Author! Author!

I’m so grateful to have the support of writer, editor, friend, blogger and, as it used to say on her business card–(it may still)–bon vivant and ranconteur, Author! Author!, Anne Mini.  If you’ve ever wondered  whether you should go to a writers’ conference, Anne Mini would be #1 on my Top Ten List.  We met at least ten years ago, I think, at Words and Music in New Orleans, and have made a point ever since of getting together either there, where she may be teaching this coming November, or once in Portland, when I attended Tin House.  I’ve read a couple of her novels and her prize-winning and regrettably still unpublished memoir, Through A Glass Darkly,  about her relationship with her mother’s first husband, the sci fi genius, Philip Dick.  Anne is merely brilliant, with a fine and compassionate eye for the ridiculous.  Anne shares her vast knowledge about both the writing process and the publishing process on her blog, which at this point must be the world’s most complete treatise on all things writing.  If you ever wondered what is meant by a writer’s voice, go to her blog and you’ll get to know Anne through her amazing, humorous and tres intelligent voice.  There’s probably some punctuation called for on “tres” but I’m just learning how this all works and we haven’t progressed yet to accents, grave or otherwise.  Anyway, Anne has always supported my writing, and has allowed me to meet her readers from time to time.  You know about the “Colbert bump?”  Anne’s the Colbert of discerning readers (and writers) everywhere.  Thanks, Anne, for the interview with me you posted over the weekend.