Home for the holidays: Oscar winner and box-office favorite Julia Roberts is back at the ranch. Over the holidays, she even drove down to Santa Fe and dropped in at Kakawa Chocolate Factory.

Back home in Taos, the busy mother of three and hubby Danny were spotted out and about several times. She was seen taking the twins, Hazel and Phinnaeus, and the youngest, Henry, to a local playground before grabbing pizza for lunch. Then the family went out for breakfast the next day. Photos of the outings were snapped and sent around the world — which is a bit unusual, because paparazzi are rare on Roberts' home turf.

She has long made a habit of spending time at her ranch outside of Taos over the holidays. This time, it's a good chance to rest up so she's ready to do publicity for her latest, Duplicity. In it, she co-stars with Clive Owens as a pair of corporate spies. The film is scheduled for release in March.


A week ago Friday, that was Ali MacGraw eating at India Palace downtown — MacGraw and a bunch of Buddhist monks.


No rest for action/comedy star Jackie Chan. New Mexico filming for The Spy Next Door has wrapped, and Chan is back in China getting ready to film a new movie starting this month. Watch for the movie sometime this year.


Actor and New Mexico rancher Patrick Swayze went public about his struggles with pancreatic cancer in a Barbara Walters special last week — his first TV interview since being diagnosed. The 56-year-old actor admitted the odds were stacked against him. "I'd say five years is pretty wishful thinking. Two years seems likely if you're going to believe statistics. I want to last until they find a cure, which means I'd better get a fire under it." Despite the odds, Swayze said, "I keep dreaming of a future, a future with a long and healthy life. Not lived in the shadow of cancer, but in the light."


Santa Fe's Johnny D. Boggs is one of more than 50 writers providing advice and insight in The 101 Habits of Highly Successful Novelists: Insider Secrets from Top Writers, written by mystery writer Andrew McAleer and published by Adams Media of Avon, Mass. Some of his tips include:

• On trusting your instincts: "My wife reads each chapter and edits them, offering suggestions, correcting mistakes, and telling me when I'm a complete idiot."

• On having a driving reason to write. "It's called a mortgage."

• On finding a place to write: "I typically write out of my home office, but I've also written drafts in my car, on Amtrak, in an airport, on an airplane, and in a hotel room."

Boggs, whose books include Killstraight, Northfield and Camp Ford, is president of Western Writers of America and a three-time Spur Award-winner. Others quoted include crime novelist Elmore Leonard, mystery writers Mary Higgins Clark and Lawrence Block, romance novelist Kat Martin and several other New York Times best-selling authors.

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