Kate Forsyth's Blog, page 39
September 28, 2014
SEVEN FASCINATING THINGS I LEARNED WHILE WRITING BITTER GREENS
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SEVEN FASCINATING THINGS I LEARNED WHILE WRITING BITTER GREENS
1. Charlotte-Rose de la Force, who first wrote the fairy tale we know of as Rapunzel, once dressed up as a dancing bear to rescue her much younger lover
2. She was second cousin to the Sun King, whose dogs slept on satin sheets in four-poster beds and ate off gold plates. His dwarves, however, slept on the floor in the corridor and were only tossed the occasional bone.
3. It was during the Sun King’s reign that champagne began to be drunk out of crystal glasses. This is because Louis XIV believed that glass was impervious to poison.
4. Vichyssoise was also invented during the Sun King’s reign. This is because it took so long for the king’s soup to reach his table. It had to be carried for miles through the corridors of Versailles, with everyone in the crowd curtsying and bowing as it passed, before being tasted by the taster to the taster to the taster to the King’s royal taster. I am not joking. Five different people tasted it before it reached the mouth of the king. No wonder it was always cold.
5. It was around this time that women started carrying little dogs in their handbags. This was so they could feed the soup to the dog first, and see if it died.
6. The Sun King and his court were not entirely paranoid. During his reign, a plot to poison the king was uncovered and led to the discovery of a criminal magical underworld in which fortune-tellers, witches and alchemists were doing a flourishing business selling “inheritance powders” made from arsenic and powdered toads. Two hundred people were implicated, including the king’s own mistress; 36 people were tortured and died at the stake.
7. The reason why it’s bad luck for actors to wear green is because Moliere, the Sun King’s favourite actor and playwright, was wearing a green coat when he died. He was in the middle of a scene in which a hypochondriac pretends to die. It took the audience a little while to work out he was not acting.
Read more about BITTER GREENS or BUY THE BOOK!
September 27, 2014
BOOK LIST: Best 25 Books Set in Italy
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Today I've gathered together a list of what I consider the BEST 25 BOOKS SET IN ITALY:
(in alphabetical order)
1. The Wedding Officer – Anthony Capella
I loved this books so much! Its set in Sicily during the Second World War, and is all about food and love. It'll make you want to cook, I warn you!
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2. Four Seasons – Laurel Corona
A beautiful book about Vivaldi and the women musicians of the Pieta in Venice.
3. A Thousand Days in Venice - Marlena de Blasi
This is really a memoir and not a novel, but I really loved it and so wanted to include it. Another gorgeous book about love and food.
4. The Principessa – Christie Dickason
Set in the Italian city-state of La Spada, the gateway to Europe, this is an absolutely wonderful book of romance, palace intrigue, murder and fireworks.
5. The Birth of Venus – Sarah Dunant
I loved this book - its bold, passionate and brilliantly brings the world of Renaissance Italy to life.
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6. In the Company of the Courtesan - Sarah Dunant
One of my all time favourite books!
7. Sacred Hearts - Sarah Dunant
This one is set in a convent in Ferrara, Italy, in the year 1570 - I sat up till after 2am to finish it. An absolute zinger!
8. Leonardo’s Swans – Karen Essex
Set in Renaissance Italy, the book charts the lives, loves and marriages of two sisters. Isabella and Beatrice, and their relationship with Leonardo da Vinci. This is historical writing at its best, vivid, alive, crackling with sexual and political tension, and uncompromising in its reality.
9. The Glassblower of Murano – Marina Fiorato
This novel tells the parallel stories of a glassblower in Venice, 1681, and his descendant centuries later, a young woman who dreams of being a glassblowing artiste herself. It’s a simple, romantic story, but well told and with lots of lovely Venetian details.
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10. The Madonna of the Almonds - Marina Fiorato
A story of love, art, war and the story behind the making of the Amaretto di Saronna liquer - loved it!
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11. The Botticelli Secret - Marina Fiorato
A grand romp of an adventure through Renaissance Italy and Botticelli’s most famous painting, ‘La Primavera’, this was a great read (though you may need to willingly suspend your disbelief about quite a number of things). I loved it, though. The heroine Luciana is a delight, and the illumination of some of the possibly meanings behind the figures in the painting quite fascinating.
12. Daughter of Siena - Marina Fiorato
This lush historical novel set in 18th century Siena is a fabulous read, with a perfect blend of action, mystery and love.
13. The Venetian Contract - Marina Fiorato
Her latest book and just as good as all her others.
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E.M. Forster
14. A Room with a View- E.M. Forster
An old favourite of mine and one I like to re-read every few years. A beautiful, subtle love story set partly in Italy and partly in England, with a gentle satire on English manners and mores – a wonderful book.
15. Where Angels’ Fear to Tread – E.M. Forster
Not as well known as A Room with a View, but just as good - romance and misunderstandings among English ex-pats in a small Italian village
16. Juliet – Anne Fortier
A brilliant read! I really recommend it. This book tells the story of the original Juliet of Shakespearean fame, in parallel with the modern-day quest of a young American woman to find an ancient family legacy. I love books which parallel two historical periods, particularly when it is done as well as this one.
17. The Thief Lord - Cornelia Funke
An absolutely wonderful and magical children's book set in Venice. I love all of Cornelia Funke's books but this is my favourite. A must read for all ages.
17. The Confessions of Catherine de Medici – C.W. Gortner
An absolutely fabulous historical novel told from the point of view of Catherine de Medici, one of the most maligned women in history. The parts dealing with her childhood are set in Italy; the rest in France.
18. The Falconer’s Knot – Mary Hoffman
‘A tale of poison, bloodshed and passion’ ... a fabulous book, and one I can highly recommend.
19. I, Mona Lisa – Jeanne Kalogridis
This was the first book I have read by Jeanne Kalogridas and it won't be the last. I really enjoyed this book, which tells the story of the woman behind Leonardo da Vinci's most famous painting. So little was known about Lisa Gherardini, Kalogridas was able to position her right in the heart of the intrigues, murders, and religious fanaticism of Florence in the days of Savaronola. A really good, exciting, romantic book.
20. The Borgia Bride - Jeanne Kalogridis
The tagline for this book reads ‘Incest. Poison. Betrayal. Three wedding presents for the Borgia Bride.’ This sums up the book really well. It’s a real historical page turner, set in Italy in the 1490s when the Borgia family ruled Rome. Riveting stuff.
21. The Book of Unholy Mischief – Elle Newmark
An utterly fabulous read! Set in 15th century Venice, with a boy who seeks to protect an ancient book that holds the secret to unimaginable power. Lots of intrigue, drama, danger and cooking.
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22. Vivaldi’s Virgins – Barbara Quick
Another wonderful book about Vivaldi and the girl musicians of the Pieta in Venice - full of atmosphere and beauty.
23. Miss Garnet’s Angel – Salley Vickers
This novel tells the story of a prim and proper Englishwoman who goes to Venice and finds her life transformed by the power of art and love. It made me want to move to Venice!
24. The Passion of Artemisia – Susan Vreeland
A novel inspired by the life of Artemisia Gentileschi, one of the few women to ever be admitted into the salons of Renaissance Florence. Read my Interview with Susan Vreeland for more.
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September 26, 2014
BITTER GREENS: Charlotte-Rose de la Force in her own words
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When I was researching the life of Charlotte-Rose de la Force, the real life heroine of my novel 'Bitter Greens', my translator Sylvie Poupard-Gould found a description she had written of herself, one of the few pieces left of her own writing.
Here it is:
“If I wished to create a flattering self portrait, as one ordinarily does, and that I wished to infuse it with as much wit as possible, [I would say]
Never would the much celebrated Helen have had such sweet attributes,
Nor the glory of Niquee caused such a stir.
How many lovers would I have defeated by my charms!
I would renew all our old Paladins - I alone would remake their destinies,
And there would be such a display of arms!
You have to admit, my dear Prince, that things only have the value which we believe them to have, and that I could say, for instance, that I have the loveliest height in the world, that height with which poets often endow their Venus.
It seems to me that I have read somewhere in Homer that She had black eyebrows and eyes - I am in possession of these very same ones. Eyes that we ascribe to the Mother of Love must surely be beautiful: Mine are as such- they say that they are touching, and that never a gaze was so full of charm... I have small and well made feet; my legs, my chest and my hands are rather beautiful. My hair is plentiful, and of the same shade as my eyes. My mouth is red, my teeth fair and I look youthful,
A rose complexion,
Hiding other secret delights,
Which are made of such things that we know but of which we cannot speak...
Isn’t it true then, my Prince, that I have just described the most pleasant beauty conceivable?
All that I have just said is true, and so we must stop here in order to delight those who have not yet laid eyes on me- send this portrait to foreigners, enchant nations and sing my future glory!
However, if I am to remain loyal to this austere sense of truth that rules me, I must confess that, far from being beautiful, I am only just pretty in the eyes of those who love me- who knows what I must look like to those who are indifferent!
All that I have said is true, but there are unpleasant consequences. My nose is not beautiful, my cheeks are high, I have a large mouth and facial features that could do with being more regular. It is almost certain that I am not attractive at first sight, but that with time, one gets used to me. So, to come back to my original point, I look cold, which may give me a distinguished air. I do not seek to attract, because it so happens that very few new people attract me; in this, I am different from other ladies, and like to concentrate my energies on that which pleases me:
To see him, to love him and to remember him
To look after only him
Of the object of my affections
My soul will never tire
I am absolutely the enemy of all constraints, even though my life is one perpetual constraint.
Although I am the mistress of my words and of my actions, of my appearance I am not. I change faces frequently, depending on the mood I am in. Sadness leaves a horrible impression, pride and contempt show too much and do not sit well, languor seems touching, but it is happiness and gaiety which open me up and suit me best. All passions are clearly reflected in my eyes (...) they have a beautiful language for those who wish to listen.
I was born independent and haughty, craving glory to excess. It is also from this trait that I have drawn the strength not to be defeated by adversity. The greatness of my courage allows me to defeat all that I find ill; it allows for a display of resolve that is above my gender and that counters the most outrageous attacks of fortune.
My life is an ongoing philosophy, a living morality. I am extremely fair; I know neither resentment nor the satisfaction of revenge. The misfortune of my enemy triumphs over my anger, and therefore, there is no duty that does not benefit from my generosity.
Whilst I fear malicious gossip, I do not dread fair criticism. True to my virtue, I would much less forgive myself a misdemeanour than others. I am hard on myself and so always look to correct myself- I look for my own approval and do not give it lightly.
Read more about BITTER GREENS or BUY THE BOOK!
September 25, 2014
BITTER GREENS: The Facts behind the Fiction of Charlotte-Rose de la Force's life
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My novel BITTER GREENS is, of course, a work of imagination.
However, in weaving a tale of fancy I have used as the immovable pegs the known facts of Charlotte-Rose de la Force’s life, few as they are.
Even the year of her birth is open to argument, ranging from 1650 to 1654. I travelled to Château de Cazeneuve in Gascony and, with the help of her baptismal records, was able to confirm it as the earlier date. I also saw her baby pram and the simple white family chapel where she was baptised.[image error]
Chateau de Cazeneuve, in Gascony, France
Of her childhood, we know only that she met King Louis XIV in 1660 at the Château de Cazeneuve, and that two years later her mother was imprisoned against her will in a convent in Bordeaux.
Charlotte-Rose went to court at the age of sixteen, and was maid-of-honour first to the queen and later to the Duchess of Guise.
She had an affair with Moliere’s protégé, the actor Michel Baron, who notoriously left his nightcap in her bedroom one night.
Michel Baron, the 17th century French playright
Later, Charlotte-Rose was engaged to the Marquis de Nesle, the betrothal ending in scandal after a pouch she had given him was found to have toads’ feet and spells in it. As a result, Mme de la Force “came to the attention” of the King during the infamous Affair of the Poisons.
Her love affair with the much younger Charles de Briou caused more scandal, particularly after she dressed up as a dancing bear to gain access to him. They wed, but their marriage was annulled in the courts.
In 1697, she was banished to the abbey of Gercy-en-Brie after writing some satirical Christmas verses and under suspicion of having an affair with the Dauphin.
She wrote ‘Persinette’ and various other fairy tales while imprisoned there, publishing them anonymously the following year.
The mystery of how Charlotte-Rose de la Force came to know of Giambattista Basile’s fairytale ‘Petrosinella’ may have been solved in 2007 by the fairytale scholar Professor Susanna Magnanini. She conjectures, in ‘Postulated Routes from Naples to Paris: The Printer Antonio Bulifon and Giambattista Basile’s Fairy Tales in Seventeenth Century France’, that a copy of his fairytale collection may have been brought to Paris around the time of the explosion of literary fairytales by French writers Charles Perrault, Charlotte-Rose de la Force, Marie-Jeanne L’Héritier and others. If so, these French storytellers would have had to have read Basile in his original Neapolitan dialect, which is strikingly different to both Latin and Italian.
The story ‘La Puissance d’Amour’, told by Charlotte-Rose in the novel on the night she first meets Charles de Briou, is a paraphrasing of one of her actual fairytales, which has never before been translated into English.
Similarly, ‘Bearskin’, the story about a princes turned into a she-bear, is one of Henriette-Julie d’Murat’s most famous fairytales, and she was indeed a cousin of Charlotte-Rose de la Force.
I first heard about Charlotte-Rose de la Force in an essay by Terri Windling, 'Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let Down Your Hair', in Endicott Stduio's Spring 2006 Journal of Mythic Arts. This was the first seed that led me on my journey to discovering the life of this extraordinary writer.
My primary source for the facts of Charlotte-Rose's life come from "Mademoiselle de la Force: auteur mèconnu du XVIIͨ siècle", by the French academic Michel Souloumiac, which I had translated into English, again for the first time. My secondary source was "Letters from Liselotte: the collected letters of Elisabeth Charlotte, Princess Palatine and Duchess of Orléans, 'Madame', 1652-1722", in which she recorded the gossip of the Sun King's court. Charlotte-Rose is mentioned a number of times.
Researching and writing the life of Charlotte-Rose de la Force was like assembling and putting together a gigantic jigsaw - it required patience, dedication and persistence. I feel, however, that I have discovered one of the most fascianting women ever forgotten by history.
Read more about BITTER GREENS or BUY IT HERE!
September 24, 2014
BITTER GREENS: Review by Margo Lanagan
The Golden Stair: Kate Forsyth's Bitter Greens
—review by Margo Lanagan
The year before last, I wrote a Rapunzel story. It began with the prince arriving at Rapunzel's tower to find her severed plait of golden hair tumbled in a pile on the grass. As he mourned over it, the witch rode up. She captured him, took him to her castle and imprisoned him in a dungeon. There, the single strand of hair that he had souvenired sprang to life, insinuated itself into the padlock and released him, and led him through the castle to rescue Rapunzel from her prison room.
Kate Forsyth has found a stash somewhere of just such live, enterprising threads. Her new book for adult readers, Bitter Greens, is a turf-to-tower-window braid of live, red-gold hair. It's a big, glorious read, full of love, lust, pain, politics, blood red and blue, and some of the best frocks and the worst fleas ever.
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Forsyth binds three main strands into this glowing cable. First, via the life of Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de la Force, who published 'Persinette' in her Les Contes des Contes in 1698, she leads us into the staggeringly ornate, crowded, venal, powdered-and-patched court of Louis XIV. Through Charlotte's eyes we witness the scandal, the witch-hunting (literal and figurative), the favour-mongering and the grinding of the intricate machine of court etiquette—all revolving around the spoilt, unsmiling King whose attention, like a toddler's, must be caught in just the right way if the sun is to shine in Versailles. All this determinedly superficial making and breaking of livelihoods and reputations finally gives way in the dead-serious matter of the persecution of the Huguenots, which forces the Protestant Charlotte-Rose to choose between exile and banishment to a convent.
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The second strand of the story is the Rapunzel tale itself. Forsyth takes this up just as Charlotte-Rose did at the Abbey of Gercy-en-Brie, amplifies and vivifies it, anchors it firmly in late-Renaissance Italy and winds it through the Charlotte-Rose story. "No one can tell a story without transforming it in some way," says Charlotte towards the end of the book, and this is a fairytale retelling that grows layer on layer, allowing us to glimpse a whole society from Medici to mendicant even as we revel in the magic at work upon, and within, the poor imprisoned mask-maker's daughter Margherita.
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The third strand, without which the other two would never connect, is the story of the Venetian witch Selena Leonelli, La Strega Bella. Having as a child witnessed her mother's serial rape, she apprentices herself to Wise Sibillia and learns the art of maintaining her beauty and extending her life by drawing and consuming virgins' blood. To tell more of her story would be to spoil Bitter Greens for you, but the beautiful witch's tale involves art, plague, Inquisition, kidnapping, murder and desperate romance, with her battle against the ravages of time casting a cloud of menace over all.
Forsyth has transformed what must have been a truly massive amount of research into a rich and lively story, presenting historical realities that seem fantastical, and fantastical elements that feel real. She passes us deftly in and out of each character's dancing. For all this lightness of touch, though, the overpowering impression left by Bitter Greens is one of sadness. In the background of the three absorbing stories silently builds a catalogue of strictures, burdens and demands placed on women in history, a great stacking up of odds against their enjoying financial independence and freedom of movement, thought and association. The central image of the Rapunzel tale is the golden rope, means of entry to and exit from the imprisoning tower. But what of the girls and women past and present who could never grow such a fabulous extension of themselves? Must they remain un-rescued and unsung in their towers forever?
Read more about BITTER GREENS or BUY IT HERE!
September 23, 2014
BITTER GREENS: The history of the Rapunzel fairy tale
Most people think that the ‘Rapunzel’ story was first told by the Grimm Brothers in the early 19th century, but in fact it is a much older tale than that. There are so many ‘Maiden in the Tower’ stories in cultures all around the world that it has its own classification in the Aarne-Thompson fairytale motif index (Type 310).
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The first known version is from Christian iconography with the story of Saint Barbara. She was a virtuous young girl locked in a tower by her father in the 3rd century. She was tortured for her Christian beliefs but her wounds miraculously healed overnight and when she was beheaded by her father, he was struck by lightning and killed. Most images of her show her with long, flowing, blonde hair, and in one version of the story her hair miraculously burst into flame when her father seized hold of it.
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The first appearance of the motif of the ‘hair ladder’ was in a 10th century Persian tale told by Ferdowsi (932-1025 AD), in which a woman in a harem offers to lower her hair to her lover so he can climb up to her. He is afraid he might hurt her and so throws up a rope instead.
The ‘hair ladder’ reappears in Petrosinella, a literary fairy tale told by a Florentine writer, Giambattista Basile and published in 1634. Basile was living in Venice at the time and so may have heard many tales brought by sailors and merchants from faraway lands. Petrosinella (Little Parsley) is given up to an ogress after her mother steals parsley from the ogress’s garden. The ogress locks Petrosinella up in a tower in the forest, using her hair as a ladder to access the building. Petrosinella escapes with the help of a prince who heard her singing, overcoming the ogress by casting three magical acorns behind her that turn into obstacles that impede the witch and ultimately devour her.
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Sixty years later, the story appears again, this time in France. It is told in 1698 by Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de la Force , who has been banished to a convent after displeasing the Sun King, Louis XIV, at his opulent court in Versailles. Locked away in a cloister, much like Rapunzel is in her tower, Charlotte-Rose was among the first writers to pen a collection of literary fairy tales and also one of the world’s first historical novelists. Published under a pseudonym, Mademoiselle X, Charlotte-Rose’s tales became bestsellers and she was eventually able to buy her release.
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In Persinette, Mademoiselle de la Force’s version of the tale, the mother conceives an insatiable longing for parsley which her husband steals for her from a sorceress’s garden. When he is caught by the sorceress, the husband promises the sorceress his unborn daughter. The sorceress comes and collects the little girl at the age of seven, names her Persinette, and raises her until she is twelve. Persinette is then locked away in a tower without a door or stair, deep in a forest.
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In time she becomes a woman; the prince hears her singing and chants the rhyme so he can climb up the ladder of hair to her room, where he seduces her. “He became bolder and proposed to marry her right then and there, and she consented without hardly knowing what she was doing. Even so, she was able to complete the ceremony” is how Charlotte-Rose rather coyly describes his seduction.
Persinette becomes pregnant as a result, and in her naivety betrays herself to the sorceress when she complains about her dress growing tighter. The sorceress is furious. She cuts off Persinette’s hair and banishes her to a far-distant wilderness, then tricks the prince into climbing up the braids to the tower. She then causes him to fall from the tower to the ground, and he is blinded by the thorns that grow about the base of the tower. Persinette bears twins in the wilderness, then finds the prince and heals his eyes with her tears. The sorceress continues to torment them, until the young couple’s courage and tender love for each other move her to mercy and she magically returns them to the prince’s loving family.
The story was then retold by the German author Friedrich Schulz (1790). His version is almost identical to Mademoiselle de la Force’s, except that he changed the girl’s name to Rapunzel. It was then retold by the Grimm Brothers (1812), becoming less powerful, mysterious and sexually charged with each subsequent edition. For example, Rapunzel betrays the prince by remarking that the witch is much heavier to pull up, rather than by the witch’s realization that Rapunzel is pregnant.
I love Charlotte-Rose de la Force’s version of the story because of the ardent love affair and the miraculous healing of the prince’s eyes, and also because the heroine takes a more active role than in later versions of the tale. Persinette is imprisoned as a child, but she survives her ordeal, plots her escape, falls in love, and then raises two children on her own. She heals her lover’s wounds with her tears, and she persuades the sorceress to set them free. She becomes a magical agent of healing and salvation, not only for herself and her family, but also for the sorceress.
I am also fascinated by Charlotte-Rose herself. Strong-willed, intelligent and fiercely independent, she once rescued her lover from imprisonment by disguising herself as a dancing bear and entering his father’s castle with a travelling troupe of performers. Her stories were among the first literary fairy tales to be published, and her historical novels are known to have been read and enjoyed by Sir Walter Scott, who many attribute with beginning the historical fiction genre. Her most famous novel, The Secret History of Margeurite de Valois (1697), was also a strong influence on Alexander Dumas’s novel The Queen Margot (1854). She was an early feminist who believed passionately in free love and fought to live her own life liberated from the rigid hierarchy and etiquette of the court of Louis XIV. I find it interesting that her own story echoes the themes of Persinette – she is locked away from society by the king, but she wins her freedom by telling stories.
In my novel, Bitter Greens, I have entwined a retelling of the Rapunzel fairy tale with Charlotte-Rose’s dramatic life story to create a novel of desire, obsession, black magic, and the redemptive power of love. Oh, and Giambattista Basile makes a brief appearance too …
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Read more about BITTER GREENS or BUY IT HERE!
September 22, 2014
BITTER GREENS: A brief interview with Kate Forsyth
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What is the title of your book?
Bitter Greens
Where did the idea come from for the book?
I started by being both enthralled and troubled by the Rapunzel fairy tale and wondering how I would rewrite it to try and make sense of some of the mysteries at the heart of the tale. I wanted to write it as a historical novel, as if it had really happened, as if it was true … and so I began to research the origins of the story. In this way, I stumbled upon the dramatic life story of the woman who first wrote the story (at least in the form in which most of us know it). Her name was Charlotte-Rose de la Force and she was amazing. Once I read that she had dressed up as a dancing bear to help rescue her lover, I just knew I had to write about her.
What genre does your book fall under?
Historical fiction.
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
I’d love Molly Quinn, the red-haired actress in ‘Castle’ to play Margherita (my Rapunzel) – she would be so perfect!
I’d like Nicole Kidman to play my witch, Selena – she too has red hair so the film set would be like a redhead convention!
Charlotte-Rose could be played by Penelope Cruz.
Any gorgeous hunk of a man would do for my male characters.
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
A historical novel for adults that interweaves a retelling of Rapunzel set in Renaissance Venice, with the dramatic true life of the woman who first told the tale, the 17th century French writer Charlotte-Rose de la Force, BITTER GREENS is a story of desire, obsession, black magic and the redemptive power of love.
How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
About two years, though I was researching for another two years before that.
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
I’d compare it to books by Philippa Gregory, Kate Mosse, Tracy Chevalier, Sarah Dunant … historical novels with a twist of the uncanny about them.
Who or What inspired you to write this book?
The story itself inspires me. I get an idea, it sinks its talons into my imagination, and will not let go until I have given it life. I get utterly obsessed when I’m writing a book!
What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
You will learn how to curse your enemy with no more than a black candle, a blackberry vine, and a handful of grave dirt …
You will learn why courtiers at the French court always ate their soup cold …
You will discover why witches in Venice were always buried with a brick jammed between their jaws …
You will find out why eating your own hair is a very bad idea …
Read more about BITTER GREENS and BUY IT HERE!
September 21, 2014
SIX THINGS YOU CAN DO TO SAVE A STARVING AUTHOR TODAY
My novel BITTER GREENS comes out in the US tomorrow! Of course I am filled with hopes and dreams (and fears) about it ... it's impossible not to be.
Writing can be a tough game.
Authors like me can spend years working on a novel, sacrificing our social lives, our peace of mind, and our health.
The rewards can be small. Few authors become a cultural phenomenon like J.K.Rowling or Stephanie Meyer. Many need to have a second or even a third job in order to make ends meet (not me, thankfully!)
We do it because we love it. We do it because its necessary to us, like breathing.
Yet forging a career as a writer has never been more fraught with difficulties than now. E-books, self-publishing, print-on-demand, global rights, book pirating, multi-media narratives, reader-assisted authorship ... The world of literature has never seen such sudden and earth-shaking changes.
Many authors are struggling to be able to afford to keep on writing.
So what can YOU do to help save a starving author today?
1) Buy an author's book.
Yes, I know this seems self-evident but, thanks to financial worries & busy lives, some people rarely buy books at all. We need to create a thriving literary community by buying books often. Buy books for yourself, for your partner and your children, as birthday and Christmas gifts, as rewards for good behaviour, as prizes for good work, as a special Friday afternoon treat, for any reason whatever. You can buy them in any format - e-books or p-books (traditionally published books) or audio books - the format doesn't matter, as long as you buy a book today!
2) Read an author's book.
If we all read every day as a matter of course, then we would all read many more books and so, as a matter of course, we'd all need to BUY many more books. That would, of course, be a great support to all the struggling authors out there. But reading every day will also enrich your life, set up new neural networks in your brain, stimulate your imagination, deepen your sense of empathy and compassion, and widen your knowledge of the world.
3) Listen to authors speak about their work
With more writers' festivals and conferences and literary events than ever before, you can go and listen to a writer speak about their inspirations and influences, their creative processes and creative challenges, more easily than any other time in history. Don't expect that these events should always be free - writers need to feed their children too! Speaking engagements can help supplement a writer's income, and allow them to keep on writing. Many writers are engaging and entertaining speakers, and their words can help set your own imagination on fire.
4) Tweet about what you are reading
Social media is one technological innovation that can quickly & efficiently spread the word about an author's work. I tweet about every book I read - the title, the author's name, a quick glowing comment if I like the book, the publisher's twitter handle ... as much as I can fit into 140 characters. If you aren't a tweep, post on Facebook. Share your thoughts via Google +, pin the author's cover to Pinterest, post a pic of it to Instagram, do anything you can to put the author's name and the book's cover out into cyber space. You have the power to create an internet meme - do it!
5) Write a review about an author's book
Nowadays you don't need to be a literary critic to write a review of a book you've loved. Reviews of books on reading sites like GoodReads, The Reading Room, Shelfari, LibraryThing, or on internet booksites such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Booktopia, The Nile, Fishpond, or Dymocks can help other readers decide whether to buy an author's book or not, and creates a lively online reading community. Start your own book blog, and visit other people's book blogs. It is easy enough to write a short review of a book you'v loved, upload it, and then cut and paste it to a number of different sites. Many internet bookshops offer incentives to readers to review what they have read. Remember to be kind. Writers are people too, and a cruel review can wreck their day. Be thoughtful and respectful as well as honest ... and maybe you could make a writer's day.
6) Talk, TALK, TALK about an author's book
Tell your friends, your family, your workmates, your friendly local bookseller about any book you've loved. Push it into their hands. Say 'you must read this book!' Start conversations with people on buses if you must. But talk about the book at any given chance you can. Because word of mouth is still the most powerful of all selling tools for books and it can't be bought, or manipulated, or faked.
Now go forth, my friends, and see what you can do to save a starving author today!
Read more about BITTER GREENS and
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September 19, 2014
DRAGONCLAW is now available for FREE download on iBooks!
I have such exciting news that I've been keeping under my hat for a while now.
My first ever published book DRAGONCLAW: Book 1 in The Witches of Eileanan series is now FREE to
download on ibooks for a limited time only!
I wrote DRAGONCLAW when I was an impoverished university student, undertaking a Master of Arts in Creative Writing at the University of Western Sydney and dreaming of being an internationally bestselling author. I had quit work as a journalist when I was 25 years old and had (with my soon-to-be husband's support & encouragement) set myself the task of having a novel published by the time I was 30.
Well, the years whizzed past. Although I regularly had poems, stories and articles published, the much longed for novel contract eluded me. I'd been working on a novel for my MA thesis and had finished it, but now the long hot summer holidays stretched before me. Instead of going to the beach and partying like all my other friends, I decided to start work on something new. I had recently been totally enraptured by a fantasy series by the American writer Tad Williams, which had kept me reading late into the night, and so my soon-to-be husband said, 'you're enjoying reading that fantasy book so much, why don't you write one?'
Why not? I thought.
I remembered a dream that I had had when I was about sixteen years old, about a wood witch who lived hidden within the trunk of an ancient tree and one day discovered an abandoned baby lying in the tree's roots. I knew that the old witch had to keep the child safe at all costs, because she had some secret or some kind of power which was crucial to that world in which magic had been outlawed.
That was all I remembered of the dream. I used it as my jumping off point, beginning the story when the child has grown into a young woman and was facing her First Test as a witch. I wrote like a madwoman, totally obsessed with the story of romance, magic and danger unfolding under my fingers.
By the end of my university holidays I had written more than 40,000 words. I felt a seething excitement under my ribcage. I felt sure I had written something good. I packaged it up and sent it off to an agent and crossed all my fingers and toes, hoping the agent would agree.
Only a day later I heard from Gaby Naher at Jill Hickson's Literary Agency. She told me that she loved it, and she thought she could definitely sell it. Could I send her the complete manuscript.
Once I could breathe again, I had to tell her that I had not yet finished the book.
When can you get it finished by? she asked.
I'm halfway through a Masters degree, I thought. Working three days a week as a freelance journalist. I'm getting married in 6 months' time!
Two months, I said.
So for the next two months, I did nothing but write. Everything else was put on hold. And I finished the first draft of 100,000 words in those two months. Gaby put the book up for auction, and three Australian publishing houses bid for it. Meanwhile, the book was also sold into the US, Germany and Russia.
On the 1st June 1996, I signed a three book deal with Random House Australia and with Tor Books in the US.
On the 3rd June, I turned 30.
So I made my self-imposed deadline by TWO DAYS!
DRAGONCLAW is the book that changed my life. I am now free to spend my days daydreaming, reading, making stuff up and writing it down, and knowing my books are read all over the world, in more than a dozen different languages.
If you'd like to read the book that began it all for me, it is available FREE for a short time only on iBooks. Trust me, this is unlikely to ever happen again.
Here's the link: http://bit.ly/1uVafU8
BOOK REVIEW: Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis
Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold by C.S. Lewis
When I was a little girl, I spent many a long summer holiday with my great-aunts in the seaside town of Merewether, about an hour's drive north of my home town of Sydney.
I remember one year, when I was about twelve, lying on the floor in their living-room and looking through the bookshelves in search of something to read. My eye fell upon a novel called Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold by C.S. Lewis, and I grabbed it eagerly. I loved the Narnia books - they were my all-time favourite books - and so I confidently expected I would love this book too.
The very first line both startled me and intrigued me:
I am old now and have not much to fear from the anger of gods.
It was clear at once this was not going to be a tale set in the magical, funny, wondrous world of Narnia, but something much darker and more grown-up. With a little shiver of anticipation, I lay down behind my great-aunt's green velvet wing-chair and gave myself over to the story, the first adult book I ever read.
Till We Have Faces was Lewis's last book, published in 1956, the year that he married Joy Davidman, the American poet and writer whose tragic death in 1960 was immortalized in the movie Shadowlands with Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger. It is believed that Joy inspired Orual, the central character in Till We Have Faces.
The book is a retelling of the ancient Greek myth of 'Cupid and Psyche'. I was not familiar with the myth when I read the book, but understood it easily, possibly because of the strong echoes the story has with that of the Beauty and the Beast fairytale.
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In brief, the myth tells the story of Psyche, who wed Cupid, the God of Love; he gave her everything a woman could want except the sight of his own face. Her jealous elder sisters convinced her to take a candle and shine it upon her husband's face while he slept. Psyche did so, but a drop of hot wax fell on Cupid's face and woke him. Angry and disappointed, he cast her out and she had to undertake a set of seemingly impossible tasks before she could win him back.
Lewis said that the Cupid and Psyche myth had haunted him all his life. He tried to write it in poetic form, and as a play, before at last writing it from the point of view of the jealous older sister, Orual.
Originally the manuscript was titled Bareface, with an interplay of multiple meanings: Orual's facial deformity, which she hides with a mask; Psyche's mortal beauty; and the invisible gods Cupid and Aphrodite, who are supposedly the most beautiful of all. However, Lewis's editor rejected this title, thinking it sounded like a Western, and so Lewis re-named it after a line from the book in which Orual says, 'How can [the gods] meet us face to face till we have faces?'
When I first read this book, at the age of twelve, I don't think I understood what C.S. Lewis meant by this line. I do know that when I read it – and recognized it as the title and so having some kind of special significance – it stirred all sorts of new thoughts and feelings in me. I dimly realized that Orual could only grasp the truth about the gods – and so understand the meaning of the universe – once she had realized the truth about herself.
Here is the whole quote:
Lightly men talk of saying what they mean... When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the centre of your soul for years, which you have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and over, you'll not talk about joy of words. I saw well why the gods do not speak openly, nor let us answer. Till that need can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?
I was puzzled and moved and enthralled by this passage, and bookmarked it in my great-aunt's book with a frangipani flower that had fallen from the tree in their garden. That flower, now brown and withered and without fragrance, still marks the page.
With this book, C.S Lewis somehow taught me that stories can contain in them some kind of truth that cannot always be easily expressed, or understood with the intellect alone. He also gave me a deep and abiding love of stories that retell older stories, and find new truths hidden within the old.
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