As a freelance editor, I frequently hear from authors who are worried that if they join a writing group, show their manuscript to an editor, or submit it to an agent, their words will be stolen ( Read more... )

I am thankful the fifth dress was beautiful and fit. I am thankful for consignment shops ( Read more... )

Not feeling competitive at all, actually, but I'd sure love to do some fun writing with friends. It's been awhile. LJ Idol, here I come.

Ahh, changing houses. Moving combines the joy of a root canal with the carefree fun of babysitting six toddlers and a puppy. Thank goodness for IKEA - without them I'd still be stacking books against the walls. On the up side, I discovered the Dubai Flea Market - books! Lots of them! For a buck apiece, which is what I love used books to cost ( Read more... )

It was a truly lovely holiday, spent mostly in Sri Lanka (which is a little like India Lite - cleaner, less-crowded, less poverty, less color and more expensive). There was beach time and city time and honest-to-god-no-wifi-or-electric, swimming-in-a-waterfull, rainforest time ( Read more... )

He tapdanced on a flattened cardboard box, that's what I remember. A skinny black man in a Santa hat, on the sidewalk of the Magnificent Mile. His boom box played carols with an electric beat and the crowd, too, was electric--expensive shopping bags in their hands, smiling for Christmas. A light snow was falling, and the big flakes and the lights ( Read more... )

There is a literary magazine I love, Five Dials. I devour their issues--each with a different theme, or focused on authors from a certain region of the world, or on a form or style. I tend to grab random friends and read chunks out loud until their eyes glaze over with what I like to think is literary joy ( Read more... )

“Either Filipinos have the greatest service culture in the world, or they’re secretly plotting to take over,” I tell my mom on our weekly call. “Every retail worker here is Pinoy, they greet me with smiles, they remember me-I mean, the Dubai Mall gets twenty thousand patrons on a busy day, Dean & DeLuca probably sees three thousand upscale-grocery ( Read more... )

“Are you an almond milk person or soy ( Read more... )

This is an intersection for LJIdol with kathrynrose, whose companion story may be read here.__________________________________________________ ( Read more... )