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This appeared in the Montgomery Advertiser a couple of weeks ago. The newspaper was doing a special on the 100th anniversary of my high school, Sidney Lanier. So a few alums–me included–wrote about their memories. Oh, and LAMP–aside from being a cool stand-alone acronym–was the Lanier Academic Motivationl Program. Gin Phillips: Math, science curriculum at Lanier…

I’ve been thinking about kids’ books lately. Young adult fiction, to use the technical term. I’m working on a young adult novel, but really I’ve been thinking about reading kids’ books more than writing them. I miss the total escape of a good adventure or fantasy book when I was, oh, elementary-school age. Books were…

I was driving two eight-year-old girls home from drama camp today, and the conversation turned to nouns. I wish more eight year olds really fleshed out the ins and outs on nouns. Here is a dramatization: Girl 1 (mid-conversation): So they weren’t able to salvage anything from their house. Girl 2: Oh. Girl 1 (slightly…

I want to showcase the artistic talents of my sister-in-law with a little sampling of her cartoon–never before seen by the public–The Adventures of Hungryman and Hamburger. (Synopsis: Hungryman loves Hamburgers. He is hungry, dedicated, and ingenious.) This doesn’t really have much to do with a Depression-era novel about the mystery of a baby thrown down…

I’m the first person to say that being a novelist is a great gig. People pay you to make up stories–what could be a better job than that? But here’s the negative:  the frequent and extended periods of waiting. You turn in a draft to editors…and then you wait for a month or two or three…

A few days after I read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson, I came across an article by Nicholas Kristof  in the New York Times suggesting maybe the book would help raise awareness of human trafficking. And there is certainly some human trafficking in the novel, along with rape and horrific sexual…

Occasionally people ask me how the editing process worked for The Well and the Mine–how much did I have to change or cut or add. They expect me to say it was miserable. The truth is that it was an all-around pleasant process–my editor, Kate Sage, had a great eye and ear. I don’t think I disagreed…

Back in Birmingham now, and although I still feel a little fuzzy-brained, jet lag hasn’t been too bad. A long time ago I read something saying that jet lag was largely about dehydration, and I started chugging water before, after, and during flights. And–whether the dehydration thing is true or it’s all in my head–I…

I went for a run around the gardens yesterday, listening to sparrows chirping and pigeons cooing (I like to think of it as doves cooing, but let’s face it—they’re pigeons.) Children were sailing boats in the largest fountain; they seemed to be directing them with bamboo sticks, but the mechnics were mysterious. I found a shaded…

So far, in the middle of museums and cafes and endless walking, my most euphoric moments in Paris have been sitting in the Luxembourg Gardens reading. Along with benches, the park has hundreds of moveable chairs scattered throughout the paths, so you can grab a seat and situate yourself whereever you like. Yesterday the sparrows…