This month’s Oxygen magazine features my story on healthy grilling, along with three recipes I developed. The food stylist did a fabulous job making my dishes look yummy. (I never get photogenic grill marks on my chicken breasts, let me tell you.)

Later this fall, a new magazine called Clean Eating will hit the stands, and I’ve been commissioned to develop 13 recipes for the first quarterly issue.

I’ve got a couple pieces scheduled for the Boston Globe food section this month, a short piece running in the “short orders” section on June 6, and another longer piece scheduled for June 13, along with two recipes I developed. I’m also reporting on a couple other pieces for them this month: details and links TK.

The Renegade Writer’s Query Letters That Rock is doing well — in fact, we just got a royalty statement and we’re pretty close to earning out our advance. Yay royalty checks!

That’s all for now, folks.

My feature on only children is in the February 2007 issue of Parenting. And check out the February issue of Oxygen magazine … I did a recipe makeover for hummus. Yum!

The Renegade Writer’s Query Letters That Rock got a nice review in the December 2006 issue of The Writer. Reviewers Erica Dreifus and Chuck Leddy wrote, “In this concise follow-up to The Renegade Writer, successful freelancers and top editors explain how to get more work at higher rates of pay. The book contains numerous examples of real-world queries and querying strategies that led to great freelance assignments. An essential book for journalists regularly making ‘pitches.’ ”

Well, it looks like my Parenting feature on only children got bumped this month. It happens. But I did write the short piece on baby constipation.

Oxygen magazine published five of my recipes in a special issue called Clean Eating. (Gorgeous photographs!) I’ll post the PDFs on my clips page next week.

I’ve long been fascinated by quince, so it was a joy to write about this queer little fruit for the Boston Globe‘s food section on November 8.

And today Federal Express arrived with a case of Query Letters That Rock from my publisher. I’m hoping similar cases arrived at amazon.com and other book distributors today. Amazon’s saying the book won’t ship for 4 to 6 weeks, but that’s bound to be corrected this week.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I’ll be speaking about crafting the perfect query letter with my co-author, Linda Formichelli, on Thursday, November 9, 2006 at 7:00 p.m. at Barnes & Noble in Warwick, Rhode Island. We’ll also be signing our brand new book, The Renegade Writer’s Query Letters That Rock, which is coming out this week. While we have a prepared talk about how to put your best foot forward with editors, we’ll also have plenty of time to answer your writing-related questions.

Directions here. I look forward to meeting you!

You want to go from a 9-5 job to full-time freelance. Or you wonder how you can build your writing career while taking care of your kids at home. Or you want to go from health writer to travel writer or break into a certain publication, but have had no luck so far. What you really want is a career makeover!

Enter Diana Burrell and Linda Formichelli, authors of The Renegade Writer and The Renegade Writer’s Query Letters That Rock, and our crack team of makeover artists that includes marketing experts, literary agents, professional organizers, life coaches, image consultants, and book and magazine editors. We’ll work with three lucky blog readers and give them career makeovers. If you’re selected, we’ll blog about the challenges you’re facing and ask our experts to share their professional advice on how you can turn your freelance dreams into a reality. Your job will be to follow their advice and report back to our loyal bloggers on your progress. We’re going to blog about what our experts say about you, so we’ll be exceedingly choosy who we pick — we want three freelance writers who are highly motivated to make this project a success.

For more information, please visit the Renegade Writer Blog: http://therenegadewriter.com/?p=86.

I’ve got a few things coming out this month.

The October 2006 issue of Oxygen magazine has two recipes I developed for a story on healthy pizzas (which happens to be written by my Renegade Writer co-author Linda Formichelli!)

Also in October, I’ve got a feature in Parenting that asks “How safe is your childcare provider?” And in the Parenting‘s November issue, you’ll find my story on the rewards and challenges of having an only child.

In the fall 2006 Sam’s Club Source/childcare edition, you’ll find my story on how schools can provide better customer service to parents.

But the big story is November 3 — the release of The Renegade Writer’s Query Letters That Rock. Preorder it today at amazon.com!