Wendy McClure

Author and Professional Obsessive.

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Mayflies when you're having fun

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Tomorrow night I’m going to be giving a talk for Chicago Women in Publishing, who helped me get my first job in Chicago a really long time ago. (They’d held one of their networking parties and instead of networking like a proper person, I accosted some lady in the elevator, which sort of horrifies me now, but it’s all good, you know?) So you should come. Also, Chicago Women in Publishing is not exclusively for women or publishing, though, obviously, it helps to be in a similar neighborhood, so to speak. Like you have to at least be wordy and in touch with your feminine side. Oh no, I’m making this sound very emo, which is not what I meant to do at all.

I have many more things to report, such as my trip to New York, which included an all-too-brief meeting with Mr. and Mrs. Comics Curmudgeon; my impending (short-distance) move; my ongoing obsession with VC Andrews (I just finished re-reading Petals on the Wind, people), and whatever else I can think up sometime when I have more than twenty minutes to update this site. I’m sorry I’ve been spending the past month being all PLEASE STAND BY, like a stupid test pattern.

If you’re still waiting for a book or another prize from the Make the Mackerel extravaganza, I haven’t forgotten you, and I’ll get them out by or before next week.

And thank you all for your impassioned commentary on gauchos. Against the advice of about 99% of you, I bought a pair of skirty black knit Loco Pantalones, which I plan to wear shamelessly.

Finally I’m going to be missing the America’s Next Top Model finale in order to give this talk tomorrow, and since I’ll be watching it on TiVo Thursday night, I’m going to impose a silly little ANTM media blackout for Thursday, during which time I will NOT read any reader comments in case somebody says, “Oh, I’m so glad ________* won!” and gives it away.

*That said, I think it’s gonna be Joanie. Don’t you? Though we love Danielle too and have this fantasy that she’s going to show up at judging speaking like Dame Judi Dench AND THEN THEY’LL HAVE TO GIVE IT TO HER.

My life in pictures

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Whenever I don’t have time to post more than a lame-ass entry (like, well, now, when I have to leave for the airport in twenty minutes) there’s always Flickr, which has pictures up from recent Big Deal Things In My Life such as The Walk and The Book Party. (And there’s going to be another party, and if you’re in NYC, email me, because I think you can still RSVP.)

And you (well, the New York area you) really need to come see Jami Attenberg read tonight at the New York Public Library. And you (the Chicago area you) need to see her read on June 22nd at the Hideout. And then buy her book. (All of you everywhere.)

Now I have to run, but in the meantime, maybe you all can debate the gaucho. Offensive or not? Those skirty knit ones are sort of cute, but at what point do they get horrifying? And is it the same point at which they become knickers? I mean, are gauchos a gateway garment to something worse? Discuss!

Edited to add: Ahhh! Look at this!  And this! Cinnamon rules!!!!

Aw, you guys.

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You’ve kept donating. And now we’ve raised nearly a thousand dollars. I am speechless. Does someone want to pledge an early Saturday morning wakeup call so I can get out to Naperville in time next week? I think your money would still go to the cause if I overslept, but as a matter of principle, I would like to, you know, walk the walk.

I have so many things to plan right now it’s making me twitch. And yet I’m compelled to babble about the following:

America’s Next Top Model: Clearly Jade is some kind of emotional Rasputin, able to withstand repeated attempts to kill her gargantuan ego week after week. I am starting to admire that. Also, I hope Danielle’s new teeth don’t change her accent. Also, Sara is tall and needs to be reunited with her own kind, pre-law majors. And Furonda is skinnininninny.

I keep reading all this stuff and thinking: why do we want seventeen-year olds to publish bestselling novels anyway? Why can’t we just amuse ourselves by training dogs to say “Ri rove roo” and leave the kids alone? (I have a way longer rant against the notion that anyone younger than twenty should be published, but it’s for another time.)

Tomorrow is Chris’s birthday and I bought us tickets to see the Comedians of Comedy show tomorrow night. I think it’ll be fun, considering the last time he was at a comedy show on his birthday he had a few drinks and hit on one of the performers, and they totally wound up dating the whole next year. And then some.

"Chunky," and other gravy matters

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Okay, so that Chicago Author’s Roundtable is this coming Monday night–not, as I’d totally foggily reported last week, this past Monday. (I guess that’s obvious, since time moves forward and not backward.) I hope you’ll come to the lovely air-conditioned comfort of the Sulzer Regional Library to hear Zulkey and Erin and Kevin Guilfoile and me, along with Kevin Smokler, who is touring this summer as the editor of a very cool book, and who is a great person to commiserate with about the bugfucking crazy business of having to push your own book as much as possible within about six weeks and on about four hours of sleep per night. We’ll be talking about stuff like what it means to have both online audiences and books to promote, whether having an internet presence can help a writing career, and, most importantly, discuss the mystifying differences between a blog and a chatroom (kidding).

So please come. It’ll be fun. I have no idea whether the table will actually be round. That could be awkward.

I feel I ought to provide some updates regarding the dicksmackery observed in Wednesday night’s post.
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Hello from hiatusville

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Pulling myself out from this little online hiatus is to some extent a matter of digging myself out from under a couple hundred backlogged manuscripts at work (including YOURS, probably, but don’t ask), but I’m getting to the point where my office is normal office colors again and not caste in a queasy yellow-beige light from so many manila envelopes. I seem to be making some progress.

If you’re in Chicago, you might wanna hit Sulzer library Monday night to see me at this thing. More later…

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