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Not long ago, my husband and I escaped to Frenchtown, NJ. I taught memoir on a Sunday, then spoke, the next day, to an assembly of high school students. My husband walked the banks of the Delaware and found, he said, great peace. Quietude. The occasional passerby. Fish that seemed to come when called.

Peace. I search for it, too. Shield myself from incipient interruptions, step away from active unkindness, shrink from noise, read deep into the news with a hope for understanding.

And, always, books. Over the last few days, during a storm of work, I've reached repeatedly for Lauren Redniss's glorious Thunder and Lightning: Weather Past, Present, Future—an illustrated (Adam Gopnik rightly calls it illuminated) collage of odd facts, hard science, and Redniss's signature way of seeing.

This is a book so unto itself that it comes to its readers utterly undefended. No introduction. A simmering table of contents. Facts lassoed from a multitude of unexpected sources. We meet the managers of a cemetery who are left with the sweep of dislocated bones, post storm. The secret keepers of the Farmers Almanac. A company called Planalytics, which is apparently right down the road from me and is designed to help companies plan for weather incursions, the spiking needs wrought by heat and hurricane. Weaponized weather experts. The inventors of cloudbusters. The mad-scientist brain of Nathan Myhrvold (now at work on, among other things, solar radiation management), the long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad (who is popping up in many things I've read lately), and the seeds that burst to life every eight years ago in the desert.

What binds it all is erudition, curiosity, and appetite for the alluringly strange. What makes it so peaceful to hold, to sit with, to ponder is how much it teaches through story, ink saturation, and hieroglyphics.

We see so many books that are "just like" books—books that are, indeed, marketed that way. Peace, though, is the original mind set free. I'll wake at 4 AM for this. I'll read it by a lamp in the lonesome dark.

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I'm not sure I'll ever be very good at simply moving forward with my own life when I am vividly aware of the terrible loss and hurt that has utterly rearranged the lives of others.

It doesn't feel right. But it's the only choice we have. Keep living.

And so, this week, there will be (between pauses, within silence) moments of study, moments of reflection, moments of celebration, moments of friendship, many interesting corporate projects, one unexpected audition, and three hours with some wet clay.

You are welcome to join us for the public events:

Today, November 15, on behalf of The Book Garden in Frenchtown, NJ, I'll be teaching a three-hour memoir workshop. Details are here. There is room. You can join us.

Tomorrow, November 16, at the Delaware Valley Regional High School, I'll be talking about the writers' life to an assembly of students and then providing insights on crafting the college essay.

Tuesday, November 17, I'll return to my work with the fourth and fifth graders of West Philadelphia, who will be refining the essays they began writing last week.

Thursday, November 19, I'll be at the wonderful Harleysville Books for the November Book Club Happy Hour, talking about our city and the power of love, an especially important topic, I think, in these days. The details are here.

On Friday and Saturday I will be at Radnor High School, joining my brother for his Radnor High Hall of Fame induction ceremony. We are, I believe, the first brother-sister pairing on that wall. I am over the moon for Jeff and grateful to all those on the committee who recognized his contributions to his rarefied world of engineering and mathematics.

Finally, the paperback of Going Over, my Berlin Wall novel, is being launched this month, and in celebration there are currently ten copies being offered in this Goodreads giveaway. 

Finally, finally, words of thanks to Chronicle Books and Junior Library Guild. This Is the Story of You has been selected for the Guild's Book Club.

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I spent my birthday in Frenchtown, NJ, this past April and fell so hard for the place that I wrote about it in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Which led to an unexpected email from Caroline, an owner of the town's indie, the Book Garden, inviting me to return to this river town this November. I'll be conducting a memoir workshop and meeting with students in area schools. The memoir workshop, described above, will be held November 15 from 1 to 4 PM at The National Hotel. It has limited space, and if you are interested, I encourage you to sign up soon.

(For those unfamiliar with my memoir teaching and ideas, I share a link here to Handling the Truth, my book about the making of memoir.)

A link to the page can be found here.

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We met at Princeton, my brother's undergraduate campus, where many happy memories live. My boy was looking his handsome self in a sunny-day colored shirt. He had stories. Posture. A photograph inside a frame.

Together we discovered Mistral, an exquisite "fast pace, small plates, fresh local fare" establishment, whose chefs—Scott Anderson and Ben Nerenhausen—were both named 2014 James Beard Foundation Award Semi-Finalists. I'd lately been watching Chef's Table (watch this trailer!), the sumptuous Netfix series. I wanted a little of that. And so there we were, and such is fine, great happy for me: memories of my brother on his campus, the companionship of my husband and my son, and a restaurant in which everything we ordered was unlike anything I've ever ordered elsewhere.

We watched them make it. They brought it to us. I could do that again and again.

To those who love. To those who are loved. To those remembering. This day.

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It is safe to assume that in Newark, NJ, every reasonable man and woman has been told and told again that you should never drink and drive. We are told in our high school drivers education class, we are told by M.A.D.D. commercials and we are told by our family and friends. There is no doubt that drinking and driving is a dreadful mix, too often resulting in irreversible tragedies. There are those who have made an error in judgment and climbed behind the wheel after one too many and those who have an addiction problem; they who cannot help themselves without getting help from others. Such as the example of a New Jersey man arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol not once or twice but three times in a single week. He was arrested the final time after running from police and crashing into a fire hydrant. Thankfully, no one was injured in any of his drunken incidents.

Fortunately, not all of us suffer from such addiction but occasionally we may enjoy a social event, out for a meal with some family or friends, or maybe attending a gathering at a friend or families home. There may be alcohol and if so, what happens if you have had just a little too much, just one little drink too far? Driving under the influence must be avoided but sometimes, we make mistakes. In New Jersey, if you have a blood alcohol concentration of .08% or more, you are driving under the influence (DUI). If you climbed into your car and are now being pulled over, it quickly dawns on you how bad the choice really was. Nevertheless, when a person is pulled over by a law enforcement officer, there are rights and protections that are guaranteed. One of those fundamental rights is the ability to seek counsel from a DUI Lawyer in Newark NJ.

Facing any form of criminal charge, at any level is serious and it requires an intelligent, competent and aggressive defense from an experienced DUI Lawyer in Newark NJ. Because even a misdemeanor could impact your life for years. It is critically essential that your legal issues are resolved quickly and yet more importantly, resolved properly with an attorney who understands the NJ courts. Everyone makes mistakes in life and if you face a DUI, it is important to take action to protect your freedom.

The post Facing DUI Penalties in New Jersey appeared first on Jessabella Reads.

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With the conference behind us and summer arriving this week, I thought I would remind everyone of the Summer Networking Dinners taking place with editors and agents in NYC and one in September in Princeton.  I have added information for the editors and will add agent info later this week. Please do not rush out to submit to the editors on this list. Most are not open to unsolicited submissions. Please check out the info from additional sources.

IMPORTANT:  If you sign up to join one of the dinners, you will receive the most up-to-date detailed information on the editors and agents attending the dinner.

Sign up: Don’t miss the chance to build a relationship with an editor or agent. As writers and illustrators we always feel like we are being judged, but the fact is, we are judging, too. Attending events like these where you can meet editors and agents, allows you to form opinions about who you would like to work with. Everyone is not a fit for you, so save yourself some time and join us. The networking dinners are a great way to find out who is right for you in a non-threatening venue.

July 5th – Cafe Centro - in their private dining room. Includes glass of wine, salad, dessert, and choice of entrée. $150 Time: 6:30 pm

STEVEN MELTZER- Associate Publisher/ Executive Managing Editor, Dial, Dutton, Celebra. Great PB books, fiction or narrative nonfiction. Some nonfiction (PB only) Graphic Novels, Fantasy, Edgy, YA.  He suggests that authors need to answer certain questions when they send a book to an editor: What makes your book special? What is the unique draw of the book? What makes it exciting? Is there a curriculum tie-in? Timely topic? Historical setting? What are the comparison titles?

Steve has edited many books for young readers, including John Madden’s Heroes of Football: The Story of America’s Game; The Sydney Taylor award-winning, Hanukkah at Valley Forge by Stephen Krensky, illustrated by Greg Harlin; Barbarians! By Steven Kroll, illustrated by Robert Byrd; Useful Fools by C.A. Sc hmidt (a Booklist Best Book of the Year). Also, Every Cowgirl Needs a Horse by Rebecca Janni, illustrated by Lynne Avril, and Mud Tacos! by Mario Lopez and Marissa Lopez Wong, illustrated by Maryn Roos.  He has also helped many unpublished SCBWI writers find their way to publication.

EVE ADLER, Editor, Grosset & Dunlap. Eve works on a variety of formats from baby to YA, and is looking for manuscripts for all ages: PBs, MG novels, and YA. She has worked with award-winning authors and illustrators such as Kimberly Willis Holt, Elise Broach, and Janet Tashjian. She enjoys manuscripts with a fresh voice and exceptional writing; for MG and YA projects, she likes contemporary, edgy, historical, coming-of-age, humorous stories, and for PBs. She‘s most interested in texts that have a curriculum tie-in or educational hook.

SHAUNA FAY is an Assistant Editor at G. P. Putnam’s Sons, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group. Shauna works on everything from PBs to YA novels. She has edited the PB book, Little Pink Pup by Johanna Kerby, and has worked on Jack Higgins’ YA action series written with Justin Richards, as well as Jan Bret’s Snowy Treasury, and Goodnight Goon and Runaway Mummy by Michael Rex. While open to books for all ages, she is particularly interested in MG fiction with a strong narrative voice, historical fiction, and is a sucker for a romantic ending. She is also interested in young funny, simple picture book texts and is open

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I joined my father on an errand to Lambertville, New Jersey, yesterday—a very beautiful, very hip little place with just the right balance of old and new.  "You know," I said, as we drove down one narrow street, "I once interviewed Gerald Stern in a house right near here."  As I was saying the words, recalling that lovely afternoon with the National Book Award-winning poet whose fluid, smart, resonant work has actually been known to cure my migraines, I found myself looking at Gerald Stern himself—on his front porch, in a wide chair, deep in a happy conversation with what appeared to be neighborly kids. 

"Don't stop!" I told my father, but still I craned my head, and later I walked the canal path behind the garden of Stern's house, remembering the conversation we once had. Butterflies were out in force.  The spill of gardens toward rain-soaked gulleys. The white horizontals of brief bridges.

Do you know Gerald Stern's work?  For if you don't, you must.  The opening lines of "He Said," from This Time, here:

Thank God for summer, he said, and thank God the window
was to his right and there was a wavy motion
behind him and a moon in the upper right corner
only four days old and still not either blowsy
or soupy.....

(find the poem, read on)

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