I’ve been crazy busy recently–teaching my undergraduate courses, working with my soon-to-be-graduating MFA students on their theses, doing all that it takes to put together next year’s new class of MFAs, doling out advice about the writing world to students and alums, plus a million other UW-Madison Program in Creative Writing-related things–and so have been remiss in expressing my thanks for some of the more recent book events I’ve been invited to do.

So a belated thanks to Green Bay’s The Readers Loft and its vibrant community of readers who came out to hear me talk and to talk to me about the writing of A Reunion of Ghosts on March 8. We had a full house and everyone had already finished the book, meaning It was the first time I could talk about the ending without worrying about spoiling it.

And another belated thanks to the Tucson Festival of Books. TFoB is one of the 5 biggest book festivals in the country with over 400 writers and over 150,000 visitors. It’s free to the public, but still manages to raise huge sums for area literacy programs. And as large as it is, there is but one paid employee; everything else is handled brilliantly by roughly 300 volunteers. In short, it’s a true labor of literary love. I was delighted to be invited and to experience the excitement firsthand.

My weekend in Tucson began on Friday, March 11 when two volunteers, Bruce and Lucy Thurston, scooped me up at the airport as if I were someone important. That night, I attended the annual kick-off event, the Authors’ Dinner. My table was sponsored by the Marshall Foundation which supports educational, health, and youth-oriented charitable organizations in the Tucson area. The Board members and staff of the Foundation who I got to dine and chat and drink wine with were absolutely lovely…as was the evening hosted by Alan Zweibel, one of the original writers of SNL and, therefore, a personal hero. At the end of the meal I screwed up my courage and chatted him up, summoning forth my semi-dormant Long Island accent so he’d know I was mishpocha.

The next day I sat on two panels, “Ghosts of Our Pasts” with Aline Ohanesian and Jan Ellison, and “Dangerous Histories/Dark Secrets” with  Adrienne Celt, Erika Swiler, and Mark Ferguson (we’re pictured below at our post-panel booksigning session). And that night–one of the best parts of my trip, though not at all Festival related–I got to spend some time catching up with my former MFA student, Kasey Erin Phifer-Byrne.

On Sunday, the final panel with Joshua Mohr and Pen/Faulkner nominee Julie Iromuanya was on “Dark Comedy.” And then Bruce and Lucy came and whisked me to the airport.

In short: an exciting whirlwind.

And then it was right back to work at the university–which is always very fulfilling and gratifying, but I still have to admit that, when spring break comes next week, I won’t object to having a plate that is slightly less full than it is right now.

Meanwhile, in honor of my weekend in Tucson, here’s a link to some of the aforementioned Kasey Erin Phifer-Byrne’s poetry.

I was recently invited to participate in the February SoundWaves performance. SoundWaves is a Wisconsin Institute for Discovery program run by Daniel Grabois, a professor in the University of Wisconsin’s School of Music. SoundWaves combines four UW professors delivering mini-lectures plus a musical performance, all centered around a topic that Daniel comes up with.

Because the February program fell two days before Valentines Day, the topic was love and romance.  The other three professors talked about the ways in which their fields view love (the physicist had an especially interesting take), and then I read three very short pieces I wrote for the event about my pathetic dating life back in the 1980s, the era when women like me were told we’d more likely be killed by terrorists than ever find someone to share our lives with.

It was a bitterly cold night, but the auditorium was packed and there was wine and brownies and also, in the front row, there was the person I share my life with. So basically it was a perfect evening.

Here’s a video of the entire event. I show up at 58.34.

Thanks to my dear friends Toni Sikes and Bill Kraus who hosted a party at their beautiful home to celebrate the publication of A Reunion of Ghosts. The last time Don and I were at Toni and Bill’s for a party, it was the 4th of July and this is what the skies above their balcony looked like. Tonight, no fireworks, but lots of warm, supportive Madisonians…and I can now say that a former Madison mayor and the current director of Obamacare for the Midwest Region own copies of Reunion.

Thanks, too, to Mystery to Me Books’ Joanna Berg for taking time out from her Saturday night to come sell the novel.