life, but here's the cliff notes version so I don't forget:

1. As a member of the Dramatist's Guild, she took a musical theater workshop with Stephen Sondheim (and was an actual room with him and he was speaking to her! Gah!)

2. She was inducted into the Hunter College Hall of Fame in 2002 ( ( Read more... )

and I found a folder full of "children's poetry" (ala Shel Silverstein), an unpublished and illustrated children's book mock up (the illustrations are watercolors by someone local to Mom that I don't know - and I have no idea about the deal she worked out with her), and some memorabilia, like covers for UK versions of her book, reviews, etc.

( Read more... )

in about another 3 hours, my mother passed beyond the rim. It is hitting me particularly hard this year, I'm not sure why.

That's what it's been like ripping CDs onto my iPod. I've been listening to stuff I haven't heard in years. Stuff that I'd toss into the CD player for long road trips down to visit Mom when she was ill. Road trips that I don't make any more since there is no longer family in NoVa. Songs I haven't heard for decades ( Read more... )