Hi, all! Just letting you know about a great online event put together by a colleague of mine. Please tune in for Suzanne’s site reopening on Thursday, October 31, 2013 at www.suzannestroh.com.
It’s a virtual party to celebrate the 137th birthday of expatriate arts patron Natalie Barney (1876-1972). A major reappraisal of Barney’s life and legacy is underway, led by the translation of Francesco Rapazzini’s biography of the woman Barney secretly married in 1918, author and sculptor Élisabeth de Gramont (1875-1954). Forty years after Barney’s death, her secret 1926 novel has finally been published in French. It details the household both women established with American painter Romaine Brooks (1874-1970).
A writer’s life is simple. We go through our daily lives in the flow, letting life flow through us. I write every day. I get up early in the morning. Feed the newly adopted rescue. Put up the coffee, get some cereal, and sit down on the couch and just let the words and ideas and connections flow. I rarely, almost never, have writer’s block and am as happy as a clam just being able to have the time to get my thoughts and impressions down on paper. Writers — contrary to what many may think — do not necessarily lead glamorous lives (although some may). Generally we simply sit down (now with our computers and tablets) and go to work. It little matters whether we get paid. Although we do want to get paid for our work, that we write is the main thing — to get our ideas out there and let our audiences come as they may if they have an interest and like what we say and how we say it. So, for now, that’s my writer’s life. How about yours?
At last I have finished the draft manuscript for my Romaine Brooks book. I await editorial comments and am finalizing the manuscript to send to my agent. If all goes well, she will be pitching it in September. You can look forward to seeing the book sometime in 2015.
On the art-critic-and-book-reviewer front, my reviews of 
Rediscovering Romaine Brooks 