Catherine Clark's Blog

The publication date for my new YA novel, 11 THINGS I PROMISED, has just been announced: April 5, 2016. You have a whole year to save up $9.99 to buy it. If you start now, you'll be able to buy, like, 12 copies. Think of it as a Christmas Club for Cathy.THE SUMMER OF EVERYTHING will also be released on that date! It includes two summer adventures and road trips galore. :) It's an "omnibus" (I love publishing terms) that includes one of my favorite overlooked titles, WISH YOU WERE HERE, and th...

This came from a very unlikely source. An embarrassing source, even. I was doing the crossword on Sunday and right next to it was the daily horoscope. Leo. I skimmed it. Here was the last sentence:

"Lean into your originality."

I'm developing new work and starting new books, trying to take risks. It's a bit intimidating, as you probably know. For some reason this line helps me.

As long as it doesn't only apply to Sunday, January 25, I should be fine.

So here's the thing. You tell people you are devoting yourself to your writing career. And next thing you know, you can't write a thing. (Shhh. Don't tell my editor.)

You create many other things instead. Ranting Facebook posts about the NFL. Questionable tweets about real estate transactions you're not involved with. You bake pumpkin bread even though it's not actually in season yet and Martha Stewart would have your head. You bake cakes and have friends over for celebrations long overdue.

Mea...

Summer has somewhat officially ended and instead of listing what I did over the summer, I thought I'd point out what I didn't. There are no photos, because, well. I didn't do these things.

I didn't go to the ocean. Not to make a bad pun, but that is unfathomable. I grew up spending big chunks of summer in Rhode Island, at my grandparents' house. Pretty much my favorite place, ever. Boo.

I didn't go to the MN State Fair. That feeling is mostly relief, but just thinking about it makes me hungry a...

I gave my notice at work a week ago.


After 3-plus years of working in public television, I'm moving on. As I came to this decision, a spider kept making a web on the driver's side window and mirror of my car. She did it three nights in a row. I'd drive to work (10 miles each way) and she'd hide behind the mirror until I got going, then she'd come out and wrap up her web and the insects in it for a tidy little breakfast.

Me, I ate my bagel with jam as I drove, keeping my eye on her as she bobbed...

I'm a Leo. I like fire. I really, really like fire. I sometimes have to be told to tone it down a bit on the fire thing. Right now my neighbors are roasting marshmallows for S'mores over a fire and it's all I can do to NOT invite myself over. One, I love S'mores. Two, I'd save them, you see.

Once, when I was a kid, I put out a marshmallow/lip fire on someone else's face. But that was in another country, as Hemingway once wrote. (With some other phrase that put down some woman or other.)


For som...

I've been unpacking everything that we brought into my home office when we moved into our new house in February. Lots of boxes got put into this giant closet I now have, a closet, it's fair to say, I don't know how to organize. I've never in my life had a closet I could stroll into. I don't know how to handle the responsibility.

Last night I pulled framed things out of boxes and found two casualties.

(1) A framed print of the Stuart Little cover. NBD, except it is one of my most favorite books...