OK. So I wrote that mangy bio posted on this site back when I got my first book contract (2001) and someone smarter than me told me I had to have a “web presence.” Presence. There. I’m there. Not so much a real blood-filled bio as a condensed can of soup.

So, because we are not frozen in time, I’ve decided to add some yummy morsels to the soup; ladle on a few cups of real stock and call it a day. I am hating this food metaphor so let me move on and actually say what’s been going on since last those other words went live way back when:

The writing news: Victor, Loy, and I traveled to Europe in the summer of 2005 where I researched my third book: “Mary’s Crossing.” It’s a WWII romance mixed with present-day Indian casino politics.

“Charlotte Gray” meets “It’s a Wonderful Life”

I named the book for the Queen Mary ocean liner: she appears first in 1944 when she sails my protagonist, Eugene Walsh, over to England where he trains to take part in the D-Day invasion. On the ship he meets the love of his life, Claudette Delors, a French woman trying to secret her way back to her village in France.

The ship shows up again, in 2006, as the Queen Mary 2. This time the entire town of Lost Hill, California—Eugene’s home town—sails on her to England. To bury Eugene’s ashes in a small town in France. To learn a lesson about war. To learn to stop fighting one another because of an Indian casino. To fall in love….

It’s a long book. Took me over two years to write. It’s amazing. Funny and sad and oh so historically accurate (ask Victor, who knows EVERY playground there is in Normandy).

I gave it to my agent who sent it off to a gaggle of highfalutin New York publishers. Lots of them “loved it,” but passed on publishing it. Why? Not totally sure. Here’s what a lady editor from Penguin wrote:

Hi, Brian :

This is quite an unexpected novel, I must say. Its premise is decidedly offbeat, but its characters are resonant, and I found myself rather more caught up in the story than I thought I'd be. I really like Anna , and I love Henry , and I just plain adore Claudette . And somehow I bought into the quirkiness of the whole enterprise of an entire town headed off on the Queen Mary at the behest of a cranky dead guy.

There are terrifically memorable scenes here, and the characters, as I've said, are very well-drawn. But I can't quite figure out how to publish it. Eccentric picaresque adventure? Wartime love story? Offbeat morality tale? It's hard to imagine how to present a novel like this to booksellers (to say nothing of readers) so that it has a chance to find its way…

Suffice to say, it sucked, not finding a publisher for the book. If you are reading this and want to read and publish the book yourself, let me know and I’ll send you copy. Otherwise, according to my agent, we will simply need to wait till book #4 comes out, gets rave reviews, and then we can return to “Mary’s Crossing.” So be it. I am on to book #4.

We moved from the cool farmhouse in Nevada City because our neighbors were less then neighborly and we lived for a while on a 5-acre retreat above a pretty creek, where I had my own writing studio. Whooo-hoo. Victor quit teaching to raise Loy. I finished writing “Mary’s Crossing” there. All seemed peaceful and perfect enough.

Then Loy started kindergarten (time is like a piece of thread on an ice slick these days) and loved every moment. Victor also went back to teaching at NCSA.

But then a bit of darkness descended and life changed some. Right after my agent found no takers for 2.5 years’ worth of writing, Rivers, our beloved Rivers (the dog in the picture), died suddenly of cancer. He was only eight years old.

It devastated our family.

If you’re not a dog lover, well, then what can I say?

He was still there but not there and it was hard, you know? There was no warmth beneath my feet as I drank my morning tea. My daily walks were more like funeral marches. The laughter of outside play seemed more subdued without his barking.

It was time to move.

We put our house on the market so we could move to Vermont and live in a co-housing community. But the house didn’t sell, so we moved to Bali instead. WHAT? Yeah, yeah. I’m not saying much more about that subject because it is the subject of book #4; you’ll just have to wait to read that one when it comes out.

Now we’re back from Bali and living in Vermont. Cold beautiful sweet-smelling Vermont. Spent yesterday snowshoeing around the property. Day before that we went sledding in Shelburne Farms. Dinner at Flatbread pizza in Burlington.

Loy has 378 friends. Loy is in first grade now and she loves her new school. Victor feeds the sheep, shovels the walkways, and bakes a loaf of his no-knead bread every other day. Once his fingerprints clear he’ll go back to teaching middle school. Me? I am writing. Looking out on a white field, dotted now and then with crows picking through the surface, looking for—what?—frozen worms?

It’s all good.

I’ll try to be better about adding more when there’s more to add, but in the meantime I wish all of you a happy healthy New Year 2009.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to write me with your own thoughts.

Love and light and laughter,