another feather in its cap

Beachglass made it onto the Seattle Times' Summer Reading List! Check out my website for the quote, under "reviews."

Or, here, to make it easy for ya:

"Seattle-area author Wendy Blackburn's first novel is a deeply affecting, hard-hitting story of a former teenage drug addict and alcoholic who has turned her life around in Alcoholics Anonymous — but now faces a new crisis when she goes back to Los Angeles to be with her dying best friend. Will Delia's hard-won sobriety withstand this ordeal, back in the milieu where she first went astray? Richly imagined and full of vivid characters, this novel is clearly told from the voice of experience (the book's acknowledgements include a thank-you to the AA of Los Angeles, which Blackburn says saved her life)."

Yes, that's really it, despite the unfamiliar cover art -- I don't know how they found it, but somehow the very first draft for the cover showed up in the paper! Veddy inter-esting. With my luck, people will see the book in stores and not buy it out of confusion and a lack of connection to the one in the paper! OY! If it's not one thing, it's another.

So YES, that IS it, despite the photo.

First Amazon, now the Times. Next? Oprah.

amazon.com editors' picks for july

Holy cow!
Check this out:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html/103-6513993-7968649?ie=UTF8&node=13759931
go to "See more of July's Fiction picks" and there it is!
Here's a direct link:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/guides/guide-display/-/YMJKPGSXJMK1/ref=amb_link_3218382_5/103-6513993-7968649

And here's what it says:

"Set mostly in late-eighties Los Angeles, which is depicted in all its gritty, glittering glory, 'Beachglass' tells the story of Delia, a recovering alcoholic who must face down her past as she cares for her dying best friend. This beautifully-written novel is about many things, including love, lust, and addiction, but the core of the story is about friendship, and the ways in which it both tests and strengthens us. Author Wendy Blackburn suffuses “Beachglass” with Delia’s hard-earned optimism, and even though the story makes us weep (don’t read the ending of this book in a public place!) it ultimately uplifts, making us aware of just how messy and miraculous the human condition is."

Aw, shucks!

july 26: new event added!

If you've missed the other ones or want to come again (love the book? enjoy watching an introvert at a podium? need to pick up another signed copy as a gift?) -- you're in luck! Come on down to the Ballard Public Library on July 26. Here's the deal:

Secret Garden Books (www.secretgardenbooks.com) does an Author Series at the library, and this month I'm one of the lucky writers who will discuss, read, sign, Q&A, etc.

5614 22nd Avenue NW ~ Seattle 98107
Doors open at 6, the event starts at 6:30

Seattle Writer Goddess Debra Dean (The Madonnas of Leningrad) is going to be there the night before me; hopefully that doesn't jinx it and the whole town goes that night and no one comes to mine. That would suck. But I have to say -- that worry aside -- it's really cool to even be listed on the same page as her! Have you read her book? It's PNBA-bound, that's for sure.

after-party @ the pink door

Here's another photo, this one with (from left around the table) Brooke Chapman, writer and freelance editor; me; Diane Reverand, my editor at St Martin's Press; Swain Wolfe, author of The Boy Who Invented Skiing, among other books, who also belongs to Diane (see http://www.swainwolfe.com/); Alle Hall, Hugo House's InPrint Series coordinator; Laura Kalpakian, another of Diane's writers; and Rebecca Agiewich (see http://rebecca.agiewich.net/home/) author of BreakupBabe.

We had all just come from the Richard Hugo House (http://www.hugohouse.org/), where Diane, Laura, Swain, and I talked to a group of about 60 people about the editor-writer relationship/process and Diane met with writers afterward as they pitched their ideas/works in progress to her. I've been to several events there, but always on the other side of the looking-glass. How weird and wonderful to be sitting on a panel (on a stage!) talking to other writers about this wacky life of ours... It was such an honor. Plus I got to spend some time with some really fabulous people. And OH MY GOD the lasagna. If you're ever in Seattle, go to the Pink Door in Post Alley, and have the lasagna. I'm dead serious. It's a life-changing experience.

say cheese!

Just in case you missed the issue of Publisher's Weekly that featured this photo as their "picture of the day"...here is me with my angel of an agent Charlotte Gusay (left, proudly holding my - "our" - book) and Noel, events coordinator at Skylight Books in LA.

This was the event which had such history in attendance as childhood and high school friends, one (Cindy) dating back to 1976, many others (Jenni, Kori, Debbie) to the bad-hair 80's; my mom's dear friend from high school who knew me in the womb; Debra Ginsberg, who performed such editing magic on my book; my old boss and one of my favorite people Scott Robertson (13 years of history there); my friend Rick, to whom the novel is dedicated, who I have known for more than half my life, and who makes me smile if not nearly wet my pants laughing nearly every day in some form or another, even if it's just me remembering or recounting something from years ago; Dana, who, speaking of wombs, brought her as-yet-unborn daughter to the event (and looked smashing!).

The party at Chez Werndorf afterwards was gorgeous, catered, perfect (tiki torches, 80 degrees at night, Kori baked some killer desserts, and Jenni has the most beautiful home you can imagine) and went on into the wee hours (well -- 10:00. We have kids now. 10:00 is the wee hours anymore). It was like a 20-year high-school reunion but a year early and not at the Airport Marina Hotel, and without having to put up with seeing (and trying to identify) people we never hung out with anyway. Speaking of kids, we all had a bunch (11 between 6 of us) and they all look just like little replicas of us.

That's the kind of stuff I wasn't imagining when I wrote this book. All the cool other stuff that would happen because of it. That one night, getting all those people together, seeing all the mini-me little-people, the laughter -- always the laughter -- the This-is-Your-Life-ness of it all...that was worth all the hours at the keyboard in itself.

peeve du jour

If one more person refers to my narrator as if it is me, I am going to scream.

i.e.;

"I'm at the part where you're talking about your twin brother."
"I loved the party-in-the-woods scene, that must have been fun."
"I didn't know your first husband was Mexican."

Yes, I am female; yes, I am a counselor; yes, I grew up in LA.
No twins, no woods, no Mexican husband, no swimming naked at Venice Beach or having a drag queen for a neighbor. No beachglass necklace aside from the one my dad gave me just before the book came out. No dying best friend. No temptation of an ex-boyfriend. No house by the lake, no porch swing. No office in a hospital with a gold nameplate. (And certainly no naturally blonde hair! I pay good money for these streaks.)

As Kevin said to Maggie in Herbie: Fully Loaded, "Herbie...is a CAR."

And Beachglass is a work of FICTION. I thought we put a little disclaimer in the front of the book? No? Author's note? Or the word "novel" on the cover?

I mean, YES, I'm happy -- thrilled, in fact -- that people are reading (and loving) my novel. I suppose I should just smile and say thank you when they say they were inspired by my life, instead of telling them that no, they were really inspired by a fictional character's life; and that, big shockeroo here, I am actually capable of making things up. I should take it as a compliment that the writing is such that people feel they are reading about real-life stuff. I should remember that most people make assumptions; still others speak before they think.

I should just...let it go.
And yet I collect pet peeves like some people collect...um...collectibles.

Does Jeffrey Eugenides have this same problem?
"Jeff, I didn't even know you were a hermaphrodite. You totally look like a dude!"