Six things on a Saturday

1. Some of you may know the deep love I have for blackberry pie. Summer is not summer for me without at least one homemade blackberry pie. So when author and fellow Oregonian Heather Vogel Frederick asked me to be a part of her pie-of-the-month club, of course I was in!! You can read her questions and my answers HERE, and if you want to make your very own blackberry pie this summer, you'll definitely want to check it out because I share my recipe there!!



2. Back at the end of January, a writer for The Guardian, the UK newspaper, contacted me and asked me to give her my thoughts as to why the sudden rash of books for teens around death and dying, stating that my book I HEART YOU, YOU HAUNT ME was ahead of the curve. She asked, "does it stem from The Lovely Bones, or have teens always had a taste for the morbid? Is there anything which might have sparked it off - a gloomy world view in the recession, etc. What prompted you to take your angle? What sort of responses did you get from teen readers?"

So, I spent the afternoon drafting my response, sent it to her, and then immediately wondered if she would really use it. A couple of weeks later, I searched for the article, didn't find it, and thought, oh well, and because my brain only has so much capacity, I soon forgot about it.

Yesterday author April Henry ran across the article and tweeted the link to me. Yay twitter!!! It's an interesting article with authors Alice Sebold, Gayle Forman, and Jay Asher, among others, also weighing in on the topic. Read it for yourself!

3. Those of you who live in Oregon know I'm not the only Lisa Schroeder in town. There is also a famous chef by the name of Lisa Schroeder who owns a restaurant and came out with a cookbook last fall that got her on the Today show, among other things. Last week my publicist sent me an e-mail she had received from a radio station asking if I wanted to be interviewed next week, before my book signing at Powell's. At first I was like - wow, they really want me? And then it hit me. They didn't want me. They thought I was the other Lisa Schroeder. My publicist checked, and sure enough, wrong Lisa Schroeder. But when the DJ discovered I'm an Oregonian, he said, let's do it anyway. So, Wednesday I do the interview, with 1190 KEX, to be aired Saturday morning, with a piece in the news about my signing as well on Friday morning. SO thanks Chef Lisa - for once, the confusion worked in my favor!!

4. Book reading and signing for IT'S RAINING CUPCAKES next Sunday, March 14th, 2:00 at Powell's, Cedar Hills Crossing in Beaverton. If you are local, hope you can make it! If you aren't local and you'd still like a signed copy, you can pre-order your very own copy HERE.

5. I got this CD in the mail on Wed (I pre-ordered it months ago). I have been listening to it pretty much non-stop since then. Music inspires me when I'm writing verse novels, so I'm thrilled to have new music to write to as I work on my current WIP!




6. Speaking of writing, I best get to it. It's going to be a BEAUTIFUL day here and I want to get a few pages done so I can enjoy the rest of the day outside, taking in the sweet fragrance of SPRING. Yay, my 6 favorite months of the year are HERE!!!!

Happy weekend all!