Author to Author Advice 2

More tips from my Author Publicity Questionnaire. Some are contradictory--one size doesn't fit all when it comes to book publicity. As I constantly tell authors, you have to figure out what works best for you and your particular book.

1. Be persistent and don't depend on the publisher to keep your book at the top of their agenda.


2. Assume the publisher will do nothing and you'll have to do it all yourself. Use your contacts to get to people who can help.


3. Do as many appearances as you can.


4. Show up on time and don't leave early.


5. Meet local booksellers. Also, keep informed and don't pass anything up. I came across a reference to BookTour.com on a writing blog (it might have been yours!) [It was in my newsletter.] I signed up and pretty much instantly forgot about it. A few months later, another local author saw my name and invited me to an event I'd never heard of. I sold a ton of books and now I'm locked into that event for future years. This kind of thing has happened a few times and it's always a surprise, because it came about from something else I thought inconsequential at the time.


6. From professional speaker Debra Fine:
   Watch the news, keep abreast of what is on the minds of people, what season of the year it is, including holidays and activities and hit the media with how your book is related.


7. From workshop alum & business writer Cynthia Shapiro:
   You have to run your book like a business. It’s a product in an overwhelming sea of other products and you can’t count on any publisher for help – you have to do it yourself if you want to have any success.
   
   First: You have to make sure your book is on a new or potentially newsworthy topic--a hook. If it doesn’t have one of its own, the topic can be spun into a newsworthy topic. (I now help authors do this with their books--from sci-fi to romance to nonfiction--so they can learn how to get the media interested in them.)
   
   Second: You have to read the publicity books, take the seminars, and prepare yourself for full-scale publicity of your new product/book and you as the expert on whatever topic you determine could be your unique hook.
   
   Third: You have to create a website, get a blog going, and position yourself as a media expert on that hot topic that somehow relates to your book. If you can do that, after a while, the machine will start to work FOR you, not against you. The media will be calling you, not the other way around. Once that happens, your publisher will see you completely differently and things will start to get much easier.
   
   Fourth: Don’t waste your time with book signings or public appearances across the US. Get your name in a feature in a major newspaper, magazine or on TV, and you’ll see tens of thousands of people Googling you and buying your book. Now that’s a good use of your time!

Author to Author Advice

I decided it was time to update the content of my Book Promotion 101 workshop with fresh information and advice from those in the know. So this afternoon I sent out a publicity questionnaire to the scores of authors I've met and/or corresponded with over the past few years. Responses are flooding in, with many lengthy--and trenchant--comments.

The last question I asked was:
Any tips you'd like to pass along to other authors?

Here are some of the terrific answers I've received:

1. Know the difference between talking about yourself and talking about your work.


2. Don't go around antagonizing people. Would you rather be right or shafted?


3. Keep trying, it's never too late.


4. Don’t be shy. If you’re not sure what you can do or afford, gang up with other authors in your genre and work group promo. And follow Bella’s advice and blog. [I didn't pay the author to write this--honest!]


5. Try lots of things and drop the ones that don't work. Have fun.


6. Bella suggested reading a book, Naked at the Podium. A terrific book and very helpful for readings, the preparation. In terms of appearances, my suggestion is to know how much time you have, and to practice what you are going to read, time it, also practice the introduction (though when you do the actual intro, make it sound conversational). Realize in an appearance that you need to entertain the audience, to read slowly, dramatically.
   
   Be sure to thank audiences and people who've helped arrange an appearance. After a reading, when audience members ask questions, repeat the question before you answer it. For a radio interview, speak slowly.
   
   Before any appearance, know how you will describe your book, know the answers to some questions audience members or interviewers are likely to ask. Be prepared. And always bring books, post cards, business cards. Also, talk to friends who are authors and get advice from them. I found people were very generous and helpful, suggested I contact their friends at community centers or Arts clubs or writing centers or book stores. This yielded readings and new audiences for the book.
   
   I must say, as I fill out this survey, I realize how much work promotion is. The writing seems easy compared to it! The promoting is really a business.


7. If you can find a national organization that you can work through to help you do speaking events because your book is relevant to their interests, that is very helpful.


8. Keep your humor intact and be ready to punt. I did a school visit I had all planned out and then when I got there, found out the school was for "different" kids --Aspergers, ADHD, OCD, you name it. I totally had to punt, but honestly had the most fun. Those were some, um, spontaneous kids.


9. While many writers consider book signings a waste of time (such as at B&N and other bookstores), I do not because the CRM always gets in piles of my books. Even if very few people show up, I act as though I don't mind, and my very gracious thank you to the manager makes her keep inviting me back time and time again.


10. Follow every lead, every idea. Network. Ask friends to connect you with their friends. My best friend's sister-in-law set up 3 events in western Colorado and gave me her guest room. Ask and you shall receive--some of the time, anyway. Get some fun promotional items you can give as hostess gifts: T-shirts, mugs, etc. These also make good door prizes at casual events.
    
    Do not calculate how many books you will have to sell to make it worth your while. You'll miss a lot of gigs that way. Also keep email and mailing lists as a leg up for the next book. Something I learned late: Check out Meetup.com for writers' groups and book clubs, and contact them offering to visit. I got two gigs, and several great online articles and interviews from this. Got connected with a great web site: WOW! Women on Writing.


11. Experience is a much better teacher than I. Having fun is important, because you'll never have another first publishing experience. Don't sweat it too much. You'll screw up no matter what, so work your ass off, control what you can, and hope for the best.
    
    Also, keep writing during the process. You are an author first. No writing=no product=no need for publicity. Spending all your time working as a publicist takes valuable time away from your job.


12. There's always someone doing better than you, and always someone doing worse, yet how does that affect your day-to-day writing life? I'm not sure it should--though of course I too wish I had a beach house from my earnings--but I try not to go around comparing myself. Leave that to the social climbers and the Amazon ratings watchers. I don't see how any of that speaks, as the Quakers say, to my condition.
    
    Just care about what you're doing and writing, and keep caring. Care to the point of indifference to the world's reaction to your work. The world is unfair, and at some level it's beyond your control whether people appreciate what you're doing or not.
    
    

Schadenfreude!

Darling Husband left me a tasty morsel on the breakfast table this morning, by way of an article by Brooks Barnes in the NY Times Business section, Warner Studio Takes Control of New Line. It begins:

Time Warner announced Thursday that New Line Cinema, one of its marquee movie studios, would become a unit of Warner Brothers, ceasing to operate as a full-service, stand-alone unit.

In the process, New Line will shed an unspecified but substantial number of its 600 employees, including Robert Shaye, the studio’s founder...

WOOHOO! I exulted.

Why? Allow me to explain.

In the early 1980s, I took a job as the assistant (read: abused secretary) to Shaye and his then-VP of production, Sara Risher. In those days New Line was a struggling indie located on the noisome fringes of Manhattan's Garment District. My duties were to:

• make phone calls for Shaye, even when the Rolodex was sitting in front of him
  
• answer the phone in a voice with the perfect combination of sophistication and servility (Shaye drilled me till I got the tone just right)
• serve coffee to important guests on specially purchased Royal Copenhagen porcelain (which I had to wash up afterwards)
• analyse screenplays when Shaye/Risher didn't want to pay for outside readers
• screen videos of movies from small-time producers looking for a distributor
• take dictation
• take notes during meetings
  
• type, type, type
• be yelled at--a lot--and like it
  

My only claims to fame are that I got to meet and hang out with John Waters, and I wrote the first press release (pre-production) for "A Nightmare on Elm Street." Its grabby lead: "Do dreams kill?"

My only excuse for accepting such a wretched job is that I was broke and recovering from a severe concussion (my first equestrian mishap). I guess the brain damage was worse than I'd thought, else I wouldn't have kept believing the job--and my employer--would improve.

Barnes admirably understates:

Indeed, the consolidation may be as much about egos as economics. Mr. Shaye and Mr. Lynne — whose aggressive style and loyalty to offbeat projects like “The Last Mimzy” have raised eyebrows — have long resisted combining New Line with Warner Brothers, leading to a running soap opera for the company.

I was constantly sick while I worked there, and not just because of the then-new office's unwholesome location on 8th Avenue just south of Port Authority. (On my way out to lunch one day, I saw a couple have a knife fight in front of their screaming toddler.) My predecessor had symptoms of MS, which resolved as soon as she left. I was so dispirited that I almost moved to New Jersey. Amazing what stress will do to you.

After 16 months, I found a new job (at an even smaller film company, but that's another wretched story) and gave notice. My last day at New Line was hell. Shaye berated me constantly and I left in tears. To my astonishment, a few days later I received a handwritten letter of apology. I still have it. By now it's worth thousands--maybe millions--as I'm sure it's one of a kind.

Inside Scoop: How to Stay Off the Media Blacklist

Below is the first in a weekly series of tips from Meg McAllister and Darcie Rowan of McAllister Rowan Communications Group, who collectively have 50 years of experience in the publicity business. Darcie will be a guest speaker at my Book Promotion 101 workshop in New York on March 8. She's also been on one of my publicity panels at the Virginia Festival of the Book.

Rule #1: Try not to piss off the media!*

It’s sad but true, the media can—and will—blacklist a publicist, author or expert if they break some cardinal rules. Maybe there isn’t a “Wanted” poster with your picture on it displayed in someone’s office, but some media people will actually flag your email address, pass along your amateur voice mail messages, or ridicule your email misspellings on their personal blogs.

For example, days after the 9/11 tragedy, a national newspaper decided it had had enough with scheming publicists and experts desperately trying to gain ink from a tragic situation. So it published a list of those ethically challenged people, who were from some of the biggest public relations firms.

Here are some tips on the right way to offer yourself as an expert or a source.

Know who you're pitching to.
Never contact a newspaper, TV, website or radio outlet without first having familiarized yourself with it.

Always read newspapers/columnists online, listen to radio shows (many are also online), and watch national TV shows to get a feel for what they’re covering. Mentioning a particular column, article, or segment—especially if it ties into your pitch—is a great ice breaker and is also important for establishing media credibility. Show you know what you’re talking about by targeting your pitch to select media. When pitching to TV producers, help them to build a show segment, don’t just pitch them a talking head.

Don’t be a stalker.
Leaving constant messages, sending daily emails, or contacting media at inappropriate times will win you no friends. Leaving a message once or twice, or doing a voice mail/email combo on a particular pitch is enough. One national morning show producer commented about the hit list of authors/publicists that she keeps on her desk. These clueless people called WAY too much, which bothered her so much that she would never return their calls or book anything with them!

Learn to take no for an answer.
Tenacity is admirable, and as an author/publicist it is your job to be persuasive, but there’s a fine line between persuasion and argumentativeness. You want the media to see your point of view, but you also need to respect theirs. If a media contact says no, it's okay to ask why (politely), as a tool for learning more about that media. Then move on.

Don’t send emails with attachments.
If you have extra materials that you want the person to see, offer a link, whether to a document, video or picture. Attachments clog servers, and clogged servers make it more difficult to get work done. Making their work harder will make media recipients hate you. (Some companies' servers reject all email with attachments.)

ALWAYS be honest and upfront.
Don’t promise something you can’t deliver, and never present unverified information as fact. It will get you blackballed.

*Note that there is no Rule #2. Remember the saying, "Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel."

It's Not Boasting If It's News

A workshop alum recently emailed me with news that her book is on the shortlist for a major foreign award. She ended with:

Do Americans know about this book award?

I responded:

They certainly will if you send a brief notice to GalleyCat.

She answered:

Erm...won't he take it that I'm bragging?

I shot back:

It's PROMOTION, not bragging. Look at your notes from my workshop!

To recap:
Publicity rules tend to be the opposite of social rules. If you meet someone at a party, the first thing you say shouldn't be, "My book is on the shortlist for the X Prize." You would be a boastful boor, and likely spend the rest of the party nursing your drink alone in a corner. But that is the very first thing you should put in a press release, or in your newsletter, or on your home page. Why? Because it's important news.

P.S. I sent the notice to GalleyCat, with the names of all the prize nominees. It was digested and duly posted. (And not because I sent it; because it was NEWS.)

How's Your Website?

Further to my New Rules for Authors (also currently on Backspace), it is SO important to have a well-designed, up-to-date website.

In the past few weeks, I've seen one site claim that the author's book is "coming in May 2007" and another tout a "new book" (prescriptive nonfiction) that was published in July 2006.

The latter site also had a button on the home page labeled "Blog." But when I clicked on it, the page that came up only had a screen or two of tips from the book. They're undated, so there's no way to tell whether the "blog" is from two years or two days ago. And the site, which was obviously built--and then left to languish--by the author, was as pokey-looking as a mimeographed worksheet. Which is too bad, as the book appears to offer much helpful information.

I have nothing against authors doing their own websites. But you have to know what you're doing and have a keen eye for design. Client Kim Reid (NO PLACE SAFE: A Family Memoir), who taught herself to use Dreamweaver, is my poster child for the DIY author/webmaster. However, she's one of the few exceptions. I've seen too many clunky, junky self-made author sites, including (or especially) those hosted by the Authors Guild and built with their templates.

Bottom line: Shell out the money for the best web designer you can afford. Or shell out the time, effort and money to learn how to design a beautiful, WELL-WRITTEN, PROFESSIONAL-LOOKING site yourself. And update frequently. (Speaking of which, I recently updated my Website Design & Online Marketing/Publicity listings.)

Vertiginous Valentine

Want to make your loved one dizzy? Don't have time to scamper out for a card or chocolates?

Then download Timothy Schaffert's short story, “The Lovers of Vertigo,” part of the light reading series at Featherproof Books.

Timothy writes:

The story is a bit of a horror-show, full of unspeakable language, terrible cruelty, an unauthorized “Vertigo” tour of San Francisco, and love, sweet love, in hideous disguise. Please consider it my Valentine to you, and I ask that you don’t judge me too harshly for its content. Romance is a very strange bird, and it’s not my fault.

Just print it out, and fashion it into a book courtesy of the instructions available at the site. Adorn the mini-book however you see fit. Bedazzle it, if you choose.

And linger at the website… there are many other fine mini-books available, as well as some excellent maxi-books.

Denver Valentine

Yesterday it was sunny and 68F. While I was walking the dog by Cherry Creek, I saw two young hotties in skimpy tops and micro-shorts.

"Hmpf!" I said to myself--and Jenny, who was scampering about in the melting snow. "I bet this won't last."

Some would call me a cynic. But those would be people who live where the climate makes sense. Here where the Great Plains slam into the Rocky Mountains, I'm called a realist.

This morning I woke up to 24F and to 2 inches of snow, which is still gently falling. I rest my case.

Darling Husband is another realist (and clairvoyant). A headline in today's Denver Post reads, Dry-winter forecasts miss mark. The lede:

Dry-winter forecasts were flat wrong this year for much of Colorado and the Southwest, and weather experts say they're struggling to understand why the snow just keeps falling.

A couple of months ago, when DH read the forecast for a dry winter, he said, "Well, that's it! This is going to be a record year for snow."

"Why?" I asked.

"Last year, we got the first blizzard just days after the forecasters said it would be dry. So here we go."

My Valentine!

They're Gonna Love These at Whole Foods!

Swag from the SHOT show.

That's what I said to Darling Husband when he showed me the tote bags pictured above.

"That's why I got them," he replied. Great minds think alike! (But really: Adult precision air guns? Shudder...)

While getting ready to tuck into enormous slabs of meet at Lawry's Prime Rib on Saturday night, DH's coworkers talked about the creepy things they saw while walking the aisles at the show. There were several purveyors of Ghurka knives (left; photo lifted from Bob Tice Knives); one showed a video of a knife being used to hack a side of beef to shreds. "Ewww!" everyone shuddered. "Yeah, and their pitch line is, 'We sell lots of these in Sierra Leone!'" I said, not so sarcastically.

There were also many spears on display, with one exhibitor running a video showing a man stabbing an extremely lethal-looking spear deep into a big block of wood. I'm trying to figure out why your average sportsman or deer hunter would need one.

And then there were the Playboy bunnies modeling Tasers, which really gave the guys the willies. My tagline got a good laugh: "Don't tase me, ho!"

I Love the Smell of Jet Fuel in the Morning

Views from outside my hotel.

Keep left!



The Las Vegas airport terminal is visible in the center background, right.

Actually, the smell of jet fuel has always made me queasy. My hotel, the hyperbolically named Alexis Park Resort, is near the Las Vegas airport. So near, I discovered on my way back from breakfast, that the terminal is a straight shot out the back of one of the perimeter parking lots. Said parking lot, I also discovered, is in the flight path for approaching jets.

Hence the overwhelming stench of fuel in this morning's damp and stormy air, and periodic thunderous roaring, which I'd been mistakenly attributing to the hotel's heating system. (My windows face an internal courtyard planted with tall pines and grass, so the surrounding views were new to me.) The planes come in so low I bet the passengers could see me wave--or duck and pray.

Today's news flash: Las Vegas has real weather!

It's been blowing like mad all day and this morning was even spitting rain. Now it's up to 57F, but when I first went out it was in the upper 30s. Britons would have felt right at home.






(left) Hard Rock casino, Sunday morning.










(below) There's a construction slump?
Who knew?

Here We Go Again...

Today’s NYT has an “Ideas & Trends” piece by Charles McGrath: Great Literature? Depends Whodunit. The pull quote recycles an ancient myth beloved by the literati:

Today's novelists feel as if they have to choose either pedestal or plot.

"Oh please!" I groaned, to the complete uninterest of two women deep in conversation in an unknown (to me) language at a Las Vegas Starbucks this morning.

In the 4th graf, McGrath states:

Jane Austen wrote chick lit. A whiff of shamefulness probably began attaching itself to certain kinds of fiction — and to mysteries and thrillers especially — at the end of the 19th century, with the rise of the “penny dreadful,” or cheaply printed serial.

Not exactly. Novels and their mostly female readers were decried as "frivolous" long before penny serials made their appearance--in the 1850s, according to Wikipedia. Austen's NORTHANGER ABBEY, written in the late 1790s and published posthumously in 1818, lampoons sensational Gothic fiction as exemplified by Ann Radcliffe's 1794 THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO. In NORTHANGER ABBEY, teen protagonist Catherine and her new best friend Isabella rapturize over Udolpho et al. the same way I and my friends did over our favorite books--first Nancy Drew mysteries, then as we grew older, works by Mary Stewart and Victoria Holt. The clothing and hairstyles may be different, but girls are still the same. That's what makes Austen timeless.

McGrath discusses how genre writers, such as Chandler and Hammett, are "promoted" into the mainstream.

The puzzling thing is that such promotions don’t happen more often. Both Ian Rankin, the British mystery writer, and Stephen King, the horror-meister, have complained about a double standard — a conspiracy, in effect — among critics and reviewers that tends to ghettoize genre writing and prevent its practitioners from being taken seriously....

To transcend its genre, a book has to more nearly resemble a mainstream novel — it has to be less generic, in a word. A good example is the mysteries of P. D. James, justly praised for a characterization so rich and detailed that for long stretches you can forget you’re reading a crime story in the first place.

But is that always what we want — to forget why we’re reading what we’re reading?

Why not? To me, a hallmark of a good book, no matter what genre, is that it makes me forget why I'm reading it, even if it's been assigned to me for review, or for a class. In fact, a really good book makes me forget myself entirely: I'm totally immersed in the world the author has created, to the exclusion of everything else. I don't care about what John Updike, per McGrath, describes as the novelist's "implicit contract with the reader, which is to deliver on the promise that a particular genre entails."

The promise of any novel should be to hold the reader in thrall from beginning to end. I couldn't put down A VERSION OF THE TRUTH by Jennifer Kaufman & Karen Mack (and not because they took my publicity workshop for their first novel, LITERACY & LONGING IN L.A.). Whereas that's just what I did when THE WINTER ROSE by Jennifer Donnelly brought my suspended disbelief crashing to the ground. I was all the more disappointed because I loved A NORTHERN LIGHT, her (very grown-up) YA take on the case that inspired Dreiser's An American Tragedy.

McGrath ends with Henry James, who wrote a story about an author who wants to write potboilers, but can't manage "to turn a silk purse into a sow's ear."

...for most writers there is no such thing as slumming. You write, by his lights, what you have a gift for writing; anything else will be revealed as fakery.

Exactly. Which is why I have given up on writing The Great American Novel. Now I have my sights set on writing The Great American Potboiler--and not feeling guilty or ashamed about it.

Through the desert on a horse with no name

Nevada's Moapa Valley from horseback.

What's the first thing you think of when you plan a trip to Las Vegas?

Horseback riding, of course! If you're me, anyway. That's the first thing I think of when I plan most trips. Before I left Denver, I bookmarked a bunch of sites for trail rides near Vegas.

Yesterday, I went for the Jesse James Sunset Steak Ride offered by Sagebrush Ranch. We saddled up for a two-hour ride, to be followed by a "cowboy dinner." (Naturally it included baked beans; shades of "Blazing Saddles.") I was put on a very furry and wonderfully responsive chestnut quarter(ish) horse.

"What's his name?" I asked. No one remembered. So now I can truthfully quote America (whose songs I never could abide).

My experience was unlike the songwriter's, however. For starters, the desert was chill, still and dead quiet. Though there was "no one for to give you no pain," there were plenty of thorny shrubs and ultra-spiky cactus to avoid. And other than a distant helicopter or airplane, the air was NOT "full of sound." We didn't hear any animals or birds, though we saw bobcat and coyote footprints. In fact, the only visible wildlife was a bee that briefly hitched a ride on the wrangler's shirt back and an eagle that silently soared into a treetop at the end of our ride. No flies either. Bliss!

To misquote another song, I love to see that evening sun go down--especially when I'm someplace wild and beautiful. And QUIET.

Fear & Loathing, Shock & Awe

Above left, baggage claim at Las Vegas airport. I passed many slot machines on the way. Right, obelisk at the edge of the Bellagio garden atrium.

On Thursday evening, after watching the Democratic debate and having delicious tapas at Cafe Ba-Ba-Reeba, Darling Husband drove me around The Strip. Everyplace in Vegas, I discovered, has speakers blasting music: restaurants (no wonder I nearly lost my voice over dinner), sidewalks, the Bellagio parking garage, the unused swimming pools at our hotel.

NRA caps abound this weekend, as the SHOT show is in town. I stood by the Glock van at the airport while waiting for DH to come 'round in the rental car. (He's displaying his wares at the show, though nothing related to firearms.)

Imagine Times Square--only louder, taller, brighter, flashier and plastered everywhere with images of skinny white girls with big tits--spread out as vast as Los Angeles, surrounded by crenelated hills of brown dirt. That's Las Vegas.

"Oh My God," I kept exclaiming. "Our civilization is doomed."

And then on to Bellagio, where after slow traffic allowed us a nicely heated view of the Dancing Waters (with blaring soundtrack, natch), we were puzzled to find a lavish Chinese display in the atrium garden, per pix below. WTF? Then DH recalled that it's Chinese New Year; apparently the Year of the Rat. An Asian family, complete with baby in arms, posed for pictures.

Bugsy Siegel was onto something. So was Hunter S. Thompson.

Satan is Perfecting His Double Lutz

News flash: Hell has frozen over.

Why? Because I volunteered--willingly!--to go to Las Vegas, where I swore I'd never go.

Why? Due to my surgery on Jan. 2, I had to cancel my annual midwinter Book Promotion 101 workshop in L.A. Then I started missing warm weather, swimming pools and palm trees. Then I remembered that Darling Husband was going to a trade show in Vegas the same weekend (i.e., this one) that I was going to hold my workshop. Then I found out that he was booked into an all-suites hotel, with THREE swimming pools, TWO hot tubs, and ZERO gambling. Then I got a $159 fare on Southwest.

So I've been in Vegas since Thursday, returning home just in time to caucus on Tuesday.

Here's another news flash: Hell isn't the only place to freeze over. So does Las Vegas!

It's been down in the 30s at night; right now it's all of 48F. Tomorrow's high is projected to be 50--WITH RAIN. And on Monday, the forecast is for RAIN & SNOW, with a high of 49.

Looks like I'll be spending more time in the bathtub (extra large, fortunately) than the hot tub. But at least there are palm trees. Who knew they could take frigid temperatures?

N.B. I'm still holding the line at Disney World. One must maintain some standards.

I Froze My Toes for Obama

Wednesday was a big day for politics in Denver: Barack Obama at a rally at the Univ. of Denver in the morning; Bill Clinton in a rally in the same venue less than 12 hours later; President GW Bush at a fundraiser in affluent Cherry Hills--exact time and location not disclosed to the general public.














Above, the line (1 of 2, I learned later) ahead of me for Obama rally at 7:30am on January 30. Goal: the tower.

Below, the line behind me at 8:30am. Goal: no frostbite.

The Boy Wonder (18) and friend EZ (17-1/2), my de facto foster son, are both working for the Obama campaign. (I laughed when Gail Collins noted in the NYT, "Basically, everybody’s son is with Obama.") They started out as interns and are now on staff--through Super Tuesday, anyway. BW spent nearly a month before the Iowa caucus working in the Council Bluffs office and sleeping on a couch across the river in Omaha. EZ came on board the campaign later, so he has spent his nights in comfort in Our Gracious Home.

Thanks to BW, last Sunday I heard that Obama was coming to Denver, most likely at the University. No thanks to BW, on Monday I found out exactly when and where, and how to sign up for an e-ticket online. Doors at DU's Magness Arena were supposed to open at 8:30am. BW told me to get there early. He and EZ went to help set up at 6:00; Darling Husband dropped me off on his way to work at 7:30.

Wow! I said to myself when I saw all the people already in line (per top photo). *#$%! I said when I found out, more than an hour later, that there was another line snaking across campus from another direction. Oh, and did I mention that the temperature was maybe 25F?

Unlike coatless and shivering Kevin in line next to me, I'd read in the Washington Post of Monday's overflow crowd at American Univ., and thus was dressed for waiting in the cold. Even so, I lost my toes in the first hour. I lost my fingers while finishing last Sunday's NYT Book Review (I came prepared with foldable reading in my coat pocket; the RSVP specified no bags), then regained them thanks to a sainted man who was giving away cups of cocoa out the back of a golf cart. Happily, by the time the cocoa had made its way through me, I was inside the doors of Magness Arena--at 9:45am. Better still, the taps in the ladies room had very hot water, so I was able to thoroughly defrost my hands. (It's the little things that matter.)

Per the Denver Post, some 18,000 (!) showed up for the rally. Though I was so far back in line--the first people had arrived at 4:30am--I was among the first 10,000 arrivals, and so got a seat in Magness Arena. A gymnasium was hastily made ready for the overflow, but it wasn't sufficient; the overflow overflow crowd stood in a lacrosse field. Obama, we were told, was running late because he was greeting those contingents. (Smart of him to show himself in the flesh, because his arena speech was only broadcast over loudspeakers.)




Left, the view from my seat when I arrived in Magness Arena.








Below, former Denver mayor Federico Peña gets things going.

















This being football-crazy Denver, the first really big name on the roster was Broncos wide receiver Rod Smith (below).

















Smith charmed everyone by confessing his nervousness (jittery public speakers, take note!), observing that the crowds he's used to seeing have people with their faces painted orange and blue. Obama got his only jeers later when he announced that he's a Bears fan; they changed to cheers when he added, re Smith, "I know a Hall of Famer when I see one."

Kevin in line said he hoped that there'd be some big star to speak before Obama. I said there probably would be. Little did we know that it would be Caroline Kennedy. The arena erupted when she was introduced by the stammering president of Colorado Young Democrats. Caroline pretty much echoed her opinion piece in the NYT. The crowd ate it up, but it was obvious, as Obama said when thanking her for her introduction, that she's shy and not used to speaking to large audiences. (Jittery public speakers: Dropping your voice at the end of each sentence sounds totally downbeat.)


Then Caroline introduced You Know Who, and the place went wild. At left is Obama embracing her. On the video monitor is Denver mayor John Hickenlooper; that's former senator Gary Hart on the far left, snapping a photo. (Hickenlooper's office claimed that he's neutral. He was also at the Clinton rally that night, attended by only 3000. There was an unforecast--as usual--sudden dump of 3" of snow.)

Most everything that Obama said was covered in the press, so I won't repeat it here.

In vain, I tried to catch a glimpse of BW and EZ in the scrum in front of the stage. I later learned that BW was collecting names and addresses at the lacrosse field, while EZ was seated in the first few rows down front in the arena. (Not being vertically gifted like BW, he wouldn't have seen a thing if he'd been standing.)

After the rally, I lost my toes again while waiting 40 minutes to take a 15-minute bus ride. Halfway home, I had a moment of intense anxiety when a woman, who was talking on her cell phone and looking right, nearly plowed her sedan into us while merging left. Stupid cow! (Another "c" word, which I hardly ever use aloud, flitted through my brain. Desperate times...)

On the bus, I got into a lively conversation with a fellow passenger about Obama and the rally. Much to my surprise, the driver chimed in. (This is a weird city: Bus drivers are pleasant, passengers thank them when exiting, and both parties say, "Have a nice day!" Even the traffic court judge, as Darling Husband discovered, is friendly and chatty. Must be the altitude, or something in the water.)

Almost everyone on the bus was a Democrat. "Go caucus next Tuesday!" I exhorted as I stepped off.

THE LIAR'S DIARY blog day

Many people have expressed sympathy for my seemingly endless medical woes. Sometimes I feel sorry for myself, which soon bores even me. (Reading an engrossing book is infinitely more therapeutic than whining.)

But, as I am relieved to tell everyone, "At least I don't have cancer!"

Author Patry Francis isn't so lucky.

For the past few months Patry has undergone surgery and other treatments for an aggressive cancer, which she has written about with characteristic grace and humility on her blog, Simply Wait.

Last year during BookExpo, I had a marvelous dinner out with Patry, writer Susan Henderson and novelist Tish Cohen. (See BEA Party Girl: GalleyCat; includes pic.)

Now Susan has spearheaded a blog day, in which 300+ bloggers are featuring Patry and today's paperback release of her thriller, THE LIAR'S DIARY. Please read Susan's post and watch THE LIAR'S DIARY trailer.

Update: See Promo by proxy in Canada's National Post.

Undue Non-Diligence 4

News flash: the New York Times is in desperate need of proofreaders! No one had to tell me; I figured it out all on my own. (Disclosure: I'm a recovering proofreader and copy editor.)

Exhibit 1
Pull-quote in opinion piece, Questions for The Clintons by Bob Herbert, in Saturday's national edition:

Is their a price to be paid for demolition-derby politics?

Exhibit 2
Jump hed from front-page story by Sarah Lyall, Britain Looks for Its Essence, And Finds Mostly Punch Lines, also in Saturday's national edition*:

Britain Seeks Its Essence, and Finds Most Punch Lines

Both pieces are excellent, which makes the errors even more egregious. The latter story is about how the UK government is seeking to formulate a “statement of values” (OY!) on what it means to be British. A great part of being a Briton is disdaining claptrap like "mission statements" and anyone who suggests them. The Times of London ran a decidedly tongue-in-cheek contest for a British motto:

The readers’ suggestions included “Dipso, Fatso, Bingo, Asbo, Tesco” (Asbo stands for “anti-social behavior order,” a law-enforcement tool, while Tesco is a ubiquitous supermarket chain); “Once Mighty Empire, Slightly Used”; “At Least We’re Not French”; and “We Apologize for the Inconvenience.” The winner, favored by 20.9 percent of the readers, was “No Motto Please, We’re British.”

The article ends with this marvelous passage (how I wish our politicians spoke this way!):

But the government has its work cut out for it, if the sort-of debate in the House of Lords is anything to go by.

After Lord Hunt’s assurances that the government had no plans for a motto and his colleagues’ insistence on discussing one anyway, Lord Conwy had a thought. Why, he asked, could they not just use the French “Dieu et mon droit,” which means “God and my right?”

Lord Hunt replied: “As the noble lord will know, that represents the divine right of kings. While it is of course a well-known phrase, one would need to reflect on whether that would be entirely relevant to a motto that we are not going to have.”

*Online title is "Britain Seeks Its Essence, and Finds Punch Lines"

Undue Non-Diligence 3

In its Daily Lunch, Publishers Marketplace is still all over The Australian's coverage of the mounting pile of errors and discrepancies in Ishmael Beah's bestselling memoir A LONG WAY GONE. On Friday the Ozzies reported, in Child soldier questions Beah's tale, that a map in the front of the book "is deeply flawed." Yele, a settlement where Beah allegedly fled on foot after an attack (whose date is now questioned) on his village is pictured as 450km (approx. 280 miles) to the southwest; in reality it is only 6km (3-3/4 mi.) away--an easy walk.

Per The Australian, the freelance cartographer:

had based the map on information he received from publishing house Farrar Straus & Giroux....

The publisher had reviewed his work and did not ask for any corrections to the depiction of the long trek to Yele.

The book's publisher, Sarah Crichton, said yesterday she had not been involved in the creation of the map, which she said was put together by the cartographer and an assistant editor who had since left the company.

And now today the Ozzies bring us Deadly fight Beah describes 'didn't happen':

RELIEF workers from Sierra Leone and international agencies have cast further doubt on best-selling author Ishmael Beah's account of his time as a child soldier, saying they can find no evidence of a deadly fight that he claims took place in a rehabilitation camp in 1996.

The article quotes reporters, UN and Sierra Leonean officials, as saying that such a fight never took place. Additionally:

Kabba Williams, a prominent former child soldier and activist for child combatants in Freetown, said child soldiers had often been angry at the way they were treated in the camps, but added: "I don't believe anything like that happened."

Here's the money quote:

Beah's publisher, Sarah Crichton of Farrar Straus & Giroux in New York, has refused to discuss what fact-checking or independent verification of his story was carried out before the book was published.

Disclosure:
I met Crichton 10(?) years ago at a reception after the NBCC awards. Even though I mistook her for Jane Smiley (they're both tall and blond), she was charming and chatty. To my amazement and gratitude, when bigshot editors Gary Fisketjon and Morgan Entrekin came over to talk with her a few minutes later, she graciously introduced me and included me in the conversation (not your typical NYC publishing party behavior). I haven't seen or communicated with her since, but she made a big impression on me.

Fun Fact for a Weekend in Bed

This shocker just in from author Tim Schaffert, guiding spirit of the (downtown) Omaha Lit Fest:

Books are better than sex.

According to a survey conducted by Entertainment Weekly, more people have been spending their spare time during the writers’ strike reading books than having sex.

Well, the exact figures are: 40% of those surveyed have chosen to read more books during the strike, while only 9% are “having more sex.” This is a far more encouraging survey than the endless parade of dismal stats (99.6% of Americans haven’t read a book since Judith Krantz’s Scruples!) meant to bully the general public into feeling obligated to read.

Another shocking fact: The Lit Fest will survive.

Though our website is hopelessly out of date, and our funding is minimal, we will be back in September 2008. Because, quite simply, we’ve heard that books are better than sex.

(Darling Husband would disagree with the latter statement, but then he doesn't live in Omaha.)

One Step Forward...

On Monday I had an appointment with the surgeon who repaired my horse-broken nose and reamed out my sinuses 3-1/2 months ago. Until last Thursday, my nose had been hurting so much that I'd been wearing a self-fashioned pad under my eyeglasses. (Ironically, that wasn't necessary before he "fixed" it.) The right side of the bridge was still a little sore to the touch, but bearable. The pain in my horse-smashed upper front teeth, after 3 root canals and another surgery, had pretty much subsided too. I could bite into crunchy things and floss my teeth with barely a twinge.

Then this morning I walked into a glass wall at my osteopath's office. BOOM! I banged my nose, my upper front teeth, my forehead and my left knee. I yelled a Very Bad Word...or maybe two. I cried.

Nothing's broken--in me or the wall--but everything that was feeling OK is sore again, plus my knee. Fortunately I didn't hit my right arm or shoulder, which were already sore enough.

For some time, I've had the sneaking suspicion that I'm the butt of some huge cosmic joke. Now I'm sure of it.

The cosmic punchline, via David Bromberg:

You've got to suffer if you want to sing the blues.

Undue Non-Diligence 2

Along with the Ishmael Beah story on Tuesday, under the headline "More Breaking News," Publishers Lunch noted articles in the New York Times and San Francisco's BeyondChron about books with identical titles.

The NYT piece, Can’t Tell a Book by Its Cover, or Even Its Title, It Turns Out, focuses on a new book with an old name: THE SAUCIER'S APPRENTICE. Written by Bob Spitz and being published in May by W.W. Norton, its subtitle is "One Long Strange Trip Through the Great Cooking Schools of Europe.”

Problem is, there's another SAUCIER'S APPRENTICE--by Raymond Sokolov, restaurant columnist for The Wall St. Journal and food & wine columnist for Smart Money. First published in 1976 (!) by Knopf and now in its 16th (!) printing, its subtitle is "A Modern Guide to Classic French Sauces for the Home."

[Said Sokolov] “I looked into it, and I’m certain that this was not a blunder, that Norton knew about the existence of my book.”

Mr. Spitz said that he came up with the title when he was working on the proposal for his “Saucier’s Apprentice.” He added that until recently, he had no knowledge of Mr. Sokolov’s title, which is listed on Amazon.com. “I interviewed a lot of people in the food industry for my book,” Mr. Spitz said, “and not one of them mentioned there was already something else with that title. I thought it was a stroke of genius, but as it turns out it was Ray Sokolov’s stroke of genius.”

Or humorist S.J. Perelman's. The NYT notes that his essay, “The Saucier’s Apprentice,” ran in The New Yorker “about two decades before Mr. Sokolov’s book.”

And then we have Paul Krugman Ripped Off Wellstone’s Book Title in BeyondChron, which begins:

Yesterday’s New York Times had a piece about authors ripping off book titles from other authors. Although it’s technically not illegal, reported the Times, the practice is certainly unethical. What they didn’t mention is that one of their own columnists, Paul Krugman, just did it himself. Krugman’s new book, “Conscience of a Liberal,” has the same title as a book that the late U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone wrote in 2001 – which is still in print. Now Krugman claims that he didn’t even know about the book title, a mistake that was at best careless.

So we're supposed to believe that a bestselling author (Spitz wrote THE BEATLES: A Biography) and a renowned NYT columnist/author/economist/Princeton professor, their agents, editors and publishers never even thought to go online to see if their titles were original?

As they say in New York: Yeah right.

And in London: Pull the other leg; it's got bells on it.

Undue Non-Diligence 1

GalleyCat and Publishers Lunch have been all over the story, broken in The Australian (first article here, follow-up here), about "major factual errors" in Ishmael Beah's memoir, A LONG WAY GONE (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). Seems that reporters Peter Wilson and Shelley Gare did some math and fact-checking, and discovered numerous discrepancies in Beah's account of his young life in war-torn Sierra Leone. For example:

The date of the key event in the book's narrative is curiously out by two years, according to Inquirer's lengthy investigations, turning the child soldier-recruit into a soldier who would have been in his mid-teens.

If the dates are wrong, this would also mean that it would have been impossible for Beah to have been in the army for two or so years, as he has written. Instead, he may have been in the army for just two or three months....

Beah writes on the second page of his story: "The first time that I was touched by war I was 12. It was in January 1993.''

But the event he goes on to describe did not occur until January 1995.

The reporters also wrote:

The Australian believed that those inaccuracies were a result of Beah's memory being impaired by the trauma, drugs and extreme youth he describes in his book...Beah suffered a terrible ordeal during his country's civil war. However a book sold to hundreds of thousands of readers as non-fiction should accurately recount that ordeal.

Beah came back hard with his own statement, trashing the reportage. Per the second newspaper article:

Efforts by The Australian to have the timeline discrepancies explained by Beah, [his editor, Sarah] Crichton, who has her own imprint at publishing house Farrar, Straus and Giroux, or his New York agent Ira Silverberg have been met with evasiveness, unreturned calls and, at times, unrestrained hostility.

On Friday, Crichton said that Beah, now 27, "stands by his book", but she did not offer the same support on behalf of FSG.

I understand that memories, particularly of traumatic childhood events, may be inaccurate. But it's one thing to rattle off dates and events when recounting a story aloud; it's another thing entirely to write them down as hard truth without checking.

Here's a trivial case in point:
Yesterday I wrote an email to a friend, telling how scared I was as a child by "The Old Dark House," starring Tom Poston. I was dead positive that I'd seen it at age 5. But just to be sure, before I hit "Send," I looked up Poston's filmography on imdb.com. I scrolled down to find the year in which I turned 5. Nothing. I looked again. Ditto. What the hell? Then I searched by film title. Surprise! "The Old Dark House" came out on Halloween of 1963, a week before my 8th birthday.

So. Why didn't Beah's US or Australian publishers verify his dates and facts? Why isn't a memoir subjected to the same rigor as a biography or history? Do the words "a million little pieces" not ring any bells? Incidentally, Silverberg was also hoaxer JT LeRoy's agent.

New Rules for Authors

Due to the Writers Guild strike, Bill Maher can't spout any "New Rules." But I can! Mine are inspired by the many authors I still encounter who don't think about having a website, and/or don't update their site with information about their new book, until just before (or even after--sheesh!) publication date.

Rule #1:
Having a website is not an option; it's an absolute necessity.

Rule #2:
You must have a website domain (preferably yourname.com) registered by the time your book's catalog and jacket copy are being written.

Rule #3:
Your book's catalog and jacket copy should include something like, "Learn more about Jane Author at her website, janeauthor.com." (Some publishers have a policy against this. I hope they wise up soon.)

Rule #4:
Your website must be live and UP-TO-DATE by the time your publisher's catalog is printed. Why? So that journalists, book review editors, writers' conference and book festival organizers, etc., can learn more about you and your book, and find out how to contact you directly.

Rule #5:
Update your website at least once a month. Make sure the events calendar is current: As soon as an item in the "Upcoming" section is past, move it into the "Past Events" section. Add new blurbs; quotes from reviews, interviews and news stories, with links to the full pieces. You don't have to be a techno-nerd to learn how to do this yourself; your site designer can show you how.

My Other Patrimony

Left, from Latvia Holocaust Jewish Names Project.






Right, Kaiserwald concentration camp, Riga; from The Vilnius Ghetto.



In the previous post, I wrote about my father's father and his extended family, who left Riga, Latvia, for the U.S. and England in the late 19th century. In the past several years, I've done extensive research on the Stander (aka Stender) family, first on JewishGen.org and EllisIsland.org, then on Ancestry.com and at the genealogical archives in London.

When I started my research, the only Stander relatives I knew of were my five half-sisters, two first cousins and a handful of second or third cousins, all in the U.S. But since then, I've found a vast and ever-growing web of family, from Opelousas, Louisiana; to Capetown, to Liverpool, to Denmark, to Israel. I've gotten in touch with and met many of them, and they've helped me to greatly expand the two Stander family trees I've drawn up: one for my father's line from Riga; one for a line from Tukums, some of whom also ended up in England (none were listed in the 1924 Tukums telephone directory). I plan to combine those two trees, once I find their missing links. It may take a long time, though, as many records of Latvian Jews are missing or were destroyed. To make matters more complicated, they're variously in German, Russian and Latvian.

There are quite a few names on my family trees that have birth but not death dates, and I found no records of those people having emigrated. What could have happened to them, I've often wondered?

Yesterday, one of my British cousins sent me a link to this website: the Latvia Holocaust Jewish Names Project. I searched the Surnames database and discovered the fates of some of those missing family members in 1941-45:

• Marianna Stender (b. 1864) - Ghetto, killed
• Frume ("Pious") Stender (b. 1879) - Ghetto, killed 1941
  
• Asna Lea Stender Schandler (b. 1888) - Fled
• Esther Stender (b. 1908, same as my father) - Ghetto (i.e., died or killed)
• Gita Stender (b. 1916) - Red Army, survived
• Johanna Stender (b. 1919, Gita's sister) - Fled?
  
• Haim Owsey/Osvald Stender (Gita's father, b. 1879) - Fled?
• Jocha Switgall Stender (Gita's mother, b. 1880) - Fled?
• Leon Stender (b. 1899) - Killed 1941, Riga
  
• Nachman Stender (b. 1872) - Killed Sept. 1, 1941, Riga
  
• Hinke Stender (b. 1892) - Killed July 1941, Tukums (Per this site: "After German occupation [in June], most of those [Jews] remaining were either shot outside of the town, burned inside a local synagogue, or sent to forced labor camps.")
• Jacob Stender (Hinke's brother, b. 1899) - Killed July 1941, Tukums
• Masche Stender (Jacob's wife, b. 1910) - Killed July 1941, Tukums
• Sore Stender (Jacob & Hinke's brother, b. 1902) - Killed July 1941, Tukums
• The list goes on and on...
  

And then there were the Stenders in the Baltic coastal town of Liepaja (aka Libau), where on December 15-17, 1941, more than 2700 Jews were shot on the dunes at Skede, as horrifyingly photographed by a German officer. The young women were forced to strip first in the freezing cold.

My relatives in Liepaja seemed to have escaped that fate, though Mowscha Stender (b. 1881), a shoemaker, was killed some time in 1941. His son Wolf and daughter Rachel-Leie, both in their twenties, were sent to Kaiserwald, where they died in about 1944. A widow Sara Stender (b. 1919) was sent to Auschwitz with her little children Theodor (b. 1939) and Manja (b. 1940), where all three died on November 3, 1943, presumably gassed. In that same year but a world away, my father acted in three Hollywood movies and a radio series.

Happy 100th, Dad!

My father & grandfather, ca 1912; Dad in "Hart to Hart" TV series, early 1980s.

One hundred years ago today in the Bronx, Louis E. Stander and his wife Bella (née Belle Kanter) welcomed their first child into the world. They named their son Lionel Jay, who shared his initials (sometimes reversed) with numerous Stander cousins around the U.S. and England. All were named after Louis' father, Leiser Josef, a rabbi in Riga, Latvia. According to family legend, he died after being kicked by a steer while filling in for the shochet (kosher slaughterer), who was drunk.

Also according to family legend, baby Lionel was enormous (allegedly 12 lbs, 14 oz.) and with such a big head that he nearly didn't make it into this world alive. But he did, after the doctor--or more likely midwife--gave him just one more chance. ("The pattern of his life," my mother, the 4th of his 6 wives, acidly remarked.)

Dad and his accountant father apparently were at loggerheads, for the latter had him arrested as an "ungovernable child" at age 16. (I have J. Edgar Hoover to thank for that tidbit of information, which I gleaned from the unredacted portions of the 300+ page file on my father that the FBI amassed over the course of some 30 years.) After that he was sent off to a military school in Penna., where he seems to have gotten the boot after a year, then he was graduated from a private school in NYC. Somewhere in there he enlisted in the Army, but was kicked out when it was determined that he was underage. Then he went to college at UNC Chapel Hill, where he acted in one student production as a left-wing Russian Jew in Greenwich Village (what a stretch!). But UNC wasn't for him either and he left after a year, possibly at the University's request due to his riotous behavior.

Then Dad knocked around in various jobs, including a newspaper reporter, till he made his way onstage in the Provincetown Players production of "him" by e.e. cummings. And the rest, to coin a phrase, is history. Contrast this 1936 Time interview with this one from 1970, Lion of the Via Veneto (imagine reading that at age 14!).

One memory of my father keeps popping up today, from when I was about 5. He took me to Riverside Park, where I borrowed some boy's scooter. I wanted to see if I could ride it all the way up to Columbia University, some 10 blocks away, and took off. My father yelled at me to come back, but I just pushed on faster. When I looked back, he was jumping over the black iron fence railings like a championship hurdler--at 52 years old. I kept going as fast as I could, but he soon caught me. And did I ever get a potch on the tuchas.

Best Headline of the Day

From the AP:

FBI wiretaps dropped due to unpaid bills

WASHINGTON - Telephone companies have cut off FBI wiretaps used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals because of the bureau's repeated failures to pay phone bills on time.

Full story.

Schmaltz in My Shoulder

When I had my tonsils removed twenty-something years ago, the first thing the surgeon said to me when I awoke was, "It's a good thing they came out. They were filled with pus."

I croaked back, "Can I see them?" I wanted to get a good look at the nasty things that had caused me so much pain and suffering--6 bouts of tonsillitis and 2 of strep just in the preceeding year.

"No," he replied. "They've already been sent to pathology." Damn!

So with that incident in mind, as I was getting prepped for surgery yesterday, I asked if I could see the tumor that was going to be removed. No, but the O.R. nurse said she'd take a picture of it with her cellphone and send it to Darling Husband's phone, who would then email it to me. Ah, the wonders of modern technology!

The surgeon told me that a lipoma typically looks like a lump of chicken fat. After surgery, she told me that's what mine looked like, and made a circle with her fingers to indicate how large it was. I'd been describing it as egg-sized, but DH said it looked more like a ball: a Spaldeen (NYC pronunciation of "Spalding"). They're both right:

My lipoma, like it or lump it.

Incidentally, for once surgery went better than I expected. Already I can use both hands, though I can't raise my right arm very high, or pull or carry much with it. Whenever I was examined before the surgery, I said that I couldn't feel the lipoma, big as it was. But now that it's out, though the incision is sore as hell, my shoulder feels much lighter and looser, like something's gone that was in the way. Hooray!

Surreal moment: While on a morphine drip in the hospital this morning, telling my mother in Maine (who had her left knee replaced last month & is having the right one done on the 9th) that my stepfather (who had a heart attack after Thanksgiving and was back in the E.R. on Christmas with atrial fibrillation, and also has angina) may not so much as look at a snow shovel. They've had 18" of snow in the past few days, and he was "just" going to shovel off some of their gazillion steps--in 10F weather. She "promised" that she'd call someone for help. Then I immediately called their neighbor with a 4x4 SUV for backup. OY. (Parents...can't live with 'em, can't shoot em.)

Patient's Bill of Wrongs: Repetition, repetition, repetition...

Warning: Rant follows. The payoff is a good cocktail recipe.

My first major surgery of 2006 (not counting the 3 root canals) was in August, at Rose Medical Center. I had to fill out a detailed questionnaire for the orthopedic surgeon, even though I'd given all that information when I'd first gone to see him: name, address, phone #, SS#, medical insurance info, medical history with my height & weight, drug & food allergies, past illnesses & surgeries, list of meds & supplements I'm taking, family medical history, etc. It was all the more fun because I had to do it left-handed. Then the hospital admissions office called and asked me for the same information. The night before surgery, the anesthesiologist called and asked me many of the same questions yet again.

The next major surgery was in November, at Lowry Surgical Center with a different orthopedic surgeon. I had to fill out another questionnaire with name, address, etc., medical history, height & weight, allergies, etc., etc. Again more fun because I was still writing left-handed. Again the same drill with admissions and anesthesiologist.

In October 2007, after another root canal, I had a nose & sinus job by a doctor whose offices are in the Rose Medical Center. The procedure was to be done in the Rose Surgery Center, located across the street in the Rose Founders Building, where surgeon #1 hangs his shingle. This time I was asked to fill out the personal info & medical history, etc., online. Progress! But why couldn't they get the information from Rose Medical Center? "Oh, that's a different corporation." Never mind that it shares the same name and facilities. The afternoon before surgery, the anesthesiologist phoned and asked me for the same information. Why couldn't s/he (I forget which) get it online? "Oh, we don't have access to that till the day of surgery." Why don't you ask to get it the day before so you could save yourself and your patients some time? "That's a complicated process." ARGH.

This past Friday morning, I went to my MD for a pre-op physical. I filled out a questionnaire (right-handed, happily) with--you guessed it!--name, address, phone #, medical insurance info, medical history, blah, blah, blah. The MD faxed everything to the surgeon's office. A few hours later, a nurse at the Presbyterian-St. Luke's admissions office called and I spent 45 MINUTES giving her the exact same information that I'd written down that morning. Why couldn't the hospital get the forms faxed from the surgeon's office? "Oh, they don't share that information with us." Why not? "They just don't."

Then an hour or so ago, when I was enjoying a last two-armed cuddle with Darling Husband, the anesthesiologist called. Could I give him some medical information?

"Look," I said, "I don't mean to be difficult, but I did this with the hospital admissions office and surgeon on Friday. I'm getting tired of repeating the same things over and over. Why don't you get my information from them? They have everything you need to know."

"They don't share that information," he responded mechanically. (Maybe he'd said this before?) "Well, they should," I replied heatedly.

Then I drew a deep breath and told him my height, weight, drug allergies, surgical history, what meds I'm taking, blah, blah, blah. He told me that between midnight and 5:00 a.m. I could have a few sips of clear liquid, such as water, apple juice or black coffee. "Blech," I said to the last. Who'd want to have black coffee in the middle of the night on a nervous, empty stomach? I told him that I planned on being asleep between midnight and 5:00 a.m. The good news is that I may take a Valium to ensure that sleep.

But first...TEQUILA!

Here's a cocktail I invented last night, in the absence of margarita mix. Over ice, pour:

1 shot tequila
1/2 shot Cointreau
1 can Limonata San Pellegrino
Squeeze in 1/4 lime

Sip & pucker up--after reciting any detailed information. Then settle down in the living room to watch Fred & Ginger dance all your cares away.

Question Bank Overdrawn. Won't You Help?

This just in from Dr. Sue, who answers writers' questions every Friday on MJ Rose's blog, Buzz, Balls & Hype.

END-OF-YEAR QUESTION DONATION OPPORTUNITY (Extended!)

Dear Friends,

2007 was an outstanding year for our question bank at Buzz, Balls & Hype. You all gave wisely and generously, and we here at Dr. Sue Inc. pride ourselves on having shepherded our resources well.

Questions are a volatile commodity, however. Once opened and examined, they lose their potency. As committed as we are to recycling, we have not yet found a viable way to reuse already-addressed questions. Thus, as our store diminishes, we have been reduced to alternating serious, important questions with boring theoretical treatises and embarrassing self-referential blather.

These episodes are curable, but only with your help. Please donate your new or gently used questions TODAY--and save our needy and deserving readers from this blight.

All questions are 100% tax-deductible through the end of January.

My First--and I Hope Last--Surgery of the Year

Tomorrow morning at 6:00 a.m. I report to Presbyterian-St. Luke's Hospital, to have "a large intramuscular lipoma (7 x 6 x 6 cm)" removed from my right shoulder. My latest orthopedist (#3) described it as a "big-ass tumor," though apparently benign. I was all for leaving it there a while longer, but he told me the awful things that could happen (muscular atrophy, nerve damage, etc.) and said it had to come out ASAP.

My osteopath concurred with the orthopod: "When you can see a tumor from across the street, it has to come out." Actually, you can only see mine from across the room--and only if I'm wearing a clingy T-shirt. But still. Then my shrink told me about a friend of hers who had a large lipoma in his calf for years, and it turned cancerous. OK, sold.

I thought the bulge on the back of my shoulder was because it had rotated forward from my arm being in a sling for so many months last year, and I'd get pissed off (again!) at orthopods #1 & 2 for not having treated my broken arm correctly. Every time I saw my rounded shoulder in the mirror, I stood straighter and tried to roll it back, to no avail. Now I know why.

People groan when I tell them that I'm having yet more surgery--this is #3 since August, #7 since my equestrian fiasco in May 2006 (including the stitches in the ER). I've been doing my fair share of groaning too...and crying...and obsessing...and overeating...and undereating.

"But," I tell people (and myself), "at least I don't have cancer!"

One of my Literary Ladies Luncheon buddies in Virginia is undergoing another round of chemo, after discovering that she has Stage 4 of a very rare and pernicious cancer. And today I learned that author Patry Francis, with whom I had dinner during BEA last year, has been in the hospital with liver cancer since early December, and has had two surgeries for it.

So, I have to keep telling myself, I'm lucky. Very, very lucky...so far.

I just hope that by tomorrow at this time, the morphine drip will dull the pain without making me itch too much. As for now, I'm savoring the use of both arms.

Fear Itself

Novelist Walter Mosley was one of the speakers on a panel at the National Book Critic Circle's annual members' meeting in New York last March. He had a new book hot off the press, so new that he opened the first carton at the meeting and gave out copies to anyone who wanted one. The title: This Year You Write Your Novel.

Great! I thought. I have a novel I want to write. Actually, I had three, one of which I've been mulling for some 20 (!) years. Now there's a fourth, of which I wrote two chapters in November and then stopped.

I started reading Mosley's book as soon as I got back home. It's terrific. He spells out exactly what one has to do, and how to go about doing it. This looks easy, I thought. I could do this.

But I didn't. I put Mosley's book down, unfinished.

Why?

Because I was afraid.

I can only admit that to myself now that I've read this:
The Nasty Four-Letter Word That Keeps You From Writing, which Darling Husband just sent me a link to.

Someone asked me what my New Year's resolutions are. I responded:

1. Stay healthy.
2. Stay sane.

Now I'm adding:

3. Overcome my fear.
4. Write that novel.

These are in addition to my perennial resolutions, courtesy of British critic James Agate (1877-1947):

1. To refrain from saying witty, unkind things, unless they are really witty and irreparably damaging.


2. To tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time.