Gin Phillips's Blog, page 2

An Essay I Wrote About ’80s Toys…and Women’s Rights

This piece was just published on CrimeReads.com this past week, and it looks at my research and writing process for Family Law. If you have fond memories of He-Man and Care Bears and Strawberry Shortcake with her giant strawberry house, you might be surprised what was going on outside the walls of our playrooms. Read…

FAMILY LAW Is Out in the World!

My new novel has been out for 24 hours-ish now, and it’s been a pretty fun 24 hours with a lot of signing, a great Zoom event, and several more events to come. (Check out the tour schedule on my News & Events page.) Plus the last day has seen a flurry of reviews that…

FAMILY LAW Virtual Tour

Eight days until FAMILY LAW hits the shelves! Come join me at virtual events with some amazing writers–Joshilyn Jackson! Chris Bohjalian!–plus one in-person event here in Birmingham. Here are links to the two events next week:  1) Joshilyn Jackson Conversation 2) Little Professor In-Person Signing .

Two Weeks Until FAMILY LAW! Plus A Puppy!

This is always the point of pre-publication where I’m feeling a little exhausted and a little sick of myself. (Plus I got my second vaccine shot on Monday, and that didn’t exactly help with the tiredness. But I’m back to 100 % now.) But this moment is always a highlight–I GOT MY HARDCOPIES OF THE…

Dream Team for Audiobook of Family Law

For a long time, I’ve thought that if I could have anyone read the audio of FAMILY LAW, it would be Joshilyn Jackson. She’s a delightful human being, a great writer, and a voice actor who makes you drive past your exit on the Interstate because you’re so caught up in her storytelling. So–you might…

Easter, Riding in Trucks, and other Dangerous Things

Childhood memory #18: Every Easter we went out to a family friend’s house in the country, and everything about those afternoons was dream-like—the spread of the potluck dishes across the picnic tables, the horseback rides through the sprawling yard, the egg hunt with dozens of screaming children—but my favorite part was always the snake hunt.  There’d…

Two Things That Brought Me A Lot of Joy

A little over a month until the release of FAMILY LAW on May 4th! We’re getting so close…and in celebration, here are a few more 1980’s memories. 16)I used to climb the magnolia trees in my friend Elizabeth’s yard. We’d climb as far as we could up through the branches, and we spun stories as we…

Bear Bryant and Tadpoles

Still working my way down a very long list of childhood memories in keeping with the place and the time period–Alabama in the 1980s–of my next novel, Family Law. 14) I was almost eight years old when Bear Bryant died, and I remember standing in the middle of my grandparents’ braided rug, my grandfather leaning forward…

Memories of Roly-Polys and Swimming Pools

And a few more memories of childhood in Alabama (I’m past a dozen now)….

12) My neighbor’s backyard had the feel of a fantasy. He had a swimming pool and a fig tree. In my own backyard, we had muscadines and scuppernongs, and I would sit under the thick ceiling of vines and pluck them one by one, the juice bursting out hot from the sun. I’d spit the skins into the grass. I climbed our plum tree and ate plums one after another, but the figs were not ours, which made them more delicious. The tree leaned halfway over the fence, and I felt morally sound snatching anything that hung onto our side, although my mother would stop me if she saw me doing it.

The pool, though, was the big lure. My mother was pretty strict about me going anywhere by myself and she was particularly nervous about the water, but our neighbors were elderly and trustworthy, and she (for some reason) imagined that they were watching out the window as I swam, and, anyway, I was allowed to go swim a couple of times a week. Tropical plants grew high and dense around the pool—maybe some of them were canna lilies—and I was totally hidden from my own backyard, and those nice old people never checked on me. I would swim laps until my arms and legs ached, and then I would go sit under their fig tree and stuff myself with figs and it was complete freedom until I heard my mother’s voice calling.

13) Roly-polys. The joy of the gentle tap that turned them into tiny armored balls. Also lightning bugs—the satisfaction of moving from the two-handed clapping catch to the one-handed grab.  Honeysuckle. Dewberries, picked warm off the vine, fingers pricked over and over, worth it.

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More ’80s memories–Dad edition

#9–My father would take us crappie fishing at night, which was as much about the snacks to me as the fishing. We’d ride out to the middle of the lake, wind whipping hair and jackets, and there was always something ecstatic about that rush of wind. When we’d stop and drop our lines, we could…