On May 27th I\u2019ll be joining several authors for an event at the Roxy Theater in Bremerton, Washington. On hand will be Brenda Novak, Debbie Macomber, Susan Wigg, Julia Quinn, and yours truly. This week the publicity folks asked me to send a photo of me working in my office.<\/p>\n
For starters, I don\u2019t have an office. I grew up in a family of seven kids where we all did our homework at the kitchen table while our mother was cooking dinner. That means I\u2019m able to concentrate in the midst of a good deal of chaos. In fact, if there\u2019s no chaos\u2014if things are too quiet, I can\u2019t function at all. As a result, I work on a laptop on my lap in the family room with a very junky table beside me which holds all my writing essentials\u2014a cup of coffee, a box of tissues, and a collection of miscellaneous paper which I will eventually have to handle. The table is on my left side. Chances are, Jojo, one of our long-haired doxies, will be stretched out next to me, snoozing away just under my righthand elbow. Of course, a scene like this automatically calls for a selfie. The problem is, I don\u2019t do selfies. At all! And for good reason.<\/p>\n
Once I was old enough to read the newspaper on my own, I instantly became a fan of Dear Abby, the only advice column that appeared in the Bisbee Daily Review. I always wondered why her picture never changed over the years. Now I know, and I\u2019m reminded of that classic poem:<\/p>\n
As a beauty I\u2019m not a great star. The truth is, there comes a time in life when photography in general and selfies in particular are no longer your friend. Trust me, I\u2019m there. So I took a selfie, all right\u2014of one of my hands on the keyboard of my laptop with the bottom of the TV set barely visible at the top of the frame. That\u2019s exactly how I work, with the television set droning away just over the top of my computer screen. I sent the photo to the publicity folks. They wrote back saying they would like a photo of me in my office to which I explained that IS my office, and a photo of my hands on the keyboard is as good as it\u2019s going to get.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve really missed doing live events over the past three years, and I\u2019m glad to know they are coming back. I\u2019m especially looking forward to my attendance at the Tucson Festival of Books and at Left Coast Crime where I\u2019ll be awarded this year\u2019s lifetime achievement award. (It\u2019s only taken me forty years to become an overnight success.) Those two events will both occur in and around Tucson in March, and will coincide with the publication of my next Ali Reynolds book, Collateral Damage, due out on March 14.\u00a0 As a result, I\u2019ll be doing a mini-book tour in Arizona during snowbird season. That\u2019s tantamount to doing an extensive book tour in the Upper Midwest in the dead of summer.<\/p>\n
\nThere are others more handsome by far.
\nBut my face? I don\u2019t mind it
\nFor I am behind it.
\nIt\u2019s the people up front that I jar.<\/em><\/p>\n