My blog

With 130 days left until The Secret Side of Empty hits shelves, my “official” Facebook page just hit 1,000 fans!  How cool is that?  It speaks to how great people have been about [...]

Set in quicksand and loving it! My publisher, Running Press (actually my wonderful editor, Lisa Cheng) just sent me over some sample pages from the freshly-typeset The Secret Side of Empty.  It [...]

The school from Footloose (you know, the one that banned dancing) is a real thing and it exists in…. Southern California? Wait… what? Proving that grown-ups are still as stupid as [...]

I have lived right outside New York City just about my entire life.  One of my earliest acts of independence was to sneak into the Village at fourteen while my mother thought I was at a [...]

The other day I happened to catch the tail end of Elizabeth Montgomery’s one-hour Biography special. It reminded me how fascinated I was by her witchy housewife on Bewitched when I was a [...]

I am not a fan of parent/teacher conference night.  At my kids’ school it is a mad scramble.  Add other parents and, well, it’s the Hunger Games. Here’s how it works.  You sign [...]

I came home the other night to a wonderful gift in my mailbox… Running Press’ Spring 2014 catalog with The Secret Side of Empty in the “front list.”  Awesome!   Plus, [...]

Because taking videos of your mom is funny. Let’s face it.   And because it’s funny to have a video camera pointed at you too:

This is my 200th post on this blog!  Woo-hoo!  Cause for celebration.  I have been writing consistently just about my whole life.  And, yet, this blog is special. Before I learned how to write, [...]

I think a lot about how ironic it is that we get judged by our exteriors.  It occurs to me sometimes if I see a really big guy who looks kind of scary.  I wonder:  what is it like to have people [...]

1.  I have a cat named Hermione and another one named Katniss.  Katniss = my all-time favorite name for a cat. 2.  I was once on my high school modeling club, although I am only five foot six [...]

A few days ago I wrote about my high school English teacher, Ms. Bordiga.  I mentioned her as an aside in a piece about “Latino time” vs. “American time,” as kind of a [...]

When I was small, I was religious in the simple, heart-felt way only a child can be. People told me things and I steadfastly believed them. I used the stories I heard as the backdrop for my games [...]

Not long ago I noticed an interloper in my midst.  It happened while I was walking up the stairs to my house.  There once was a time when only those who belonged were in my pretty and homogenous [...]

This past week I finally understood that something I really want is not going to happen. Of course I should have gotten this memo nine months ago (or, actually, about five years ago), but, hey, I [...]

Women in Saudi Arabia are not allowed to drive.  They can’t leave their homes without a man.  Anytime they are outside where an unrelated male might see them they have to wear the full [...]

I often find myself frustrated that I don’t write more.  Words swirl inside my head constantly, wanting to be written down, stories, plots, insights, ideas.  I’m sure they’re [...]

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For victims of domestic violence National Domestic Violence Hotline—www.thehotline.org Domestic violence:  National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, www.ncadv.org, 1-800-799-7233 For suicide [...]

I first heard The Rainbow Connection when a teacher played it for me in the fourth grade, preparing us to sing it for a school pageant.  It came into my life at a scary time for me.  I had just [...]

People often ask me which parts of TSSoE are fiction and which are based on my life.  The truth is that it’s all fiction and it’s all real life.  No writer, no matter how inventive, [...]

ramen noodles Reconstruction Red Bulled (coinage; stet) run-in SAT schoolwork shirtsleeve signaling single-mindedly slo-mo smart-ass (n) smart-mouth (v) [per Webster’s Third Unabridged] smiley [...]

ice cold (adv) ID identi-smile Immigration, the immigration people Ivy (as in League; “often cap” per W11) Johnny Bravo (www.imbd.com) Justice League ’K (for okay) kegger (M-W Online Dictionary) [...]

Music played a big part in the writing of The Secret Side of Empty, both from the way I envisioned certain scenes to songs that put me in the right mood for writing.  Since the story is inspired [...]

Last night they played Grease on ABC Family.  I tried to watch it with my daughter, who got bored before the first singing number.  “Mommy, was all acting this bad in the seventies?” [...]

As I’ve written before, I’m totally enthralled with the Style Sheet the copy editor for The Secret Side of Empty put together while copy editing the book.  I’ve posted part of [...]

I grew up in a household of immigrants so I heard a lot of “aren’t Americans weird” observations growing up.  Some of them were admiring, as in, “They live in such pretty [...]

In the “wow, this is really going to be a book” category of news, The Secret Side of Empty is now available for pre-order on Amazon.  So absolutely awesome!  Early reviews are coming [...]

Today marks the beginning of a series called “Words that have stuck with me.”  It will be a collection of short pieces about a single phrase that changed my mind, stuck with me, made [...]