odds and ends

I'm getting more and more excited for the Dumpling Days Book launch! Though, unfortunately, my attempt to get a headcount using tickets is not working so well. Many enthusiastic young fans from places like Florida and California misunderstood that this was for an actual event and signed up for numerous tickets and I don't know how to adjust the ticket availability. So, even though it says tickets are sold out, please still come!

I plan to make extra goodie bags, just in case! Because of the limited quantity, goodie bags will be given to children first, adult ticket holders second, and everyone else after. Thank you for your understanding.

In the meantime, I've been enjoying  reviews of Dumpling Days!  At Jama's Alphabet Soup, there is particularly delicious one! Yum!

And recently, the LM Montgomery Society interviewed me for their Shining Scroll newsletter. Just in case you aren't familiar with the name, LM Montgomery* is the author of Anne of Green Gables, maybe my favorite book of all time. Needless to say, I was honored to be a part of it! Here is an excerpt:

As you continue to write, do you notice any other opportunities to return to Montgomery for inspiration?

From a technical standpoint, I continue to look at her writing as inspiration for writing description (most recently, I've been studying how she writes sunsets) but her overall work and her thoughts as an author also inspire me.

A lot of children's/young adult books these days are "dark" and many feel as if that gives them more weight and seriousness. So every once and a while, I'll worry if my work is not dark enough. But then I will think of the Anne books and Montgomery herself, who (in response to reviews of her work) wrote, "..one which sneered at my ‘sentiment.’ The attitude of some English critics towards anything that savors of sentiment amuses me. It is to them as the proverbial red rag to a bull. They are very silly. Can’t they see that civilization is founded on and held together by sentiment? Passion is transient and quite as often destructive as not. Sentiment remains and binds."

And I will remember that a book with a true heart is the one most worth writing.

You can read the rest HERE!

*Lucy Maud Montgomery is such a favorite author of mine we were considering naming Rain Dragon Maud. Then, we realized that with my last name, she would be Maud Lin....maudlin...we'd have to have her room Edward Gorey-themed...

One girl in Escher pain, another girl in a cave.

The Montague Bookmill

Happy new year all! This New Year's Eve we ventured out to a cozy spot I've been wanting to explore for awhile, The Montague Bookmill. I'd been spotting bumper stickers around town that said "books you don't need in a place you can't find", so naturally I was intrigued. The place lived up to it's great tag line.

Montague is an adorable little town tucked away on the Sawmill River. The old mill building turned book store/restaurant/art gallery is just what you'd expect; gorgeous exposed wood beams, giant windows looking out over the rapids, and great little architectural details all over the place.

We had brunch in The Lady Killigrew Cafe overlooking the water.

After brunch we explored the book store with it's large stacks and little reading nooks tucked away all over the place.

I picked up a new title by friend Leo Landry, can't wait to read it to Tilly when she's older.

She couldn't wait to get home to start reading.

I wonder who she takes after.

On our way out we went by The Night Kitchen Restaurant. They were closed but we're excited to check it out on our next visit!

Ryo Ishikawa - Words Worth Remembering for 2012

    Ryo Ishikawa         Photo: Khalid Redza /Asian Tour via Getty Images

If you read this blog... even occasionally... you probably know that Japanese golfer Ryo Ishikawa is a favorite of ours.  We love the quiet reserve that earned him the nickname "Bashful Prince" ...and the exhuberantly colorful sartorial style that had one writer calling him "The Pink Pantster"

2011 was a challenging year for the young champion both on and off the course. He finished the season winless, and at 51 in the world, one spot shy of earning automatic qualification for the Masters.

He'll now need to make the top 50 a week before the Masters, or winon the U.S. PGA Tour, to qualify for a spot in the field at Augusta. To that end the player who was recently called "too intense"  by W#2 Lee Westwood, will be playing very... intensively between now and April.

When epic natural disaster struck his native Japan almost a year ago, the then-19-year-old announced that he would donate all of his golf earnings for 2011 to the Japan relief fund.  I don't know exactly how much that ended up being but by mid-October it was approaching $1.5 million.  It was what he said about his donation however, that earned Ryo Ishikawa a place on business writer Jena McGregor's list of the past year's most inspiring leadership quotes: 

“As my social status in Japan is getting higher, I believe that is one of the responsibilities, to provide for those people who are in need."– golfer Ryo Ishikawa, on his decision to donate all of his 2011 earnings to earthquake relief in Japan.


The list appeared yesterday at On Leadership the blog McGregor writes for TheWashingtonPost.com. She explains that she finds Ishikawa’s quote memorable for a couple of reasons, "...one is his use of the word “responsibility” to describe what he believes he owes the Japanese people because his status in the golf world has risen.  The second is his remarkable willingness to donate all of his earnings of last year to earthquake relief. So many people in power are paid far more handsomely than Ishikawa, and yet we don’t know of many who have made such generous gestures."

If you're a Ryo Ishikawa fan you can do what we did and send the inspiring golf star New Year message here.

Dumpling Days Book Trailer!

I'm so pleased to announce my newest novel, Dumpling Days is now available!!

What is it about? Well, here's the book trailer:



Happy Book Birthday, Dumpling Days!

2012 A Year of Hope ...and Golf for Global Understanding

Golf in Iran                                 (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Happy New Year and Best Wishes for 2012!

If you put any credence in the Mayan calendar your New Years celebration was probably somewhat subdued last night.  After all, according to many interpretations of that document, this marks the year catastrophe and cataclysmic natural disaster will bring about end of the world... on December 21, 2012 to be exact ... Not exactly uplifting news.

Personally, I'm rather sceptical of the whole doomsday thing and... worst case scenario... we've got almost a full year left... to work on swings/putting, to help grow golf by introducing non-golfers the joys of the game, and to connect with golfers around the world.   There's a lot to look forward to.