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Boots!

Where would we be without boos?

Where would we be without good?

No, Tenderberg.

It's a rhetorical question, sir.

But where would we need without books?

From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Michael Silverblatt. This is Bookworm.

You know, I don't talk to many people about their first published writing. Why? Because it takes a while before a writer knows how to talk

about his or her work. But when I read the book we're talking about today, which is called

Belliop, it's a book of stories by a writer named Rita Bullwinkle.

It's published by, relatively speaking, a young press called A Strange Object.

No rule should be left unbroken, including the rule that Bookworm does only second or third books. And so my guest today is Rita Bullwinkle. The book is

called Belly Up. I recommend it very highly. I guess I have to ask, how do you have the good

fortune to be named Bullwinkle? It's a very strange last name, and no one in my family really knows.

It's a strange name for me to carry as well, because I spent a lot of time with my mother's family growing up,

who are all Italian, and they're

Lombardies. But I've recently learned that Bole-Incle's Dutch, and maybe means corner of some kind,

but my father's father always just identified as Irish, which makes absolutely no sense at all.

His name was August Bullwinkle and he was born and raised in San Francisco and grew up in the Mission,

which is now where I spend a lot of my time.

Now, of course those of us who are not members of your family grew up with Bollwinkle.

...