Jamie Patterson's Blog, page 4
May 9, 2012
Back in Houston and then the San Francisco Book Festival
I just can't seem to get enough of Texas. Tonight, I find myself in Houston and find it delightfully more welcoming than my last visit (which was hot, rain, hot, thunderstorms, hot, hot, hot. Now it's just pleasantly warmish).
An outing tonight with five writing folks, a career services gal, and a financial aid guru proved to be one heckuva good time, particularly considering the fine writing skills we encountered in one of Houston's finest bars (see below). Even more fun? The honorable mention Lost Edens got for the San Francisco Book Festival under memoirs. I'm kind of really enjoying this awards season!
An outing tonight with five writing folks, a career services gal, and a financial aid guru proved to be one heckuva good time, particularly considering the fine writing skills we encountered in one of Houston's finest bars (see below). Even more fun? The honorable mention Lost Edens got for the San Francisco Book Festival under memoirs. I'm kind of really enjoying this awards season!
April 29, 2012
A Marathon and an IPPY
Two seemingly impossible things happened this weekend: I got notice that Lost Edens won an IPPY (silver) for essay/creative non-fiction (Holy Cow!). And, perhaps even more unbelievable considering I had to see a doctor every day leading up to the race to make sure my back behaved and that my dad only trained an average 15 miles a week leading up to the race, we both finished Big Sur marathon today.
May wonders never cease.
May wonders never cease.
April 17, 2012
Sarton Women's Memoir Award
I spent last Friday and Saturday in Austin with a wonderful group of women at the Story Circle Network's annual conference. Friday night I accepted second place for the 2011 Sarton Women's Memoir Award, in its inaugural year, and got to chat with a lot of the attendees. Minnesota was representing that night! Lots of people with ties to Minneapolis, which made it fun. I love spending time in Texas, mostly because I'm so entertained by how proud Texans are. There was a bumper sticker I saw that said "I wasn't born in Texas but I got here as quick as I could!"
Also in Austin: the wonderful Stephanie Barko, who did the publicity for Lost Edens and introduced me to the Story Circle Network. She made it to the award ceremony on an hour's notice and it was so wonderful to have her by my side. Thank you, Stephanie!
And thank you for the wonderful honor, Story Circle!
April 2, 2012
Women's Issues: ForeWord Book of the Year Awards
After approaching the Santa Fe Writers Project awards brilliantly by missing the finalist announcements I've now mucked up the ForeWord Book of the Year Awards. The finalists were announced today and I couldn't resist looking--and Lost Edens is a finalist in the Women's Issues category (hooray!). Now I'll just have to stick it out a few months waiting to hear if Lost Edens is a winner. No problem, right?
March 22, 2012
SFWP Awards Program
So a big time benefit of being months behind in life is that there's much less anxiety. Seriously. I just checked in on the status of the Santa Fe Writers Project Literary Awards and saw they had winners--not Lost Edens but then saw Lost Edens was short listed! Seriously cool!
Now, if I had been on top of life I would have seen that it was short listed on February 2 and had serious anxiety over whether Lost Edens would win until they posted winners on February 20. This way, the whole thing took about 2 minutes. Kind of like knowing who wins a game before watching it--makes it much easier to watch. (At least for me!)
As it is, absolutely thrilled Lost Edens was short listed for the SFWP Awards Program. Thanks Andrew Gifford and all the folks at SFWP for making my day today!
Now, if I had been on top of life I would have seen that it was short listed on February 2 and had serious anxiety over whether Lost Edens would win until they posted winners on February 20. This way, the whole thing took about 2 minutes. Kind of like knowing who wins a game before watching it--makes it much easier to watch. (At least for me!)
As it is, absolutely thrilled Lost Edens was short listed for the SFWP Awards Program. Thanks Andrew Gifford and all the folks at SFWP for making my day today!
March 3, 2012
Run, Run, Run
This week's long run. Crazy wicked cool. I was thinking that it's good we didn't have this technology for high school track practice. I think I ran to the Dairy Queen more than any other destination!
<br> <a href="http://www.mapmyrun.com/routes/view/3..., Cedar, Calhoun, Harriet</a> and more runs in Minneapolis on MapMyRUN. <a href="http://www.mapmyrun.com"&... run</a><br>
<br> <a href="http://www.mapmyrun.com/routes/view/3..., Cedar, Calhoun, Harriet</a> and more runs in Minneapolis on MapMyRUN. <a href="http://www.mapmyrun.com"&... run</a><br>
February 27, 2012
Charlotte, North Carolina
The daffodils are in bloom in Charlotte, but pretty much everything else is still bare. I ate dinner under cherry blossoms, though, and was grateful for the smell of dirt (of all things!). Funny, the things I end up missing in the wintertime in Minnesota.
I spent a lovely night with a terrific group of ladies who read Lost Edens for their book club. The rental car company gave me a dark blue Ford Mustang for the drive up toward Greensboro and I enjoyed seeing personalized plates on my drive that seemed to be on every other car: 2BLU1PNK, DADZGRL, and URNMYWAY are just a few that come to mind. Made me wonder if it's cheaper in NC to personalize plates than it is in Minnesota? I thought about what kind of personalized plates I would get and I think (considering my abysmal driving skills) that SORRY might be my plate of choice.
But I digress. A terrific night and a fun chance to chat about the book and meet wonderful new people in a climate much warmer than home. Thanks to everyone who was part of my night tonight; I had a great time!
I spent a lovely night with a terrific group of ladies who read Lost Edens for their book club. The rental car company gave me a dark blue Ford Mustang for the drive up toward Greensboro and I enjoyed seeing personalized plates on my drive that seemed to be on every other car: 2BLU1PNK, DADZGRL, and URNMYWAY are just a few that come to mind. Made me wonder if it's cheaper in NC to personalize plates than it is in Minnesota? I thought about what kind of personalized plates I would get and I think (considering my abysmal driving skills) that SORRY might be my plate of choice.
But I digress. A terrific night and a fun chance to chat about the book and meet wonderful new people in a climate much warmer than home. Thanks to everyone who was part of my night tonight; I had a great time!
February 22, 2012
Pick your Pace
My dad likes to say he's been running since before running was cool. As a teenager out running on the streets of White Bear Lake he had people slow down their cars and throw things at him while they yelled rude names his direction. Funny what people can get worked up over, isn't it?
He didn't run his first marathon, though, until after all of us kids were either graduated from college or in college--before that there simply wasn't time to train. He made it to mile 20 and then had to walk. He still came in under 4 hours, so don't feel too sorry for him. In marathons he's run since then he's managed to come really close to touching the winner's stand for his age group.
When I ran my first marathon in San Diego, I took my dad's advice: go slow, especially in the beginning. Don't let people passing you bother you, just take it slow. This was before I was really aware of pacing and eating gu and all the other things that make it kind of easy (or at least easier!) to run the marathon distance so I just ran slow. Slow. I think I finished in a little over 5 hours and man did I feel great at the end. I didn't get the whole fuss over running a marathon. Then I ran my second marathon, trained a little bit less for it, but was completely obsessed with pacing. I finished in a little over 4 hours for that marathon. Completely different story than the first. That one felt like a marathon.
I've been thinking about all of this for two reasons: first, and most obvious, I'm training again so a big part of my day is either planning on a workout or recovering from one. Second, I'm still stalled in my writing because I still don't know what story I want to tell. Or, quite honestly, whether I want to tell it. It's funny how I didn't think twice about sharing some of the worst moments of my life but now when it comes to having to share some of my favorite moments I want to hold the deck close. Maybe that will pass. Maybe the idea of writing a follow-up to Lost Edens will pass and I'll move right back to fiction writing--where I'm beginning to suspect I belong.
He didn't run his first marathon, though, until after all of us kids were either graduated from college or in college--before that there simply wasn't time to train. He made it to mile 20 and then had to walk. He still came in under 4 hours, so don't feel too sorry for him. In marathons he's run since then he's managed to come really close to touching the winner's stand for his age group.
When I ran my first marathon in San Diego, I took my dad's advice: go slow, especially in the beginning. Don't let people passing you bother you, just take it slow. This was before I was really aware of pacing and eating gu and all the other things that make it kind of easy (or at least easier!) to run the marathon distance so I just ran slow. Slow. I think I finished in a little over 5 hours and man did I feel great at the end. I didn't get the whole fuss over running a marathon. Then I ran my second marathon, trained a little bit less for it, but was completely obsessed with pacing. I finished in a little over 4 hours for that marathon. Completely different story than the first. That one felt like a marathon.
I've been thinking about all of this for two reasons: first, and most obvious, I'm training again so a big part of my day is either planning on a workout or recovering from one. Second, I'm still stalled in my writing because I still don't know what story I want to tell. Or, quite honestly, whether I want to tell it. It's funny how I didn't think twice about sharing some of the worst moments of my life but now when it comes to having to share some of my favorite moments I want to hold the deck close. Maybe that will pass. Maybe the idea of writing a follow-up to Lost Edens will pass and I'll move right back to fiction writing--where I'm beginning to suspect I belong.
February 18, 2012
February 7, 2012
OK Go Does it Again
Love these guys!
