Mark Your Calendars for Thursday Night!

We had so much fun at the online Halloween Party that I decided we had to do it again! So mark your calendars and join me on my Facebook Page on Thursday, December 22, from 9 p.m. EST to midnight EST. My guests will include blog sisters Monica Ferris and Betty Hechtman, Diana Orgain, Gloria Alvarez and national best-selling author Julie James. All the authors will be giving away an autographed copy of her book. In fact, I think that Diana is planning to give away a set of her series! Betty is offering a crocheted scarf. How cool is that?

I've never been here in South Florida for the entire fall. Since nothing has turned colors or dropped leaves, I'm having a sort of "out of body" experience where I know that Christmas is right around the corner, but it just doesn't feel real to me. Or more accurately, it didn't feel real until this afternoon when Joyce Roseman came off to drop off a few Christmas gifts for me. She's a whiz at homemade biscotti. (I'll have to see if I can cajole the recipe out of her.) So she kindly brought me some wonderful looking biscotti that I'm having later with a cup of coffee. And she brought me this...

It says, "Gone shellin'" and that's so appropriate for me!
All the shells, the one sea bean, the sea plant and the drift wood was washed up on my beach.

Isn't that absolutely delightful? She and her husband Glen worked together to make it for me. I know I'll treasure it for years to come.

Meanwhile, I'm putting the finishing touches on a "tangle" for my husband to hang in our loft apartment up in DC. Here's what I have so far...

I also did another rendering. It's finished...

I'm not sure which one he'll like best. I bought a frame that would work for either of them, and I'll let him choose. Or maybe he'll want both of them and put one in his store.

This year I was invited to three holiday parties, and every one of them got cancelled. So I'm really looking forward to my online holiday party. It'll be fun to get together with a lot of you. I hope you'll invite a friend!

See you there!

What's your question?

I love events sponsored by the American Association of University Women (AAUW); there's always a good turnout with engaged women and even the occasional male in the audience.

Over the weekend I joined Ann Parker, Diana Orgain, and Kelli Stanley for a panel discussion. Since we'd all been to this venue before, we tried to vary the topics a bit, emphasizing our works in progress. Our usual list includes the craft of writing (developing characters, plotting, setting, and so on), our various processes (outline or not?), and how we do research.

With an audience of university women this weekend, we put more emphasis on how our educational backgrounds affected our writing. Did what we studied in college and after have a direct influence on how and what we write? Well, yes, but in different ways that were very interesting to hear. Enough for another blog some time.

But for the purposes of my blog today, I'm wondering what you do to make panel discussions fresh and interesting? What are your most successful topics? Personal or academic?

And, to rephrase a burning question—what do readers want? Do you go to a book event hoping to learn? To share? To network? To flirt?

(I'm trying to cover all bases here!)