Come see the world premiere of A LITTLE WORK

A few years ago, my friend novelist Stephen McCauley (The Object of My Affection)and I were between books and hit upon the idea of writing a play as a way to keep ourselves occupied until we scraped together the energy to begin new novels. It was so much fun working together on A LITTLE WORK, a mash-up of Nip/Tuck and The Man who Came to Dinner.

We held some Boston workshop readings and even did a staged reading as a fundraiser for a local organization I helped found here in Boston. (www.mayyimhayyim.org). However, we never got to a full production until now.

"Who Wants Cake," a company in Ferndale, MI, (near Detroit) is giving A LITTLE WORK its world premiere, opening on January 8, 2010.

Steve and I are planning to attend the opening and I hope we'll see you there. If you have friends/family in the vicinity, please let them know about the show.

Some links

Blogs are very me, me, me. So here is some more about me:

You can watch the talk I gave to about 2500 Reform Jews about the status and future of American Judaism at the Union for Reform Judaism conference on November 4.

http://urj.org/multimedia/videos/

And here are some book reviews about Day After Night.

Jerusalem Post

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1258624592186&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/books/review/Fay-t.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=anita%20diamant&st=cse

That's me all over

It's been awhile since my last post. And a long, strange, wonderful trip it's been.

A few highlights. I was in St. Louis to receive an alumni award from Washington University. The featured speaker for the night was to have been David McCullough, who has written so many terrific histories including Truman and John Adams.

Alas, it was announced, Mr. McCullough was very ill and unable to appear. As someone who travels to make speeches myself, I knew he had to be extremely sick not to show. It was our loss.

The next morning, sunning myself in the little square in front of my hotel, I noticed a distinguished gentleman on the bench nearby. I approached.

"Mr. McCullough? How are you feeling?"

He declared himself a bit woozy but much improved from the extreme misery of the day before. He was deciding whether to travel on to Ohio for his next appearance, or go home. He invited me to sit down and I spend a magical half hour, chatting about being on the road, writing, and reading. He told me about the book he's working on, which sounds amazing. (It's not my place to divulge.)

I asked him what he was reading and he said, "Trollope."

"You are the third person in the past few months to tell me to read Trollope," I said and confessed the length of his novels discouraged me. He suggested, "The Warden" as a good place to begin, and then he let me know he needed to sit in quiet again.

I went back to my hotel room, fired up my Kindle and much to my surprise and delight, I found "The Warden" available for free! I downloaded it and am enjoying it not only for the story and the writing, but also because the pleasure of that delightful mashup of coincidences and centuries and technology.

On the road again

I write from St Louis, MO. Home of my alma mater, Washington University, for a Founders Day Celebration which includes a nice honor for me as an alum. Am also here for an appearance at Left Bank Books, which is celebrating its 40th birthday -- a minor miracle in these days of amazon and walmart sales.

I was briefly and peripherally a member of the collective that started and ran Left Bank in its original location. The details are all a bit fuzzy in my memory, but I do recall the pleasure of getting to read through catalogs and order books. Kid in a candy store.

This is the middle of a ten-day trip to promote the new novel, and so far, everything has been better than great. In Toronto, I got to spend three days with daughter as well as husband at the Reform movement biennial convention, where I also saw people I've known for years and years. (Including youth group pals from high school days, two of whom I had not seen in more than 40 years!)

Sitting between Emilia and Jim at Shabbat services last night (beautiful music and the energy of singing and praying with 3,000 people) was a profound joy.

Airplane reading: Gail Collins's history of the modern women's movement: When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women From 1960 to the Present. Having lived through this,participated in some,I find it riveting. Just finished the part where Nixon vetoed a bi-partisan bill that would have supported childcare. What a difference that could have made for so many of us...

Boston Book Festival '09

Today was the first Boston Book Festival and what a big WOW. Thousands of people converged on Copley Square for panel discussions, readings, and a first-class celebration of literacy in all its forms.

If you've never been to Boston (and please do come visit), Copely Square is an architectural jewel, featuring two stunning churches (Trinity and Old South), and the Boston Public Library -- all of which hosted events.

Festival is really the right word for what I saw in the crowds, in the focused attention to what was said and read, in the stress-free lines to buy books or score a cup of free coffee or ice cream. No one kvetched even about the drizzly weather, which gave way to clearing skies and warming temperatures.

Altogether, readers and writers left feeling good about the fate of writing and storytelling, whether delivered on the page or the screen.

Everyone who participated and attended agreed: WE WANT THIS TO HAPPEN AGAIN.

Here's to Boston Book Festival 2010.

The Bookstore

Tomorrow evening, I'm doing a reading at THE BOOKSTORE in Gloucester, Mass.

It is, along with a handful of other nearby independent bookstores (Toad Hall in Rockport, Newtonville Books, Brookline Booksmith) a place that I love for the way it supports authors and readers.

I just finished a book on my Kindle, a device that is perfectly lovely on an airplane, but has a couple of big problems. The first is that I can't tell where I am in the text (table of contents not so helpful in many novels) which is very disorienting. Like not knowing what time it is, as friend and writer Steve McCauley put it.

But e-books also lack the face-to-face association of a book that was purchased in a particular bookstore, from a human being that I know and like. It adds another mysterious and delightful layer to the pleasure of a book.

Please support your local independent bookstore. I cannot imagine life without such islands of sanity, good cheer, and really nice people.

Awesome

It escapes so often and so lightly from the lips of preteens and their hapless parents, I thought the word had lost its purchase. And then I stood at the rim of the Grand Canyon, the address of awe.

People from around the planet showed up beside me and, regardless of language, we all said the same prayer.

Oh.
My.
God.

And then we took pictures. Millions of pictures. On fancy cameras with long lenses and tripods, also on cell phones.

Regardless of the equipment, the photos will be puny. There is no way to capture a view that knocks the wind out of your lungs, brings tears to your eyes, and beggars speech.

It was my first time there. I held up my cell phone. (See attached postage-stamp-sized image of the ineffable.)

Hallelujah.