News, Views, and Shmooze....

It's a "Small Miracle"

Yitta Halberstam and Judith Leventhal have come out with Small Miracles of the Holocaust: Extraordinary Coincidences of Faith, Hope, and Survival, another book in their wonderful series.

I hope you'll check it out.

Get on the Case

This Sunday, October 7,  thirteen past presidents of Sisters in Crime, including myself, will be doing events around the country, signing and talking about their short stories in Sisters on the Case, a just released Sisters in Crime anthology edited by SinC founder Sara Paretsky.

For a complete listing of October 7 and future Sisters on the Case events, please click on this link: Sisters In Crime: Sisters on the Case anthology

For those of you in the Los Angeles area--I'll be signing this Sunday with Claire McNab at the following two locations:

2 PM

Sisters in Crime, Los Angeles Chapter

The Community Room
South Pasadena Library
1115 El Centro
South Pasadena

5 PM

The Mystery Bookstore

1036 Broxton Avenue

Los Angeles,

310-209-0415

If you can't make either event, but would like a signed copy of Sisters on the Case, please call the Mystery Bookstore to order your copy.

I hope you'll "get on the case" and celebrate with Sisters in Crime!

Make Your Reservation for Murder with Reservations

My friend and fellow mystery writer, Elaine Viets, has a new book coming out next week: Murder With Reservations.

Elaine, who is always ready to help others, is  in the hospital, recovering from a stroke, and won't be able to promote her book.

You can help Elaine and "pay it forward" by buying a copy -- or more -- of Murder With Reservations.

Now You See Me....

I was delighted to learn from Joanne Sinchuk of Murder on the Beach in Delray Beach, Florida, that Now You See Me..., my fourth Molly Blume, is in its third printing.

It pays to travel...

AAUW Roundtable November 2

The American Association of University Women is sponsoring an extraordinary Roundtable Fundraiser on Thursday, November 2 at Barnes & Noble in Encinitas, California, featuring nine mystery writers--all members of Sisters in Crime -  including the incomparable Anne Perry.

The lineup, in alphabetical order:

Lori Avocato
Taffy Cannon
Carolyn Hart
Libby Fischer Hellmann
Jane Isenberg
Rochelle Krich
Ann Parker
Anne Perry
Marcia Talley

The details:

Thursday, November 2, 2006
7 PM
Barnes & Noble
1040 El Camino Real (at Leucadia Blvd.)
Encinitas CA
760-943-6400

If you're nearby, please join us.

Into the Frey

Last week Oprah lambasted him. This week, the agent who sold James Frey's A Million Little Pieces said that she is no longer representing him.

But Frey is still selling his book. Many, many copies.

This is from today's PW Daily:

Frey Adds Note as Doubleday Goes to Press

Doubleday posted James Frey's Author Note at the http://email.publishersweekly.com/cgi-bin2/DM/y/jpFX0EkPTg0OYZ0Chdk0Ey Web site this morning, and said that it is now going back to press for 100,000 copies of a new A Million Little Pieces edition that will include Frey's note and Doubleday's own note, which it released last week. The company is also taking out ads in several publications, including Monday's PW, with a letter explaining its position on the matter. In his note, Frey acknowledges embellishing many details about his past, admitting that he "altered events and details all the way through the book" to help create a better story. He said he didn't set out to write a fiction or nonfiction books, but to tell his story about addition, recovery, faith, love and hope. Frey said he made alterations in the portrayal of himself in the book, partially as a way to help him cope with his past. "My mistake, and it is one I deeply regret, is writing about the person I created in my mind to help me cope, and not the person who went through the experience." Frey said he "never expected" that the book would sell as many copies as it did, calling the experience "shocking," "humbling," and "terrifying." And Frey defended characterizing Pieces as a memoir. "I believe, and I understand others strongly disagree, that memoir allows the writer to work from memory instead of from a strict journalistic or historical standard. It is about impression and feeling, about individual recollection. This memoir is a combination of facts about my life and certain embellishments. It is subjective truth, altered by the mind of a recoverying drug addict and alcoholic. Ultimately it's a story, and one that I could not have written without have lived the life I've lived." Oprah, get him back on your couch.

Oprah Frayed About Frey

I'm chiming in late about James Frey and A Million Little Pieces - the memoir that wasn't. But I have been reading about it, and thinking about it.And like many others, I was disappointed when Oprah, who had invited Frey on her show and helped catapault him to literary stardom, defended the author.

But this morning Oprah took Frey to task for presenting fiction as truth--and doled out blame to his editor, Nan Talese.

From PW Daily:

Saying she felt "duped" by Frey, Winfrey said she had allowed her feelings about the book and Frey's strong relationship with her producers to cloud her judgement about the author when she called in to defend him on the Larry King Show earlier this month. "I made a mistake and left the impression that the truth does not matter, and I am deeply sorry about that," Winfrey said.

Frey acknowledged that the Smoking Gun story was "pretty accurate" and admitted that he only spent a few hours in jail, not months or weeks, and that he had changed substantial facts about some characters....

And Oprah didn't buy the editor's defense: that during the entire publication process, there had been no reason to doubt the authenticity of Frey's memoir.

Winfrey told of how a Hazeldon counselor came forward to challenge aspects of the story eight days after Winfrey announced in the fall that she was choosing Pieces for her club. Winfrey said she had then asked Doubleday if "stood behind James's book as a work of nonfiction at the time, and they said absolutely." Winfrey also questioned how a publisher could send out a press release touting the book as a "brutally honest" look at addtion, when they "haven't checked it to be sure." To which Talese responded "its very sad for you. It's very sad for us."

Sad for everyone.

Me and My Mapquest

In mid December I took a Saturday night red-eye to South Florida. I came down with a cold the Friday before I left--achy throat, runny nose, itchy eyes. I doctored myself with echinacea, Sudafed, Advil, and several packets of Emergen - C, but I was feeling less than wonderful when I landed at 6 AM in Ft. Lauderdale.

An hour later I was in Aventura, taking a nap at my wonderful cousins'. I was tempted to stay in bed, or take in the gorgeous view from their twenty-fourth floor condominium, but I had bookstores to visit, books to sign. My cousins had graciously offered me the use of their second car. Two weeks before I had contacted all the Barnes & Nobles and Borders in the area, spoken with managers, and offered to come by and sign stock. Using the stores' zip codes, my husband had plotted my itinerary, and I had printed out Mapquest directions from store to store.

I had never driven in Florida before. My husband, supportive as he is, had conveyed some concern. And Mapquest, as you may know, isn't perfect. My cousin pointed out that the Mapquest directions for leaving Mystic Pointe were wrong.

Not encouraging. But I was determined. And I had a cell phone. And a bag of nosh that my cousin's wife packed for me, along with throat lozenges and a bottle of water.

After an initial blunder (Mapquest's ambiguous directions), I was headed for the turnpike and my first stop. Six hours later I had visited eight chain stores in Kendall, Miami, South Miami, and Coral Gables. I signed stock. I chatted with the people who sell my books. I met with Michael, a manager who writes poetry (he gave me clearer and more accurate to the next store). Not all of the stores had received the copies of my books that they'd ordered. Several stores supposedly had recevied the copies--but they were nowhere to be found. The mystery of my mystery. And I almost gave up finding a parking spot in the enormous Dolphin Mall, which had gridlock. I was exhausted and achy. I wanted to lay my head on the steering wheel and cry. But I found a spot, and inside the Borders I met an area marketing manager with whom I'd corresponded the week before.

As Molly's Bubbie G would say, it was bashert.

From the Dolphin mall I headed to Palm Beach, where I would be speaking that night. The route was fairly direct - I took the I 95 north -- and I planned to visit three more stores. But it was getting a little late, day had given way to night. As I approached West Palm Beach I was becoming apprehensive about finding my way in the sudden darkness. So I phoned my husband back in L.A., used the speaker-phone feature on my cell phone, and let him do the navigating.

Better than GPS.

The Palm Beach parents' event, sponsored by the Palm Beach Synagogue, was held at the lovely home of one of the congregants, whose brother, as it turns out, lives in Los Angeles. We all talked about the subject of Now You See Me... - teens at risk, the dangers of the Internet, the myriad pressures young people face. We discussed balancing the importance of trusting our children with the need to protect them. Later, I had the pleasure of chatting with Cheryl Kravetz and Jeff Jacobus from Palm Beach's Classic Bookshop. Cheryl had made my day a few weeks earlier when I cold-called the bookstore. "You're Rochelle Krich!" she had exclaimed. "I love your books!"

The drive home from Palm Beach was traffic-free and uneventful. Back at my cousins' I had a glass of hot tea and a good night's sleep--probably because I hadn't brought my lap top, and my cousins don't have a computer. Scary for me, yet somehow liberating.

I did ask my husband to check my e-mail messages. Because you never know, right?

My Kind of Candy Land

Monday night I gave a talk to the Southern California chapter of the American Jewish Library Association. The event took place in Van Nuys at Beyda for Books, a wholesale distributor of children and young adult books and teaching materials.

I arrived early (with traffic, you never know....) and met the owners, David Paulson and his wife Lynn, who bought the twenty-seven-year-old company two years ago and are the nicest people you'd want to meet. They had prepared coffee and refreshments for the thirty or so librarians who attended the event. I helped myself to a cup of nuts (one of my downfalls) and followed David, who took me on a tour of the warehouse of the company he clearly loves.

There were books.

Fifteen thousand and counting, on over a mile of shelving.

Including the collected tales of  Curious George. And the newest Eloise. And so many pop-up books and puzzle books and multi-lingual books.

Beyda for Books provides shopping carts. If you're a teacher or librarian and you visit their warehouse, you'll need the cart.

They had to shoo me out of the warehouse to do my program.

Why Independent Bookstores Close

Last week I posted "The Crepuscule," John Usher's thoughts about the reasons for the demise of an independent bookstore. Maryelizabeth Hart of the wonderful Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego asks what I think about Usher's views.

I'm sad every time an independent book store closes. A year ago it was Coffee, Tea & Mysteries in Garden Grove, California. And Sherlock's Home in Winnetka, Illinois.

To be honest, I don't understand many of the correlations Usher makes. I posted his piece to find out what all of you think.

What do you think?