🇮🇹 3 Days Left for the Early-Bird Special, a Pup Date (get it?), a Publicity Class, & an Author Boot Camp 🥾

Come write with me in Tuscany ... or take a class on-line

This beautiful villa in Tuscany awaits us. October 10 to October 16, 2026.

I’ll be teaching and co-hosting a high-level writing retreat in Italy designed both for published authors and highly motivated aspiring writers.

🔥 We have just 2 rooms left in the villa and only 3 spaces left for writers staying off-site.

🕊️ Three (3) days left to get the early-bird special!

Contact me or visit the website for more information.

Now for the pup date. That is, a puppy update.

ICYMI, five weeks ago my sweet golden doodle, whose name is Serenity, gave birth to six avocados.

I mean puppies.

They. Are. Amazing.

They used to be larval.

Now they are actual factual canines.

They’re eating yummy delicious mushy meat with ground bones in it and healthy extras (like egg shells, duck fat, and bits of salmon); nursing like they’re dying of thirst as often as Serenity will let them; learning to play bow, growl and play fight; trying to get the hang of playing chase (Serenity’s favorite game but they don’t quite get it yet); and making ALL sorts of mischief.

Serenity’s hungry all the time. And leaving huge poops all over the yard. Plus she has terrible-smelling farts.

Can someone please tell me why her farts smell so bad?!

They literally get bigger by the hour—the puppies, not the farts. They seem to be growing in their sleep.

Here are a few photos of these rugrats precious divine creatures:

A few days ago I could carry them all in a laundry basket. Now they’re way too heavy to be transported thusly. Is thusly a word? Photo courtesy of graphic designer and retreat director Anna Bazarnaya.

Yesterday was my birthday. My son, a wildland firefighter, was home for his weekend. We celebrated by taking the puppies on their first-ever outing in the car. We drove to a small park with a creek about 7 minutes away. They played in the water. Serenity immediately plopped herself and her 10 distended teats in the water, then zoomed around the park, full of the joyful puppy energy she hasn’t had since she gave birth to the avocados five and a half weeks ago.

My friend Diane, who’s also my meditation teacher, enjoying a snuggle with one of our 5-week-old golden doodle puppies. Diane says she can’t stop thinking about them and she misses them when she doesn’t see them. They smell so sweet, all of them. Not yeasty like a newborn baby but alluring like a … newborn puppy. Puppies are close to the divine, Diane says. Do you think she’s right?

I love showing off these crazy creatures. I even invited the clerk from the grocery store down the street over to see them today. She stopped by after her shift.

“Sorry about the dirt all over the floor,” I said sheepishly. (The puppies had tracked in pine needles, dry grass, and grit. I’ve been sweeping 3 or 4 times a day. It’s a lost cause.)

Aimee guffawed.

“You have PUPPIES,” she said. “Don’t worry about your kitchen floor!”

In other news…

Taking care of these puppies is something of a full-time job but I’m also teaching an on-line publicity class for writers in August, which is part of an Author Publishing Boot Camp. You get a huge discount if you sign up for the entire boot camp and $100 off when other writers sign up using the link you send them.

This will be a motivating, inspiring, roll-up-your-sleeves-to-learn-the-nuts-and-bolts-of-publicity-and-all-things-publishing virtual classroom experience.

A lot more affordable than coming to write with me in Italy.

I recommend you do both. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

NB: to come to the Italy retreat, unless you attended the first one last March or you’re coming with someone who has, you must first complete an application and have a Zoom call with the retreat director. There are no prerequisites—but an eagerness to learn and a motivation to move your work forward—for the publicity class or the Author Boot Camp.

If you made it this far (did you?), thanks for reading.

Drop me a sign in the comments to let me know you were here. (Let’s play Pop Quiz to see if you’ve been paying attention. Here are some questions to answer in the comment section: When’s my birthday? Who’s my friend Diane? What’s happening in Tuscany? Is a pup date the same as a pub date? Are there any angel tickets available?)

About the author:

Jennifer Margulis is a strange person with an even weirder sense of humor is an award-winning author and science writer. Her last pair of glasses snapped in two but she finally got new ones (pictured below). She has taught postcolonial literature to non-traditional students in inner-city Atlanta, worked on a child survival campaign for Africare in Niger, West Africa, and appeared live on prime-time television in Paris, France. One of her books, co-written with retired pediatrician Paul Thomas, M.D., has sold upwards of 250,000 copies. Another of her books is gifted to every new patient thinking about getting pregnant or expecting a baby who joins Cammy Benton, M.D.’s integrative medical practice in Huntersville, North Carolina. You can read more about her and see some very outdated photos from back when she had not one but TWO eyes and a lot less gray hair at her website, www.JenniferMargulis.net.