Zark Street: Plumber Dilemmas: a Beat Street Giveaway & Fool's Errand 99 cent sale

In the early years of my marriage, I found a how-to book for do-it-yourself plumbing and excitedly gave it to my newlywed husband. My hope was that he'd open it and read voraciously about plumbing.

I have no idea why I was thinking this, except I'm the kind of person who believes wholeheartedly in magical thinking. Maybe that's because I write fiction, but it rarely (if ever) works in real life.

Nonetheless, I wish my wish had happened when I look at the bathroom sink these days. It's now at the point where you have to wiggle it to one side or another to shut off. If you don't, it will drip, drip, drip forever. Husband has told me in no uncertain terms he does not know how to fix it, though he assumes it needs a washer.

That means inviting a plumber to our house, in the middle of a pandemic, in the middle of a surge of said pandemic, in the middle of winter. It means trying to open the window while the plumber is working in the bathroom, which probably won't be much fun for the plumber. Or me, if he/she leaves.

While I'm thinking of this, I start thinking about my Ruby character in The Beat on Ruby's Street, who describes drip, drip, drip of her bathroom faucet when a social worker is visiting her home. I started writing about Ruby, an 11-year-old growing up in 1958 as the child of Beat Generation artists, because her life was the one I wanted to live--drippy faucet and all.

I was the child of suburban parents in 1970s New Jersey who had very little interest in artists or bohemia. I think my choice to become first an actor and then a writer was not what they wanted for me, they did learn to tolerate it. But for me, trips to Greenwich Village were the equivalent of my heaven--and meeting a real, live artist and his wife at the same age Ruby did sealed the deal.

I even remember the artists' names--Peter and Carol. He painted and she danced and I was in love with both of them, or at least their lives (which were also in suburban New Jersey, by the way). I think that was the start of Ruby's journey, or at least, of my journey in writing about Ruby.

This week, I'm offering you the chance to read The Beat on Ruby's Street for free, and to get Fool's Errand (part two of the Beat Street series) on sale for 99 cents. Quick summaries are below - but you have only a week to take advantage of these offers, which start Saturday January 16 and end Saturday January 23. Click on the pheading link below for the giveaway:

The Beat on Ruby's Street Giveaway:

Gold Category Winner for the Wishing Shelf Award and Finalist in the 2019 Minnesota Author Project!

The last thing eleven-year-old Ruby Tabeata expected to happen on her way to a Jack Kerouac reading was to be hauled to the police station.

It’s 1958 and Ruby is the opposite of a 1950s stereotype: fierce, funny and strong willed, she is only just starting to chart her course in a family of Beat Generation artists in Greenwich Village, New York. Ruby dreams of meeting famous poets while becoming one herself; instead, she’s accused of trying to steal fruit from a local vendor and is forced to live in a children’s home.

Join Ruby on her journey as she finds unexpected friendships, the courage to rebel against unjust authority and the healing power of art in this unique historical middle grade novel.

Fool's Errand picks up where book one leaves off -- when Ruby’s best friend Sophie and her mom Annie flee so Annie won’t be forced to testify in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee. The Committee persecuted countless artists for decades due to misplaced fear and hysteria.