Beatrice Colin's Blog
March 10, 2010
Book Promo
Finally, my book promo! Music is by Chris Thomson, an old friend, once of The Bathers and voice over by Robert Mantho who lives round the corner but who was born in Detroit. I shot it mostly in an old bar in Chicago called the Berghoff and on The Loop. I think it passes pretty well for New York in 1916 as long as you don't look too closely at the cars.
Here's the link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHfYkt...
Here's the link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHfYkt...
March 8, 2010
Book Launch and book promo
The book launch went brilliantly. I'll upload some pics on my website - www.beatricecolin.co.uk - loads of people, signed a zillion books and a lovely meal after. One thing I've realized is that when faced with an old friend, a book in their hand a pen in mine, I completely forget their name. 'You spell my name with an ai and an e,' said one friend. 'And the rest?' I asked. She looked at me strangely. 'It's Claire,' she said. 'Of course,' I announce, 'with just the one r.' Not sure I got away with it.
Book promo almost ready. All done apart from the music which we have to redo due to copyright. I was using Django Rheinhart but don't want to pay thousands of pounds for a two minute clip, so have asked my old friend, Chris Thomson to write something new. Will post by the end of the week.
Book promo almost ready. All done apart from the music which we have to redo due to copyright. I was using Django Rheinhart but don't want to pay thousands of pounds for a two minute clip, so have asked my old friend, Chris Thomson to write something new. Will post by the end of the week.
February 17, 2010
New Book
The Songwriter is about to be published with a glass of wine and a reading in Glasgow next month at Waterstones book shop. It's a nerve-wracking time for a writer. Will anyone review it, will anyone buy it, will anyone like it? Who knows? I have a list of things to do - try and finish a short promo film, buy a new frock and try and think of anyone and everyone who might like to know about it. If you have any ideas, please get in touch. Oh, and I'm giving a copy away in Goodreads Giveaway section, so please enter.
November 18, 2009
New Mexico and the Big Wild West
As we fly from Chicago to Albuquerque, the land below slowly changes. Tiny rectangles of farmland start are replaced by parched discs of wheat or cotton, irrigated into circles. These suddenly stop and the land looks like creased brown paper, with the occasional scrawled black line of a canyon or a cliff. For about an hour its virtually uninhabitated; no farms, no towns, just miles and miles of emptiness. The roads, and there are a few, are always dead straight, Roman in their single-mindedness to get somewhere.
There’s snow on the Rockies. But the air in Albuquerque is fairly warm. The lady at the car rental has never been to Amarillo, our next destination. It’s a long way. five hours on the Interstate and out of New Mexico and into Texas. The landscape here is scrubland and rocks. I keep expecting to see John Wayne on a horse. The colours are browns and bleached out, with advertising boards lining the road advertising fireworks and BBQ restaurants. We stop once for a coffee and a piece of pie. P gags on his slice of pecan. I’d forgotten how glutinous it is, a thick layer of sweet brown jelly topped off with soggy nuts. Maybe he had a lucky escape. The lemon cream pie looks like something that might be flung in a panto.
Route 66 runs alongside the highway and so we take a detour and head into one of the small towns that it runs through. It obviously found it hard to recover when they built the interstate and many of its motels and small shops are boarded shut. Inside a shop with a door shaped like a teepee, I buy some postcards from an old man who, judging by the bumper stickers on the glass counter, is a Vietnam vet. He takes my dollar without a smile. And then we drive on towards Texas, past small outposts that lie abandoned, past countless road stops all serving Macdonalds and KFC.
We reach Amarillo after driving for several hours through the pitch black dark. Far from being the slightly quaint cowboy town I’d imagined, it is a huge city, sliced up by the freeway. Strip malls line the side of the road, dazzling in their attempt to distract the eye with bargain motel rates and eat all you can buffets. We drive around looking for the centre but can’t seem to find it. It doesn’t seem to have a centre, just dozens of roads all leading out of Amarillo. We can’t find a groovy place to stay. It’s turning into an Amarillo nightmare. We get completely lost and end up in an area where the petrol station has had its windows barred. Finally we ask for directions at another petrol station and are directed to the Holiday Inn. It’s not groovy but it is full of cowboys for the rodeo which is almost as good.
There’s snow on the Rockies. But the air in Albuquerque is fairly warm. The lady at the car rental has never been to Amarillo, our next destination. It’s a long way. five hours on the Interstate and out of New Mexico and into Texas. The landscape here is scrubland and rocks. I keep expecting to see John Wayne on a horse. The colours are browns and bleached out, with advertising boards lining the road advertising fireworks and BBQ restaurants. We stop once for a coffee and a piece of pie. P gags on his slice of pecan. I’d forgotten how glutinous it is, a thick layer of sweet brown jelly topped off with soggy nuts. Maybe he had a lucky escape. The lemon cream pie looks like something that might be flung in a panto.
Route 66 runs alongside the highway and so we take a detour and head into one of the small towns that it runs through. It obviously found it hard to recover when they built the interstate and many of its motels and small shops are boarded shut. Inside a shop with a door shaped like a teepee, I buy some postcards from an old man who, judging by the bumper stickers on the glass counter, is a Vietnam vet. He takes my dollar without a smile. And then we drive on towards Texas, past small outposts that lie abandoned, past countless road stops all serving Macdonalds and KFC.
We reach Amarillo after driving for several hours through the pitch black dark. Far from being the slightly quaint cowboy town I’d imagined, it is a huge city, sliced up by the freeway. Strip malls line the side of the road, dazzling in their attempt to distract the eye with bargain motel rates and eat all you can buffets. We drive around looking for the centre but can’t seem to find it. It doesn’t seem to have a centre, just dozens of roads all leading out of Amarillo. We can’t find a groovy place to stay. It’s turning into an Amarillo nightmare. We get completely lost and end up in an area where the petrol station has had its windows barred. Finally we ask for directions at another petrol station and are directed to the Holiday Inn. It’s not groovy but it is full of cowboys for the rodeo which is almost as good.
Wicker Park and Beyond
Day two in Chicago and after a quick look round the Newberry Library, outside which anarchists and revolutionaries once used to converge but is now rather sedate, we head to Wicker Park. About six stops north and described in the guidebook as being a little like Chicago’s Williamsburg, Wicker Park and its neighbour, Bucktown, are a mix of cool bars, galleries, second-hand book stores and expensive clothes shops. First floor windows display signs that read, art for sale, come on in, and the people walking about wear winkle-pickers or are dragged behind beautiful dogs.
After buying some books in Myopic, we walk south to look at the Gingerbread House, which looks more like a cuckoo clock and was built by once of the first German Residents. Further down there’s the Ukrainian Village, where there’s a couple of Orthodox churches and a bath house. The streets round here are quiet, so quiet that we’re practically the only people walking. But the mixture of old and new, of expensive new condominiums and run-down row houses, of the old Eastern European and Russian communities and the new arrivals from Puerto Rico, give the streets give the place an air of almost tangible movement.
Nothing seems to stay here for long. Several of the cafes recommended in my Time Out Guide are no longer there. And even the chairs outside the cafe where we stop for lunch are wired together with lengths of metal rope.
At night, we head to Lincoln Park to the Kingston Mines, a blues Club. There’s two stages in two rooms and you carry your beer – five bottles in a metal bucket for $15 – from room to room. Unfortunately it’s not quite what we wished it to be. It’s decorated to look authentically rundown with maps of the deep south on the walls and lots of vintage signs. But the clientele are mostly white American males with crew cuts who, when they’re not texting, shout, ‘all right,” and punch the air with their fists. The music is Blues Lite and verges occasionally on muzak. We jump in a cab and head back to our hotel. Two days in Chicago, we realize, isn’t really long enough to more than scratch the surface of this huge, diverse, amazing city.
After buying some books in Myopic, we walk south to look at the Gingerbread House, which looks more like a cuckoo clock and was built by once of the first German Residents. Further down there’s the Ukrainian Village, where there’s a couple of Orthodox churches and a bath house. The streets round here are quiet, so quiet that we’re practically the only people walking. But the mixture of old and new, of expensive new condominiums and run-down row houses, of the old Eastern European and Russian communities and the new arrivals from Puerto Rico, give the streets give the place an air of almost tangible movement.
Nothing seems to stay here for long. Several of the cafes recommended in my Time Out Guide are no longer there. And even the chairs outside the cafe where we stop for lunch are wired together with lengths of metal rope.
At night, we head to Lincoln Park to the Kingston Mines, a blues Club. There’s two stages in two rooms and you carry your beer – five bottles in a metal bucket for $15 – from room to room. Unfortunately it’s not quite what we wished it to be. It’s decorated to look authentically rundown with maps of the deep south on the walls and lots of vintage signs. But the clientele are mostly white American males with crew cuts who, when they’re not texting, shout, ‘all right,” and punch the air with their fists. The music is Blues Lite and verges occasionally on muzak. We jump in a cab and head back to our hotel. Two days in Chicago, we realize, isn’t really long enough to more than scratch the surface of this huge, diverse, amazing city.
November 11, 2009
Riding the Loop
It took a while to actually land in Chicago at O'Hare airport. Together with about six other planes we flew in a great circle above the city, waiting for a landing spot. Laid out beside the vast blackness of Lake Ontario, Chicago's grid was lit up in orange and stretched out for miles and miles south, a stretch of sodium-woven plaid with fringes made out of the speckled lights of the suburbs.
And then we we landed to a round of applause and we were out of the cramped plane, through immigration, into a taxi and heading along one of the brightly lit arteries that led downtown.
Our hotel room here is not actually a room. It is an apartment with a kitchen and a living room. The Hotel Seneca, built in 1924, was obviously designed for guests who needed to stay a while and maybe entertain some friends. It would be nice to offer people cocktails. Shame we don't know anyone to ask. But it is indicative of the city. Everything is generous, from the portions of the food to the people who we've asked in the street to recommend a place to eat (no meat). The buildings are mostly enormous, of course, sky scrapers towering above huge streets. Down by the lake there's a huge sculpture by Anish Kapoor, a giant silver bean which reflects back the towers and which you can walk underneath.
But so far, I like the El most of all, the elevated subway which travels around downtown in a rounded rectangle. The silver trains hurtle round on the Loop and appear briefly but regularly like an apparitions from Fritz's Lang's Metropolis.
Today we're going to the hip neighbourhood Wicker Park. And then to a blues club. The weather is perfect and the air is fresh but not in the least windy. More tomorrow.
And then we we landed to a round of applause and we were out of the cramped plane, through immigration, into a taxi and heading along one of the brightly lit arteries that led downtown.
Our hotel room here is not actually a room. It is an apartment with a kitchen and a living room. The Hotel Seneca, built in 1924, was obviously designed for guests who needed to stay a while and maybe entertain some friends. It would be nice to offer people cocktails. Shame we don't know anyone to ask. But it is indicative of the city. Everything is generous, from the portions of the food to the people who we've asked in the street to recommend a place to eat (no meat). The buildings are mostly enormous, of course, sky scrapers towering above huge streets. Down by the lake there's a huge sculpture by Anish Kapoor, a giant silver bean which reflects back the towers and which you can walk underneath.
But so far, I like the El most of all, the elevated subway which travels around downtown in a rounded rectangle. The silver trains hurtle round on the Loop and appear briefly but regularly like an apparitions from Fritz's Lang's Metropolis.
Today we're going to the hip neighbourhood Wicker Park. And then to a blues club. The weather is perfect and the air is fresh but not in the least windy. More tomorrow.
September 26, 2009
American Trip
In the name of research I'm planning a trip to the American heartland - to Chicago, then Kansas and Oklahoma to see some original prairies and then to Santa Fe and New Mexico.
In the book I've just started I'm trying to write about a place I've never been and find it almost impossible to get past the cliches. With a place, I feel that to have the confidence to write about it, I have to experience my own visceral response to it.
I've just written a scene about jumping a freight train, however, and although I've never done it, I've read and listened to enough accounts to be able to imagine it - very dangerous, if you fall, fall away from the wheels. . .
Starting a new book, once you get past the barrier of actually typing anything, is exhilarating - so many new characters, places, relationships to explore. It's all pure potential but then it gets harder and harder, and the deadline gets shorter and shorter and all of a sudden you find you have run out of time. But that's a good many months away - all I can think about are huge skies and the open road. . .
In the book I've just started I'm trying to write about a place I've never been and find it almost impossible to get past the cliches. With a place, I feel that to have the confidence to write about it, I have to experience my own visceral response to it.
I've just written a scene about jumping a freight train, however, and although I've never done it, I've read and listened to enough accounts to be able to imagine it - very dangerous, if you fall, fall away from the wheels. . .
Starting a new book, once you get past the barrier of actually typing anything, is exhilarating - so many new characters, places, relationships to explore. It's all pure potential but then it gets harder and harder, and the deadline gets shorter and shorter and all of a sudden you find you have run out of time. But that's a good many months away - all I can think about are huge skies and the open road. . .
September 11, 2009
The Songwriter cover on Amazon
My new book, out in March, is now listed on Amazon. Take a look at http://www.amazon.co.uk/Songwriter-Be...
Let me know what you think of the cover. It's set in New York in 1916-20 and is about Tin Pan Alley, Russian revolutionaries and love and bombs. I will post a section soon.
I have just started a new book set in the Depression era America about a girl traveling on what was left of the vaudeville trail with her escapologist father. I'm reading Grapes of Wrath and have ordered Paper Moon and a book called The Vaudevillians. Any suggestions for further reading would be welcome.
Let me know what you think of the cover. It's set in New York in 1916-20 and is about Tin Pan Alley, Russian revolutionaries and love and bombs. I will post a section soon.
I have just started a new book set in the Depression era America about a girl traveling on what was left of the vaudeville trail with her escapologist father. I'm reading Grapes of Wrath and have ordered Paper Moon and a book called The Vaudevillians. Any suggestions for further reading would be welcome.
August 26, 2009
Edinburgh
Well I finally ticked it off my list of things I've always wanted to do - I read at the Edinburgh Book Festival. As I sat in a tent on Charlotte Square with fellow writer Anthony Quinn and an attentive audience, even though the rumble of buses and sirens of ambulances threatened to drown us out, I felt very lucky indeed.
Writing is such a strange occupation: days spent plugged into the computer with almost no communication with anyone and then sporadic reading and signing where you have to be witty and erudite. But I loved it - I loved reading a passage, answering questions, signing books, meeting a girl who I was at school with who'd brought her book group, the whole thing. Next up is the Milngavie Book Festival where I'm reading with Janet Paisley who wrote White Rose Rebel
Anyway, I came down to earth again a few days later and am about to write an author's note for The Songwriter. And then what? I start research for the next book. Maybe a little shopping first. . .
Writing is such a strange occupation: days spent plugged into the computer with almost no communication with anyone and then sporadic reading and signing where you have to be witty and erudite. But I loved it - I loved reading a passage, answering questions, signing books, meeting a girl who I was at school with who'd brought her book group, the whole thing. Next up is the Milngavie Book Festival where I'm reading with Janet Paisley who wrote White Rose Rebel
Anyway, I came down to earth again a few days later and am about to write an author's note for The Songwriter. And then what? I start research for the next book. Maybe a little shopping first. . .
August 12, 2009
Poland
Away in Krakow for a week and spent a day at Auschwitz. It was everything I expected it to be, shocking, horrific, sad, but also very different. It is on the outskirts of a small town and not in the middle of nowhere as I had expected. As I've seen it in so many familiar, it also felt a bit like a film set.
But I also learned that although I thought knew about Auschwitz, there was a lot I didn't know - the sheer scale of the operation and the the way they looted the Jews of everything they had; their property, their clothes, even their hair and their gold filings. It made me think about the way we see history as a story that we already know. To go back and look again, to excavate human stories and make a personal connection with history seemed to me to be something everyone should do. As I walked the other way from the ruined crematoriums along a path called 'Road of Death,' the sun was shining and the history of that place seemed both impossible and far too real.
But I also learned that although I thought knew about Auschwitz, there was a lot I didn't know - the sheer scale of the operation and the the way they looted the Jews of everything they had; their property, their clothes, even their hair and their gold filings. It made me think about the way we see history as a story that we already know. To go back and look again, to excavate human stories and make a personal connection with history seemed to me to be something everyone should do. As I walked the other way from the ruined crematoriums along a path called 'Road of Death,' the sun was shining and the history of that place seemed both impossible and far too real.
