I'm One Of The Fifty Authors From FIfty States-New York, Of Course

It's quite an honor to have been chosen to write about New York for Annette Snyder's innovative project Fifty Authors From Fifty States.  I've chosen to talk about my experiences in the downstate areas,  the five boroughs of New York City, as well as my favorite upstate haunts near Cazenovia. 

You all know I was born and raised in Da Bronx, and that the City is my real time playground-source of inspiration-entertainment, and the place I know and love best. But I also enjoy getting away from the City That Never Sleeps to places where the sidewalks are rolled up and tucked away after nine p.m.

Here are some images of the Ledyard Linklaen estate known as Lorenzo, which has provided me with many story inspirations, especially the downright Gothic Dark Aisle in the formal gardens and the carriage house, complete with the carriages. Add horses (this is a an equestrian center) during one of the many re-enactments and yearly activities including the Lorenzo Driving Competition, fox hunt, and Winter Festival featuring horse-drawn sleigh rides,  and you''re transported back to an earlier time and place.

Click over to Facebook for more pictures from New York State.

My daughter and I harvest corn, watermelon, and pumpkins every year, and then we go apple picking.

Back at Sea Level But My Head is Still In The Clouds

TAOS TOOLBOX

Class of 2011

The Diesel Bears

After nearly 24 hours of travel, I am finally back on the East Coast, but managed to bypass The Big Baked Apple. Give me a couple of days to get my thoughts together and my photos on Facebook, but I wrote though the flight delays and exhaustion, and am still going. 


My goal is to finish Boulevard of Bad Spells and Broken Dreams by September, and I'm already more than half way there with about 54K done. Today I am researching banishing and cleansing rituals.


You had to be there to appreciate many of the memorable quotes Nancy Kress has on her blog, but Christy's pictures capture the intensity of the work as well as the partying most nights with wine, whiskey, and song in the best Western tradition.


There are bears at Taos, as Scott's early morning picture documents, and somewhere between early morning reading and writing and late night camaraderie the Diesel Bear brand was burned onto the  Class of 2011.

There were thunder claps echoing through Ski Valley most days, but more than one rainbow sighting.

And this is sunset in Camel Rock State Park, Teseque Pueblo, just outside of Albuquerque, on my last night in New Mexico. I felt like this magical moment was engineered just for my benefit.

Taos Toolbox Days 7, 8, 9-Read, Critique, Write, Repeat

Read, critique, write, repeat. With a lot of comfort food, good cheer, some sleep, and an occasional excursion to the real world in between. Punctuated by a violent thunderstorm and blackout, which made it hard to read, critique and write, but the comfort food, good cheer, and sleep went on and on.

Minstrel Jeff continues to entertain us nightly, joined by A cappella Alan and Fiona, and whatever other tone deaf participants care to join in. Jeff played by the light of the laptop-running on battery power-until his elbow gave out and the lights came back on.

Here are photos, courtesy of Christie.  Nancy Kress is posting a daily list of memorable quotes from the critique sessions, which have been inspirational, instructional, and fun.


One of the more surreal moments was discussing my second submission (Unfinished Business) with Walter Jon Williams in the hot tub.

 In order to keep perspective I did the rest of the sightseeing on my docket. After class, Fiona, Sean and I went to Taos Pueblo. Dusty, depressing, hot—reminiscent of  Pompeii except people still live there. Lit a candle to St. Jerome, since I missed doing it in the Cathedral of St. Francis in Santa Fe (wedding in progress).

Visiting Kit Carson's house was a real kick, except I remembered I couldn't tell my Dad all about it and got all teary eyed. We used to watch all the classic Westerns together. Then I realized I could tell him about it, and I did.

Taos itself is beautiful, with some real old buildings mixed in with the new. The desert landscape is stark and beautiful, Taos Gorge is quite impressive, and the bridge very bouncy, even though the drought has distilled the Rio Grande to a trickle. 


The rock formations in the mountains are awesome, and I'm hoping the recent rainstorms will enable them to re-open the Kit Carson National Forest to hikers before I leave on Friday night.

Taos Toolbox Days 5 and 6: Who Am I and What Am I Doing Here?

Day 5  began early and ended late. Somewhere around midnight, I finished some work on another chapter of Boulevard of Bad Spells and Broken Dreams. That's two for this week, much less than I expected to write and they're sketchy since I don't have my reference books and Google isn't giving me the detail I want. I looked in the mirror while brushing my teeth and had one of those out of body experiences wondering who the hell was looking back brushing her teeth. She didn't look anything like Kira, a Newyorican witch whose already been attacked by a gang of werewolves and nearly seduced by a vampire. And she's been in The Bronx for less than a month

Right then I decided I needed to first, get some sleep, and second, get back to the real world. I've been in several magical worlds, and in outer space, and in a steampunk town in the old West, and just finished reading a creepy horror/urban fantasy.

Day 6 began as usual, with the 6 am wake up call from my daughter at home. She's waiting to go to camp, lonesome, and we can chat while I make coffee, make the bed, make the plan for the day. Then I remembered that it was MY TURN for critiques!  

Sleep had restored some measure of reality left. Just like knew that I really wasn’t Kira and that my story wasn't that bad, I did know I needed to get out in the real world. I really wasn't nervous, but did have a moment of paranoia when I walked into the common room that the silence was because my story was so bad no one wanted to talk to me until the critique round began.

The critique session went fine, as they all have, and I came away with some great ideas and suggestions. I have to blow up the opening and start again, but I knew that anyway.

My classmates and I had a delightful night seeing Taos Plaza, buying some souvenirs for the family, and exploring one of the most cool antique shops/museums that has, among other things, a huge collection of medical equipment from the 1700s to early 1900s including a set of glass diseased eyeballs, autopsy and amputation kits, surgical sets that look like something out of a horror movie, and a male chastity belt. Use your imagination.

The New Mexican food is delicious (tasted my first posole-a type of soft corn kernel) and we arrived back to a gathering in the common room enlivened by wine, whiskey, and beer in the best Western saloon tradition, though we were at one point discussing existentialism. I didn't drink since I was already obtunded enough, but it was again, surreal, near midnight, to be sitting in a room with Nancy Kress, Walter Jon Williams, Jack Skillingshead, a bunch of up and coming writers, most of whom are already published, and some of whom I think will be winning awards in the near future. The names were dropping (in routine conversation) like marbles: Harlan Ellison, Kelly Link, George RR Martin…. I felt like a Bloosmbury—and no I wasn't drunk but as high as the moon.

When Christie handed me her phone to show me a picture, a text message from John Joseph Adams popped into her inbox. Almost dropped the phone. Who am I and what the hell am I doing here?  Time for bed.

Tomorrow, I'm taking the day "off" to see the local sights, relax, regain some perspective.

Here are some photos, courtesy of Christie.

Report from Taos Toolbox, Day 4

So far, other than a daily nosebleed and some breathlessness the altitude isn't bothering me. Of course I'm not doing anything but eating, sleeping, reading, and writing. The air may be rarefied up here, with both Walter Jon Williams and Nancy Kress as instructors, but they have both feet on the ground and are totally involved and committed to helping all of us work the kinks out of our writing. 

Something like this is every writer's dream: two weeks to do nothing but write, and I know that the other twelve great authors with here with me are as thrilled to be here as I am.

I stay up late critting and still have tweaks to do in the morning. I've gotten no writing on Boulevard done and will do it NOW, before breakfast (I have a big cup of coffee in hand), now that I've cleaned out my email inbox and confirmed that I did, indeed, get paid.

Things seem to be going okay at home. Maya is whiny, but I talk to her twice a day. Her brothers are fussing over her so that helps. Rumor has it even the boys miss me. John is trying to be brave but I know how difficult it is to do everything and be everything and am feeling a bit guilty and disconnected. He assures me all the prep work ensured adequate food to keep the teenagers happy, as well as be sure all the bills were taken care of and the house was organized (yes, really) is much appreciated. The woman who cleans my house is coming today, which should help keep things under some semblance of control until I get back home.

There is a lot of necessary solitary time here or else we won't get our work done. But all my classmates are trying to find time to chat and bond and network, which is so important in a setting like this. Hopefully, we'll get more social time this weekend when there are no crits and no big assignments, other than our own writing.

The mountains are peaceful and the view from the window of my room breathtaking, as long as I don't focus on those big boulders perched up there. In winter, it's avalanche concerns but there is a terrible drought here (hiking trails are closed, damn) and though we've had some rain and a huge thunderstorm (followed by a rainbow so close it felt like I could touch it), too much might cause a landslide.

I will try to get some pictures posted and check in this weekend.

Moving Along and Getting Back in Business

I have months of blog entries written, but haven't had the time or energy to post any of them. I'm numb and in a fog after being up, up, up for so long. I lapse into these moments where I see or remember some moment with Daddy and either burst into tears (very unlike me) or stare into space for an hour lost in thought. Here is one reminiscence, if you're interested. Going back to work helped me focus on something and my co-workers fed me tea, cookies, and strategically distributed hugs. OMG, Madeleines are just what you need for sinful, buttery comfort. While I've been silent, I have been working on keeping promises I made as well as getting ready for Taos Toolbox, which begins on July 10. Boulevard of Bad Spells and Broken Dreams is half way there. Thanks to the writing odyssey on the DSDB group I've got 50K words so far, and my early readers have been very encouraging. I am thrilled with the way it's turning out. Two agents I pitched at Fiction Fest have already asked to see it, but I will wait until the pros at TT weigh in. Today was day three of the Romance Writers of America National Convention in New York City. I have already met up with several friends for the luncheons and am looking forward to some drinks with Deborah Blake and other members of Creativity Cauldron tomorrow. I pitched Someday I'm Going to Write a Book: Diary of an Urban Missionary (I know its a romance writers convention but the agent with whom I was scheduled represents nonfiction and my paranormal romances are already under consideration with three agents from Connecticut Fiction Fest). Today's agent was very enthusiastic about it and I'll be sending out the proposal and first two chapters to her before I disappear into the mountains of New Mexico. Best of luck to OWW buddy Amy Raby who is a Golden Heart Finalist. I've read the opening of Assassin's Gambit, and it's wonderful. I'll be at the awards ceremony, Amy Check out my latest reviews: For Tangent Online: Tales From the Ur-Bar, edited by Benjamin Tate and Patricia Bray, which contains two stories on my Tangent Reviewer Recommended List (by Tregellis and Kessler). For The Portal: Strange Horizons, April and May, 2011, which is, as always, chock full of the odd and experimental tempered with a reprint by the incomparable, unclassifiable Carol Emshwiller. I promise to check in when I can.

The Most DIfficult Deadline I've Ever Met

Father's Day, Sunday June 19, 2011 was the first day of the rest of my life without Dad.

He died two months and two days after entering hospice care, six years after his diagnosis of lymphoma. He never complained, and did so well through repeated rounds of chemotherapy it was easy to forget how sick he really was. We had him in our lives for six years longer than we expected, and he made the most of it: traveling, spending time with friends and his beloved grandchildren, including the celebration of his fiftieth wedding anniversary on a cruise with the entire clan.

Many happy moments, and many special memories, which is probably why it took so long for him to give up the fight: one very long month of urgent phone calls, late night jaunts on the Long Island Expressway, with the occasional reward of finding him lucid enough to tell me to turn off the Met game because "I didn't watch them when they were winning," to smack his lips as he gulped down a chocolate milk shake and ice cream cake for his 78th birthday, or to flicker his eyelids when he heard our voices--just to reassure us that he knew we were there.

My father died June 18 at 8:30 pm, with a nurse by his side. She assured me it was so quick, so peaceful, she had to check several times to be sure. We had left only a couple hours before and by the time I made the last drive in the dark of night to see him, Emelyn had made him comfortable and was waiting to greet and console us.

It took me three days to write this piece for the local newspaper. How could I possibly capture the nuances of his personality and distill all the moments, all the memories, into a few paragraphs? The same way we struggled to write the inscription for his headstone at Calverton National Cemetery, by focusing on the most important things in his life: his family, his work, his community.

Francis A. Moleti, a longtime Bronx resident and community leader, died on June 18, 2011 from complications of lymphoma. He was 78.

Frank’s proudest accomplishments included his 1952-56 tour of duty with the United States Navy, serving as a machinist on the Battleship New Jersey during the Korean War. After returning stateside, he joined the Sheet Metal Workers International Association and was a foreman for Brook Sheet Metal, which handled many major New York City construction projects including the building of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center .

He grew up in Castle Hill, lived for a while in Parkchester, then moved to Throggs Neck. He served several terms as president of the Locust Point Civic Association until retiring to Southampton in 1995. An entire generation of local kids will remember Frank for his tireless efforts to bring PAL activities to Throggs Neck, as well as the weekend marathon of Labor Day events sponsored by the LPCA including the costume parade, foot and swimming races, as well as popular adult activities such as dancing under stars, the married vs. single men’s softball game, and the pie eating/throwing contest.

An avid fisherman and sailor, Frank worked tirelessly to improve the water quality of Long Island Sound, as well as the quality of life for Northeast Bronx residents, by serving on Community Planning Board #10 under then District Manager James Vacca. His efforts were instrumental in the closing and remediation of toxic waste leaching from the Pelham Bay Landfill as well as dealing with traffic congestion, noise, and environmental pollution near the Throggs Neck Bridge.

          He is survived by his wife of 55 years, Carole, three daughters, Carole Ann, Christine and Allison, and seven grandchildren. Donations in his memory can be made to The Connecticut Fund for the Environment-Save the Sound Project.

Deadline met. Not that I had any choice.