I've not yet been to the CherryVale Mall, in Rockford, Illinois. I've never had a reading in a big box book store. Only the Indies have had me. But there's a woman in a bookstore there named Gee Gee, who has hand sold copies of What Else But Home one after the other with love and care...

Gee Gee somehow found my book, drove 65 miles to my reading at the Wisconsin Book Fair, in Madison ~ and I'm far more than happy we met.

This is Gee Gee's pug,Hoover, in Boston...

For the nearly seven years while I was sitting in cafes putting words to paper, editing and re-writing, eventually working with Clive Priddle and later with Laura Stine at PublicAffairs, I wasn't a writer. I was a man with a bike and laptop and backpack.

Once a book is out and you start to book fairs & bookstores, radio and television, Internet videos, then you're "a writer," you're an "author." I've been blessed along this way by meeting the most wonderful people.

This is my bookstore owner hero, Carla Cohen of Politics & Prose (with Philippe, Juan and William, & I've published this before)...

My prayers are with Carla and her husband David. With her son Aaron Cohen who is making a film about lots of Aaron Cohen's. Our world needs Carla and lots more of Carla.

She introduced me to A Happy Marriage, and then to sitting with Rafael Yglesias. Which is a gift.

As are James Galvin, Daniel Asa Rose, Helen Thorpe, Judy Bernstein, Rachel DeWoskin, Mark Naison - writers, poets & scholars far more experienced than I, & generous. Collegial in its thick sense also of compassion.

Dan & Kit Mosheim, a lady who lives in VT now but originally from Austin, Texas and I can't find her name (if you see this, please email again and tell me), Karen Vinacour & Andrea Masley, Sheri Best, Leslie & Chris Hann, Jane Crotty, Nydia Velazquez, Diane McWhorter, Perry Pidgeon Hooks & her mom Missie, Yogi-Baby & Stu, Becky Fiske for assigning my book in her Bard @ Simon's Rock college course in Biography, Bill & Mary Bender, Leslie & Ripton (who refuses to read my book but loves Dan Brown) & Morgan (who liked it) & William (who says I tell a good story) & Kindu & Phil & Carlos, for Whitney who is off to India, Clive Priddle whom I count on, Lisa Kaufman whom I have hope in, Mark Chimsky whom I want to flourish far further from trauma, Carolyn & Miri & the JBC people, Heidi Budaj, Heidi Toboni, Julie Gales & her mom, Bernie and Barb Banet, Lolita Jackson & John Predergast, Harish Rao & Evelyn Frison, Leah Paulos, my mom Shirley & my dad Howard, David Leslie & Clayton Patterson, Robert Krulwich, Kelly Hughes, Garry Bregman, Kathryn and Harry Amyotte, Hugh and Florence Short, Marie Short, Ria Gruss, David & Sue Schwartz, John & Lorna Howard, Frances Goldin who is a Lady, Rosie Mendez, Michael Fuquay, Margarita Lopez, Noah David Smith, Daniel Bell, Adam Kluger & Mark Goodman, R. Roly Matalon, R Simon Jacobson, Matthew Pace, Mary Spink - I know I'm missing people ~ tell me & I'll post (don't be shy!).

And Ali - Worducopia - thank you for THIS REVIEW !

The moon is particularly beautiful tonight, & the world is hardly complete without the beauty of flowers...