The Random House Publishing Group (my happy literary home!) just announced three new digital imprints to add to LOVESWEPT, their digital imprint for romance and women's fiction: ALIBI, for mystery/suspense; HYDRA, for sci-fi/fantasy; and FLIRT, for "college-age New Adult" fiction Their stated goal… Read full post »

Because I'm a book person who loves film (even though I'm generally disappointed in the movie version of any book I have loved), I turned with great excitement to "Cannes film festival set to honor the bookworm" in the Guardian. As I read though, my heart fell a little, and not… Read full post »

Edith Wharton, the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for literature, was born on January 24, 1862, 150 years ago today.

Born Edith Newbold Jones into a wealthy American family - her family is said to have been the Joneses of "keeping up with the Joneses" fame - she… Read full post »

If today really is the end of the world, the great news for me is I'll go out in style: celebrating books! And if it comes at 6 p.m., then my last supper will have been a great one as well. I'm not quite sure why Da Vinci didn't show up… Read full post »

"Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings." — Jane Austen

"No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance." — Confucius

With just four days left until publication of The Four Ms. Bradwells, the… Read full post »

"A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down."— Edna St. Vincent Millay

...tick ... tick ... tick

Less than three weeks till publication of The Four Ms. Bradwells, I'm hoping it's true that, although you can't judge a book by its cover, a… Read full post »

I've spent most of my holiday shopping hours this year (as always) in bookstores. My giving bag includes old favorites (Andre Kertesz On Reading - with lovely photos of folks reading in the most unlikely places), and new (Brenda Rickman Vantrease's The Heretics Wife).  And I've just gotte… Read full post »

December 16: Jane Austen's birthday. She would have been 235 today. And for all the imitations on bookstore shelves recently, none touches the original. She believed in writing her own way. Indeed, in response to court librarian James Stanier Clarke's suggestion that she write some other way - he had… Read full post »

President Franklin D. Roosevelt began his speech asking Congress to declare war on Japan sixty-nine years ago tomorrow, "Yesterday, December 7, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the E… Read full post »

“The story was completely untrue, but the untruth of untrue stories could sometimes be of service in the real world.” - Salman Rushdie, from The Enchantress of Florence

I came across this quote on Fiction Writers Review (which if you don't know it, is a wonderful resource on the/… Read full post »

There is some connection between losing at poker and getting good news in my writing life that I don't understand, but am not questioning. I lost $7 Monday night - and found out today that the first (or first that I know of, anyway) giveaway of advance copies of The Four Ms.… Read full post »

I've been rooting around in the life of Beatrix Potter as research for a new novel I'm working on to be published in 2013. Having so enjoyed visiting Hill Top Farm and assorted other Potter-rich locales in the English Lake District to research the setting, I find myself wanting to bask… Read full post »