Carnevale On My Mind

I finished my memoir, help me celebrate!

This is the time of year that I salivate over the photos of my friends attending Carnevale in Italy. I went once, to one party…which was so memorable I had to write a book about it!

And just at the perfect time, since I’ve just finished my 2(N²)x10^-3th draft of Ten Days, Ten Pounds. I am both in awe of myself and of course terrified, in the way that you get when you have a baby (which I did once.) I also feel a bit like a baby taking first steps, wobbly and eager, as I begin my hunt for an agent and a publisher.

First stop: The San Francisco Writers Conference! If you’re in the Bay Area, I highly recommend finding your way to the Hyatt Embarcadero tomorrow (Friday night) for the Wine and Book Tasting. Check out all the authors who will be there with me!

At this massive book signing event, a sommelier will pair each book with a wine recommendation (or non-alcoholic drink if appropriate) in and have a tasting table to sample wines. Admission is the purchase of any 2 books from the conference bookstore. The bookstore opens at 6:30, and YES you can bring books to sign that you’ve purchased elsewhere. I will have pens!

I can’t wait to see what drinks they pair with the two very different books I have available. Together, they represent some sort of fundamental tension in my life. The muses always have me at odds with myself somehow! In the memoir, I talk about the experience of secretly writing a hot novella about sexual possession while being a high profile school community leader and parenting author. Here’s a teeny little excerpt from the memoir about that moment:

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I blurted my other problem out. “I’ve, um, been invited to read from it at an erotica salon called Dirty Old Women. But I don’t feel dirty, or old. I should probably say no—I mean I’ve got this public profile of parent leader and parent educator.”

“So?”

“There's this firm and appropriate line adults keep between sex and the walking, talking, studying, learning-to-drive fruits of sex. Isn't there?”

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So, about seven years ago I managed to secretly pull off the most incredible book launch ever for The Vesuvian Affair. Perhaps you were one of the lucky ones in attendance! If you weren’t, you probably wish you were, and I don’t blame you, it was one of the best parties ever. There will be another one when Ten Days, Ten Pounds comes out…and you’re all invited!

Have you ever created an alter-ego to summon your courage, to move a mountain? Here’s me appearing as the book’s narrator, Cosima Zanardi.

So tomorrow, if you can make it to the Regency, find me in some nook in that lofty atrium for a drink at the Eclipse Bar, and I’ll read you a longer excerpt from the memoir. I’ll be wearing something conspicuously red, and a top hat!

Can’t make it? I understand! But $upporters can read a chapter below the jump about arriving in Venice during Carnevale…and the rest of you wonderful people can read about my complicated relationship with Cosima on the front page of my website.

Che tu possa divertirti! (I hope you enjoy!)

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