April Lindner

All school year long I wait impatiently for extended writing time--a stretch of days when I can put my head down and focus with few interruptions.  And now that time is here--theoretically at least.  W hile I wait to hear more about the fate of the Greek novel, I've been trying--with uneven success--to get my head back into my next novel--the one set in a New Jersey river town. Lambertville, NJ But summer--and serious writing--comes with its own pitfalls.   I may hypnotize myself into believing I'm on the top deck of a ferry pulling into Santorini, or wandering the charming streets of a small New Jersey river town, but my body knows otherwise. So to fend off the Vitamin D deficiency and a bad case of the blahs, Andre, the dogs, and I went for a walk in Valley Forge... ...a green world where locals and tourists alike walk trails, ride bikes, and commune with ghosts. Captain Von Steuben looks out across the fields On other visits, we've opte

  A local celebrity As I may have mentioned (about a thousand times) Andre and I have been living in limbo these last few months.  Our house is in the market and half of our furniture is in storage, while we wait for the next chapter of our lives to begin--hopefully in the town of our dreams, Lambertville, New Jersey. What's so special about Lambertville? It's a small town--charming, picturesque, quirky, and with a startling number of artists per capita--the kind of place that would make the perfect place to live--or the great setting for a novel. You can probably guess where this is going, right?  Over the last few months I've been working on a new writing project. Another YA reimagining of a classic work of Brit Lit, it's set in a fictional New Jersey river town that bears a passing resemblance to a certain actual New Jersey river town. The Delaware Raritan Canal So of course I take every opportunity I can get to research my novel-in-progre

One of the highlights of spring 2015 was a visit by my old friend and collaborator  Gerry LaFemina .  Gerry read from his poetry and fiction for a rapt crowd of students at Saint Joseph's University  and he answered our many questions about his life as a writer, an advocate for poetry, and a punk rocker. Gerry also treated us to a preview of his latest project--one that's especially thrilling to a poet-slash-music enthusiast like myself. Yes, that's Gerry on the cover! The first in a projected series of anthologies inspired by classic albums, Clash By Night gathers poems responding to specific songs on The Clash's seminal album  London Calling .  For instance, this classic-- --which inspired this poem by George Yatchisin: Clampdown It wasn't the socialism--I had the Gang of Four for that. Plus who doesn't want  to chuck work, especially when there's rock 'n' roll, a chance to chant with our chosen likeminded young

Snack shack, Tinos, Greece (photo by Shawn Krahmer Heal) It's been a super-busy spring.  I've been struggling to balance teaching and a flurry of events promoting my most recently published YA novel,  Love, Lucy.   In the middle of it all, we put our home on the market, so this spring has been a blur of renovation, cleaning, and dog wrangling to get the house ready for potential buyers.   That's why you haven't seen me here for a long time.  But now that the spring semester is more or less over, I'll be back, sharing my thoughts about writing, travel, music, etcetera. And now (at last!) I hope to get back to some serious, sustained writing.  I've got several projects in the works, all too new and fragile to discuss in public just yet.    And then there's my Greek novel --a reimagining of Jane Austen's Persuasion , set on a high school study tour of Athens, Santorini, and Crete. Mule on Syros, Greece (photo by Shawn Krahmer Heal) Last week