The Good Karma Diet
I'm proud to announce that I make a guest appearance in my dear teacher and friend Victoria Moran's forthcoming book, The Good Karma Diet! Sharing our "vegan conversion" stories (as I do in this new book) is very important for helping veganism feel more accessible. It's an honor to have been part of such a useful project.
But the reason I'm blogging about it today is the terrific perk you get if you preorder The Good Karma Diet before its release on May 19th: an interactive teleseminar with Victoria on Sunday, May 17th! (It'll be recorded for anyone who can't participate in real time.) Attending Main Street Vegan Academy was one of the very best decisions I ever made, so I can promise you that this seminar is going to be insightful and inspiring (as with everything Victoria does). Even better, you'll be entered into a drawing to win one of three $100 donations to the charity of your choice!
To sign up, just forward your email receipt to Victoria's lovely assistant Danielle at danielle DOT msv AT gmail DOT com (making a note of your favorite charity to expedite matters in case you win one of the donations). Danielle will send you the full details on the teleseminar. That's it! So awesome!
Preorder links:
Amazon — standard paper or Kindle edition
Amazon — deluxe Kindle edition
Barnes & Noble — standard paper or Nook edition
Barnes & Noble — deluxe Nook edition
or try Indiebound to locate your nearest independent bookseller!
EAT ME! (or, Vegan Cupcakes, part 2)
(Vegan cupcakes, part 1. This post also continued from The Way Your Words Find Each Other.)
Here's the cupcake menu I forgot at home:
Recipe links: lavender chocolate, gingerbread, strawberry, chocolate stout. I also wanted to tell you about the tote bags I screenprinted for the raffle, and the prizes inside. I ordered the bags from Enviro-tote, a wonderful company based in New Hampshire with excellent customer service. (Elizabeth orders her Squam tote bags from Enviro-tote, which is how I found them.) Made in the USA FTW! I wish I had gotten a pic of one of the bags during the event, but we'll have to make do with this one:
(As I mentioned at the launch, I realized after I'd started transferring the design that it looks a lot like the Grub Street logo, but I figure it's okay to use it for inspiration given that I'm not selling these bags. Also, I am pretty sure the red splotch on the Grub Street logo isn't intended to remind you of a blood spatter!)
Along with Taza chocolate and a $25 gift card to Porter Square Books, each tote bag prize had its own theme. You got a ticket and dropped it in the tin of your choice.
The Frankenstein theme: a Penguin hardcover edition of the original novel, a signed copy of MarcyKate Connolly's Monstrous, and a coupon good for a signed pre-order of Mackenzi Lee's This Monstrous Thing.
The vegan theme: signed copies of Victoria Moran's Main Street Vegan, Will Tuttle's The World Peace Diet, and Colleen Patrick-Goudreau's Color Me Vegan.
The Jim Henson theme: Imagination Illustrated and a signed copy of Elizabeth Hyde Stevens's Make Art Make Money.
I have two more totes, so I might do another giveaway for all of you lovely people who couldn't make it to the launch. Stay tuned!
p.s.—Jenny of Supernatural Snark "picked my brain in a non-cannibalistic way," and the Q&A is up today.
A friend says, "There were a lot of hot guys at your launch!" Pass this along to your husbands, ladies. #bonesandall#ladycannibals
— Camille DeAngelis (@cometparty) March 18, 2015
The Way Your Words Find Each Other
With Joetta and Amy Lou.
Looking up cannibal jokes in preparation for @cometparty's launch tonight. They're pretty killer.— Porter Square Books (@PorterSqBooks) March 14, 2015
“Happy Book Day!” (dinner at Veggie Galaxy, my mom’s treat)
On Saturday night people gave me cake and flowers and chocolate and Vermont maple syrup and hugs and some of the sweetest compliments I have ever heard. It was a beautiful night and I'm so grateful to Mackenzi, Porter Square Books, my awesome family who traveled for hours to be with me, and all the rest of you lovely souls who came out to celebrate the new novel!
Everything went smoothly—the only thing I forgot was the cupcake menu, so I just clarified which ones were gluten free and told everyone that if they didn't finish every single morsel on the table (cupcakes and lollipops) I would be extremely disappointed in them.
They did not disappoint.
Photo by Aram Comjean.
The raffle was really fun too. There were three themed tote bags with Taza chocolate and Porter Square Books gift cards: Frankenstein, Jim Henson, and veganism. (I'll tell you more about the tote bags in my cupcake post.) In a supreme stroke of irony, the girl who won the vegan tote bag is named Maren, and she is already a vegetarian. Sometimes life is just too hilarious for words.
A friend of a friend came to the event, and at the afters at Five Horses we got to chat a little. He said something to the effect of "I know I don't know you, but hearing you speak about yourself and your work, I felt like I did. I really appreciated the way your words find each other." That was a powerful moment of self actualization for me—having someone I don't really know yet tell me that they see me exactly the way I want to be seen, as someone kind and approachable and enthusiastic about life.
(Of course, having the launch dress and sweater come out TOTALLY AWESOME helped my confidence quite a bit too, haha.)
The other thing I should note: this launch event transpired nine years to the day my lovely agent called me long distance to tell me the good news about Mary Modern. March 14, 2006! I feel so good about what I've written, what I'm writing and all that I have yet to write.
@PorterSqBooks@writersofboston@debkacolson@cometparty book launch Bones and All http://t.co/60iQoMye8Hpic.twitter.com/X9HkXRym8i— Mary Bonina (@reebonina) March 15, 2015
@cometparty holding court. Looking forward to reading "Bones & All" #bookspic.twitter.com/ERxIRyM10q — SpatialH (@SpatialH) March 14, 2015
TONIGHT the incomparable @cometparty is launching her exquisite book BONES & ALL at @PorterSqBooks & if you aren't there we can't be friends — Mackenzi Lee (@themackenzilee) March 14, 2015
After Five Horses we all walked back to the apartment my family had rented and I, too happily exhausted to walk home again in the cold, laid down a bunch of sofa cushions and fell into a blissful sleep under the dining room table. (We did talk about my being quirky during the Q&A. I don't have to try, I just do things and only notice afterward how weird they are.)
More photos coming soon in cupcake, launch dress, and cute lacy cardigan posts!
Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World
One Halloween several years back my dear friend Kelly B. threw a party at her apartment in Manhattan. She asked me to make the icing for the cupcakes she'd baked, and I completely botched it. Oblivious to the bag of confectioner's sugar waiting on the shelf, I'd used granulated sugar instead, and consequently chewing through the icing was like eating a 50/50 mix of sugar and sand. My poor friend was aggravated (and rightfully so) by my ridiculous lapse of common sense.
I avoided baking cupcakes for a long time after that. Cake baking in general became something of a needless ordeal.
But this is the new CAN-DO ME, remember! So I decided that 2015 should be the year I became a totally confident baker, with the help of my roomie Kelly T.'s much-loved copy of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.
And now would you look at me!:
First I baked two batches for our Winter Solstice party: pumpkin chocolate chip and gluten-free vanilla (with a teaspoon of cardamom thrown in there for a little pizzazz). Hilariously enough, a holiday gift of Babycakes arrived soon afterward from my wonderful agent Kate Garrick.
Then a couple weeks ago I baked a batch of gluten-free carrot cupcakes from a Babycakes recipe for a Writers' Room event and a party with my yoga buds—they were good, but not as delicious as the recipes I'd tried so far from Isa Chandra and Terry Hope Romero. (My tastebuds were probably swayed somewhat by the fact that the whole cupcake-batter-in-a-blender thing totally did not work for me. I'd just received my brand-new Vitamix, so it's not like I was using a toothless old blender! More on the Vitamix soon, btw.)
Then for the yoga and writing workshop Brynne and I hosted last weekend, I baked gingerbread with lemon frosting out of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World and gluten-free lavender chocolate with agave coconut cream. I'd baked the gingerbread before (to sweeten up the cabin-fevery evening after a snow day), so I knew they'd be totally awesome, but the lavender chocolate was divine in a more subtle and unexpected way. You taste the chocolate first, and then there's a lovely lavender aftertaste. I also appreciated the lightness of the coconut cream icing. (Forgot to get pics during the workshop, but I will take one next time.) I'll be baking these two recipes plus a couple new ones for the big launch event at Porter Square Books this Saturday, so cupcakes part 2 is coming next week. I'll leave you here with a bit of baking advice. Whether or not you are vegan, if you want your baked goods to come out well, you need to do two things:
1. Be precise. (I like to pretend I'm a scientist in my laboratory.)
2. Use the right equipment. You can make icing without a mixer, but it will not turn out anywhere near as fluffy and even.
As always, gaining competence with any skill or endeavor has everything to do with a positive attitude—even if you have to throw your early efforts in the trash!
Almost Like Christmas Eve
Tomorrow. Tomorrow! (Well, the UK edition you see above doesn't go on sale until March 26th, but you know what I mean. Thank you to Laura Bambrey for the photo.)
I really want to be mindful of how I've grown in the four and a half years since Petty Magic came out, of all that I've learned and grown into. I am better at letting go of outcomes, but I still loved this blog post by Danielle LaPorte on detachment as opposed to non-attachment. We are discussing the Bhagavad Gita in the Hinduism class I'm auditing at Tufts, and every time we touch upon the concept of separating one's actions from the fruit of one's actions I reflect on how perfectly applicable this is in every aspect of our daily lives.
I wrote a book. I hope you enjoy it, although I don't mind if you don't.* The end. Hooray!
* * *
You may have noticed that I have a shiny new "news & events" page. Right now I have readings/signings/panel discussions scheduled in Cambridge (the launch!!! THIS WEEKEND!!!), Philadelphia, New Rochelle (NY), New York City, and Derry, New Hampshire. I really hope you can join me at one of these events, they're all going to be a lot of fun!
But if you live too far away, you can do one (or both) of the following:
1. Join me for a Twitter chat hosted by The Food Duo this Wednesday at 8pm ET!
2. Ask your local independent bookstore if they'd like to check out my book and consider inviting me to do an event.
Thanks for all your support. It means so much to me!
* I am currently two projects past this one, so talking about Bones & All kind of feels like talking about a high-school art project. Maybe productivity is my magic chill pill!
Out of Time and Time for "Cheese"
I have so much to say and so little time to blog it! It's almost impossible to believe, but Bones & All goes on sale a week from yesterday. For almost two years I've had plenty of time, plenty of time, plenty of time, and suddenly the time is (almost) now. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!
I should have slept. But I was reading BONES & ALL (@cometparty) for @fanlit, one page led to another, and now it's 5:15 am. (Not sorry.)— Jana Nyman (@JanaNyman) March 4, 2015
So until next week I'm leaving you with this link—last week's Main Street Vegan radio show, with yours truly as co host and featuring Miyoko Schinner, author of Artisan Vegan Cheese. Big thanks to my dear teacher Victoria Moran for having me on (not to mention bringing me to a lovely cocktail party for the Humane League afterward.) I'll be blogging about my first cheese-making adventure soon!
A Happy Fish is a Swimming Fish
I didn't really think about it. I just took the rod, dropped the line into the water, and almost instantly felt the powerful flailing of a creature fighting for his life. I was horrified when the woman working there tore the hook from the fish's mouth and blood shot out. I never realized that fish had blood, red like ours.
I have a confession to make. Even after I started calling myself a vegetarian in college, I still ate a lot of tunafish sandwiches. It's a common misconception that fish don't suffer as factory-farmed land animals do, that they aren't as sentient. Besideswhich, isn't the ocean teeming with life? Isn't fishing the most natural way of obtaining one's food?
None of this could be further from the truth.
First of all, fish are very smart—check out Fish Feel for plenty of interesting facts, along with this article from PETA. Secondly, the fishing industry is wreaking horrific and irreparable damage to our oceans. There are fish farms, too, did you know that? Farmed fish often swim ("swim") in pens filled with their own feces. Not to mention that salmon flesh is injected with pink dye to give it that "healthy" color you recognize, or that we've polluted our own food with toxic levels of mercury and arsenic. These are all great reasons to leave fish in the sea where they belong. There are plenty of other sources of Omega 3s, like chia, flax, and walnuts.
The thing about making mock tunafish is that, if you use seaweed flakes, you realize that the taste that appeals to you isn't the taste of the fish flesh, it's the taste of the ocean itself. Pretty cool, huh? So whether you use textured vegetable protein, mash up some chickpeas, or try another recipe like the one Victoria offers in Main Street Vegan (page 103), add some dulse flakes to make your sandwich filling even more flavorful.
Here's an unrecipe I came up with last week (served with pea sprouts on toasted sourdough):
can of chickpeas
a healthy dollop of vegan mayo
1/2 an avocado
onion, chopped
celery, chopped
celery seed
dulse flakes
salt
Pour onion and celery into a food processor and process well. Add chickpeas along with mayo and/or avocado to desired consistency. Add seasonings and process again. Don't skimp on the dulse flakes!
Jazzed to be on @victoria_moran's radio show tomorrow with @MiyokoSchinner! Call in after 3pm ET (888-558-6489) & let's talk #vegan cheese!
— Camille DeAngelis (@cometparty) February 24, 2015
A Simple Breakfast
I made pesto with parsley and a bit of cilantro this morning, and it turned out great. Cashews and grapeseed oil were the other essentials, along with a healthy portion of nutritional yeast. It may be a simple breakfast, but there's a good bit of protein hidden in that green spread! 
And a day or two from now I'll use this pesto on some corkscrew pasta made with quinoa and brown rice (from Trader Joe's). I'm also planning to make "meatballs" out of Sharon Gannon's cookbook—I'll let you know how they turn out.
I Drank the Kool-Aid and I’m Never Spitting It Out
I'm very excited to announce MindFUEL Yoga + Writing, a three-hour workshop I'm hosting with my dear friend and yoga teacher Brynne Haflett on Saturday, March 7th at Karma on Newbury Street. Today Brynne and I are interviewing each other to give you a better sense of who we are and what we're offering in this really unique and fun workshop. (You can read my As to her Qs over at Yogini B.)
How did you first come to study yoga? How have you grown through your practice over the past decade?
Thinking back, I actually came to yoga through writing. I had a wonderful substitute English teacher who is still a steady influence in my life. She trained to be a yoga teacher and when she opened her studio, my sister and I would go to her class in the mornings before school. I had no idea what yoga actually was when I went to my first class. None. But when I left the studio, I was hooked. I drank the Kool-Aid and I’m never spitting it out.My practice over the last ten years has grown in surprising and sometimes indescribable ways. I was 14 years old when I started yoga, so I was mostly interested in aesthetics. As I grew into my practice, I started to care less about the physicality of the asanas and more about the internal work embedded in them. I fully believe that the person I am and the person I’m becoming is 80% yoga and 20% genetics. Yoga has been a part of my life through middle school, high school, college, and now in my baptism into the “real world”. There is an abundance of non-judgmental self-reflection in yoga--or at least that’s the plan. It's impossible to not have transformational growth in that space.
One of the best pieces of career advice I’ve ever received was from my fiction teacher during my M.A. year. He said, “Create a space for yourself on the shelf. Write something no one else is writing.” I wonder if you feel that way about teaching yoga—that there may be many instructors to choose from, and on the surface it’s a vinyasa flow regardless of who is cueing it, and yet you’re still offering students your own unique perspective?
Absolutely. I think from a self-branding perspective it is essential to make your own spot on the shelf. There are so many yoga students, teachers, and studios in existence that a teacher really needs to create her own voice to stand out. On the other hand, every yoga class has similar components to another style the same way any fictional book will have similar pieces. No one is reinventing the wheel. An original sequence is sisyphean (wheel pun completely intended) in a tradition as old as yoga. When I teach, I’m not thinking about how to be unique. I’m teaching based on my own practice, training, and perspective which will either connect with the student or not.
How does your yoga practice enhance your creativity? Do you think it’s possible to cultivate a “flow state” on the mat that we can carry with us into our daily life?
In my experience, yoga enhances my creativity because it distracts me from what I’m trying to be creative about. A lot of my best ideas for classes, blog posts, or even professional goals come to me when I’m on my yoga mat. Yoga allows our bodies and minds to open (or our nadis) and that openness allows ideas that may have been passed over to be fully accepted and looked over. The magic of that openness is that once we learn how to find that state, we find other ways to get there. Runners High is incredibly similar to that flowing state. There is a “flow state” in video games that people are studying. I believe any activity that makes you feel safe and open can bring that same sense of flow to a person. Yoga can be that flow or it can be a tool to refine and enhance that state.
What are some of your coping strategies or rituals, on and off the mat, when you’re having a tough day?
Oh man, I have so many! I learned a cleansing meditation from a friend this summer that has been extremely helpful. There are a series of colors that you inhale three times and each exhale the colors become more “pure”. After the series of colors, you create a giant light bubble around yourself where you are completely safe and open your heart to whatever you’d like. I get goosebumps every time at this point in the meditation. Whenever the meditation feels complete, you thank whom/whatever and shrink the bubble back inside your body. This meditation is something I love to do before or after classes especially, so students don’t get my own crap mixed into their practice and I don’t leave with theirs.
What are you hoping students will take away from our MindFUEL workshop?
I really want students to leave with a feeling that yoga has connections far beyond headstand. I feel like there is a lot of emphasis in yoga on the postures and I want to show students that yoga extends well beyond them. The postures are tools meant to take a yogi into a deeper and more meaningful state. If a student left our workshop with a deeper connection to his mind and something stirring a little more inside of him, I would feel completely satisfied.
Registration details on my Learn With Me page!
Forearmstands probably not happening in our workshop, but you'll get into a sweet writing flow & eat yummy cupcakes! http://t.co/uI3njjFtCo— Camille DeAngelis (@cometparty) February 18, 2015
Can-Do Vegan!
I can't remember if I've mentioned this on the blog yet, but I am working on a free ebook I'm calling Can-Do Vegan, and I'm hoping to release it close to the Bones & All pub date on March 10th. As Leonard Bernstein famously said, "To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan, and not quite enough time."
This is a separate thing from Vegan By the Seat of Your Pants (the kitchen-confidence unrecipe book) and Vegan Cookery & Pastry (18th-century cookbook reboot with fun literary and historical tidbits). Even I get mixed up with all my projects I'm juggling, so I certainly don't expect anyone else to keep them straight!
I've put a little blurb about it on my Learn With Me page [Edit, 2024: content from that page has been folded into my Archive. If you are wondering what happened to this ebook project, check out A Bright Clean Mind]:
Can-Do Vegan will address the most common concerns of the veg-curious, shine a light on cognitive dissonance regarding where your food comes from and who it used to be, and give you all the moral support you need to make a healthy and happy transition to a more compassionate diet.
I may not be a chef or a nutritionist, but I do know a thing or two about creativity and intuition, and I really want to use what I've learned to help other people face the resistance and uncertainty that arises when we begin to question our most cherished cultural assumptions.Here are some of the common protests and rationalizations I'll be addressing in the ebook:
"Vegan food is bland and boring."
"Heart disease runs in my family. I can’t escape it, so I might as well eat what I want."
"They’re razing the rainforest to plant soy crops! It’s better for the environment if I keep chickens in a nice clean coop and shoot my own meat."
"We have to eat something, don’t we? And what if plants have feelings too?"
"I want to change my diet, but my family won’t want to change along with me. Going vegan would be too hard."
I've got an answer for every single one. So get excited! I know I am. ;)
I also wanted to give you a heads-up that I'll be co-hosting my teacher Victoria Moran's Unity online radio show, Main Street Vegan, on Wednesday, February 25th at 3pm ET. (It'll be available as a podcast afterward, so no worries if you don't get to it.)
A Much-Needed Reality Check
“Don’t take yourself so seriously.”
“Be grateful for everything you have.”
These are classic pieces of good advice, yet how often do we neglect to take them?
One night back in October I sat down to dinner with a friend who was visiting from Ireland. We’d been offline all day, out sightseeing in Boston, and between the cooking and washing-up we took a moment to check our inboxes.
I had an email from my editor. It read, I am still really struggling with our narrator’s character…His is the voice that guides us through the story and yet we don’t understand him.
Shit! I thought. I NEED that d&a* check! Not to mention that I didn’t have the foggiest idea how I’d be able to write myself out of this.
Panic descended, like the barometric pressure and eerie yellow light that portends a thunderstorm. My friend forgave me for wanting to retire early. He went out to watch the World Series at a neighborhood bar, while I was asleep before “half nine.”
Eleven hours later I still didn’t want to get out of bed, and if not for my houseguest I would have stayed there. But I got up, put the kettle on, and opened Twitter to distract myself from the persistent feeling of impending disaster.
Sometimes social media offers you something of real practical value, something you’d have missed if you’d dipped into the feed only a few minutes later. In my case, it was this:
I read the blog post, and was humbled by it. Here is an excerpt of the original piece, which Rosemary Sutcliff wrote in 1981:
Career-wise, I’m one of the lucky ones. My job, as a writer of books, is one of the few in which physical disability presents hardly any problems. I would claim that it presents no problems at all but my kind of book needs research, and research is more difficult for a disabled person.
I am less able to see for myself or dig priceless information out of deeply hidden archives. I have to rely more on other people’s help and on libraries. And even libraries can present problems – like one which shall be nameless – which is very proud of its ramp to its entrance but keeps its entire reference department upstairs, with, of course, no lift...
In all those winter days I’d spent at the National Library of Scotland, it had never once occurred to me that I could access any and all reference materials without special assistance. Now and again I take a moment to feel grateful for a lot of things, but that was one blessing I hadn’t even considered. Not to mention being able to travel on my own, wherever and whenever I choose, fielding comments no more insensitive than “Seeing as you’re Italian and from New Jersey, is your grandfather the head of the mob?”
At times life can present us with real difficulties, but an unanticipated novel revision and cash flow issues (when one has no children, mortgage, or credit card debt) do not qualify.
* “Delivery and acceptance”—the portion of your advance that comes once your editor is 100% satisfied with the manuscript.
Guardian Angels and Other Projects
I've been meaning to blog about the long-sleeved tee I screenprinted for my mother for Christmas. One of my all-time favorite travel photos is of this lovely old headstone I found in Ardmore, County Waterford, and I knew Mumsy would appreciate being able to wear these "guardian angels." I must confess that this project didn't proceed as smoothly as I'd hoped. The lines I'd painted (with the drawing fluid) were too fine and my printing technique was totally rusty (I can't believe I took Krista's class six months ago already), so I wound up having to handpaint most of the image. It was worth the painstaking effort though! A few other things I've been making lately: I'm on target with the garment-a-month challenge so far—I finished my project for January, which I'll blog about soon. Now for a dress!
Eating Well with Allergies
Recently I had a friend over for dinner who has a triple-whammy of food allergies: Jaclyn has to be gluten-, soy-, AND corn-free. It is challenging to cook within those restrictions, but challenges are fun, remember?So here's what I made. 
- Carrot, daikon, and peanut salad (tweaked the beet-and-carrot salad recipe; it was almost as good)
- Potato salad with olive oil mayo
- Mushrooms roasted and marinated with umeboshi and rosemary (unrecipe coming soon—this dish is my new favorite thing!)
- Roasted root vegetables (parsnips, golden beets, carrot, garlic and onion)
- Sauteed kale, bell peppers, and chickpeas with tarragon and a light sprinkling of curry powder
And Jaclyn brought over black bean burritos with a homemade cheezy sauce (using nutritional yeast), topped with guacamole-cum-salsa verde.(If this seems like a ton of food for three people—well, yes, it was, but I love having loads of leftovers since it lets me focus on writing without having to cook for several days. I love to cook, but you know!)A few tips when cooking around food allergies:
1. Of course, read labels carefully as you're shopping. There are lots of foods you might assume are fine for your friend to eat—for instance, I picked up a can of dolmades from Trader Joe's thinking to put them out with the hummus and gluten-free crackers—but when I got home I found soy oil in the ingredients list.
2. It's always better to err on the side of too much food. I had plenty of back-up snacks.
3. Run your meal plan by your friend to double-check that everything is cool. I'm lucky to have no allergies, but the situation is similar when omnivores have me over for dinner: "Can you eat this? And this? How about this?" It's always better to ask.
I'm also finding it helpful to seek out the brands that cater to food allergies. I picked up three varieties of gluten free crackers at the Harvest Co-op, and we really enjoyed both Van's and Mary's Gone Crackers (those are Mary's-brand super-seed crackers on the plate; great for hummus dipping.)I'm definitely going to keep gluten- and soy-free alternatives in mind as I work on my little cookbook projects. Dining in restaurants may often be an exercise in frustration for people with allergies, but that's all the more reason to learn to enjoy cooking at home!
Bookstores of Boston: The Children's Book Shop
...And the voice grew, not so much in loudness as in sweetness (though it grew louder, too), till it was so sweet that you wanted to cry with pleasure just at the sound of it. It was like nightingales, and the sea, and the fiddle, and the voice of your mother when you have been a long time away, and she meets you at the door when you get home.
And the voice said—
"Speak. What is it that you would hear?"
The Children's Book Shop in Brookline (a quick walk from the Brookline Village stop on the Riverside line) is an absolute delight. It's a small shop, but they've managed to tuck a sofa in between the bookshelves to give customers a place to kick back and peruse at leisure. I'd passed it several times over the past year and a half, and once I stepped inside I wondered what took me so long. I was Christmas shopping for my niece, and I found a bunch of my favorites to share with her: Tom's Midnight Garden, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, and a wonderful hardcover illustrated edition of Anne of Green Gables. It's nice to have a choice of editions! I picked up a new copy of The Phantom Tollbooth for myself (I'm excited to reread it), as well as E. Nesbit's The Story of the Amulet—it came highly recommended by an enthusiastic bookseller, and you know I love her scary stories for grown ups.The customer service is excellent here, and the friendly atmosphere works all ways; I fell into chatting with a woman whose seven-year-old daughter read so voraciously that she was at a loss as to which books to get for her next. We traded recommendations and I came away feeling quite sunshine-y. Funny how positive interactions with strangers can have that effect on you, right? That day I special-ordered Half Magic (my fellow customer had snagged the last copy for her daughter) and The Box of Delights (which Seanan had recommended awhile ago), and they called me a couple days later to say that Half Magic had arrived, although they've had to reorder The Box of Delights a few times already (sounds like the warehouse is out of stock). It's not as if I don't have plenty else to read in the meantime. 
My only complaint about The Children's Book Shop is the same as Porter Square Books: I need about ten more floors of it.
Happy birthday, Jules Feiffer! The beloved Phantom Tollbooth cartoonist on creativity, anxiety, and failure http://t.co/xMULDy2b9W
— Maria Popova (@brainpicker) January 26, 2015
Where We Make: the Writers' Room of Boston
In the beginning, I wrote in a dorm room. A university library. A café. I graduated from college and wrote on my desktop at work at lunchtime and after hours. After grad school I spent most afternoons at the public library, although my fellow patrons were never as quiet as I wanted them to be, nor is the library ever open as late as I would like. In a perfect world libraries would be open 24/7. Am I right or am I right?
This is why I need the Writers' Room. It is quiet in here, and there are not too many books. (There is such a thing as "too many books" when you are in procrastination mode.) I still work best at night, and although I have a nice big desk at home, there are always too many distractions there: sewing and knitting projects, laundry, a drawerful of fresh veggies to cook up, and so many books I haven't read yet. So I come here, arrange my laptop, journal, assorted notes and research, and settle in with a cup of tea in this fifth-floor perch above State Street in downtown Boston. I have passed many happy evenings in this fashion—happy and productive evenings.
This time last year I was pounding out a draft of Immaculate Heart, my 2016 novel, and thanks to the peace and good juju of the Writers' Room I was able to finish that draft in less than three months. Then I was away from Boston for two months last spring, and I didn't join up again over the summer to save some cash, and I really really missed it. (I finally renewed my membership at the beginning of January.)
Just as awesome as the productivity boost is the community of writers here who have become good friends. At the Boston Book Festival in October 2013, I fell into chatting with Mary Bonina, who was staffing the Writers' Room booth in Copley Square. She was wonderfully friendly but didn't give me the "hard sell," which I really appreciated. (I'd been invited to join an artists' space the previous summer, but decided it wasn't the right place for me when the administrator tried to pressure me into starting my membership sooner than I was ready for.) Mary invited me to the next WROB open house a few weeks later—it was on November 14th, my birthday, which I took to be a good sign—and as soon as I walked out of the elevator I felt that warm little hum inside that said, this is going to be your other home.
I can't tell you how good it feels to be back.
* * *If you're interested in learning more about the Writers' Room of Boston, come to their open house on Monday, February 9th Wednesday, March 18th, anytime between 6 and 9pm (the outgoing fellows are doing a reading at 7pm, though, so best to get here on the early side). The address is 111 State Street, Boston (above the Dunkin Donuts). There will be wine and munchies!* * *[Where We Make origin story and submission guidelines; all entries here.]
The Aspirational Lightness of Being
I have been a messy person for a very long time now, or at least that's how I've seen myself. I have manila envelopes stuffed with scraps of ideas going all the way back to my years at NYU, and I have a bad habit of leaving piles of trash in the corner of my room for days or even weeks (paper recycling, mostly—never rotting food or anything, I do feel the need to clarify that!) Instead of filing documents and receipts, I've tossed them into a cardboard box to be dealt with on some occasion in the nebulous future when Camille Finally Gets Her S**t Together. (And it isn't just my apartment; my stepfather has affectionately remarked that my bedroom looks as if I still live there.)
When I visited my aunt and uncle in Arizona in 2007 on my little Mary Modern book tour, I slept on an air mattress in my aunt's craft room, where the walls are lined with neatly organized scrapbooking and soapmaking supplies. How lovely it was to wake up inside that roomful of potential, to think of all the things she hasn't made yet that will be. The reason why all that stuff (however organized it is, it is still STUFF) didn't stress me out is, of course, that it isn't my stuff. All the ideas I have yet to implement, the books I have yet to read, the art and craft supplies I have yet to use: these things are making me anxious. I have no system for keeping them in order, for curating (such a buzzword these days, ha) my collections so that I don't feel overwhelmed by too much creative potential. When I looked through the plexiglass at Francis Bacon's studio at the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin, all I could think was please don't let me end up like this.
Thing is, though: I'm the one who decides how clean and organized my working and living spaces are going to be, and it doesn't matter if I'm being a bit hard on myself here—either way, I have to find a system that works. I want to feel that I'm working (or crafting) effectively. So here are some resolutions:
1. MAKE THE BED. For crying out loud.
2. Break down the seemingly-endless task. My sister pointed out that it makes way more sense to figure out and start using a system for organizing my ideas as I get them, folding in the contents of those manila envelopes over time, rather than tackling the backlog straight away. I always attempt it that way, and an hour later I throw up my hands.
3. Do the tasks regularly so they never reach the point of 'seemingly-endless'! On Sunday nights I'm going to input receipts into my tax spreadsheet, 'process' any other paperwork, and empty my wastebasket.
4. Get the right storage. I picked up one of those black-and-clear-plastic five-drawer cabinets via Craigslist the other week, and I'm going to buy some cubbies (like Ikea, but not) for my art and craft stuff, which will go under my desk (which is actually an 8' long table, so no built-in shelving).
5. Use Trello (thanks, Elliot!) to manage to-do lists.
This is good for a start, right? And here are some links I've found helpful and/or inspiring:
I've been meaning to do a "nesting" post since last summer, but it'll be so much better to do it once my space is naturally tidy (as opposed to my tidying it up for the picture taking, ha). One thing I'm excited to share is my (DIY) project bag rack, which makes use of the odd (as in charming!) space created by the slanting attic wall. More soon!
(This post is a continuation of item five on my 2015 list of intentions.)
Sneaky-Delicious Potato Salad
It feels like it's been ages since I did a proper vegan post, and I really want to get back into the weekly habit. The cookbook projects I've mentioned over the past several months are still very much on the list of things I'm excited about, and I also want to start cooking and baking more out of the cookbooks that are already on my shelf. Last month I baked my first two batches of cupcakes out of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World for a holiday party, and they turned out splendidly. I'll blog about that soon.But for now, here's a shot of the shhh-they'll-never-know-it's-not-"real"-mayo potato salad I made for Christmas Eve dinner using the recipe my mom suggested. 
Once the secret was out (I mean, yeah, I was eating this stuff by the bucketful), my cousin half-jokingly started in on that whole "soy gives men boobs" argument (if we can even call it an "argument"), and I triumphantly replied that I'd used soy-free Earth Balance olive oil mayo. Sure, it's not the healthiest thing on your plate o' Christmas feast—or at least it shouldn't be!—but it's still a very satisfying take on a classic comfort food.Here's my vegan version of the original Taste of Home recipe:
1.5 lb. red potatoes1.5 lb. purple potatoes (they add visual interest!)1 medium onion, finely processed3 pickle spears, finely chopped3 ribs of celery, finely chopped1 tsp. celery seed1 tsp. salt (or to taste)1/2 tsp. pepper (or to taste)1/4 cup pickle juice (from the jar)1 1/2 cups Earth Balance vegan mayo (made with olive oil)1/4 cup mustard (I used Dijon)
Boil potatoes for 20-30 minutes until tender, then transfer to a bowl of cold water. Prepare the onion, celery, and pickle and drop in a large mixing bowl, then chop the potatoes into cubes and add them in. I opted to whisk the mayo, pickle juice, mustard, and seasonings separately first. Add the dressing to the pile of vegetables, mix well, and leave to chill in the fridge.If you click on the original recipe, you'll see I used much more mustard than the original recipe calls for—the pickles and pickle juice add to the punch, but the mustard really is the most necessary flavor.
My sis ordered me @sharon_gannon's new cookbook, packages stolen off her doorstep, so here's what I got instead. Ha. pic.twitter.com/o3YlmnyRLm— Camille DeAngelis (@cometparty) December 25, 2014
Bookstores of Boston: Porter Square Books
I love getting really specific children’s book requests. My favorite was “Do you have any picture books about wiener dogs?” Best part was that yes, we did!
—Mackenzi Lee, PSB bookseller and future-famous authoress
(all quotes below are hers)
* * *
Porter Square Books is less than a fifteen-minute walk from my apartment. I know a bunch of the lovely booksellers there (like Mackenzi and Rebecca and Josh and Alexander), each of whom has their specialty. I love the paper goods, the 10% Grub Street member discount and the 10% charity donation on every box of holiday cards, and that there are actually really good books on the bargain table. The café has the most delicious Vietnamese soft rolls with peanut sauce, perfect for a light lunch. (For some odd reason I haven't gotten around to trying the coffee yet.)
This bookstore is conveniently located a minute's walk from the Porter Square T stop. I have an instinctive distaste for strip malls (being from South Jersey, you know—we can't get away from them down there), but it must be said that 1, the Porter Square Shopping Center has a bunch of essential stores (at least if you are a bookish crafty health nut-slash-beer drinker like I am); and 2, Porter Square Books has a surprisingly cozy atmosphere considering it's in a strip mall. I guess it's a happy convergence of friendly helpful staff, lovingly-curated-but-not-too-curated displays, and the laid-back café area.
My proudest bookseller moment was when a woman said “I don’t know the title, but the cover is yellow and it has the word EVERYTHING in the title. Do you know what I’m talking about?” AND I DID. It was THE BEGINNING OF EVERYTHING by Robyn Schneider.
Oh, and have I mentioned that PSB are hosting the Bones & All launch on March 14th? I love their packed event calendar and that they do proper publicity. Every reading I go to there is standing-room only, and let me tell you—from an author's perspective—what a blessed relief that is. Last Tuesday I attended Megan Mayhew Bergman's pub-day event for Almost Famous Women (I "know" Megan on Twitter, so it was really nice to meet her in person), and the signing line was almost to the door.
Huge thanks to @PorterSqBooks who packed the house for me on pub day & sold every last copy of AFW! Great store. pic.twitter.com/CPWppSf2Tk— Megan Mayhew Bergman (@mayhewbergman) January 7, 2015
A few months ago I met a really lovely couple, probably in their fifties, who were looking for the fourth book in Garth Nix’s Sabriel series. They told me they've been reading science fiction and fantasy novels aloud to each other every night since they got married in their twenties. I sent them off with a copy of Terry Pratchett’s WEE FREE MEN.
I have one complaint about Porter Square Books, and it is this: I wish there were about five more floors of it.
* * *
Upcoming events and other fun links:
MarcyKate Connolly's Monstrous, February 17th @ 7PM.
Josh Cook's An Exaggerated Murder, March 3rd @ 7PM.
Notes from a Fiction Workshop Panel
What to Do When You Love a Book
11 Things You Learn Your First Month As A Bookseller
12 Awkward Bookseller Moments (this is LOL-funny, yo)
Left out of the Awkward Bookseller Moments list: when you recommended a book that changed a person's life & don't remember said person. — Josh Cook (@InOrderOfImport) January 11, 2015
New Blog Series: Bookstores of Boston!
Young men, especially in America, write to me and ask me to recommend “a course of reading.” Distrust a course of reading! People who really care for books read all of them. There is no other course.
—Andrew Lang, Adventures Among Books
* * *
There are many things I love about living in Boston, but the wealth of great bookstores is at the very top of the list. In South Jersey (where I'm from), Barnes & Noble is the only option for miles, and who knows if there'll even be any B&N in ten years' time. In 2012 and early 2013 (before and after Hawthornden) I worked at the customer service desk at my hometown B&N, and the signs were not encouraging. I wanted to reach across the counter and shake anyone who whined that the Amazon price was cheaper.
Does Amazon let you browse through a stack of magazines in the cafe for hours without purchasing any of them? Does Amazon give you free WiFi and a table to work at your laptop or meet up with friends? Did Amazon give you a place to charge your phones during Hurricane Sandy? Can you have a twenty-minute conversation with Amazon about Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series? Does Amazon host local authors for in-person events?
Look what I found while going through some old papers. #sadfacepic.twitter.com/xUAsqRg4ml— Camille DeAngelis (@cometparty) December 27, 2014
Okay, you get my point. B&N is the best we can do in South Jersey, but independent bookstores are (for the most part) SO much better. Employees at chain bookstores are often making just above minimum wage, and they aren't necessarily interested in literature. For many of them it's just another retail job. Walk into an independent bookstore, though, and you'll find booksellers who are wildly enthusiastic about what they're selling you. It isn't just a job for them, it's a natural extension of their lifestyle. Yes, you'll usually pay more than you would at Amazon, but you have to look at the big picture: bookstores are a vital cultural resource. Imagine a world with no more brick-and-mortar bookstores (which is easier to do in my little pocket of South Jersey, I am sorry to report) and you may find you don't mind paying the full sticker price after a lively conversation with a bookseller who full-out adores that particular author. You come away from that transaction on a high that has nothing to do with retail therapy.
My friend Rachel Simon, who runs our monthly MG/YA writers' meetup, inspired this idea for a celebratory blog series on the independent bookstores of Boston. I must confess that I haven't actually been to many of the bookshops on the list below, or have only visited them quite recently in preparation for this project. I tend to frequent Harvard Books and Porter Square Books (or Trident, since it's right below my yoga studio), so I'm doing this series partly for my own edification.Here's a preliminary list, including secondhand bookstores:
Trident Booksellers and Cafe, Back Bay
Brookline Booksmith, Brookline
The Children's Bookshop, Brookline
Harvard Books, Cambridge
Pandemonium Books, Cambridge
Porter Square Books, Cambridge
Rodney's Bookstore, Cambridge
Seven Stars, Cambridge
Brattle Book Shop, Downtown Boston
The MFA Bookstore, Fenway
Papercuts, Jamaica Plain
Newtonville Books, Newton
New England Mobile Book Fair, Newton Highlands
Back Pages Books, Waltham
This list is far from exhaustive, particularly when it comes to secondhand and antiquarian bookstores, so if there's a shop I've missed that you really love, please let me know!I'll be posting about my experiences at these indies each Monday for the next few months, but I could really use your help: do you have any anecdotes (great customer service, fascinating author event, etc.) that you'd like to share? Because I have much more to say about the three bookstores I frequent, I'd really like to even things out and do each store justice.First up next Monday (predictably enough): Porter Square Books!
@cometparty Sure! How about @bestsellerscaf in Medford, @BackPagesBooks in Waltham, or brand-new @papercutsjp in Jamaica Plain?
— Boston Book Festival (@bostonbookfest) January 5, 2015