Caroline Leavitt's Blog, page 90

Gail Godwin, author of the extraordinary Flora, talks about TOURING!

Gail Godwin is a genius, and also one of the warmest, loveliest women on the planet. I was so lucky to be invited to a lunch with her and I, of course, wanted her to be on my blog. She is the author of 13 novels, 2 story collections and non-fiction works. Three of her novels, The Odd Woman, Violet Clay, and A Mother and Tow Daughters, were National Book Award finalists, and five of them (A Mother and Twp Daughters, The Finishing School, A Southern Family, Father Melancholy's Daughter, and Evensong) were New York Times bestsellers. She's the recipient of two National Endowment Grants, one for fiction and one for libretto writing. Flora, her new novel, about remorse, loss, and a child and her caretaker, is a stunner. I'm thrilled to have this piece from Gail, on the business of touring.


Caroline: since you and I are both on tour, which is a surreal mode of living, so alien to what we writers do when alone, I'll tell you what is foremost in my mind this morning.

In  room 417 at the Washington Hotel, after a good room service breakfast. Yesterday I actually did something I considered worthwhile: a forty-minute talk with Bob Edwards on Sirius Radio. We laughed, I read passages from Flora that he had chosen, unexpected choices that were so right that I have decided to use them in my reading tonight at Politics and Prose.

I am very tired, but going on adrenalin and the desire to be a Trooper.  You have your wonderful Old Gringo red boots as your magic costume, I have my 24 year old silver Armani jacket and scarf.  So we swagger, or sashay, on stage. After the reading at Politics and Prose, Jim and Kate Lehrer are giving me a party at their house.

  But what is keen in my mind this morning is this: How can I use this time--so alien to the kind of time that we need to produce our novels--to serve me when I get back home? And as I was eating my lovely breakfast, it occurred to me that I needed to invent a kind of emergency writing code which would allow me to trap the talk, sights, essences, of these hectic tour days--an emergency shorthand that can encode the essences in that little notebook you saw.

The other thing--call it my magnificent obsession--is this. We writers are a freemasonry and we need to connect and uphold one another in every imaginative way we can think of! And you, Caroline, with your Leavittville blog, were among the first of us to perceive the possibilities.

So: that is this morning, on tour for my fourteenth novel, eighteenth book, in Washington, D.C., looking out my window at the Treasury Building just a month away from my 76th birthday.

Keep those red boots moving, Caroline, and I'll slither nobly through the rest of my tour in my silver threads.

Gail Godwin

Come tweet with me on Tuesday from 8-9 at Literary New England Tweet Chat!

Come on, isn't there something wildly personal that you want to ask me? Now is your chance? The wonderful show Literary New England is hosting a tweet chat for me, this Tuesday from 8 to 9 and you are invited. The Wonderful Cindy Wolfe Boynton will be asking me questions and you can, too.  To join just use the #LNEChat hashtag.
I'm so excited to do this, and I hope to see all of you!
Warmly,Caroline

The amazing, funny, supersmart and super cool Rew Starr talks about her wild, innovative show Rew & Who?, being a songstress and a mom, skeletons in closets, and so much more

My friend, the writer and performer Polly Frost (that's her on the right!) invited me on this show filmed in the East Village called ReW & WhO? How could I resist?  Held in the back of a bar, it was both stunningly surprising, tons of fun, and Rew even had cookies. The shows are amazing and so, according to the New York Times and me,  is Rew. I'm thrilled to have her on. Thanks, Rew!

I've never been on a radio show like yours. 

I think we are the only one like it!:)



 How'd you come up with the idea for the radio show? Were the early days different than now?
Actually I had NO idea in the world i would be doing this. I was in a band called 'ReWBee'. with another person amed  'Bee." Bee actually asked me to be a cohost to a web show (everyone calls us a radio show but we are on the internet  and more like TV) with him. I said sure & *ReWBee's World* began. {2/18/09} after six months shooting in a storefront studio on the upper upper west side (Arizzma entertainment.) Bee decided he was ready to split, so overnight (literally) the show turned into *ReW & WhO?* (8/12/09) and that is when I decided each episode would have a different cohost ( the 'WhO'.)  I felt obligated to all the guests that were on the calendar and wanted to be able to still have them come on the show so I kept it going.  The show has morphed and transformed  and after another phase I decided to move the show downtown to 'Otto's Shrunken Head' on Joey Ramone's Birthday (5/19/10) and that is when I took full producer role as well.  I had no idea what i was in for but the show keeps going and going and now there is a one/friday/month Brooklyn edition as well at 'the Branded Saloon' which just celebrated two years! The show has taken over my life with booking, hosting and everthing else you can imagine.  Our motto comes from Marilyn Monroe's quote "Everybody is a star and deserves their right to shine".   I so agree with that, and I also want to give Warhol's promised 15 minutes to all the people with PaSSioN on this planet! My dream is to eventually go to every city and highlight  rising stars and living legends worldwide, bringing them to the globe via our web show! I have done 3 out of London and in other cities around the country and I swear I am inspired constantly by the cool people I get to meet with each show.
I especially loved the "What's the Skeleton in your closet" segment, which came with free cookies!  What's the most startling thing someone ever told you?
Ha, glad you liked that! It's funny cause I have learned that every day has a unique food holiday, so each show celebrates the 'food of the day' you got to come on National Chocolate Chip day!! I swear i don't make them up! We have had a giant array of 'skeleton' treats over the years! (guacamole day, kahluah & strawberry day, garlic day and on & on...} The segment comes from a song I have called 'skeletonz'  and yes, my life is somewhat a 'skeleton in the closet' and I think we all have ours. We have heard some crazy stories: car chases, arrests, lots of drinking and drugging.. sleeping with... it goes on.. I have to say yours was definitely in the top best 'skeletonz'. 
I realized you were getting me to open up in ways I didn't in other shows--how do you do that?
You know it's funny so many people tell me that! I always think I am just chatting away, and then somehow people seem to open up like you did.  I just want the guests to have fun, feel relaxed and comfortable.  I am just being my blabby self and people seem to tell us great stuff about themselves.  I really enjoy people and chatting and seeing them talk and have a good time reliving their experiences.  Sometimes I have people say they said a bit too much and they ask to edit, especially when they think it may bring the law in somehow!  I am simply being myself. I am always on the job training and I am the queen of winging the best I can it in all situations.
What cool things should people know about you and why?
Hmmm... well I am a songstress and a Mom.  I have been dabbling in some acting this past year and I have landed some songs in some films and television. My grandmother was in Vaudeville, my Mom was on Broadway and I feel I am just following my inner path.  It took a long time to get here HA! I was always in such a hurry.. college at 16... dabbling in lots of danger... but somehow I always believed in some happy ending.  I always say I am an optimist or I live in total delusion.  My songs are from the heart always. I call myself 'PuNkTrY" cause i have a punk rock heart and tell way too much information in the words!  Everyone's favorite is "u suck' the dirty ditty that won 'Best punk song of 2011' on Pirate Radio of the treasure coast and was on 'the Bad Girl's Club' show.  Somehow, I still feel that song hasn't peaked yet and has a lot of living to do!
How can people support the show?
Th show survives on donations for now. YOU can always send a generous donation through our website .. www.rewandwho.com I still am praying for my *fairy god sponsor* to be able to actually pay my wonderful staff who show up every week, and get us around the world, all the FOOD of the day treats & THE technical expertise equipment so we can really FLY!!! {and pay the rent!!}
What's obsessing you now and why?
This show obsesses me all day every day. I am constantly finding guests, working on every week all day long.. My family can attest to that! They think I am glued to the computer always, like even right now typing all this! I am always obsessed with that pain in the ass body image BS.  I hate that whole thing but like i said my songs usually tell all. 
What question didn't I ask that I should have?
Grammy or Emmy?
Oh, Rew, you deserve both.

Madalyn Aslan talks about astrology, fame and so much more

Anyone who knows me knows that I have tarot cards and I go to psychics and astrologers. I met Madalyn Aslan online and we quickly became friends. I was thrilled when she gave me a reading--which turned out to be so accurate, that it was a little unnerving.  I'm thrilled to have her here. Thank you, Madalyn!


1. What started your interest in astrology? When and how did you discover you were intuitive?
I think everyone is born intuitive. Babies in the pre-verbal stage pick up their mother / father / caretaker’s emotions and intentions intuitively. As do animals, constantly. I only developed it more because I had to, as a kind of survival skill. No one chooses to be a psychic - I certainly didn’t. I grew up in a very bizarre environment, and developed my psychic skills as a way to navigate through that. 
As for astrology, it was purely a matter of fascination for me. It was a metaphor I liked, and I loved history – the Greek and Roman mythology (I studied Latin and ancient Greek growing up in London) – and, like any writer, I think in terms of pictures and imagery. Astrology was my first introduction to that world, after C.S. Lewis and Nancy Drew. I LOVED Nancy Drew. I always wanted to be a girl detective!
Being a kid astrologer was the closest – and most interesting – form of being a girl detective I could find. I was curious about everyone and about what made them tick. 
Later, when I was reading people for a living – I put myself through Cornell this way (I was an emancipated minor at the age of 16, coming from London) – I realized that it was much more than “sussing” people out, as they wanted to know about their future and what was the best thing for them to do. And that’s when - I believe - I really started to do the work properly.  
My first filmed reading was for Rock Hudson in Malta when I was 14, and that changed a few things. 
Nevertheless, I wanted to be a writer, and I pursued that through graduate school, and even through a PhD – leaving NYC after some success there – to go and live in an obscure part of the country for ten years. Many times I have tried to give up being a psychic, and it has never worked out. The psychic never knows for herself…irony of all ironies!
 2. You also study palms and you mentioned that the palm changes every threeweeks, which I found fascinating. Can you talk about this please?
Each psychic has their own discipline – astrology, tarot, hands – and this is mine. I LOVE the hands, and this is where I get all my psychic info (names and dates and such). You can tell an extraordinary amount from the hands – everyone can – I have taught palmistry to children in grade school (they are naturals) and at NYU in my English classes, and at Knightsbridge’s College of Psychic Studies (in London). 
The lines on your hands do change every three weeks…I’m constantly looking at my own hands to see what’s going on. It’s the result of the shifting circumstances in our own lives – I see this daily with NYC clients when they email me hand photos from their phones. Why this is most exciting is because we have access to free will and choice. It really is possible to change our fate and destiny, at any time. 
Carl Jung said, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” This is my favorite part of the job. I have a slight advantage over a therapist in that I can see the future. 
3. What struck me, in looking at your book, was how creatively someone can use astrology to their benefit. Can you comment on this?
Absolutely. My favorite part of our “creative interaction” with our fate or destiny (or astrology) is the ability to utilize our Jupiter sign – our fortune, our profit, our good luck. Our Jupiter sign is often completely different from our Sun sign – the sign you have always believed yourself to be. It gets quite detailed – you have to read my book (Madalyn Aslan’s Jupiter Signs) for more! 
4. Were you startled to find yourself famous?
Yes. I actually spent a great deal of my life trying to get away from that, having spent a part of my  childhood in Hollywood. To this day I have never hired a publicist, nor advertised, or anything like that. Even when the expose came out in The New York Times no one could find me because I had no website, no online activity, no published phone number, no agent, etc. 
I remember the morning after it came out, going to work (to read palms) at Felissimo on East 56th St. and there was a line of people around the block – all the way up Fifth Avenue past Harry Winston’s – waiting for me to read them. I was shocked. I particularly remember a couple who brought their newborn baby from the Upper West Side…somehow that was very emotionally moving.   5. You also do healings--how does that work, and why does it work?
I think that’s what it’s all about (Alfie!) Without healing, and a positive outlook, and hope, why on earth would we carry on? Isaac Mizrahi famously – perhaps disparagingly – referred to me as “the Pollyanna psychic”, but what else could I be? I became a psychic to help. Information alone is not enough – I don’t care how right on that information is, alone it’s pretty cold. Unhelpful. 
6. What's obsessing you now?
How to heal our country of the violence-seeking, anti-education, anti-science, right-wing extremism popping up. It truly makes me despair. It really is a serious concern. Particularly if you have lived outside NYC or any of the major American cities, Deep South, as I did for some time. 
7. What question didn't I ask that I should have?
How did my reading for YOU go? What was it like? 
xo

Douglas Trevor talks about Girls I know, surprises, Boston, Denver, more

Hey, I blurbed Douglas Trevor's astonishing new book Girls I know, and called it "Deeply moving and ebulliently funny" and it is. He's also the author of a short story collection, The Thin Tear in the Fabric of Space, which won the 2005 Iowa Short Fiction Award and was a finalist for the 2006 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for First Fiction. He lives in one of my favorite cities on earth, Ann Arbor, where he is an Associate Professor of Renaissance Literature and Creative Writing. I  couldn't wait to have Douglas on the blog so I could ask him more about the book and I'm so honored to have him here. Thank you, thank you so much!
Can you talk about what sparked the idea for this book? Do you prefer one form or the other?            Girls I know began with a few sparks, but also with a lot of deliberateness on my part. For instance, I was determined early on to come up with a story idea for a novel that was eventful. Most of the short stories that make up my collection, The Thin Tear in the Fabric of Space, are about people in the throes of grief, but the losses that shape their grief all occur before the stories themselves. I was a little self-conscious, I guess, about being typecast as the kind of writer who thinks a lot about sentences and characters but less about plot, so I invested quite a bit of time thinking about plot, and reading novels for their plots, which I hadn't really done before.            The idea of writing about a restaurant shooting specifically came to me in the midst of all this. I was sitting in a crowded diner in New York City where I was supposed to meet with an editor and there was an argument at the front between the cashier and a customer. I remember thinking, My God, what if this guy pulled out a gun and started shooting people?And then, almost immediately, I started to think about a novel based on the aftermath of such an event, and I knew right away that I was going to stick with the premise, both because I had never tried to write anything like that before, and also because a restaurant or café seemed like a great vehicle by which to enter a city.            Even before I knew exactly what this novel was going to be about, I was determined to write about Boston. I had been a student there through much of the nineties, and my final year there I had spent a lot of time walking around in its different neighborhoods. I spent one afternoon, for example, out in Mattapan (where the character Flora lives with her sisters and grandmother), simply because I rode the Red Line until it ended. And I discovered Watertown (where Mercedes's grandmother lives) by virtue of taking a bus one day from Copley Plaza that happened to be going there. Of course, I had no way of knowing that these enclaves would be the focus of so much attention right before Girls I Know came out, due to the horrific bombings that occurred during the Boston Marathon. Growing up in Denver, which is a city whose neighborhoods drift into one another, I was always struck by the distinctness of Boston neighborhoods, so I wanted to explore that in my fiction. I wanted very much to write about characters from different ethnic and racial backgrounds as well: both to challenge myself as a writer and also because writing about America today means, inescapably it seems to me, writing about diversity.
Girls I Know grew out of a short story, but were there surprises in making it into a novel?            Oh, there were endless surprises. I think the surprises are what makes writing fun. I had formulated the characters Walt Steadman and Ginger Newton very early in the process of thinking about the novel. The story "Girls I Know" was a trial run to see how they would work. So from the beginning I imagined the story as a stand-alone chapter in the book.            I was really encouraged to dive into the novel based on the tremendous feedback I was fortunate to receive on the story. It came out in the journal Epoch and was subsequently anthologized by Laura Furman in The O. Henry Prize Stories and Dave Eggers in The Best American Nonrequired Reading. I had never had a short story of mine so widely distributed before, and I had never received emails from so many different readers of my work. A young man from Iran emailed, for example, and dozens of young, American women who claimed affinities with Ginger. But when I tried to write the opening chapter of the book, I immediately found that the first-person voice I had used in the story wasn't working. The book really had to be in the third-person if I wanted to inhabit all the different neighborhoods and perspectives in which I was interested. But third-person also required me to rethink the characters, or how they would feel from this slightly over-the-shoulder perspective, and this took time.            Another huge surprise: wanting to write about Boston to the degree that I did created some problems with regards to plot. In the earliest version of the book, Ginger and Walt circle in and around the city to an enormous degree, and this created a "wandering" narrative.            But the biggest surprise had to do with the character Mercedes. Early on I knew that the owners of the restaurant where the shootings occur, John and Natalie Bittles, would logically have a child, since they were invested in building a life and a community in Jamaica Plain. So in the first draft of the book I mentioned their young daughter, Mercedes. Then I more or less forgot all about her. I drafted the book up through the shooting, at which point the story was supposed to pivot and become more about Ginger and Walt. But something was troubling me about this arrangement and I realized it was Mercedes. Following her parents' deaths, she had been left behind in the story. When I went back to retrieve her, the book really took its current shape.
What's your daily writing life like? Do you outline or do you just "follow your pen"?            I do detailed outlines that I usually depart from very quickly, but I find the outlines useful nonetheless. As a writer, regardless of whether the form in which I'm working is long or short, I need to have some sense of where I'm starting and where I'm ending. So, for example, I can't work on a story or a longer piece without having a title in hand, and some sense of a final scene or a concluding moment. But then, and this is just crucial for me, the characters weigh in. They refuse to do the things I want them to do. They do something else. They introduce another character, and so on. For me, that's writing fiction. If I've predetermined the path of the story then I've also, I fear, undercut the realness of the characters about which I'm writing. So the process can be quite messy, but even as the narrative slips out of my hands, I try to anticipate or have some idea of where we are headed. Which is just to say, I rewrite my outlines a lot.            And I rewrite my sentences a lot too. I prefer to work with something, anything, other than a blank computer screen, so I try to get stuff on the page as quickly as I can. And then I move things around and rewrite and rewrite—often by pen. The best work days for me are the ones in which I write early in the day and then return to what I've written—to fiddle—hours later. But I'm the kind of writer who tries a lot of different approaches to a given scene or story, which can feel laborious at times. I'm hesitant to dismiss something without first trying it out because I'm always curious what I might pick up along the way.
Boston (my hometown) is a character itself in your novel. At one point, a character says, "You can't leave your hometown behind." Do you personally think that's true? Why or why not?            I think it's certainly true for John Bittles, who says the line you quote above. And I think it's true for Walt, even though he denies it. I think it's true for me too. But I don't think it's the same for everyone. Ginger, for example, claims her background as a New Yorker repeatedly in the story, but I don't think a place of origin matters to her, really. She's all about where she's going. For me, origins matter for sentimental reasons. My relation to my own hometown changed after my sister died unexpectedly fifteen years ago. I'm not able to build new memories with her now, so revisiting Denver really matters to me because I'm reminded of when we were kids and I can see the parks and the streets we played in and walked alongside. And there is an intuitive understanding about where you grew up that I think is really valuable as a writer: a sense of detail and familiarity and intimacy. How you feel about where you grew up can't be corrected by someone else, or altered even if the buildings you knew as a child are gone. But, in a way, I feel that you have to lose or leave your hometown in order to understand its contours. Which leads me to your next question…
What's obsessing you now and why?I'm working now on a novel set in Denver—about a guy in his twenties who learns that everything he thought was true about his family growing up was in fact a fabrication. This debunking of his past is juxtaposed with the novel's re-telling of the history of Colorado and the West, which has so often been fashioned so as to emphasize rugged individualism, which is only part of the story. I'm imagining the book as largely constituted by interlinked but nonetheless freestanding stories, the first of which—chapter three—is coming out in New Letters this fall.
What question didn't I ask that I should have asked?            I thought you might have asked me more about the structure of Girls I Know. Sometimes as writers we do things that seem, to the reader, to be very deliberately done but weren't necessarily. In Girls I Know, for example, the three central characters are all "coming of age" in different ways: Mercedes is at the cusp of her teenage years, Ginger is twenty, Walt is about to turn thirty. So how self-conscious was I of this design of the book?            I really wasn't very conscious of it at all. I remember thinking very overtly that Walt would need to feel justifiably—even if in a "young" sort of way—that he was getting older and needed to start to make some sense of his life. But Ginger and Mercedes, and even Flora, who waitresses at the Early Bird Café and is nineteen, are all about to embark on distinctly new phases of their lives. The same is true for Mrs. Bittles, Mercedes's grandmother, who is left to take care of Mercedes after her parents are killed. I think yet another thing that novels can teach us is how we are always growing, always becoming, regardless of age. There really is no such thing as stasis.            Thank you, Caroline, for the chance to talk with you about my work!! 

Virginia Pye talks about Her Indie Next Pick, River of Dust, working on two novels at once, and so much more

Oh yes, this is book tour season for me, but that doesn't mean I don't want to give support and showcase other great writers, and that includes  the great Virginia Pye. Her short stories are award-winning and has been awarded fellowships to the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Acadia Summer Arts Program.  I'm totally honored that she's also become a friend, and I'm thrilled to have her here. Thank you, Virginia.


What sparked the idea for this novel? What was the research like and did anything about it surprise you?I come to the territory of my novel through my father. He was born and raised in China as the son of missionaries. He then went on to become a prominent political scientist specializing in China and the author over twenty books on Asia. In the house where I grew up, our living room was an elegant shrine of Chinese objects and furniture--a rug decorated with cherry blossoms from Shanxi Province; a small, white Ming vase; and brown-tinged photos of my grandparents and father when we he was still quite small. Each of these objects eventually found their way into River of Dust. The feeling of an exotic country at an earlier time must have seeped into me.When my parents were aging and needed to move out of their home, I ended up going through my grandfather’s papers. He was one of the first missionaries back in Shanxi Province after the Boxer Rebellion. He helped build roads, schools and a hospital. And he was a Christian zealot. He died when my father was only five and I always felt a mix of pride and shame about him. But as I read the yellowed, onion-skin pages of his journals, I found him to be a sensitive, poetic man who clearly loved and relished the Chinese countryside and peasanty. His descriptions of the beauty of that unspoiled, desolate landscape somehow mixed in mind with the sensations that the Chinese objects in my parents’ living room had always stirred in me. The atmospheric elements of River of Dust came together: an earlier time, a strange setting, a poisonous zealotry, but also a pure love. Then, as you said, I had to do a little research, but not a lot. Mostly, the China in my novel is one of my own making and impressionistic in nature. You've taken every mother's most terrible fear--her child being taken--and transformed it into something very new, by having the child kidnapped by Mongol bandits. Set against this backdrop is also the story of Christian missionaries in China. How does one inform the other?Right from the start of the novel, we see the contrast between the upright, Christian misisonaries and the wild-seeming natives of China. Of course, such characterizations are cliché and, for the story to succeed, it needs to go forward and disprove, or at least explore, those assumptions. Without giving too much away, I wanted to see what would happen if the outward appearances started to crumble. The whole notion of civilized vs. uncivilized falls apart when you look at the larger human motivations of love and revenge. I love that the novel is populated by ghost and memories. Why do you think the unseen world impacts the seen one so deeply?I think we live on different levels of consciousness at once. I don’t remember all my dreams, nor do I do a good job of writing them down, but I know that they stay with me during the day and throughout the years. Ghosts, too, can hover around for years. I tend to say that I don’t believe in them, but in my heart-of-hearts I can’t quite believe they don’t exist. Maybe that’s because I have strong ancestors on both sides of my family: people who left their mark and demanded the world’s attention when they were alive. I don’t know what to do with that after their deaths. My parents have passed away now, but I swear they’re still here. I built a little shrine to them on top of my bookshelf and I glance up there when I walk into my study. I say good morning and occasionally ask their advice. I keep them here with me. And why not? History, and the people who went before us, have so much to teach us. Everything has been figured out before and we’re constantly reinventing the wheel, so why not study the past and keep those ghosts alive. We’re smarter when we allow them to speak to us. On another note, I recently heard Jeanette Winterson describe what novels can do. She said they can ask questions, not answer them. I thought that was supremely humble, given how wise she is. But it’s a relief that we’re not out to answer life’s conundrums, but instead to listen closely to the hints and currents and lessons that swirl around us, especially from the past. Then, at least, the questions we ask can be more informed.  What's your writing life like? How has publication changed that life? And how do you write? Do you plan things out like John Irving or do you let the story unfold organically--if there is such a thing!I find myself writing everyday now and I think I have for sometime. I’m vague about it because I try not to guilt-trip myself if I don’t. But when I’m working on a book, I don’t want to be away from it for long. I take my son to school, meet a good friend for a walk with the dog, and then hit by desk by nine. I write better and more clearly in the morning. I’ve become less persnickety over the years and now write whenever and wherever I can. I think I’m just so grateful to have gained confidence as a writer. I like the process more than ever and feel incredibly lucky to spend my days this way. Though it’s my debut, River of Dust is actually my sixth novel. Each of the earlier books was written organically and took years to complete. I outlined River of Dust and wrote the first draft in less than a month. That’s unheard, not just for me, but for every writer I’ve ever met. Yet, something magical happened to create this book. I worked with a wonderful editor and writer, Nancy Zafris, and we tore up my previous manuscript and reconceived it as River of Dust. I then went at the new manuscript with a pent-up vigor that I’d never felt before. I was totally possessed and needed to get the story told. I made changes along the way in the original outline. Many things surprised me in the actual telling, but I also had this outline to follow, so I felt well-grounded. I would love to be so lucky again with a future book.What's obsessing you now and why?Right now I’m working on two previous novel manuscripts. I go back and forth between them like a bad mother setting up two daughters for a lifetime of rivalry. I can’t quite decide which is the stronger, more beautiful, and more promising one. And then there’s my manuscript of short stories that I tinker with as well. It really might be my favorite. I read a lot of contemporary fiction. I want to see what other people are obsessing about. I heard Lauren Groff say recently that for every 1,000 books she reads, she writes one. That seems a steep ratio for me, but my study is piled high with novels that I’m either reading or about to read. So, in answer to your question, I’m obsessing on how to keep doing what I’m doing and to do it better. It still feels nearly impossible to write a good book. To write a great book would be…well, worth obsessing over.What question didn't I ask that I should have?How about why we write? It can start out as a way to deal with loneliness and alienation when we’re young, and then eventually, it becomes a lifeline to other people and a way to populate our lives with the most interesting folks we ever hoped to know. I had good friends when I was a teenager, but I also relied on books, more than music, to keep me company. I went around with a paperback copy of Denise Levertov’s poetry in my back pocket. This spring I moderated a panel for the Virginia Festival of the Book on literary biography and one of the panelists was Levertov’s biographer. I felt so privileged to share that passion with her. Not to mention all the amazing authors who I’m getting to know through the publication of River of Dust. The more we stick at writing, the less it remains a solitary, lonely pursuit. Instead, with each new project, I feel I’ve joined a guild. And Caroline, I think it’s high time we crowned you as our Guild Master—our inspiration for diligence, hard work and total fun at what we do. You are masterful at bringing other writers along with you and into each other’s company, and I, for one, am crazy grateful. 

Amy Sue Nathan talks about The Glass Wives, being a debut author, having books in actual bookstores and so much more

I'm currently on booktour and more than a little crazed, but I wanted to give attention to the wonderful Amy Sue Nathan and her wonderful debut. Nothing is more exciting than a debut--the promise! The Beginning of a career! So go on out and buy Amy's book--and thank you, Amy for being here.


What's it like being a debut author? 
It’s exhilarating and—you know it’s coming—it’s exhausting. It was exhilarating to write a book, to create something out of nothing but the thoughts and words bouncing around in my head (and I do mean bouncing). I still find it amazing that an idea of mine can be 300 pages long! The publishing process has been fascinating as well, just learning how it all works, how it’s all changing, and figuring how I fit in with all of it.  The exhaustion is part wonderment, part worry, part TCB—just taking care of the business of life while all the book stuff is going on.  

How did The Glass Wives Spark? 
A few years after getting divorced, my ex-husband died. I knew it was not an ordinary scenario, but writing about my own family and our own experiences was not something I wanted to do. I’d lived it, and did not want to relive it. Plus, I truly believe the real story of our lives at that time belongs to my children and that it wasn’t mine to tell. Yet, I realized that the nugget of truth—divorced mom with a dead ex-husband—could be taken in a number of directions, and it didn’t have to be a memoir or even “based on a true story” to harbor emotional truths and tell an honest story.  To quote my friend, author Lydia Netzer: “There’s a difference between CRAFT and CONFESSION.”  
Did anything surprise you during the writing?
What surprised me the most was how the act of writing fiction could just yank me out of myself and plunk me right into a fictional world. I’d see, hear, taste, and smell it as I wrote. The sensations were vivid and visceral and time would often just fly by as I wrote. That’s another reason that the “taking care of business” part of writing and publishing can sometimes add to worry, because no matter how hard I try, I can’t be two places at once, even if that just means in my office, writing and the in the kitchen, cooking. 
What is your writing life like? 
It’s haphazardly structured. You see, I’m a real creature of habit who doesn’t always have the option of sticking to a schedule. So I work on going with the flow, using what I know best about myself.  I write best if I start early in the day (I started answering these questions at 5:30 am). I can finish a project in the afternoon or evening, but I can’t start one. On the days I have my way, which aren’t many, I write fiction until noon or one o’clock, eat lunch, and then work on writing essays, blog posts, interviews, etc. I can do techie stuff at night like formatting or research. I also tend to write in big chunks when I can, spending ten hours on a Saturday or Sunday just writing, and then catching up on something else on Monday. I think (I hope) it all evens out in the end.
Do you outline or use story structure or do you wait for the Muse?
When I wrote The Glass Wives, I outlined as I went along. Meaning, I wrote for the day, and then outlined what I needed to write next.  That got me through every draft of the book, and there were at least six full drafts. I have a few books “under the bed” as they say, and those are ones I consider practice books and those are ones I “just wrote.” They came during the waiting periods for The Glass Wives, while waiting for either my agent or editor feedback. Now, with my current WIP, I’m using an outline.  I liked mapping out the story ahead of time. I’ll admit that I kept going in and changing things, and as I write, things change, but it seems to give me the basis for what I need without me having to constantly ask myself what’s next.  Maybe like having a really good assistant? I don’t know, I don’t have one of those!
What's obsessing you now?
I think as a debut author my obsession is getting the word out about my book when there are so many good books out there vying for attention.  Sometimes I also obsess about perception, but really need to stop doing that. I know it’s sometimes hard for people to understand that having a book published isn’t just a tick mark on my bucket list. It’s not just something I wanted to accomplish by the time I turned fifty (I’m forty-nine). My deep desire is to be a “working author” and just write books until I can’t write them anymore is, and always has been, a priority. 
What question didn't I ask that I should have?  
Since the springboard for the novel was in truth, many people ask how my kids feel about the book.  My kids, who are twenty-one and eighteen, knew all along that I was writing a book about a divorced mom whose ex-husband died.  They got how that was almost “too good to pass up” as a starting point to a story.  My daughter read the book and then totally got how it’s fiction, which put her at ease.  After that, I stopped caring if neighbors or friends or family thought it was our story, because my daughter knew it wasn’t. She did call me out on an action of hers that I used in the book. “Hey, I know where you got that!” And she loved it because it worked, because it was used in context with the book and not at all how it had happened in real life.  My son is not a big reader, but I think that the fact that he trusts me, coupled with the fact that his sister read the book, puts him at ease. And they’re both really excited about the whole “getting published and having books in actual bookstores” thing. They’re proud of me and that’s really cool. 

We have winners for the book giveaways!

Winner of the print edition of IS THIS TOMORROW:  Jessica
WInner of the audio book: Melissa Sarno


THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!!!

Lian Dolan talks about Elizabeth the First Wife, Shakespearean subplots and break-up lines, writing, not slipping behind technologically, and so much more

Lian Dolan  is hilarious. That's what you have to know first. But she's more than that, of course. She's a bestselling writer and award-winning broadcaster. She crated Satellite Sisters, a nationally syndicated radio show with her four real life sisters, which reached a million listeners a week and won 9 Gracie Allen Awards for Excellence in Women's Media. (Note: I am on it this week!) She produces the Chaos Chronicles, a humor blog and podcast about modern motherhood which was developed as a half-hour sitcom for Nickelodeon, with Lian writing the script. She contributes to Oprah.com as a parenting expert, to makinglifebetter.com as a family expert, and she's also written columns for O, the Oprah Magazine and Working Mother Magazine. Her debut, Helen of Pasadena was a Los Angeles Times Bestseller, nominated for Best Fiction by the Southern California Independent Booksellers. Following that is the whipsmart Elizabeth the First Wife, which tackles reinvention, love, and finding yourself--all with a delicious soupcon of Shakespeare. Thank you so much, Lian for everything!  
What sparked the book? I wanted to explore the idea of finding and asserting your true self as an adult within the context of your family. I know a lot of people, myself included, who are confident, respected professionals in their every day lives and then Thanksgiving rolls around and they revert to awkward 13 year-olds when confronted by their opinionated parents or finger-wagging aunt. What’s wrong with us? Why are we one person in the real world and a very different person in our own families? So I wanted to take a look at that dilemma through the eyes of a contemporary woman, someone who otherwise has her act together. But that sounds pretty heavy and I like to write with a sense of fun, so I threw in the Shakespeare, the romance and a stray dog. 
The structure of the book is just inspired. You have the main story line, about Elizabeth, whose whole sort of staid life earthquakes when three very different men come into her life,  then there is the story of the production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but you also have these hilariously witty asides on relationships based on Shakespearean principals about why a modern woman would or wouldn't want a Shakespearean hero, and you outline the power couples, like the Macbeths, complete with their best and worst moments, turn-ons and turn-offs, and why they work as a couple, and you do it in a fresh and funny way, so that both our modern time--and Shakespeare’s Elizabethan time, seem new. How did you manage to keep all these wheels spinning?
I wanted to tackle a Shakespearean subplot because his work is so universal and still so relevant. Also, I think it’s possible to become completely swept up in Shakespeare in a romantic, highly impractical way, as if reading Shakespeare was enough of life, so that you didn’t really even have to go out and live your own life. And that seemed to fit my main character Elizabeth Lancaster, a professor at a community college who’s a little stuck in her quiet life. 
Initially, I set out to have Elizabeth solve some age-old academic quandary around the writing of Midsummer. And I did months and months of research looking for the right mystery she could solve. What I didn’t realize when I started is that there are a zillion Shakespearean scholars and enthusiasts with blogs and articles and discussion groups online. There was literally no way I was going to create a “new” question they hadn’t already discussed with great authority. (Much greater than mine, I might add!) So I went the complete opposite way: Bridget Jones meets The Bard. Elizabeth’s “research” became a contemporary relationship book based on the work of William Shakespeare. The idea popped into my head in the shower one day, as the perfect solution to my writerly dilemma. I hopped out of the shower, soaking wet, and searched the Internet to see if any such book existed. I was shocked to find nothing. Nada. Now even a tweet in that category.  That’s when I knew I was onto something, combining pop culture, contemporary relationships and the work of William Shakespeare. 
As far as keeping the wheels spinning, I did have to finish the main manuscript completely before I started the book-within-a –book material. It was a completely different style of writing and thinking. I tried writing some of the material as I wrote the prose and I couldn’t even get a sentence down! So I banged out the prose first and then turned to the more magazine-style writing. It was pretty grueling actually! Like writing an entirely different book after you finished the first one. I’m not sure I’ll do that again. But I’m happy with the results. 

I also want to ask you about the great lines from Shakespeare and your advice on how to use them. How’d you go about choosing them? 
There is literally not a subject you can conceive of- lust, jealousy, love at first sight, broken hearts, bad boyfriends, dog ownership, unrequited passion- about which Shakespeare hasn’t written a dozen great lines. It’s an embarrassment of riches.  And the Internet makes reviewing all that material fairly accessible. As I was writing, I’d have the thought, “This would be a good spot for a quote.” Or “Let’s see if I can do a whole riff on break-up lines” and I’d Google “Shakespearean Break-up lines” and I’d sift through the choices.  I tried to use the lines sparingly, so that they really stood out when I did.  I think it would be easy to go overboard because Shakespeare is literally human quote machine. 
What I also find ingenious is that while you are entertaining us and making us laugh, you're also talking about Shakespearean drama and imparting a great deal of knowledge, too.  So where does your love and knowledge of Shakespeare come from? Did you go back and do some rereading while writing the novel?
I grew up in Connecticut near a town called Stratford which is home to an ‘official’ Shakespearean Theater, so from elementary school through high school, seeing a play was an annual field trip. And I can still remember the discussion about The Taming of the Shrew in my 8th grade English class with my groovy, feminist teacher. I think that early exposure gave me an interest and a comfort level with the material. Let’s face it, the first few Shakespeare plays you see, you barely have any idea of what’s happening. But the more read and watch, the more you understand. 

In high school, I also loved going into New York City in the summer to see the Shakespeare in the Park with friends because that was a whole happening, from waiting in line for the tickets to seeing great actors on stage in an outdoor setting with a raucous audience. By college, I eagerly signed up for a full-year class, reading a dozen plays and even playing Hamlet in our in-class production. 

But a lifelong fascination with the Bard was cemented during my junior year abroad in Athens. I had the opportunity to see an amazing Royal Shakespeare Company/Peter Hall production of Coriolanus with Ian Mckellen in the title role. The production was staged in the ancient amphitheater on the Acropolis. There was no need for a set really because it was the ancient amphitheater on the Acropolis! Just the words, the acting and the lighting but with Shakespeare, you don’t need any more.  It was ‘mind-blowing’ to steal a phrase from the book. Just one of those experiences that connected me to thousands of years of theater, words and the whole human experiences in a single night. Made me a life-long believer in the power of the Bard. 

Even still, I felt like I was starting from scratch when doing the research for the book. I spent a long weekend in Ashland at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, seeing plays and taking a backstage tour. My younger son was reading Midsummer at the time—the starter Shakespeare comedy, so I read along with him and decided that play would work perfectly for my concept. I went to a bunch of lectures by Shakespearean scholars at local colleges on related topics. Did you know you could find PhD theses online? I read a few of those that related to Elizabethan England.  And, of course, I watched Ten Things I Hate About You again, all in the name of research. 

What I love about your books is your eye for the telling detail, both in Pasadena and in Oregon.  Do you think about place as a character in itself?

Yes, absolutely yes. I’ve always been drawn to books, movies and TV shows that have a real sense of place. I’m not a big fan of the “generic midwestern city” as a setting.  When I immerse myself in a book or movie, I like to feel that I get to know the place almost as well as the characters. Pasadena has been my home for twenty years and has a rich cultural and intellectual heritage to draw upon. The city is awash in tradition and civic pride, but also dynamic and evolving. Oregon has a special place in my heart, having lived in Portland for five years and spending a lot of time in Central Oregon for vacation. It’s quirky, charming and the complete opposite of Pasadena in many ways.  I hope readers want to go to both Pasadena and Ashland after reading the book. 

What’s obsessing you now and why?
Digitizing my life. I feel like I slipping behind, technologically speaking. Like I’ve kept up for the first decade of this revolution, but now I’m kind of over it and just want to keep my current version on iTunes. I’m tired of upgrading my software, but I don’t want to be that dinosaur that can’t figure out how to get the pictures out of the camera. So, I’m re-committing to digitizing. After the book tour, of course. 

Win a copy of the audiobook or a print edition of IS THIS TOMORROW plus Voice artist Xe Sands talks about Going Public In Shorts, an audio story collection, preparing to read an audiobook, what books she won't do, what's obsessing her

Xe Sands is a voice artist and an audiobook reader--and she's also completely sublime. She's read The Vanishers by Heidi Julavits, The Art Forget by B.A. Shapiro and Is This Tomorrow by me! Publishers Weekly and Audiofile Magazine rave about her, and so do I. The first time I heard her read a section of my novel, I felt my hands shaking. But more than that, she's a blast to talk with--thoughtful, funny, smart, warm. I'm incredibly honored to have her here. Make sure you check out her amazing website, too, And to celebrate the launch of IS THIS TOMORROW, we're having a giveaway of both the print edition and the audiobook edition. To enter, post a comment about how you remember or think about the 1950s!  The winner will be chosen on the 11th! Thank you so much, Xe! You're just the best.

Being a voice artist seems to be like one of the all-time coolest jobs on the planet. How does one become such a lucky person?
LOL! Well I certainly think it is. I mean, I get to play with dragons and lost children and bereft mothers and passionate lovers all day and whisper their stories into the ears of others. It's pretty amazing. 
As to how you get this lucky? That is a simple question with a complicated answer. First, be in love with telling stories (not in love with how you sound telling them). If you truly love it, find a coach/audiobook director who leads workshops in your area (or travel to them) and work with them on how to hone that love of storytelling into an effective relationship with listeners. Finally, when you feel ready, reach out to publishers and other narrators. And never ever stop learning about, working at and loving what you do.

When you read a book aloud, is the experience different for you than when you read it on the page? And when you read a book on the page for pleasure, do you have to shut out that part of your brain that would tell you how to read it aloud, or is that a given? In recording an audiobook, is the process start to finish, or will you take breaks or do it over the course of a week?
There is a difference between how a book feels when I read it on the page vs. aloud in the studio. When prepping a book for recording, even though I'm beginning to connect with the characters, there is a much deeper level of connection that happens once I'm actually telling their story, thinking their thoughts and voicing their words. Now when I read for pleasure, my job always initially gets in the way - a damn nuisance! Always takes a page or so of me reading it aloud in my head before I forget all about that and just allow myself to get lost in the experience of the story. 
As for the recording process, it's definitely one of many breaks over several days. For most projects, the ratio averages out to 2 hours of recording for every hour you eventually hear, so for a 300 page book that is just butter to narrate, it would take a solid 20 hours to record. I can usually record for 4-5 hours per day without losing vocal integrity, so a typical book takes me about 4-5 days to do the initial recording. 

How do you prepare for reading an audiobook? What's the whole process like? I want to say that I really was grateful for the way you incorporated me in the project and let me in on what you were doing. Do you find you become friends with the authors whose works you read?
Oh I'm so glad to hear that, Caroline! When reaching out to an author, it is always my hope to make them as comfortable as possible, and feel as included as they'd like to be. And these connections made with the authors whose work I'm privileged to record is one of the great blessings of my job. Working with you was an absolute joy and honor. 
As for my preparation process, in an ideal situation, it goes a bit like this: receive the text from the publisher, read through and mark up any questions I have for the author or publisher, let the book just sit in the back of my mind for a day or so - just digesting the characters/world/plot/arc. Usually, I'll read bits and pieces aloud as I go, to get a feel for how the characters feel, how the narrative flows, etc. Then after a healthy dose of procrastination that first day (which I experience before every artistic undertaking, narration or otherwise), it's finally time to get behind the mic and act as a conduit for the author's intent.  

Is there any book you won't or can't do--either because it doesn't speak to your strengths or the book just didn't strike you? How do you choose your projects? Do you have to love or at least like a book in order to narrate it successfully?
Oh gracious, yes, but more because there are some lines I just will not cross in terms of what I will put myself through. I joke that I'm a "method narrator," but what that means is that I really live the story as I narrate it. So there are some plot devices and particular themes I will not willingly put myself through psychologically. There have also been a (very) few instances in which I felt I could not ethically support the content I was asked to narrate, and a few occasions in which I've previewed the text and realized I just didn't have the appropriate command of whatever accents or languages were involved, or just wasn't the right match vocally, and have voiced that to the publisher. 
As for how I choose my projects...well, they often choose me. Most often, we are offered work from publishers. But there are times, such as with IS THIS TOMORROW, when we hear of a book and voice our strong desire to narrate it, and are fortunate enough to be trusted with that particular project. 
And oh what a good and difficult question...do I have to love or at least like a book to narrate it successfully. Here's what has to be there for me: a connection, however small. There has to be that moment when the characters become real to me, where their struggles/joy/pain/angst is suddenly my struggle, my joy, my pain, etc. And I've found that, regardless of the overall story or theme or genre, there is always that moment. Always. I just have to be open to it. And once that connection happens, it's far easier to open up as a conduit for their story to flow through as the author intended. 

When you're narrating, is there ever a moment when you really, really want to change a line of text because you know it would sound better? I imagine audiobook narration is a lot like being an actor, where you're making choices all the time. Do you map all of this out ahead?
LOL! Why yes, yes there are such moments. I think this is mostly due to the difference between how phrasing flows on the page, and how it flows when spoken aloud. I find this happens significantly less with works from authors who read their text aloud as they go. Then the musicality of spoken language is full incorporated into the written text and it translates more seamlessly into audio. 
And yes, audiobook narration is an acting art, as well as a storytelling one. You are making choices in delivery, but if you're truly connected to the text, the choices are there, waiting for you to key into them - they are present in the author's intent. I don't tend to map delivery choices out ahead of time. I tend to head into the booth and just let it come out how it wants/needs to come out and then step back and listen and feel how the performance affects me as a listener. 

Whom do you listen to and admire as far as audiobook narrators? 
There are so many that I admire, who are such talented storytellers that it's hard to list just a few. But I'll throw out there that I could listen to Barbara Rosenblat, Bianca Amato, Robin Sachs or Jim Dale read me anything, anything at all. 

What's obsessing you now and why? 
Ha! What a question...how did you know that there is always something obsessing me?
At the  moment, I'm completely obsessed with creation and coordination of an ambitious philanthropic project, Going Public...in Shorts. Last fall, I approached fellow narrators about putting together an audio story collection in celebration of June Is Audiobook Month (JIAM) 2013. Over 30 agreed to join me, and on June 1st, we will begin offering Going Public...in Shorts in serialized format, 1-2 per day. Each narrator recorded a short piece from the public domain, including the work of Chekhov, Twain, Chopin, Poe, Lovecraft, Fitzgerald, Joyce, Wilde and many others, even Lincoln’s pivotal Second Inaugural Address. As a "Thank you!" to listeners, folks can listen online for free for one week after the story releases. Stories will also be available for download purchase via Downpour, with all proceeds going to the Reach Out and Read literacy advocacy organization. And I have to say that I've been blown away buy the support of my fellow narrators, our publishing partner, Blackstone, and the blogging community in bringing this ambitious and amazing project to fruition. For more info, please visit the Spoken Freely page. 
As for other obsessions unrelated to the narration side of my life...oh yes. My teen just had a birthday and as some know, I have, over the years, backed myself into an obsessive corner with ever increasingly elaborate cakes. This year, it was Supernatural themed, featuring a '67 Chevy Impala made of cake and chocolate, a pie baked INSIDE the cake, screenshot panels, and an audio track of Chuck's Impala monologue from Swan Song. 
What question didn't I ask that I should have?
None that I can think of :) But if you think of any, feel free!