>Sunday Miscellany

>Lists. Do you make lists? Especially when I’m about to travel, I tend to make long to-do lists of things that absolutely must be done. I’m heading off to Sewanee on Tuesday, so there’s a lot on the list: charge the laptop, sync the Palm, mow the lawn, buy some cheap wine to take with, write my Sunday Miscellany post . . . I’m doing pretty well. I’ve got 16 items on the list for today, some of which might slip to tomorrow, and I’m working on No. 5 at this very moment. It’s a great feeling to cross something off the list!

Sewanee. Speaking of Sewanee, I’m excited. The first time I went (2004) I knew no one and had no clue what went on. But this time I know several people who will be there, including many of the staff and some of the faculty, I know exactly where to go to check in, and there’s no anxiety. I’ve settled on what I’m giving for my reading (one of two selections, depending on how much time I’ve got for real). I know that I don’t need to take much in the way of books to read because there’s basically no time for that. I’ll take the John Casey novel I started and that’s more than enough (it’s long).

TIC TOC. I’ve been sending out queries to agents, seeking representation for a novel. I’ve had some nibbles. A couple of agents have the whole manuscript and a couple have partials. I plan to do a few more queries before I leave town, but I’m also going to start querying for my short story collection, a book that I’ve submitted to a few contests but so far have not sought representation for. Yesterday I worked on an annotated Table of Contents (Thanks, Mary!) which helped me write my query letter. Some of the people I’m going to query for the collection have already turned me down for the novel, which might be awkward. We’ll see.

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