Stranger Here Below - A Novel by Joyce Hinnefeld

Just want to mention that I was in Washington last weekend for a reading at the marvelous Politics & Prose, which is as bustling and filled with book and music lovers as ever, despite the emptiness that has come with Carla Cohen's passing. Heartfelt thanks to Mark and Barbara for making me feel so welcome. And how wonderful it was to see my former student Emily Goodman, and her friend Anthony, another Moravian College alum, who came down from Philadelphia to spend that beautiful Saturday in Washington.

You can't go to Politics and Prose and not spend money, by the way--but as we always say in our house, money spent on books is fine. Jim, Anna, and I all came home well-supplied.

I'm looking forward to being back in Washington this Monday night, for a panel discussion with novelist Dolen Perkins-Valdez, moderated by Shireen Dodson, at Busboys and Poets. Besides reading about hyperbolic space (see last blog post), I'm having a great time reading Perkins-Valdez's novel Wench and Dodson's inspiring The Mother-Daughter Book Club. Both books are reminding me why, even in the midst of the ongoing doom-and-gloom about the death of books as we know them, I want to keep writing, and reading.