Would-be Wayfarer

Sometimes when something is hugely popular, I avoid it. Not sure why that is (but I suspect it has its roots in the unfortunate incident of my reading The Celestine Prophecy .) Anyway, I resisted Eat, Pray, Love for a really long time, then finally broke down and got my copy after a close friend and I started a cozy two-person book club and chose EPL because it was about a woman's journey of self-discovery, which was something we had been discussing. Anyway, the book is lovely, and I consumed it with the same relish that the author would consume a pizza in Naples. Elizabeth Gilbert meets the world as a friend, which I found endearing and instructional. She is witty and charming and, at moments, self-deprecating and unflinchingly honest; I found it impossible not to like her. And, while I learned a lot about Liz Gilbert and the world from reading this book, I also learned a thing or two about myself (and I didn't even have to scrub floors for five hours a day in India to do so...

I'm lucky enough to have two careers that I love, but because both writing and medicine are exacting professions, sometimes it's hard to focus on anything but those two things. Other parts of life tend to fall by the wayside...like raking the leaves in my yard (thank goodness I have big privacy fences or my neighbors would be appalled!). So the subject of my hair came up recently. I have wavy hair that's quite prone to Helter Skelter moments. My hair is, in fact, an excellent example of the scientific principle that things tend toward entropy. Anyway, a few weeks back, I noticed that I'd been wearing headbands almost daily. I thought in exasperation: Who am I? Alice about to enter Wonderland? (Sighing heavily.) I am not a little girl. Not for a long time. And call me crazy, but I'm of the opinion that headbanded hair isn't really a look that a grown woman should sport much outside her own castle, er townhouse. So I made the appointment with a certain amount of ...

Fantastic Faces of ApolloCon 2010

Any time someone invites me to wear a boa and a tiara to a reader tea, I'm there! This event which was sponsored by the Dallas-Fort Worth Readers Group was held in Richardson, Texas at the Chocolate Angel. It Was Fabulous!

When I left for the airport on Friday, I never expected to start my vacation weekend by eavesdropping on a U.S. Marshall. In my defense, there can't really an expectation of privacy in a crowded airport, can there? Particularly when there are very few open seats at the gate. But if the marshall hadn't been talking about something that interested me, I suppose I would've put in my foam earplugs before I boarded rather than after. A South Florida sting operation, local cops who weren't as tech-savvy as the marshall thought they should have been, a judge who's routinely too lenient, some colorful turns of phrase... fun & fascinating. Probably somebody should warn people with secrets that writers may be lurking in the next seat, but that somebody won't be me. ;) My friend's jewel of an apartment, which was built in the 1920s, is gorgeous (ghost Edie would definitely approve). The place was decorated so cute, I just wanted to put in my pocket and keep it for ...

I like historical fiction and the 1920s is a favorite time period of mine (hence flapper ghost Edie in my Southern Witch books), so I was delighted to recently discover a charming series by mystery author Rhys Bowen. Here's the Blurb from Ms. Bowen's website: If you liked Bridget Jones... If you adore royal scandals... If you loved Charade and a touch of danger... A sexy hero who is not quite trustworthy... And you love to laugh... Then you’ll want to read Rhys’s new venture: Her Royal Spyness Georgie, aka Lady Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie, cousin of King George V of England, is penniless and trying to survive on her own as an ordinary person in London in 1932. So far she has managed to light a fire and boil an egg... She’s gate-crashed a wedding... She’s making money by secretly cleaning houses... And she’s been asked to spy for Her Majesty the Queen. Everything seems to be going swimmingly until she finds a body in her bathtub and someone is definitely trying to kill...