so my behind everyman tour is coming to an end for now. the last reading will be next week, june 27th, at rutgers university.

we'll be adding more dates in the fall/winter, but for now i've got to pack house and go about making the big move to LA. that's right! after almost 15 years in nyc, i'm headed west to seek out sunnier skies and more tectonic activity under larger fault zones. so if i post less frequently over the summer, well, now you've been warned why. and if i stop posting altogether, and you've heard about the "big one" on cnn or something, well...

but don't go removing this site from your bookmarks just yet. lots still to update:

the first of the interviews from the italian trip have come out. check out gabriele battaglia's interview in virgilio. you'll need to scroll down a little to pick up the interview. for those who don't read italian (me being one of you, of course), here's a hilarious, rather unintelligable translation courtesy of the good widgets at google. first person to translate the translation gets a free copy of the italian version of the book. (not joking!) on your marks, get set, go!

okay, other news:

my agent has sent my new novel, the pervert, the hypochondriac, and the feminist in to random house. now, the way it works is this: since they bought the first novel, they automatically get first dibs on the new one. then, depending on what they offer, and IF they offer, we decide whether to sign another contract or look for a deal with a different publishing house. so now it begins all over again. stay tuned for details.

lastly, but sooOooo not leastly:



i've got to plug a new book that a very kind someone at simon & schuster sent me last week. it's called three kinds of asking for it and it's just fucking fantastic! (note the use of the expletive in adjective form to denote just how fucking great this book is.) edited by susie bright, the book includes three erotic novellas by authors eric albert, greta christina, and jill soloway. and while all three stories are equally well written, and equally titillating in their own way, the soloway story is really what put me over the edge. you simply must read it.

written through the voice of a fourteen-year-old discovering herself and her sexuality, it brought my entire awkward early-teen years back to me in a blinding flash. i read the whole story in one hour, mouth alternately agog with amazement and flapping with laughter. dunno, maybe it's the raging heeb within me, but i connected on a deep level with her protagonist's (jodi klein) little cul-de-sac suburban world and the ways in which she struggles with her identity as a jew and as an early-teen. here's a passage about the holocaust that made me spit the dried fig i was chewing across the room:

"It happened and of course we should never forget. I mean, if that isn't the biggest DUH ever, 'never forget,' like we would? It's totally ingrained into us from like the time we find out we're Jewish. It's like, 'Hello, you're Jewish--by the way there was this freak who hated your ancestors and he killed six billion of them.' And of course at first you wonder, 'Why?' What was so bad about being Jewish that [Hitler] would have to kill us instead of move away?"