Laura Harrington's Blog, page 8

More blurbs for Alice Bliss

"Meet Alice Bliss, the heroine of Laura Harrington's gorgeous page-turner of a first novel. Like Scout in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, Alice is destined to become a household name. In luminous, haunting prose Harrington enters the minds and hearts of all of her characters, imbuing her story with a timeless wisdom."

—Charlotte Gordon, author of The Woman Who Named God and Mistress Bradstreet

Charlotte Gordon has written two books of poetry (When the Grateful Dead Came to St. Louis and Two Girls on a Raft), a biography of the 17th century poet, Anne Bradstreet (Mistress Bradstreet: The Untold Life of America's First Poet, Little, Brown, 2005), and a non-fiction retelling of the famous biblical story of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar (The Woman Who Named God: Abraham's Dilemma and the Birth of Three Faiths Little Brown, 2009). An award winning author and speaker, she is a graduate of Harvard and Boston Universities and has been featured on NPR's "Weekend Edition," CBC's "The Current" as well as many other radio and television programs. She is an Assistant Professor of English at Endicott College in Beverly, MA.

What triggered writing Alice Bliss?

I've written before about how Alice Bliss the novel grew out of Alice Unwrapped, the musical.  But an early reader of an advanced review copy just asked me: "What triggered writing Alice Bliss?" and I found, in answering her question, there's more to the story.

Some of what triggered writing this book is my outrage that we can be at war for 9 years and yet live our lives as though we are not at war, ignoring the costs and the sacrifices.  So many of us are not directly involved in the war; without a draft the majority of the population can remain untouched.  Nor are we collectively involved in sharing the costs of the war through higher taxes or rationing or Victory Gardens or paper drives.  Is this the height of decadence to be at war and have our lives unchanged?

And then I am always thinking of women and children, who are so often voiceless, and wanting to give voice to their stories.

I also think we have a collective need to grieve this war — and no way and nowhere to do it.  Alice allows us to enter these unexplored feelings/ places inside us because we are disarmed by her, thinking this is "just" a coming of age story. The impact of the war sneaks up on us and becomes devastatingly real.

More blurbs for Alice Bliss

"Heartbreaking yet edged with promise, Alice Bliss explores the wounds of war, love, and family bonds while illuminating the strength of a young girl's spirit. A stunning debut."

—Beth Hoffman, New York Times bestselling author of Saving CeeCee Honeycutt

Beth Hoffman was the president and owner of a major interior design studio in Cincinnati, Ohio, before turning to writing full time. She lives with her husband and two cats in a quaint historic district in Newport, Kentucky. Saving CeeCee Honeycutt is her first novel.

More blurbs for Alice Bliss

"Alice is a true heroine: intelligent, passionate, strong-minded. Watching her find her way is an absorbing pleasure."

—Margot Livesey, author of The House on Fortune Street, Winner 2009 L. L. Winship /PEN New England Award

Margot Livesey grew up in a boys' private school in the Scottish Highlands where her father taught, and her mother, Eva, was the school nurse. After taking a B.A. in English and philosophy at the University of York in England she spent most of her twenties working in shops and restaurants and learning to write. Her first book, a collection of stories called Learning By Heart, was published by Penguin Canada in 1986. Since then Margot has published six novels: Homework, Criminals, The Missing World, Eva Moves the Furniture, Banishing Verona and The House on Fortune Street.

Margot has taught at Boston University, Bowdoin College, Brandeis University, Carnegie Mellon, Cleveland State, Emerson College, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, Tufts University, the University of California at Irvine, the Warren Wilson College MFA program for writers, and Williams College. She has been the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the N.E.A., the Massachusetts Artists' Foundation and the Canada Council for the Arts. Margot is currently a distinguished writer in residence at Emerson College. She lives with her husband, a painter, in Cambridge, MA, and goes back to London and Scotland whenever she can.

Alice Sebold says, "Every novel of Margot Livesey's is, for her readers, a joyous discovery. Her work radiates with compassion and intelligence and always, deliciously, mystery."

Blurbs for Alice Bliss

"Alice Bliss is a poignant tale about the homefront horrors of war when a father leaves his wife and two girls for a tour of duty in Iraq. It is a touching reminder of our need for community to help those left behind find inner peace in a time of war."

—JoeAnn Hart, author of Addled

JoeAnn Hart was born in the Bronx, NY and currently lives in Gloucester MA. Her short stories and essays have appeared in a number of literary magazines such as Prairie Schooner, Hobart and Open City and she is a regular contributor to the Boston Globe Magazine. Her novel, a social satire, Addled, was published by Little, Brown in 2007, and concerns issues near and dear to Hart's heart, such as animal rights, cooking, and positioning in the social order.

Blurbs for Alice Bliss

Blurbs are coming in for Alice Bliss, a very exciting process.  Here's our first from the UK:

"Strong storytelling and a rich emotional core." Jenny Downham, author of Before I Die.

Jenny Downham was an actress for many years before concentrating on her writing full-time. She lives in London with her two sons.

Her book Before I Die was critically acclaimed and was short listed for the 2007 Guardian Award and the 2008 Lancashire Children's Book of the Year, nominated for the 2008 Carnegie Medal and the 2008 Booktrust Teenage Prize, and won the 2008 Branford Boase Award.

Novel Undertakings: First Fiction 2011

From Publisher's Weekly, January 24, 2011

by Natalie Danford

From Stage to Page

Playwright Laura Harrington, 57, who teaches playwriting at MIT, has seen her work produced around the U.S., as well as in Canada and Europe. In 2008, she won a Kleban Award (funded by A Chorus Line writer and lyricist Edward Kleban) for most promising librettist in the American musical theater. The generous cash prize afforded Harrington two years of writing time.

Says Harrington, "I wanted to do something I'd never done before, reconnect to the creative process, and be a beginner again. So I decided I wanted to write a novel." Harrington says her process was simple: "I showed up every day and wrote."

The resulting novel, Alice Bliss (Viking/Pamela Dorman Books, June), is an expanded version of the story at the heart of Harrington's one-act, one-woman musical, Alice Unwrapped. The novel features a 15-year-old girl whose beloved father has deployed to Iraq.

"In the musical we could only really deal with one moment in Alice's life, but the character was so interesting and the material so rich that I knew there was a bigger story there," explains Harrington. The author's own father was a navigator/bombardier in WWII who suffered post-traumatic stress disorder after returning home, and both of her brothers were in the Air Force.

Dorman, who acquired the novel from Stephanie Cabot at the Gernert Company, tells PW, "I'm always looking for novels with heart—ones that have a deeply emotional core—and Alice Bliss has that in spades."

Publisher's Weekly highlights ten fiction debuts in this article, including Alice Bliss.

Click on the link below to read about all ten debut novels.

Novel Undertakings: First Fiction 2011.

Alice Bliss will be an audiobook

Fantastic news! Brilliance Audio has bought the audio rights for Alice Bliss.  Alice Bliss will be available as an audio book at the same time it's published in hard cover.

UK cover for Alice Bliss is here!

Just received the UK cover for Alice Bliss from my editor at Picador.

Press for "Alice Unwrapped"

The musical "Alice Unwrapped" was the inspiration for the book, Alice Bliss.

Nautilus Music Theatre's production of "Alice Unwrapped," by Laura Harrington and Jenny Giering, directed by Ben Krywosz and starring Jill Anna Posniak, garnered some great reviews at the Minneapolis Fringe Festival.
Graydon Royce at the STARTRIBUNE says:
"Wow. An outbreak of real art at the Fringe… The music, the heartbreak, the sense of honor in young Alice make this 35-minute piece a poignant ode to family relationships… Nautilus Music-Theater has brought this kind of small, beautiful jewel to the Fringe many times. This year is no exception… "

Dominic Papatola at the PIONEER PRESS calls it a "Must See":
"Jill Anna Ponasik gives lovely, rending and plaintively honest voice to Alice as the composing team of Laura Harrington and Jenny Giering create a dissonant but affecting score…"

Audiences and bloggers are saying:
"One expects top notch professionalism from Nautilus Music-Theater and this production does not disappoint."
"An absolutely perfect blend of music and theater in a dramatic one-person tour-de-force."
"Beautifully sung and accompanied — the music will have you enthralled."
"This show is perfection — the writing, the music, the voice and the acting ability all combine into a whole that is more than the sum of its parts."
"This touching, timely and poignant musical was a peak fringe experience for me — the show is hugely relevant, is completely heartbreaking, and yet holds out a glimmer of unforced hope at the end."
"Jill Anna is very convincing, charming, funny, sad, angry, tender, genuine."
"Fringe shows usually receive short or somewhat sustained applause; this performance received an instantaneous and unanimous and long standing ovation."
"If you only see one fringe festival show, make it ALICE UNWRAPPED!"