The Writer Mama Riffs

I was talking to fellow writer mama Sharon Cindrich yesterday about our daily uniforms. My daily uniform includes: sneakers, sweat pants, a t-shirt, and a baseball cap.

That’s what I was wearing today at the dog park while being interviewed by David Jagernauth for the Wilsonville Spokesman (our local paper). To be a little more dressy, I skipped the baseball cap, but still opted for the pony tail.

Sharon’s uniform up in Wisconsin is a black turtleneck and jeans for winter and a t-shirt and jeans in the summer. I tend to save the jeans for the weekend and upgrade right to a colorful skirt, sandals and a white-shirt for business lunches, like the one I had today with WOTR contributor Lori Russell, who was passing by on I-5 today.

We stopped in for lunch at my favorite local restaurant, Abella Italian Kitchen. Apparently there is a new book out called, Nobody Cares What You Had For Lunch. It’s a book about blogging, so perhaps I will not divulge the exact ingredients of my delicious lunch.

It was a chicken parmasean sandwich!

Oops. That slipped. Somebody buy me that book.

The coffee there is excellent too, btw.

Anyway, the reason for my casual uniform is because I take the puppies to the dog park twice a day and it gets darn dirty down there. David Jagernauth was a good sport about not being spared the muddy paw prints.

He said he’d put in a word for the author series I am hosting this fall with the Wilsonville Public Library and the Wilsonville Arts and Culture Council. Hooray!

And then it occurred to me that I should too.

I’m excited that Marc Acito, the author of How I Paid for College, A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship and Musical Theater will kick us off on September 16th. I bet it will be standing room only—Marc is hilarious! His first novel won Oregon Book Awards Ken Kesey Award for the novel and was voted a Top Ten Teen Favorite by the American Library Association, and is currently being adapted for film.

Here’s a photo of Marc and me at the 2005 Willamette Writers Conference (which is where I pitched Jane Friedman from Writer’s Digest Books the idea that became Writer Mama). She’ll be there again this year, btw, in case you want to pitch her.

I’ll be giving a couple presentations at the annual conference this year. And you’ll see some other familiar faces from Writers on the Rise in this year’s conference workshop lineup, including Sage Cohen, Gregory Kompes, and Mary Andonian. Shout outs to friends Gigi Rosenberg and Julie Fast, as well!

And finally, speaking of Sage Cohen, I have scoop! She was engaged to Jonathan Luchs this past Wednesday. (!!!) Sage is Managing Editor of Writers on the Rise and a good friend. Congratulations Sage and Jonathan!

Well, gotta go. I’ve swapped my skirt for my sweats, traded my sandals for my sneaks, and I’m back off to the dog park. Happy weekend, everyone!