There are moments in life that are so precious, so sweet, that years later they still ring like a set of silver chimes.
On The Blue Box
The Blue Box does not share the soft glow that softens the details of so many family histories; its light approaches a glare.
Mother Mary — The Blue Box: Three Lives In Letters
She remains for me a difficult and challenging example of what a woman of character who makes good choices can become.
Naming Names — The Blue Box: Three Lives In Letters
I realized today…that I never heard anyone in my family or outside of it mention my material grandmother, Sallie Montague Lefroy. This seems particularly strange since it seems I was named for her—seems because no one ever mentioned that either, but since we are both called Sallie Montague, it seems likely that I was named for her—and I am the only one of five siblings given a name from my mother’s family rather than my father’s.
Helena’s Story — The Blue Box: Three Lives In Letters
As I prepare to let go of the previous trove of letters that make up the body of my next book, The Blue Box: Three Lives in Letters, and that detail the lives of my great-grandmother, grandmother and mother, from 1850 to 1931, I realize that I am most fond of my grandmother, Helena Caperton Lefroy, or at least of her memory.
Sallie’s Two Fans — The Blue Box: Three Lives In Letters
Now that my next book, my thirteenth or fourteenth—I’ve lost track—is only a month away from publication by Sarabande Books, I’m thinking of the three women whose lives my book attempts to encompass: my great-grandmother, my grandmother and my mother.
And The Good News Is…
The first review of my next book, “The Blue Box: Three Lives in Letters”, is just in from the prestigious Kirkus Reviews from which many libraries order.
Coming Soon: The Blue Box, Three Lives in Letters
The long waits publishing entrails always make me wonder why writers sometimes refer to their new books as their children; surely no pregnancy lasts two years or more, and few professional writers wait to see their next book launched before laboring mightily to begin the next one.