NUNUM did a short interview with me that's now online. Not sure whether I'd answer the questions the same way now, but it's pretty recent!

I'll be reading "My Mother's Suitcases" from THE LUNATICS' BALL at a Rolling Writers garden reading in late June. I just read "Shooting Mussolini" at Patricia's Books on B reading, also from the book. I need to decide what to read at the Irish-American Crossroads Salon on March 29. It needs to be Irish-related, and Violet Gibson (who attempted to assassinate Mussolini) was Irish. I have a fictionalized monologue from Lizzie Halliday (as well as a long essay) in the book, but I don't know whether they want to hear about an Irish-American serial killer! Also more flash fictions than I remember publishing that grew out of the research for THE LUNATICS' BALL, back when I thought it might include straight fiction. I read the one about Crazy Jane once and really enjoyed it. The Crossroads folks say they're allotting 10-15 minutes per reader, which is a lot.

Still no edited manuscript and I think I just have to accept that the manuscript won't be complete by April 1, even if I manage to have all the other materials ready . Disappointing, but not the end of the world to be published in fall 2027 instead of spring 2027.

I will use one of Jon Crispin's stunning photos from his installation THE WILLARD SUITCASES project in THE LUNATICS' BALL, and this morning we had a long and unexpected phone conversation about his installation and other artists who've been inspired by it (in music and dance). Feeling overwhelmed by all I have to do for the book, but the book also brings gifts like that.

My flash "Monkey Business" was just published in the "Amuse Bouche" series in LUNCH TICKET. It was written just after the election, before the inauguration. The apocalyptic ending would have been much darker if I'd known what would follow. Who could have imagined where we are now?

Over a period of many years, I've published three times in LUNCH TICKET, a magazine I like a lot:  first longform creative nonfiction, then longform fiction, now flash fiction.

​There was no photo with the flash, but this one caught my eye on unsplash.

I hadn't really thought of them as related. But selling copies of my flash collection THE MISSING GIRL at Patricia's reading yesterday has me reflecting on that. I see I was already thinking about connections in an interview with Jayne Martin five years ago, when THE LUNATICS' BALL was in its infancy. Today I posted the interview and some thoughts in a Substack. It will be a year before THE LUNATICS' BALL comes out (that is, if I can meet the April 1 deadline for the edited ms., which I have yet to see but should have very soon, really have to have very soon), so I should resist the temptation to write Substacks! I want to do one on April 7 since that turns out to be the centenary of Violet Gibson's attempt to assassinate Mussolini, the subject of the flash I read yesterday.