Literary Orange 2011

On an upbeat, this coming Saturday is Literary Orange, an all day fest of writers, that will take place once again at UCI. It's cheap, you get a continental breaky, lunch, and afternoon refreshments, and it's fun. I'm moderating a fiction panel and Marrie Stone, my co-host on Writers on Writing, will moderate a memoir panel. Here's more info. (Today online registration ends.) Hope to see you there.

Back from the funeral: Sam DeMarco 1946 - 2011

Back from a long five days in Pennsylvania at my brother's service and visiting with family. Difficult for a couple of reasons. When you have a complicated history with a sibling, some might imagine it's easy to see that sibling off. It's anything but. I loved my brother. We shared so many good times, and although we were born many years apart, we shared a history. The difficulties we encountered don't take away from the love, and that makes it complicated, esp. for family who knew what we went through. Friends have been the most understanding, and for that I'm grateful. My brother was cremated. The box on the table is my brother. The cemetary you see here is in Lansdale, PA, where my mother and the relatives are buried.

Sam DeMarco RIP

My brother Sam passed away today. Here we are, with our mother, many moons ago. I love you, Sam.

Dori Ostermiller & Memoir Panelists Lisa Catherine Harper and Katherine Ellison

Marrie Stone talks with Dori Ostermiller, author of Outside the Ordinary World and, in the second half hour, moderates a memoir panel with Lisa Catherine Harper (A Double Life: Discovering Motherhood) and Katherine Ellison (BUZZ: A Year of Paying Attention).

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(Broadcast Date: March 9, 2011)

Jo-Ann Mapson

Barbara DeMarco-Barrett interviews JoAnn Mapson, author of Solomon's Oak.

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David Vann

Barbara DeMarco-Barrett interviews David Vann, author of Caribou Island: A Novel.

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(Broadcast date: February, 2011)

Jessie Sholl

Barbara DeMarco-Barrett interviews Jessie Sholl, author of Dirty Secret: A Daughter Comes Clean About Her Mother's Compulsive Hoarding.

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(Broadcast date: March 2, 2011)

Allison Brennan and Alisa Bowman

Barbara DeMarco-Barrett interviews Allison Brennan, author of Kiss Me, Kill Me: A Novel of Suspense and Alisa Bowman, author of Project: Happily Ever After: Saving Your Marriage When the Fairytale Falters.

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(Broadcast date: February 2, 2011)

Tomorrow's Show: Ruta Sepetys and Alina Tugend

Greetings!

Join co-host Marrie Stone as she talks with Ruta Sepetys, author of "Between Shades of Grey" and, in the second half hour, Alina Tugend, author of "Better by Mistake: The Unexpected Benefits of Being Wrong."

Tune in at 9 a.m. PT on Wednesday, March 23rd, at KUCI-FM 88.9 in Orange County, CA, or listen online at www.kuci.org or at iTunes-News/Talk radio.

Thanks for listening!

A writer's resource

Check this out. Lots of great writers' resources.

Tomorrow's show: Jessie Sholl, author of Dirty Secret

Tomorrow my guest will be Jessie Sholl, author of the memoir: "Dirty Secret: A Daughter Comes Clean about her Mother's Compulsive Hoarding."

Tune in at 9 a.m. PT at KUCI-FM 88.9 in Orange County, CA, or listen online at www.kuci.org or at iTunes-News/Talk radio.

Thanks for listening!
Barbara

Jill Bialosky and Linda Gray Sexton

Marrie Stone interviews Jill Bialosky, author of History of a Suicide: My Sister's Unfinished Life and Linda Gray Sexton, author of Half in Love: Surviving the Legacy of Suicide.

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(Broadcast date: January 26, 2011)

Maira Kalman

Barbara DeMarco-Barrett interviews Maira Kalman, author of And the Pursuit of Happiness.

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(Broadcast date: December 14, 2010)

Caroline Leavitt and Christina Meldrum

Marrie Stone interviews Caroline Leavitt, author of Pictures of You and Christina Meldrum, author of Amaryllis in Blueberry.

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(Broadcast date: February 16, 2011)

Susan Maushart & Cathleen Schine

Marrie Stone interviews Susan Maushart, author of The Winter of Our Disconnect: How Three Totally Wired Teenagers (and a Mother Who Slept with her iPhone) Pulled the Plug on Their Technology and Lived to Tell the Tale and Cathleen Schine, author of The Three Weissmanns of Westport: A Novel.

Download audio.

(Broadcast date:February 9, 2011)

Snow, again

Travis' school has ski week (originating years ago when our school district's attendance went way down in Feb, so the school board decided we'd have a ski week) and we're in the mountains, about six hours north of Orange Co., in the Eastern Sierra. Mammoth is an active volcano and an earthquake fault runs under the town, but we'll not talk about that here. Instead, here are some photos of snow, and us, and Trav's cousins, requested by a few friends.

The Eskimos had fifty-two names for snow because it was important to them: there ought to be as many for love.- Margaret Atwood

In the wintertime, in the snow country, citrus fruit was so rare, and if you got one, it was better than ambrosia.
James Earl Jones

Pen on Fire Salon with Lisa Fugard and Tatjana Soli

An Evening with Novelists Tatjana Soli and Lisa Fugard

Join us on Tuesday evening, March 15, for a conversation with two brilliant novelists hosted by Barbara DeMarco-Barrett. The authors will be in conversation with Marrie Stone, co-host of "Writers on Writing," the radio show Barbara launched 13 years ago next month.

Tatjana Soli is a novelist and short story writer. Born in Salzburg, Austria, she attended Stanford University and the Warren Wilson MFA Program. Her debut novel, The Lotus Eaters, was a New York Times Bestseller and 2010 New York Times Notable Book. Her short stories have appeared in The Sun, StoryQuarterly, Confrontation, Gulf Coast, Other Voices, Third Coast, Sonora Review and North Dakota Quarterly among other publications. Her work has been twice listed in the 100 Distinguished Stories in Best American Short Stories and nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She lives with her husband in Orange County, California.


Lisa Fugard was born in South Africa and came to the United States in 1980. After working in the theater, performing in New York, London and South Africa, she turned her attention to writing. Her short fiction has been published in Story, Outside and literary magazines. Her many travel articles, essays and book reviews have been published in the New York Times. Skinner’s Drift her first novel has been published in the USA, UK, and South Africa. Named a notable book of 2006 by the New York Times, Skinner’s Drift was also a finalist for the LA Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and the runner-up for the 2007 Dayton Literary Peace Prize. In a starred review, Publishers Weekly lauded that, "Fugard captivates with this searing personal portrayal of the legacy of apartheid.” The Los Angeles Times Book Review called it a, "frighteningly good novel (that) looks at this historic turmoil without wincing or turning away.” She lives in Southern California and is at work on a second novel.

For more information, or to register, click here.

Lyanda Lynn Haupt and Stacy Schiff

Barbara DeMarco-Barrett interviews Lyanda Lynn Haupt, author of Crow Planet: Essential Wisdom from the Urban Wilderness and Marrie Stone interviews Stacy Schiff, author of the biography, Cleopatra: A Life.

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(Broadcast Date: January 2011)

Rosalind Wiseman and Kim Edwards

Greetings!

Join Marrie Stone as she interviews internationally recognized author and educator Rosalind Wiseman, author of Queen Bees and Wannabes and her debut young adult novel Boys, Girls and Other Hazardous Materials, and Kim Edwards, author of The Memory Keeper's Daughter and The Lake of Dreams.

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Thanks for listening!

Today's show: Allison Brennan and Alisa Bowman

This morning on "Writers on Writing," my guests will be suspense writer Allison Brennan ("Love Me to Death") and nonfiction author, Alisa Bowman ("Happily Ever After: Saving Your Marriage When the Fairytale Falters").

Tune in at 9 a.m. PT at 88.9 FM KUCI in Orange Co., CA, or listen to KUCI online at iTunes, News/Talk radio.

(The show will be podcast at a later date. Subscribe at iTunes and the show will download for you at that time.)