I’m sure you can figure it out.  The title reads, ‘I love Paris’.  By now you will have figured out that I was on the road again, once again traveling, this time in Paris.  I joined friends, who were in transit via the Queen Mary 2, to celebrate my birthday.  It was a gift to myself.  Many of you will also recall that I love to travel.  I don’t know exactly where the wonderlust came from, but I can say it started at a very young age...about the time I learned to read and discovered that reading sent my imagination on wonderful adventures to foreign places.  Or perhaps it was the first summer I traveled with my brother and grandmother to spend two weeks in central Vermont.  Whatever the root cause, I adore traveling and experiencing other cultures around the world.

Since becoming a writer much of my travel has been for research, as when I spent a week in Venice, Italy and ultimately wrote The Next Best Thing.  Or when I incorporated the many times I’ve been to L.A., and the people I’ve met there who are involved in the entertainment industry for Celluloid Memories. Or even visiting the southern city of Memphis, which will be featured in a book next summer.  None of my adventures are ever wasted, and doing extensive research doesn’t mean I don’t have fun!

Paris is known as the City of Lights, as when the sun sets and dozens of bridges, historic buildings, museums, and the Eiffel Tower are lit up, and displayed in magical brightness.  The city is old, and filled with history, charm, joie de vivre, and terrific food and wine.  I did a tour of the Veuve Clicquot champagne house in Reims...about 90 minutes outside of Paris, which meant renting a car.  I was warned that the Parisians were aggressive, fast drivers. No problem.  It was just like driving in New York!  I was also told that Parisians didn’t like Americans, and resented our inability to speak their language.  Aue contraire!  The Parisians are amazingly friendly, gracious...and they speak very good English.  While not as diverse as New York, there are Africans, Chinese, Middle Eastern, Spanish, etc. among its citizens.  They have added to the rich experience of being in Paris with their foods and shops, and lively communities.

I was last in Paris as a nineteen years old undergraduate art major.  At the time, during a Christmas break with several classmates, I saw for the first time classic work like the Mona Lisa, Venus De Milo, and Winged Victory, previously only see in photographs in Jansen’s Art History. 

Being in Paris made me want to return home and take up my art again, long ago put aside when I began writing and publishing.  I wanted to see again every movie ever set in Paris to see how much of the backdrop to the story I recognized from my own travel there.  The trip made me want to study the language until I can converse in it.  It’s a beautiful language.  Paris made me want to fall in love!  Never have a seen so many couples openly displaying their affection by holding hands, kissing in the shadows of lamp- posts and stairwells, hugging and nuzzling, and oblivious to everything else around them.

I took lots of pictures, and notes.  Not only for the memories, but for the future stories that are sure to be generated by my visit.

From left to right: journalist and photographer Roberta Fineberg, me, and freelance writer for PW, Diane Patrick, at the reception for the African American  Conference on Thursday before BEA.	Me and Sudanese supermodel Alek Wek at the reception for the African American conference at BEA.
Nikia Johnson, Regional Director for Multicultural Marketing at St. Jude  Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, and me, at the Harlequin booth during BEA in May.	From left to right: Me, Marcia King-Gambl, agent Amy Moore-Benson, Nikia  Johnson of St. Jude, and NYTimes suspense author Carla Neggars, lunching at Bryant Park Grill in New York during BEA.
Me and Linda Gill, General Manager for Kimani Press/Harlequin at the Harlequin party during BEA in May.	Me and Marcia King-Gamble signing together for Kimani Press at the Harlequin booth during BEA.
The soap actress Victoria Rowell (The Young and the Restless (and me at her signing during BEA.	At my signing for CELLULOID MEMORIES at the Harlequin booth during BEA.
French lovers embracing, oblivious to the rain. What a perfect moment to capture for a writer of love stories.	On the road outside of Reims, France, where champagne is produced.  I took a tour of the House of Veuve Clicquot, followed by a tasting of the bubbly!
African and Asia market in an ethnic community in Paris.	Me and Dr. Neil Tyson, Astrophysicist and Director of the Rose Center at the American Museum of Natural History, during the Annual Isaac Asimov Lecture in the spring. Dr. Tyson was  also one of my former supervisors at the museum.