Many thanks to Amy S. Foster, the author of The Rift Rising trilogy, for sharing the young adult books that were influential in her childhood.
Like many latch key kids of the 80’s (with very limited cable-only 20 channels!) books were a constant companion for me. From the very beginning, I was a Judy Blume junkie. The marvelous thing about Judy’s writing is that I quite literally grew up with it. From Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing to Superfudge when I was seven to Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret and Deenie when I was thirteen and then finally, the racy stuff- Forever when I was sixteen. At the time, I just felt like it was a given that Judy was there, ushering me through all the passages of my life. It seemed natural.
Now that I’m a published author, I can look at the breadth and scope of her work and realize how truly astonishing this feat is. She writes just as poignantly for an elementary age student as she does for adults. Needless to say, I’m a big fan.
When I wasn’t reading Judy, I was reading books that took me away from what felt like a very dreary (and certainly fairly solitary) life in Toronto. Without any shame in my game, I freely admit to having almost every volume of the Choose Your Own Adventure series. Last week, Ava Duverney’s trailer for A Wrinkle In Time dropped and I actually wept. I was right back to being eleven years old again and just like when I read the books, Madeline L’Engle’s world building took my breath away.
People often ask me why I write YA novels. I don’t think it’s something you can really understand unless, like me, reading was a vital component of your childhood. Books helped me understand a lot of what my immature brain couldn’t get on its own. Reading helped me process the big ticket items (death, sex, divorce) which I compartmentalized. A good writer’s take on one or more of these issues would break them out of the vault I had sequestered them in and give me a chance to deal with them via somebody else.
So, when people ask me ‘what books did you read when you were a kid?’, I kind of think the better question is, ‘what books didn’t I read”.
Thursday, July 27, 2017
author guest post: amy s. foster
Saturday, August 20, 2016
author guest post: bruce desilva
What’s a Mystery Writer to Do When His Hero Loses His Crime-Fighting Job?
A lot of mystery story heroes used to do something else for a living.
For example, Robert B. Parker’s series character, Jesse Stone, was a professional baseball player before he became a police chief. Ace Atkins’s Quinn Colson was a soldier before he became a small-town lawman. Lawrence Block’s Matt Scudder was a cop before he became a private eye.
But what nearly all of the job-changing heroes of crime fiction have in common is that their old jobs are part of their backstories. They already had begun their new lives when their creators started telling their stories.
The lone exception I can think of (although with tens of thousands of mystery novels out there, there must be a few more) is Bill Loehfelm’s Maureen Coughlin, who was introduced as a Staten Island barmaid in The Devil She Knows and then morphed into a rookie New Orleans cop in The Devil in Her Way.
With a dearth of role models for inspiration, I wasn’t sure what to do when Liam Mulligan, the hero of my hard-boiled crime novels, got fired from his investigative reporter job at the fictional Providence (R.I.) Dispatch in A Scourge of Vipers, the fourth book in the Edgar Award-winning series. But I had to figure out something. I owed my publisher another Mulligan yarn.
I hadn’t planned on Mulligan getting fired. Fact is, when I write I don’t plan anything. I just set my characters in motion to see what will happen. But looking back on it, I can see that Mulligan’s firing was inevitable.
When I first made him an investigative reporter at a struggling metropolitan newspaper, I had my reasons. I’d been an investigative reporter in Providence, too, and they say you should write what you know. I liked the fact that reporters can’t bring people in for questioning, get court orders to search houses and businesses, or compel people to testify, because it sometimes makes their jobs more challenging than police work. I liked it that unlike private eyes, reporters are supposed to adhere to a strict code of ethical conduct.
But the main reason is that I wanted my novels to be not only suspenseful and entertaining but to also address a serious social issue.
American newspapers are circling the drain. In recent years, many have shut down, and economic changes brought on by the internet have forced virtually all of them to slash the size of their news staffs. Soon, many more will be gone. This is a slow-motion disaster for the American democracy, because there is nothing on the horizon to replace newspapers as honest and comprehensive brokers of news and information.
It has always bothered me that in the popular culture, journalists are usually portrayed as vultures. The truth is that the vast majority of them are hard-working, low-paid professionals dedicated to the difficult task of reporting the truth in a world full of powerful people who lie like you and I breathe.
So it was my hope that as my readers followed the skill and dedication with which Mulligan worked, they would gain a greater appreciation what is being lost as newspapers fade into history. I strove to make the first four novels in this series both compelling yarns and a lyrical epitaph for the business that Mulligan and I both love.
With each novel in the series, The Dispatch’s finances became increasingly desperate, more and more of Mulligan’s colleagues got laid off, and his own job security grew perilous. As I was completing A Scourge of Vipers, it became evident that his newspaper career was coming to an end.
The Dispatch had been sold off to a predatory conglomerate that had no interest in investigative stories and saw news as something to fill the spaces between the ads. And Mulligan’s squabbles with his editors were making life untenable for both of them. By the time that novel ended, Mulligan had been fired in spectacular fashion, accused of a journalism ethics violation that he had not committed.
So as I sat down to write The Dread Line, I needed to invent a new life for him.
Mulligan had always said that he was a newspaper man because he could never be good at anything else. As he saw it, being a journalist was his calling, like the priesthood but without the sex. He figured that if he couldn’t be a reporter, he’d end up selling pencils out of a tin cup.
But as I looked back over Mulligan’s life, I realized he did have a few possibilities. Edward Mason, his young colleague at the paper, was leaving to start a local news website and wanted Mulligan to come with him. But the new business wasn’t making any money yet, so the job didn’t pay much. Mulligan’s pal Bruce McCracken ran a private detective agency, so perhaps Mulligan could do some work for him. And Mulligan’s mobbed-up friend Dominic Zerilli was retiring to Florida and needed somebody to run his bookmaking business.
What should Mulligan do? How about all three?
The opening of The Dread Line finds him no longer living in his squalid apartment in a run-down Providence triple-decker. Instead, he’s keeping house in a five-room, water-front cottage on Conanicut Island at the entrance to Narragansett Bay. He’s getting some part-time work from McCracken, although it rarely pays enough to cover his bills. He’s picking up beer and cigar money freelancing for the news website. And he’s running the bookmaking business with help from his thuggish pal, Joseph DeLucca.
For the first time in his life, he’s got a little money in his pocket at the end of the month. After twenty years as a reporter, he feels odd living above the poverty line—and even odder to be a lawbreaker. But as Mulligan puts it, he’s not breaking any important ones.
And of course, he still manages to find trouble when it isn’t finding him.
He’s feuding with a feral tomcat that keeps leaving its kills on his porch. He’s obsessed with a baffling jewelry heist. And he’s enraged that someone on the island is torturing animals. All of this keeps distracting him from a big case that needs his attention.
The New England Patriots, still shaken by a series of murder charges against one of their star players (true story) have hired Mulligan and McCracken (not a true story) to investigate the background of a college star they are thinking of drafting. At first, the job seems routine, but as soon as they begin asking questions, they get push-back. The player has something to hide, and someone is willing to kill to make sure it remains secret.
Mulligan may not be an investigative reporter anymore, but he’s still in the crime-busting business.
Bruce DeSilva’s crime fiction has won the Edgar and Macavity Awards; been listed as a finalist for the Shamus, Anthony, and Barry Awards; and has been published in ten foreign languages. His short stories have appeared in Akashic Press's award-winning noir anthologies, and his book reviews for The Associated Press appear in hundreds of publications. Previously, he was a journalist for forty years, most recently as writing coach world-wide for the AP, editing stories that won nearly every major journalism prize including the Pulitzer. His new novel, The Dread Line, is the fifth in his series featuring Liam Mulligan. You can visit his website here: http://brucedesilva.com/
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
author guest post: richard cerasani
Many thanks to the author of Love Letters from Mount Rushmore, Richard Cerasani, for sharing the story of his discovery of the trunk filled with the letters that inspired his new book!
Not long ago, one single event changed me from an actor to an author. It all began with the discovery of a trunk in my parents’ attic, on a cold, autumn day in 2005. My mother, Mary Cerasani, had recently passed away, just a month shy of her 94th birthday.
Mother had been a school teacher her entire life. Her first love, after her family, was traveling all over the world to learn about other countries and cultures. She was always bringing home little artifacts from her travels with which to teach her family, friends and students. It was just part of her routine. So she designated the attic as her own private depot, where she could accumulate and preserve her treasures.
The attic was visited very infrequently because it was not easily accessible (entering the attic involved a hanging rope and pull-down ladder stairs). My intention that fall day was not to organize my mother’s belongings, but rather to retrieve a certain Daughters of the American Revolution flag that I knew had been in her possession. I thought it would look nice in a shadow box, hanging next to my other Revolutionary and Civil War memorabilia.
As soon as I entered the dark, dusty attic, I was greeted with a collection of boxes and bags that were in a state of complete disarray. It was just as it had always been. An old steamer trunk in the corner caught my eye. Its leather straps were broken and its big metal latch was rusty – and unlocked. I slowly opened the heavy metal cover and looked upon an intriguing collection of bundles and sealed shoeboxes.
For the next couple hours, I felt like a character from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Mother’s trunk was filled with magic and memories, unparalleled by anything I had ever come across. Among the items that caught my eye were plaster busts of four presidents – George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt. I immediately realized these castings were the ones my father, a sculptor, had made while working for Gutzon Borglum at Mount Rushmore. I felt as though I had struck gold!
In the midst of all this excitement, I was reminded of the biggest regret of my childhood. After my teacher found out that my dad was an artist who had worked as a sculptor on Mount Rushmore, she asked me to bring in some items for “Show and Tell.” My presentation to the class contained the original pictures of my dad climbing over George Washington’s face, newspaper clippings, and other memorabilia. I became an instant celebrity in my class.
But all those original pictures and newspaper clippings mysteriously disappeared. The guilt and shame I felt over the loss was incalculable. Worst of all, what would my father say? It haunted me for years, particularly anytime Mount Rushmore was shown in a documentary or commercial. I had lost all record of my father’s work at a grade school “Show and Tell.”
You can imagine my pleasure upon finding a little brown envelope marked “negatives,” along with the other relics of the steamer trunk, filled with images of Dad climbing over the presidents’ faces and up onto their noses. After all these decades, my guilt had finally been absolved!
The trunk also revealed hundreds and hundreds of old letters, bundled together by twine. They were love letters between my father and my mother, written over the period of six months that Dad worked on the mountain in South Dakota, and mother stayed home in Avon, NY taking care of an infant and a toddler.
Both of my parents were gone by that time, but here in this trunk, I could piece together their story through diaries, newspaper articles, and letters. Suddenly, a time in their history to which I had never paid much thought materialized before my eyes. I saw my parents – young, in love, and willing to do anything to keep our family together.
As I delved further into my parents’ story, I realized how meaningful it truly is. Theirs is a story not just of love, but of the struggles in creating the “shining tribute to Democracy.” It is a story that perfectly embodies what it was like to struggle through The Great Depression, surviving on love, family and art.
Thursday, May 21, 2015
author guest post: pete hautman
Thursday, April 9, 2015
author guest post: bruce desilva
The plot of Bruce DeSilva's excellent A Scourge of Vipers involves the world of sports gambling. Here, DeSilva shares his thoughts on the subject.
Gambling on sports, the popular but mostly illegal pastime that forms the backdrop for my new novel, A Scourge of Vipers, is very much a part of the national conversation right now.
For one thing, the NCAA’s Annual March Madness basketball tournament, which just drew to a close, generates more gambling, both in the number of bettors and the total dollars wagered, than any other sporting event including the Super Bowl.
For another thing, a number of governors, with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie leading the way, are seeking to legalize sports betting so they can ease their states’ budget crises by taxing the revenue.
When Christie, a Republican who wants to be the next president of the United States, first broached the idea a couple of years ago, it struck me right off that the subject had the makings of a rip-roaring crime novel.
It also struck me that any governor who wants to legalize sports betting has a lot of obstacles to overcome.
For one thing, most states have vice laws prohibiting gambling on sporting events—although they gleefully rake in millions of dollars selling chump scratch tickets and lottery numbers games to the suckers. For another thing, federal law makes sports gambling illegal in every state but Nevada and three others that were grandfathered in. So to legalize it, governors would have to repeal their own state laws and then get a paralyzed U.S. Congress to overturn the federal law. Either that or successfully challenge the federal prohibition in the courts.
None of this is likely to be easy, because legalization has powerful enemies with very deep pockets.
The NCAA is dead-set against it, threatening to pull March Madness regionals from states that make sports gambling legal. The major professional sports leagues have been vehemently opposed for years (although the NBA commissioner softened his stance recently.) Las Vegas casinos are eager to maintain their near-monopoly on legal sports betting. And organized crime organizations are aghast at the prospect of having their bookmaking revenues dry up.
On the other side of the issue are a number of public-employee unions who view taxing sports gambling as a way to save their threatened pension systems. And some casino operators outside of Las Vegas are salivating at the chance to jump into the legal sports gambling business.
The amount of money at stake is enormous. About eighty-five percent of us bet on sports at least occasionally. And the total wagered, most of it illegally, is estimated at three hundred and eighty billion dollars a year.
To put it in perspective, that’s six times greater than the annual budget of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
No wonder, then, that all hell breaks loose in A Scourge of Vipers when Rhode Island’s fictional governor, a former religious sister known as Attila the Nun because of her take-no-prisoners style of politics, proposes legalizing sports gambling to ease her state’s budget problems.
Forces with a lot to lose—or gain—if she gets her way immediately flood the state with millions of dollars to buy the votes of the state’s politicians. Some of them do it with big campaign donations. Others aren’t above slipping envelopes into politicians’ pockets. All this in a little state where the average campaign for the state legislature costs just ten thousand dollars.
When a powerful state senator turns up dead, a mobbed-up bagman gets shot down, and his cash-stuffed briefcase goes missing, my protagonist Liam Mulligan, an investigative reporter for a dying Providence, R.I., newspaper, wants to dig into the story. But the bottom-feeding conglomerate that recently bought the once proud daily has no interest in serious public-interest reporting. So Mulligan, who’s never been inclined to follow orders, goes rogue, investigating on his own. Soon, he finds himself the target of shadowy forces that seek to derail him by threatening his reputation, his career, and even his life.
This topic gave me the opportunity not only to write a suspenseful mystery but also to explore two subjects that have long interested me—the corrupting influence of big money on politics and the hypocrisy surrounding sports gambling.
The former—made immeasurably worse since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision—is well understood; but the latter is a less-familiar subject to most of us.
Opponents of legalization have been spewing the same talking points for years:
Legalizing sports betting would irreparably harm the integrity of college and professional games, creating a climate of suspicion about controversial plays, officiating calls, and players’ performances.
It would expand the amount of money wagered on sports, increasing the temptation to fix results.
It would infringe on the leagues’ intellectual property, encouraging gambling operations to use proprietary information including statistics, injury reports, and team logos.
Much of that sounds reasonable unless you acknowledge the fact that billions are already wagered on sports. Gamblers don’t need any more incentive than they already have to fix games.
In fact, legalization would be more likely to deter game-fixing than to encourage it because the amount wagered would be public knowledge. The Arizona State point-shaving scandal some years back was exposed because somebody bet an obscene amount of money legally in Las Vegas, and alarm bells went off.
Gambling is one of the main reasons a lot of people follow sports. The NCAA and the professional sports leagues know this, and they profit handsomely from the filled arenas and the TV contracts all that interest generates. That’s why they don’t object when sports writers cite point spreads.
Gambling, like any vice, is harmful to individuals who engage in it to excess, but is sports gambling any more immoral than state lotteries and Indian casinos? And illegal or not, most Americans bet on sports anyway.
Keeping it illegal does little more than help mobbed-up bookies stay in business.
Bruce DeSilva’s crime fiction has won the Edgar and Macavity Awards; has been listed as a finalist for the Shamus, Anthony, and Barry Awards; and has been published in ten foreign languages. His short stories have appeared in Akashic Press's award-winning noir anthologies. He has reviewed books for The New York Times Sunday Book Review, Publishers Weekly, and The Associated Press. Previously, he was a journalist for forty years, most recently as writing coach world-wide for the AP, editing stories that won every major journalism award including the Pulitzer. His fourth novel, A Scourge of Vipers, has just been published by Forge in hardcover and e-book editions.
Sunday, January 27, 2013
author guest post: roberta gately
Author of The Bracelet
Friday, August 17, 2012
author guest post: kristen wolf
The author of The Way, Kristen Wolf, shares some thoughts about the book below. She's planning a trilogy!
Thursday, November 4, 2010
author guest post: alice eve cohen
I’m often asked whether I worried about the reactions of the people featured in my memoir, What I Thought I Knew.
Short answer—YES!
This was such a personal story, and such a terrifying and confusing family experience, that I couldn’t even talk about for years. Writing it was my way of coming out of the closet of secrecy.
When I finally started writing the book, I had to consciously suppress my worries about how the people in my story would react; otherwise, I would have been too distracted to write. I became rather superstitious about it, deciding that the only way I could write the book was in absolute secrecy. I feared that if I told anyone what I was writing, my writing would grind to a halt. I worked on the book every day for a year without telling a soul about it, not even my husband: Michael knew I was writing a book, but he didn’t know the subject.
When Penguin bought the book, I finally had to address this issue, my approach determined by my relationship to each person in question. With friends and family members, I had one-on-one conversations, in which I read them the sections of the book in which they were represented, and asked whether they’d prefer to be identified by their real name or a fictional name. With one exception, they all asked me to use their real names.
In addition to friends and family, there are a whole lot of doctors in my book, about whom my concerns were legal more than personal. I had sued one of my doctors for medical malpractice—the lawsuit is part of the story—and I sure didn’t want her, or any of the doctors in my book, to sue me. Needless to say, my publisher felt the same way, so they hired a lawyer to advise me on legal issues. On the lawyer’s advice, I fictionalized the names of all the doctors, and in other ways disguised their identities.
Finally, and most importantly, I talked to my young daughter, Elaina, about her role in the book, which is her story as much as mine. She was eight years old when the book was published. She knew the book was about her birth, and she said she wanted to read it before the publication date. With some trepidation, my husband and I said yes. It was a tremendous relief to find that Eliana understood and liked the book, and it was an unexpected pleasure to have her be part of the publication experience—an adventure that has become the next chapter in our family’s journey.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
author guest post: melissa senate
Author of The Love Goddess' Cooking School (and many other fantastic titles), Melissa Senate shares her favorite recipe from the novel!
My favorite recipe from The Love Goddess’ Cooking School by Melissa Senate
When my now eight-year-old son was two, I read my first article/book/website on the infamous “picky-eater.” The toddler who’ll eat Cheerios and bites of grilled cheese and that’s about it. I followed all the advice, and still my dear little Max would not eat anything green, would not eat fish or meat, no matter how delicious, no matter if his steak and green beans and mashed potatoes were made into the shape of a smiley face. Still, he’s always loved to cook with me—his basic favorites, from bacon and Swiss cheese omelets to his beloved chicken fingers. So when I was researching recipes that I wanted to include in The Love Goddess’ Cooking School, I appointed Max my apprentice, handed him an apron, and we set to work on the first recipe I needed to master along with Holly, my main character: chicken alla Milanese. “I don’t have to actually eat it, right, Mommy?” he said at least three times during the dipping of the chicken cutlets into egg, the laying of the chicken into flour and polenta, the placing in the hot pan.
Chicken alla Milanese is the signature dish of The Love Goddess Cooking School. It’s taught in the very first class of Camilla’s Cucinotta’s Italian cooking class in the apricot-colored cottage at the edge of Blue Crab Island, Maine. Chicken alla Milanese is representative to me of everything so deliciously basic, deliciously perfect about classic Italian food. “I’d like you take one tiny bite,” I told Max who was eyeing the sizzling chicken with suspicion, despite his pride at helping. “One bite and that’s it,” he said, adding, “It does smell good, Mommy.”
One bite and he’d be hooked. I knew it. And I knew that one bite of chicken alla Milanese would open up a whole new world of unplain food, simple food with flavor, rich with place.
My first attempt at chicken alla Milanese wasn’t perfect (as my fourth attempt was, which had to do with how long it cooked and heat, individual stove dependent). But as we sat down in my Tuscan-inspired kitchen in our country kitchen in Maine, Max eyed his one bite of chicken alla Milanese and very slowly put it into his mouth. “Mmm! Mmmmm!” was what he said. “This is so good! Can I have more?”
Since that day, Max has tried my spaghetti Bolognese, which is the main character’s master dish. He’s tried risotto and lasagna (which he’d never try before, crazy kid). And suddenly, he’s opened up that stubborn mind and stomach about eating more than just grilled cheese and chicken fingers. It’s thanks to the fun of cooking together and one very simple, delicious recipe. If you try Camilla’s Cucinotta’s chicken alla Milanese, I hope you love it too.
Camilla’ Cucinotta Chicken alla Milanese
4 pieces boneless, skinless chicken breast
1 cup instant polenta
¾ cup grated parmigiano-regianno cheese
2 cups flour
1 large egg
1 tablespoon olive oil
Juice of 1 lemon
Salt and pepper to taste
One wish
Pound chicken breast between two sheets of plastic wrap. On a plate, combine polenta with half the cheese. Fill another plate with flour. In bowl, beat egg with splash of water. Season chicken with salt and pepper. Coat each breast in flour, then egg, then cheese/polenta. Add one wish. Heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add chicken and cook, turning once, six minutes on each side or until golden. Enjoy!
Friday, September 17, 2010
author guest post: kate brady
For her guest post, I asked author Kate Brady (who is a music teacher in addition to an author) what research went into creating FBI agent Neil Sheridan.
I am a musician, teacher, mom, wife. I’ll be the first to admit that I have never had any first-hand experience either knowing killers or catching them. (And, just for the record, I hope to keep it that way.) Neither do I have any background in law enforcement.
Yes, I have a friend who’s a cop and he answers a procedural question for me now and then. Yes, I occasionally attend workshops or clinics designed for authors who write crime novels. Yes, I sometimes watch one of those reality-TV shows about solving crimes.
But mostly, I just read. I read and read and read. I’m fascinated by good guys chasing bad guys. Cops, detectives, sheriffs, FBI agents. I love them all.
From mostly reading, I’ve learned a little—and little is the key word there—about how police might go about catching a criminal. But once I learned the basics, the bad news came to light: Most police work is pretty boring, at least from a reader’s standpoint. Investigators spend hours and hours sifting through files, interviewing people who know nothing, tapping other law enforcement agencies, staring at computers, driving from one place to another only to find nothing. Rarely—rarely, I say—do they get involved in high-speed chases and shoot-outs and even more rarely do they fall in love in the course of an investigation and take a moment here and there to have wild, passionate sex. The truth is, if I wrote a story that was utterly realistic about cop work, no one would read past the first page. Same goes with crimes and criminals, by the way: Most aren’t very colorful.
So along the way, I’ve had to allow myself the freedom to admit that this is fiction. For the sake of an exciting read, I allow myself to write with acknowledged inaccuracies in police procedure and with extreme characters for criminals. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve spent hours or days trying to make the actions in a story completely accurate and believable, only to sit down and watch a popular TV show drama where the investigators are utterly unrealistic and the criminals are larger-than-life.
That’s when it hits me that as an audience, we still buy it. If I connect with the characters and enjoy the plot, I’ll let a cop get away with doing something unprofessional or a criminal get away with doing something unbelievable—and still love the show.
This is all to say that I think research is necessary, important, and grand. Accuracy and believability are wonderful qualities in a novel. But above all, readers of suspense want the thrill-ride of a good chase, and if I sometimes have to stretch the boundaries of reality to do it, I will. After all, I’m a musician, teacher, wife, and mom. If I only wrote stories about what I truly know, I wouldn’t have many readers!
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
author guest post: holly christine
Keeping a journal at times seems unnecessary. We have cameras on our phones and text messages and Facebook to look back on, right?
My parents were preparing to sell their home a few years ago and I was faced with these old diaries (one had a lock on it and a unicorn on the cover). I started to read through them and became flooded with emotion. I could see the changes in my life in my own handwriting. It was powerful and entertaining all at the same time. I had forgotten what a gossip queen I was in fifth grade.
Back then, I wrote with the idea that recording my life in pen was important and timeless. For some reason, the emotional impact is much more extreme in pen. It’s quicker too. It’s a release, a physical release that stays on paper for as long as you like.
This moment of reading my old diary entries inspired the basis of Tuesday Tells it Slant. I kept thinking that it would be easy to erase these old memories that I had. Perhaps I wanted to forget that I fought with my younger brother. Couldn’t I just rip the page out? I had forgotten about that fight up until the moment I saw it in my diary.
Throughout the book, Tuesday changes her old diary entries, eliminating all painful memories. But in the process, she loses her self; her soul seems halfhearted and confused. Her diary, as it turns out, is like an extension of her existence.
But all entries aren’t necessarily painful memories. My mother kept a journal of her pregnancy with me and recently gave it to me. It is written in pen on regular notebook paper and it is a tradition that I plan to continue.
A diary is a gift to your future and your present soul. It can inspire the future while recording the present and is like an old photo of your emotions: timeless.
Friday, June 11, 2010
author guest post: jackie fullerton
As an amateur protagonist, Anne Marshall, needs access that is not normally available to the general public—either through her job or her acquaintances. Anne acquired both by working in the courthouse during the day and attending law school at night. A venue I know well because I’m an attorney who attended evening law school. I lived the law classroom first hand, and felt the dread of facing Socratic law professors. In my first Tort class, when the professor called my name to recite a case, I went into brain freeze. The room spun. Even though I knew the case backward and forward, I stuttered and stammered through the case like a terrified child. The same response Anne had when called upon by Professor Spence.
Pursing a law degree at night is grueling. It has been described as a four year boot camp. Your fellow students become your family and your study group becomes your survival lifeline. Anne needed a strong support group. People she trusted and knew she could rely upon. One of my study group members was
fond of saying, “A friend will give you an alibi. A good friend will help you hide the body.” My study group friends were good friends. Not that I ever needed to hide a body but Anne needed that kind of loyalty. I admit some of my study group members did find their way into Anne’s study group. And they have been quick to tell me which ones they are. The majority of night law students are older, returning to school while working in other fields. In my class we had a coroner, a homicide detective, two FBI agents, a physician, a local news reporter, and various other professionals. In getting to know each other, we exchange interesting anecdotes and information. Some of which I have knitted or will knit into my stories. Like how to commit a perfect murder or what poisons are undetectable. (We spent way too much time together.)
After law school, my experiences at the courthouse added another dimension. Several of the cases I describe throughout the series are based on actual cases—even the absurd ones. Of course, the names have been changed to protect the innocent. (My legal training was not lost.)
I am constantly calling upon my experiences in business, law and life when developing my characters. Since my stories always involve a murder, the motives and how the characters react are influenced by people I know and have known. For me, the ability to identify with my characters, picture their day to day activity, and know what they will say even before they say it, comes from living it. Through these experiences, I feel I can add a dimension I might not be able to otherwise offer.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
character guest post: nancy carrington-chambers
One of my dearest friends moved to one of those states that begins with a vowel, Ohio, Idaho, Oregano, one of those places, and she was constantly getting speeding citations as she raced to whatever it is they do in places like that. It was all because she was worried that she wouldn’t find parking, but she told me in a long phone call, “Nancy, you wouldn’t believe it. There’s parking downtown. All over! Streets and streets of parking!”
Then the officer in charge of her witness protection program made her hang up before she gave me all the details of the letterpress social cards she wanted me to order for her. Her new name, Bethany Wilson, is less amusing than her real name, Melinda Darlington Wigglesworth, but much easier to fit on a business card. She assured me that she only dated Franklin “Frankie the Painkiller” Farmington because she thought he said he was a drugstore kingpin.
I haven’t heard from Melinda since that conversation even though I posted on all her social sites and wrote to Franklin at San Quentin. He was quite rude and didn’t want to discuss the San Quentin’s fabulous views across the bay toward San Francisco and Marin. Now that’s prime waterfront real estate if only one could persuade the inmates to leave.
Back to Melinda’s waxing effusive about parking. Sometimes I think that she was using too much product, if you know what I mean, and I’m not referring to hair product, because if you choose an excellent salon line, you can layer innumerable conditioners, shine and curl enhancers, frizz neutralizers, and shape stabilizers and still look fantastic. I’m fascinated about the idea of parking spaces on every street, because I’ve long believed that San Francisco is doing parking entirely wrong.
The problem is not that there is no parking. The problem is that there are too many of the wrong, wrong cars.
If I were commissioner of parking, the very first thing I’d do after redecorating my office (in an authoritative yet chic ecru scheme with black accents) would be to dramatically increase parking. All cars that don’t meet strict aesthetic standards would be banned. No longer would we have to suffer the horror of seeing a chrome yellow Aztek or a horrific Hummer in front of our favorite boutique. Scion? SciNO-WAY! Those dreadful hippie vans would be limited to the Haight-Ashbury. Anything dented, dirty, or otherwise déclassé would be banished.
This simple act would immediately improve parking and the quality of life for all concerned.
In the meanwhile, I feel it is my public duty to park in the space closest to my destination. After all, my activities are surely more important than those of people loafing around a hospital, or getting on a bus. You only need look at their tacky ensembles to tell that they aren’t doing anything special. Honestly, why do people think that it’s acceptable to wear pajamas as daywear when they go to the Emergency Room? The horror, the horror!
I ask all of you to truly consider if you need to drive to neighborhoods that I may want to visit. In a truly civilized society, we look out for one another. I know I’ll be looking out for a convenient parking space, and it’s only polite that you should look out for my very important needs.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
author guest post: connie may fowler
I’m thrilled and honored that Nicole has asked me to write a guest post for her fabulous my-book-views blog. She wants to know about the significance of the name of the village Clarissa inhabits in my just released novel How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly, and the fact that we track Hope, Florida on the summer solstice of 2006.
I think that every element of a novel must support its main themes. At the beginning of the novel, Clarissa Burden—an author of two moderately successful books—has very little hope. She is trapped in a horrible marriage and is wracked with a nearly deadly case of writer’s block. Her husband, a multi-media artist, is obsessed with naked women just so long as the woman isn’t Clarissa.
So, Clarissa’s entire job within the 24-hour confines of the novel, is to find a path to joy. And with joy comes hope.
The solstice represents a time of rebirth. The longest day of the year, it is within the pages of the book, a time when spirits are afoot and some people will find themselves making startling, life-changing decisions. On Solstice Noon, there are no shadows. Clarissa is in her garden when the shadow-less moment strikes. It is then, when she is unburdened of even her shadow, that she begins her journey toward self-fulfillment, happiness, and hope.
Happy reading, everyone! I hope you’ll love How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly!
Cheers,
Connie May Fowler
www.conniemayfowler.com
Thursday, January 28, 2010
author guest post: gwendolyn zepeda
Good question.
Like a lot of you guys online, I was a failed author before I became a blogger. I had plenty of rejection slips under my belt for short stories and magazine articles I’d written, and I only started blogging as a hobby and to get stuff off my chest – not because I thought it might one day lead to a real writing career.
I started my personal blog, Gwenworld.com, in 1997. Back then, like a lot of bloggers, I learned the hard way that nothing is really anonymous or private online and that I had to be careful about what I posted. I set a rule for myself: Never say anything online that I wouldn’t want the whole world to see. But at the same time, I saw a lot of other bloggers write really personal stuff that I’d rather die than put online, and I watched the consequences. Like a lot of writers, I’ve been tempted to start an “anonymous” blog and really let loose with my negative feelings, so I wanted to explore, through Sandy S’s character in Lone Star Legend, what it feels like to do that. Obviously, though, since I’m still blogging, I found some good things about it, too, and I let Sandy experience those aspects, too.
One of the earliest benefits of starting my blog was that I got invited to become one of the first staff writers for TelevisionWithoutPity.com. They paid me to write long recaps that made fun of various television shows. I liked writing for the site, but I always felt bad about making fun of the TV actors because I’d constantly imagine how they’d feel if they read our site. Well, Television Without Pity got really popular, and suddenly the site’s owners and staff writers became (kind of) famous. (This was back in the Internet Medieval Age, in the early 2000s.) And then the readers started talking about us the way we talked about the celebrities – as if we weren’t human beings and would never get our feelings hurt by their comments. And that shocked me and made me think about my career in new ways. So it was fun to put my main character, Sandy, through the same experience and see how she’d deal with it.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
author guest post: anne canadeo
I do love writing a series because I get very attached to the characters and can always think of something else that might happen to them. Black Sheep Mystery series is just starting off, so I don’t have any problem coming up with different situations that place this group of intrepid knitters at the scene of a crime. If the series continues for a few years (we can dream, can’t we?) I’d expect that devising plots will be more challenging.
Sometimes I begin with a setting or situation that captures my imagination. One I instinctively sense will hook readers, because it hooks me. In the third book which is just the outline stage now, (A Stitch Before Dying) the Black Sheep decide to go away for the weekend to a spa in Vermont. I thought I could have a lot of fun with this concept, showing the characters on a girls-only outing. The closest I’ve ever come was entertaining my high school friends for a weekend last summer. Husbands, children and house pets were banished. My home is not quite a spa, but we do live near the beach. We ate good food, drank an appropriate amount of wine and everyone had an amazing time. I suppose the underlying theme of all the Black Sheep books, aside from the joys of knitting and solving mysteries, is exploring the bonds of female friendship. The spa setting seemed like an ideal setting to play that out. Of course, unlike my mini-reunion, a dead body - or two - turns up and the Black Sheep go from meditating to investigating.
Some writers are very plot oriented. I’m more focused on character. I think a lot about each character’s personality – their personal histories, psychology, relationships, life goals and challenges – and usually find that a good story evolves from there. Even a mystery. As Henry James said, "Character is plot."
For Knit, Purl, Die, I started with a simple situation, a striking image that would be the centerpiece of the mystery. A member of the knitting group who works in real estate, is showing a house to prospective buyers and she finds a body floating in the swimming pool.
The question becomes, who is this dead person and why/how did they meet this grisly ending?
My next task was to develop the character of Gloria Sterling, the lovely corpse. I had some idea who she would be – rich, attractive, assertive. But I really ended up loving her and totally enjoyed writing about her, especially the part of her life she kept hidden from her friends. She turned out to be a complicated, charming, larger than life woman. The dark side of Gloria’s character becomes the path of the investigation for the Black Sheep. Unfortunately, I find that the characters who get killed off are often the most fun to write about and regret that I can’t bring them back to life for future books.
I guess it’s really hard to say where story ideas come from. When a good one comes along, I just feel it. Tracing back my steps and trying to figure out how I got from A to B doesn’t seem to help much when it’s time to write the next outline. It’s largely an unconscious process. Part of the magic...and/or frustration...of the process.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
author guest post: barbora knobova
I believe that good things come to those who wait and also to those who don't plan too much. Tales for Delicious Girls is not my first book but I didn't plan to write it! And when I finally started writing it, I had no idea that I would end up creating a book full of support and encouragement that women would keep getting back to when they faced life and relationship trouble.
The first story that I wrote was Beautiful Maxim. Writing about a man who compares women to desserts and forgets to mention to his girlfriend that he's getting married in a week (to another woman, of course) was hilarious. When I was done with Beautiful Maxim (in real life and on paper) I realized that there were many relationship and dating stories in my head and that they were not just funny but also uplifting and encouraging. I thought: "There are many humorous books but there are few books that would make women laugh and at the same time make them think about themselves and their relationships."
I decided to write a truly Delicious Book that would become every woman's best friend, regardless of her age, life circumstances and experience. A book that would be supportive, that would express the power of female loyalty and friendship, that would encourage women to love themselves and that would help them deal with toxic relationships and harmful patterns.
At the time I started working as a relationship coach and my first readers, before Tales for Delicious Girls was even published, were the wonderful women I worked with. Seeing how my book changed their lives literally overnight, what a wonderful effe
ct it had on their self-esteem and how it empowered them was so fulfilling and rewarding. At that moment I knew that I had written a unique book about women and for women, a book that women could identify with and use it in everyday life, a book that they could even come back to when they faced new relationship challenges and dilemmas. The word DELICIOUS in the title of my book is actually an acronym that stands for: Daring, Enchanting, Loving, Inspiring, Captivating, Intriguing, Outgoing, Unique, Sophisticated. I'm proud to be a women and I'm even prouder to be a Delicious woman. I believe in myself, I believe in every woman in this world and I believe in you. Because we all are Delicious. That's the message of my book and the reason I wrote it.
Barbora Knobova is a writer, love coach and expert in Delicious Life. A world traveler, she is one of those rare world citizens who live everywhere and nowhere. Barbora is a firm believer in female friendship, loyalty and bonding. She writes hilarious, sharp-witted, caustically apt, ironic, moving, true books for strong, independent, smart, fearless women. Barbora has also written several self-improvement books and teaches women about the importance of self-love in relationships and life in general. Barbora speaks eight languages and has found her home away from home in New York, London and Milan. She is always on the move, accompanied by her beagle Brinkley, the nasty dog from her new book Tales for Delicious Girls.
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