Archives - Weekly Update

The peonies are in bloom, as well as the irises, and we had a great soaking rain last night that ensured that all the herbs and flowers that I planted last weekend were watered well, as well as the ones that I have not planted. There is still much more to do, but I am loving seeing some progress outside.

The weather here looks like many versions of wet, so we filled this newsletter for those of you who also see soggy days ahead with much to explore!

Chase, this one’s for you. Chase was our Ricoh salesman when we had our New York office. While we had just one copier in the office and bought another one for working from home, he was the kind of salesman who was fun to chat with. He was interested in what we did. I would recommend books to him, and he signed up for our newsletter.

I learned last week that we have a new Ricoh rep; she called to introduce herself. My first thought was “Where is Chase?” I tracked him down on LinkedIn to wish him luck. He wrote back and said that at his new job, “You’ll be proud that we have a monthly book club, and I was sure to participate in the first one. We read MEXICAN GOTHIC, a neat little supernatural thriller. I recommend it.” I loved hearing this. So Chase, if you are reading this, let me know what your office is reading next. And for the record, I still have not figured out how to set up Wi-Fi access on the new printer, or how to scan. But hey, it’s only been a year --- a very busy year at that!

This has been a busy events week. We love connecting with authors and readers --- and this certainly has been a week for that. Besides doing events, I have been attending events. There was a preview the other night for ANIMAL, a new novel coming from Lisa Taddeo, who wrote THREE WOMEN, on June 8th. She was interviewed by Emma Roberts, and the program was super conversational, including talk about the creepiness of Topanga Canyon where the book takes place; they both have lived there. It ends up she started writing this book when she was waiting for people to become available for interviews for THREE WOMEN; later she fleshed it out more. Small group conversations like this are one of the more special things that have come out of the virtual world post-pandemic.

I am going to start with a Mother’s Day theme here and tell you to check out this year’s Mother’s Day Author Blog series. We kicked it off last week with wonderful pieces from Laura Munson, Lea Geller and Elizabeth Brundage. This week, we heard from seven more authors: Andrea Lee, Deborah Goodrich Royce, Mary Dixie Carter, Wendy Francis, Virginia Hume, Nancy Thayer and Elin Hilderbrand. All 10 of this year’s contributors shared lovely remembrances of reading with their mothers or with their own children, and talked about how their moms (and even grandmothers) influenced them to become readers and writers. I enjoyed each and every piece, and a huge thanks to these authors for sharing these snapshots of their lives with us.