A LONG LINE OF CAKES is here

"It doesn't matter if it takes a long time getting there. The point is to have a destination."
-- Eudora Welty

I never know what a book is about until I finish it. Fourteen years ago I moved to Atlanta from my long-years home in Frederick, Maryland near Washington, D.C. I thought never to leave that house. But life happens and I did leave, and at the same time I got on the road and had a work life filled with schools, libraries, conferences, and new friends along the way.

What I missed most was the time to make a home in a new place, and that feeling of putting down roots, creating community, and staying somewhere where everyone knows you.

Emma Lane Cake feels that way, too. She finds herself in Halleluia, Mississippi with her loving but chaotic family of itinerant bakers, her eleventh move in as many years as she's been alive -- or has it been more than 11 moves? She has lost track. When she meets Ruby Lavender, they hatch a plan that will allow Emma to stay. Or will it?

I've come back to Aurora County to write about coming home and finding a place to belong in the world... something I had to do as a military child grown up, and something I had to do again when I moved to Atlanta. 

On the road for 17 years it became clear to me that some children search for home and belonging, and friendship, every day. And that other children offer it, every day. I wanted to write a book for all those children, too.

A Long Line of Cakes is published this fall. It becomes the fourth Aurora County book after Love, Ruby Lavender, Each Little Bird That Sings, and The Aurora County All-Stars. I hope you take Emma to your heart in just the way Ruby does (in her Ruby way) and in the way that I did, too.

If you're a reader of the previous Aurora County novels, you'll say a new hello to Ruby, Melba Jane, Miss Eula, Miss Mattie, Declaration, House, Cleebo, Honey, Eudora Welty, Finesse, and more, along with the magic -- and mystery -- of what it means to belong, to create a home, and to find a family.

I'm welcoming myself back home to blogging, too, after a century away. Let's see if it feels like home.

xoxxo Debbie

up all night

You know the friends that you sat up all night talking to, gossiping with, and telling all your secrets to when you were a kid? The friends who listened with rapt attention until you fell asleep mid-sentence? The friends who laughed -- and cried -- in all the right places when you told your stories, and whose storytelling was so superb, you felt lucky to be in their presence and amazed to be entrusted with their stories?

I have friends like that. Saturday night, here in Frederick, Maryland, I sat up with some of those friends until 3am, reconnecting and catching up, and picking up where we'd left off on my last visit. Then, I slept like a baby for a few hours, in the bedroom set aside for me. On Sunday morning I savored a long, luxurious shower. I didn't even count the carbs in the fresh garlic rolls and hot coffee.

Saturday night was almost like a slumber party, like being a kid again, like having so few cares or responsibilities, that the world could slip away for some purloined hours. How rare.As the old clock on the wall tick-tocked, three of us held court in a well-loved kitchen with warm light, homemade soup, and shared history. What a gift.

Every book I write is about friendship, its joys and perils. Ruby and Melba Jane (and Dove, of course) in Love, Ruby Lavender. Comfort and Declaration, in Each Little Bird that Sings. Cleebo and House in The Aurora County All-Stars. Joe and John Henry in Freedom Summer.

And now, Franny and Margie, in Countdown.

As you read it, keep in mind: There is nothing like a true friend, to remember you to yourself.

home in october

I've been breathless this week with beautiful autumn at my fingertips and a new novel to dig into. After eight years of traveling for work through most of October, I've spent this week in awe of "home in autumn" and what it brings me.

Some of what it brings me is this apple-cake-in-an-iron-skillet made by Hannah:
It brings me Mississippi family and brunch in Irene:
It brings me a big family dinner in Irene, with my mother's pot roast recipe dusted off, and the introduction of family and friends in a convivial atmosphere:
...especially when we got to singing "Hey, Jude." Some of us had been to the Rain concert that day -- the Beatles tribute band -- and it was so much fun we couldn't contain ourselves:October brings some serious, heartfelt conversation as night falls:
And it brings some celebration. The real Miss Eula -- Ruby Lavender's Miss Eula -- would have been 112 years old on Monday, October 12, so we celebrated her birthday that Sunday night. My cousin Carol and I are both Miss Eula's grandchildren. We bought coconut cupcakes in her honor.

Miss Eula (whom we called Mamaw) always made a coconut cake when we visited, and put it on her glass cake pedestal. It was regal, up high and covered with a glass cake cover... glorious... sort of like these bakery cupcakes and candles, and the singing of Happy Birthday to a funny, nutty, frustrating, loving, amazing and wholly-worthy-of-Ruby-Lavender woman who had meant so much to us growing up.

Thank you for coming, family. Happy Birthday, Miss Eula.I'm glad I could slow down long enough to savor October. I'm out again in a month, to Midland, Michigan, and then to the D.C. area for almost a week, where I'll work in schools and visit with Maryland kin.

Until then, I'll breathe deep and gather fall into my open arms, and I'll keep plugging away at this book two of the Sixties Trilogy. I haven't forgotten my intention to write every day, and I have done that... even if it has only been for fifteen minutes.
And truth: I can't really write for fifteen minutes. I can visit my story, that's what I can do. I can jot down notes. I can do some good thinking. I can brush up passages. But that's writing, too. And it is enough on those days when I'm embracing fall... mainly because my deadline isn't staring me in the face! ha!

No, no, it's enough because the thing I'm striving to find in these months off the road is balance. I want to find a balance to my days.
"Good luck!" say most folks I talk with about this. But I persist. And I persist with this story as well. Next week I want to write about my biggest fear with this novel. It has been my biggest fear for years, and I can no longer put off facing it. I started to face it this week, as I put in long days at my desk, to move forward with the narrative. What I want to figure out (and will write about next week) is..

Well... next week. Have a good weekend, all. I'm going in search of pumpkins. And story. Long hours with autumn, with family, and with this novel. A nice balance.

Two Very Good Pieces of Book News

Aside, before I get started: Here's a shout-out to my teacher and librarian friends in Iowa City and Cedar Rapids -- let me know you are okay, will you? JulieL? Cindy? Connie? Anne Marie? Becky? Barb and Paula? And Treva -- where are you? Check in, check in.

Here I am, here I am, early on a Monday morning, to jump on the bed and shout:

EACH LITTLE BIRD THAT SINGS has won the California Young Reader Medal!

HOOOOORAY!

Thank you so very much, California Readers! None of my books has ever won a state award, although LITTLE BIRD has so far been on 24 state lists, and RUBY was on 26!

And I truly understand and believe that the nomination is the cake -- it's tops. My books have been blessed to be on these state lists, voted on by children. The lists have increased the visibility of my books and have gotten them into the hands of young readers, which is what it's all about. I have been blessed by having my books on these lists, too -- because I've had a book on state lists, I have been invited to speak in these states, to visit schools and conferences, and I have met so many wonderful folks I never would have met otherwise -- my life has been enriched.

So. State Book Award Lists. A Very Good Thing. Thank you so much to librarians and teachers and young readers in all states who make up these lists and read read read -- and vote!

To have a book that has won a state book award -- I don't know what to say! Thank you, of course... and then... I can't wait to see you in February, during the awards ceremony in Santa Clara -- can't wait to thank you in person. It's a humbling experience to be part of the same list of award winners with Sharon Creech and Kate DiCamillo and Christopher Paul Curtis.

California, here I come. February 22.

Very Good Book News #2:

ALL-STARS has been nominated for the SIBA BOOK AWARD! Be still my heart. Southern booksellers nominate their favorite books for this award each year -- and again, it is such an honor to be nominated! RUBY was a SIBA nominee in 2002, and now here comes a nomination for ALL-STARS, my newest book, all about two boys who want to play baseball, in Halleluia, Mississippi on the same day the county plans to celebrate its 200th birthday, with a pageant full of children whose Mamas insist they participate -- and that goes for the ballplayers, too.

ALL-STARS is a book about baseball, Walt Whitman's poetry, and all kinds of literature: OUR TOWN by Thornton Wilder, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee, GREAT EXPECTATIONS by Dickens, and more. Not to mention a lot of laughs -- Frances Schotz, age 14, is in charge of the pageant. She has been off to boarding school, has taken too much French and too much drama, and has renamed herself Finesse. She is responsible for having broken our hero's pitching arm the year before, when she collided with him in the midst of an interpretive dance. There's an old man with a secret. An old man with a past. And a baseball game that, I hope, will have you on the edge of your seat, wondering what happens next.

To have this book honored by SIBA -- Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, is such icing on the cake -- chocolate icing, to boot. Thank you, SIBA! I am in great good company this year, too. Two friends: Kerry Madden's LOUISIANA'S SONG is also nominated, as is SOMETHING ROTTEN by Alan Gratz. I'll meet the other two nominees that I don't know -- see the list here. We'll be together on Labor Day weekend, when the award is ... awarded... at the Decatur Book Festival in Decatur, Georgia.

Can't wait for time with book buds. For now, my head is down and I'm plowing ahead with Book One of the Sixties Trilogy, as well as a picture book project that has grabbed me by the ear and won't let me go. I've also started an essay I want to finish today -- here's the first line:

"So far the Obama For President Campaign has cost me $56 and a macaroni and cheese casserole."

I'm not on the front lines, like my daughter is, but I'm listening to her stories. More on writing soon, as well as a look at my lunches this week. I know you can't wait.

Big congratulations and kudos to Walter Mayes on finishing his grand run as THE Man of La Mancha in San Francisco!

Back to work. It is finally glorious summer. What are you working on this week?