Thursday afternoon, Maria is driving me to airport where I will catch a connecting flight in Chicago that will take me to Tulsa, Oklahoma for the Nimrod Readers and Writers Conference, I will be teaching a Masters Class on Memoir And The Blog, attending various dinners, doing interviews and giving a reading from my next book Second Chance Dog: A Love Story, due out on November 12.

I’ve been invited to some literary conferences before, but have always turned them down, gatherings of writers have never been much fun in my experience. This one sounds pretty neat. Maria will be staying behind to make her art, care for Minnie, run the farm. Lots happening in our lives. Minnie is slated to have her stitches taken out on Friday and if Maria judges her ready, she will be a barn cat again. Since the attack on Minnie, we’ve kept Flo in the basement at night, but today we let her stay outside again, there is no sign of any intruder. Minnie is more than ready to be free, she is plotting escapes day and night. Good for her.

Maria and I have not often been apart in our marriage but it always healthy to see different places, avoid farm chores for a couple of days and I hope I can be useful in my teaching. This new direction for me has been satisfying and successful. I love teaching my Hubbard Hall Writer’s Workshop, I am close to wrapping up the Art Of The Blog class which has been rewarding for me, and I hope the students.

When I return, things will heat up, I’m doing a Ted Talk in the New York City area on November 8 or 9 and then, the book. This one is special to me, it is the story of me, Maria and Frieda and that wonderful and awful winter of 2008. It is a book willed with second chances, much love and happy endings.

This weekend I hope to get a feel for whether literary gatherings are right for me. I decided today to teach another class at Hubbard Hall this coming Spring: Making A Short Story.  I’ll limit the class to seven people and each of them will have to submit a writing sample and then write a short story from beginning to end – ideas, structure, execution. Maybe we can publish them as a book or e-book, if they come together.

I’m putting together my online campaign for Second Chance Dog, it will involve posts, videos, and lots of give-a-ways – at least 70 copies of the book with the help of Random House. I am glad Congress will take a few days off from messing up the country, especially before my book comes out, I remember my first novel Sign Off was published the day the first Gulf War broke out, and it vanished like a rock tossed into the ocean. I feel badly for the writers whose books came out in the last few weeks, their books are among the many victims of our elected officials.

There is plenty of time to pre-order Second Chance Dog from Battenkill Books, anyone who does will be eligible to win one of 100 free bags of dog food offered by Fromm Family Foods. You can pre-order the book on the store’s web page or call at 518 677-2515.

I am happy to see that my new header is up on the blog, I love it and am proud of it. It connects my blog to the notion of books, of a new book. I thank those of you who have subscribed to the blog, you make the blog, my photographs, my writing here possible. You can use your credit cards or Paypal to subscribe, you can cancel at any time. Depending on what you can afford, you can subscribe to the blog for $3 a month, $5 a month, or $60 a year. It is, I believe, the future of writing. Today I went to the Post Office and got a bigger P.O. Box for all the letters I’m getting – Post Office Box 502, Cambridge, NY., 12816.

I am not taking a computer to Tulsa, I will take my Ipad and my camera. One of the healthy things about trips is they rest my head, disconnect me from our buzzing technologies, I will be reminded how much I love Maria, the farm, the animals here and my life. I’m thinking of taking my 35 mm lens.