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While I was doing Edinburgh with The Tourists today, look what published! A new issue of Hunger Mountain — featuring me totally arguing with Mitali Perkins.

Okay, maybe not arguing. As a matter of fact, our pieces for Flipside are totally NOT a dispute. They’re a discussion. At issue: teens of color on book covers. Should there be more? Should covers be ethnicity neutral? I have an opinion, as does Mitali — please read both sides and join the discussion!

Other “don’t miss” pieces in this issue include Chris Barton’s piece on voice, a lovely Naomi Shihab Nye poem, Ann Teplick’s piece on writing with teens in a psychiatric hospital — oh, just read the whole thing. Seriously. It is that good.

(There’s also an author interview! Art+Life editor Claire Guyton asks me some unusual questions, and I get to use a really unique picture of the top of my niece’s head. Self-portraiture at the age of ten.)

Hunger Mountain is a print and online journal of the arts produced by the Vermont College of Fine Arts. I’m grateful to editor Bethany Hegedus for asking me to play, and to Kekla Magoon for all of her work on this issue as well.

You really do make that EXTRA EFFORT if your guests are friends of your parents, and not people with whom you went to college, for whom you would simply scoot some clothes off of the futon and tell them to make themselves at home. We’re half B&B and half touring company, as we’ll be baking pastries and showing off stately homes and sharing the best that Central Scotland has to offer. Not much chitchat coming at you from this direction — think of me and cross your fingers that it doesn’t rain as I reprise Death March With Castles Week!

I’m happy to be getting out and about, honestly – hope to find a bit of time to scribble in between tours. There are only TWO WEEKS until I go to D.C. after this one! Must get cracking!

(BTW, that’s the wardrobe, with the mirrors. Sadly, no Narnia behind the doors – it’s a bit too modern for that, perhaps. Still looking in every wardrobe I see…)

Most of you who know me knew this was coming.

I only got a Facebook account because I was urged to by my various agents, editors, and other public peoples, and I do try and do as I’m told periodically, so I agreed, and set up my little place in the world, and was poked and tried to figure out the mechanics of poking back, and then with relief turned off the notifications for all the little things like pretend farms and pretend mafia and pretend sea kingdoms which needed me to just do one or two things for someone else in order to gain some kind of pretend points.

I pretend well. Honest. Just… usually by myself.

Anyway. I get a lot of email from strangers these days, and a lot of friend requests on Facebook from more strangers who might turn out to be friends, and I’ve met a lot of nice people. But, I think I’ve done my time on social networking, and while I’ll miss Adrienne’s very amusing little notes on her kitchen escapades, and Jules’ pictures of her stunning children, Leila’s granola obsession, Liz’s TV lineup, Robin’s packing woes and Tim’s complaints about his class load, I think I could probably hear about those things via email, and not worry too much. Plus, Facebook never thinks all these things are as important as I do, anyway, and tends to shuffle them to some invisible place where I have to track them down, and instead gifts me with recaps of LOST and comments on the latest Regretsy offering. Which, I don’t mind, but I think I’ll enjoy rediscovering ways to keep up with my friends that don’t involve a networking site which now sells my personal information – including birthday and city – to yet more strangers. Who will, in turn, sell that information to people who cheerfully shoot advertising my way, which I neither want nor need.

(Plus, when your PhD-information-systems-management Tech Boy gets quoted by American Public Media about how much he hates Facebook, and doesn’t trust them as a company, you sort of tend to want to ease back from the whole thing, just so as not to look, um, hypocritical.)

Upshot: if you’re my friend on Facebook, and not in real life, that’s okay. I’ll still say hello to you if we ever meet. If you’re my friend in real life, then surely you don’t need social networking to remind you of this.

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Congratulations to Ms. Williams’ Speech and Theater Arts students at Goldthwaite High, who, this year, are competing in the University Interscholastic League in Prose. The University Interscholastic League was created by The University of Texas at Austin to provide leadership and guidance to public school debate and athletic teachers. The organization has been around since 1909, and the Prose competition since 1927.

Especially on the heels of Sara’s most excellent Audie for OPERATION YES, it’s an absolute hoot to imagine people reading parts of MARE’S WAR for their prose selection. How I wish I could be there to hear them. Take pictures, y’all!

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I had no idea this could ever happen, but it appears that I have had such a good writing week that I have killed my keyboard.

In the middle of simmering up a lovely mess of plums, citrus peel, and sugar, I dashed to my computer to whip out a quick email.

That was Mistake #1, and you have NO IDEA how often it is repeated in this house. NO. IDEA.

I started typing… and the first ‘e’ I typed gave me a string of letters: asdfg qwert` — and then opened a bunch of Help menu windows.

Obviously, that wasn’t supposed to happen… so I frowned, and typed ‘e’ again. And then I typed the alphabet, and got an ‘e’ when I typed ‘f’, and a bunch of other nasty things started happening. I went online to Microsoft’s Help page, which is, as always, anything but, and did some troubleshooting, got on the Web and searched for my keyboard type, texted some people who should know about these things…

Oh, and I made some charcoal while I was at it.

It took me TWO DAYS to clean the burnt plums off the bottom of that pan. Two days, boiling salt water, a frosting-spreader-turned-chisel, and a pumice stone.

And let that be a lesson to all of you. First, expect your wireless keyboard to detonate at some point. Even after you’ve taken it apart — three times — and cleaned it all the way to the little nifty-looking circuit board, in the end, it’s not as sturdy as a corded keyboard. Second, adding sugar to anything acidic means charcoal is just a step away. Don’t forget all those fun – and stinky – chemistry lessons, and beware. Third, if you’re cooking, for the love of stainless steel pots, stay in the danged kitchen. You’d think this many years and this many burned pots later, I’d have figured that one out.

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And you might well wonder what’s up with all the pink/orange/red in these photos. Well. It’s something in the water, I’m sure, but a sure sign of spring around these parts is the annual Dyeing of the Tresses. This year I took part, thinking it might be fun to go off my usual boring ways and appear in public in a disguise.

Yes. I am a dork. I have never seriously dyed my hair before. (Except for all the times I dipped the tips in Kool-Aid, which really comes off on things and does nothing to dark hair – but it worked on my blonde friends really well.) Since I didn’t really know what I was doing, and my hair was just sort of confused by the whole process, I am now the proud owner of a sort of coppery orange striped head of hair. Think red-furred lemurs.

Every time I catch a glimpse of my reflection in sunlight, I have the urge to laugh.

And really, that can only be to the good, right?

1. I just got my flight confirmed for the ALA Convention!

2. This means, me and my shoes now have some way to get there.

2a. (Barring volcano incidents, I mean.)

3. This also means that the time is growing short. <<Insert Panic Here>> There is shopping to be done. There will be speeches to give. There will be people looking at me. <<Insert MORE Panic Here>>

4. I have nothing to wear. I have no idea what to say. I am trying to figure out how to see people, yet remain invisible. I think the Shrinking Violets need to come up with some sort of a pin that we can wear which will make this happen.

4a. (These are the types of thoughts I often have. But, the “seeing people yet remaining invisible” thing hasn’t yet worked.)(Also, shy+introverted=stay-at-home writer who should really stay home. Coming uncomfortably soon to an ALA Conference near you.)(Ooh, I know! The answer is a disguise!! I shall dye my hair. No one will recognize me then, right? RIGHT???)

5. So, the shopping. It always amazes how there are 9,9999 things which are close to right, but not quite acceptable.

Also: I now have a renewed hatred for maxidresses.

5a. (Why are there so many dresses on the market which are pretty and go swish, and which do not suit short people?)

5b. (Why must I be so short?)

5c. ( And, no, the answer is not to wear heels. I’m already pretty sure I can only wear the pair I bought for about ten minutes, or I’ll be walking with a cane.)

5d. (On the other hand, canes are pretty awesome. I could get one with a sword in it.)

5e. (Which would endear me to no one at the Dulles airport. Never mind.)

6. Which brings me back to that one pair of shoes and the plane ticket. <<Insert YET MORE Panic Here>>I am so not ready for the ALA Convention.

On the up side, yesterday was a decent writing day. I put two of my characters in Utmost Jeopardy, which really, according to The Rules is what you’re supposed to do: take your characters and screw up their lives beyond redemption. And then write your way out of it.

Well. Still working on that second part.

AND, on the OTHER up side (because there are always two, otherwise your smile is just kind of a smirk), it has reached SEVENTY DEGREES outside (with 70% humidity as well, of course) for the first time this year. You would not believe the number of people just sitting outside, in relief, giving the impression that this is a city full of people who just lounge around all day on lawns. Frankly, this is a good impression for a city to give.

Blessed are the lawn-dwellers, for they shall make this city look a bit more attractive. Except for that one guy watering the hedge.

You think I’m kidding, don’t you. *SIGH* Man, you don’t know how much I wish I were.

All right. I must go back to work, but you have now been launched into your weekend. Go forth with glee.

That is all.

I have gotten the nicest emails from friends and associates going to ALA Annual Conference next month — all excitedly planning for plane tickets and meeting for drinks and figuring out hotels. Poet Sara has even put together a “things to do in D.C.” kind of blog post, which leaves me kind of breathless – there’s a lot to do, and I won’t be there for longer than a week!

At this point, I’m merely hoping that we’ll be able to fly out from one of our local airports — ! The volcano has rerouted friends from Glasgow to Edinburgh for recent trips to the U.S.; we know one guy who had to take a train all the way into Madrid in order to leave this side of the world.

I have a feeling it might be tricky getting out of here.

While everyone else is abuzz with anticipation, I’m still trying to figure out what to wear. I have bought a grand total of ONE pair of shoes for the whole conference, despite the multiple meet-ups I’m Officially Scheduled to take part in, not to mention the casual times with friends. One pair of shoes — and I have no idea when or where I’ll be wearing them, but it seemed like a good idea to buy them at the time.

Now that I have the shoes, I have no idea what else to buy… and those who know me know how much I loathe shopping… which is why I started this “I need clothes for this” odyssey in, oh, February, and still have only the single pair of shoes to show for myself. *SIGH*

Much to my jealous mutterings, it’s been in the eighties in D.C. — here, today, at this moment, it is FORTY-NINE degrees – yes, that’s 49°F. In spite of the slow warming, there are leaves on the trees, and flowers blooming, but all of us are to the point of being obvious about checking our watches and asking, “Um, Spring? Anytime now…”

Maybe it’s just as well that all I have are shoes. I’m going to die of heat exhaustion when I get to Washington; shoes may be all I can stand to wear…!

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In case you’ve missed this at Cynsations, on April 29 and continuing through May 9th, the Hunger Mountain Spring Fundraiser has manuscript critiques for auction! If you’re an aspiring author or poet, check this out, there’s a lot to bid on. Of special interest: a full length Middle Grade novel critique with Michelle Poploff, Executive Editor at Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers, as well as a full-length picture book critique with Tanya Lee Stone; and a full length YA manuscript critique with some chick named Tanita.

Not sure what Hunger Mountain is all about? Here’s a bit of light reading for you.

…I have often walked down this street before;
But the pavement always stayed beneath my feet before.
All at once am I
Several stories high.
Knowing I’m on the street where you live.
– My Fair Lady

This is the street where I live. Or, rather, this is the garden in the crescent on the street where I live. Or, perhaps, this is the sky above the garden in the crescent on the street where I live.

This is a Glasgow sky — mercurial, tempestuous, moody, more often filled with stinging sleet than sunshine. This is a Glasgow sky with Winter giving a last, ill-tempered huff at being asked less than gently to move along by the denizens of a beleaguered city. This is Le Printemps in her prima dona garb; mostly bareboned twigs with the lightest festoon of green and white and the softest of pinks, quite sure of her welcome, but being coy, striking a pose on the runway rather than sashaying along.

Boiling clouds and fleeting shadows, blue and gray and pale all swirled into one.

This is Spring.

Arriving.