Welcome to my world. Please share your paintbrushes.

Writers are a lot like small children. We make things, we hold them up to the world and we say, 'Look what I did.' Look at my acutely observed sketch of the man and the house, look at my 3-D Peter Rabbit diorama, look at this fingerpainting, frantic and green. In response, we hope, the world says 'Brilliant.' You are a brilliant dioramist, fingerpainter, student of the stick figure. Sometimes, the world is negligent and looks past us to catch the last few minutes of whatever flashes on the television screen. Other times, the world is just plain mean.

And so, it is with total vulnerability that I present my first full-length published work. It's something between a self-portrait and a crazy construction paper hand-print turkey.

It's called The Prayer Room and it is a novel, as the jacket helpfully points out. People have said some nice things about it, and I'm guessing that someone out there will say something mean. I encourage you to make up your own mind. You can read an excerpt here: http://www.goodreads.com/story/show/34650.Pilgrims_and_Indians

Or buy a copy here (available as of February 7, 2009): http://www.amazon.com/Prayer-Room-Shanthi-Sekaran/dp/1596923210/ref=sr_11_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1233679789&sr=11-1

Readings in the Bay Area:

1. February 4

Book Passage

Corte Madera, Marin

7 pm

2. February 11

Books, Inc.

Opera Plaza

San Francisco

7 pm

3. February 25

Pegasus Fine Books

Shattuck Avenue

Downtown Berkeley

7:30 pm