Linda Rodriguez's Blog, page 15

Report from AWP 2013

Me @ Tia Chucha/Scapegoat table
 Now that I have a new laptop again and have transferred most backed-up files and reinstalled most of the programs and drivers I need, I can post my report on AWP 2013, the national conference of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs, which took place in Boston earlier this month. Over 12,000 writers, teachers of writing, editors and publishers crammed into Boston’s Hynes Convention Center for the biggest AWP yet.
Nicole Peeler, Sophie Littlefield, me
Saturday morning, I was on “Women and Crime Fiction,” a panel proposed and moderated by Toni Margarita Plummer and comprised of Sophie Littlefield, Nicole Peeler, and me. We had a standing-room-only crowd, and a number of the audience members came up afterward to say it had been the best panel they attended all conference. One even said, “This has been the only panel that didn’t make me feel marginalized.” It was, of course, one of only two genre-fiction panels at the conference, I believe. (The program is so massive that I could have missed another one, but AWP usually focuses only on literary fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, so probably not.)
Nicole, Sophie, me, and Toni Margarita Plummer
One of the things I think the audience really appreciated was that, although we discussed some very serious topics—women and violence, a gendered history of crime fiction, age and women in American society, women and sexuality, among others—we used a lot of humor and snark in our presentations. I usually do to try to entertain as well as inform, but with Sophie and Nicole, we had the audience rocking with laughter. Quite an appropriate way to take a look at some of those topics, I believe. Toni, who is Sophie’s editor and mine, kept us on time and on target, however, and the audience was not only receptive but full of thoughtful, provocative questions and comments.
Valerie Fioravanti, Ben, and meFor the rest of the conference I was in the bookfair, either at the Tia Chucha Press/Scapegoat Press table with Deborah Miranda and Luis J. Rodriguez or at the BkMk Press/New Letters tables helping or spelling Ben.  I had much more help than expected with the Tia Chucha/Scapegoat table, and Ben had much less help than expected with the two BkMk/New Letters tables, so I was glad to give him a hand when I could. I loved meeting the G.S. Scharat Chandra Fiction Book Prize winner, Valerie Fioravanti, whose book of short stories, Garbage Night at the Opera, so pleased me when it came out.

Deborah Miranda launched her new book, Bad Indians, nationally at AWP and spent most of her time at the conference at the booktable. (My review of this truly important book will appear here this weekend.) It was one of the delights of the conference to be able to spend much time with her since she is one of my favorite people in the world. And because Deborah was there, so was her bright and funny partner, Margo Solod, allowing me to meet her in person for the first—and I hope not the last—time.
Deborah Miranda w/ Bad Indians Margo Solod












This year, Luis J. Rodriguez, publisher of Tia Chucha Press, my friend and publisher, and our partner in the bookfair for two good years now, had promised to be more available at the booktable. He had tried to be last year, but was constantly in demand at the conference and wasn’t able to be in the bookfair as much as he had hoped. This year, he kept his promise and was around to help staff the table much more, and the chance to spend time with him was also a real blessing. Luis is one of those unassuming remarkable geniuses out there in Latino literary land, a real community builder and someone who is making a definite difference in the world with his work and his generosity.
Luis, Deborah, Melinda PalacioWe kicked off a special fundraising effort by Letras Latinas, that great organization that supports Latino arts and letters and especially poetry. Letras Latinas has been given a grant that will be matched with another grant if they can raise the amount of the initial grant from other sources. So Francisco Aragón, one of Scapegoat’s authors and director of Letras Latinas, had arranged with Ben to offer a limited number of his books with a letterpress broadside of Eduardo Corral’s poem, “Pears,” with the entire purchase price to go to Letras Latinas programs. (I believe there are still a few of these left, and it’s a great cause, so if you have a chance to see Francisco, pick one up.) Francisco is another old, valued friend, so I truly enjoyed spending time with him at the table, as well.

 


















And many people come by the bookfair tables, so it’s always a chance to see those I love and admire whom I haven’t seen for a year or so. In no special order, here are some of them—Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán, Dan Vera, Luivette Resto, Martín Espada, Mario Duarte, Melinda Palacio, Maria Melendez, Joy Castro, Jimin Han, Rich Villar, Francisco Alarçon, Rigoberto Gonzalez, Carla Trujillo, Celeste Guzman Mendoza, Richard Blanco, Fred Arroyo, Robin Becker, Lucrecia Guerrero, Susan Deer Cloud, Allison Hedge Coke, Sherwin Bitsui, Alex Espinoza, Natalie Diaz, Gabriela Lemmons, JoséFaus, Denise Low-Weso, Lorraine López, Mariko Nagai, Charles Rice Gonzalez, Ching-In Chen, Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich, Aliki Barnstone, Alice Friman, Phong Nguyen, and many others I’ve probably missed.
Carla Trujillo Melinda, Martin Espada, Luivette Resto













The climax of the whole conference was at the very end when my dear friend, writer and activist Marjorie Agosín, and her wonderful husband, John, came into the city while recovering from pneumonia to sit and visit with Ben and me. We hadn’t seen each other in two years, but Marjorie is one of those friends that you just fall back into conversation with as if one of you had just walked back into the room after being gone for a few minutes. She is one of the most spiritually evolved people I know and at the same time absolutely the most fun. We had margaritas and appetizers and much deep laughter. I was pretty much a physical wreck by the time I walked into the place where we were meeting, midway between the convention center and our hotel, but at the end of our time together, I was feeling no pain until later that evening when it all came back on me heavy-duty. (All right. The huge margarita might have had a little to do with that, but I think it was mostly because of being with someone so wonderful.)
And that’s why I keep going to AWP, even though it gets huger and more difficult for me physically each year. It’s the place to see and spend time with people I dearly love and don’t get to see nearly often enough.
Next up, I'll review Deborah Miranda's Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir, which is, I think, one of the important books to come out this year. This weekend for that. Next week, another Books of Interest by Writers of Color post and who knows what else. Tsa-da-sa-s-de-s-di! Take care!

More Laptop Woes

My brand-new laptop, replacing the laptop the jealous dog destroyed, has bitten the dust. I am reduced to time-limited use of library computers until the replacement arrives this weekend. Once it does and I get it all set up--all over again!--I will have a post about AWP in Boston with over 12,000 writers, another about Deborah Miranda's incredible new book, and another Writers of Color post with Luivette Resto, Heid Erdrich, and Patricia Spears Jones. *summons the laptop gods now* "Hurry, hurry/Bring my new laptop to me."

Working Snow Days

Angela Carter at work--Could be my office!

We’ve had blizzards back-to-back here lately. The city shut down—no buses, no trash pickup, no mail, no school. My husband was home from work the whole time. We even lost power for a while. So it’s been about a week or so of snow days around here.
On snow days like these, no one goes to work, except the few people who staff emergency services and the city’s snowplows. Ninety-eight percent of the residents are not at work, but home on an unexpected vacation. Even though faced with over two feet of snow, most have a festive, holiday mood, reminiscent of the mood we all had as schoolchildren when schools called a snow day.
Except here and in other writers’ houses. A snow day is just another work day to us. We have deadlines and can’t afford to take off just because the snow has piled up so high the back door won’t open. Snow days are simply another distraction. 

It’s hard to always be working when other people are playing. Even when the work is the writing that we love, our vocation, our calling in life. Still, we feel a little aggrieved that we’re still tied to our desks when everyone else in the whole wide world is getting to play. At least, I certainly do.
I’m luckier than most writers in this situation. My husband is an editor, publisher, and writer himself. He does not expect me to amuse him when he’s home if I have work to do. He’s perfectly capable of amusing himself. But it’s hard to stay at work when he’s out there and I could be in the midst of a delightful conversation with him. He’s such a joy to talk to about a million different things. When we first started dating, we used to stay up until the wee hours just talking on the phone. After twenty-five years of it, talking with him is still one of my favorite things to do.
He went back to work today finally. The snow’s still in massive piles outside our house, and the car Is hidden under tons of it. The buses are running, however, and he rode one in to work.  I felt as if the house and I gave a deep sigh of relief and fell back into the normal. It’s not that I didn’t work while he was home for snow days. I did. Not as effectively or productively as usual. It felt like I was writing with part of my attention not fully there. But write I did—and I know I can make it as good as what I write on good days when I go back through revising. But it was writing under a kind of strain, and now that’s over.
What do snow days mean for you? Have you had your fill of them and, like me, are you oh-so-ready for spring?

Thundersnow On Its Way!

The weather forecasters are up in arms today, predicting a major blizzard for our piece of the country. Heavy snowfall, sleet, and ice—even thundersnow that will cause the snowfall to increase to 3” per hour. Kansas City and its surrounding communities are rallying the snowplows and salt trucks and preparing to absorb some major overtime among their drivers and operators. Grocery stores are being denuded of basic food supplies (and some not-so-basic). Liquor stores are doing a brisk business. Those who haven’t already got snow shovels, de-icer, etc., are besieging the hardware stores.
Schools are planning to close, many already publicizing closures. Colleges are debating closing—most of them will make that decision, not being stupid entities. UMKC where my husband works (and I used to for many years) probably won’t since it’s ruled from afar and the system offices are south and east of here and not nearly so threatened by this winter storm. Over the years, we’ve seen UMKC stay open when even the mayor’s office and police were asking businesses to close. *sigh* Ben will probably leave the car at home and take the bus to and from work if the streets are really awful. Even though our public transit system leaves so very much to be desired.

Children are ecstatic! Parents are frantic, trying to arrange for childcare or to take some leave time to take care of them while they’re home for a snow day. Weather nuts come to verbal fisticuffs on weather blogs over whether the snowfall will be 10” or 12” or whether KC falls on the southern or northern side of the line which will divide snow and sleet from sleet and ice. People with driveways on a steep slope decide to park the car on the street in hopes of not having it snowed in for a week or so.
People with mobility issues begin the countdown to dread. Steps that are normally not a problem with a walker or cane—or just grabbing the railing and stepping carefully—are about to become ice-covered, snow-packed mini-ski slopes, no matter how much de-icer is used. I’m trying to make it out of a bad flare triggered by cutting and dragging tree limbs from a big, old elm a previous windstorm downed in our yard and the street in front of it. (In Kansas City, just stick around and you’ll see every kind of weather possible.) So I’m really not looking forward to the weather conditions every single professional forecaster is predicting for us. (Here in KC, the weathermen seldom agree on anything!)
I predict that I’ll be stuck in the house until my front steps and walk can be cleared to the non-icy concrete, which may not happen for a week or so. Fortunately, I have many warm handknit shawls and blankets and many toasty handmade quilts in the house to keep us warm if we lose power, which is almost assured if we have bad ice. I also have lots of handspun yarn to knit with and plenty of fiber to spin—not to mention a book to write—so I should be fine.
This massive winter storm is predicted to affect a 500-mile area, so I’m sure many of you reading this are facing similar tomorrows. Here’s hoping you all stay safe and warm. I can’t send material items through the internet, but here are virtual wool and alpaca and cashmere shawls and fingerless gloves (all the better to type at the computer) sent out to all of you!

Comadres Forever

I lost my closest friend, Carolynn, in 2009. She had fought colon cancer with her unique tough fortitude for several years and seemed to be winning. I had to be out of town for a period of time, and when I returned, something had changed. Carolynn was depressed and talking about being ready to die. Now, I wasn’t hearing any of that, and soon her attitude brightened back to its normal state, but not soon enough. As if it had only been her great positive, cancer-can’t-beat-me attitude that had been keeping it at bay, her cancer returned with a vengeance in a final onslaught she no longer had the strength to battle as she’d done for so long. It’s a loss I have never completely overcome.
But her cancer is not what I want to write about. Last night, I participated in a Twitter party to celebrate and promote the new anthology of Las Comadres, Count On Me:Tales of Sisterhood and Fierce Friendships . (Las Comadres is the wonderful group that organizes the National Latino Book Club, among many other great projects.) The talk during this Twitter party (look for its record at #lasComadres #LatinoLit) centered on the concept of comadres, the term that can include special mentors, sisters from another mister, friends of the closest stripe, etc. I ended the evening thinking of Carolynn.

Sometimes things happen in such strange ways that we feel they were meant to happen. A self-taught handspinner with both wheel and spindle, I had tried for years to connect with the local guild. No one replied to emails or snail mails. I met a rep at the Renaissance Fair who gave me an officer’s phone number. When I called, it had been disconnected. Then, suddenly, out of nowhere, someone replied to a letter sent several years earlier with the date and place of their next meeting. I attended, as did another new person who’d just moved from Cleveland to Kansas City. She asked if we could go to lunch afterward since she knew nothing about KC and wanted me to show her around a little.
Carolynn could seem brash and abrasive when you first met her, and I hesitated, not sure I wanted to get involved with this loud person. Fortunately for me, I agreed and led her to a good local restaurant. That was the beginning of a great friendship. Carolynn was without inhibitions, and sometimes she did and said things in public that could make me cringe—because I still cared what others thought and she didn’t. I soon came to see, though, that she had the biggest heart in the world and a wide-open mind thirsty for all the knowledge she could find.
Soon enough, I left the local guild because their focus was not on spinning and they assumed that all members would be suburban housewives with lots of time on their hands, a class I hardly fell into. I was there only long enough to meet Carolynn and forge an unbreakable friendship. But why did I never hear from the guild until suddenly Carolynn would be there, a new person also?
Carolynn was a serious book person and reader. Her house, like my own, was full of bookcases and books. We traded back and forth and bought each other books we knew the other craved as gifts. We talked ideas and emotions and people we loved and worried about. She was older than me and larger than me in physical body and in her presence in the world. She was a total support to me as I went through severe difficulties with my mentally ill daughter. When I was in a toxic situation as a board member for a local nonprofit, it was Carolynn who kept telling me, “You have to tell them no. You have to protect yourself.” Until it finally sank in, and I did just that. That was the wonder of our relationship—we were always completely supportive of each other and fiercely protective of each other.
She wanted desperately to stay alive until my youngest son came home from graduate school. She had always adored him and had a special relationship with Joseph. She tried to hang on, but she missed him by slightly less than two weeks. I had been accepted to Macondo and given the great honor of the Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award in those final months of her life, and she celebrated with me, as she had the acceptance and publication of my books of poetry. She said, “I love seeing your success. I feel like I’ve been working toward it myself.” And, of course, she had. When I considered postponing my trip to San Antonio for the week-long Macondo Workshop, she wouldn’t hear of it. “I’ll be doing it vicariously through you. Don’t worry. I’ll hang on. I’m not leaving without saying goodbye.” But she did. Some things are not in our control, no matter how strong we are.
I have some of her clothes that I wear often when writing. They’re big on me and comfortable, and it feels like Carolynn is right behind me when I wear them. I feel her presence often, even without the clothes. Like my beloved grandmother, Carolynn is one of the ancestral spirits who support me and guide me. Chosen family, in her case. She never got to see me win some major national awards for my poetry or the success with my novel, and she’d have been so excited and as proud as if it were her own because Carolynn was the most caring, generous person I’ve ever known. But I believe her spirit’s enjoyed it along with me. There are times I feel I could pick up the phone and call her, and I remind myself that I don’t need the phone now. Some people are so innately good that they can never truly leave us.
¡Adelante, Carolynn! 

Following a Character into a Book

Lately, I’ve been intensely writing a new book. That’s a fairly common thing around here. Several times a year I follow a character into a short story or book. After the first draft is finished, I still refer to the much more I know about that character from writing that first draft as I revise and edit and edit, still following those characters as I chip away whatever doesn’t matter to them or what doesn’t fit. In a way, you could say that I spend most of my professional time chasing after characters, and you’d be correct.
Some people have the idea that plot is the be-all and end-all of the mystery writer, but I see it as story. I can write a book based on a clever plot with all kinds of surprises and twists, but if the reader doesn’t care about the characters or if the actions taking place don’t ring true for the characters, it’s no good. And yes, I know there are books like this that are published and sometimes very successful, but I still think it’s really story we need in the mystery, a story where the actions rise organically out of the characters and their motivations, where we care about the characters and what they’re trying to do because we know why it’s so important to them to succeed in their attempts.
When I’m looking for story, I start with character. As I start to know that character better, she or he leads me directly into story. A nice complex, twisty narrative with surprises and suspense comes from following all the major characters as they lead me on their path toward their goals in the story and come into conflict with each other or help each other or, sometimes, both.
When I run into problems with story as I’m writing a book, I go back to the characters involved with the aspect of the story that’s giving me a hard time. I sit down and have them write their situation, feelings, and problems with the story’s direction in first person as if they were writing diary entries or letters to me to tell me why they won’t do what I think they should do. Always I find that there’s something I’ve overlooked with that/those character(s). I’ve been trying to steer the plot in a direction that’s false to the character(s), and I have to learn more about each character in order to find out the direction the story needs to go.
I’ve always been glad I take the time to do this, even as I whine about taking that time in the middle of a book with a deadline facing me. Often it leads to big changes—once I even had to change the villain into a possible love interest—but it always makes for a stronger, more vital story. And that’s what I’m after.
Right now, I’m chasing another set of characters into a book that I’ve tentatively set up to go one way, but I know that, as I get deeper into this story following these characters, I may find we’ve gone a different way into a whole different and much richer story. It’s the ultimate adventure, following a character into a book.

Why It Matters That Richard Blanco Was The Inaugural Poet

Today everyone heard a friend of mine, Richard Blanco, read his wonderful poem, “One Today,” at President Barack Obama’s second inauguration. I was and am wildly excited and thrilled. The night his selection was first made public, I was shouting and doing the happy dance in my living room. Not just because he’s my friend, however. Richard is a grand poet who wrote a truly inspiring poem and is totally deserving of this accolade.
I first met Richard at the Macondo Writers Workshop in San Antonio, Texas. We were in a small, intense workshop of remarkable writers led with great warmth and humility by two legendary women, poet/memoirist Marjorie Agosín and anthropologist/memoirist Ruth Behar. We read, appreciated, and critiqued each other’s work with fierce honesty and serious intent to help each other become the best we could be. Under such arduous circumstances, weaknesses and flaws in character show up quickly. Yet I came away with tremendous respect for Richard’s work and for him as a person of generosity and kindness. Through the years, that affectionate respect has only grown.

I’d already had one friend as an inaugural poet—Miller Williams, who was the inaugural poet for President Bill Clinton’s second inauguration. Miller is a fine poet and also deserved the tribute. As a poet myself, I’m always thrilled when a president chooses to have an inaugural poet. There have only been five of them. It’s seldom a given that poetry will be a part of this national celebration. In fact, poetry is all too often considered irrelevant to the important issues of the time that are celebrated at the inaugurations. And of course, I’m always joyful to see one of my friends awarded such a signal honor. But that’s not the most important reason I’m happy about Richard’s selection.

Richard is the first Latino, the first immigrant, and the first openly gay poet to be selected to write an occasional poem for a presidential inauguration. In a country where Latinos, immigrants, and gay people are seldom truly valued or respected in the public discourse and in the highest cultural and artistic circles, this is a groundbreaking choice. In a country where the national poet laureate (selected by those who sit at the top of the echelons of literary power) is usually a middle-class white man who’s gone to certain schools and studied with certain people and won certain prizes or certain opportunities, where the poet laureate is seldom a woman and only very rarely African American and never Latino or Native American—in that country, it’s a very big deal to name a gay, immigrant Latino citizen as the inaugural poet.
However, it’s no good to just name anyone immigrant or Latino or openly gay to write a poem for the inauguration. This is a national post for a national occasion, and it requires someone of stature and gifts to meet that kind of challenge. It would have been far too easy for the inauguration staff to overlook talent and the quality of the poetry in handing out this appointment to just anyone who’s had a poem or two published and would meet the symbolic standards of demonstrated inclusion they were trying to meet. Fortunately, that was not what happened. Richard Blanco is a truly gifted, hard-working, and respected professional poet whose first two books, City of a Hundred Fires (University of Pittsburgh Press) and Directions to the Beach of the Dead (University of Arizona Press), won major national awards, the Agnes Starrett Poetry Prize and the PEN Beyond the Margins Award, and whose third book, Looking for the Gulf Motel(University of Pittsburgh Press), has just been published to critical praise.

Richard’s poem, “One Today,” was the perfect Whitmanesque journey through this entire country in the course of one day, stressing the things we have in common, the things we all share, the personal history we all have experienced one way or another. He ended on these lines that sent chills through many of us listening.
“hope—a new constellation waiting for us to map it, waiting for us to name it—together”
I know some members of the academic poetry community out there have already started picking away—just as they did immediately after Miller Williams, Maya Angelou, and Elizabeth Alexander. (I don’t think they were so established in Robert Frost’s time, but I believe even he had some petty criticisms aimed at him.) This is pretty typical in po-biz, but those who aren’t familiar with the field won’t know that the backbiting and faultfinding come with the territory. Some just hate the idea of Richard being chosen for this and are determined to find something wrong—if only that he didn’t write it (or read it, for God’s sake) the way they would have themselves. Poetry is much bigger and grander than the small, cramped thing they would make of it.
To them, I say this. There are many who don’t think poetry matters in this world and that it has no place in our public life. It is still relatively rare to have a poet invited to participate in this ceremony. When it was first suggested to John F. Kennedy that he ask Frost to write and read a poem at his inauguration, he initially liked the idea. Then, he turned reluctant, telling staff that he worried that the poet’s work would outshine his own speech. This concern, along with the need to play to the part of the electorate who scorn all the arts but for some reason especially poetry, helps to make a poet at the inauguration a rarity. In fact, in his review of Richard’s poem in the Los Angeles Timesinauguration coverage, Hector Tobar said:
“One expects the reviews of Obama’s speech will be as varied as the political opinions of those who heard it. To this ear, it often drifted into territory that might have been more appropriate to the State of a Union address he has to deliver next month. But Blanco’s poem was a reminder of why so many presidents have resisted the idea of having an inaugural poem — the fear that the professional wordsmith’s lines will somehow outshine the politician’s.”
This needed to be a poem that would be accessible to all the people out there and yet still be a good poem, an excellent piece of art. Richard accomplished that beautifully. The more you complain about it because it wasn’t you or one of your friends up there, the easier it is for the politicians and bureaucrats to say, “Right. No poem next time. Too much trouble, these damn poets. Not worth it.” You play right into the hands of the know-nothings and the reactionaries of the anti-art crowd.
Richard Blanco got up there as an important symbol for America and American letters—a tough position to occupy, fraught with pressure and peril—and he got up there as a major American poet offering us a major American poem for a major American occasion, the celebration of the peaceful passage of power once again, as has happened for more than 200 years. He was the right person for the job, and he gave us a piece of beautiful art, a heartfelt delivery, and a dignified presence throughout. 
And this poet, for one, says, “Thank you, Richard Blanco, for giving us this brilliant poem and for reflecting ‘My face, your face, millions of faces in morning’s mirrors’.”
Click here to read more about Richard’s books and buy them.

In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb

 The time around Christmas and New Year is always a tricksy time for me. The weather in Kansas City is often awful right at that time with snow on top of ice. In years long past, I was usually sick as a dog with pneumonia, pleurisy, and/or bronchitis at that time. With the advent of good flu vaccines and the pneumonia vaccine and diagnosis and treatment for the lupus which led to the illnesses, I’ve been able to avoid those for a while now. Instead as lupus did its slowed-down-due-to-medicines damage to my joints, I’ve taken more falls that have broken bones. In recent years, I have broken knees, ankles, toes, and cheekbones in that turn-of-the-year time. Last year, I lucked out because we had no real winter here in Kansas City. No illnesses and no falls. It was a good year in that way.
And no, I don’t have osteoporosis. My doctors test for it regularly since some meds I must take make its appearance eventually inevitable. Fortunately, I show no signs yet, and I thank my stars for that big-boned build like a footballer’s that’s been my bane all my life and for the years and years of walking.
This year, however, the turn-of-the-year time was harder to handle. In December, I had an outpatient surgical procedure in the hospital, strictly diagnostic and fairly routine. Afterward, my adverse reaction to the anesthesia (due to discordances with maintenance meds) left me down and out for almost a week and behind schedule for the holidays that immediately followed. The results left the specialist and my GP insisting on another a different procedure immediately after the New Year holiday (in hospital again, but still thankfully outpatient). This one left me bedridden for a week and still weak and shaky for another, during which time my husband and I both came down with this particularly virulent flu going around. We’re just getting back on our feet from that now.
The outcome of the second procedure? All good. Normal. Nothing to worry about. Except five-figure hospital bills and specialist bills and anesthesiologist bills, costing my insurance company thousands and me a slightly smaller amount in deductibles and co-pays. (The last procedure took place right after the new year began and the restart of accounting of deductibles met, as well as the annual hiking of deductibles.) I’m grateful to have insurance, at all, and triply grateful that the results say I’m not facing a terrible diagnosis. But it leaves me certain that we need a real overhaul of our healthcare system. The hospitals charged incredible sums for what was basically an out-patient procedure. My insurance company immediately almost halved that to a merely startling sum, but if I’d had no insurance—as so many do not—I’d not only have had to pay everything I paid and my insurance paid for me, but I’d have to pay the whole obviously inflated sum the hospital charged and would have had to take medical bankruptcy.
Another result is that this poor blog has languished while I’ve gone through this, and I apologize to my regular readers for that. I realize some of you are connected with me on Facebook or Twitter and so had at least an inkling of what was going on, but for those who didn’t and still kept coming, expecting to find new posts, I am truly sorry to have disappointed you. I’ll try to make this the last time it happens.
I have decided I’m going to look at 2013 with the same lens the old wives of the tales used on the month of March—“in like a lion, out like a lamb.” I have often noticed that years that begin with troubles turn into very happy years with various kinds of success and joyful events. So I expect 2013 to turn around in that same way. It certainly came in roaring like a fierce and scary lion. Now, I’m ready for the lamb gamboling in flowery meadows. May it be so—for me and for all of you out there!

Looking Back on 2012 in This Blog

Happy New Year! Before beginning 2013, I want to look back on 2012 in this blog. I've posted below links to various blog posts in 2012 that people found particularly interesting or helpful. I haven't posted any of my two continuing blog series, Books of Interest by Writers of Color and Literary Mystery Novelists, because that would force me to choose among them, and I think they're all important. All of those posts in both series are clearly marked, however, so just click on the blog archives and you can pick and choose among many fine writers last year and in the years before.

The posts I've linked to below are posts on topics of interest to writers and readers or individual posts where I've discussed some current issues in our country and world. Next week, I will be starting a new set of posts in the Books of Interest by Writers of Color and Literary Mystery Novelists series. But first, let's look back on last year one last time.



Great First Crime Novel Contests With No Feeshttp://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com/2012/01/great-first-crime-novel-contests-no-fee.html
The Two Full-Time Jobs of the Novelisthttp://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com/2012/02/when-does-writer-become-pr-flack.html
Juggling Novel Writing and Book Promotion—Part 1: Resourceshttp://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com/2012/02/juggling-novel-writing-and-book.html
Juggling Novel Writing and Book Promotion—Part 2: The Next Stepshttp://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com/2012/02/juggling-novel-writing-and-book_22.html
How Best to Support Your Favorite Writers and Make Sure the Books You Love Keep Cominghttp://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com/2012/05/how-best-to-support-your-favorite.html
Literary Mystery Novelists: A Requested List, Part 1http://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com/2012/05/literary-mystery-novelistsa-requested.html
Literary Mystery Novelists: A Requested List, Part 2http://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com/2012/05/literary-mystery-novelistsa-list-part-2.html
5 Tips on Social Media for Today’s Author—Guest blog by Bryan Thomas Schmidthttp://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com/2012/06/5-tips-on-social-media-for-todays.html
Forgotten Artshttp://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com/2012/07/forgotten-arts.html
First Steps Toward Publishing Your Novelhttp://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com/2012/09/first-steps-toward-publishing-your-novel.html
Of Books, Politics, and Privilegehttp://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com/2012/09/of-books-politics-and-privilege.html
That Old Black Dog of Fearhttp://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com/2012/09/that-old-black-dog-of-fear.html
Why Writers Disappear and How to Keep It from Happening to Your Favoriteshttp://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com/2012/10/why-writers-disappear-and-how-to-keep.html
What Kind of Imagination Do You Have?http://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com/2012/10/what-kind-of-imagination-do-you-have.html I hope your 2013 is opening in a gentle and happy manner. May we all have a wonderful year of blessings, success, and joy!

Happy Holidays to All of You!!

May you have the most joyous of holiday seasons!!