Welcome!
It turns out that the fears of inflation are starting to come true. We have been advising clients for some time now that this summer rates would begin to inch up due to inflationary concerns. In fact this has been the subject matter of our last three newsletters as well as some of my blog posts and other online commentary.
Although it appears that there are great deals to be had, my advice for the average person is to stay on the sidelines and leave investments in the real estate market to the professionals. My reason for this cautionary approach is that I do not believe we are close to a bottom in the market. Second, I also believe that today’s real estate market is reminiscent of the early 90’s. People who bought houses in 1989 and 1990 thinking they got a bargain that they could turn in a year or two were surprised.
When I was growing up, I lived for summer vacations and all the glorious free time it represented for me to bury my nose in a book. There was a library within walking distance of our house that could easily have become my home-away-from-home. I’d check out the maximum number of titles that I could (I think the limit was three), read them all by bedtime (and sometimes even under the covers with my Girl Scout flashlight), and then be back the next day as soon as the doors opened to check out three more.
My romantic suspense, Charade was only the third time I’d ventured into penning a sizzling scene but I was apparently getting rather good at it. So good, in fact, that my editor at HarperCollins – a naive and bespectacled young woman whom I suspected at the time had never set foot outside the comfort zone of her own borough – requested that I “turn down the heat”.
When I was 15, no one could see me. No one who really mattered, that is, which – in my sophomoric myopia – revolved around a hottie senior boy named Artie. Artie was tall, handsome, smart and, on occasion, borrowed his father’s tweed sport coat that had suede elbow patches and made him look like quite a promising young captain of industry. In retrospect, he reminded me of John Davidson (which just goes to show what conservative, white bread taste I had in an era that fostered The Beatles, free love, draft-dodging, and Mary Quant cosmetics).
For authors and publishers across the country, hackles have been raised regarding Amazon.com's disturbing ultimatum that POD entities and independent publishing companies must now use Amazon's own enterprise, BookSurge, for all of its printing orders or else incur higher costs to have books available for purchase online. This is clearly both a restraint of trade issue and conflict of interest that could severely impact the independent publishing industry. To that end, I'd like to share some suggestions offered by my husband and in-house counsel, Mark Webb.
There’s a funny scene in Shakespeare in Love in which a boatman – upon recognizing the young Bard as his passenger – eagerly tries to foist a new script on him. As anyone who has lived in Los Angeles for more than 10 minutes can attest, it’s an accurate send-up of the fact that almost every valet, waiter and clerk you encounter will just happen to have an extra copy of his or her latest project if they overhear you have any connection to Tinseltown. (“Here’s the Cobb salad you ordered, Ms.
All -- Apparently, I didn't actually cancel the marketing meetup scheduled for tonight like I thought I did. Apologies to those of you who braved the cold, and I hope that you heard some good poetry while you were there! Best -- Jon
Does Life imitate Art or does Art imitate Life?
Today i met a great new friend
Who knew me right away
It was funny how she understood
All i had to say
She listened to my problems
She listened to my dreams
we talked about love and life
She'd been there, too, it seems
I never once felt judged by her
She knew just how i felt
She seemed to just accept me
And all the problems I'd been dealt
She didn't interrupt me
Or need to have her say
She just listened very patiently
And didn't go away
I wanted her to understand
How much this meant to me
But as i went to hug her
Something startled me
I put my arms in front of me