Ordinary Women: Extraordinary Heroines May 12th - Meet Our Authors!

I am thrilled to announce the second evening in our Ordinary Women: Extraordinay Heroines series at KGB Bar in New York City. Our first evening on January 28th was a huge success thanks to a group of great authors who embodied the spirit of the night and delivered a thought provoking and entertaining evening and to the audience who asked great questions, listened intently and came out on a cold evening!

Our event on May 12th continues our exploration of the work of four distinct and talented writers who defy convention and write about real women and their struggles. In addition we will be spotlighting a great online community devoted to raising the voices of women writers and readers. If you haven't heard about SHE WRITES, jump onto their site and join, it's free and chock full of great and inspiring stuff!

If you are in town on May 12th, come to KGB Bar and join us for a fun and stimulating evening -- we will be raffling off books and a few other goodies. The event is FREE.

A SNEAK PEEK AT OUR AUTHORS:

Diane Meier
Marketing guru, author of The New American Wedding and president of MEIER, a NYC-based marketing firm, Diane Meier’s career has honed skills from strategy, writing and design to public speaking. Her new book, The Season of Second Chances, hit shelves on March 30, 2010.

Terese Svoboda
Svoboda's writing has been featured in The New Yorker, Times Literary Supplement, The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, Slate.com, Bomb, Lit, Columbia, Yale Review and The Paris Review. She is currently teaching graduate students at Columbia University's School of the Arts. Her new book, Pirate Talk or Mermalade, will be released in September, 2010.

Virginia DeBerry and Donna Grant
With seven novels to their credit, Virginia DeBerry and Donna Grant, best friends for nearly 30 years, have turned a friendship into one of the most successful and enduring writing collaborations in contemporary women’s fiction. Their latest novel, Uptown, hit shelves in March, 2010.

SHE WRITES

She Writes is the leading online destination for women writers today. Since its inception in June 2009, more than 8000 women writers from more than thirty countries and all fifty states, including many bestselling and award-winning authors, have been sharing support, organizing their knowledge, and doing business on She Writes. A unique community where women writers can create networks and get the services and support they need at every stage of their writing lives, She Writes is a business on a mission: to forever transform the landscape in which women write, publish, and read. We believe writing has the power to change the lives of women; we believe that when women write and publish, they have the power to change the world. She Writes is the brainchild of founder Kamy Wicoff, an author and salonniere based in New York City, and her founding partner Deborah Siegel, an author and blogger.

Philadelphia Stories

On Sunday my friend Stephanie joined me for the day at the Philadelphia Book Festival. While we were there to sell books and meet people, the best part of the day was having so many folks stop by and tell us their stories. I've recounted a few of the highlights of the day. I am grateful to everyone who stopped by and shared their stories with us.

Most Beautiful Kiss of my Life
An African American gentleman came by a took a handful of tootsie rolls declaring they were his favorite candy as a kid. Then he asked us if we ever lived in Israel, we said, "No." He asked me where I was from originally, I told him Pittsburgh.

He then told us a story of how he was in Pittsburgh years ago at a club called Disco 2000 where he met this woman. She was beautiful and they ended up back at his hotel room. When he wanted to see her again she told him it was just a one night stand as she had no intention of ever falling in love again. Another man broke her heart.

"Some people are like that," he said. "They can't take the heartbreak so they just want a one time thing. She was a beautiful kisser," he said. "The best kiss of my whole life."

He said as soon as the weather got warm he was going back to Pittsburgh and, "who knows?" he said, "maybe we'll all meet up there."

Come to my Party
I had to weigh down my handouts with bottles of water. A woman came over dressed in her church clothes, including a hat and was trying to get my information sheet. I told her why I was using the water bottles, she said, "I would have to be crazy to not understand that. I have lived in this city all my life and I know what kind of wind can come whipping up behind you and surprise, take everything on this table down. You don't have to explain to me."

She then went on to tell me about how much she loved books and the library and how having a place to go to read books saved her as a child. She took two of everything saying that was her policy, to always give what you find to someone else. Pass the good along.

She told us she planned on living to 125 and then shocked me when she said she was 67, the woman looked almost younger than me. She said as she walked away, "I'm going to do it and when I do I want you to come to my party. Everyone is going to be there."

Thank God, The Last Bridge!

A man who looked like a skinnier version of Santa Claus carrying books on computer programming and wearing a kelly green tattered sport jacket stopped at the beginning of the table and declared, "Thank God, The Last Bridge. We have way too many of them to begin with - the last one at last."

Man on a Mission

A retired electrical engineer came by to ask me if he could take my picture to post on Library Thing. I told him I was already on LT with my picture. He said it was one of his missions to get as many author photos on Library Thing as possible. He was a man with many missions including updating relevant Wikipedia articles, keeping track of the 1000+ books he has and trying to document as much local history as possible.

"My wife thinks I'm crazy," he said.

There were lots more stories and conversations and connections. Oh and we sold some books too!

Celebrate Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month and whether or not your are a fan, I would like to challenge you to spend a few moments each day (or a little time every week) to explore the vast collections of incredible poems available to us.

There are a lot of ways to connect with poetry this month -- here are a few:

1. Go to www.poets.org and sign up for a Poem-A-Day email. What's easier than that? This site has tons of information on what's happening this month.

2. Join the Poetic Asides PAD (Poem-A-Day) challenge. Every day you get a prompt for a poem to write which you can post and/or save until May 1st and submit your favorite five for consideration as "Poet Laureate" of the PAD challenge. November brings a PAD chapbook challenge!

3. Sign up for the excellent Writer's Almanac podcast or daily newsletter. In addition to hearing Garrison Keillor recite a poem a day, you get writing related news. Sure to inspire you!

4. Checkout the Poem Flow app for the iPhone. It delivers a classic poem every day with each line or phrase fading in and out.

5. April 29th is Poem in Your Pocket day. Start thinking about a poem you would like to share with your friends, colleagues and family.

6. Poems really should be heard aloud, at www.poets.org check out one of the many events going on nationwide which include poets reading their work.