I WAS THINKING THAT ONE of the characters in Sing Them Home, Alvina Closs, might describe the past month as elegiac—she'd pronounce it allergic—in the sense that it was characterized by endings, closures.
Nothing ever really ends, of course, and perhaps we'd do better in dealing with the mixture of feelings surroundings these events by thinking of them as transitions, as ways of clearing space on the calendar, and in the heart, for new connections, undertakings, adventures
Still, June was a time of introspection—and not a few tearful moments—as many things drew to a close: the end of the school year, with all the accompanying assemblies, concerts, class parties, award ceremonies, and goodbyes; the final game of the RUG League championship; the closure of my husband's play; the change of seasons.
I signed off on the last of the corrections and small changes to Sing—a happy accomplishment in that I can truly say that the long difficult work of writing this book is finally done, but a bittersweet one in that I can no longer look forward to regular conversations with my editor.
Also, I participated in Out of the Darkness Overnight—a benefit for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and an event I'd been anticipating (and to some extent, dreading) since I registered as a participant in late February. With thousands of other Seattleites, I walked for 17.8 miles through the streets and over the bridges of our city on the night of June 22-23rd, on the one year anniversary of a friend's suicide. It was a beautiful night—cool and blustery and remarkable for the hide-and-seek presence of a nearly full moon. The fact that Michael's family flew across the country to support my participation, and that his widow walked the entire way with me, made the experience all the more meaningful. To those of you who learned of AFSP through this website and were generous sponsors, I am tremendously grateful. For those of you who aren't familiar with AFSP and would like to learn more, their website is: www.afsp.org.

IN OTHER NEWS: Broken for You was chosen to launch a neighborhood reads program here in Seattle, "Phinney Ridge Reads." The organizer, Chardell Paine, did a fabulous job of promoting the event, Carol Santoro of Santoro's Books provided the books, and the setting was beautiful—a wood-paneled classroom in the old re-appropriated Phinney Ridge Elementary School. It had enormously tall windows overlooking Green Lake and the Cascades—making me wonder how any 3rd grader who sat in a desk in that room was able to accomplish anything. Someone once said that the worst thing a writer could have was a room with a view. I agree. My office window overlooks my neighbor's roof, and the most exciting thing I'm able to see from this viewpoint is a squirrel.
A few months ago, I was asked by the editor of Pacific NW Booksellers Association newsletter to help launch a new feature by NW writers: a piece of writing (1,000 words or less). It could be a vignette, a dialogue, a short story, whatever came to mind; the only requirement was a bookstore setting. I've done my share of writing exercises with prescribed parameters, but this was different, and having never attempted to write fiction on demand for publication, I was hesitant to commit. But Jamie was very generous in terms of deadlines, giving me ample time to "moodle," and an idea did finally arrive. The result is "Under I" and you'll be able to read it after July 16th by accessing the PNBA website.
The first events related to SING will soon be posted on calendar; I'll be making appearances at the fall trade shows of the Northern California Booksellers Association and the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association. I won't be making any bookstore appearances until after January 21st of next year, but I'm very much looking forward to getting out on the road with this book, and having the chance to meet some of you!
Finally, I'm pleased to announce that the audio recording of Sing Them Home is being voiced by a former student of mine, Tavia Lynn Gilbert. Tavia was one of my voice/dialect students at Cornish College of the Arts and I couldn't be more thrilled to have her as the voice of Sing. Blackstone Audio is producing the recording.

ON THE BOOKSHELF: My reading this month included: The Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst—a wonderful story about a grieving widower hoping to uncover the mystery behind his wife's death by teaching the sole witness—his dog—to talk; American Eve by Paula Uruburu, a nonfiction book about Evelyn Nesbit, a model who, in the early part of the 20th century, obtained a rabid notoriety that was rare at the time; and (a guilty pleasure, one chased in the interest of research) Joe Hill's Heart-Shaped Box, a well-written ghost-story with an unusual protagonist: a burned-out rock star whose bad-boy image belies a tender heart. You can expect to see a lot of ghost stories on my reading list in the months to come.

Wishing you and yours a great summer that includes lots of time spent lounging in the sun with a great book. Until next time, happy reading!

Best,

SK# # #

an excerpt from Sing Them Home

For most of their lives, the Jones children have been waiting for their mother to come down. Other things came down: the ruined baby grand piano, the nibbled #2 pencil thrust improbably into the trunk of a juniper, the red American Flyer. All these things returned to Earth after being whirled about in an unimaginable dance that surely was so wonderful it might have given objects a consciousness, a power to tell tales, at least to one another. But not to them, these children, who didn't share the miracle of these objects' ascension and return.

All these things went up and came down, but their mother never did, not one part of her, not even a scrap of her clothing. They have begun to suspect that they are insane, that they were born out of nothing, mythological beasts, freaks of nature without maternity. Perhaps they entered the world through other means: deposited as bee pollen on a porch step, by accident, forming bit by bit into something vaguely human, but suspect to any who look closely. Or summoned from the ashes and mud ensuing a storm, conjured into obscene life by desperate desire.

Or from the depths of a drop of rain or cookie dough.

Or maybe they climbed out of one of the bottles of iodine, mercurochrome, or cough syrup nestled at the bottom of their father's medical bag. They could have come from any of these places; all of these possibilities seem every bit as plausible as the idea that they were born out of the body of a woman. Their mother.