My husband, wrote an article about New York city winery in Decanter magazine.

This autumn a new winery will open its doors among the luxury shops, avant-garde theatres and loft residences of New York’s SoHo

City Winery is New York’s first ‘private label winery’ where members can vinify their own barrel of wine, managing its life from fermenter to barrel to bottle.

We’re starting the mornings with breakfast foods laid out, but people on their own. Some crazy fools went jogging this morning. My feeling is that running is appropriate if something large is chasing you, otherwise not so much.

We had three presentations today: One on brainstorming story ideas by Luc Reid ¹ one on reading aloud (by me), and one on Medieval Studies, by Michael Livingston. I learned that people in the Middle Ages did bathe, that the Bubonic Plague was the first germ warfare and went horribly wrong, and that knights in armor actually could stand up if they fell down.

For lunch we had sandwiches. I know. You’re thrilled.

Then two novel critiques, which was interesting. It’s the first time I’ve done a novel critique session and find it the same as and also quite different from a short story critique. Mostly we dealt with Big Issues and not so much on line notes.

For dinner, now, that’s a beautiful thing. We went to Couch’s barbeque. This place has been there since my Dad was a child. It is one of the things for which I will gleefully break my pose as vegetarian. We were having really lively conversations until the food hit the table and then everyone became silent. Mmmm… A couch’s bbq sandwich with hot slaw on it, sides of baked beans and cole slaw. It just doesn’t get any better.

Tomorrow we have the first of our sessions with Ellen Datlow. Should be fun.

1. I skipped this one because I still had some reading to do for critique sessions tomorrow,. Other people report favorably on it. [↩]

My nephew upon learning that I am working on a novel called, “Good Housekeeping,” insisted that I had stolen his idea. To prove it, he posted his story by the same name.

A teaser:

to keep a good house you need to write it, then publish it before you meanie face jr aunt cant steal it! which she will! she will slowely earn you trust…. then she will steal it! she will steal it like a person who cant write a good metaphor/simile!

It makes me giggle.

The workshop officially starts tomorrow. Today, a friend of mine came in and helped me set up — wait. Let me back up. When I got in last night, I discovered that my parents had already done everything. Beds were made, conference tables were set up in the workshop room. I mean… really.

So my friend and I headed out to the store to pick up groceries. She made walnut cake and bakclava. I made dinner.

The Menu
Quinoa Mushroom Risotto
Sauteed Mizuna greens with olive oil and lemon
Green salad with shitake vinaigrette.

Our first guests arrived around 5:00 and the rest of the gang showed up around 11:00. We’ve got another bunch of folks arriving tomorrow. I was relieved to see that I wasn’t the only one that was still frantically reading manuscripts.

Which I need to go back to doing now.