Just How Badly Does Addiction Affect American Women?

More than 200,000 American women died of substance abuse in 2009.
That is more than four times the number to die of breast cancer! (Center for Health Statistics).
Question: Why don't we know this? How can we help more women to recover from this deadly disease?
Stay tuned.

Regretful book review: Nica's Dream

"Nica's Dream," a biography about the enigmatic and extremely interesting Rothschild heiress and tremendous jazz patroness, Baronness Pannonica de Koenigswalter, known as Nica, just came about. And it is a frustrating read on several counts. About ten years ago, I came close to taking on this project but decided against it. Why? The Rothschild family has a policy of destroying or imprisoning all personal papers and NEVER giving interviews about family members. I felt then and after reading this book, feel even more strongly, that I made the right decision.
The book is workmanlike and the author clearly (sometimes too clearly) expended great effort in assembling what he could about Nica. Here all the known facts, plus some new anecdotes, are dutifully assembled, but also a lot of padding with the by-now old-hat story of jazz from the 50's on. Sadly, the subject of the book never comes to life, and her conflicts and dark side, the very stuff of a vivid personality and a good read - are never explored. To take two examples: she's drinking constantly ("sipping" is the ladylike verb used often), and eventually gets cirrhosis, yet there is nothing here about alcoholism's destructive power. Two: what especially vexed me was the lack of any insight into Nica's frank abandonment of her children. There were five, including very young ones, but only one daughter lived with her. Then suddenly, when they are grown, the kids are back in her life. This is rich material indeed, but we learn next to nothing about it.
I'm not trying to trash the writer here. But biography is a huge challenge and the Baronness merits the full treatment - or none at all.

Why winning a literary prize reminds me of high school

Don't get me wrong. I love "winning" stuff. I was one of those girls in high school who loved getting prizes for supposed academic prowess.
Just as I had loved getting merit badges in my Scouts years. So when I just heard I'd won a literary prize for my novel "Gringa in a Strange Land" - for 'best creative writing of 2010' - I was pleased of course. But somehow it also feels just like high school.

Why endless snow is good for writers

Because...there's nothing else to do but write. So I am tackling Draft No. 3 of the new book, "Cleans Up Nicely." It's a sequel to "Gringa in a Strange Land," moving from the Mexico of the early 70's to dirty, dangerous and wildly creative New York. Our heroine lands on the isle of Manhattan with one contact, a suitcase and 800 bucks. Oh and also a blossoming problem with booze. All kindsa characters in this one: believe me, I had to leave out most of them.
So February 2011 will be My Time to nail this one. Between trying to get the snowblower to start and pulling the Big White Dog out of snowdrifts.

Gringa in New York: post-hippy time

I am never happier than when I am in the middle of writing a book (now: Cleans up Nicely ) and I am never more disssatisfied (like watching a great dream dissolving). A whole new cast of characters from the mid-70's, but impossible to include them all, plus the material is at times in danger of being too rich, like a decadent chocolate cake with whipped cream. But the best part of this book for me is getting into the visual art of the time, like the paintings of vaginas glued with thrift-shop fur. Our artist heroine did not do this one! Strangely, the first full-length bio of Alice Neel (aka Malice Neel) has just come out. Neel is a major minor character in Cleans Up.

Speaking at Madison's big Book Fest - ah memories (of anti-war protests...)

During the first weekend of October, I'll be giving readings/talks on two of my books ("Morning Glory" and "Gringa in a Strange Land") at my old alma mater, U. of Wisconsin, Madison. I won't be talking about how lost I felt, how unambitious, how all I wanted to do was go to foreign movies, read foreign books ("A Hundred Years of Solitude," "Conversation in the Cathedral," "Things Fall Apart") and partake of foreign-grown substances. I knew I wanted to be a writer but couldn't imagine how this could happen, had no idea of the processes involved. It was the 60's and early 70's and you could more or less study what you wanted. I still remember my wonderful, sexy Buddhist Thought teacher, my brilliant eccentric Portuguese teacher, my John Halderman-look-alike Latin American Studies profs Thiesenheusen and Felstehausen, the broken-down visiting English poet who drank with us and poured great verse into us in the bar, the Scandinavian literature expert. Didn't know it at the time, but all of this I see now gave me my start - wherever it is I am going.

Jeff's Little Ship of Music: The Song Is Ended

Jeff's Little Ship of Music: The Song Is Ended