Dress Your Age - Do or Don't?

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Yesterday, in the NYTimes Sunday Review, I read a terrific article by Julia Baird entitled "Don't Dress Your Age." In it, she points out the many, many ways in which women's appearances are policed as they get older, whether it be from well-meaning store clerks or magazine articles on how to disguise your widening middle or minimize your wobbly upper arms. I loved this line:

"We are also told to monitor our appearance in a way men are very rarely told to. Find me a man leafing through a magazine that tells him to upturn his collar to hide his neck wrinkles, and I will upturn it for him."

My first encounter with the question, "Am I dressing too young" came not with clothing, but with my hair, which I had colored since my gray became noticeable at the age of 26. After two decades, I was tired of the expense and the bother (not to mention having to touch up my roots every three weeks) and was ready to go natural. But I admit, part of my calculation to stop dying my hair was to allow myself to be gray before I looked too old. In other words, I hoped people would see my white hair and then my not-yet-wrinkled face and think it charming, rather than decrepit.

I'm fortunate to live with my 24- and 16-year-old daughters, who will always answer when I ask, "Is this too young for me?" Actually, they often encourage me to push the envelope a little more, which I appreciate. But I wonder: when did I absorb the lesson that I had to "dress appropriately?" That my hair might be too long, or my nail color too wild? I'm not talking about the kinds of imposed-from-without fashion trends many of us have voluntarily eschewed, like wearing high heels or trendy but uncomfortable cuts. I mean the voice in the back of your head which, if you're over 40, will ask you, "Isn't that a little too much?" as you look at yourself in the mirror. Does it sound like your mother? Maybe.

Men do not hear that voice. Men wear shorts and T-shirts identical to those worn my their five-year old grandsons. They don't switch from bikinis to one-piece swimsuits with skirts attached; they show up at the beach and let it all hang out, Or over. They don't cut their hair differently at twenty and at fifty - although there may be a lot more arranging to cover the bald spot going on. So why do we do it? Should we worry about being "mutton dressed as lamb?" Or, in the vein of Rhys deciding she's going to wear white clothing when she wants to, in season or not, should we all say the hell with it?

What say you, Reds? Have you ever had that "this is too young for me" moment? And what do you wear if you're not dressing your age?

LUCY BURDETTE: Oh I loved that article Julia! I had never heard of that awful expression--a mutton dressed as a lamb. I don't wear high heels, but that's because my feet hurt and has nothing to do with fashion. But maybe I am guilty of wearing what teenage girls might wear at home--jeans and a hoodie. I don't show my belly, but then I never did!

This summer we attended my nephew's wedding in Malibu--it was going to be a truly happy celebration, but we all stewed over what to wear in order not to shame ourselves in front of the LA crowd. (Trust me, you can't keep up with LA fashion, so it's best not to try.) Anyway, I came up with this dress and definitely brooded over whether I was too old to carry it off. Such a silly waste of good worrying! I'm ready to sign a pact saying, we are who we are, and we wear what we like and where we like it:)

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I've certainly had the "too young for me" moment, many of them, and so relieved I thought so! Dresses that look like babydoll pajamas or cheerleader outfits, with random weird places cut out, or midriff showing (why?) or so low cut that you couldn't possibly sit down. It's embarrassing! Yes, I remember my mother cringing at my too-short skirts, which they were, I suppose, but I was sixteen! Still, and I don't mean to be judgmental, but some things are inappropriate. And there's nothing wrong with seeing that. It's about self-respect.

I don't think it's about age, I think it's about what makes you feel good, and what's appropriate for the situation. I have to look business-like for work, and wear suit-type things and high heels all the time. I'm comfortable, it's fun, I'm happy. I'm not much of a risk taker, but loved what I put together to be toastmaster at Malice. It's a dress and leather jacket. And my shoes were...well, great. They didn't show, but I knew they were there.

 That's what's fun about fashion and clothing. At ANY age. Wear what you love.

HALLIE EPHRON: Men's clothes are boring. It's so much more fun to be a woman. And yes, I once wore very (very) short skirts. Didn't my generation invent the micro-mini? With knee-high boots, of course. And no, I wouldn't wear that today, but more because now I dress for comfort. I'd be forever tugging at the hem and feeling a cool breeze up my behind. And boots? Am I the only person whose feet sweat?

Weddings are always a challenge. I have a wonderful little black dress (Yay, Eileen Fisher) that I wear to almost everything. I've got a black skirt of the same material I can wear under the dress to make the hem longer.The trick to making it work is accessories! I have a sequined dickey that makes it glamorous. My pink pearls for more sedate but classy. A paisley shawl for more casual.  Jackets, of course.



RHYS BOWEN: There are certain items of clothing that nobody over fifty should wear. Knees are not an attractive part of the female anatomy, especially as they get older and wrinkly. So why is every dress above the knee these days. I love dresses and can never find one that looks smart, well cut and finishes just below the knee. I don't like droopy mid calf and maxi dresses are hard to wear.

I don't like exposing any part of me that droops or wrinkles. So no bikinis for me. Oh and leggings. Nobody over sixteen should wear leggings without a long top or dress over them. I have settled on the tailored look and I have to say that I like most of Hilary's pantsuits. If I had time I'd start a clothing line for my age--not what male designers think women over fifty should look like but well tailored, smart, longer jackets,I used to wear Ralph Lauren a lot but recently he has gone younger and brighter than I like. I saw a Lauren dress this week that was above the knee, pink with brown and green flowers. Not me at all!  I have a couple of Eileen Fisher items but I don't look good in black or brown and her colors are all a bit drab for me.

I did buy a fabulous black silk tuxedo for an award ceremony this year. It looks great on me.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I don't worry too much about what is "age appropriate." On the other hand I'm not baring my midriff for anybody, but I don't see too many under-thirties that should be baring theirs, either. I do like my skirts above my knees, but maybe I should reconsider:-)

But while I think high heels were invented as a conspiracy against women, I'm a bit horrified to see that I am turning into my mother, who had trouble with her feet and for years wore leather lace-up walking shoes. You all have photos of cute outfits. I have shoes. I bought a pair of very pricey, supposedly VERY comfortable, boots for London, but I didn't have time to break them in. In my packing panic, I decided to leave my old, shabby, incredibly comfortable boots at home. You can probably guess the next bit.Two days in London and my feet hurt so much I thought I would die.

So I bought THESE and they are heaven. (You can't tell from the photo but they are actually more mauve than tan, so very funky.) My mom would have loved them. The good thing is that here in London most women of ANY AGE are either wearing trainers (tennis shoes in American) or something similar, because everybody walks, everywhere.

JULIA: Debs, you keep wearing short skirts if you like! I think that's the point of Baird's essay - not to wear what's suitable "for your age," but to wear what's suitable for you. How about you, dear readers? Do you think some looks are in or out based on your date of birth? Or should we all say to hell with it and dress like Iris Apfel?

The Way We Were

Helllloooooo..

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  Going to the bank. Back in the day, I'd race over there, every Friday, with my such-as-it-was paycheck. Some weeks, it was literally beat-the-bank to make sure I got that money deposited before the bank debited my checks. Now? I hardly ever walk inside a bank--it's all electronic, with an occasional stop at the ATM. When I do go inside, it's weirdly empty, a vast marble room, with vaults and teller cages. Mostly empty. The banking ritual is history.

Like so many other things that used to be central to our lives, it's vanishing.

When was the last time you made frozen orange juice? You know, that you'd have to kind of thaw, before would goosh out into the pitcher? I thought about that the other day. Things we simply

don't do anymore, and happy to see that one go.

 I hardly ever watch TV shows when they're actually on. It used to be a ritual--Ed Sullivan on Sunday!  LA Law! Dallas.  Now its The Good Wife and Game of Thrones--but they're available whenever we want to watch them. The TV ritual is history.

But some rituals, although on the verge of being outmoded, are still valuable to me. How about reading the paper? The actual paper? Is still am so happy, especially Sunday mornings, when we can spread out with three newspapers and bagels and coffee and luxuriate for an hour or so. I would miss that, if it were all on a tablet. It's not the same. Reading the paper is a good ritual.

And getting the mail. I LOVE to get the mail. I look forward to it, almost as if there was going to be something other than bills (now mostly on line) and ads and weird coupon fliers and fifteen catalogs from Levenger. The "real mail" ritual is still a good one.

I still take notes on a legal pad instead of in a Word doc. Why? My producer teases me about being old-fashioned. But it works for me.

What vanishing rituals do you have? Which are you holding on to?

LUCY BURDETTE: Me too on the paper, Hank. We get the New York Times and the Key West Citizen every day. Online is just not the same...And the mail too, although it's less exciting than it used to be. (I mean, not so much good stuff comes in:). Too funny about Levenger! I bought one thing from them and it's been a deluge ever since.

Things that have gone by the wayside: Easter dinner. After the eggs were hunted and the Easter baskets were found, we'd put on our new dresses and hats and go off to church. Then my mother would cook a big dinner--often lamb roast, which I don't like anyway. These days I might make Easter brunch, but never dinner in the middle of the day.

HALLIE EPHRON: I go to my bank all the time, and you're right it's pretty empty. So how come does it seem like every time there's a new business being built on a corner somewhere, it's a bank?

Vanishing rituals, some I miss, some not so much...
- Going to the dry cleaner. I don't buy it if I can't wash it. Not something I miss.
- Going to the movies
- Going to the video store
- Going to the dump (it is no more)
- Making my own pie crust - I confess the ready made Pillsbury is pretty darned good
- Picking up the poop my neighbors' dogs deposit on the sidewalk

RHYS BOWEN: I still go to the bank. I think it's a good idea to have a relationship with a bank manager, just in case...

But how about getting shoes heeled? haven't done that in years. Dry cleaners occasionally, but I no longer buy things like slacks that need cleaning almost every time.

And dinner parties--who gives dinner parties these days. We do occasionally but we're sort of the only ones. Other couples invite us to meet them in restaurants. I still enjoy having friends and family around the table at home.

Writing thank you notes, on real cards? I try to for the big events. My grandkids phone to thank me, but don't write real letters the way I made my children.


And one thing I really regret--letting kids run wild all summer, out all day just playing, exploring,

making up their own games. Now it's play dates and camps and scheduled activities. I still treasure my free running summers.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Oh, Rhys, that is so true about the kids' freedom. Summer was one long ritual when I was a child. You got up in the morning, you went outside and you played all day.  You just had to be in for supper. Where is there room for imagination in all those scheduled activities? But I suspect that's a subject for another day...

My vanishing rituals... Easter, certainly, as there are no little ones to do eggs and baskets for. And even when my daughter was growing up we'd pretty much abandoned the "new Easter dress and patent leather shoes" that were so essential in my childhood. This year my daughter and I decided we'd all go to Mi Cocina for our favorite Mexican food and sit on the patio. Suits me.

I have mixed feeling about the newspapers. I gave up print all together for about a year, and I really missed it. Lucy's right, it's just not the same online. So now I take the Dallas Morning News on Wednesday (the food section) and Sunday, and the New York Times Friday through Sunday. The problem is, I hardly ever have time to read a fraction of the things I want to read, so the unread piles of newspaper accumulate and make me feel both cluttered and nagged.

We've never been a family for Sunday dinners, but for years I've made Sunday brunch. Something we don't have during the week, like French toast or whole grain pancakes. But the last year or so even that seems to have fallen by the wayside. I always seem to have too much to catch up on to cook. We have kept up with our Sunday night homemade pizza ritual, however, something we've done for years.

Which brings me to TV.  I know it's great to be able to time-shift everything, but I do sort of miss the ritual TV nights. For us, it was The X-Files on Sunday (that was what started the Sunday-night pizza) and for me, ER on Thursday, without fail.

Now the DVRd TV shows are a bit like the piled up newspapers... more than I can manage.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I've pretty much well and truly given up watching TV shows when they air.Why stay up and sit through ten minutes of commercials when I can watch when I want for the price of four 30-second ads? Also given up - not due to technology, but to age - dancing in clubs. I cannot remember the past time I went somewhere just to dance. Which is why I love weddings. I think more Bouchercons should have dances, like the one in Alaska did! 

Almost gone but not quite yet: my children's bedtime rituals. Overseeing tooth-brushing, saying prayers and singing a lullaby, coming back for one more drink of water... I still comb and braid Youngest's long hair before bedtime, and tuck her in and give her a blessing, but she'll be fourteen this August, and I know those moments will be over soon. Sigh.

HANK: Dear Julia, you always make me cry. Should we all dance at Bouchercon?
So Reds, when was the last time you...used rollers in your hair? Sat under a hair dryer? Made frozen OJ? Watched a show when it was actually on? What rituals and activities are vanishing from your life?
And one ritual we LOVE and face with crossed fingers--the arrival of a new book! I'll send an arc of TRUTH BE TOLD to one lucky commenter.

REDS THIS WEEK! 

Debs: is back from three weeks in London, recovering from jetlag, putting the finishing edits on To Dwell in Darkness, and plotting her next book.
Rhys: is vacationing on the continent
Hank: is celebrating, in week six on the Globe bestseller list for THE WRONG GIRL! and just won two Emmys for investigative reporting
Hallie: will be at the Milton Library tonight talking about summer reads for lovers of crime fiction
Julia: is splitting her time between working on the next Clare and Russ book, HID FROM OUR EYES, and hacking back several years of overgrowth in the forsythia border
Lucy: is sitting tight, writing 1000 word a day challenge with good pals S.W. Hubbard and Mike Cooper aka Mike Wiecek. More on what's coming next soon
Susan:  is coughing and watching Orange Is the New Black.  (She's under the weather..send good wishes!)

TOMORROW ON JUNGLE RED: Linda Fairstein!

Tim Hallinan on E-Books

ROSEMARY: I met Tim Hallinan online through Dorothy L. Although we've yet to meet in person, I've gotten very fond of his posts and have asked him to stop by for a visit today. Timothy's first published book, THE FOUR LAST THINGS, came out in 1990. He's written ten published novels since then, six in the Simeon Grist series and four in his current series of thrillers, set in Bangkok and featuring rough-travel writer Poke Rafferty. (Just one of the reasons I love his writing!) The most recent of the highly-praised Rafferty books is this year's THE QUEEN OF PATPONG. Later this month, CRASHED, the first novel in a third series, will debut as an e-book - Hallinan's first e-book "first edition" and his timing couldn't be better.

TH: In a few short words the New York Times, that Olympian temple of condescension, has just announced that it's expanding its Bestsellers List to include e-books.

Whoa! Stop the car. The Times? The paper that once declined to review Michael Chabon's The Mysteries of Pittsburgh because they thought it was “regional writing?” The paper that insists on segregating “genre” books in their own little corner to prevent their infecting – you know, real literature? That paper?

Hoo-hooo-hooo. Taken to its logical extreme, that means there's a chance a self-published book will find itself listed in the Times. I can imagine elitists all over Manhattan spilling their morning cup of Oolong into their laps. And it's about XXXking time.

In my long and spotty career, I've had excellent relationships with publishers. They've paid me for, and published, ten novels I made up all by myself. I've found publishing people to be, on the whole, well-intentioned and sincere in their desire to publish good work. (I exempt from this statement whatever idiot at Simon & Schuster decided a couple of weeks ago to publish an upcoming novel called A Shore Thing by the decade's most depressing celebrity, Snooki.)

Nevertheless, the Times announcement is important to me for two reasons, one sort of national and the other sort of selfish. Nationally, this might ultimately mean the end of New York as the publishing center of America. Whenever I see one of those disaster movies that shows 1000-foot waves breaking over the Statue of Liberty and the Chrysler Building, my first thought is, “There goes the publishing industry.” And not entirely a bad thing, either. New York is fine, but it's not America, and there's no reason for a few blocks of Manhattan to maintain a stranglehold on what we read.

On the selfish level, I'm just about to self-publish for the first time. A few months back I started to put my old Dutton and Morrow books online as e-books. Much to my surprise, they sold (and are selling) pretty well – high three-figures to low four-figures every month, and climbing. In the meantime, I'd written the first two books in a new series and was being told by my agent and, later, two publishers, that no one wants to read funny thrillers these days.

Okay, maybe so. These are not cozies or slapstick – they're hard-edged books that derive most of their humor from character and an inversion of the usual moral standard. Looking around a while back, I realized that we're absolutely surrounded by crooks – crooks in dark suits and power ties and Jimmy Choo heels, and that they're pretty much getting their way no matter who's president.

So I invented a series that's essentially all crooks. Junior Bender, is an unhappily divorced man who still loves his wife and worships his daughter. In his night job, he's a burglar, and he's good at it. In his day job, he's a private eye whose clients are all crooks. So Junior busts crooks on behalf of crooks.

The first in the series is called CRASHED, and it's coming out on Amazon and iBooks right after Thanksgiving. In it, when one crook gets ripped off by another, Junior is the guy who gets hired. In the book, Junior finds himself on the wrong side of his own already paper-thin moral code, being forced to prevent sabotage against a multi-million dollar porn film starring exactly the kind of person he'd normally want to protect. At the age of 23, Thistle Downing is broke, strung-out, hopeless, and on the edge of obscurity. But between the ages of eight and fifteen, she was the biggest television star in the world, a brilliant natural comedian until her talent slowly began to desert her. Now desperate, she's facing the ultimate humiliation . . . and she's so wasted she doesn't even know that someone's been trying to kill her.

So the challenge for Junior is to thread his way between his dangerous clients and their dangerous enemies while at the same time trying to find a way to save Thistle from self-destruction. Oh, and it's funny.

So, thanks to the e-books revolution, I can write Crashed and the rest of this series with or without a publisher's blessing, and make it available globally, let it sink or swim. Capitalism at its most carnivorous. If it sells enough, the Times will have to notice it. And New York has nothing to do with getting it published.

We live in interesting times, don't we?

ROSEMARY: We do, indeed. Good luck with Queen (which I loved) and keep us posted on Crashed. Visit Tim at http://www.timothyhallinan.com/

Tim's mention of humor in mysteries reminded me of the highly entertaining - Wickedly Funny - Crimebake panel that Toni Kelner moderated a few days ago. Stop back later this week for more adventures in book publishing and a look at whether or not Funny is the new "F" bomb which should be dropped carefully.

A Heratwarming Story in New York

In a world in which NEWS usually means BAD NEWS, this heartwarming story appeared a couple of weeks ago in the New York Times. On Tuesday I gave an example of how writers find their ideas. This one comes ready-made. I'm hoping Hallie will show it to her sister Nora, who would be the perfect person to turn it into a movie (and Nora, I only want a small thank you in the credits!)

When Elizabeth Goodyear died late last month, at 103, a handful of friends, all more than two generations younger, sat vigil. They toasted her over dark chocolate, the elixir Ms. Goodyear had savored daily since she was 3 years old, and Champagne, a more recent favorite.
Two years ago, a front-page article in The New York Times featured Ms. Goodyear, a lifelong lover of books, and the small group of people who would stop by her apartment, in Murray Hill, to read to her after she lost her sight. Those readers became a family to Ms. Goodyear, who had outlived her relatives and loved ones.
It all began about seven years ago, after Alison West, a yoga instructor who lives in Ms. Goodyear’s building, posted a sign seeking readers in yoga studios downtown and sent an e-mail that was forwarded again and again.
“Liz has no family at all, and all her old friends have died, but she remains eternally positive and cheerful and loves to have people come by to read to her or talk about life, politics, travel — or anything else,” the message read. “She also loves good chocolate!”
Alison West Elizabeth Goodyear, shortly after her death, Sept. 23.
Young women in their 20s, many of them Ms. West’s students, started to visit. It evolved from there.
After Ms. Goodyear was featured in The Times, her circle widened. At first, there were letters and packages, including a box of dark chocolate from the New York Times Op-Ed columnist Maureen Dowd. (Ms. Goodyear, a newshound, was thrilled.)
A Brooklyn couple who had read the article began visiting regularly with their dog. Distant relatives who were unaware that Ms. Goodyear was still living got in touch: Robert Goodyear, who said he was her fifth cousin, came several times from Pennsylvania, always bearing chocolates.
Nadia Bowers, an actress, contacted one of the readers quoted in The Times on Facebook, asking to be put in touch with Ms. Goodyear. Ms. Bowers wanted to know if Ms. Goodyear, who wrote plays, would be interested in having one of her plays read to her — only 2 of the 20 plays she wrote or collaborated on had made it to the stage. Last winter, five actors gathered in Ms. Goodyear’s living room to read “Final Chukkah,” a play she wrote in 1941 that portrayed a love triangle and treated bisexuality as commonplace.
For Ms. Goodyear, it was the highlight of her year, Ms. West said. For Ms. West, it was a striking reminder of Ms. Goodyear’s candor and forward thinking.

For Ms. Bowers, who has performed on Broadway, it was a rare opportunity to hear about the world of theater in the 1920s. “It was really wonderful to hear about a different time and when theater was a different thing in New York,” Ms. Bowers said. “There was an innocence about it. You waited in line in front of the Broadway theater itself to meet the producer. It was fun picturing a 20-something-year-old Liz, saying, ‘Hey, Mister, are you going to see me or what?’ ”
On Sept. 23, Ms. Goodyear died quietly in the rent-controlled apartment she had lived in for 60 years. With labored breath, she managed to take two sips of Champagne right beforehand. “I asked her if she’d like a sip and she whispered yes,” Ms. West said.
Later that night, Ms. West and four of Ms. Goodyear’s other friends, readers who got hooked many years ago, sat vigil. They decorated her body with six dozen red and white roses, forming a halo.
“For a long time we sat in silence, and then we exchanged thoughts,” Ms. West said. “We also laughed.”
Stephanie Sandleben, 32, a tattooed yoga instructor, reminisced about one of her last conversations with Ms. Goodyear, in which they had traded tales of losing their virginity as teenagers.
In an interview, Ms. Sandleben recalled how her worries would evaporate during visits with Ms. Goodyear, “because I’d realize the long-view perspective that someone can only have when they’re 103.”

So a word to those writers who wonder about running out of ideas--keep scanning the newspapers. There are stories waiting to be told every day!

WRITERS CHALLENGE UPDATE II

JAN: I have a confession to make. I'm also doing another challenge. It's called the three week Sugar Smackdown and I'm into the third week of no sugar (even the one gram in English muffins) no sugar substitutes, no alcohol, no white flour (that means no Baguettes or Italian bread) or processed grains of any kind (white rice.) Even white potatoes are frowned upon.

On the positive side, this challenge is doing as promised, and I've lost my four o'clock craving for chocolate and can look at desserts with sincere disinterest. But I still miss my morning cran-raspberry juice, I miss a glass of Pino Grigio with dinner when I'm at a restaurant, and I am beyond sick of no-sugar iced tea, water, and flax-oat-pita bread with hummus.

In contrast, I'm not suffering from any deprivation in the Writer's Challenge; there is nothing I miss. I surely don't miss checking my email first thing in the morning. I don't miss looking at the clock and realizing its 10:30 and I still haven't written a word because I've been caught up in blogs or responding to Facebook messages. And I'm not sick of producing a minimum of one to two pages of new writing a day!

As others have written in to say: I feel better about myself when I'm not sucked into the Internet. When I accomplish my own goal before I indulge in what Hank calls "passing notes in class" (email) or what I think of as chit-chat at the water cooler. So far, there is no down side.

A technical point. One day I wrote a full page of a scene, but the next day I decided I didn't need that scene at all and jumped to a different scene. Does that one page count, even though I scrapped it? I think so -- because sometimes you have to write a bad page to see that its exactly what you don' t need. The bad move offers clarity on a better move. What do you think?

In other news :Julie Hennrikus at the SISTERS IN CRIME National Blog heard about our challenge and the incredible response to it (almost a hundred participants) and will be writing about it later this week at http://sisters-in-crime-sinc.blogspot.com/ Check it out. One of the things she wanted to know if there were any surprises.

Outside of how many people shared my Internet procrastinations, I've been surprised at how I've started to feel a connection to all of you sharing this six week journey, and how people have been willing to share some of their personal struggles and frustrations both in blog comments and on Twitter #JRWRITEFIRST.

So please, keeping sharing.. Writing is an emotional game, and our productivity often suffers from setbacks like bad writing days and rejections.

The good news is that we've all had those bad days and cried about those rejections. We all can really understand.

So keep it going: WRITEFIRST!!

On college admissions madness.

JAN: Please welcome Jennifer Delahunty to Jungle Red today. She is the dean of admissions at the prestigious Kenyon College in Ohio, and the author of a new collection of essays about the college admissions process.

Jennifer, a mother of two girls, has seen the madness from both sides of the application. Her essay for The New York Times about the torture of undergoing this process with her daughter. Entitled, "To All the Girls I rejected," was the most emailed article for weeks after publication and syndicated in major papers across the country.

Booklist has given the book rave reviews and says the essays, with include authors like Anna Quindlen, Jane Hamilton, Neil Pollack, the Neurotic Parent Blogger, and myself, range "from hilarious to painful," and are often revealing about what Jennifer calls, "The last dance of parenting."

There's also the "inside" perspective not just from Jennifer, but also from admissions director from Smith and Colby Colleges.

JAN: Why has college admissions become so stressful for parents?

JENNIFER: To parents, the college bumper sticker has almost become the report card on the first 18 years of parenting. When parents call me and ask why their son or daughter didn't get into Kenyon, I'm so struck by the fact that they want to blame themselves.

All of us, parents of this generation, have done too much for our kids and then we whack them over the head with the college search assignment and they have no idea what to do -- and thus the parents step in, once again, to rescue them..

JAN: I know from my own experience that my kids were made crazy by the process. Even before parents got involved. Why is that?

JENNIFER: It's ridiculous! Thirty-five years ago, students applied to three colleges, got into two and chose one. It seemed very manageable. But that's not how it goes today -- we've had students apply to Kenyon and 19 other colleges. Do you know how difficult it is to keep track of 19 different applications -- and to what end?

JAN: But because the process has become so selective?

JENNIFER: What percentage of students do you think get into their first choice college? 75%! You wouldn't think that by reading the mainstream press, which is all amped up over selectivity. The problem is that colleges and the press are both guilty of feeding the frenzy -- the press says "it's so hard to get in" and then the colleges get more applications and guess what? It IS harder to receive a fat envelope.

JAN: How you got the idea for the book?

JENNIFER: I read an essay by Gail Hudson (included in the book) which was in a collection of essays about raising teenagers. It made me laugh so hard -- and this was at the point when my own kids were going through the process. I thought, "I would read an entire collection of such essays."

JAN: Were there any particular anecdotes of crazy parenting that you saw as dean of admissions that inspired the book or that you'd like to share?

JENNIFER: There are too many! The mother who falsified her son's transcript, the mother who forged a threatening letter from Kenyon to her admitted son so that he would button up his work habits and not lose his offer of admission, the parents who write the essays, the parents who say, "We are English majors." You get the picture! This is not about the parent -- it has to be about the child.

JAN: How would you describe this collection?

JENNIFER: The essays are from parents and for parents of college-going students. It's not a "how to" book, but rather, a "how I survived" collection of essays. Parenting a kid through the college search process is confusing, exhausting, frustrating and hopefully, exhilarating. But the ride is a wild one! Each essay illustrates a particular journey of parent and child -- and each one is a unique experience.

JAN: I connected with Jennifer in a global sort of way. I was at a dinner party in Aix-en-Provence, France, where we were trading war stories about our own experiences with our kids. And one of the friends I made there, Cathleen Keenan Church, retold my story to her friend Jennifer, in Ohio. But how did you reach so many high profile authors in gathering these essays?

JENNIFER: Some of the high-profile essays were borne of friendship (Anna, Jane) and some through accident (Neil Pollack, Joe Queenan). Two of the essays I had read before in one form or another. It was very organic, how the essays found their way to me.

JAN: Were there any big surprises?

JENNIFER: I wrote an essay about my daughter's college search and when she read it, she said very politely, "Mom, the writing is good and your concluding point is perfect, but I sound like an idiot." "What's our solution?" I asked, using my best counseling tone. "Let me write what I was really thinking." And she did! And she was hilarious and profound. I was so glad to have her perspective in the book. She translates what many students think for the parents.

JAN: Any last advice for parents or students?

JENNIFER: My basic approach has been to tell everyone to take a deep breath and repeat after me: "It will all be fine in the end." And it will be!

I'm Going To College Not You, will hit the book shelves September first and is available now to preorder at Amazon.com and the on-line independent bookstore, Powells.com

There will be readings across the country: September 4, in Gambier Ohio (home of Kenyon College) October 2nd in Los Angeles and October 12 in New York City. For times and venues contact: ImGoingToCollegeNotYou@Gmail.com or visit "I'm Going To College Not You" on Facebook.

And please come back to Jungle Red Writers tomorrow, when I'll be talking to a Yoga experts about what postures are the best to unlock your creativity. That's right. Pretty soon you'll be on all fours unleashing your blocked energies before you sit down to write.

Sure she can write...but can she act?

RO: Yes, it's not enough that we write the books. We have to look and sound good on camera. I thought it was just the newbies like me who had to shamelessly flog our work in the hopes that someone will discover our book and feel that it's something they'd like to spend time with, but apparently even an established, bestselling author like Mary Karr has to trod the boards, however reluctantly.

Seems to me I read Karr's first book, although I may be confusing it with another similar memoir, but now that I've seen the book trailer for her latest, Lit, I will probably pick it up this summer (although I'm in the middle of two good books - Story of a Marriage and Hero, the bio of Lawrence of Arabia by Michael Korda...more on them later.)

Lots of friends (including Roberta) raved about Lit when it was first released. I didn't think I needed to read another memoir about recovery and redemption after years of destructive behavior and/or horrendous abuse. I get it. I'm happy for you.

But dang if I didn't change my mind after seeing MK's book trailer on Youtube. I wouldn't have even known about the trailer if there hadn't been an article in the NYTimes about - book trailers.

So was it Mary Karr's personal charm, the book trailer itself, or the power of the New York Times that got me to want the book. At the risk of sounding retro, I think it was the Times...

What does the JR gang think?

PS....Stop by tomorrow when our guest blogger is Mary Boone, Library liaison for Sisters in Crime who'll give us the skinny on exhibiting at ALA, the American Library Association's Annual Conference.

ON REVIEWERS

"While I'm all for the literary bloggers, and I think the more people that write about books the better, they're not necessarily as regionally focused as knowledgeable, experienced long-term editors in the South or Midwest or anywhere where the most important writers come from."

*****New York Times writer Sam Tanenhaus.


JAN:
As the the New York Times recently noted, the number of newspapers who take the time to review books keeps declining as the number of online book reviews multiplies. The question is not whether this is a tragedy. I think we can all agree that it is both sad and chilling to see more and more newspapers give short shift to the book world.

The question is whether newspaper book reviews are inherently more knowledegable or in any way superior to online book reviews.

I'd have to say from my own experience that I've had at least two book reviews, one online and one in a newspaper, where I suspected that the reviewer hadn't actually read the book. The former because it picked up a factual error made in Kirkus and repeated it verbatim, and the second because it was very vague and could have applied to almost any mystery. And this is not sour grapes, because both those reviews were very positive.

In general, though, I have to agree that for the most part the newspaper or magazine reviews I've received have been detailed, intelligent and insightful. But while I've probably seen a few more "hurried" reviews online, there have been some that have knocked me out with their depth and acuity. And don't forget that many online reviews are written by bookstore owners and librarians.

Okay, let's get our own crime reviewer, Hallie Ephron to weigh in:

HALLIE:
It's like reading a murder mystery -- with newspaper book review sections falling prey to a serial killer. Recent victims:Atlanta Journal-Constitution eliminated job of book review editor; the LA Times merged a standalone book review section with opinion pages, cutting the number of pages devoted to books; last year the San Francisco Chronicle's book review section went from 6 pages to 4. Similar stories from the Raleigh News & Observer, the Dallas Morning News, Orlando Sentinel, Cleveland Plain Dealer. The usual suspects: lack of advertising revenue, competition from online. Let's face it, news pages are shrinking, too.

The National Book Critics Circle has launched a "Campaign to Save Book Reviews." See http://www.bookcritics.org/?go=saveBookReviews.

For authors, if the publisher isn't behind you with a 6+ figure advance, breaking out seems impossible. There's nothing more daunting than that moment, right after your first book comes out, you walk into a big box book store and look around...seeing it as you've never seen it before. SO MANY books chasing so few customers and $$.

Newspapers may be endangered species but the circulation of most regionals swamps most blogs. So in terms of bang for the buck, newspaper reviewers win, hands down. Having said that, blogs and online reviews can generate buzz...if anyone reads them.

RO:
I know I'm supposed to feel distraught about this - and I do in a general, "into what cultural abyss is America descending?" way - but I'm not sure that the decline of newspaper book reviews is going to affect me professionally. Of course it's a drag to think that more ink was spent on Paris Hilton's recent travails than on the thousand or so books published this week - many funny, smart, entertaining, or educational - that writers like us sweated over, maybe for years. But how many of them were going to get reviewed in mainstream newspapers anyway? Maybe newspaper book review pages are shrinking because they'e too busy reliving The Civil War, World War II and the Kennedy administration. And reviewing the umpteenth bio of the same dead white guys.

I confess I do read Marilyn Stasio of The NY Times, and if I had a prayer of getting a review from her I'd walk a hundred miles on broken glass to get it, but seriously, how many books can she review in a week? In a year?

So, I love the online reviewers. They're filling a need. I don't care what their day jobs are, or where they went to school. (Isn't it a little ridiculous to think that someone has to have gone to Yale to review a mystery?) Like anyone else, some reviewers are good and some are less good, but if they know their stuff -mysteries, romances, kids books, whatever - then I'm glad they're doing what they're doing.

HANK:
So how do newspapers decide what to publish? When I was learning about journalism, back in my radio days, we were taught that you gave the public what it "should" want to know about. That somehow, the people who were making the editorial decisions were the ones who were trained to decide what was best and necessary for people to read about. Remember when Michael Dukakis ran for president?(okay, you don't, but trust me on this one) There was discussion about how "eat your peas" he was. In other words, that he would say things you needed to hear, but didnt necesssarily want to. That's what newspapers used to do--decide what was important, and print that.

Now, that in mind. Things have changed. There are 300 cable channels. Newspapers are drying up and dying as people turn to the internet. So, to stay alive, newspapers are printing what they think people WILL read. Want to read. And "they" have decided, apparently, that people don't want to read book reviews. Simple as that. They're selling, we're buying, they've decided we ain't buying book reviews. (Plus, why pay a book reviewer?)

So it's so sad, because a review is so often more than just about the book. It can be writen by someone who offers context, breadth, connections. I'm not saying there's anything less--reliable? educated? insightful?--about on line reviews. It's just another medium, after all.

I don't think that problem is the advent of on-line reviews--you gotta love them. They can be wonderfully smart, they're honest, they're from the heart as well as the brain, and they're free of "the man." It's just too bad that curling up with coffee and the newspaper book review section on Sunday morning could be a thing of the past. Or maybe--it'll just be I'll get cozy with my laptop. (Though that's hard to share with my husband.)

JAN:
I think the bottom line with the continued decimation of the book review page, we all need to be grateful for the online reviewers -- many of whom don't even get paid but review as a labor of book love. Thanks guys!

ON PERSUASION

Booksellers usually view the dinners as a grand gesture by the publisher, said Paul Yamazaki, the chief book buyer at City Lights.
“What they’re trying to do is make a statement about the book,” he said. “They want you to go read it, and it gives them another five minutes. But you can’t manufacture these things. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, and the book has to deliver,” he said. “Ultimately it’s about the book.”

*** The New York Times "Pushing A New Writer"

HANK:
Would you buy my book if I bought you dinner? Lunch? A drink? A recent article in the New York Times reveals the latest trend in publishing publicity methods, called "pre-publication tours," where a new author is carted around the country by the publisher and shown off to book buyers at fancy dinners and events. The theory is once the buyers meet the author, they will be so smitten and overcome by the attention that they'll purchase many more books than usual and then promote them to their eager-to-buy customers.

Now let's be clear. As my mother always says: "This is not a criticism. It's an observation." If the wonderful people at Harlequin want to escort me--anytime!-- on a cross-country tour to promote my new book, I'm definitely on board. Maybe after a few glasses of wine and some cherries jubilee, I'm a bestseller. Sounds nice.

But I've got to say--all the book buyers I've talked to ain't gonna be convinced by a couple glasses of Chateau Lafitte or some gingered sea bass.

On the other hand, what if the pre-pub tour really starts the buzz? (Maybe it could work. And there's no question if you meet an author, you feel some connection to them. Can't hurt. And certainly PR works. And ads. And going to bookstores. And I'll be doing all that. And I hope to meet all of you!)

Or do you think it's as the book buyer above says--it's ultimately about "the book"?
Can a flashy promo campaign make a mediocre into a moneymaker?

JAN:
I once heard that in order to become a bestseller, a book has to be "best selling" in its initial few weeks. If that's true, then it's actually impossible for word-of-mouth to do the job and the only WAY a book can get there, unless you are Ross Perot, is if the publisher puts its money, right up front, into making it a bestseller. Whether the publisher does this by buying premium display space at B&N and Borders, or by pre-publicity dinners, it doesn't change the bottom line: The publisher makes it happen. I'm not sure if that view makes me cynical or a realist, but I think that's the book biz.

RO:
As my husband (a 40 yr veteran of the book business) is fond of saying - and I hate it when he does - it's both. There are plenty of mediocre books that are moneymakers, and plenty of great books that not enough people know about (will someone please make the wonderful Robert Hellenga a household name?)

No one is going to buy my book simply on the strength of a party, a drink, or a tcotchke. But, let's face it, with all due respect to those that claim they do, very few retail buyers actually have the time to read all the books they are sent. They couldn't possibly, with hundreds of books being published every day. Given that reality, I'm up for almost anything that helps someone remember me or the name of my book. And I don't expect the publisher to do it all. They're already rolling the dice on me. I'll supplement their efforts anyway I can in the runup to publication. Maybe it'll work and maybe it won't, but I'm a newcomer. For me, it's about surpassing expectations - not necessarily making The New York Times bestseller list. (It should only happen...)

Anyone read JA Konrath's Newbie's Guide to Publishing? http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/. Or Jackie Deval's paperback, Publicize Your Book? Great ideas, and they don't all cost a fortune.

HALLIE:
Ro says: "It's about surpassing expectations." Here, here!
So, the question is, as an author, are you selling yourself or are you selling your book, and is there a difference? Most bookstores that have author events want us to chat, tell amusing stories, share the inside scoop on how we wrote our book, not read from it for 40 minutes straight. Snore. The assumption is if the customer likes YOU, they'll buy your book. Obviously the publishers are taking the same tack with booksellers.

And Hank, in answer to your question, if you buy me lunch or dinner YES I'll buy your book. Do I get to pick the place??

RO: Can I come too?

HANK:
Okay, sounds like fun. Dinner for everyone. Hallie, sure, you can pick. Then everyone buys books. And I promise not to read out loud. (Unless there's a huge clamor to hear the really good parts.) What a great evening that'll be!

PS FROM HANK: Oh, one more thing. Boston's own Grub Street is having a fantastic seminar called "Muse and the Marketplace" May 5-6 with luminaries like Margot Livesey, Gregory Maguire and Sue Miller. www.museandthemarketplace.com Turns out, I'm on a panel about publicizing your book! So hey--we'd love to see you all there. Otherwise, I'm gonna find out all the secrets...