On the Horizon

What’s new?

The Spanish Bow
An exiled cellist, a vanished piano prodigy, the Spanish Civil War, and a ruby-encrusted bow all form the plot of The Spanish Bow, my first foray into book-length fiction. As research for this musical-political novel, I traveled to Puerto Rico this year, where I took a few lessons with a wonderful musician, the principal cellist of the San Juan Symphony. Our family will be traveling to Spain this year so that I can do more research in Madrid and Barcelona. I haven’t looked for a publisher yet, but I’m having a blast writing, my hopes are high, and a few agents have expressed interest.

Travelers’ Tales Alaska
Co-editors Bill Sherwonit, Ellen Bielawski and I had the privilege to read through several feet-high manuscript stacks to select essays for a forthcoming edition of the award-winning Travelers’ Tales series. We found more good material than we can use, by nationally known authors as well as first-time writers. We look forward to seeing the resulting anthology in print this fall (2003).

Around the World
with a Hammer
Did you know American house sizes have increased 25 percent in the last generation, even though family size is shrinking? Where we live, house prices are skyrocketing, few of the big-box McMansions look worth owning, and modest, well-built homes are exceedingly rare. Frustrated with the strange evolution of the American housing market and our own rental (and credit) woes, we are considering shucking our premature home-ownership ambitions, and instead traveling around the world in the next few years, volunteering with an organization like Habitat for Humanity to build reasonable homes for others. We figure it will give us some time to reconsider priorities, introduce our two children to other cultures, and put off signing away our own lives on the dotted line. (There’s a good reason that “mort,” the root of the word “mortgage,” means death.) By the time we come back, we figure we’ll have enough know-how to build our own, or failing that, enough common sense to realize renting isn’t so bad, after all.

FYI: We'll be paying for any pleasure portion of the trip, but seeking grants/donations to defray some of the volunteering fees associated with Habitat for Humanity's Global Village program. Anyone interested in helping a good cause?