Julia Barrett's World

Regardless of his Lolita obsession -

see Manhattan with a young Mariel Hemingway -

and his early tendency to clone the acting of his leading ladies - i.e., first wife Louise Lasser, Diane Keaton, and Mia Farrow - Woody Allen deals in Jewish neurosis and existential dilemmas - Love and Death, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Hannah and her Sisters, and one of my favorite movies, Match Point, starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers and new leading lady, Scarlet Johansson.

I will never forget the bank robbery scene from Take the Money and Run, and the discussion about the robbery note…paraphrasing here…It’s says gun. No, it clearly says gub, that’s a ‘b’. No, that’s an ‘n’. I still laugh about the orgasmatron in Sleeper.

Anyway, on to the theme of this post - one coincidence. Allen tackled the ultimate moral dilemma in Crimes and Misdemeanors - can an otherwise righteous man get away with murder? What does it do to him? How does it change him? Or doesn’t it change him at all? He addressed the same subject in Match Point, except this time Rhys Meyers plays a bit of a sociopath who gets involved, and in over his head, with a not-too-bright, but beautiful woman who is also a user. When Johansson’s character turns shrewish and she threatens the perfect life Rhys Meyers has so carefully crafted, he plans the perfect murder. The question is, will he get away with it? He does, but only because of one thing, and it’s the same sort of one thing those of us who write genre fiction use all the time…the coincidence - the hand of fate, the intercession of the gods. Why am I thinking of this? Because the exact same coincidence occurred in the second game of the World Series - which as you all know, I AM WATCHING!

Game two turned upon Texas Ranger Ian Kinsler’s almost home run. Did you see it? He smashed a ball to the wall and it looked as if it would go over. He’d have a home run and turn the tide for the Rangers. Instead the ball bounced up in the air and fell back into the field, and Kinsler ended up with a double and the Giants won game two. It was one of those paradoxical either/or moments - a game changer either way.

So it is in Match Point. The outcome hinges upon one thing - a ring that Rhys Meyers tosses into the Thames, except the ring hits the top of a fence railing and bounces up in the air. It doesn’t fall into the Thames, it falls onto the sidewalk, where it is picked up by…and the rest is history. It’s a game changer - Match Point. Rhys Meyers gets away with murder because of that singular accident of fate.

I love game changers. It’s the coincidence that propels the story. A dropped scarf, a note passed into the wrong hands, a horse slipping on an icy road and tossing its rider just as Jane Eyre happens to be returning from town late in the evening.

Even Jonathan Franzen, NYT-appointed god of literary fiction, uses the game changer in his book, The Corrections. A man is about to live out his dream - leave his cold, withholding bitch of a wife, his miserable job, his troubled children, and move to an island off the coast of Africa. What happens? The ring falls onto the sidewalk. The ball bounces back into the field. He arrives home to tell his wife he’s leaving her, but before he can open his mouth, she announces that she has cancer…match point.

Ina May Gaskin says in her book, Spiritual Midwifery, that the antidote to fear is courage. She’s quoting her husband, sixties’ guru Stephen Gaskin. For information and history, look up The Farm: http://www.thefarm.org/

At one time, I studied to be a midwife. Of course I sort of went the other direction and became a hospice nurse, but when I was pregnant with my three children, Spiritual Midwifery was my go-to handbook. I learned to ride the wave, surf the contraction, and that the antidote to fear is courage. It’s a pretty amazing book.

Anyway, one of my father’s dear friends just died. He was actually a few years older than my dad, but they’d been friends for a long, long time. My dad’s friend had just been to meet with his priest when he felt a pain in his back. He drove himself to the hospital and he learned that he had a dissecting aortic aneurysm. His choices were pretty grim - surgery and the significant risk of brain damage, kidney failure, blood clots and death - or he could do nothing and die. He decided against surgery. He lived for sixteen hours after his diagnosis. His kids all had time to get in to say goodbye. His friends came to say goodbye. He had a final visit with his priest and he died.

He told everyone - I’ve lived a good life, it will be all right. He laughed and joked and died peacefully.

I think it must be like knowing that you will face a firing squad in the morning. That’s courage. But the thing is, he fought in WWII on the beaches in Normandy and he saw his friends mowed down right and left. He said once that he never understood why it was they died and he lived. That sort of thing changes a person. He faced death then, he faced death now and he triumphed. Makes me very sad and happy at the same time.

Or why we love to read romance.

Since we’re all enjoying our weekend, I’ll keep this short and sweet. If there’s one truism I’ve learned over the years, it’s that happiness is fleeting. There are no guarantees. Like my father says, the only things we’re guaranteed in life are death and taxes. Thus, I postulate, the popularity of romance in all it’s many wild and wonderful genres. Romance is a fantasy of the highest order - the fantasy of true love, and if well written, the reality of true love. Like any good work of fantasy, romance plucks us out of our ordinary existence and plunks us into the extraordinary.

There’s something so fetching about the extraordinary.

I’ve actually been reading! Shocking, I know. A couple ebooks and Mr. Perfect, by Linda Howard - not my fave of hers, but colorful, some very nice visuals….

Alpheli Solution

When Danamara Higgins is attacked by a vampire, her life turns upside down. Vampire Bootcamp class seems to be the answer to her prayers. In her wildest dreams, she doesn’t consider meeting not just one, but two hunky vampires who take her—in the car, in the shower, in the living room, in the hot tub, in hand—as they teach her everything she’ll need to know about her new vampire life.

For centuries, Pierre has loved and pursued Julian with no success. After a hostile takeover of Julian’s financial assets, Pierre is positive Julian will have nowhere else to turn. Julian, though, chooses to teach the Vampire Bootcamp class rather than surrender to Pierre on unequal terms. When one of Julian’s students approaches him for help identifying her sire, Julian is stunned that she is his alpheli—an extremely rare mate whose blood will allow him to subsist on real food. What will that mean to his love-hate relationship with Pierre?

There are just one or two problems. Danamara is descended from Pierre’s bloodline. And she’s on someone’s hit list. Julian and Pierre find unexpected erotic rewards and eternal love when they join together in a brutal war to protect their alpheli’s life.

Buy Link: http://www.resplendencepublishing.com/m8/251-201-107-452-2-alpheli-solution-by-anny-cook.html

When Julia asked me to write about Alpheli Solution, I thought no problem. Hmph. That’s not exactly the way it worked out!

Once upon a time in my other life I taught Computer Bootcamp classes. Now you may not know or believe it, but romance authors don’t often write about their own lives. Frankly, they’re not very glamorous. Occasionally, we use bits and pieces from our lives, though. I sat in front of the computer thinking about my experiences as an instructor. Surely I could use some of them?

The problem was to settle on a subject. I didn’t want to use computers. Then I hit on the idea of Vampire Bootcamp. Of course, all the vampires out there seem to be alphas-at least the heroes. So why was my alpha teaching Bootcamp? Ahhhh. He was suffering temporary financial embarrassment.

Generally, I begin a new story with a “jumpstart”. That’s a few pages to see how things are going with my idea. Maybe I have to change it. Maybe there are too many problems to work out. Maybe… the entire story derails and runs off on its own track, leaving me behind.

That’s what happened with Alpheli Solution.

It morphed into a ménage when Pierre decided he wanted to be part of the romance. He wasn’t willing to give up on Julian. Then Danamara insisted on tossing in her two cents worth. After a scorching kiss from Pierre, she fell into lust with both of them. And to tell the truth, Julian wasn’t to broken hearted over the way things fell out.

And that should have been it. Right?

No, no, no.

All these other characters kept leaping into the story, creating problems and chaos. Gabriel, the vampire cop, just couldn’t wait until Julian had things worked out. Gabe needed help immediately. And Donal, Danamara’s brother really, really didn’t like vampires-so much so that he kept trying to kill her.

Sigh.

After battles, mysteries, and oh yeah, a LOT of hot sex, they finally worked out their happy ever after! Especially the hot sex…

***My two cents worth - Alpheli Solution, by Anny Cook, is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. I could not put it down - read it all night! Go! Buy this book! Julia

All right, trying to catch my breath. As I started to say the other day, Beauty and the Feast - my contemporary romance about food and falling in love, is an Epic eBook Finalist in the Contemporary Erotic Romance Category. Captured, my wonderful science fiction romance, is an Epic eBook Finalist in the Science Fiction Erotic Romance Category, and The Cougar Book, by Logical Lust, which contains my short story, You Might Just Get It, is an Epic eBook Finalist in the Anthology Category. Wow!

Okay, so what is My Everything - my sweet romance/suspense doing up there? There’s a great review posted on Fire Pages http://firepages.wordpress.com/ - Zee loved the story - so do I - it’s my book that nobody reads but when they read it, they fall in love with Ben and Grace. I keep saying, My Everything is my red-headed stepchild! Today, or tomorrow, depending upon where you live, Fire Pages is hosting a contest, of course the prize is an ecopy of My Everything, and Zee is posting an interview she did with me about the writing of the book. Come by, this is a fun interview, and I’d love it if you read the review too!

Here’s just one little paragraph from the review: Barrett has a fantastic writing style. It is very fluid and easy to read. I love how she fills every page with action, driving the story as well as the characters throughout the book without any excess filler or fat. I also appreciated how Barrett doesn’t introduce too many characters in her novel. I really got to know Ben and Grace on a personal level, and became quite invested in their happiness. Overall, this is a grand slam title for Julia Rachel Barrett, and I absolutely recommend My Everything to anyone who enjoys a well crafted novel.

In other news - I attended my very first World Series game ever…ever! Totally cool, completely exhausting and my Gigantes won. Oh happy day!

Angelina knows all about survival. She can handle the tough city streets where crime and chaos are the norm. When she finally flees to the protected community of West Caper, she meets her match with the handsome small town cop.

Brandon is everything Angelina is not. He’s only known safety, security, and the love of his family. When he tries to bring Angelina into his world, she resists, unable to settle down and trust after living a life on the run.

The walls around the town are unable to protect the couple forever. Will Angelina’s past threaten the new happiness she’s found with Brandon? Can the secret she carries help a world set on destroying itself?

Buy link: http://www.evernightpublishing.com/beyond-the-wall.html

To Plot or Not to Plot

Beyond The Wall is quite different from my usual books, although I do write in many genres. The type of book I write next depends on my mood—paranormal? western? menage? M/F? I went on a futuristic kick, writing Beyond The Wall and Womankind around the same time. This book started out with a character and a single scene in my head. I wanted to create a strong heroine that didn’t need anyone to help her, including a man. She could survive under the harshest circumstances and believed emotions were a weakness. So—Angelina was born. Add her complete opposite, Brandon, and a complex love story was created.

I never plot, never. Although, I may write notes. Hey, I have to keep track of names in a menage like the rest of them. But, seriously, I need notes on names, towns, character traits, etc., but I don’t plot out my stories. Each book springs from a single idea and I develop a world and characters around it. The characters lead the story and it often comes out much different than I expected.

What’s your style? Do you research, and/or plot out your story before writing? Or do you let your muse take control and follow it obediently?

Thanks for having me, Julia!!!

No, Stacey - my treat! Loved the book! This story is different, dark, intriguing, and very, very sexy. The heroine is tough and scarred, a real survivor, while the hero has a kind heart and good intentions. Kept me up all night!

Scream!

A few minutes ago I received word that two of my books are finalists in the Epic ebook awards! OMFG!

Beauty and the Feast is a finalist in the Contemporary Erotic Romance category and Captured is a finalist in the Science Fiction Erotic Romance Category.

Thank you, Resplendence Publishing for snatching up Beauty and the Feast, and thank you Siren for loving Captured as much as I do. Wow!

I’ve been put on notice.

Hubby says that I must stop behaving like a guy and learn to enjoy foreplay.

So from now on, he’s timing me. The other night, he set his watch and forced me to delay my gratification for twenty minutes so he could have some foreplay. He says he’s increasing the time by ten minutes every night. And by the way, I asked him to write this post, but he refused because he’s a wuss.

*Oh and Steph (fangs, wands, fairy dust) it’s not a matter of bottling my libido - it’s that hubby is just that good, but I refuse to share.*

Where was I? Oh yeah, this notion of bases…first base, second base and so on, is it still valid? I mean, if first base is kissing, then what is French kissing? First and a half base? If second base is copping a feel, then what is, like, um, unbuttoning the shirt and sucking on the, um, nipples? What base is that? If third base is, well, you know, then which base is oral sex? So, if a home run is intercourse, how many bases do we need to get there? Hubby says you have to run around the bases at least twice before you hit a home run. That’s six bases. Maybe it should be eight bases. Soliciting opinions here!

We had this really funny conversation about sex.

Him - “You’re so impatient. You’re like a guy. You just want your orgasm.”

Me - “Yeah, but that’s because it’s so good.”

Him - “But I want to play with you first. Five minutes and you’re ready to do it.”

Me - “How much time do you need?”

Him - “As much time as I can get.”

Me - “Why?”

Him - “Because for a guy, once it’s over, it’s over. It’s different for a woman.”

Me (fist bump on the inside) - “Yes, I know, that’s why I like it.”

Him - “Look, you have a lot of parts I enjoy. You have to learn to let me enjoy them at my leisure.”

Me (defensive) - “Well, you have parts too.”

Him - “Not as many.”

Me - “But you have the big part.”

Him (laughing) - “Yes, I have the big part. I control the big part.”

Me - “You’re gonna make me wait to use the big part?!?”

Listen ladies, he’s threatening to force me to spend an entire hour kissing him. Can you imagine? Oh cruel fate!

P.S. An addendum - my husband just read this post and came upstairs to say, “You know honey, you’re kind of math challenged.”

“Yeah? So what else is new?”

“Going around the bases twice is eight bases, not six. Home plate counts as a base.”

“Oh, I better add that onto the blog.”

“I think most of your readers will figure it out.”

P.P.S. Hubby just called upstairs - “You know, people may find this off-putting.”

“You’re the one who told me to write it!”

“No, I just suggested that you write it. I didn’t know you were going to repeat our conversation.”

“Oh for god’s sake, I can’t win for losing!”

***Disclaimer - Regardless of what I say or don’t say on this blog, remember, my life is not perfect and it never will be.

Talking about my menage, One Four All.

Drop by! I’ll be there all week.

http://www.michelezurlo.com/

http://www.michelezurlo.com/apps/blog/show/5144840-julia-rachel-barret-one-four-all

In the meantime, check out Sandra Cox’s new fantasy, Sundial, and Sharon Lathan’s interview and her new book, In the Arms of Mr. Darcy.

And feel free to have a look around! love, Julia

I met author Sandra Cox (online) the day I got my first publishing contract!

She’s an amazing author and a wonderful, supportive friend. She gets to take over my blog for two days to talk about her new work of fantasy and her great contest.

***

I have always found the idea of time travel intriguing. Going back to another time, meeting people you’ve read about in history books, finding out what it would be like to travel on a fast horse instead of a fast car.

If you had an opportunity to go back in time where would you go?

The time and place in history that fascinates me the most…Texas in 1836 when Texicans fought for their independence. The strength and courage of the people of Texas, and the people who fought by their side, has never failed to stir me. I am always amazed at the men who held the Alamo until they’d drawn their last breath, outnumbered in everything but courage.

From these two common denominators-time travel and Texas-SUNDIAL was born.

Excerpt:

Without conscious thought, Sarah began to move. A feeling of urgency welled inside her. She walked trancelike through the middle of the battle, intently scanning faces, looking for the beloved features of her lover.

Bewildered, she shook her head to clear it. She had no lover. But she kept walking, faster and faster. She’d lost him once, no twice. She couldn’t lose him again.

The black smoke from the powder was so thick she could only see a few feet in front of her. It was hard to breathe. Her lungs ached.

She shrieked as a man in a bloody uniform fell against her. Monet cried in piercing, high-pitched tones.

A Texan brandishing his rifle, like a club, swung in her direction.

She screamed in earnest.

Contest:

For an opportunity to win an autographed copy of SUNDIAL, a ‘seeing’ pendant and a $10 Starbucks gift card, just leave a comment mentioning Julia and SUNDIAL at www.sandracox.blogspot.com. The contest runs from Oct 15 – Nov 14 at 5:00 p.m.

SUNDIAL blog tour hostesses are invited to enter.

Thanks for hosting me, Ms. Julia.

I was fortunate enough to meet author, Sharon Lathan, last week. She reopened a door into the world of Jane Austen, a door I had closed long ago, after dismissing Jane Austen’s works as nothing more than high school reads. I discussed the subject with my daughter, a big Jane Austen fan. She said the beauty of Jane Austen’s writing is in the details she provides, the beautiful descriptions of daily life and the colorful dialogue. She says Jane Austen moves a story along via dialogue and real life characters and situations. I had never looked at Austen that way. I realize I’ve been missing the essence of Jane Austen all along!

Please feel free to chat and ask Sharon any questions you like. She’ll be around for the next couple days to respond to comments.

Sharon - here’s what I’d like to know, and what I’d like my readers to know -

My father was just here for three days and we went hiking together. Yesterday morning he asked me, “Whatever happened to So and So? I know she died young, but what happened to her? What did she do with her life?”

So and So was my best friend, my only girlfriend, from the time I was fourteen years old. I know what happened to So and So.

“You mean Meryl?” I asked and he nodded. “She died six, maybe seven, years ago. She died of heart failure, alone, in her kitchen. After a few days, a delivery man found her. She was cremated and somebody scattered her ashes on the mountain behind her trailer.”

“But what did she do with her life?” my father asked. “Did she ever graduate from high school? She was a bright girl. Did she go to college? Did she ever marry? Did she have children?”

“No, she never did any of those things.”

“But what did she do?”

“She lived with a few different guys. She worked as a waitress from time to time. I don’t really know because she didn’t want to keep in touch with me, at least not much after I got married (the first time). Everything I know about her adult life I heard from Pat.”

“Pat Fitzwilliam?”

“Yeah, Pat Fitzwilliam.”

“How did he know?”

“Because he was best friends with Meryl’s old boyfriend, Wayne.”

“Whatever happened to Wayne?”

“He died of a drug overdose years ago. He was maybe twenty-five, twenty-six. Pat stayed in touch with Meryl after Wayne died.”

“Wasn’t she a good artist?”

“Yeah, dad, she was an amazing artist, and she was a good writer. And she was beautiful, the most beautiful girl I’ve ever known.”

“But why would she waste her life like that? Why didn’t she ever make anything of herself?”

I shrugged. “She had a sad life. Her mother died of a brain tumor when she was twelve. Her father was an abusive alcoholic and she had to put him in a nursing home when he was in his late forties and she was just eighteen.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“When I came home one Christmas from Utah. I think I was twenty-one. We went to a bar and had a couple beers. She’d come in from Colorado to visit her dad. That was the last time I saw her.”

“What did you two talk about?”

Funny how I still remember what we talked about. We discussed the reasons she didn’t like my new husband (now ex-husband). She told me I deserved better. She said she had no desire to marry or have children. She thanked me for keeping all her secrets, for remaining silent when she ran away at the age of sixteen and vanished for two years. I was the only person on the planet, aside from the older man she ran off with, who knew where she was. I kept her secret despite the fact that her father forced me down to the police station time and time again for questioning. I figured she was in a much better place.

“What did we talk about? Nothing much.”

That night with Meryl was the last night I ever smoked a cigarette or got stoned or even shared a pitcher of beer with anyone. As young teenagers, Meryl and I both lived through some of the worst moments of our lives. My life got worse for several years after our last night together, hers got better for a while, and then the reverse happened. Mine got better, hers got worse, and she died. She was the blond, statuesque beauty, the talented, enigmatic, imaginative muse - every man’s wet dream…I was the dorky, glasses-wearing, flat-chested, shy, majorly fucked up tomboy. I never expected to make it past thirty. She never made it to forty.

“What a wasted life,” my dad said. “She vanished from the earth without a trace.”

Her father is dead. Pat Fitzwilliam commited suicide. There’s only me to remember her. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of her. And when I’m gone, they’ll be no one left on this planet who’ll know Meryl was ever here. Her only footprint? A book of poetry she sent me years ago. She wrote a note inside the front cover. Yeah, that’s a wasted life.

Don’t tell me to write a story about it - already did. Rejection slips up the wazoo.

Next ten books to take to the moon:

1. Under Heaven, by Guy Gavriel Kay

2. The Milagro Beanfield War, by John Nichols

3. The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula Le Guin

4. Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon

5. A Game of Thrones, the entire series, by George R. R. Martin

6. Cloudsplitter, by Russell Banks

7. Into Thin Air, by Jon Krakauer

8. Ahab’s Wife, by Sena J. Naslund

9. The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini

10. A Song for Arbonne, by Guy Gavriel Kay

I love the book, Under Heaven, by Guy Gavriel Kay.

I file it under the cannot put down one of the best books I’ve ever read category in my brain. But which is it, literary fiction or genre fiction? Just like the novels of Sharon Kay Penman (no relation), I consider Under Heaven a work of historical fiction containing strong elements of fantasy, which is genre fiction. Some of Mr. Kay’s works are straight up fantasy. At the same time, Under Heaven is a work of literary fiction along the lines of Steinbeck’s East of Eden, which also contains fantastical, existential elements.

What is the essential difference between genre fiction and literary fiction? My answer is, I don’t know. Is it that genre fiction is expected to have a concrete conclusion, an HEA, or Happily Ever After, while literary fiction must be either a tragedy filled with deep wisdom or an open-ended work with a sort of draw your own conclusion finale? I don’t think so. More and more genre fiction is not all peaches and cream, riding off into the sunset, or an ‘and they all lived happily ever after…’

Is the difference between the two a matter of formula? Does each sub-genre follow a specific formula or set of genre rules along the road that lead to a predetermined conclusion? Again, I’m not so sure. I’ve read numerous works of literary fiction that seem to follow a very stereotypical formula. Because I don’t want to get slammed, I won’t mention the works or the authors, but there seems to be a formulaic trend in literary fiction - life as we know it, sudden tragedy, resuming life as we know it…changed. A lesson learned. A lesson not learned. Ending. If that’s not a formula, I don’t know what is.

For most of my life, I’ve read literary fiction. It’s only in the past four years that I’ve done a 180′ turn and switched to reading genre fiction, along with a whole lot of fabulous nonfiction. Why? Because with genre fiction I’m reading tried and true themes molded in fresh and intriguing ways by creative, interesting voices.

With some brilliant exceptions, literary fiction began to bore me perhaps…ten years ago. The voices started to sound alike, the stories became interchangeable. It’s not that I expected a new tale told every week, it’s that I wearied of reading the same old tale told in almost the exact same voice via the same tired plot devices while the New York Times book reviewers, and my sister, heaped praises on the authors ala the Emperor isn’t wearing any clothes. Seriously.

Is the difference between genre fiction and literary fiction word count? Nope.

Is it the quality of characterization? Nope. There are well-written characters (and some poorly written characters) in both.

Janet, over at Dear Author, bless her dad-gum-blasted little soul, beat me to the punch on this one by posting a blog on literary fiction/genre fiction on 10/19, well worth the read - Originality in Genre Fiction, an Oxymoron? http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2010/10/19/originality-in-genre-fiction-an-oxymoron/ According to Ecclesiastes (Kohelet), there may indeed be nothing new under the sun, but the proof is always in the telling.

For me, it’s splitting hairs - six of one, half-dozen of the other. I read what I like. I no longer feel that in order to appear cool and sophisticated, I must eschew genre fiction and read only literary fiction. There are good and bad books in both in both genre fiction and literary fiction and there is increasing overlap - which I think bodes well for the future of literary fiction.

Sometimes, especially when I’ve been schlepping my parents all over Kishnev all day long, I miss Opus, Bill the Cat and Bloom County.

I found this site, looks as if every Bloom Country strip is being re-released in a five-volume set - I’m on it, cannot wait to reminisce with old friends. I so miss my Bloom County!

http://www.berkeleybreathed.com/pages/09bloomlibrary.asp

http://www.berkeleybreathed.com/pages/Cartoon_Collections.asp

Wish I could share something more profound than ack, but I just don’t have it in me tonight. I feel like I might cough up a hairball…

So much to do, so little time…

Not getting much done, writing-wise, because I have so many other things to do - you know, like post-season baseball and my parents are coming in tonight to spend three days with us and then there’s the puppy.

Take a look at my personal eye candy, Andres Torres. I adore him. What an athlete - ‘K, Andres, now hit. Hit a big one for me!

I have always been a sucker for athletes. T.Z. for instance, was my 8th grade boyfriend - the tightest tight end in town. He looked dang good in his football jersey, especially running down the field with the football cradled in his arms.

M.K., the 6’8″ captain of the high school basketball team. Sweet as pie. One of the very nicest guys I ever dated.

Hubby and I went running around the lakes in Minneapolis on one of our few dates. He’s a runner, but he also played football and wrestled. Gotta love those wrestling moves! Wrestling is really big in the Midwest - I mention it in Beauty and the Feast - it’s especially popular at the University of Iowa, my alma mater.

On another topic, author Sharon Lathan has agreed to come by and talk Jane Austen. I’ll try to woman-up and put my two-cents in, but I’m still on team Bronte. In the meantime, I’m going to reread my Austen books - got several of them on my shelves.

If you’re team is in the play-offs - go team! Fingers crossed that the Giants pull it off again tonight!