C is for Castles

Home is where the arc is.

It’s that time of year again!

Have you been to the LA Times Festival of Books? I haven’t missed it in 20 years. It’s so huge that it’s like one of those castles that has so many wings you don’t have get along with your family at all. They can live in the east wing and you can live in the north, and you definitely don’t have to share any of the 17 bathrooms. The festival takes place on the USC campus, taking over the entire campus like a footprint of a castle. It’s the only time I get to feel like literati, so I guess it IS my castle. I have been a moderator and/or panelist for all those 20 years, but the very first year I went was with a group of writer friends. We all drove up from San Diego in a car together. I was in awe. I stood in line to see Salman Rushdie, and got a front row seat. I ran from one panel to the next, stopping only to get a lemonade at the little cart on the walkway. Oh the joy of books and authors! Grab your writer friends, or your husband, and join me in my castle.

The second time I went was when my first novel was published—MoonPies & Movie Stars. I was invited to be on a panel with three other much more famous than me authors. I was as nervous as a chihuahua and flubbed up all my questions. But I was there! On stage! I’m still nervous on stage. This year I’m presenting the Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction at the LA Times Book Prizes the night before the festival. I will be wearing a catheter under my dress so I don’t pee myself on stage.

Here are the nominees:

And the winner is…. I can’t tell you, of course. I was on the jury that chose these finalists, and I will tell you that I love each of them in a very different way. But I love each of them. I've linked the books to The Book Catapult’s website where all you have to do is click, Order, and the book is yours.

Castle #2

This is a home about a half a mile from my house. My neighborhood is filled with modest 1920s Craftsmans 2 bedrooms and Willie Loman-style 1950s houses. Not a single other house in my neighborhood looks like this. Which is only to say that when I’m on my walk and I come across this villa I find myself gawking a bit. It sits on a corner, so as I turn the corner, my head stays turned to absorb the details. Note the lush lavender out front, and around the corner are fig trees. I can’t see it, as much as I rubber-neck it, but I suspect the backyard is a grid of grapevines that traverse into the canyon. At first glance, I always have a moment of thinking the house is garish. When I go down the hill past the house, then past around the small cul-de-sac and back up the hill past the Italian villa again, I have by then reconciled my judgment (or is it jealousy?) that it's someone’s dream home. Did someone go to Italy on vacation, return to San Diego, found this lot with a rundown hovel on a corner, bought it for a penny, and built their villa-in-a-vineyard-dream?

Who doesn’t admire a dream come true? I would love to know what your dream is and has it come true, or how can you make it come true? Getting my first book published was a dream come true. I never thought it would happen. I suppose I think that about each of my books.

Castle #3 The chateau in France where the annual writing retreat happens. I gawk at this one too, when I arrive, while I’m there, and as I drive off at the end and can’t believe I get to spend a week the past few years with writers talking writing. Still one spot open for the retreat. It’s a magic spot that’s going to fill with just the right person at the right time.

Castle #4

My dear friend, and wise woman, Elizabeth DeLozier’s paperback of Eleanor of Avignon was just released and her 2nd historical novel, Whitechapel Full Moon Society is available for pre-order. Grab them both now. If you love castles, there are some great ones in 14th century Avignon.

And, if you are building your own castle, I would like to offer a couple of other Substacks that have delicious writerly advice and other meanderings for women of a fabulous age.

Diane Greenwood’s Never Too Late

Kristen Mickelwait’s She Flies with Her Own Wings