Having read my blogs of late, Jane has decided to keep me honest; she has the brainpower and dry wit to see through cant. And she knows when I am being preposterous, pompous as well as grandiose. That’s what I need, a built-in critic! So as she reads these blogs she cuts through the layers of fat, rearranges my thought processes and tells me I have delivered a baby by breech — shove it back in and deliver it properly, oh master of words and wit. You will occasionally, I’ve been told, see her comment upon these blogs — “The horror! The horror!” So not only will I have to keep up a running commentary with you, dear reader, but I’ll have a terrier yapping at my feet. I look forward to Jane’s take on all this and I have the feeling you may suggest I leave the blog and let Jane take it over. I am not averse to that. She’s a creative woman, so saith the guru.
I know Jane for 23 months now. In that time she wrote a incisive introduction to Down to a Sunless Sea which grubby reviewers have ripped off to use in their reviews because they are too lazy to come up with their own language — at least give credit (one did). Jane has won third place in a short short contest run by the Society of Southwestern Authors; it should have had won first prize. My story was given honorable mention, the student outclasses the mentor. She just got her MLA, has applied to the University of Arizona for their MFA program. Jane is working on her novel based on historical family facts that deals with the Mormon experience — she is a renegade and a card-carrying atheist (love that girl). And she has completed a children’s book based on the wildlife in Madera Canyon (see links for pictures, et al) which will be out in the spring. Gifted woman, with a grand sense of humor and presently relishing her first experience with a Jewish man — don’t ask me, write her in care of this blog.
Given her talents and capacities, I’ve asked Jane to write an extended piece about her interests and new book, which I hope she will put up in a month or so. As I’ve said quite directly in an earlier blog, style is you. When you read her introduction to my book or her other stories, et al, there is a writing style that is keen, seeks clarity and does not take prisoners. Oy,vey! what will she say about this blog?
Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin
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