Welcome to the party! Have you checked out the site? I feel like I’ve been keeping my surprise party a secret from all of you for forever. My site’s been up for about a week now and a couple folks have mentioned it–quietly. But I wanted to have a special event to launch it because …Read More
Lovely news this week… The paperback of Isabella Moon will be featured in Target’s Breakout Books promotion beginning in February. I couldn’t be happier because, yes, Target is my happy place! And here’s the Booklist Review of Calling Mr. Lonely Hearts: Calling Mr. Lonely Hearts. Benedict, Laura (Author) Jan 2009. 352 p. Ballantine, hardcover, $25.00. …Read More
When I talk to groups or give a reading, one of the stories I like to tell is of how I gave myself just one year to write Isabella Moon. I say it with a certain amount of pride–especially considering that the two novels I wrote prior to it took me eight and four years, …Read More
Last year I did this little experiment on my myspace blog and I found the Gender Guesser website in my bookmarks today–So I thought I would share it here. This is a link to Gender Guesser, where you can paste something you’ve written and the site will evaluate whether it was written by a man …Read More
Finally! I sent the copy edits of CALLING MR. LONELY HEARTS back to Ballantine today. I feel like celebrating! Alas, it may not be the last time I see CMLH in manuscript form if I wasn’t clear enough on corrections. Then come the bound galleys, aka ARCS. As soon as I get my hands on …Read More
(Amazing image by Amaroo.) I’m a little jealous of my poet friends–not just because they work magic with so few words, but because their work is so, well, portable. More than portable. It’s pithy as well. Prose writers have a tougher time expressing complete themes and ideas on a single manuscript page. If we’re doing …Read More
My dreams are filled with people these days, strangers who come onto our land, and into our house. Their faces are vivid. They might be people I’d see on the streets in town, or at the mall, or driving in cars–anywhere. In one dream, several of them have set up tents in our driveway, their …Read More
If I weren’t a writer, I think I’d want to be an architect. I like industrial landscapes. I like the stark angles of buildings and the simple, artful details of construction materials like steel, brick, stucco, wood and concrete. So while I feel wistful about being away from home when I travel, and nervous about …Read More
A little more on the Big City tomorrow. The FedEx folks delivered my copyedited manuscript for CALLING MR. LONELY HEARTS yesterday morning. I had been wondering when it would arrive and had bugged my editor’s assistant about it when I saw him in the bar at Thrillerfest. But it turns out he’d been promoted to …Read More
I never cease to be bemused by the ways of the publishing world. ISABELLA MOON has three release dates in the UK: an import edition paperback was available back on October 1, around the same time of the US hardcover release; the UK hardcover came out in February with William Heinemann; and the trade paperback …Read More