Jacquelyn Mitchard's Blog
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Nov.16.2011
First of all, I'm with Sir Paul.
They keep writing them; I'll keep reading them.
Now, I don't read love stories for their own sake. I'm not sure that love is the whole point, although it was the first subject that William Faulkner mentioned in his 1950 Nobel Prize banquet speech.
I'm more for love...
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Nov.03.2011
Tune in! The Gayle King Show w @gayleking, 9-11 am EST on XM 111/SIRIUS 204!
Join me in dishing 50 Things to Ditch after you Turn 50! (Chaps? Saying "Totally!" Your lawn gnomes? Your grudges?)
I think one big one is to pass on your collection of alcoholic souveniors, e.g. shot glasses and...
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Sep.10.2011
The house we built on the top of the hill is for sale.
(Goodnight, red tile roof. Good night, stone fire circle.)
I'm canning the whole garden, as though I could take it with me ...
(Goodnight pumpkins. Goodnight, raspberries, pear trees, and busy bees.)
We will sell the books and the beds, the...
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Aug.29.2011
Interview with Author Jacquelyn Mitchard Novel explores psychology of disfigured woman, face transplant. Published on August 26, 2011 by Jennifer Haupt in One True Thing
Second Nature, the latest from Jackie Mitchard, tells the story of a woman whose...
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Aug.23.2011
Years ago, as, I think, my very first Redroom blog, I wrote a parody of a Publishers' Weekly story that announced the end of books. Instead of authors, "idea planners" would come up with "concepts" and teams of "executors" would write the actually stories, which would be published with the...
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Aug.11.2011
The first full-face transplant, performed on Frenchwoman Isabelle Dinoire, was unnervingly beautiful, even to her.
The third successful operation, in the United States, was unnervingly odd.
The last one, which was last May, on a blind young father who’d been in a bad farming accident (there is...
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May.12.2011
When I was a very young woman, and Ray Bradbury was already a senior citizen, I was trying to impress a guy I liked by reading a story to his little daughter. The story was called 'I Sing the Body Electric,' which, if you saw a charming 1982 TV production that starred Edward Hermann, you might know...
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May.07.2011
Picture an old photo of your mother.
Now, picture an old photo of Grace Kelly.
That's the difference between old photos of my mother and those of most mothers. When women my age look at pictures of their moms, they're amazed at how much older their mothers got, even though, in pictures, they'...
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Feb.03.2011
I lost my best friend three times.
The third time, it was for good.
Each time we argued, it was over a misunderstanding, and the accelerant poured on the flame was my own. I hope I don't have very many vices, but my temper is chief among them. It is fierce and it's as alluring and addictive as any...
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Dec.29.2010
Despite the truths that I live with every day, this year, I am going to try to be happy.
Despite the truth that, little more than a year ago, due to an investment theft, from a guy who didn't even promise us big returns to con us, I went from being richer than I dreamed I ever could be to poorer...
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Nov.02.2010
It was my first Thanksgiving on my own.
I was 21, although I told everyone I was older.
In my pretty small job on a pretty small newspaper, I was too lowly even I to write the obits; I just checked the spelling. And I showed up at 5 a.m. -- Saturdays, holidays, every day.
By the end of my...
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Jul.11.2010
Everyone has a To Kill a Mockingbird story, and Friday night, late, someone asked me if I had one, too.
Of course, I did.
It wasn't the story that people who know me might expect, although I do have a couple of good ones. Among them is this, an exceprt from the short essay you can read if you want...
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May.19.2010
Even the first time we heard about it -- before we ever heard it actually played -- it sounded goofy.
'Vincent?'
Who was Vincent and why would anyone write a song about him? It wasn't 'Sherry' (second grade?) or even 'Bad, Bad Leroy Brown' (what grade that was, I've mercifully blocked). 'Vincent?'...
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Jan.21.2010
I met Robert Parker exactly once.
It was under the best possible circumstances, a fundraiser for the Alice Hoffman Breast Health Center at Mount Auburn hospital. And the author who made Spenser for HIre a household word demonstrated the personal trait for which he was best-known, his devotion to...
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Jan.13.2010
It became my favorite poem the first time I head it, and I heard it more than 40 years ago.
I didn't even understand it but it made me cry. It made me cry just as hearing Mirella Freni sing 'Un Bel Die Vedremo' made me cry before I know how how that aria fit into the opera that probably...
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About Jacquelyn
Jacquelyn Mitchard was born in Chicago, the daughter of plumber and a mother who brought her putty from her part-time job at the hardware store. She is the first person in her family to graduate high school. Beginning in second grade, wrote stories and...
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Causes Jacquelyn Mitchard Supports
National MS Society, Women Against MS, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, One Writer's Place