By now many of you have had a chance to read One Mountain Away. If you haven’t, an important element of the novel involves Charlotte Hale, the principal character, who is looking back at her life. Charlotte isolates three things she did in the past that she wishes she could change, then she sets about making amends for each of them, doing something in each instance to help make up for the damage she caused.

Do you have situations in your past that you wish you could redo? If you answer no, I worry about you. Because I believe we all have those situations, and facing them and admitting we screwed up is an important part of being human. Of course dwelling on our mistakes isn’t particularly helpful unless doing so helps us find a way to ask forgiveness or take a step to fix the situation. If that’s impossible, than the next step is to head off a similar situation for somebody else.

I have more than a few things I wish I had done differently. But one of them has nagged at me since I wrote Somewhere Between Luck and Trust, the book which follows One Mountain Away, which will be at bookstores in June. (more…)

I’m at the Novelist’s Inc. conference on St. Pete Beach this week, with old friends and new.  I attended last year and learned more in a day than I’ve learned in all the previous conferences I’d ever attended.  So back I went.

Ever wonder what writer’s talk about when we’re together? (And I don’t mean over umbrella drinks at the bar.)  Here are some of the titles of our workshops.

The Empowered Author: Publishing Math in an Age of Content Abundance.

Transmedia Storytelling.

Copyright 101

Writing in Multiple Genres: Craft and Strategy.

Since NINC requires two published novels before joining,we’ve left behind topics like “how to write a synopsis” and “building better characters” and moved on to the business of writing.  And, of course, ebooks and self-publishing will be discussed until we can’t squeeze another ounce of information out of our speakers and our friends.

I’ll be back next Friday, hopefully with great new things to tell you.  Meantime, don’t be surprised if I return with a suntan.

Welcome to Sunday Poetry.  If this is your first visit you can read about the purpose and inspiration of my Sunday blogs here.

Today’s poem, Song for Autumn by Mary Oliver seems perfect for mid-October, when the anticipation of winter is always with us, even on days when summer seems to be asserting itself, although briefly.

The leaves in our neighborhood are beginning to turn.  I describe them in detail to my husband, who is color blind, and he tells me what he sees and doesn’t.  It’s a different view of the same thing, much like the way each of us looks at national events as another presidential election rounds the corner. 

I am ambivalent about autumn, having grown up in Florida, then lived many years in colder climes when autumn made me fear what was to come.

What does autumn mean to you?  If you’ve celebrated a marriage or birth or lost a loved one this season, perhaps it brings back that memory.  Perhaps you look forward to quieter months when leaving home isn’t worth the trouble and a warm fire beckons you to stay?  Does your firewood shift a little, longing to be on its way?  Do you?

Remember there are no quizzes here, no right ways to read or contemplate the poem we share.  Just come along for the “read,” and enjoy the experience.    What line, word or thought will you carry along with you this week?  And if you’d like to tell us where the poem took you?  We’ll listen.

Welcome to Sunday Poetry.  If this is your first visit you can read about the purpose and inspiration of my Sunday blogs here.

Mother, Summer, I by Philip Larkin, linked here to The Writer’s Almanac online, is a “different” look at summer’s end.  I’ve posted it this morning after a magnificent set of thunderstorms rolled in across Chautauqua Lake last night and kept everyone but the most exhausted members of this vibrant community awake in wonder.

Do you, like Larkin, await a time “less bold, less rich, less clear?”  For the same reasons?  This is a wonderful poem to take with us this next week as August rolls to a close, to wonder and worry over and to set us thinking about the seasons we find most troubling or most endearing.

Remember there are no quizzes here, no right ways to read or contemplate the poem we share.  No dissecting allowed.  Just come along for the “read,” and enjoy the experience.    What line or word or thought will you carry along with you this week?  And if you’d like to tell us where the poem took you?  We’ll listen.

Summertime and the living is, well, BUSY!!  I just taught two classes and need to focus on my next book, so this week, just like on your TV set, you’ll be getting re-runs.  Today and Friday I’m featuring blogs from spring of 2009, when many of you weren’t reading here.  In the spirit of CHUsday, here’s an old recipe, and looking back, I can’t remember making it in the past six months.  So obviously the time has come again.  Rosemary focaccia is an old friend if not a new discovery.  This is a great end of summer bread because it’s quick and easy and you have many wonderful things to do besides stand at the stove.  Just don’t tell your family how easy it is. 

I first “noticed” focaccia while having dinner at a friend’s house.  Jim had baked his own, and I was instantly hooked.  I’m sure I’d had it outside of Italy, but never right out of the oven.  At home I found a recipe and tried it.  Okay, but not as good as Jim’s.  The next time I saw him I asked for his secret.  “Make sure the dough is sticky,” he told me.  “Don’t add too much flour.  As sticky as you can get away with is just right.”  

With that in mind I began to work with a recipe I downloaded from Epicurious, a wonderful online source for recipes.  I particularly love the reviews and  suggestions, and usually pay close attention to them.   

The Epicurious version of Rosemary Focaccia had its fans, but some reviewers complained the ratio of flour and water wasn’t correct.  After trying it, and taking Jim’s advice to heart, I had to agree.  So here’s my revised version.  This is a basic recipe, so feel free to experiment with a little whole wheat, ground flax seed, or any number of other additions.

Emilie’s Rosemary (and Garlic) Focaccia

• 1 package of yeast 
• 4 cups unbleached white flour (plus additional as needed)
• 1/4 cup good quality olive oil
• 2 1/2 teaspoons table salt
• 1 Tablespoon rosemary softened in 3 additional Tablespoons olive oil
• 2 cloves pressed garlic (optional)
• 1 t Kosher or coarse sea salt

In the bowl of a standing mixer, add yeast to 1 3/4 cups lukewarm water.  Let stand until creamy.  (If you’re using Rapid Rise yeast, you can proceed without waiting.)

Add 4 cups of flour, 1/4 cup of oil, and table salt.  Using the dough hook, beat until smooth and best of all, sticky for 4-5 minutes.  The dough should just barely stick to your mixing bowl.  If it’s too sticky, add additional flour one Tablespoon at a time. Stop the mixer and poke with your finger.  If it’s not damp enough, turn the mixer back on and add water one Tablespoon at a time until dough is moist to the touch.

Transfer dough to an oiled bowl.  I let mine rise in my oven, but I preheat it for a minute first to warm the interior–make sure you turn it back off!  Cover dough with plastic wrap or a towel, and let it rise for an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes–until doubled.

While it’s rising, add the rosemary to the 3 Ts of oil and give the rosemary time to infuse the oil with flavor.  Press the optional garlic cloves and add to the oil, as well.

When the dough has doubled, generously spray or oil a jelly roll pan (15″ by 10″ by 2″) and gently stretch and press down the dough to fit.  Allow this to rise another hour until just even or a bit above the lip of your pan.  Preheat oven to 425 degrees, and as it preheats, make gentle indentations in your dough with your thumb.  Fifteen or so.  Don’t worry, it won’t deflate unless you’re in a REALLY bad mood and you’re taking it out on your bread.

Brush the rosemary/garlic oil–along with the rosemary and garlic–over the bread, allowing it to pool in the indentations.  Sprinkle with sea/Kosher salt and bake until golden for 20-25 minutes.  If you use the optional pressed garlic, the smell while baking will drive you wild.

Although focaccia is fabulous just as it is in the above photo–with a little olive oil mixed with herbs for dipping–it also makes the most wonderful sandwiches.  Slice a good-sized chunk horizontally, fill with sliced cheese (I like pepper jack for this) and chopped tomatoes.  Brush one interior side with a little light mayonnaise and grill in a panini grill.  Don’t have one?  Pull out that old George Foreman grill you haven’t used for awhile and use that instead.  That’s all I do, and I never get tired of these sandwiches.

Focaccia also makes wonderful appetizers.  Toast, lightly covered with olive oil, mozarella, tomatoes, and the fruits of your imagination.

Enjoy!

I’ll be back by Sunday for Sunday Poetry . . . But breathing deeply here today.  Hope you’re doing the same.

Ah. . .

Welcome to Sunday Poetry.  We began this page in March, and if you didn’t join us then, don’t worry.  This is a drop-in, drop-out adventure.  You can read about the purpose and inspiration behind Sunday Poetry here.    

What’s your part?  Just slow down a little and come along for the read–or sometimes, for the listen.  If you’d like to tell us what the day’s poem means in your life, or what word or phrase you’ve chosen to reflect on, or where those reflections have taken you, we would be honored.  But there are no demands or imperatives.   If I have something to add, I will.   If you have something to add, please do.

Today’s poem is by William Blake, a lusty hosanna to spring.  Since this poem is in public domain, I’ll quote here.  With spring and May Day  in mind I searched for a poem that captured the utter simplicity of the season, with no guile, no laments.  I found this on www.portablepoetry.com, and I thank them for publishing it for us to enjoy.

Spring

by William Blake (1757-1827)

Sound the flute!
Now it’s mute.
Birds delight
Day and night.
Nightingale
In the dale,
Lark in the sky,
Merrily,
Merrily, merrily to welcome in the year. 

Little boy
Full of joy,
Little girl
Sweet and small.
Cock does crow,
So do you.
Merry voice,
Infant noise,
Merrily, merrily to welcome in the year.

Little lamb
Here I am
Come and lick
My white neck.
Let me pull
Your soft wool.
Let me kiss
Your soft face,
Merrily, merrily we welcome in the year.

Recently I had the pleasure of driving through the neighborhood where I grew up.  Trips into the past are always bittersweet.  Show me a slide-show and I wouldn’t be able to pick out the tiny one-story house where I spent most of my childhood. Pink and gray shingles have been covered with dark wood.  The back has sprouted a two-story deck, which raises my curiosity.  For a better view of sunsets?  To spy on the neighbors?  Despite this, the house is now one of the nicest on the street, while the neighborhood itself has declined.  Emerald green St. Augustine grass has been replaced by sand, and the lush shrubbery I remember is, for the most part just a memory.  Clearly this area, like so much of Florida and the rest of the country, has fallen prey to a weak economy and climate change.

I didn’t visit one of my favorite places.  I was five when I got my first library card.  The Gulfport Public Library–the present version pictured here–was too far to walk, and my mother never learned to drive.  We went when friends or relatives invited us, but I got there whenever I could and always checked out the six books I was allowed.

Had I been given permission, I would have moved into the children’s room and later the adult section.  I would have wiled away my nights randomly choosing books from the shelves, or inserting cards into the antique stereopticon viewer and taking random trips around the world through the eyes of another century.  I remember the musty odor of the books, the precise place where the first edition Oz series was kept for all to enjoy.  Next time I’m in town, maybe I’ll visit the newest incarnation and see how familiar it seems.

I know from your many emails how important libraries are to you.  Many of you rely on libraries to read my books.  Were you forced to buy every novel you wanted, you would quickly go broke.  I understand.  When a library buys my books for their shelves, I’ve made a sale, and hopefully new readers have discovered me. 

Unfortunately libraries, like my childhood neighborhood, have also fallen on hard times.  Recently I’ve received steadily  escalating pleas to help libraries all across the country.  The most recent came from Oregon.  A library structure must be replaced, so would I send an autographed book, contribute a recipe or make a donation?  Authors are no longer just the voices on library shelves, we are now being asked to keep the doors open, too. 

Do a Google search. Type in “save local library.”   See how many hits you receive.  Libraries in LA, Chicago, New York, even England and everywhere in between are in trouble.  My own library system has cut hours and employees.  What about yours?

Authors are generous, and many of us are responding to these requests, but we all know it will take more than a few autographed novels.  So what can we do together? 

For starters, my Google search turned up a concise, helpful article from the Good Culture site.   Take a moment and zip through it.  I bet there’s something there you could do to help your own library.  Start locally.  I’ll be donating books and money to all the libraries in my life.  That makes the most sense to me since I can donate more books and pay less postage. Imagine a world without your local library.  It’s unthinkable, isn’t it?

While you’re considering how best to help, will you share with us here a memory of a library that helped turn you on to reading?  Nothing is a greater catalyst to change than good memories.  Let’s all remember together then let’s get busy.

***Just a quick note on another subject.  Some of you have asked for an email address where you can send your requests for more Shenandoah Album novels.  I’ve just been told this is the right place:  customer_ecare@harlequin.ca

Thanks to all who participated in my Favorite Things giveaway by commenting here at Southern Exposure.  I really loved reading what you had to say.  You certainly cheered up anybody who took the time to read about the things that make you happy.  Random.org selected five winners and those readers will receive an autographed novel or quilt pattern book of their choice.

Drumroll please. . .

Congratulations to Lavanya, who loves reading with her puppy at her side. Emily, who loves hearing her son’s ringtone. JoAnne who loves flourless chocolate cake. Judy S. who loves a snow day. And Audrey, who loves the first sighting of a hummingbird in the spring.

If your name wasn’t chosen, don’t despair.  There will be more contests coming soon, with books and other assorted goodies.  Lots of assorted goodies.

Meantime, I’ll be back tomorrow with another post.  While you’re waiting, think of your favorite library moment.  Will you share it in a comment tomorrow?

As my Christmas gift to you, I want to share a passage from Fugitive, my novel published in the 1990s, as I did last year.  Tate, the heroine, has moved to a cabin on land in the Ozark mountains, left to her by a father she never knew.  This is an entry from his journal.

May your holiday be filled with love, transformation and reconcilliation.