In the meantime, enjoy this fabulous summer, which just goes on and on. I am loving the heat!! Hope our readers and writers are, too.

If you sent something to us for our Writerlicious Anthology on Food, you should have recently received your very own letter of acknowledgment and thanks. We’ve been busy with our correspondence and now all emails are done. But a couple of emails bounced back to us, so if you sent us something and haven’t heard from us - now is the time to send us a query with your current email address.

I can’t tell you how chuffed we are with our riches, in the form of a thousand pages of contributions!!  All kinds, all genres of writing and artwork - just as we asked!! THANKS EVERYONE!!!

So now we’re busy reading and assessing and loving it all, and getting very excited about the volume we’re creating.  And we’re right on schedule!

So please be patient and give us time to do it right. And keep checking back for updates!

Very soon we’ll be faced with the most daunting task of making selections.  But right now, we are so very keen to see all the pages before us–and the number of pages we have received so far, from all over the globe, is astonishing!

So–if you’ve been following us here at Red Claw and have thoughts of sending us something–don’t forget June 1st is the deadline.  We want your best writing and artwork based on FOOD.

I love graphic novels, and have been toying with the idea of writing one for a few years now. Knowing how much work it would take to learn a new genre has stopped me from starting, but the Fiction Project has given me the kickstart I needed to put in the time, to take a risk, to try something new.

I’ll do the bad news first. Maybe I should call it the not-so-great news. Because, after all, I did find multiple copies of my just-released novel, Brown Dwarf, in two bookstores - one big-box, the other independent. And when I approached busy clerks and asked if they would like me to sign them, they didn’t throw me out. Not exactly. Nor was I expecting red carpet treatment. After all, this is a town full of authors, and they’re probably walking in all the time asking to sign their own books.

But in the big-box store, the clerk yanked open a drawer, pulled out a roll of “Signed by the Author” stickers, then bounced a pen in my direction. Okay- I’m a working stiff too, and I know what it’s like to be trying to do eight things at once. But would a smile have hurt? I slunk away after signing (no, I did not put the stickers on  - that’s HIS job) feeling as if I’d interrupted something MUCH MORE IMPORTANT THAN ME.

On to the independent - a favourite of mine to which I’ve given a fair amount of business over the years. Store almost empty. Proprietor not particularly busy. But his boredom (oh hell, another AUTHOR!) was palpable. But I couldn’t resist. “I’ve been coming in here for years,” I began, big gullible grin splitting my face. “This is my fourth book, but my first novel. And it means a great deal to see it in your store.”

Okay. I really was not expecting tears and a hug. But again, would a smile have hurt? Even an acknowledgement that I had spoken?

Booksellers take note: I know you’re busy. But just exactly how busy would you be all day without folks like me?

Okay. Enough kvetching. On to the GOOD side of the writing life. I trudge home in the rain, having made a fool of myself in the bookstore. And what do I find in the mail? The latest issue of The New Quarterly. The Lists issue. In which appears not just my essay, “Daily Bread,” but two poems by Kim Aubrey - “From a List of My Grandmother’s Expenses after My Grandfather Died” and “From a List of My Grandmother’s Expenses for 1988.” Lemme tell ya. Publishing is great. But publishing alongside a respected colleague who is also a dear friend? Nothing beats it. Nothing.

I live in an apartment building, so feeding the pigeons is frowned on. Nor am I the kind of person who makes her own croutons or grates her own bread crumbs. But I did have a grandmother who raised five kids during the Depression. And who walked blocks out of her way to buy cracked eggs cheaper than whole ones. So I confess to feeling a bit virtuaous about the loaf that grows incrementally, slice by slice, week by week.

How does this relate to writing? (Not that it has to, but we are writers, and this is a publishers’ website.) Well, I guess it relates to that notion that you should never throw anything out. Sub-plots that get dropped from your novel; minor characters that you have to ask to leave your story; lovely images that just don’t fit in the finished poem. Keep them. Keep them in a three-ring binder, or a computer file or a shoebox. They’re good stuff, and their day will come.

But thankfully, our readers who are writers and artists are sending us Contributions to the Anthology, and we are having a grand time reading them.  So–please keep the poems and stories and artwork coming–there is still more than a month to go to June 1st deadline, and we are enchanted with the variety and excellence of the work we’re receiving, from all over the globe.  The finished book promises to be great fun.

When I get out of the habit of writing, of making my own projects a priority, I have to struggle to find my way back to that regular practise, like finding one’s way back to the yoga mat for the daily stretch and meditation, finding and holding a focus through all those busy thoughts that multiply and distract one from what’s most meaningful and necessary.

I know what I have to do–make working on my own stories, or poems, one of the first rituals of my day. Now it’s just a matter of doing so, of beginning.