Organized crime! Illicit booze! The beach! In this exclusive excerpt from her new novel ‘Last Dance on the Starlight Pier,’ Sarah Bird explores Galveston at the end of the twenties, a setting she calls “a gift to a novelist.”
He wasn’t always kind, but he was kind to me in ways that mattered a great deal.
How I ended up spending my panel appearance at the Texas Book Festival lying on a bench and drooling on the floor.
Developing my twisted sense of humor was a family affair.
When Dallas’s very own Marvin Lee Aday—that’s Meat Loaf to you—optioned one of my screenplays, he didn’t just offer me a glimpse of paradise by the dashboard lights. He also helped me write a novel.
In an excerpt from Sarah Bird's new novel The Gap Year, a single mom prepares to send her only daughter off to college. Guess which one is a wreck.
Help! My voice recognition software is making me save airy funnel things witch nobody wonder Stans.
Am I the only person who has always wanted to get picked for jury duty?
Turns out being a test subject for a dermatology research lab is not the best thing that could ever happen to a girl.
It was the breast of times, it was the worst of times.
Or, how I stopped worrying and learned to love my formerly ugly, recently hip, linoleum-clad, mid-mod house.
All my friends are going to be status updates.
Every female on earth believes she can dance. My big break came when a Bob Hope wannabe with shiny suits and a pinkie ring took me on as his sidekick for a two-week tour of Tokyo.
My trashy, sordid, steamy, decently paid turn as a writer for the pulps.
Eating high on the hog when you’re low on the totem pole.
My only son is leaving for college, and I’m weeping through Mamma Mia! Lord help me.
Introducing the Dean of Doors, in all his doorificence.
Putting the fun in fun bags! The mommy in mommy muffins! (I could go on.)
In this excerpt from writer-at-large Sarah Bird’s new novel, How Perfect Is That, the realities of life in early twenty-first century Austin become all-too-clear to a defrocked socialite.
Hey, captains of industry: If Dr. Evil can have a Mini Me, why can’t the rest of us?
My Petco encounter with a shampoo celebrity.
Greetings from Snowbirdlandia! Wish you were old.
One year (okay, two days) of livin’ la vida locavore.
Suburban mom seeks motorcycle jacket.
Let’s go to the science fair!
I subject myself to yet another seminal Texas experience: the hunt.
My instructor is a Flabbo Nazi, and other tales from the aerobics wars.
Bill Zedler’s plan to keep me married—forever.
Getting in touch with my inner bargain hunter.
My short, happy life as a poker player.
The absurdity of the college visit (and why you should leave your kids at home).
Texas versus Iowa State versus me.
The day I slithered from movie theater to movie theater.
Nora Ephron’s wattle, and Ann Richards’s, and mine.
Teen Boy’s sugar-free education.
I’m a slob. There, I said it. Now don’t mess with me.
Teen Boy gets behind the wheel.
A few sore points about HMOs— and two thumbs-up for the acupuncturist.
My dancing feet. And, hopefully, yours.
There is a world where the kings of small African countries send cases of Dom Pérignon as hostess gifts, where you get to choose between the white-striped chinchilla and the violet beaver shearling poncho. Who let me in?
Ladies’ fashion is nothing if not a fantasy inside an illusion wrapped in a thong. Every season, there is a new “look,” a new “trend,” a new “paranoid schizophrenic thought disorder.” And then there are returns.
Living proof that moms shouldn’t take the SAT.
The quest for the perfect author photo (or at least one I can live with).
My short, happy life as a Catholic schoolgirl.
That jerkwad talking on his phone in the movie theater.
Man, do I hate book clubs.
My family unplugs (for a few days).
What high school is really like.
It can be achieved—if you have a surprise wedding.
When did I stop being cool?
