Confessions of A Hermit Crab

2012-03-08T19:58:00.002-05:00

Congratulations to Edith Pearlman, 2011 National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) winner for fiction!! Steep yourself in this wise, unnerving, compassionate collection of stories. And, kudos to Lookout Books for publishing it. What's so special about Lookout Books? This tiny press in North Carolina is on a mission to "seek out emerging and historically underrepresented voices, as well as

2012-02-24T11:46:00.001-05:00

Super thanks to TLC Book Tours, which hosted 19 reviews of Night Swim over the past month. Today’s review (and quote below) from The House of Seven Tails, reps the tail end of this tour. It’s been a wonderful run. Night Swim manuscript pages pre-publication with lots of stickies to flag edits "It’s hard to believe this gripping, amazing novel is Keener’s debut. Her beautiful prose is

Launch Week links, reviews, news about Night Swim

2012-01-21T10:40:00.002-05:00

In NY, visiting with my dear, old friend, Alison Berns Stern Simon And another, dear old friend, Annie. (That's our hotel room) I don't know where to start. It was a fantastic first ten days since Night Swim was released. Starting with my launch party, then a fantastic trip to NYC for a reading as part of the Sunday Salon Reading series, a date with my agent, and visits with very old and

Launch Party at Brookline Booksmith, Jan. 10, 2012

2012-01-11T08:15:00.017-05:00

Today feels like the day after my wedding. I'm filled with smiles and gratitude for a perfect launch. Here's a few pictures that my husband took. Thank you, everyone, for coming and celebrating with me. Apparently, more than 85 or so people showed up. Setting up My sister's stupendous idea to put my book cover on the cake! People arriving. That's Jennifer Haigh in the beret. Joyce

Launch Day for Night Swim!! January 10, 2012

2012-01-10T06:20:00.000-05:00

I am celebrating in every possible way today online and in person, culminating with my launch party at the wonderful Brookline Booksmith in MA, my hometown indie bookstore. Night Swim is available everywhere books are sold, and in every format. I'll be back with links, and pictures of this personally glorious day. Thank you, everyone, for your support and enthusiasm. It means the world to me.

Enjoy small moments.

2011-12-24T09:59:00.000-05:00

The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) so much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens.

Losing Dad: One Year Ago

2011-12-12T22:03:00.002-05:00

The night my father fell for the last time, he and my mother had attended the Pacific Symphony Orchestra in S. California and listened to Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto, no.2 and Dvorak's Symphony no. 9: The New World. “The music was terrific!” my father said. “It was wonderful! Jeesh.” That night, my father returned alone to his assistant living facility, and later that night he fell. He was

Beautiful Joe

2011-12-06T16:45:00.000-05:00

I adored this book as a child--more than adored it. This story lit every capillary in my body on fire.When my mother called me for dinner, I didn’t want to leave the pages. Everything inside my ten-year-old body was invested in the outcome of this puppy that was suffering abuse by a sadistic man. Beautiful Joes’ ears had been cut off and his sweet soul was heading for early, horrendous death by

Giving thanks to my brother

2011-11-22T09:36:00.001-05:00

My younger brother November is a month of many notes in minor key. --Transitions from light to dark, skies turning a moodier mauve and grey; trees preparing to sleep, horizons embracing night by five 0’clock, and in the process, introspection tugs me back into myself to a time of rebirth and deep, unexpected gifts. This time in November--23rd to be exact--marks 32 years since my bone marrow

Home is about feeling Safe

2011-11-20T09:24:00.001-05:00

This is my dad, who was an artillery man in the Army,WW2. His division helped liberate Dachau concentration camp. What makes you feel safe at home? For me, a feeling of safety is vital to my sense of home on a personal level and as a citizen of the United States. On a primordial (cave) level, my home shelters me from bad weather, and wild animals and violent human beings. What happened last

Night Swim has a front door (aka cover)

2011-09-16T11:10:00.000-04:00

Provincetown, Summer 2011, Simple Shapes

2011-08-14T13:51:00.000-04:00

This house w/orange door is where I stayed with friends. It is one of the oldest in P'town

A friend's house in Vermont

2011-06-28T09:55:00.001-04:00

One of my favorite places to visit in Southwest part of Vermont.

Books, love and our 25th wedding anniversary

2011-06-08T10:59:00.005-04:00

I have a book garden. It’s located behind my desk and it takes up an entire wall of my office, floor to ceiling, front to back. My husband built this for me twelve years ago, constructing it a la Shaker style, forming a grid on the floor, nailing pine boards together then raising the entire unit until it stood flush and vertical against the wall. He even added some molding to the top and

Bird of Grief, feature short story this month

2011-06-04T09:46:00.003-04:00

I love the folks at Connotation Press. A few months ago they published a piece from my search for home memoir (A Not-So-Ordinary Girl's Search for Home), and this month my short story: Bird of Grief. Click the link (Bird of Grief) above and it will take you there. Look around. You'll discover other wonderful pieces published there: poetry, drama, visual arts. It's a great online site. Thanks

Pets and a Poem by Wislawa Szymborska, Nobel Prize winner

2011-04-06T13:03:00.000-04:00

A dear friend of mine lost her pet recently, a cat who lived to be 24 or so years old. Anyone who has a pet, and anyone who has experienced this loss knows it can hurt more than losing a person--sounds crazy I suppose--but it's true. Our pets know the most intimate details about us. Just think about it--they know who we sleep with, and they know our routines from waking to bedtime. They know

Hello, Spring

2011-03-21T11:57:00.001-04:00

Billie Hinton's wonderful post about writing space spurred me to report on my recent silence here. Since my father's passing in December 2010, I've been working on fiction and my memoir about my search for home. I'll be back with more posts related to home (and writing, too) but am focused on finishing a collection of stories: Women In Bed. I've published eight of the possibly nine stories that

Not For Sale

2011-01-15T09:09:00.001-05:00

I hope you'll take a look at a this excerpt from my memoir about my search for home. It's called Not for Sale and you can read it online at Connotation Press. As always, I welcome your thoughts and comments. Thanks. Jessica

On my Knees (before Thanksgiving)

2010-11-24T07:21:00.000-05:00

For three days I’ve been on my knees in the house of the Lord--my house that is—scrubbing, cleaning, waxing, sucking up dust that’s claimed whole rooms while my mind’s been far away, my heart in a trap. I’ll get to where I’ve been in a moment. An appraiser was coming to assess the value of my house. I was refinancing my mortgage, determined to achieve the ever-elusive balance of financial

UP FROM THE BLUE by Susan Henderson

2010-09-21T07:24:00.000-04:00

Today, I am celebrating my friend’s novel debut. I’m celebrating with vigor because her novel, Up From the Blue, is a gorgeous, memorable story, one that took years to get told right. It took years of writing and rewriting, and fending off rejections and close calls, and bleak days of nearly giving up, but my friend kept going. She honored a vision. She listened to those shouting emotions

House Views, artist Chet Jones

2010-08-03T13:31:00.000-04:00

I'm not the only one obsessed with houses. A few years ago I was visiting galleries in Provincetown (Cape Cod) and saw this artist's paintings for the first time. I fell in love and one day I intend to purchase one of his paintings. His name is Chet Jones. I think his colors are glorious. They create layers of light, layers of meaning just as our houses do. There's a lonely quality

House Burning

2010-07-29T10:54:00.000-04:00

One spring when I was eight, it was too cold to play outside, so I came up with the stellar idea of playing poor orphans in my friend’s attic. This meant we didn’t have parents, or money for electricity, or heat. (In my real world, my family had a live-in black maid. I lived in a five-bedroom, brick Tudor house.) My friend, Joan, had pale, thin braids, and a sweet disposition. She went along

Tiny house, luxurious life?

2010-07-18T09:14:00.000-04:00

Jay Schafer changed his life about ten years ago when he left his job as a retail clerk and built an 8 x 12-foot house to live in. No longer burdened with a mortgage and large utility bills, he discovered a new sense of freedom and luxury. His passion for simplicity led to a business called Tumbleweed Tiny House Company. Go here to learn much more about him. You can watch a video, too, and

Circle Dance

2010-07-01T07:40:00.000-04:00

Recently, I spent a week in a two-bedroom cottage in southwestern Vermont. I’d rented this cottage once in the winter and was eager to return to the Mettowee Valley to see how the surrounding farms and meadows looked in the peak of spring. No longer submerged in snow, the Valley was ravenously green, moistened and fed by the Mettowee River running through it. --Every hill and dale, flecked

Living off the Grid

2010-06-24T10:32:00.000-04:00

Continuing my obsession about home, I urge you to pick up this new and wonderful book by William Powers. It's a beautifully written account of his time living in a tiny, twelve-foot by twelve- foot house that is owned by a medical doctor who decided to release herself from the burden of material wealth. Surrounded by an organic garden and makeshift shower and so much more, this book will

A Bird and a Car

2010-05-23T09:32:00.000-04:00

I tend to think everything is a symbol and have been wrestling with an event that happened to me last week in Vermont. My husband and I had just spent a satisfying few hours at my son’s boarding school—dinner with one of his teachers, followed by an end-of-school jazz concert. Our son plays the trumpet, and we were glad to see him performing. We’d been attending his concerts for twelve years,

House Remodeling & Novels

2010-04-21T18:17:00.000-04:00

Revising a novel is not unlike remodeling a bathroom in your house. Right? First, there's the initial exuberance. You wholeheartedly start clearing out dated fixtures, knocking down walls. (In novelspeak that translates to: getting rid of characters and scenes, re-plotting, deleting.) At night, you lie in bed happily reviewing the day's latest events--isn't it great that the old floor has

Interlude continues

2009-10-15T10:16:00.000-04:00

.hmmessage P { PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px } BODY.hmmessage { FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana } (February 2010) I'll be back...eventually because home is always on my mind. Been reading books about animals and wilderness and think this has to do with my own yearnings around what I want in a home. Highly recommend these

Housekeeping (not what you think)

2009-09-30T12:04:00.001-04:00

Housekeeping, a novel --Not a book about a woman sweeping her kitchen floor. It is one of the most haunting, amazing, astonishing novels I have ever read. Yet, oddly, I resisted reading it for years because I was put off by the title. So, don’t you get put off by it. It’s not what you think. This novel has everything to do with blurring the boundary that divides our sense of outside and

Sequatchie Cove Farm

2009-09-22T14:21:00.001-04:00

On my travels this summer, I spent a week at Sequatchie Cove Farm in Tennessee. From Boston, where I live, it takes twenty-two hours to drive there. I like that it takes time and effort, and a measure of discomfort to arrive at this beautiful, sequestered place. The 300-acre farm is ringed by the Cumberland Plateau and embraced by thousands of acres of forest. Little Sequatchie River, a cold

Stranger at Home

2009-09-14T17:07:00.000-04:00

> I read My Antonia in my twenties. By then, our brick Tudor was gone. I couldn't go back to it. Certainly not in the same way. Maybe this is why I found My Antonia's

Lawn Wars

2009-07-27T07:20:00.001-04:00

Neighbors often stopped by to consult with my father--the gardener and caretaker of all green things--on how to grow geraniums, get rid of weeds, and make their lawns look like his.You see, none of the houses on my street had a yard like ours. Our grass was soft as babies’ feet and greener than anyone else’s for blocks and blocks. Directly across from us, the white Colonial that needed a fresh

Glass

2009-07-24T07:53:00.000-04:00

I lost my childhood home but Jeannette Walls never had one. She lived in cars, on the street, in tents, in shacks. This is an astonishing story of a family and the children who survived their often insane, yet insanely creative and brilliant parents. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls (Scribner, 2005).If you've read it, tell me your thoughts. Did you want to strangle the mother? the father? or

Losing A Childhood House

2009-07-22T06:39:00.000-04:00

Our family fought a lot but one thing we agreed upon: we loved our brick Tudor house. Set on one half-acre of lawns, trees and gardens, my house on 14 Scarsdale Road was my kingdom, a place where I spent my entire childhood, where my father planned to stage our garden weddings in the backyard. ( I have two older sisters and a younger brother.) Built in 1937, the house sat on a knoll on a shady,

One Windowsill

2009-07-20T07:42:00.000-04:00

Ever wondered why it can take years to get to a particular house chore? I certainly have.Maybe it has to do with change.I live in a 100-year-old building, and many things need updating, the windowsill next to my kitchen sink, for instance. Covered in layers and layers of paint, it was chipped. Ugly. Stained. Every time I went to pour a glass of water, rinse a plate, or wash a pint of strawberries

Every Home Needs Books!

2009-07-17T11:39:00.001-04:00

A home without books is, in my opinion, an incomplete home. So every Friday, I’m going to recommend a book that you can check out of the library, buy at the bookstore, or put on your to-read list. Books need homes and homes need books. It’s that simple.My husband built this bookcase in a weekend. It was one of the first things he did when we moved to where we live now. At one point, we’d moved

The houses we leave behind

2009-07-16T09:13:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I was walking in my old neighborhood in Newton, MA, and I passed a house that I think of as “Ginny Hyde’s house.” It’s a lovely wood shingle house with Dutch colonial lines. I knew this house as an 8-year old child. The thing is, Ginny hasn’t lived here for more than 30 years. A close friend of my mother’s, she moved with her husband to Florida decades ago. This past year, she

Favorite Spot

2009-07-13T10:16:00.000-04:00

We live on the top floor of a three story 1910 building in an urban town next to Boston. (See the photo at the top of the July 10 post.) I love the view from my office windows.Up here, I can survey my street, see the life around me or get lost in the maze of leaves and trees (I tried taking a few pictures here but they don't do justice to the feeling of leafiness, sun and shade at this time of

Come on In

2009-07-10T10:07:00.001-04:00

Welcome to Home Confessions, a place where you can share your joys, sorrows, frustrations, hopes, and desires about home. Home and how people live is a subject that fascinates me. In fact, I’ve been writing about other peoples’ homes for years (about eleven actually), for the Boston Globe, Coastal Living, New England Home, Boston Common and others. I’ve written about two-bedroom condos and