Writer's Gifts and Tee Shirts

Need to find a gift for a writer? Check out these cool tee shirts.

A job for a professional...

Poet's Cause


The next poet laureate could work at the heart of government on issues from literacy to health. Read more here.

Summer Books 2008: Excerpts

The Reader

If you're looking for ideas to add to your summer reading list, NPR has a sampling of excerpts to tempt any booklover.

Lost Parrot Tells Vet His Address

Read the story in The Washington Post.

I guess I better start brushing up on vocabulary with Greyson, my African Grey parrot. She doesn't have a clue what her address is. Right now, she's fixated on the siren sounds she hears on my sons' video games...oh, and she rings like the telephone. Bad bird! (I hate telephones.)

Book Launch Video

With the release of "Tomato Girl" only three months away, this video particularly captures my current state of mind. ("Tomato Girl" is scheduled for release on August 26th. This is also my friend Bebe's birthday and my parents' anniversary--good omens, I hope!)

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A Few Things...

RECOMMENDED READS: I am more likely to swoon over poetry than fiction, but sometimes I find a novel that takes hold of me and doesn't let go.

I just finished reading "My Happy Life" by Lydia Millet and was completely absorbed by the unusual and tragic narrator. What an intriguing and moving read! I just loved it, and can't wait to read more of Millet's work, which is published by Soft Skull Press.


Another phenomenal book that I've read in recent months is click by kristopher young, published by Another Sky Press. This is one of the most vivid and enthralling narratives I've ever read...impossible to put down and even more impossible to forget.

A few other things...

I'm delighted that The Dirty Napkin has accepted two poems-- "Dinner Party" and "Lives in Decline" for their upcoming issue. Look for the next issue on or around June 21.

Another bit of good news...Audio rights for "Tomato Girl" have been sold to Recorded Books, so folks who like to listen to books will have that option.

WRITER'S DIGEST has listed their 101 best stites for writers. “We sifted through more than 2,100 nominations and chose the 101 most valuable.”

Tomato Girl Reviewed by Publishers Weekly

Publishers Weekly

The absorbing, unsettling debut from Pupek centers on 11-year-old Ellie Sanders, who has already seen a lot of heartache in her short, rural mid-20th-century Virginia childhood. Her beautiful but troubled mother, Julia, who today would probably be diagnosed as bipolar, has frequent outbursts necessitating restraints and horse tranquilizers, administered by Ellie's father, Rupert. When a pregnant Julia suffers a bad fall, Rupert uses the incident to bring home more trouble, in the form of Tess, the teenage "tomato girl" who supplies his general store with home-grown produce. Intended as a caretaker for Julia and Ellie (and a bedmate for himself), Tess, who has troubles of her own, instead initiates a series of increasingly horrific events that leaves the family irreversibly altered. Issues of racial and religious intolerance are touched on lightly, but the real focus of this accomplished debut is the fatalistic accounting of the events engulfing Ellie. Although Ellie's voice is not always consistent with her youth, she's an effective narrator whose storytelling naïveté nicely underscores her innocence. (Aug.)

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