Peg Kehret Blog

Yesterday I did an on-air telephone interview with a TV station in Tallahassee, Florida. The program is Kids Read and yesterday their topic was The Ghost’s Grave.  It sounds exciting and glamorous to be interviewed on live TV, but here is the reality:  In the middle of the interview, while I was answering questions, I heard my cat, Molly, throwing up in the kitchen. Retch, retch, urp, urp. Every cat owner recognizes that awful sound. Lucy, my dog, heard it, too. Yip! Bark! Toenails skittered on the floor as she rushed to the scene. Lucy had been sitting next to me so her barking got broadcast.  I tried not to think about what was going on in the kitchen as I continued the interview.

All authors hope that their books will last. I like to think that some of mine will be in print decades from now. Maybe my great-grandchildren will be able to browse in a book store and find my titles - still available, still selling, still worth reading. The reality, of course, is that most books go out of print fairly quickly.

Some of my books have had staying power; others have not. My first book, Vows of Love and Marriage, was published in 1979. Ten years later it was revised and updated, and published as Wedding Vows. New brides and grooms come along every year, planning their weddings, so there is a steady market. My second book had a print run of only 1500 copies and was never reprinted. Apparently there is more interest in getting married than there is in Refinishing and Restoring Your Piano.

My first book for young people, Winning Monologs for Young Actors, remains in print and continues to have steady sales. It was first published in 1985. Other books have not fared as well. Some, such as my Frightmares series, got caught in publisher mergers beyond my control. Others simply did not generate enough sales. I’ve never been able to predict which titles will be popular and which won’t. One book that I especially like, The Richest Kids in Town, went out of print after only a few years, while my least favorite of my own books (which I won’t name) is still going strong.

I began thinking about this topic because I’ve been using my rhyming dictionary a lot this week. The title is actually The Complete Rhyming Dictionary, published by Doubleday and edited by Clement Wood. I’ve had my copy for over thirty years. Today I looked to see when it had been published. 1936!  The year I was born.

I hope some of my books are still being read seventy-two years after I write them.

My valentine collection is displayed all around my house this week. The big Raggedy Andy doll who sits on a red chair by my front door is holding a much-decorated pink heart made of construction paper and lettered in crayon, “To Papa from Brett. Happy Valentine’s Day 1997.” Brett is my oldest granddaughter; she was seven when she made that valentine for my husband. Other handmade valentines from grandchildren are also treasured, including a terrific poem that Eric wrote for me two years ago.

My oldest valentines are two that my husband’s mother made for her parents when she was fourteen, in 1928. They are decorated with paper doilies. Each contains a poem that she wrote. Today’s teens would find her words syrupy and sentimental, which only adds to their charm.

Other valentines were bought one at a time at various antique shops or thrift stores. Some are dated on the back with the year and place they were purchased. Most have either animal or musical themes and the illustrations are definitely old-fashioned. A dog with a bass drum says, “I want your heart to go Boom! Boom!” Three kittens play instruments (one is an accordian) on a card that says simply, “A Valentine Song.”

One favorite has a small carrot-shaped button attached. It says, “I don’t ‘carrot’ all for the rest of the bunch, but I’m growing fond of you.”  Given my last name, that one is perfect for me!

Valentine’s Day is about love. Carl, the love of my life, is no longer here but the wonderful feelings remain, as do the happy memories.  Yesterday I had lunch with my good friend, Marilyn. After we ate we browsed in an antique mall, and I spent fifty cents for a sweet old valentine.  I’m being treated to dinner tonight by Anne and Kevin, my daughter and son-in-law.  This week my mail box contained many valentines, mostly funny, and I had two e-cards in my Inbox today. I am surrounded by love.  I hope you are, too.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

I’m often asked what I do when I’m not writing. It’s a hard question to answer because what I did this week isn’t the same as what I did last week, and next week will be different again. Oh, some things are consistent. I read. I walk my dog and take care of my cats. I spend a lot of time answering mail.

Here are a few things that I’ve done in the last seven days:

1. I bought a new digital camera. That was the easy part. The hard part, for me, was figuring out how to transfer the photos to my computer and how to e-mail them.  My first photo was of Flat Stanley, who is visiting me and reporting his adventures to a school in Lincoln, Nebraska. After sending Flat Stanley’s picture, I spent an hour on line looking for a way to recycle my old digital camera, which no longer works.

2. I went to the dentist and then met my grandson and my son-in-law at our favorite pie place. It didn’t seem quite right to go straight from getting my teeth cleaned to eating pie but Eric and Kevin happened to be in Enumclaw, where my dentist is, at the same time I was and I can’t pass up a chance to see them - or a chance to eat pie. I had blueberry almond crunch, and it was delicious.

3. I had a chimney sweep come to clean my chimney. There was much barking by Lucy when the chimney man walked around on the roof.

4.  I was interviewed by two high school students who are making a video about Jonas Salk to enter in a National History Day competition. We met at the Issaquah WA library and did the filming in a conference room. The students had watched the PBS special on polio this week. I saw it, too, although it was extremely difficult for me to watch the segments that showed children receiving the Sister Kenny treatments. Even after all these years, such images fill me with dread. The memories of polio remain strong.

5. Today I baked brownies and made a broccoli salad to serve tomorrow when friends come to dinner. I cut the thick broccoli stalks into chunks and threw them in the grass off my back porch. Withint ten minutes, a Blacktail deer came to eat them.

6. Lucy and I did a litter walk in my neighborhood to pick up trash, mostly beer cans, that had been tossed from car windows. I live in a beautiful wooded area and can never understand why people are willing to spoil that.

7. I listened to the Audio Bookshelf recording of “Escaping the Giant Wave” and I have to admit I enjoyed it.

As you can see, my life isn’t much different than the lives of other people except that during my working hours, I write. I also think about my writing even when I’m doing other things. As I drove to the video interview, for example, I thought of a new plot twist for the book I’m working on, and I had to pause in the middle of chopping broccoli to jot down an idea for a possible future book.