Guest post from my husband writing as me...

Psst: I haven't been honest about being back to work.

My darling husband took me to North Carolina to visit my friend Deb. She turned 50. (insert funny SNL skit with Danny DeVito and Molly Shannon here)

We had an amazing dinner at SoCo, a farm to table, husband and wife owned restaurant and B&B owned by Jeremy and Kimberly (we love them now). Watermelon was cooked for hours until it had the texture of raw tuna. This is a thing!

We drove by a new whirligig park dedicated to Vollis Simpson. Across from it was a huge antique store. I use the word antique loosely. Hats off to Wilson, North Carolina.

Next destination was Boone, home of App State and Yoseph the mountaineer. We also yumped into a LOT of hiking (see what I did there). Hubby was up to 3 shirts and 2 showers a day.

The view on top of this mountain was supposed to be great.

The last day we did some tasting at two wineries, Grandfather Winery and Banner Elk. We met Jensen, a sustainability major at App State, who was our awesome server. We tried to fix him up with Deb's daughter, because, you know, wine.

The end.

Back to Work

After all of the gallivanting around Prague and Venice, strolling over bridges and listening to music and peeking into ancient churches (the icons and the china Jesus babies and the Black Madonnas and the jawbones of saints and the bearded women statues),

after the cemeteries with the tilted headstones and the fallen over flowers, the gondola rides and the wandering in alleyways, the preoccupation with pavement stones, and the stunning artwork in the museums,

after the meals eaten in outdoor cafes, the slabs of pork and dense bread, the pasta, the daily tasting of gelato, the obsession with Trdlos, the wine, the beer (the first glass ever. And the second. And the third),

after the jet lag and unpacking,

after the out of town guests and the return to daily chores (the weeding of the overgrown garden, the picking of vegetables) and the laundry,

after the much longed for and anticipated visit with the young adult children (and a significant other), and the celebration of the 4th of July in that over-the-top way it is celebrated in our town (the parade route staked out with chairs weeks in advance, the star painted streets, the high school marching band warming up by drumming drumming drumming so that we all wonder if we have fallen into the Jumanji set, and the early morning wake up with the bullhorn, the parade and the all day long cookout leading up to the fireworks),

after the kiddos have taken off again, leaving behind the quiet empty nest (oh! I should be used to this by now but somehow it still pierces me, that stillness as I slip past their dark empty bedrooms),

after the chores are done and the garden's producing and the dog's been walked and walked and walked, and there is no more travel on the horizon, no impending house guests, and so nothing more to do, really,

that is when I know it is time,

at last,

to go back to work.

Democracy with a Side of Pea Shoots

I hear the word Petition and I think of the line in the Declaration of Independence:

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury... something something about pleading with the King of England to listen to us.

Not what I thought I'd be doing on the hottest day of the year (so far) in my little town of Upper Arlington, Ohio. But here I am at local Farmer's Market, holding a clipboard, asking people to sign a petition.

I'm set up in the shade, cursing myself for not bringing along a bottle of water. Or a wading pool. As people wander toward the vegetable and flower booths, I accost them, politely. I've got a smile plastered on my face, my spiel memorized:

Hi! Have you signed the petition for Fair Districts Ohio? We're trying to stop gerrymandering in Ohio Congressional districts...

At this point the person I've accosted does one of three things:

1. Smiles back and says, "Oh I've heard of that! I want to sign it!"

2. Waves me off with a "I've signed that already!"

or

3. Gives me a look that says, BACK OFF WEIRDO as they hurry off in the shimmering heat toward the table heaped with bags of organic lettuce and pea shoots.

Luckily, I am not alone in my petitioning quest. I'm here with Lyddie, reluctant (but good sport) 8-year old daughter of a friend. Lyddie's babysitter fell through, and now, after a fun afternoon splashing around the public pool, she's stuck with me at the Farmer's Market where I've agreed to collect signatures for a petition.

Me: Hi! Have you signed the petition for Fair Districts Ohio? We're trying to stop gerrymandering in Ohio Congressional districts.

Accosted woman: "I have no idea what you are talking about."

Me: So this is--

AW: (waving me away)

Fun facts for woman in the above exchange:

The way things work in Ohio is every ten years, after the census, whatever party is in power gets to draw the district lines for our congresspeople. Sometimes this means the Democrats get the honor. Sometimes the Republicans do it. But either way, it's led to what most people would call unfairly drawn congressional districts.

Communities split and parceled out into three or four districts. Towns represented by leaders who basically pick their own sure-thing voters.

Which means that when it comes time for an election, our reps don't have a contest at all and are easily re-elected. Which means that they know their job is safe. Which means that they don't have to hold a townhall to listen to their constituents' concerns or answer questions or explain why they're voting the way they're voting.

Anyway, the Fair Districts Ohio petition is a plea to put some common sense back into the system--a request for a transparent process where both parties have a say in the drawing of districts. We need to get 500,000 signatures for this to appear on the ballot in 2018.

This week I need to get sixty signatures. Today, I am hoping for twenty-five.

Lyddie is not thrilled with my odds. She's flopped out in the grass in the meager shade, fanning herself with my information flyers. She's given up on coloring in her coloring book. It's too hot to turn cartwheels. Thank GOD the farmer in the organic meats booth across from us has taken pity and offered her a popsicle.

Meanwhile, I'm accosting people politely. Hi! Have you signed the petition for Fair Districts Ohio...

I feel like a waitress back in my waitressing days. Hey! Would you like fries with that? Hi there! Do you want to help me save our Democracy! Hello! How would you like your burger cooked?

"I don't have time for this," a man snaps at me, and I smile and say "Okay!"

"Well, are you going to explain what the petition IS?" he asks.

Um.

Lyddie covers her head with a beach towel. "What a fart face," she says after the man stalks off to check out the organic meats.

The guy selling lettuce and pea shoots laughs. I drift over to his booth and we chat for a bit about the heat. And about our lovely customers. After fart face leaves, the organic meat farmer joins us. Naturally, I ask both guys to sign my petition. In turn, I buy pea shoots and lettuce and rib eye steaks.

Lyddie scores another popsicle. I collect 24 signatures.

All and all, a fine day for America.

An Interview with Erin McCahan

The best thing about being a writer is meeting other writers, and sometimes, having the opportunity to read their books in advance. Last year I read an early version of fellow Ohio YA author Erin McCahan's novel The Lake Effect. I was a fan of Erin before I was a friend-- she won me over with her very funny, quirky and beautifully written novel Love and Other Foreign Words, so I jumped at the chance to take a peek at her latest book.

The Lake Effect is a smart mix of hilarity and heart-tugging Coming of Age angst. The story centers around main character Briggs, who signs on for much more than he bargains for when he takes a job working for Mrs. B, an eccentric elderly woman at the lake where his once wealthy family used to own a summer home.

Trust me: You will never look at funerals the same way ever again.

Today I am thrilled to catch up with Erin on the eve of her book launch.

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Jody: Sid Fleischman says it takes two sticks to start a fire and two ideas to start a story. What were the two (or more) ideas that sparked The Lake Effect?

Erin: Old ladies and anti-texting commercials.

Jody: Ha! You totally made me laugh out loud.

Erin: Next.

Jody: No, wait. Go back. I want to hear more about the sticks.

Erin: Old ladies and anti-texting commercials. What else is there to say? The interaction between old ladies and teenagers is just such rich material to mine.

Jody: I've never thought about that, but okay.

Erin: So I was polishing the characters of Briggs and Mrs. B -- without yet figuring out their story -- when I started seeing loads of anti-texting-while-driving commercials aimed at teenagers. I'd watch them thinking, "Those are never going to work."

Everyone knows that, by the numbers, the Big Bad Catastrophic Event happens to someone else. No one should text and drive, but people still do it because the odds really are in their favor that they're not going to crash and die or kill someone.

Jody: That's something that happens to other people--

Erin: Right. So I started thinking about how I could get Briggs, who is eighteen, to undergo a real transformation if the Big Bad Catastrophic Event happened to "other people"-- someone else, someone not necessarily close to him. Strangers even.

And that became the questions: "What if he spent a summer going to a ton of funerals of strangers?  How do I get him there?"

Because 'a ton of funerals of strangers' just screams 'bestseller,' doesn't it?

Jody: You're killing me here.

Did that make you laugh? Me. Mentioning killing and funerals?

Erin: No.

Jody: Probably there is a reason why you write funny books, Erin, and I don't.

What was your process for writing this book? Was it different from other books you've written? Easier? Harder?

Erin: My process is the same every time. I chew on a story idea but won't start writing until I have a solid beginning and end. Then I sit at my desk and tell myself I can't do this.

Jody: Wait. What? This works for you?

Erin: Not really.

Jody: What activities do you like to do while you are thinking about some problem in your writing or trying to avoid your writing?

Erin: Do you mean in addition to telling myself I can't do this?  Well, thinking about a problem: treadmill. Avoiding a problem: jcrew.com. In both cases, just taking a break from the book helps. So do Doritos.

Jody: Truth. Doritos help with everything. What kinds of scenes or stories do you love writing most?

Erin: Interactions between teens and old people.

Jody: Least?

Erin: Love scenes. I feel completely embarrassed and self-conscious writing those things.

Jody: Any advice for aspiring authors?

Erin: Drink heavily. Okay, not really.  Um -- yeah -- no, not really.

Two things: Learn to graciously accept criticism from experts, and be patient. Everything in the writing life takes a very long time.

Jody: Also very true. Are you ready for the Lightning Round?

Erin:  Yes!

Jody: What kinds of things do you do for fun?

Erin: Lately, it's plotting my escape from landlocked Central Ohio and doing this interview.

Jody: (blushing) I appreciate that.

Last good book you've read?

Erin: I just finished a biography of Washington Irving called Washington Irving, which was excellent. I love biographies. Especially the ones with catchy titles.

Jody: TV show you've binged?

Erin: Boston Legal, watching it while I'm on the treadmill while working out plot problems. I never saw it when it ran, and it has renewed my crush on James Spader. You know that iconic poster of him from the 80s? I'm tempted to put it in my office. That and the Hang in There kitten poster from the 70s.

Kitty                                      James Spader

Jody: Secret fear?

Erin: That this country will finally switch to the metric system, and I'll never again know how fast I'm driving or how tall I am.

Jody: Best meal you've ever eaten?

Erin: I really don't know. I'm not a foodie, though I hear the trololos in Prague are pretty good.

Jody: So they say. Cutest cat story?

Erin: My life is a cute cat story!

Jody: What's up next for you?

Erin: The Lake Effect, releasing July 11th! It makes me too nervous to think about it. I'll have to be on my treadmill all day, eating Doritos, drinking wine and watching Boston Legal.

Jody: And dreaming about James Spader?

Erin: Of course!

Jody: Thanks, Erin! I absolutely adore you and I adore The Lake Effect and I am so excited that the rest of the YA-book-loving world will soon be introduced to Briggs and Mrs. B.

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Readers, want to know more about Erin McCahan and her wonderful books?

Where to find her:

Website: erinmccahan.com
Facebook: authorerinmccahan
Twitter: @erinmccahan

Where to find her books:

Barnes & Noble
Amazon

Love Letter to a (departing) Bookstore

Dear Cover to Cover Bookstore,

The first time I stepped through your doors, I was in love.

Well, it's always that way with me and places that house books. Libraries. Bookstores. The spines lined up on the shelves, the scent of the paper, the people who tend to congregate in these spaces. Voracious readers. Aspiring writers. A kid here and there, cross-legged on the floor, lost in a story.

But you were different. You were special.

A store dedicated to children's books. An owner who reads everything, who loves and honors children's literature. I browsed for a year before I talked to her beyond the typical clerk-to-customer conversation. Can you recommend--? If my child loves that, will she like this--?

A year or two more before I told her I reviewed books on my blog. Her eyes lit up and she waved me into a back room. I nearly keeled over from book overload shock. Stack after teetering stack, books scraping the ceiling in high rise towers, books piled up on the floor and spilling out of boxes.

Advanced copies of forthcoming books, she said. She and her assistant couldn't read them all. They needed people to review them. Would I mind doing that for her?

Uh, no. I wouldn't mind!!! I walked out that first time with an armload, feeling like I'd won the lottery.

Somewhere along the way I told her I dreamed of being a published writer. From then on, she always asked how my writing was coming along. When I attended book talks and signings, she introduced me to the authors. When I had a manuscript on submission, she offered to take a look. She liked it, she said. And when the book was released, she threw me a spectacular launch party.

There's a wall in this lovely bookstore, several walls actually, of author and illustrator signatures. All of the people who visited the store in the thirty-five years of its existence. In my pre-pubbed days I used to read the signatures. Jacqueline Woodson. Virginia Hamilton. Kwame Alexander. John Green. Imagine my name up there.

I know, I know, this magical space couldn't go on indefinitely.

This week the owner is retiring. Someone's bought the place--the Cover to Cover name, I should say--because the building itself is closing and reopening somewhere else. The expansive inventory of children's books is being sold. The wall of signatures will be taken down.

Yesterday I browsed the shelves for the last time. I touched the book spines, sat cross-legged on the floor. Lost myself for a few moments in a story. Searched the wall of signatures for familiar names.

Smiled when I found my own.

I realize as I write this letter that it isn't to the bookstore. It's to the owner, Sally Oddi, book lover and children's literature champion, supporter of writers and illustrators, teachers and librarians, and loyal, supportive friend to me and to so many.

Thank you, dear Sally, for creating Cover to Cover.

May this wonderful place live on without you, and may you enjoy your retirement, surrounded by good friends and good books.

Walking, Map-less, in Venice

I walk without looking at my map.

It's folded up in my pocket. Useless, because I can't find myself on it. The words are too tiny. The road I am on doesn't seem to exist. This church. This square. I can't find them on the page. It's okay. I've stopped caring about where I am, where I'm going.

Instead I look. I see.

It's possible that I am seeing for the first time.

Red dishtowels pasted against a blue sky. Ivy growing through window grates. A sign for cappuccino. The price is something I don't understand and I am too tired to calculate it.

Turn a corner and I am the only one walking down this alleyway. I look at my feet shuffling over 500 year-old cobblestones. Look up, at walls that Mozart might have trailed his fingers over on his way to conduct a concert. Up higher, a sky so blue it can't be real.

I can walk all day. Winding down passageways and over bridges. Admiring expensive clothing and glass and leather in store windows. Swirls of chocolates and pastries and bread.

This way leads across another bridge. This way, a dead end. A building. A locked door. Men selling masks and key chains. Statues. Ancient wells. The water shimmering in a canal.

A massive church rises up unexpectedly.

I move through a mass of people and I am one of them and somehow not one of them.

I don't know how I came to be in this place. I don't know where I am going next.

A split in the road, and I choose one of the paths with little thought because it doesn't matter which way I go. The truth is, I can't really get lost here. Even without a map. I've figured out that I can follow the signs painted on the sides of buildings, arrows pointing the way to the rail station. Or to the Rialto bridge. If you know these two places, you can trace your way to anywhere.

On a whim I stop to buy a gelato. I sit on an ancient wall and watch pigeons peck at the soggy roll that someone's dropped in the canal, at people taking selfies on a bridge. A burst of song from a roving acappella group. They sing faster and faster, the words in a language I don't know.

This gelato is the most delicious food I have ever tasted in my life. These pigeons are the cleverest birds I have ever seen. The people smiling at their phone screens are heart-breakingly beautiful.

This song, this song. How do I keep it inside me forever?

Churches, Cemeteries and Beer

*Trying to write this blog from my phone so bear with me if it's wonky.

The beer in Prague, they say, is cheaper, than water. This is true. Too bad I don't like beer.

Correction: I loathe it. I was joking to my friend on this trip that I haven't had a beer since I was seventeen years old, but the truth is that first beer probably doesn't count. I took one sip. Put it down. Walked away half gagging. I was at a party where I only knew one person and was feeling extremely self conscious. Later I overheard people mocking whoever it was who left behind a beer un-drunk.

I mean, who the hell would do that? they said, appalled.

When you travel, when you walk through an unknown city, miles from home, when the conversations going on around you are in a multitude of languages and none of them are your own, you tend to have thoughts like these, flashes of memory, long ago humiliations in your non-drinking beer past.

I walk into so many churches here they begin to morph into one another. The church with the massive chandelier hanging over the pews, the cloister with a bearded woman statue nailed to a cross, the small tomb-like church with a statue of a black Madonna, the church that displays what they call "The Holy Infant of Prague," something that looks like a china doll wearing an elaborate poofy dress.

People around me pay coins to light candles. They kneel at the altars. They bless themselves and pray as they have prayed, in many of these churches for hundreds of years. I am overwhelmed in these sacred spaces.

Is it my once upon a time Catholic school girl upbringing? The cloying scent of incense drifting in the air? The familiar feel of holy water on my fingers as I bless myself? The prayers buried in the recesses of my brain leak out and I whisper the words I thought I'd forgotten.

Oh my God these cemeteries. Ancient tombstones falling over in the Jewish ghetto. The neat rows of raised garden beds behind an old Catholic Church. Someone is still putting out fresh flowers on these graves, dropping small stones, lighting candles.

I feel weepy walking back and forth over the Charles Bridge, the snippets of music playing. The heartbreaking "Moldau." And, weirdly, one night, a joyful rendition of "Mamma Mia." Beggars kneel, bent over, heads bowed, elbows on the pavement, holding out their up turned hats. No one gives them money. Some of them have dogs. Every dog makes me want to cry, and what does that say about me that I tear up for the dogs and not for the men?

I decide I am getting a damn beer.

I hear a band outside a pub playing Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song." I listen for a while with the crowd on the street and then I force myself to go inside. The man sitting by the only empty stool speaks English. He knows the owner, he says.

I tell him I haven't had a beer since I was 17. He smiles and says,  So, two years ago, right?

Haha, this guy is a funny one.

He recommends a beer, and it is enormous. I brace myself and take a sip.

Not like I remember. More... wheat-y?

Turns out the guy sells Aloe Juice. Whatever the hell that is. He's from England. He owns a factory in Bangkok. The band has veered from playing Led Zeppelin to monologuing about oppression, something something about how we're all being brainwashed by Abrahamic theology?

I am lost.

Half of the enormous beer finished, and it hits me that this aloe juice salesman may possibly be hitting on me.

He blabbers on about the dark turn the band has taken and how aloe juice can apparently be found in your upscale supermarkets and how much he hates hippies.

I finish my beer (!!!!) and then excuse myself to go to the bathroom. I sneak out another exit and walk quickly through the crowded streets, freaked out at first that the creep hippie-hating aloe juice guy will follow me, but he doesn't.

I walk the crowded streets, buzzing with my first beer, listening for random snippets of music, people prattling in every language but my own.