Today is Mother’s Day in the United Kingdom. Did I send my mother a card? Did I arrange for flowers to be delivered? Or chocolates? No, I didn’t. Sadder than that, my mother didn’t expect me to, either. In nine years of living here, I’m not sure I ever have managed such a simple thing. It’s not that I don’t …
Holiday Cheer
Something of a pot-pourri today. Good news continues to roll in about the book. We are now hearing about media coverage in newspapers and magazines, and it is all very exciting. I will post nearer the time when and where things will be appearing. In the meantime, I have to share this wonderful review of A GOOD AMERICAN by Michael Magras. …
DIY Book Trailer
Last weekend the kids and I discovered a new website, xtranormal, which is a brilliant place where anyone can make movies simply by typing in dialogue and having characters speak it. I have seen several extremely funny videos made this way, including this one about writing a novel which I posted a while ago. Author Laura Zigman has made a whole …
Friends in Funny Places
My name is Alex, and I am a lawyer. I began my first legal job in a large firm in London almost exactly nineteen years ago, and I’ve practiced law in England, France, and the United States. It’s not something that I talk about much on this blog, because (a) this is a blog about writing, mainly, (b) I want …
What Matters
Yesterday I returned to Missouri after a wonderful week with my children in San Francisco, where we stayed with my sister and her lovely family. Living in mid-Missouri, going to San Francisco is, understandably, always a bit of an event. Weeks ahead of time, we raid the library for travel guides and plan what to do. This trip we went …
Charades
Since I’ve been looking after the children on my own in the new place we have instigated a new bedtime tradition: charades. (Pronounced CHARARDS or CHARAIDS depending on your inclination/country of origin.) It’s a lot of fun, although we discovered pretty quickly that we have a limited repertoire of mutual books/films/songs/etc to draw from. I am thankfully unfamiliar with the …
Long Journeys
“Frederick loved America. He loved its big open spaces, the sunsets that drenched the evening sky in blistering color. Above all, he loved the smell of promise that hung in the air. Europe, he could see now, was slowly suffocating under the weight of its own history. In America the future was the only thing that mattered. Frederick turned his …
Leavin’ On a Jet Plane. Maybe.
Let me see… it’s Tuesday, so I should be in London today, having lunch with my agent, Bruce. Except that I’m still here in Missouri, reading weather reports about unprecedented levels of snowfall that has put England into chaos. Flights have been grounded across Europe, roads have been blocked, trains halted. It’s all a terrible mess. Our flight has been …
What Are You Thankful For?
[This is an older post that seemed appropriate to revisit today. I finished my six-month rewrite of the manuscript yesterday and sent it back to my publisher in New York. I think (and hope) that it is a much better book than it was six months ago. I am certainly thankful for that. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.] Hallam made a card …
Snip, Snip
No, this is not a post about books, or writing. This is a post (actually an edited re-post) about something entirely different. And personal. Ahem. You may want to look away now. So, fair warning having been issued… … the nurse was awfully nice. She asked me what I did, how long had I been in the States for, did …