Judy Blume's Blog, page 3
May 11, 2009
Mother's Day
Key West -- I still think of Mother's Day as a holiday celebrating my mother, my grandmother, and my Aunt Frances. When I was young all three would get orchid corsages and and we'd go to dinner at the Tavern Restaurant in Newark, where my father knew the owner. (Actually, everyone knew the owner, but I was just a kid and didn't know that.) It's funny, because I'm writing about the Tavern now, in the novel I've just started. As for orchids, they grow everywhere in Key West (which doesn't make th
April 27, 2009
Buzz buzz...
Key West -- Starting today (and for the next two weeks) I'll be answering questions and responding to comments on Randombuzzers.com Join me there if you can. I'm looking forward to it. It should be fun. Of course I won't be there 24/7 because I've started to actually write my new book. For a month or more I've been doing research, a process I've enjoyed. The real writing part isn't that enjoyable. At least not yet. Right now I'm wishing I'd never started. I'd forgotten how impossibl
April 14, 2009
Losing Judith Krug
Friends of intellectual freedom have lost a dynamic leader. Judith Krug, director of the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom since 1967, and one of the founders of the Freedom to Read Foundation, was my hero. When I saw her in Chicago last September, she said, "Don't worry about me. I'm too mean to die." That was her fierce warrior persona. That was her let's laugh about this and talk about something else way of dealing with her illness. She had had surgery and ch
April 7, 2009
Mother Nature
Key West -- it's good to be back! Isn't that half the reason we go away -- so we can appreciate how good it feels to be home again?
This is how lucky we were --just missed some brutal spring storms in New Orleans. And those of you who know me know I'm phobic about thunderstorms. Like a frightened dog, I need to be in a small space and low to the floor. We didn't have a dog at our hotel in New Orleans but we did have Clarice, the hotel cat.
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Clarice would come to our room via the open window in</>
This is how lucky we were --just missed some brutal spring storms in New Orleans. And those of you who know me know I'm phobic about thunderstorms. Like a frightened dog, I need to be in a small space and low to the floor. We didn't have a dog at our hotel in New Orleans but we did have Clarice, the hotel cat.
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Clarice would come to our room via the open window in</>
March 28, 2009
Meg and Judy, Elliot and Emily, and...
Key West -- What a week!Meg Cabot and I did a gig for the Friends of the Library. We decided we'd ask each other questions on stage, so we went to lunch a few weeks ago and made a list, but didn't tell each other the answers. We wanted to be surprised along with the audience. Meg was a great interviewer. She jumped in and asked almost all the questions. After I answered I'd turn to her and say, What about you? Then she'd say a line or two and ask the next question. Mostly, we talked about our jo
March 10, 2009
Dance-a-mania
Key West -- You know that song from Mame, the musical -- We Need a Little Christmas? I love that song. It's about needing to celebrate life and making the most of what we have. You don't have to wait for Christmas to do that. So I got it into my head that we should have a dancing party at our house. Times are tough for so many people but, hey, we can still have fun being together. And on Friday night, that's what we did. Sixty friends (not all of them dancers) gathered at our house for s
February 2, 2009
Inspiration!
Key West -- during the January back-to-back Literary Seminars an idea for a new book came to me. Usually ideas come slowly over a long period of time. Characters live inside my head, sometimes for years, before I'm ready to write about them. I usually fill a notebook with everything I can think of about my characters before I'm ready to type Chapter One. But this came like a bolt out of the blue!
I'm always inspired at the Key West Literary Seminar (it's more theater than seminar) but I've ne
January 6, 2009
Princess of the Sea
Key West -- My friend, Meg Cabot, asked me to decorate a tiara to celebrate the upcoming publication of Forever Princess, her final book in the Princess Diaries series. The New York public library will benefit from the proceeds of an on-line auction of these "celebrity" decorated tiaras during the month of January. The idea sounded like fun so I said, Count me in. That was last summer.
Toward the end of summer I was asked where the tiara should be sent. By then it was clear I'd never find
Toward the end of summer I was asked where the tiara should be sent. By then it was clear I'd never find
