A Post About Empathy

Years ago, I was doing a lot of business travel. And I do mean a lot. I was supplementing my writing income as a public speaker. It got out of hand, at least by my standards. I was on the road for about a third of the year.

One day I was exhausted and trying to get home when an airline problem caused me to miss a flight out of Phoenix to San Luis Obispo, my nearest regional airport. And there are only a couple of USAir flights to SLO per day. It’s not like American or United out of LAX or SFO, where they go out every couple of hours. The next flight was a seven-hour wait.

I had a bit of a tantrum at the gate, in front of the gate agent. Not pretty, but I was just so

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Must. Give. Books. Away.

Updated on Friday, December 16, 2011 at 10:01AM by Catherine

So maybe you've noticed I have no current giveaways on my blog. No wonder I'm getting sweaty around the collar. Hate to go too long without giving books away.

Behold the advance reader's copy (or proof, as they call them in the UK) of next Spring's UK hardcover title, When You Were Older. It has it's own page on my site already, so either of those links you just read through will get you to more about it. Hope you like what you hear.

My Transworld editor, Sarah Adams, sent me a lovely stack of these with a note saying there were a few extras, and she figured I would know what to do with

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I Support the Occupy Movement

The following is a short piece I wrote for the Occupy Writers website:

I’m a fiction writer, so…nobody likes a good story more than I do. Thing is, there are fiction stories and nonfiction stories.  And the difference matters. If you don’t believe me, ask James Frey.

Here are two stories. I’ll leave it up to you to decide which is true.

Story number one:

Once upon a time there was a country called America, which wasn’t quite right, because that was not its name. Its name was the United States of America, so just calling it America was a bit insensitive toward the Canadians and

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