Marley and Me

The Gardener in Me

2010-03-31T08:09:00.000-07:00

On this blog I mostly write about books and book travel, dogs and family. But you know what has me jazzed lately?

Gardening.

Yes, that simple, age-old pursuit of sticking hands in dirt and nurturing seeds into plants and plants into harvests. I've always had a passion for it, ever since I was a kid. As I described in The Longest Trip Home, I used to be my father's yardwork sidekick, helping him cut grass, rake leaves, pull weeds, and trim hedges. Then in ninth grade, I sprouted some popcorn seeds on my windowsill and watched them grow all winter. (Yeah, I was growing some other things, too, but you have to read the book for that.) My windowsill popcorn led me to dig up part of the backyard. "You want to do what?" Dad asked with some agitation, sensing another lame-brain kid idea that would become his headache. But he relented, and in my square of soil I planted tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, beans, herbs, and lettuce. I was hooked.

All through high school and college, I kept that summer garden going. Dad's fears were never realized; I stuck with my little plot, keeping it weeded and tidy and hauling in a surprising amount of food. Mom, one of the world's great cooks, was thrilled. She made good use of the backyard produce I brought in each day. One of her great garden creations was a dish we called eggplant pizza. She would sauté eggplant slabs in olive oil, then top each with a slice of tomato, fresh herbs and swiss cheese and placed it under the broiler. Who knew such a dreaded vegetable could be so delicious?

After college, I continued to find whatever bit of soil I could around the various rentals I lived in, planting a few tomatoes and whatever else I could fit. Then I moved to Florida, married Jenny and settled into our first house on Churchill Road in West Palm Beach. The first thing I did was plant a garden, using all the knowledge I had acquired since that first effort back when I was 14. The whole bloody thing was fried to a crisp within weeks. Florida, I learned, played by its own set of rules. For one thing, you planted vegetables not in the spring but in the fall. This way the tender plants avoided the scorching summer sun. For another the sandy soil needed serious amending to nurture anything other than sand fleas. I began reading Organic Gardening magazine, learned how to compost, and how to repel insects without chemicals.

In one of those life twists no one could predict, a decade later I found myself moving my family to Pennsylvania to become editor of that magazine. While at Organic Gardening, I did what you'd expect: I gardened with abandon, on a grand scale. We now owned two acres of land, and I dug up plenty of it for flower and vegetable beds. I grew everything from corn on the cob to purple potatoes to giant pumpkins to heirloom melons. And tomatoes. So many of them, we ate all we could, canned as many as we had jars for, and gave the rest away.

One year led to another. I left the gardening magazine for the Philadelphia Inquirer, but kept the big garden going. Until 2004 when I began to work on my first book, Marley & Me. Suddenly, I had a new preoccupation -- and not a lot of time for toiling in the soil. After the book came out and became a bestseller, and then a movie, the time crunch only grew. I spent weeks on the road, and the garden beds filled with weeds, sad orphans of neglect.

This is a long way of saying that, six years later, the gardener in me is back. We live in a new home now, just a few miles from our old place, and with even more land to dig up. My life has calmed down considerably, and this past winter I found myself back to my old snowbound preoccupation of perusing the seed catalogs, which are to gardening what pornography is to sex. As soon as the ground thawed, I sent a soil sample off to Penn State University and was thrilled all out of proportion to the news that the earth beneath my feet is pretty close to perfect, not too acid, not too base, and needed no amendments other than good old fashioned compost.

As I write this, the daylilies and sedums and other perennials are all poking their heads up, and the peas I sowed on St. Patrick's Day are just breaking ground. The daffodils are in bloom, and the cardoon and and rhubarb and oregano and tarragon made it through the winter and are back, too. Down in the cellar beneath a row of fluorescent lights, some 200 vegetable seedlings are enjoying a pampered introduction to life. They better not get too comfortable. In a few weeks they are going to find the world is a harsh and hostile place, filled with bitter winds, scorching sun, and ravenous predators. (I have a love-hate relationship with the scores of deer and groundhogs around here). But my little charges have my assurance I'll do everything in my power to help them through it. First up: a new fence worthy of Leavenworth.

And that's what's happening on this end. The promise of a new spring. It's good to be back.

From Philly to Florida

2010-03-07T21:06:00.000-08:00

Apologies for being AWOL on my blog here for the past several weeks. The month of February was largely consumed by...three guesses...yes, snow shoveling. Here in eastern Pennsylvania, it snowed and it snowed. And it snowed. And, being one of those guys who believes only weenie men hire other men to cut their grass and shovel their driveways, I pretty much made a full-time job out of snow removal. It was fun up to a point. Man against nature, mano a mano, and all that. And then I began rationalizing it as a way to stay fit without joining a gym. Screw the Stairmaster; I had Snowmaster. In the final days, I just gave in and did as my father used to do: offered up my agony to the poor souls in purgatory.

In the midst of the February blizzard month, I got the great idea of a South Florida getaway. It is where Jenny and I spent twelve years of our lives and where all three of our kids were born. Of course, the night before we were supposed to fly out, yet more snow hit. A lot more. I spent five hours plowing and shoveling, getting my tractor stuck (and stuck good) twice. But I did manage to dig us out, and at 6:30 the next morning we were on our way to Philadelphia International Airport, the only car on the road. The computer said our flight was on schedule; and so did an airline rep I reached by phone. We arrived at the airport and were overjoyed to find not a single person in line at security. Our lucky day! Then we got to the gate and I found out why. Our 10 a.m. flight was still sitting in Orlando. The crew was stranded in Pittsburgh. And all runways in Philadelphia were closed. The whole family tried to be philosophical about it. Hey, in every life a few snow emergencies must fall. Scrabble, anyone?

We made it to West Palm Beach six hours late (not bad, considering), and burst out of the airport doors to enjoy the balmy tropical air. Whoa! Retreat! An icy blast greeted us, more worthy of Boston than Boca. Suffice it to say we didn't do a lot of swimming or even sunbathing during our chilly five-day stay, but we did see a lot of old, great friends and had a lot of fun. We visited our old houses in West Palm Beach and Boa Raton and other spots that I described in Marley & Me. I showed the kids where Marley fouled the public beach and where the neighbor girl was stabbed. We went by their old school and favorite park. I didn't know teenagers were capable of such nostalgia. And on the warmest day -- a respectable high of 67 but with biting winds -- all three kids and I threw hypothermia to the wind and went body surfing. Freezing but great fun. When we woke on our last day in Florida, the thermometer read 42 degrees; a few hours later when we landed in Philadelphia, the thermometer read.... this is not a misprint.... 42 degrees.

And now March is here and hints of spring. I spotted my first swamp cabbage popping out of the ground in the marsh, and the forsythia and cherry branches I cut last week and brought inside just burst into glorious bloom. My mother used to force blooms each year in late winter, and now I do, too. And every time I do, I think of her.

I've also been keeping fairly busy on the author front. Last week I participated in a panel discussion sponsored by the Philadelphia Free Library and One Film, One Philadelphia. Our topic was books that have been made into movies. I told the story of how I learned 20th Century Fox wanted to turn my book into a movie (while standing in a parking lot in Stuart, Florida), and how the process went (about as smoothly as any author could hope for). On Friday I spoke to two groups of children at Moravian Academy in Bethlehem, PA, not far from my home. And the day before that I signed copies of my book at the Moravian Book Shop (www.moravianbookshop.com), which continues to offer signed and personalized copies of all of my books for shipping anywhere in the world. On March 16, I will be in Fort Wayne, Indiana, to speak at a fund-raiser breakfast for Erin's House for Grieving Children. It's a great group that helps a lot of kids who have lost a parent or sibling, and I'm looking forward to speaking there. Come on out if you're in the area.

And finally, my latest illustrated children's book, Marley and the Kittens, is coming off the printing presses as I write this and will be in bookstores late next month. More on that as we get closer.

Happy Almost Spring, everyone. We earned this one.

Bringing Marley Home

2010-01-04T20:32:00.000-08:00

Here is the link to the piece I wrote in Sunday's PARADE magazine. It's titled "Bringing Marley Home," and yes, we really did.

http://www.parade.com/news/2010/01/03-bringing-marley-home.html

And so the new decade begins...

Going Home Again

2009-12-29T14:10:00.000-08:00

In August, my oldest son, who is a high school senior, and I packed the car and headed off on a week-long tour of college campuses in the Midwest. It was a great week with ample father-son bonding. We even seemed to agree on what music to play in the car. Before heading home, we made a detour north to my hometown of Orchard Lake, Michigan. The main purpose was to visit my mother, who is 93 now and, despite the expected age-related infirmities, has retained her good cheer and optimism.

Those of you who have read my memoir, The Longest Trip Home, know Mom quite well. She was a colorful firecracker as a younger woman and, blessedly, has retained a good deal of that spunk into old age. It was great to see her, and to see how my 17-year-old could make her face light up just by being there. Mom entertained us with stories from her childhood, which she remembered with crystal clarity even though she has trouble remembering what she had for lunch. (That's her above, mid-story.) My son found the stories highly amusing, especially the ones that involved her getting into trouble with her own parents. Some aspects of the parent-child relationship just don't change.

While in town, I had another item on my agenda. I wanted to revisit my childhood haunts, the places I describe in The Longest Trip Home, the ones that helped shape me. And so, video camera in hand, I walked the neighborhood streets, dropped by my old grade school, found an open door into the church where I had my disastrous first confession, and where two decades later Jenny and I were married. I walked down to the neighborhood beach on Cass Lake where we swam and smoked cigarettes as kids, and to the special place my brother and I would steal away to when we were skipping Sunday Mass.

You can view the video of my trip home here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYh_4o9LAlE

As you will see, much has changed in the old neighborhood since I was a kid. And some things haven't changed much at all.

Happy New Year!

Santa was a cheapskate, but we loved him

2009-12-18T21:26:00.000-08:00

Christmas is a week away and I'm actually less behind -- which is not to say ahead -- than usual for this time of year. Tis the season to be stressed out, tra-la-la... Most of the shopping is done, and gifts are in the mail. The cards are done because there are no cards to do. A few years ago, I decided holiday gang emails made a lot more sense than snail-mail cards, which ate up huge amounts of time, mostly because I insisted on writing a personal note on each one. (Don't you wonder what's the point when people send cards and simply write their names on the bottom?) I no longer even feel guilty about going the electronic route. I'll tell you, it's liberating.

We still get real trees, though. Jenny and I brought home a beauty of a fir last week that cleared the nine-foot ceilings with two inches to spare -- YES! -- and now it's twinkling in the front window, covered in decorations that tell the story of our children's artistic endeavors over the years, beginning in pre-school. My favorites are the paper angels they made one year with photos of their faces pasted on below halos made of pipe cleaners. Oh, where have those little angels gone? Whisked away and replaced by mutant teenage alien life forms that make strange monosyllabic sounds and eat incomprehensible amounts, mostly of ice cream. Thank goodness for those ornaments that lock fleeting innocence in time.

Pulling out holiday decorations always gets me thinking about my own childhood and how magical Christmas was back then. At the invitation of Book Club Girl (bookclubgirl.com), I recently wrote about the holidays of my youth and the very special, oddball Santa who dropped down our chimney each year back in those days. You can read it here:

http://www.bookclubgirl.com/book_club_girl/2009/12/book-club-girls-holiday-open-house-john-grogans-santa-claus.html

Happy holidays, everyone! Group hug!

Blogging for the Book Lady

2009-11-13T11:13:00.000-08:00

It seems like most of the fall has been spent on the road. September was my children's book tour for Marley Goes to School. And October had me back out for the paperback release of The Longest Trip Home, which is currently #31 on The New York Times' extended paperback nonfiction bestseller list. Thanks to everyone who turned out to say hi.

I just arrived back home in Pennsylvania from my final trip of the year, to The Woodlands, Texas, outside of Houston, where I spoke at a charity fundraiser for the John Cooper School. Prior years, the event featured Barbara Bush, Dave Barry, and Mitch Albom, so I certainly felt in good company. And now my traveling is behind me for a while. I actually did something I haven't done in months -- fully unpacked my suitcase and stowed it in the attic instead of keeping it half-packed in the corner ready to go. It feels good to be home for awhile, and I'm celebrating by splitting and stacking a winter's worth of firewood to warm my little writing (and daydreaming) cottage out by the barn.

Just as I was winding down my fall travel, I received an irresistible invitation from TheBookLadysBlog.com to be a guest blogger. The Book Lady's Blog is a fun site filled to the brim with unbridled passion for books of all kinds. Rebecca, who is the Book Lady, asked me to write about The Longest Trip Home, and the story behind the story. I was all too happy to oblige.

In her introduction to my essay, Rebecca wrote:

"About this time last year, I stayed up late one night to finish John Grogan’s memoir The Longest Trip Home. As I sobbed my way through its final chapters, grateful that my husband was no longer awake to tease me for my emotional reaction to a book, I realized I was finishing one of the best books of the year. The Longest Trip Home left an impression I won’t soon forget, and I am thrilled to welcome John Grogan to guest post here at The Book Lady’s Blog."

Thanks for the generous words, Rebecca. To read my guest essay that recently went up on The Book Lady's Blog, please click here:

http://thebookladysblog.com/2009/11/10/john-grogan-guest-blogs/

Hitting the road once again

2009-10-18T20:18:00.000-07:00

Tonight will be my last night sleeping in my own bed for a couple of weeks. I've been folding shirts and stuffing socks and t-shirts into my suitcase. And of course, cramming little 3 ounce bottles of toiletries into my TSA-approved one-quart clear plastic baggie. Yes, it's the main leg of my Longest Trip Home paperback-release tour!

In the morning, I catch a flight to Milwaukee where I will appear tomorrow night (Oct. 19) at Next Chapter Bookshop in Mequon, WI at 7 p.m. From there I fly to Chicago, and I will do a reading and signing at DePaul University Bookstore at 6 p.m. On Wednesday I hop down to Lexington, KY, for a 7 p.m. appearance at Joseph-Beth Booksellers. Thursday will find me in St. Louis where my 7 p.m. event will be at the Maryville University Auditorium.

I'm spending the weekend in St. Louis because I'm speaking at a private event on Saturday. Then on Sunday, I fly west where I have scheduled stops in Portland, Corte Madera, CA, and San Francisco. Then it's back east again to Grand Rapids, MI (my old stomping grounds), Boston, and Philadelphia (my current stomping grounds).

Whew! I think that about does it. To check my schedule and see if I'll be turning up somewhere near you, please click my events tab at the top of this page.

And now it's time to print out my schedule, pack up the laptop, and get some sleep. Book tour here we come! I'm really looking forward to talking about and reading from The Longest Trip Home.

Hope to say hi to you in person at one of my stops.

The Longest Trip Home in paperback

2009-10-10T20:06:00.000-07:00

I arrived home from my children's book tour about two and a half weeks ago and have spent the time working around the yard, sailing, and hanging out with my family. Now I'm gearing up to head back out on the road. The occasion: This Tuesday, October 13, is the publication date of the paperback edition of my memoir, The Longest Trip Home. I'm excited!

The paperback has a whole new cover, a full-bleed image of me in the driveway of my childhood home, circa 1963. I like it even better than the hardcover version with the dark green border surrounding a black-and-white image. The paperback also has new material added for book clubs.

The Longest Trip Home is my story. It is also my parents' story because I could not tell one without telling the other. It begins with me as a little boy in our family home outside Detroit and comes full circle, ending right back in that same home some forty years later as my father's health was deteriorating and my mother's mind had begun to drift. I knew it was time to come back again after too many years mostly away, not just physically but emotionally and spiritually, as well. I knew it was time to say those things that needed saying while there was still time. That 40-year journey was my longest trip home.

I've been really humbled and gratified by the beautiful letters so many of you have written to me in response to the book. There is something about my story, as personal as it is, that many of you seem to have found oddly similar to your own. Our shared experience is what ties us together.

As Leslie Jones of Montana put it: "Your book is amazing to me in a personal way. My husband and I are just your age, and I've never read a book that so closely mirrors my childhood... all the everyday stuff of suburban USA in the 60's and 70's. You also nailed the family dynamic--the parents and the adult children, and the process of breaking away into your own new family. I know you were just writing about your family but the way you did it was so masterful, and allows all of us readers to remember our own experiences and relate."

Or as Tim Bazzett of Michigan wrote: "Just wanted to let you know how very much I enjoyed your new book. I liked Marley, but this one moved me so much more."

Jason Bowman added: "I just wanted you to know that last week I finished reading Marley and Me and today I finished reading your new title, The Longest Trip Home. I must say that of all of the books I have read, yours struck my heart in a way
that no writer has ever been able to do. Those books made me laugh out loud and cry... well, actually sobbing
is probably the more appropriate word. I love you for your books. They have given me such an inspiration."

Melinda Boeh emailed: "After seeing Marley & Me on Christmas Day, I decided to check out your other work. The Longest Trip Home sounded intriguing, but I wasn't prepared for a 'can't put it down' book. The similarities to my own life were stunning."

And from Terence Lewis in Orlando: "I just finished your book The Longest Trip Home moments ago , and had to stop and thank you for it. Coming from a large family and as a fellow Irish Catholic, I found the parallels of our experiences very enjoyable . I have not laughed and cried so much while reading a book. Let me add, I am not one to cry."

I could go on, but just know your notes and emails bring me much joy, comfort and inspiration. Please keep them coming! I read and enjoy each and every one, even if I cannot always respond individually.

Meanwhile, my Longest Trip Home tour begins this Sunday, Oct. 11, in my own backyard at Moravian Book Shop in Bethlehem, PA. From there I will be visiting over the next three weeks book stores and other venues in: New Canaan, CT; Mendham, NJ; Mequon, WI; Chicago; Lexington, KY; St. Louis; Portland, OR; Corte Madera, CA; San Francisco; Boston; and Philadelphia.

For my complete schedule, please click "Events" in the bar at the top of this page.

Hope to see you on the road.

On the Road Again

2009-09-18T20:48:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone. Greetings from Dallas, Texas, where I am at the midway point in my "Marley Goes to School" tour. So far, it's been going great, I'm eating my vegetables, and enjoying meeting lots of new and really wonderful folks.

The tour began Monday with a 23-station radio satellite tour from home. Then Tuesday I flew to Atlanta and did an evening talk at a Barnes & Noble there, followed on Wednesday by appearances in two schools, one public, one private. Then I hopped on a plane for Houston, where I made stops at two more schools and at Brazos independent bookstore. This morning I caught a short flight to Dallas, where I spoke with 200 kids at St. Monica's Catholic School, and then gave a talk/reading/signing at a Borders store. Tomorrow I head for Denver, then Boulder and Seattle before heading home. To see when and where I'm appearing, please click the "events" tab on the top of this page.

Meanwhile, here are links to two media spots about Marley Goes to School. The first is from CNN, whose studios I stopped by while in Atlanta. The second is from the Dallas Morning News.

CNN Interview

Dallas Morning News Interveiw

Now I'm off to sleep. Up before dawn tomorrow to catch my flight to Denver. If I'm going to be in your neighborhood, please stop in and say hello.

Off on Book Tour

2009-09-12T09:38:00.000-07:00

August was a blissfully lazy month for me, filled with long, wide-open days in which I weeded, picked blueberries and eggplants (but no tomatoes; the deer devoured every last plant), sailed, plucked herbs from the garden for the evening meal, watched the bees come and go from their hives, and strummed guitar with friends around campfires. But those dog days are over now. It's September, the kids are back in school...and it's time to get busy!

And busy I am about to get. My book tour for my new illustrated children's book, "Marley Goes To School" (which is hanging tough at #3 on the New York Times' children's picture-book bestseller list) kicks off this Monday, Sept. 14, with a satellite radio tour. Basically, a satellite radio tour entails waking up at an ungodly hour, drinking large quantities of coffee, and chatting in my peppiest voice with various morning-show hosts, one after the other, by telephone while still in my pajamas. Six hours later I will be done, and a whole lot of radio listeners will have heard my nasally voice, which at that hour of day, just might constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

That's Monday. The next day, I leave on an eight-day tour that will take me roughly in a giant clockwise circle around the country. In each city, I will talk to students at two different schools during the day, and then appear at a bookstore for a reading, talk, Q&A, and signing in the evening. I'm posting my schedule below. I'd love to say hello to anyone who stops by. Kids, grownups and everyone in between are heartily welcome. (I'll be signing Marley & Me, The Longest Trip Home, and my other kid books at these events, as well.)

In October, I'm back out on the road, making a similar cross-country trek for the paperback release of The Longest Trip Home. More details about that tour to come.

OK, here's the children's tour info. See you there!

Tuesday, September 15
7PM Barnes & Noble
Talk/Q&A/Signing 7660 North Point Parkway
Alpharetta, GA 30022

Thursday, September 17
7PM Brazos Books
Talk/Q&A/Signing 2421 Bissonnet
Houston, TX 77005

Friday, September 18
7PM Borders
Talk/Q&A/signing 10720 Preston Road
Dallas, TX 75230

Saturday, September 19
3PM Tattered Cover
Talk/Q&A/Signing 9315 Dorchester Street
Highlands Ranch, CO 80129

Sunday, September 20
4PM Boulder Books
Talk/Q&A/Signing 1107 Pearl St
Boulder, CO 80302

Tuesday, September 22
7PM Third Place Books
Talk/Q&A/Signing 17171 Bothell Way
Lake Forest Park WA 98155

A Children's Bestseller

2009-08-11T20:34:00.000-07:00

I'm happy to report that my new illustrated children's book, "Marley Goes To School," will debut on the New York Times children's bestseller list this Sunday at #5. I was especially pleased, and quite honestly surprised, to see it pop up on the list before kids head back to school and before my tour to promote the book begins next month.

"Marley Goes to School" is my third illustrated children's book, with the talented Richard Cowdrey providing the charming pictures for each. Our first book together was "Bad Dog, Marley!" which was followed by "A Very Marley Christmas." Both were #1 New York Times bestsellers.

I'm enjoying a sleepy August around the house, but I know it is the lull before the storm. On September 15 I kick off a multi-city tour for "Marley Goes to School that will take me from Atlanta to Houston to Dallas to Denver to Boulder to Seattle to Philadelphia. In most cities, I will speak and read at two schools during the day followed by an evening event at a bookstore. It will be a whirlwind, but I always enjoy getting out around the country and talking to readers about my books. Inevitably, I meet some of the nicest people on the planet.

After the children's tour, I'll have a couple weeks at home before heading out again -- this time on tour to promote the Oct. 13 paperback release of my memoir, "The Longest Trip Home." That tour begins on or about the 13th and will take me across the country, including: Canaan, Connecticut; Mendham, New Jersey; Milwaukee; Grand Rapids, Michigan; Lexington; St. Louis; Portland; San Francisco; Boston; and Philadelphia. More details to come as we get a little closer.

My "Events" page will be up to date with my tour cities and venues shortly after Labor Day.

Thank you to everyone who already has gone out to pick up a copy of "Marley Goes to School." You can email me at johngroganbooks@gmail.com to let me know what you think. And I hope to say hello to as many of you as possible when I begin my two fall tours.

Also look for me on Twitter and Facebook!

Canada in Two Extremes

2009-07-31T13:21:00.001-07:00

It's hard to believe August is already here. It seems like last weekend I was putting in the window screens, stowing the snow shovels, and planting my cabbage seedlings. Sorry for being AWOL here for the past several weeks; July was a month for stepping back and chilling out.

I began the month by loading the whole family in the mini-van and heading six hours north to Montreal and the Festival International de Jazz, our second straight year attending. We are a family of music lovers, and for us the jazz festival makes the perfect family vacation. It is a place we can be together as much as we like, but also find our individual space. There are about 20 different stages spread over a large section of the city, and so there are plenty of opportunities to go your own way. Our teen-age sons especially appreciated this feature. As if the jazz festival were not enough to hold our interest, a large guitar festival was taking place simultaneously and just a few blocks away. Luthiers from all over the world brought their custom guitars (some costing upwards of $40,000) to show off. Many of them sponsored extremely talented guitarists to show off the instruments. And did they ever show them off. I spent two full days listening to amazing guitarists playing amazing guitars -- in a room with only fifty people or so. A true find.

When we were not listening to music, Montreal offered other delights as well -- Old City, Chinatown, the cafe district, the waterfront, French cuisine, and one of the world's great botanical gardens. Oh, and Labatt's Blue on draft.

We were only back from Montreal two days when I headed off on a trip of a very different nature: 10 days with four other guys, two of them my best friends from college. Our mission: To navigate 130 miles of very remote white-water rivers in far northwestern British Columbia and southeastern Alaska. To the best of our knowledge, no humans had been on some particularly isolated stretches for at least three years.

It was an amazing trip with nonstop eye-popping scenery, a scale of vastness that was truly humbling, and isolation that was at once profound and daunting. We did not see another human the entire time. With the exception of one bush plane that buzzed by on Day 2, we didn't hear a single human, either. Of course, there was no cell coverage or any other way to communicate with the outside world. We were off the grid, and after the first couple days adjusting to the majestic (OK, slightly unnerving) silence, we came to like it that way. We all fell in love with the solitude and natural rhythm of each day. We rose a little after dawn and fell asleep a little after dusk, ate when we were hungry and drank when we were thirsty. "River time," we called it.

What we did see was a LOT of bear and moose and wolf tracks. Every gravel bar we camped on was full of fresh tracks. The grizzly tracks were especially impressive, some of them the size of dinner plates. We carried a shotgun, bear spray, and a battery-operated electric fence to surround our food and gear at night, but the large mammals gave us a wide berth. The only big animals we saw were (blessedly) from a distance, including a bear sow and cub and a moose cow and her knock-kneed newborn. Bald eagles were everywhere.

We began our trip by loading our gear -- all 1,800 pounds of it, including two rafts -- into a small private float plane in Juneau, Alaska, and flying an hour east to a grass strip beside a primitive hunting camp about two miles from the confluence of the Hackett and Sheslay rivers. There was not a road for miles in any direction. From there, we hauled our stuff (hard work, long story) to the water's edge, inflated the rafts, and headed down the fast-moving Sheslay, whose water was running much higher than we had anticipated. Many impressive rapids, and one hair-raising run in particular, greeted us before the Sheshlay merged into the less rowdy but still swift Inklin River. The Inklin in turn carried us to the Taku, which returned us to Juneau. We began the trip at 2,000 feet above sea level and ended it in the sea. No wonder the water was moving so fast; it had a lot of descending to do to reach the ocean. On our last night, we camped on a gravel bar with a 3,000-foot-tall waterfall roaring down a mountain wall a mile or so in the background. Spectacular.

After a dinner of Indian chicken curry over rice on that last night, we built the fire up and toasted the trip with whiskey. A most memorable one. Brad, Kurt, JP, Pete, and I hashed over the best and worst moments and lamented how quickly 10 days had flown past. "To next year," someone said, and we toasted that as well.

And that is what I did on my summer vacation.

Marley Goes To School

2009-06-25T20:11:00.000-07:00

I never planned to be a children's author, and I still funnel most of my energy toward writing for adults. But after Marley & Me came out in 2005 and began climbing the bestseller lists, I noticed an odd thing at my appearances around the country: Even though I had written the book for adults, large numbers of children were showing up at my signings, clutching copies of my book. Given its candid description of marital relations, I knew it was too old for them, and yet they were in love with the eternally misbehaving Marley and were begging their parents to let them read it. The moms and dads, of course, were shooting me those nervous "Thanks a lot" expressions parents can be so good at. So I decided to adapt the book for young readers in the 8-12 range. That resulted in "Marley: A Dog Like No Other," which has gone on to become assigned reading in many elementary and middle schools around the country. (And to all you students who have written me letters, thank you so much! I read every one and really get a kick out of them.)

I also noticed younger kids coming to my signings, and so I joined up with a really great artist, Richard Cowdrey, to write an illustrated kids story: "Bad Dog, Marley!" That hit #1 on The New York Times' children's bestseller list and led to a second illustrated book: "A Very Marley Christmas," which also went to #1.

Now Richard and I are back with a third illustrated book in what, mostly inadvertently, has turned into a series (book #4 is in the hopper and book #5 is under contract). The new book is called "Marley Goes To School," and it hits bookstores July 7. Richard and I agree it's our favorite of all the Marley kids books to date. It certainly was the one we both had the most fun with. A misbehaving pooch gets loose in a school with an uptight principal... Oh my, I can't imagine what might go wrong!

If you want to hear more about the new book and my accidental journey into children's writing, check out my podcast that I recently added to my website:

http://www.johngroganbooks.com/media/index.html

Or simply click "Media Clips" in the bar at the top of this page.

Meanwhile, my memoir The Longest Trip Home is preparing to come out in paperback in October. More on that as we get closer.

Call Me a Twitter Head

2009-06-17T20:08:00.001-07:00

Many months ago, I signed up for Facebook, mostly because so many of my journalist friends and former colleagues were on there. I quickly reconnected with my old work pals from both South Florida and Philadelphia, and even a few from my days as editor of Organic Gardening. Then slowly old high school and college friends found me, and they joined the circle of chatter. And eventually readers of Marley & Me and The Longest Trip Home came to the circle, too.

Now I've made the leap to "that other" social networking site: Twitter. I've always had a bit of a prejudice against Twitter. I think it was the name. It just sounded like a forum for twits. And the rule restricting all messages to no more than 140 characters seemed like an artificial conceit. But more and more people -- people whose opinions I respect -- were telling me how smitten they were by it, and how connected it made them feel. They said the forced brevity equated to a refreshing rarity in today's world of bloated blogs and online blather: succinctness. Haiku for the masses. One of the Twitter converted was my agent, Laurie Abkemeier, who twitters regularly, often about the business of books and publishing. She suggested I at least check it out. And so I did, and now I'm officially a Twit in Training. I'm still getting used to the social conventions on the site and to writing in abbreviated bursts. ("Rain but no raincoat. Wet walk with wet dogs. Where is the sun?") But it's fun and interesting and an utter time sponge.

If you want to join me on either site, I'd love your company. The more the merrier.

www.twitter.com/johngroganbooks
www.facebook.com (and search for me by name)

See you there -- and of course, here.

An Amazing Night with the Avett Brothers

2009-06-11T11:40:00.000-07:00

It all began with a mention I made several months ago in Time magazine. As part of a regular feature, the editors asked me to list five things I've been listening to/reading/watching lately. I gave them a movie, a book, an HBO series, a favorite actress. Then I mentioned the band I had recently discovered and been smitten with, The Avett Brothers, a quirky indie-label bluegrass/folk/grunge foursome out of North Carolina. That endorsement led the band's bass player, Bob Crawford, to drop me an email. In it he shared a funny story similar to ones I've heard from a lot of men who would never be caught dead crying in public. The band was on tour hopping from one city to the next, and Bob was reading my book, which his wife had given him.

Bob wrote: "The day I finished Marley & Me I was on a 6:30 am flight from Philadelphia to Raleigh. I knew what was coming but I didn't think it would affect me like it did. I was sitting next to a kid who looked like he was a rapper. He had gold teeth, tattoo's, and just looked tough. When I came to Marley's passing I began to cry; uncontrollably. So I'm holding the book up high and close to my nose with one hand and with the other I am try to cover the side of my face without looking like I was trying to hide. Anyway, I tell people that it is impossible to read your book without crying and I am suspect of anyone who does."

As many, many women have told me, ya gotta love a guy who cries over the loss of a dog. Bob's that kind of a guy. Our correspondence bounced back and forth and pretty soon my whole family was invited to be guests of the band at the Avett Brothers concert in downtown Philadelphia recently. We went with our good friends, Sara and Dave, grabbing Thai food on the way. At the charmingly seedy Trocadero concert hall, the band manager, Dolphus Ramseur met us at Will Call and led us backstage. Dolphus is living proof that the Southern Gentleman is alive and well, and he volunteered, "Would you like to meet the guys?" Heck, yeah! He led us up a narrow staircase to the green room where we found the band: Seth and Scott Avett, the fraternal songwriting duo extraordinaire; Bob on the bass; and Joe Kwon on cello. They were every bit as warm and friendly as their music, and we had a great time jawboning. Then it was time for them to go on and they invited us to watch the show from the stage wings behind the curtain, just feet from where they were playing. How could we say no to that?

I had never had that up-close of a view of a live performance -- well, other than the kids' school band concerts (which definitely rocked!) -- and it was quite a thrill. The Avett Brothers have that rare ability to play with your emotions and energy levels, taking you from mellow and heartfelt contemplation in one moment to heart-thumping, foot-stomping, hyper-energized joy in the next. For an all-acoustic band, they definitely know how to harness raw electrical energy. The standing-room-only crowd out front, mostly college kids from nearby Penn and Temple, went wild.

And then it was over and after quick handshakes the band was hustled onto a bus to begin an overnight ride back home to North Carolina. We left the theater tired, sweaty and giddy. Fun night. Great band. Good people. And I wondered nearly aloud, What would life be without music?

The Avett Brothers are not for everyone. They are far from the mainstream, but I find that refreshing. If you want a sample, here are a few youtube videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aE7rkSELM3I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHzCn0roszw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGKdBkBuBZQ&feature=related

Mom turns 93

2009-05-27T04:54:00.000-07:00

Many of you who have read my memoir, The Longest Trip Home, have told me you feel as though you personally know and love my family. I always like to hear that. My mother, Ruth, especially seems to have won her way into many readers' hearts. With her break-the-mold combination of comical antics, motherly worry, fulsome love, and moral certitude, she in a way was a sort of Everymom. The kind who dedicated her life to keeping her children happy and healthy, safe and secure, and on the right track--not just as kids, but as adults, as well. Many of you have told me she reminded you a lot of your own mothers. I always take that as a compliment, and I know she would, too.

Well, Mom had a birthday recently. Frail now but still in good spirits and with her sense of humor intact, Mom celebrated turning ninety-three, and I was blessed to be able to be there to help. The day before, I was in Findlay, Ohio, about 90 minutes south of Detroit, to give a talk. (Thank you, Findlayans, for the warm reception!) I tagged on an extra day to make a sidetrip to visit my siblings Mike and Marijo, who remain in the area, and of course, Mom, who lives in a nursing home on a lake about 15 minutes from where I grew up.

I wanted to give my mother something memorable as a gift, but at her age there are not many things she needs or wants. Candy is always a big hit but the doctor discourages too much of that. Flowers provide a pick-me-up, but a week later they are spent. What I decided to give her was a blow-up of a photograph my father, who was quite a talented amateur photographer, took back in 1959, when I was 2. It's a shot I found at the bottom of a pile of family photos when I was researching The Longest Trip Home, and which appears inside the book. In soft black-and-white tones, it shows Marijo, Mike, Tim and me sitting on the floor of our living room not long after moving into our house in Harbor Hills, the neighborhood that plays such a big part in my memoir. I framed the photo and carried it in my luggage from Pennsylvania. It had been decades since Mom had seen this image, and I wasn't sure how she would react to it. For several years now, Mom's memory has been failing, and sometimes she cannot remember whether she ate lunch, let alone what she ate. I wondered if she would even recognize the four young faces staring out of the photo at her, faces that now belonged to middle-aged adults with graying hair and a few wrinkles of their own.

Mike, Marijo, her partner Kent, and I took Mom to one of her favorite restaurants, Weber's in Ann Arbor, where she grew up. We were all pleased to see how well she ate. Wolfed down her whitefish and finished all her vegetables. Good girl, Ruthie! She even had a sip of my beer. After dessert, we presented her with gifts. I placed the photo in front of her upside down, then watched her face as I turned it over. Instantly, she broke into a giant warm smile. "My four little kittens," she murmured, using the same expression she favored so long ago. Mom sat there for the longest time, beaming as she studied the image. I suppose for her it was the same as for me: a bittersweet reminder, mostly happy but tinged with the sadness of loss, of all that had come before, all that we had shared -- the laughter, the joy, the struggles -- and all that had faded into the realm of memory.

"Happy birthday, Ruthie," I said and gave her a big smooch on the cheek. Then it was time for good byes and the trip to the airport. Another year, another milestone. Despite time and distance, family remains.

A Memorable Opening Line

2009-05-17T21:08:00.000-07:00

Recently my hometown newspaper, The Morning Call of Allentown, asked me about my reading habits for a new feature the paper is kicking off. The reporter wanted to know what book I had just finished ("The Hour I First Believed" by Wally Lamb), what I was currently reading ("Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life" by Barbara Kingsolver), my all-time favorite book ("Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger), the book that first got me hooked on reading ("Treasure Island" by Robert Louis Stevenson in fourth grade), and when I do most of my reading (on airplanes and in bed before turning off the light for the night). But one question stumped me: "What is the most memorable opening line from a book?" I thought and I thought and couldn't quite come up with anything. I went to my bookshelves and pulled down old favorites... Hemingway, John Irving, Frank McCourt, Steinbeck, even Chaucer. Nothing was grabbing me. I thought about some of the classic opening lines of literature, such as "Call me Ishmael" in Melville's Moby Dick. But I couldn't really list that with a straight face because, truth be told, that opening line was just about as far into the notoriously dense novel as I got when it was assigned to me in high school.

Flash forward to a recent weekend in San Francisco. I was in town to give a talk at a fundraiser event to benefit The Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Koret School of Veterinary Medicine. I arrived the night before, which gave me most of Saturday to wander around San Francisco, my favorite city in all North America (closely followed by Montreal). The weather was cool and rainy (big surprise), but I wasn't going to let that hold me hostage in my hotel room. I wandered around Union Square, up Geary Street, through the Financial District, into China Town, and beyond that to the corner of Columbus and Broadway where I rediscovered one of the country's great -- and one of my favorite -- bookstores, City Lights. A great place to while away a rain-soaked afternoon. I shook off my raincoat, folded my umbrella and headed inside. On the second floor I found an entire wall dedicated to the Beat Generation writers. That only made sense. City Lights, founded by Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti was the spiritual home of the Beat movement.

The first cover my eyes fell upon was Howl, the controversial 1956 book-length poem by Allen Ginsburg. I had read an excerpt for a poetry survey class in college and remembered it being provocative. I pulled it off the shelf, grabbed a rocking chair, and started to read. I recognized the opening lines right away and remembered how they had swept over me, the crazy, inexplicable power of those raw words, when I first read them thirty years ago. I guess that constitutes memorable.

Howl opens:

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix;
Angel-headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection
to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night.

So there you have it. An opening line worth remembering, even if it required a cross-country flight and a trudge through the rain-slick streets of San Francisco for me to find it again.

Fact V. Fiction about My Former Column

2009-05-05T11:34:00.000-07:00

Earlier today I received an email at johngroganbooks.com from a man who enjoyed the Marley & Me movie but has not yet read the book. He hit upon a misperception left by the movie that I think now is as good a time as any to correct. Writes the emailer Baileysdad: "In the movie it was portrayed that a lot of your columns in Florida were about Marley. I think with the movie out, it might be nice to put those columns in book form."

Yes, the movie does give that impression, but it is not accurate. It is one of the many small fictions the scriptwriters took (with my knowledge and consent) to better help pack my nearly 300-page book into a two-hour movie. In the movie version, my character, played by Owen Wilson, is a somewhat hapless journalist relegated to covering methane leaks at the local garbage dump and not having much luck making a mark journalistically. Then he is talked into writing a column (another fiction: reporters kill to get a shot at their own column, and indeed I competed against several other candidates to get mine). Grogan is still not quite finding his voice as a columnist until .... yes, Hollywood drumroll... he starts writing columns about his crazy dog Marley. The columns are a huge hit with readers and Grogan more or less makes Marley a regular subject of his column. See how the world's worst dog makes the man?

That's the film version. In real life, I was a senior writer on my paper's enterprise team, writing long take-outs for the Sunday front page. Then I tried out for and received the position of metro columnist. As a metropolitan columnist, the great majority of my columns played off the news. One day I might be at a murder scene, the next at a tax hearing, the day after that in a classroom or out in the Everglades. Into this mix I sprinkled personal essays based on experiences in my own life. And of those personal essays, a handful were about about life with Marley. The total sum of Marley columns from my ten years as a columnist, both in Florida and Philadelphia, is about a dozen. Looking back on it, that was about the right mix. There are hardly enough Marley columns to fill a pamphlet, let alone a book.

And that leads me to a related topic, which isn't very pleasant for me. My former newspaper, the (once great but of late teetering on the edge of bankruptcy) Philadelphia Inquirer has published two unauthorized collections of my columns I wrote while employed there. They published them without my consent or involvement or even advanced knowledge. I had no say in the selection or the cover or title, and receive no compensation. Despite that, the appearance to the casual shopper in any bookstore is, "Oh, look, John Grogan has a new book out." After all, my name and the words "author of the bestseller Marley & Me" are prominent on the covers. It's a reasonable assumption. At every book signing I do, some poor soul asks me to sign one of these. I regretfully have to tell him or her that I cannot sign the books because they are not mine. (The Inquirer owns the copyright as it does with all staff-generated work). I feel bad having to disappoint someone who just plunked down their hard-earned cash, but I just can't endorse this cynical repurposing of my earlier work. In my opinion, the actions of the Inquirer and Vanguard Press in publishing these two collections is not only disrespectful and cheesy, but pitiful -- a desperate attempt by a once-proud but now failing enterprise to glom on to a former employee's success. Who knows, maybe next the Inquirer and Vanguard Press will want to publish my collected dry-cleaning bills.

It's a free country, and I won't tell you what to buy. But if you see a book with my name on the front and the words "selected writings from The Philadelphia Inquirer," you'll know you've arrived in the land of glom. And if you have any doubts, turn the book over and read the very, very fine type on the back cover.

That's it for now. Over and out... john

Animal Rescue on the Mexican Border

2009-04-25T10:46:00.000-07:00

I'm in the desert border town of El Paso, Texas, to attend and speak at a fund-raiser gala to benefit the Animal Rescue League of El Paso. The league operates a no-kill animal sanctuary and shelter outside of town that on any given day houses about 100 dogs and cats, many of them rescued by the group from the local dog pound, where they report about 70 dogs a day are put down. The group removes as many of the dogs as it can from what it calls "death row," and brings them to the rescue where they are fed, groomed, given medical attention and vaccinations -- and then put up for adoption. It also takes in strays and those abandoned by their owners, often for no fault of the animal. Last year the group found good homes (the staff reserves the right to reject anyone it feels won't provide the right environment for an animal) for more than 1,000 animals. Pretty impressive for a group run mostly by volunteers and that gets no government funding.

The purpose of tonight's event will be to raise as much money as possible to keep the shelter up and running for another year. Organizers told me they wanted me to be their speaker not so much because of my book, but because of my relationship with "the world's worst dog." As one of them put it to me at dinner last night, "Thank you for not giving up on Marley."

You see, behind all the funny stories about Marley's wild and mischievous ways is a sad sub-text. For every "Marley" that finds a family willing to put up with the antics and give him a home for life, there are dozens that end up abandoned by families that lose patience. Many of those dogs get adopted again, only to be turned back in. At the Animal Rescue League here, all dogs get a second and third and fourth chance. As many as it takes. In addition to taking care of the animals' medical needs, the staff and volunteers work on training them to be better companions. Some have separation anxiety, some have obsessive habits, some, damaged by abuse or neglect, have unpredictable temperaments. But I should add, many, many of the dogs have no "issues" at all. They simply had become inconvenient and so were turned in. Some by families who were moving, some by military members getting deployed, some because of an owner's death. As I walked through the shelter just before dusk last night, I was impressed at how many of the dogs had, as far as I could tell, great, friendly, well-behaved personalities. Perfect pets just waiting for the perfect home.

It reminded me that all dogs deserve a shot at becoming a loyal part of a family, and that sometimes the best pets of all are adopted from shelters. It's almost as if they know that you have given them a second chance at a good life, and they are all the more appreciative for it.

Photos from Down Under

2009-04-07T14:12:00.000-07:00

I have been back from my Australia and New Zealand book tour for a little over a week now, and it took nearly the whole week to fully reset my internal clock. Sydney is 15 hours ahead of Philadelphia, and Auckland another two hours on top of that. It was a mind bender for me to consider that my Sunday in Sydney was still Saturday back home.

Now I'm supposed to be putting the finishing touches on my taxes, and of course am looking for any and every excuse to procrastinate. So how about we look at some photos of my trip? (With apologies to my patient accountant.)

Here we go...
1. My New Zealand publicist Raewyn Davies during one of our mini-sightseeing excursions in between events
2. My Australian publicist Louisa Dear and I saying goodbye at the Sydney Airport
3. My publisher Bernadette Foley and her companion Peter John (didn't ask his last name!) on Bondi Beach
4. A salesman demonstrating the traditional Aboriginal instrument, a didgeridoo, made from a tree branch hollowed out by termites
5. Sailing out of Sydney Harbor into open ocean with Hachette Australia managing director Malcolm Edwards aboard his beautiful sailing sloop
6. The iconic Sydney Opera House as we sailed past aboard Malcolm's boat

.

From the Land Down Under

2009-03-26T19:47:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Sydney, Australia, where I arrived from Auckland this morning and am sitting in the airport lounge killing a couple more hours before I catch a flight back to San Francisco, and then Newark. And then, at long last, home to eastern Pennsylvania.

I've been here for a little over two weeks -- eight days in Australia and four in New Zealand -- promoting The Longest Trip Home and, of course, the indefatigable Marley & Me. It's been a great trip, very busy but also with some time for fun, sightseeing, exploring and -- yes, sue me -- plenty of wine tasting. I've always admired Australian wines and after this trip I'm also a new fan of New Zealand wines, especially the country's pinot noir and sauvignon blanc.

My publishing teams at Hachette Australia and Hachette New Zealand have been wonderful, taking all the stress and headaches out of the trip, welcoming me like a long-lost cousin, and showing me a really great time. Just a few highlights: sailing in Sydney Harbor (thanks, Malcolm!), hiking the bluffs over the ocean (thanks, Bernadette and Peter John), sampling wines in the Hunter Valley (thanks, Fiona!), sampling wines while overlooking the Pacific on the north shore of Auckland (thanks, Kevin!), beers and dinner on my birthday (thanks, Matt and Fiona!), a personalized tour of some of the most beautiful scenery in the world on New Zealand's south island (where Lord of the Rings was filmed) (thanks, Raewyn!), and an introduction to Sydney's best coffee houses (thanks, Louisa!)

My tour took me from Sydney to Melbourne to Brisbane to the Hunter Valley, and in New Zealand, from Christchurch to Wellington to Auckland. It seemed like I talked to every radio and television station there was, which was the whole point. I also did a reading and signing each night, and really enjoyed meeting so many new people. Thanks everyone for the enthusiastic reception and making me feel right at home.

In between appearances, I got to hang out with two really great wine experts and authors, whose books I recommend you check out -- Matt Skinner in Australia and Michael Cooper in New Zealand. If you want to know more about the wines here, these are your (very charming) guys. In an authentic Australia moment, I went for a walk early one morning in the rolling wine country a couple hours north of Sydney, and stumbled upon a gathering of seven wild kangaroos, feeding beneath a tree. Cool! That night I looked up and for the first time in my life saw the southern constellations, including the celebrated Southern Cross. More cool!

A special thanks to my two publicists who put the entire tour together and made sure everything worked like clockwork, and quite literally took care of my every need: Louisa Dear in Australia and Raewyn Davies in New Zealand. You two rock! (And yes, you've spoiled me.)

Here is a clip of a television interview I did while in Christchurch. I thought the reporter did a good job putting it together. She even arranged for me to get a Lab fix. It's mostly about Marley & Me, but with a bit on the new book, as well.

http://tvnz.co.nz/close-up/marley-john-2581412/video

Time to head to my gate. More to come. Maybe even some photos!

Letters from the heart

2009-03-06T07:06:00.000-08:00

Part of my morning routine -- after the coffee, the New York Times, and the walk with the two dogs (as you dog owners know, not necessarily in that order) -- is to log on to my email here at johngroganbooks.com and see what's new. Every day there is a fresh batch of messages from all over the world and from people of all ages and walks of life. My readers from Brazil are especially enthusiastic correspondents, so thank you Brazilians for all the warm missives.

As you might guess, I get an immense kick out of the notes and letters from children, who -- yes, it's true -- can say the darnedest things, such as the little boy who wrote to breathlessly break the news to me: "Hey, did you know someone made a movie out of your book?"

Some have already mastered the art of the hard sell, such as 11-year-old Jasmine M. in Aurora, Illinois, who lobbied: "Please can you give me a book with an autograph? It will be a dream come true because I've always wanted a book with an autograph. It would be a dream come true. Wouldn't you like to make my dream come true? Won't you feel special because you will make my dream come true?" Jasmine's letter goes on for several more paragraphs, putting the screws to me for that autograph. In case her subtlety was lost on me, she closes: "Well, that's all I want to let you know. I really want the book with the autograph. Pretty please?" Yes, Jasmine, your autograph is on the way. Uncle!

Then there are the letters that touch my heart. Here's an example that I just opened this morning, reminding me of the power of words on paper to affect lives and make friends of strangers:

Dear Mr. Grogan,

It is a rare book that can send me into convulsions of laughter out loud, but that is exactly what your book has done for me. I inherited my love for dogs (actually most animals except for spiders) from my father. Growing up, I had a border collie mix who was indeed one of those “mentally unstable dogs, and oh how we loved that dog named Buffy.

Last night while relaxing and drinking coffee at a Starbucks, I went into completely rapturous, roaring laughter while reading the “Alfresco Dining” chapter. Witnesses, I’m sure, took me for one of those “mentally unstable people”. Some though, when passing by me, smiled knowingly when they observed what I was reading.

Why is this so special that I should be writing my first letter to an author? Well you see in November, my very best friend for over 33 years was diagnosed with reoccurring breast cancer. This was not supposed to happen. We had always been there for each other since we were 16. No matter what, I knew that Anita was always in my corner. When we picked the wrong guys, we always vowed that we would be there for each other in our old age. Two old ladies with dozens of cats, (cat people too!) and dogs. You know the crazy ladies. Unfortunately, on December 3rd, my dearest friend died, leaving me to contemplate my future as one crazy old lady with cats and dogs.

In addition, while away one weekend to be with Anita, my elderly mother fell. After three years of me being her sole caregiver, I came to the realization that I could no longer keep her safe. And so she moved into a nursing home. This decision she has accepted and I am in anguish over. I am still reeling from both events. But your book has given me so much joy.

So thank you Mr. Grogan for your wonderful gift of storytelling, for sharing your lives and Marley’s with us and most important for making me genuinely laugh. I am eagerly looking forward to reading your new book.

Sherri S.
Newport News, VA

And from suburban Chicago, here's another note I opened this week and which reminded me how universal our individual, everyday life voyages can be:

Dear John,
I just finished reading "The Longest Trip Home" in record time. It was like reading about my life and it touched me like no other book -- and I read a lot.

I grew up in Chicago in a Catholic family. I laughed out loud when you recounted the rituals of the mass, being an altar boy (I was a lector, but at that time women were still not allowed on the altar), and I especially related to the much dreaded task of going to confession!! As I read on, I couldn't believe the comparisons. I even worked in my church's rectory, too!

Your teen years were a lot like mine and I found myself glued to every page. ... The end of the book was no different. It touched me tremendously.

I could go on and on, but I just wanted to let you know how much your book affected me. I loaned it from the library, but plan on buying my own copy soon. It is one of those books I will treasure forever. Thank you for writing it.

P.S. Not to forget, I read Marley a few years ago. Loved it! Cried a lot! I still quote lines from that book that were so memorable to me.

Carol N.
Naperville, Ilinois

To everyone who has taken the time to write, thank you. I can't begin to respond to them all, but please know that I do read nearly every one -- and they bring me a lot of joy and satisfaction. Keep 'em coming!

An Evening at Lehigh

2009-02-23T11:48:00.000-08:00

In my blog entry last week I wrote about my plans to give a talk at Lehigh University, not far from my home, where I played squatter for many months, colonizing a corner of the university's beautiful Linderman Library to write "The Longest Trip Home."

Here is the story Lehigh put out after my visit last Thursday:

Marley and Me author recounts improbable tale of success

The author of the phenomenally successful Marley and Me franchise shared reflections on his writing, his unlikely commercial success and the challenges of memoir writing with an audience of nearly 400 in Packard Auditorium Thursday afternoon.

Writer John Grogan detailed the process that led to the book that was recently brought to life in a hit movie that featured Owen Wilson as Grogan, and Jennifer Aniston as his wife, Jenny, raising an impossibly misbehaved and spirited yellow Labrador retriever, Marley.

Grogan said he agreed to a request to come to Lehigh to talk about his books and memoir writing after spending months in Linderman Library working on his latest book, The Longest Trip Home .

“How could I refuse? I owe them one,” he wrote on his Web site.

“The library is a beautiful old stone structure that was recently renovated top to bottom,” Grogan wrote of Linderman. “With its soaring ceilings, stone fireplaces, wrought-iron balconies and leaded-glass windows, it looked like something out of a Harry Potter movie. More importantly, it had the kind of creative energy I was looking for. It was a place meant for quiet study, and yet I could be surrounded by students and teachers deep in their own work. Their energy was contagious.”

The Lehigh community returned the gratitude by offering the author a warm reception, with many attendees lining up for more than an hour afterward, waiting for an opportunity to have well-worn copies of Marley and Me and crisp new editions of The Longest Trip Home autographed by the author.

Grogan recalled how, as a newspaper columnist and magazine editor, he often thought about writing a book. “Every time I wrote about a major story in the news, or a big political scandal, I would think, maybe this is the book I’ll write,” he said.

But a column he wrote for the Philadelphia Inquirer about the loss of his beloved 13-year-old dog ultimately helped Grogan realize that the “book I was meant to write had been literally lying at my feet all along, and often chewing my shoelaces off.”

The column that Grogan wrote after Marley died drew incredible reader reaction. “It was easily 25 times more than I had for any other column I wrote, on a good day. I knew that I had somehow struck a chord with people and that’s when I started to write the book.”

Grogan, who wrote much of his latet memoir in Linderman Library, stayed for more than an hour after his talk, greeting fans and signing autographs.

The energetic and irascible puppy Grogan adopted shortly after he was married quickly grew into “100 pounds of pure, unbridled, neurotic energy….this enormous body with this little tiny brain.”

Marley thought of himself as more than a pet—“He was a firm believer in democracy. He felt he had an equal vote in our house.”—and became a catalyst in the Grogan marriage.

“He was the irritant forming the pearl, forcing us to confront things we wouldn’t have confronted otherwise,” Grogan said. “He taught us values. He helped us realize that that the important things are not the car you drive or your zip code, but your family and your relationships. And as we were going through this process, figuring this all out, he was challenging us and changing us. It was really only after he died that I saw what the real story was.”

Selling the book was another matter, he said. He sent his book proposal to 12 literary agents, and 11 of them immediately rejected it. One, he said, even took the time to phone him to tell him how much of her time he wasted.

“I hope she remembers me now,” he said to laughter from the audience.

His sense of vindication is well-earned. Marley and Me debuted on the bestseller list at number 10, before shooting to number one and remaining in the top spot for 23 weeks. In total, it spent 76 weeks on the bestseller list. The surprising success of the book led to a series of children’s books, another book for young readers, and eventually, a phone call from an executive at 20th Century Fox.

“My wife and I were at a book event, and got the call that they wanted to make the book into a movie, and I immediately said yes, with some trepidation,” he said. “I’d heard how these things get out of hand. I mean, they could have made Marley a chihuahua and me an…..arsonist.”

A two-hour dinner in Philadelphia with the movie producer assuaged his concerns. Soon, he and his wife found themselves on a Miami movie set, watching well-known actors recreate their life together.

“It doesn’t get much more out-of-body than watching Owen Wilson on a set, playing you,” he said. “And Jenny wasn’t too disappointed to be played by Jennifer Anniston. I mean, couldn’t they find someone better looking?”

Before his Lehigh appearance, Grogan had just returned from a trip to Europe, where he promoted his most recent book, The Longest Trip Home , a personal memoir that takes readers back to his Michigan childhood in a devoutly Catholic family and through his father’s devastating illness at the end of his life.

Before dissecting the painstaking process of picking through saved letters, columns and photographs to help jog his memory and recall pivotal moments in his life, Grogan shared a humorous passage from his book that illustrated the growing pains he felt in separating from his parents and building a new life with his wife.

In it, Grogan and his bride returned to his parent’s home, where his mother transformed his parents’ bedroom into a “honeymoon suite,” complete with fresh flowers, a turn-downed bed and chocolates on the pillows.

Still in place were the symbols of their faith: a large portrait of a smiling pope, vials of Holy Water, several crucifixes, a life-sized statue of the Virgin Mary, and a string of wooden rosary beads that looked like they were made for mythical lumberjack Paul Bunyan.

Grogan’s lecture was sponsored by the Friends of the Lehigh University Libraries. He was introduced by Heather Rodale ’74, ’76G, ’05P, who met Grogan when he was editor of Organic Gardening magazine, published by Rodale Inc., for three years.

--Linda Harbrecht

For the complete story with photos and hot links, please visit:

http://www3.lehigh.edu/News/V2news_story.asp?iNewsID=3132

Speaking at Lehigh University

2009-02-14T12:03:00.000-08:00

When it comes to writing from home, I'm a bit quirky. If there are family members in the house, I have a hard time concentrating, even if they make a point of leaving me alone in a room with the door closed. Just knowing they're pacing around on the other side of the house throws me off my game. If everyone clears out to give me time alone, the silence kills me. All I can think is, "Everyone's out having fun except me." That's a way of saying: I don't have a lot of luck writing from home. I began my new book, The Longest Trip Home, immediately after quitting my job as a columnist at The Philadelphia Inquirer in February 2007. Soon I realized I needed to find a place I could go to write, a place that was quiet but was not stultifying. A place with its own positive energy.

That's when I found Linderman Library at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, about a 20-minute drive from my house. The library is a beautiful old stone structure that was recently renovated top to bottom. With its soaring ceilings, stone fireplaces, wrought-iron balconies and leaded-glass windows, it looked like something out of a Harry Potter movie. More importantly, it had the kind of creative energy I was looking for. It was a place meant for quiet study, and yet I could be surrounded by students and teachers deep in their own work. Their energy was contagious. That's where I ended up writing most of The Longest Trip Home, sitting with my laptop at a big oak table. It suited me well, and I would stay for hours at a time, lost in my story.

So when Lehigh University asked me to come speak on campus about my books and memoir writing, how could I refuse? I owe them one. My talk will be at 4:30 p.m. this Thursday, February 19, in the Packard Lab auditorium on campus and is open free to the public. I'll sign books afterward for anyone who wants. So if you live in the area and want to come out, I'd love to say hi. The more the merrier.

Here is part of Lehigh University's announcement on its website at www.lehigh.edu (click on "News"):

John Grogan, the author of the phenomenally successful Marley and Me will speak on “Memoir, Truth and Writing” when he comes to Lehigh on Thursday, Feb. 19. Grogan’s talk, which is being presented by the Friends of the Lehigh University Libraries, will be at 4:30 p.m. in Packard Lab Auditorium, Room 101.

The talk is free and open to the public, and will be followed by a book signing.

The international best-selling Marley and Me was the inspiration for the recent movie that starred Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson and which topped the box office charts after it debuted during the 2008 holiday season. It also spawned a series of children’s books based on the lovable. but ill-behaved dog that changed Grogan’s life.

His new book, The Longest Trip Home, is another personal memoir, but with a unique Lehigh twist: Grogan wrote most of it in Linderman Library, which he acknowledges in the book.

That distinction, notes Sue Cady, “almost puts Linderman in the same class as the New York Public Library, which has a dedicated room for writers.” Cady, director of administration and planning for Library and Technology Services, is organizing Grogan’s visit to Lehigh.

The Longest Trip Home chronicles Grogan’s search for identity, intertwined with his devoutly Catholic upbringing in suburban Detroit. It draws on the same well-honed sense of humor and storytelling ability that was so evident in Marley and Me, and has been praised by the New York Times for its “deeply felt humanity and pathos.”

***

Snow Falling on London

2009-02-08T09:35:00.000-08:00

I'm writing this from Dublin at the halfway point of my United Kingdom/Ireland book tour to promote "The Longest Trip Home," and also the Marley & Me movie, which opens here on March 13. Of course, nothing is simple in life, and so when I arrived in London from the U.S. a week ago today, the snow soon began falling. It snowed and it snowed. Snowed like it had not done in London for, depending on whom you asked, 18 or 25 or 40 years. All evening and night it came down. The next morning when I opened the curtains of my hotel room, it was still falling, and the streets of London where an uninterrupted snowscape. Not a plow or salt truck was anywhere in sight.

The British react to snow with roughly the same level of calm that the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz reacts to fire. What back home in Philadelphia would have been the cause of some rush-hour tie-ups and a two-hour delay for the schools, here was a major national emergency. All the trains and buses were canceled, and the airports and schools closed. Even the Underground was mostly shut down -- and that's, well, underground. Without being too smug here, this snowbelt Michigan boy must confess to being pretty damn amused by the whole scene. Let's put it this way, it's a good thing a hostile foreign army did not pick this particular day to invade because they would have overrun the entire country in a matter of hours. But it was totally charming to see Londoners of all ages out playing in the snow, making snowmen and having snowball fights and sledding. For many children and teenagers, it was a first-time experience. The city was gorgeous. Just when I thought London could get no more beautiful, the snow proved me wrong.
My good friends at Hodder, my UK publisher, had a tightly choreographed publicity itinerary mapped out for me, but it quickly fell into disarray. Quite miraculously, my intrepid and can-do publicist, Kerry Hood, showed up at my hotel in an AWD car and got me to the BBC television studios in time for a live appearance. Good show, Kerry!

A screening of Marley & Me that evening was canceled, but somehow we made most of our other media and promotional commitments. The following evening, I did a talk and reading about an hour north of London and had a full house there despite the bad weather. It was my first time appearing live in front of a foreign audience, and the crowd made me feel very welcome, and even laughed at my bad jokes. Whew! Thank you to everyone who braved the elements to come out and make me feel so at home.

Since last Wednesday I have been in Dublin, where snow has continued to fall. But that's another story, and another blog entry.

Meanwhile, let me issue a correction: In my last entry, I stated that I was in London last year for the British Book Awards. Um, how time flies. It was actually two years ago, in March 2007.

I don't think anyone will blame me now if I sign off in order to go quaff a pint at J. Grogan's pub down the way. I'm not making it up! More later...