April Lindner's Blog, page 2

Half Past April: A Far From Over/Love, Lucy Extravaganza

Here in Southeastern Pennsylvania, we've fast forwarded through April Showers and made it to May Flowers in what seems like record time.  This year April brings with it the publication of Far From Over, the new digital-exclusive companion novella to Love, Lucy.  It also brings some celebratory blog posts including this one, from NOVL, on the travel destinations that inspire me most.   


And this musical Far From Over playlist from With Her Nose Stuck in a Book.  What songs does street musician Jesse Palladino play on the streets of Naples?  Here's a little taste:



Finally, April brings a really nifty sale--Love, Lucy in e-book form for only $2.99--which means for a little while longer you can download both Love, Lucy and Far From Over for under five dollars.  So if you're yearning for a little vacation flirtation in sunny Italy, please give them a look!

Book Birthday Happy Dance: Far From Over

Today marks the launch of my newest baby, Far From Over , a digital-only novella companion to Love, Lucy.  And to mark the occasion, the e-book of Love, Lucy is on sale (only $2.99) for the rest of the month.  If if you've got a yen for some southern Italian sunshine and romance, please take a look!

Following the Music: Cattolica, Italy

Though I like to consider myself adventurous, my travels in Europe have generally been limited to the Rick Steves-approved tourist spots, the ones teeming with other American sightseers.  


Michelangelo's cupola, St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City
But last summer while I was teaching a study abroad course in Rome, I let myself be lured off the beaten track, to an Italian seaside town called Cattolica.  Just south of Rimini on the Adriatic sea, Cattolica has beach resorts, charming pedestrian walkways, and restaurants like this one:

  
What it doesn't have a lot of is English speaking visitors. At the hotel where I stayed, my warm and welcoming hosts were thrilled to be able to practice their English on me.


Claudia and Massimo at the Hotel Jupiter
To be honest, I'd never even heard of Cattolica before last summer.  I travelled there only because I wanted to see a concert by MIKA, a multilingual British pop star with a five-octave range and a captivating stage presence.  





I'd caught MIKA's act once before in Philadelphia, where he has a modest but devoted following.  His show here was low-key and acoustic, befitting the smaller venues he can fill in the U.S.  In Philly, MIKA mostly stayed behind the piano and focused on his quieter songs, the ones that don't call for full band backup.

But in Europe the guy's a bona-fide popstar--a judge on X Factor Italy and a former judge on The Voice France, with a giddy fandom of school-age girls and their families.  In Europe, he tours with a band and puts on a big electric show that showcases all of his hits.



I arrived to the venue in Cattolica a few hours early thinking my General Admission ticket would get me near the stage.  What I found was an ocean of MIKA fans ahead of me, some who had been camping out in the street since the day before.




MIKA opened with "We Are Golden"--one of my favorites, and a song he didn't play in Philadelphia--and things just got bigger and more thrilling from there.  

A special bonus: MIKA's mother was watching the show on the other side of the fence from me.  I said hello and thanked her for giving the world her son, and she was sweet and gracious in return.

A view from the far side of the stage
But back to Cattolica.  If I hadn't let MIKA lure me there, I would have missed so much: lovely people, amazing food, beautiful views, and a glimpse of where Italians go on their summer vacations.

Seneca Village and Sacred Sisters: A Visit From Poet Marilyn Nelson

Photograph by Jenny SpinnerI've long been a fan of poet Marilyn Nelson--of her adept use of traditional forms, her extended explorations of history and personal spirituality, her desire to reach a wide readership that includes middle- and high-schoolers and not just the usual, insular adult audience sought by most poets.  
Marilyn is also impressively prolific, with two new collections published in quick succession--American Ace:


...and My Seneca Village : 

Earlier this week, Marilyn paid a visit to Saint Joseph's University, to read in our Writing Series.  

Among the poems she shared were a couple of very striking newer ones from Sacred Sisters, a collaboration with visual artist Holly Trostle Brigham.  Marilyn's poems and Holly's paintings depict the lives of nuns who also were artists. 
This one was first published by the Academy of American Poets in their Poem-a-Day program: 

Hilaria Batista de Almeida, Provider
Sisterhood of the Good Death, Bahia, Brazil
August 14, ca. 1850
Tomorrow, after we’ve led the procession
following Our Lady of the Good Death
back to our chapel, two hundred Sisters,
in our white eyelet headwraps and dresses
and the company of the Ancestors,
will dance a Glory samba, with our neighbors
like us redeemed, and those we work to free.
We’ll dance as if we don’t know aches and pains,
to celebrate the best death of all time.
No death is easy, but some deaths are good.
The free die good deaths. The people we free
will be put down with honor and music.
The best death was the one Our Lady had,
passing directly from breath to glory.
Glory is ours, too, just one death from now.
What dies lives on no longer slave, but free:
The same essence, wearing another face,
like an orixa changed into a saint.
Tomorrow is Our Lady’s Assumption Day.
Today we sit in our rooms to prepare,
searching the dark silence to find glory.
My still hands, thick from cutting sugarcane…
and there it is, that flood of thanksgiving.
These nimble fingers that can tell from touch
the best tobacco leaf and when to stop
rolling a cigar smooth on the table,
this year helped free thirty Yoruba slaves!
  

Where I've Been Part 2

Where have I been lately and why haven't I been blogging?  Well, for one thing, I was writing (and rewriting) Far From Over, a digital-exclusive companion novella to  Love, Lucy.  It comes out on April 12, and I'm thrilled with the cover.

Here's what it's about:

Jesse Palladino is used to moving on. As a street musician backpacking through Europe, he's never in one place for long. Which is why it's so surprising he can't seem to move on from Lucy, the girl he fell for in Florence. They parted ways when Lucy returned home to start college, but every crowded piazza and winding cobblestone street reminds Jesse of the time they spent together. Now staying with a friend in Naples, he can't help wondering if it's time to pack up and move on again. But just when his mind is made up, something--or someone--might give him a reason to stay. 

I Heart Naples!
Far From Over is available for pre-order now.  And please, stay tuned, as I really do hope to get back to blogging in the not-too-distant future!

Where I've Been

Il Vittoriano, last summer in Rome
It's been a long, long time since I posted here.  I've got a big backlog of posts to write about this summer's adventures in Italy, about music fandom, and about the joys and frustrations of writing. 

Instead of posting here, though, I spent the second half of the summer living those joys and frustrations, immersed in writing the first draft of a novel that has basically tanked.  For one thing, its premise was a bit similar to some other recently published successful novels I'd never heard of.  For another, the breezy tone of it just didn't match up with its subject matter.  For now, those pages are sleeping in a drawer...to be revisited someday and radically reworked, perchance.

But after I had to face that my summer novel had gone belly up, I spent my fall sabbatical on a whole new project--a very different novel.  Two days ago I made it to the end of the rough draft. There's much revising to do, and I don't know if it's the kind of book a publisher would want.  But it was a book of my heart, and no matter what happens, I'm so glad to have written it.

To sum up:

Where I've Been:  Writing in bed with dogs.

Where I'll Be For the Forseeable Future: Teaching, now that my sabbatical is over and spring semester is underway.  Missing my writing-in-bed buddy, Nico the cockapoo.  And, as ever, plotting the next revision.

See Naples and Write

The port of Santa LuciaLast summer, while I was teaching Travel Writing in Rome, the universe kept telling me to take a side trip to Naples.  I kept bumping into displaced Neapolitans who told me how wonderful their native city was, how I absolutely needed to see it.

I'd been meaning to someday get to Naples--I'd even changed trains in its station once--but somehow I hadn't managed to really visit.  This time I went, and promptly fell in love--with the electric blue Bay of Naples and the view from Castel Sant'Elmo:


With its colorful streets:


With the quirky sights to be seen around every corner:

A Violin Maker's CatThe picturesque Spanish Quarter:


Not to  mention the food:



Most of all, I fell in love with the people I encountered there, people who seemed instantly familiar--like extended family members.  Maybe that's not too surprising, considering my great grandmother set sail from the port of Santa Lucia  in 1909, my two-year-old grandmother in her arms.




To think how much I'd have missed if I'd stayed away!

And as it turns out, it was a good thing I listened to the universe.  Soon after I came home to the States, I was invited to write a spinoff of Love, Lucy--a digital-exclusive novella in Poppy's new NOVL imprint.  

I said yes, happy for a chance to re-enter Lucy's world.  The novella, Far From Over, tells what happens to Lucy's summer love, Jesse, after she flies home from Italy. And since Jesse's next stop is Naples, it was handy that I'd taken a trip there myself.


Add caption
My takeaway?  When the universe sends an engraved invitation, RSVP yes.

On Dia De Los Muertos

On this Day of the Dead, I thought I'd share a poem of mine inspired by this time of year, and by the desire to keep nurturing even those loved ones we've lost.



All Souls
Like refugees, they ran off empty handed,forsaking heirloom china, cutlery,leaving behind their hands, their tongues and teeth.
The dead eat only our intentions.
Still we heat the oven, flour our hands.Into foods they used to cravewe melt too much butter.We gladly burn our fingers on the skillet.
Hungry?  The dead are nothing but hunger
For our sake, they swarm like beesto sugar skulls and scattered marigolds,mezcal bottles, glossy loaves of bread,their own best photos framed in gold,their graves tidied of weeds.  Lured by the lauds
we offer for their safe arrival,
the dead are not Catrinasgussied in tophats and feathered boaspipecleaner fingers bent to hold the stems of red roses,
but they forgive such insults.  The dead draw near us but can only get so close,
like dogs in winter pressed for warmth
to the wrong side of the wall.
***

Philly When the Pope's in Town

Pope Francis rolls into Independence MallFor a vibrant, world-class city, Philly has a bit of an inferiority complex.  How could it not, in the twin shadows cast by those heavyweights, Washington D.C. and New York City?  

Maybe that's why Rocky Balboa resonates so much here.  The scruffy, down-on-his-luck prizefighter who gets one shot at the big time?  That was us this weekend, when the World Meeting of Families brought Pope Francis to our city.




For Catholics and the many non-Catholics who admire this Pope for his vision, his humility, his heart, and his willingness to shake things up, Philly was--for a shining moment--Caput Mundi.  

Here's what you experienced if you braved the Popepocalypse:

--Deliciously car-free streets.

--Singing in unexpected places.

--Pilgrims from around the globe.



--A rainbow of habits, vestments, and robes.




--Bobbleheads and Hug-a-Popes:




Families:




Enthusiastic college students:


photo by Melissa Kelly/Saint Joseph's University
--Eager but remarkably civil crowds.




Seriously beefed-up security:




--including Secret Service agents and even rooftop snipers.


Photo by Melissa Kelly/Saint Joseph's University
--A surprise papal visit to a certain Jesuit University:


Melissa Kelly/Saint Joseph's University
--Mass on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.


One of many priests venturing into the crowd for the Euchrist...and the adoration that follows Pope Francis everywhere he goes.

Flashback: In Fair Verona

Backstage, Arena di Verona
A friend recently asked me where in the whole world  I would live if money and job were no object.  I didn’t have to think hard about the answer: Verona, Italy.

Until last summer, I’d only been there once before, on my very first trip to Europe, when I was 22, travelling solo with a backpack, a Eurail pass, and an International Youth Hostel Card.  I fell instantly in love with Europe in general and Italy in particular.  


Pulling into Verona
And of all the Italian cities and towns I visited, Verona--charming, romantic, easily crossed on foot—struck me as the one in which I could most vividly imagine making a life.




I adored the medieval streets of its historical center.  I especially loved the way Verona’s citizens take their evening passagiata around the Roman colosseum in the center of Piazza Bra.  




Families strolling, small children kicking balls around, friends laughing and philosophizing, lovers arguing and embracing.  The happy commotion that continues until late into every summer night.




On that first trip to Verona, I was in the process of becoming. So much about my life was unsettled.  I had just graduated college and didn’t have a job or a significant other.  I didn’t know where I would be living once I returned back home.  Everything I saw on my travels seemed full of portent, and that was especially true in Verona, setting of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.





Last summer, when I finally got  to revisit Verona, I had of course changed more than a little.  But Verona's power over me hadn't diminished one bit.




Even Juliet's house still felt portentious.  I still got the same thrill strolling through its quiet rooms and standing on that balcony. 


Revisiting Casa di Giulietta, summer 2015Now as then, it didn’t matter one bit that Juliet didn’t exist. To me, fiction was--and still is--at least as real as reality. Walking through the house designated as Juliet's, I could hear the echoes of her graceful step echoing in its stairways.  I could hear her voice even in that stone courtyard bustling with tourists and plastered with their hastily scrawled graffiti.