Houston Society

A mention of the Houston book signing and party was featured in the Houston Chronicle's Society page. I got a big kick out of this, because any time my dad has a photo of himself taken, by say a waiter or someone he doesn't know well, he'll say, "This is for the Chronicle, so make it good." I can see that some people believe him when he says this, so I was glad to be part of something that finally landed him in the newspapers.

Clifford Pugh, a reporter for the River Oaks Examiner, among other publications in Houston, was a guest at my book party. He is a lot of fun, he asked the best questions at the Q&A, and he generally gave my whole event a bit of joie de vivre that might have been missing had he not been there. He mentioned my event in his column, Cliff Notes, for The River Oaks Examiner, and he also included the photo that you see at left.

I did a reading last night at Warwick's Books in La Jolla, California with the fabulous author Janelle Brown. Her first novel, ALL WE EVER WANTED WAS EVERYTHING, came out with a huge splash last year, and has recently come out in paperback. Janelle and I carpooled, driving the two hours from L.A. to La Jolla together, despite having never met before I picked her up at her house yesterday afternoon. Luckily, we had a lot to talk about, and we got along famously, chatting the whole time, even while relaxing poolside at a hotel bar while killing time before the reading. "What if we had hated each other?" said Janelle at the end of the day. But we both agreed that because we had liked each other's books, we thought we would like each other. Funny how that works. One of the most wonderful things about having a book published has been meeting writers that I admire - and Janelle was definitely one of those writers.

I Heart Houston

My fabulous dad lives in Houston and many of his friends came to the reading there at Brazos Bookstore on May 12. Afterward, we had a party at Ninfa's, where there were long tables full of margaritas and quesadillas. It all felt very Texas. The women had lipstick on their teeth and called me darlin', and the men kept clapping on the shoulders and saying how proud my dad must be of me. While other places in the world seem more and more the same, Texas is truly its own world. I loved it. ( In the photo here, I'm pictured with Houston philanthropist and socialite Carolyn Farb, and her friend.)