Delighted to note that Riverdale Avenue Books has re-released my garden romance, Perennial. Set in Oak Park and intercut with the poems I wrote during my course of treatment, it follows the story of a woman who’s just received a cancer diagnosis, and the handsome Indian-Scottish flower shop owner whose flowers bring her hope, friendship, …
Cover reveal — this is the draft cover for Tornado, my cancer memoir. I really like it — the concept is a collaboration between me, the publisher (Lori Perkins), and the artist (Scott Carpenter). I wanted the feel of a sudden tornado touching down in your life, sending everything flying — but because it is …
Mammogram day, hurrah, hooray. Not really, but must be done. At least I have rice and curries leftover, plus mango fluff, to treat myself for lunch.
Closely reading through my own memoir twice within a month or so is, it turns out, too much. I’m a little tired of the sound of my own voice. For Halloween, maybe I will turn into a ghost on the wind and just say “oooooooooooooooo” all day long.
Well, today we learned that I do final proofing a lot slower when I’m convalescent. But Tornado is done and back to the publisher. Any remaining errors are undoubtedly my own, but y’all will forgive me, I think.
Did final proofing pass on the reissue of Perennial — went pretty fast, since this is the second edition, so not much to change. I can’t read through this book without getting weepy, though. Stupid cancer.
Had breakfast with my friend Huzefa this morning, whom I only manage to see about once a year or so; we always have too much to talk about, and should just figure out how to see each other more often. Well, we’ll work on it. Two hours is better than no hours. Came home and …
Cancer log 222. Doing the final pass on the cancer log manuscript, which involves skimming all the comments people posted, to make sure I integrate some of the useful advice they gave. I thought I’d be able to just whip through that by dinnertime, but there are more than 200 entries, and literally thousands upon …
Finished the first pass draft of the cancer log, finally. Woot! It took me much longer to do this than I expected. Edits were only about 15-20 hours of actual work, but I think I needed to be in a pretty emotionally stable place to work on this book, and it’s been a long pandemic, …
I really don’t know whether anyone other than me likes this slightly morbid pattern — these are the drawings I did during cancer treatment, incorporated with the poems I wrote during treatment into Perennial, the little romance story I wrote that year about a woman who’s just been diagnosed with breast cancer and the Oak …
