Only Child Reborn Today in Paperback!

Only Child: Writers on the Singular Joys and Solitary Sorrows of Growing Up Solo is unleashed into the world again today, in paperback this time. My coeditor Daphne Uviller and I are spreading word through parenting blogs. (If you write for one or are a journalist interested in a review copy, please write CrownMarketing@randomhouse.com, with ONLY CHILD in the subject line.)

On Sunday, right smack in the middle of the Oscars, at 9pm, there was a one-hour show on Only Child on WKCR, 89.9FM. It will soon be available for download from the WKCR website. It's a This-American-Life style arts show called Studio A, and the host is Michelle Legro. The show includes a long interview with us (in which a preggers-again Daphne tells why she’s having number 2 and I ‘fess up to my newfound embrace of a hoped-for only), a reading from the book, some interviews with oc experts, and some readings by other onlies.

And on April 7, 2008 Daph and I will be teaching a Mediabistro intensive on putting together anthologies, here in NYC. Come one, come all! You'll learn about the process, from soup to nuts: how to write a proposal, find contributors, manage and edit submissions, work with purchasing editors, make the best use of your in-house publicist, and learn how to self-publicize (yep, no getting around that, case in point). You'll leave with a timeline in hand detailing the process by which you could reasonably expect to complete a salable anthology. Mediabistro also has a nice lil article on anthology making, by one of my fave ladies Rachel Kramer Bussel, available on their site.

Doing this anthology with Daph changed my life, for reals. For one, it launched me into the book publishing world. Writing my essay for it helped me come to terms with my own experience of being an only child who got divorced. But more than all that, it gave me a taste of writing collaboration at its best. For that, I am forever grateful to our amazing contributors, my agent Tracy Brown, and to Daph.