You may think that as soon as the baby is weaned or goes to first grade or leaves for college or when you retire or when things in general calm down, you’ll start writing. Or you’ll finish the book, or self-publish it, or whatever you’re waiting around for. I’m here to tell you it never ends, things never calm down. I’ve dealt with the push pull of work and family ever since I started writing.

This week I got an email from my daughter Brooke telling me that Emma, (rock star granddaughter above) wanted to do herInterview With A VIP assignment with me. I have not had a VIP interview since Betsy Lohrer’s eight year old brother interviewed me as A Writer I Know in 1979. So I was extremely flattered and excited. But then came a problem. Emma was presenting her VIP project at the school Open House on May 23rd and I had a bookstore reading that night.  The reading had been scheduled months before, and I have never, ever cancelled or postponed a bookstore appearance. So I just went around feeling terrible and guilty for awhile, and then I realized I’m not really as indespensible as I like to believe I am, and what’s more important than family?

So I emailed Pages Bookstore in Manhattan Beach, told them my problem and could I read in June instead. They were more than understanding and gracious about it and the reading forKicking in the Wall (with some of my students who are in the book) has been rescheduled for June 27th. If you’re in LA’s South Bay please come. And on May 23rd my friend the anthology editor/writer Victoria Zackheim is filling in at Pages with a whole gang of fantastic women writers, including Barbara Lodge, Aimee Liu, Bonnie Garvin and Samantha Dunn. Don’t miss them! They are wild,wonderful women and it’ll be an amazing evening.