Sandra Harper, author of Over The Holidays (Dec 28-Jan 10)

Please welcome Sandra Harper, author of Over The Holidays. Sandra will be chatting on LibraryThing until January 10th.

Am married to a New Englander who longs for snow beginning in November. So every Christmas, we leave Los Angeles in search of it. This year it's Mammoth Lakes, California. While Husband and Son freeze on mountain and wait in lift lines, I sip tea, savor a delicious brownie from the Looney Bean, and give thanks for indoor heating and free internet access.
I have The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and A Short History of Women to finish. What else does one need during the holidays?
Can now totally slack off till January 3rd.
What about you?

Do you believe that the generation which we are on will still writing in the same way we do?

There does seem to be a lot of hand-wringing about the younger generation's writing habits. But I used to help teens with their college essays and I found that while most people don't like to write (and this includes the parents of those teens!), there's always a few with the gift and the desire to tell stories. And my local library is full of teens and tweens curled up with books.

Younger people are very comfortable reading off of computer screens. When I'm having my coffee at Groundwork, I'm the only one with the cumbersome, crumpled newspaper. But I believe that we all crave stories and will always look to writers to supply them. In fact, I heard a piece on the radio about scientists who have identified a genetic component for "story telling" in humans! This would explain all those, "It was a cold, dark night..." stories around the campfire, don't you think?

Scientists are quite able in the art of creating lores. What we really need to do is to support, incentive, sponsor in anyway the sense of the necessity of excell writing but that is a "kind of job" that should be taught be writers and not only for "writing professores" that never ever wrote a line.
I believe that is time to ask if you agree.

If we give students time to write in journals and explore the stories within themselves, we will nurture writers everywhere. Writing requires a fair amount of downtime and dreamtime....at least for me!

My dear this is not a romance....just loosing words....looking for cash....what you do we respect and call a heart writer

My reading for the New Year includes Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier. A number of people have been re-reading this classic and I was in the mood for a good ghost story. Also have I See You Everywhere by Julia Glass and Wolf Hall because that's on a number of Must-Read lists too.