Keep your eyes wide

the chance won't come again

How many treats must I give Riley, before he’ll pose for the shot?

We saw the Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown” this week and loved it. Dylan’s song lyrics have been occupying my brain ever since.

The only confusing thing to me were the previews before the film started. They were all some version of a horror movie.

Didn’t movie previews used to match the feature film’s subject matter?

Or maybe horror is the thing these days. I’m currently judging flash fiction, poetry, and short stories for this year’s Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. Apparently, horror is the preferred genre for eleventh and twelfths graders. That and themes of death.

When I was that age, I mostly wrote bad poetry about unrequited love and the resulting loneliness.

I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.

Citric Acid: An Online Orange County Literary Arts Quarterly gave me a chance this month to write about an organization called Women For: Orange County. The essay is titled “The Letters I Wrote.” I’m in great company in between the mayor of Irvine and the president of Women For: Orange County. Read my essay here.

I am a life-long letter writer. Raised in the South, I was required to write thank you notes to my grandmothers as soon as I learned cursive. These days I still send birthday, sympathy, and Christmas cards.

I also made a career out of sorting other people’s Christmas cards. Back in the 70’s, there was so much Christmas mail that I worked ten hours a day six days a week from Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve.

There’s less mail now and I receive fewer cards every year. Understandable, considering the price of printing and postage. But I appreciate keeping in touch with lifelong friends and family even if it is only once a year and even when it means finding out that some of these old friends have passed on.

Rest in peace Bob Hedrick, JoAnn Kemper, and Rudy Vega.

May you stay forever young.

The young people pictured above are keeping my favorite bookstore LibroMobile going, even though the store is struggling these days to pay the rent. It’s not because the rent is too high. Over the past years, bookstore owner Sarah Rafael Garcia has negotiated a more-than-reasonable rate with her landlord. The problem is book sales have declined, and grants are disappearing.

The Los Angeles Times reported that “LibroMobile typically gets two grants each year, totaling about $50,000, used to pay for free art programming and to give stipends to young artists and cultural producers who keep the shop open … but Garcia has had to dip into her savings.”

Closing would leave Santa Ana without a bookstore during a time when its Main Library is closed for construction until 2026.

This story has received some much-needed press lately from the Los Angeles Times, the Daily Pilot, the Orange County Register, and from Yusra Farzan on LAist radio.

LAist radio even quoted me.

“Mary Camarillo, a novelist based in Huntington Beach, added that García is intentional about featuring local authors. “There's a little free library. She gives books away. She's really careful about pricing books so that the community can afford them.”

LibroMobile hosted a terrific VIP shopping party just before Christmas. Local authors (like me) were available to sign books, and take selfies with local authors, and my Road Manager provided some tasty libations. Lots of friends showed up and the store realized over a thousand dollars in sales that day.

Which will help with next month’s rent but won’t necessarily keep the store open.

LibroMobile is a community gem that has become a hub for arts and culture. If you’d like to help the store stay open, consider joining me in the brand-new book sponsorship program called Santa Ana Reads. City Councilman Benjamin Vazquez suggested the program which allows community members to sponsor books and cultivates a reading culture.

Learn more and apply here.

You can pick the amount you want to contribute as well as the age of reader and type of book you’d like to sponsor.

“Try imagining a place where it’s always safe and warm. Come in she said, I’ll give you shelter from the storm.”

This past year has been a challenge for both of my novels, thanks to my publisher’s switch in distribution methods. I’m happy to say that “The Lockhart Women” and “Those People Behind Us” are finally available wherever you like to purchase books, including Bookshop.org and my website.

They are also always on the shelf at LibroMobile and for that I am forever grateful.

This new year will be full of different challenges and brand-new monster stories.

Ready or Not

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions, but I’d love to hear yours, if you make them. Write back and let me know what you’re resolving, and I’ll enter you in a drawing for a signed copy of “Those People Behind Us.”

“You’d better start swimming, or you’ll sink like a stone, for the times they are a changing.”

Gracias to Mr. Zimmerman for the lyrics. Gracias to all of you for reading and supporting my work.