VETERANS DAY 2009

I first published this post in 2006 - but it holds up well.  And here also is a reprint of a story I wrote which was published in Every Day Fiction a few years ago, too.

"Step forward now, you soldier, you've borne your burdens well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets, you've done your time in Hell."

Americans, remember all our veterans today - my Daddy was a naval officer, my brother Bill is a disabled Viet Nam vet, and that's a picture of me in my Army uniform during Desert Storm (I spent 22 years in the Army.) Make Veterans' Day the time you reflect on what so many gave - and continue to give - for you.

Put aside political and partisan differences and thank those folks who make your way of life possible. This day is not for blowhard politicians or policy makers or corporate profit-takers.

 

This day's BEAUTIFUL THING is that kid on front lines, the guy in the wheelchair, the homeless vet and the men and women who serve every day, in small and large ways, at home and in strange places.

And my Army buddies, pictured here:

VETERANS • by Kate Thornton

He looked across the breakfast table, knowing that soon he’d have to choose his words carefully. It was the same every year. First the flags popped out along their quiet suburban street. Then the television broadcasts of news, parades, observances and picnics, special sales on sheets and shoes and gardening implements. Finally, there were human interest stories, an interview or two, and then it would all be forgotten until Memorial Day.

Twice a year he had to watch his step, watch his mouth, not say anything he knew would upset her, not let the memories of war long past come between them.

Every year the war itself receded. It was someone else’s turn now, and young kids had their own war to think about, dread, and hope to return from.

Hardly anyone thought about the Gulf War, Desert Storm, with the horrors of the Iraq War on everyone’s mind. Gulf War vets were older now, most of them staring down their forties, although so many reservists had gone that there were plenty in their fifties and even sixties now. It had been a short war, so there weren’t that many disabled, not like the masses of disabled Iraq War vets. Not like the last of the disabled Viet Nam vets, either, with their hollow eyes, at the ragged ends of their ruined lives.

He looked at her with a mixture of affection, exasperation and pride. They had been separated during that short war, and both of them had done things they regretted, things they wished they could erase from their experience. He had been lonely and scared, looking for comfort and order, and some kind of reassurance. It had been his first real experience of war, as he’d been just a kid when Viet Nam was the nightly news.

Veterans Day and Memorial Day–they always brought back all the old pain and resentment.

He cleared his throat. “Want to visit the kids this weekend?” he asked with what he hoped was the right amount of casualness.

She looked up from her paper, over her steel-rimmed reading glasses and smiled. “Sure,” she said. “Let’s see if they want to go out to dinner or something.” Then her eyes clouded as she remembered it was Veterans Day. Everything came flooding back in a wave of pain.

He watched helplessly as her memories took her back to a bad place, to a desert road backed up for miles with trucks and family cars, the blades of her chopper whipping up children’s toys and the smell of burned bodies. The blinding heat and noise passed over her face and she was gone for a few minutes.

“Yes,” he replied. “Dinner. Let’s try that new sushi place, okay?”

She nodded. Okay.

_____________________
 

Be careful out there.

THE TOUGH PROJECTS AND THE PASSING OF HEROES

PAINTING STUFF – THE TOUGH PROJECT


I had the pleasure of meeting with Pomona College Museum of Art Montgomery Art Center Assistant Director Steve Comba this week to experience something so intense I have to wrench back a word into real language and call it awesome. Nothing inspires awe like real art, but real art up close and personal, with the Museum's Assistant Director at your side and all the time in the world to look at it, to draw impact from it, to savor it at angles, under the lights, on a table, just you…yes, awesome is the word.


I am privileged to be among a handful of local artists chosen to participate in a joint da Art Center/Montgomery Art Center project called In Front of the Real Thing. This project allows the artists to choose an object in the Museum's extensive collection for private study. The artist may then produce a work inspired by the piece which will be part of a public exhibition at the da Art Center in January of 2010.


Not content with one masterpiece, I chose two – and the Museum graciously allowed me this extravagance. My two chosen works are from the Kress Collection, Madonna and Child, a religious painting in the School of Barnaba Modena, c. 1370-1380 and from the Modern Art Collection,  Untitled, 1971, a lithograph by Sam Francis. I know they may look wildly different at first, but I see only the similarities when I look at them. My work, an oil painting, is inspired by the similarities I see.

After choosing a canvas in the right (for me) size and proportions, I then layered on fifteen coats of gesso, the last dozen in texture. This is not just homage to the Italian masters who gessoed their wooden boards, sanding them between coats to achieve that beautiful satiny finish, but also a way to achieve the raised splatter textures necessary to the work.


I met with Father Bill Moore to talk about what exactly halos are so I could get them right. I wanted to avoid the golden-plate-on-the-back-of-the-head concept while abstracting the image to its most basic form.


Then it was time to find an oil-based gilding medium (gold paint) that was in the right consistency for droplets to splash properly. After much experimentation, I found the right stuff, but it takes 21 days to dry. It's drying now.


More on the progress of the work as I finish it – the color will be transparent oil glaze thinned to the consistency of ink wash and will echo the reds, blues and yellows in both paintings.


I'll keep you posted on the progress of the work. Here are a couple of pics of the progress:

I have a bunch of new stuff up at the Sugar Rush Café & Gallery – it's worth a trip for their excellent food and artisanal coffee even if you aren't a big fan of the paintings.

WRITING STUFF - THE TOUGH PROJECT


I finished a Christmas story last week and sent if off to a magazine that has a tracking application online. Of course, I check it daily. Five days in slush and still not read – I may have to volunteer as a slush reader to get it going.


The really tough writing project I am working on is a novel I wrote in 1998. Back then, I thought I was a novelist and knocked out 3 or 4 long works - adventure/mysteries - that I thought were really good. Hah! Shows what little I knew! They needed a lot of work. So I shelved them (one was actually agented and had some interest from St. Martin's Press, only back then I didn't know enough about revisions to do the necessary rewrites.) But I had lunch yesterday with an old friend, a dear friend, who asked about that particular book and remembered it fondly.


So I am re-reading it first (I have a copy printed on my old laser printer) then doing a page-by-page rewrite into my computer. I used to have this work on an ancient five-inch floppy disc, but who knows what happened to that and what I could use to extract the info anyway. Also, I think it was in one of the very first iterations of Word Perfect.


I want to salvage the basic story, change the main character to one I have been developing, and update the technology (both in the storyline and what I use to write with.)


Maybe it will be a successful project. If so, I have three more "Trunk Novels" that could get the same treatment, if they're worth it.


THE PASSING OF A HERO

My friend and mentor, Colonel George Francis O'Connor, died last week of complications of esophageal cancer. He was 86, old to some of you, but still young to me.


George made my life in the Army an exciting trip through the world of Counterintelligence. He spotted & recruited me, then made sure I got the training and opportunities necessary to make me into an agent. I was privileged to work several missions with him. As one of very few women in units mostly made up of Vietnam War veterans, it was tough going at first, but gentlemen like Col. O'Connor, First Sergeant Eddie Scroggins and CW4 Artie Gibford made sure I got equal opportunities and they cut me no slack on performance. I loved them all dearly – even more when we were called to war during Desert Storm and I was one scared puppy. Okay, we were a litter of scared puppies.


I wish I could tell you all the funny stories of the things we did. I nearly laughed out loud at the funeral when LTC Glenn Miller leaned over and told me about the time they ran a convoy to the Madonna Inn. I told him about the time George "decorated" a few of us after a mission no one could talk about. He knew we were disappointed that no one could talk about a rather nice thing we had done (we were the Good Guys, after all) so he wrote up notional citations under the nom de plume "Col. Murphy" – I still have mine, neatly framed, citing us in the most incredible and very funny terms for something never mentioned.


There's not enough space here to outline his remarkable life – he was commissioned before I was born – but he was a real gentleman – and a real hero. He made me proud to serve. Good bye, George. A grateful nation will miss you, but no one more than I.


THREE BEAUTIFUL THINGS


Terry O'Connor, George's son – remembering the good times.

The flowers, of course.

And the way real art – like time – can heal.


Be careful out there.

A SHED AS A THING OF BEAUTY

PAINTING STUFF - A NEW STUDIO FROM OLD STUFF


Our 1955 Cliff May mid-century modern house is a delight to live in. But with Jerry's impending retirement, we need to convert that middle bedroom from a paint-splattered, fume-ridden mess of a painting studio into a sleek, modern office for two. That's not so hard – empty the room, scrub the floors, paint the walls and move in a bookshelf unit and two side-by-side desks with chairs. The perfect place for me to write and live in the cyber world and the perfect place for him to, well, do whatever he wants. My PC and his MAC, living in peace and harmony and the excitement of DSL, with a comfy reading chair (that Plycraft Eames-style lounger and ottoman!)


But where would I paint?


Well, I explored the idea of an offsite studio in the Arts Colony, and Terry and Rolo Castillo of the da Center for the Arts made a couple of very generous offers. Susie Eaton of Bunny Gunner Gallery even called a property owner to check on studio rentals and Vincent Blue sky of Blue sky Gallery and Steve Ruiz of Blue Core Gallery both steered me to a possibility, too.


After a short 3-week hiatus, I was painting again yesterday and realized that I don't want to leave here to paint. I like painting in these beautiful surroundings with the plants and pets around me. I like hearing the cacophony of the birds. I like painting in my nightie, the bathroom only steps away. I like it that my kitchen, with its little drinks refrigerator, is right here, offering cold water and a whole lot more.

We have been collecting the Cliff May window and glass door sets that people who don't know better throw away when they exchange their beautiful original construction for the abomination of vinyl windows, cheap curved-light doors and stucco over the beautiful redwood board-and-batten siding of these lovely homes. I can't stop anyone from turning their Cliff May into a stupid-looking stucco box imitation of a bastardized Tuscan villa, but I can collect the priceless pieces of their discarded architecture.

So we have decided to construct a studio in the back patio out of these items. It will keep the beautiful Golden Mean proportions of the house, with a facing area ten feet wide and a depth of eight feet. We will utilize a beautiful original glass door set and a window set on the 10 foot north facing-the-pool wall, allowing maximum north light into the small space. (Well, it will be roughly twice the size of the area I paint in now) With another of the 5ft. window sets in the east facing-the-patio wall, there will be lots of natural light. A slanting roof with – hopefully – clerestory windows, will allow more light. And I am looking at the possibility of a translucent corrugated Lexan roof for even more diffused natural light.

Add to this a wrap-around little deck on two sides and electricity for lamps, nightlight, small energy-saving Japanese air conditioning/heating unit and maybe a CD/MP3 player, and I think it will be perfect.

I could buy one, of course, if I want to spend $8,000 - $45,000. And they are very beautiful. Companies like Modern Cabana, Metro Shed, Studio Shed and Modern Shed offer gorgeous prefabricated modern studios which they construct on your site.


But I like the idea of matching my house, re-using materials from original Cliff May homes and building exactly what I want. Not to mention cost. I think we can build this – with some expert help – for less than $3000. It might take a while, but I think the result will be wonderful. I will post pics of the progress as we go.

Here's the site as it is now. The main patio is to the right, and there is a perfect concrete slab for the studio here (not to mention good light)





And here is what will be the view from the front – see how the view is an echo of a door set and window set? That's the Master Bedroom, with a bamboo obstructing the right hand window set. Doors & windows are each 5 ft wide.


And here are a couple of pictures of similar structures, but you have to imagine the door-and-window combo that we will use.That one on the left is closest in design, I think.

They are all very pretty, and I will take inspiration from them

Lovely fence on this one...

WRITING STUFF


The new mystery short story is coming along – I have the set-up and the characters, and there is a delicious little twist. But I'm struggling with the plausibility factor – sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, but that just makes it unbelievable, so it can't be used. Sometimes you gotta make stuff up to make it sound real.


The Short Story class will become a reality in Pomona – Terry Castillo and I will get together soon and nail down dates, format, etc. Maybe we need an introductory talk and a workshop. Maybe a couple of workshops…hmmm…this could be a lot of fun!

In the mean time, for great programs with other published mystery authors, including several hot short story writers, check out the free programs offered throughout the Southland by the Los Angeles Chapter of Sisters in Crime. They are the best at getting readers, writers and interested (and interesting!) parties together for a time so good it should be criminal.

THREE BEAUTIFUL THINGS

Rescued architectural elements. It might look like old junk cluttering up my drive, but it's pure beauty.

Jerry getting his 30-year pin at Cal Poly Pomona. I listened in awe to his biography – I had no idea he had done so much.

Friend Leslie Cole came over for lunch and brought grilled salmon and salads from Dr. Grubb's in Claremont. Wow. It was terrific. We had a great afternoon talking about everything, but especially about this beautiful Millard Sheets designed house in Claremont that is for sale.

Be careful out there.

NEWS FLASH! SHORT STORY WRITER PAINTS SELF INTO CORNER

WRITING STUFF – TRUTH IS GREATER WITH FICTION



I gave a very successful talk at the Burbank Public Library last week – "Writing the Short Story" was sponsored by the Los Angeles Chapter of Sisters in Crime and attended by about 50 people, ranging from beginners to published authors. Librarian Louise Paziak was terrific, providing me with a plush auditorium, cold water and copying my numerous handouts. Kudos to librarians everywhere for enriching the lives of writers.

I had a wonderful time, talked for 2 hours, and then schmoozed with some very interesting and really nice folks afterward. Many thanks to ARLENE for her delightful thank-you note – got it in the mail yesterday, Arlene!

Louise has contacted me about a couple of future presentations next year. Of course, I'll be delighted.

I spoke to Terrie Castillo at the da Center for the Arts (now partnerned with the SCA Galleries and Cheryl Bookout) about providing my Short Story Workshop to the Pomona Community. I have given the workshop (and its shorter talk/panel versions) dozens of times in the past few years, but never in my own community. Go figure!

I will plan an adult/all ages/all levels of writing experience talk similar to the one I gave in Burbank last week first, then maybe a workshop for young people who are just learning to write fiction. Details will have to be worked out, but a portion of any nominal fees will be donated to the da/SCA in support of Community Arts.

Inspired by my talk, I began work on another story and knocked out a few more pages on the novel as well. The publication of six of my stories this year by Flashshot brings my total short story publication numbers up over 100. Woohoo!

Every time I get "Painter's Block" I write. I've had Painter's Block for a couple of weeks.

PAINTING STUFF

I took four small paintings into Susie Eaton at BUNNY GUNNER to be framed together. I did these for the SUMMERTIME show at Bunny Gunner Gallery this summer, and have decided they would look better framed together, quatro-style, as "The Four Seasons" – hey, it's always summertime here, right?
(That's Time  and Motion on the left)


I am still looking for studio space in Pomona, but I am also weighing the pros and cons of working offsite from my home.


Pros: More discipline, less turpentine and mess in the house (big concern – I'll have to repaint the studio/office soon, and not in "early spatter") and more room for larger works.


Cons: More discipline, can't work in underwear anymore, can't work at odd hours without getting out of the house, bathroom not steps away, kitchen not steps away, beautiful light at home.


Maybe I need to make studio space here at home work for me somehow. Maybe a garage remodel? Greenhouse or glass-framed shed? The patio would be beautiful, but I need a more controlled environment for drying/light/heat/ etc.


Life – it's one big happy dilemma.


THREE BEAUTIFUL THINGS

The summer orchids bloomed and bloomed but are at the end of the blooming cycle and now must set growth for next year. I love the beautiful leaves, flat and succulent (phaelenopsis) upright and spiky (miltonia) and the long, strappy leaves of the cymbidium. Time to feed and prune and watch for root & repotting issues. Next February the first cymbidium spikes will appear, and maybe a spike from that big, gorgeous re-blooming purple phaelenopsis, the Valentine orchid I call it. Then it will be a constant show of big white, yellow, pink & red cascades, then the delicate miniatures, then the summer blooms again.

Jeeves, one of the elderly cats, is looking a bit better with a good appetite and is more active. He loves to be brushed. He's about half the size he used to be in his prime, but still a wonderful kitty.

A few days in Tucson with my brother. Ostensibly for a Birthday Celebration for him with a handful of cousins, the cousins backed out at the last minute and my brother, his wife and I ended up at a Tucson Denny's for dinner. I was very disappointed in the cousins, who are on my sh*t list right now, but delighted that we had a very good time anyway. My brother Bill – who is active in Veteran's Affairs and works tirelessly with homeless veterans – is truly a Beautiful Thing. (And Lori, his wife, is too!) Happy Birthday, Bill. (That's an old pic of us - we've both lost weight since then!)

PS  I'm posting this on September 11th, but I want everyone to remember that it is not just tragedy that unites us. We are united in happiness, too.

Pictures of me then... 

...and now (with orchids & tomatoes)

And be careful out there.

BLOG FLASH - WRITING & ART STUFF

Sometimes it just happens. I woke up this morning and painted for an hour, then wrote a 4 part flash fiction story, sent it off to a magazine and wrote some more. You gotta do stuff when it strikes you.

FICTION IN A FLASH AND PAINTING, UH, NOT SO FAST
WRITING STUFF
I placed three more flash fiction pieces with FLASHSHOT – no scheduled dates for publication yet, but look for these titles in September/October: ARTIST'S MODEL; IF YOU FEED THEM,THEY'LL STAY and WHERE DO YOU GET YOUR IDEAS?
I worked a bit on the novel this month, but it's slow going as I am stuck on one of those pivotal plot points and can't make up my mind. Sometimes you come to that literary fork in the road and can't decide which way to go. Yes, I know: I should write BOTH – but really, who has that kind of time? Oh, yeah, that's right - I do. Sigh.

Okay, maybe I'll write it both ways and see what happens.

The problem with that approach is that sometimes both ideas work out and you have to choose between 100 pages of something that works and 100 pages of something else that works. Worst case is the Time Wasting Effort in which you produce 100 pages of something that doesn't work and another 100 pages of crap. That's just plain depressing.

So it's back to 100 word flashes that either work right off or get deleted.
Here's a sample of one of my recent flash pieces – this was published in FLASHSHOT on July 6th 2009:

FLASHSHOT
Daily Genre Flash Fiction
==================================================
ISSUE TWO THOUSAND-SIX HUNDRED-NINE July 6, 2009
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
A SURE THING
By Kate Thornton

"Sorry, no casino," the man at the desk said.

Michele blinked. What kind of local tribe had no casino?

"Stay for lunch, we have the Breadbasket Buffet, Buffalo Grill, and Corn
Doll Café."

She chose the café and ordered soda, pizza and chocolate cake.

Her waitress smiled. The resort was the old Chief's idea, just something
to keep everyone busy.

From the top floor, the view was reservation land planted thick with corn.
A train of tanker cars stretched from the processing plant.

There was no need to build a casino, not with the ultimate revenge -
high-fructose corn syrup.

copyright 2009 Kate Thornton
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That's a sample – quick and to the point, under 100 words and with a grin at the end if possible.

Pros of Flash Fiction:
It's quick and easy to read
It gives the writer immediate satisfaction

Cons:
It takes as much time to write short as it does to write long
It is a bitch staying under 100 words and still painting the whole beginning-middle-end picture
Characters must be drawn fully in only a few words

But I love the puzzle of it, the challenge. Sometimes I'll write a 500 word piece, then edit it down to 75 or 100 words just for practice. There's nothing as satisfying as a concise sentence with exactly the right words. It's hard to do.

Practice it – take a "what if" idea ("Hey, what if that guy over there trying to operate his new Blackberry is really more than 800 years old?") turn it on a plot point ("The very old guy with the Blackberry discovers that his ancient fingers can text, if he goes slowly. But his messages can only be deciphered by other 800 year olds on the planet.") and write it out so it makes sense. Then trim it to 100 words.

See? Not easy…

PAINTING STUFF
Writing is difficult and takes a lot of time, but it's a breeze next to painting.

This month I will pick up 2 pieces from Bunny Gunner's SUMMERTIME show and 2 pieces from the da Center for the Arts WATER show. I will drop off 2 pieces for Ashley Ashley's GONE FISHIN' show. I am working on a larger piece for the HEAVY METAL show and a large piece for no show in particular.

I am still experimenting with my painting style, although I seldom stray from my compulsion shape, that ubiquitous circular thing I am forced to put in every painting.

But it has been so hot lately that I have had trouble with my paints – I work in oils and use a quick drying glaze medium to thin them for transparency. It means stuff dries too fast in the heat. If I thin with oil, then I lose the texture I need and the stuff never dries. I keep plugging away at it, though.

And I had an idea about the 2 pictures from the SUMMERTIME show. I did 4 pictures for the show, but only sent 2. I think I want to have all 4 framed on a black background – sorta like my "LEARNING THE NUMBERS 1-10" (shown in photo below between OBIE & AMY) only not vertically, but in quadrants. It won't be cheap, but I think it will look great. The pictures are about heat.

THE SOCIAL CALENDAR

We had a few friends over for drinks last week – it was fun. Here 's a pic of OBIE LOAGUE and his friend AMY. OBIE owns the Sugar Rush Café & Gallery and AMY bought one of my "NAM'S RED DOOR" series paintings.

Here's JER in the Eames chair and that's BRUCE EMERTON 's friend FREDDIE waving. That's BRUCE EMERTON and LINDA GARNER in the background.

Also present were BRAD LINDENBERG, AARON & LESLIE COLE and CHERYL SAVOIE.
I love having company – next time maybe a full-fledged party – or maybe just several evenings of different guests.


THREE BEAUTIFUL THINGS

The Summer Orchids in full bloom. Okay, the whole patio – pretty in the daytime, a magical place at night.

Drinks at DBA 256 on Fourth Saturday – with Jer, Linda Garner, John Clifford of Pomona Heritage and of course Tibbi, proprietor extraordinnaire.

We dragged one of the large rubber tree plants into the house too – indoor/outdoor living!

Be careful out there!

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT: The Last Few Months of Painting, Art, Writing and Surgery

I guess my twice-yearly update should be something momentous, but one of the reasons I have not updated since April of 2009 is that I have been busy with the minutia of life.


ART:

Okay, lots of painting. I had pieces at the dA Center for the Arts in the past few exhibitions. Someone nice bought my fund-raiser plate, "Jungle Chicken" before I had a chance to photograph it, but take my word, it was pretty weird. Someone else bought one of my very favorite paintings, "IN THE TIME BETWEEN", from the Members Show at the dA Center.

Over at SUGAR RUSH CAFÉ & GALLERY, I sold "NAM'S RED DOOR" which was exhibited at the dA's SIMPLY RED SHOW in February of this year. The buyer phoned me for the story on the painting and I was touched and delighted that someone wanted to know more about it.
Obie, the gallery owner at Sugar Rush, asked if I had more like it as it generated a lot of attention. As a matter of fact, it was part of a series I did on dreams of the red door of a Vietnamese bar across the road from Ft MacArthur in my old Army days. I'll be delivering 2 of them to Obie next week when I get the wires on the back.

Currently on exhibition at SUGAR RUSH are several paintings, including my PATTERN RECOGNITION series from the SQUARE FOOT exhibit at the FIFTY BUCKS GALLERY and my tribute to one of my favorite painters, Fr. Bill Moore, "EVENING WITH FATHER BILL."

Coming up: 2 paintings in the H2O Show at the dA, a couple of paintings at BUNNY GUNNER GALLERY for the Second Saturday opening of the SUMMERTIME show and paintings for Ashley Ashley's GONE FISHIN' show.

On the enjoyment front, I was delighted by the recent show at FIFTY BUCKS GALLERY, PET SYMMETRY with knockout works by Jen Wilkins and Juan Thorp. One of Juan's painting was his proposal of marriage to Susie Eaton – I hear they are planning a February wedding at the dA Center for the Arts, and the gallery show will be SIMPLY WED instead of the usual SIMPLY RED show. Sigh – ain't love grand?

I heard my DH, Jerry, bought us a painting by Jay Merryweather at BUNNY GUNNER GALLERY, a surprise birthday treat. (My birthday was the same day as the dA' s 25th and just a day or two from Susie Eaton's of BUNNY GUNNER.) I think we can pick it up this week!


It was a great birthday – I celebrated for weeks: tea at the Huntington Library with special friend Nan, lunch at Akbar's in Pasadena with special friend Chris, lunch in El Segundo with special friend Trollman, lunch with Jerry and Brad at Sugar Rush and a Swedish Midsummer Festival Party in Pasadena with hosts par excellence, Tama & Johan, under the Swedish moon. Here's Brad at Sugar Rush...

WRITING:

I wrote three flash stories for FLASHSHOT magazine.
A SURE THING will be published July 6th
MARK DECIDES ON A CAREER IN PLUMBING will be published July 19th
NOSE JOB will be published August 5th
Check out FLASHSHOT and get fresh microfiction delivered every morning for free! (And you can read stories you have missed in the ARCHIVES)
I am trying to finish a nice crime story or three by several anthology deadlines. My story, CELL PHONE did not make it into the Los Angeles Chapter of Sisters in Crime's forthcoming anthology, MURDER IN LA-LA LAND. They sent out rejections to everyone I know who submitted, but I have yet to see a list of who or what that got in. I've had a story in the past three out of four collections – it's blind submission, so there's no hanky-panky, just inexplicable editorial choice.

It will be making the rounds of all the usual places as soon as I get some time.

I'll be hosting a short story seminar at the BURBANK CENTRAL LIBRARY sponsored by the Los Angeles Chapter of Sisters in Crime:


BURBANK CENTRAL LIBRARY
110 N. Glenoaks Blvd, Burbank CA
Tuesday, September 1st
7 to 9pm
FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Come and learn techniques for beginning as well as experienced writers!

SURGERY:

I had a septoplasty in May as my nasal passages were blocked (a congenital defect shared with my brother.) I had a wonderful surgeon, but it was painful, healed slowly, and was very messy – I'll spare you the blood-and-everything details. If I had known it was going to be that difficult, I probably wouldn't have done it. That's why my brother assured me it was a piece of cake – he knew I really needed to have it done. A six-week recovery was topped off by a virulent stomach 'flu and a blinding (literally) migraine. But now that it's all over, I feel great and breathe much better.

THREE BEAUTIFUL THINGS:

All the summer orchids are blooming, some for a second time! The phaelenopsis & oncidium beauties are gorgeous. My brother and his wife will be visiting over the Fourth of July weekend. They've been on the road for a vacation for the past month and we are the last stop before they return home to Yuma, AZ. When they go on the road, they go on the road! They visited Montana & Idaho, among other places.

Friends at the FIFTY BUCKS GALLERY – also friends at the American Legion Hall (yes I'm a Legionnaire!)

Be careful out there!