Three Things for Summer (so far)
Gilmore Girls, Grief, Giveaway…
What I’m writing…
I am so happy to unveil my new project—Life’s Short, Talk Fast: Fifteen Writers on Why We Can’t Stop Watching Gilmore Girls. Available for preorder now!
It’s true. I love Gilmore Girls so much that I couldn’t believe there hasn’t been an anthology of essays about the show already. Mothers and daughters! First love! Junk food and coffee and movies and books! The show captures just about everything that is this crazy, messy, wonderful thing called life.
After my divorce, my daughter Annabelle and I moved into a big loft across town from the 1792 colonial house where my family had lived since 1999. Our first night in this strange new home, as we ate spaghetti carbonara on top of boxes that still needed to be unpacked, Annabelle suggested we watch the pilot of Gilmore Girls. The show hadn’t been on since 2007, but was (and still is) one of the hottest streamers on Netflix. I was immediately hooked. And over the next four years, watching—and then rewatching—Gilmore Girls was our nightly ritual. We laughed. We cried. We sang the theme song as loud as we could.
I thought it was time to celebrate the wonder that is Gilmore Girls. Look at who’s got essays in the anthology!
By the way, as my essay “In Omnis Paratus” explains, I’m Team Logan.
Which Team are you?
What I’m knitting…
As you know, I’ve been traveling for most of June. Tbilisi, Georgia. Rome. Spello in Umbria. And then Tenuta de Spannocchia in Tuscany where I ran my yearly writers conference. Click the picture below!
The day after we returned, the Newport MFA, which I co-direct, started its June residency. No rest for the weary!
I began knitting the Soft Stripes Wrap on the plane to Tbilisi…
And continued on the flights bouncing me around from place to place…And now as I listen to the wonderful craft talks and lectures here at the Newport MFA.
I have found that knitting helps me listen better and keeps me focused. But I always knit in the back row so as not to distract anyone.
What I’m thinking about…
Grief. In particular, grief twenty-two years in. As many of you know, in April 2002, my five year old daughter Grace died suddenly from a virulent form of strep. I’ve written about this in my memoir, Comfort: A Journey Through Grief.
Recently, I’ve had two experiences that shook me to the core. Two different people at two different book events felt they needed to share their experiences around Grace’s death with me. Both stories were told to me as if reliving the worst time in my life would no longer slay me, as if somehow losing Grace was okay somehow after all these years. These were lovely people who are just misguided about grief. Who didn’t realize that twenty years or a hundred years, my heart is broken. I lost my funny, smart, quirky, little girl. And time doesn’t make it better or easy. Time just marches on, taking us along with it. True, I am blessed and happy, in love, busy, near my darling kids and mostly in the city I love or globetrotting. But there are still moments, even days, when the loss of Grace knocks me down flat.
It’s so important to me that people understand grief better that I have an imprint with Akashic Books devoted to grief memoirs. I’m honored to add Five Dog Epiphany: How a Quintet of Bad Ass Bichons Helped Us Retrieve Our Joy by Marianne Leone to my list, which also includes Now You See the Sky by Catharine H. Murray and Planet Claire: Suite for Cello and Sad Eyed-Lovers by Jeff Porter.
Please preorder! And please remember how tender we are, even after all this time.
And also…
Now that I’m not airborne so much, I’m doing a lot of driving—for book events for The Stolen Child from New Jersey to Maine and in between; teaching at Castle Hill in Truro on Cape Cod; and for fun with my girl cousins in the Hudson Valley.
That means listening to audiobooks as I drive. Right now, as I’ve been driving between Newport and Providence and Newort to NYC, back to Newport, and then on to the Cape Monday, I’ve been happily listening to the memoir The Friday Afternoon Club, written and read by Griffin Dunne.
Now I have a giveaway to ease your summer travels! Two lucky people will win an audiobook of The Stolen Child. All you have to do is post where you’re headed this summer on social media, tag me, and hashtag #thestolenchild. Winners announced July 4!
As always, thank you for reading. Enjoy these summer days and I’ll be back in a couple weeks.
A particularly stellar edition, Ann. You are a true gem.
OK, well, had I not already been a huge fan (thanks, Geneva Writers Group!), this post alone would have converted me. Gilmore Girls! Knitting! And, not with an exclamation point, grief--which stays with us, no matter how long it's been, and I do wish more people understood this. Can't wait to preorder the book. A blessing on your head--and Michael's!