Join co-host Marrie Stone as she interviews two authors on the subject suicide in memoir.  Marrie will be in conversation with Jill Bialosky, author of History of a Suicide: My Sister’s Unfinished Life (Atria, February 2011) and Pulitzer-Prize winning poet Anne Sexton’s daughter, Linda Gray Sexton, author of Half in Love: Surviving the Legacy of Suicide.  

Tune in this morning at 9:00 a.m. (PT) on 88.9FM, Irvine, or listen through our live audio stream at www.kuci.org.  You can always download our podcasts at iTunes (talk/news) or right here!

Thanks for listening!

Barbara

T. Jefferson Parker was the featured author at the writers salon the other night here at Scape Gallery in Corona del Mar, and it was another stellar evening with great talk and great guests. Jeff was here to talk about his new book, The Border Lords, which received a five star review in the Los Angeles Times yesterday (1/19/11). Here are some photos from the evening, taken by writer C.J. Bahnsen, who gratefully serves as a doorperson, along with his significant other, writer Debra Cross. (They’re there in the bottom photo, along with me and Marrie Stone, writer and co-host on Writers on Writing.) Mystery Ink, Debbie Mitsch’s fabulous bookstore in Huntington Beach, was on hand selling books. Our next salon will be March 15. Details to come!

Julia Glass, author of I See You Everywhere.

Download audio.

(Broadcast date: December 10, 2008)

We’re back from Mammoth. Our last day there was sunny, brisk, and always bittersweet: I want to stay, but I want to get home.

I also have a Pavlovian response to the last day of the year: I automatically reflect on the past year and consider resolutions. It’s always a bittersweet holiday season–my mom died Dec. 26, 2001. Around this time in 2001, the three of us were back east, attending the funeral, dealing with the airline’s extremely tight–and sometimes stupid–security measures. Travis was very short then–seven years old–and his name was picked for a personal security check. He had to empty his backpack. Whoa–stuffed animals! Games! Books! Years later he said he was worried the airlines would want to keep him.

The fact that we’re vaulting into a new decade is just so strange to me. Wasn’t it just 2000? This past year was good enough, but did I accomplish enough? Probably not. I meant to finish my novel, Crazy for You, based on my noir short story that was published in April, but did I? Oy. And I hoped my agent would sell my memoir, but it was not to be–not yet, anyhoo.

I did sign up with WeightWatchers online, and lost almost 14 pounds (15 was my goal, oh woe).

I tried to be a better companion to Brian, a better mother to Travis, a better friend, a better teacher.

But why is it that at the end of the year, we always feel we fell short in some way? Or maybe it’s just me…

So next year–tomorrow!–I plan to become better organized, lose that last pound at least, accomplish my writing goals, become an even better friend, relative, wife, mother … all that.

What about you–any goals for 2011?

I wish for you everything you hope for in the New Year, and hope our paths cross real soon.

A leisurely afternoon walk in a blizzard. Great fun, actually, making a memory…