Chris Cleave's Blog: Human Again with Dr Chris Cleave, page 9

Seattle Reads

I’m thrilled to be heading this week for Seattle – which I’m on record as admitting is one of my all-time favorite cities – to take part in the Seattle Reads program. This year Seattle Reads has selected my novel Little Bee. It goes without saying that I’m very honored and excited about it.

On Friday, May 13th the Book-It Repertory Theatre will perform a staged reading from “Little Bee” adapted and directed by Annie Lareau, and I will join the adapter/director and cast for a discussion with the audience from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. The organizers say: “Central Library, 1000 Fourth Ave., Microsoft Auditorium, Level 1, 206-386-4636. Tickets and reservations are not required. Doors will open at 12:30 p.m. Limited parking will be available in the Central Library garage at the regular rates.”

Later on Friday, May 13th I’ll be discussing “Little Bee” from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., again at Central Library, 1000 Fourth Ave., Microsoft Auditorium, Level 1, 206-386-4636. The organizers say: “No tickets are required. The Library will close at its regular Friday time at 6 p.m. and will reopen the Fourth Avenue entrance at 6:30 p.m. Limited parking in the Central Library garage will be available for $5 after 5 p.m. The event is presented in partnership with The Elliott Bay Book Co. Books will be available for purchase and signing.”

In addition to these two events, I’ll be at four branch library locations across the city to meet all comers, to chat about books in general and mine in particular, and to answer any and all questions. The organizers say: “Doors will be open 30 minutes before each branch event. Limited free parking and street parking is available at branch libraries.” Times and locations for these events are:

1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. Thursday, May 12 – Seattle Central Community College, 1701 Broadway, Room 4106, 206-386-4636
7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Thursday, May 12 – Northeast Branch, 6801 35th Ave. N.E., 206-684-7539
11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday, May 14 – Ballard Branch, 5614 22nd Ave. N.W., 206-684-4089
4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Saturday, May 14 – Beacon Hill Branch, 2821 Beacon Ave. S., 206-684-4711

If you can make it to any of these events, I will be delighted to meet you!

US live events, January 2011

I’m doing a US speaking-and-signing tour to mark the re-issuing of my first novel, INCENDIARY. I might also talk a little about LITTLE BEE, and give a sneak preview of what’s coming up in my new novel.

I’ll also be sharing what I’m reading by some extraordinary upcoming writers, answering all questions, and signing books. I love meeting readers – please do come if you can make it. As far as I know all the events are free of charge – though etiquette murmurs discreetly that you should buy a book (not necessarily one of mine!) to support the booksellers who are very kindly hosting the events.

Here are the dates:

Tues, Jan 11 – DENVER – Tattered Cover, 1628 16th Street, 7.30 – 8.30 pm
Weds, Jan 12 – LOS ANGELES – Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E Colorado Blvd, 7.00 -8.00 pm
Thurs, Jan 13 – LOS ANGELES – Book Soup, 8818 West Sunset Blvd, 7.00 – 8.00 pm
Fri, Jan 14 – PORTLAND – Powell’s Books, 3415 Cedar Hills Blvd, 7.30 – 8.30 pm
Sun, Jan 16 – MADISON, CT – R J Julia Booksellers, Madison Center, 768 Boston Post Road, 4.30 – 5.30 pm
Mon, Jan 17 – BROOKLYN – Book Court Bookstore, 163 Court Street, 7.00 – 8.00 pm
Tues, Jan 18 – MANHATTAN – Borders, 10 Columbus Circle, 7.00 – 8.00 pm
Thurs, Jan 20 – BOSTON – Barnes & Noble (Framingham) – 1 Worcester Rd, 7.00 -8.00 pm

Looking forward to meeting you if you can make it.

Fiction and reality

I was interested to read this blog post, using LITTLE BEE to provide some human background to the story about the US Senate’s decision not to pass the DREAM act, which the House passed in October.

One proposal of the DREAM act is that the children of illegal immigrants should have a potential pathway to citizenship. This interests me because such children are otherwise condemned to a life of illegality as a result of no choice that they have made, which poses an interesting moral question for the rest of society.

Something I try to do in my fiction is to take the time to explore the human consequences of political decision-making, which I think is something that the news media would generally like to do, but rarely has the time and resource to achieve.

I’m similarly attracted to the work of American writers such as Dave Eggers, Philipp Meyer, Adam Haslett and Cara Hoffman who are writing about people in the real world that political and economic forces are shaping.

Free Christmas e-book for children!

Dear friends, I spent a good year writing a serious novel for adults, and I just felt like seeing the year out by writing a silly story to make my kids laugh. So here’s a short Christmas bed-time story for kids (age 3-to-8-ish). It’s called PEAS ON EARTH. Oh yeah.

I drew the pictures myself. That’s why the protagonists are peas. Peas are quite easy to draw.

You can download it here as a free e-book for your Kindle, iPad, iPhone, Sony e-reader, or just to view on screen or print out. Do email it to friends with kids, re-post it, or whatever you need to do. Have fun, and a very happy Christmas!

Click here to download in PDF format (to view on screen or iPad or to print out)

Click here to download in EPUB format (for Sony e-Reader, iPad, iPhone)

Click here to download in MOBI format (for Kindle)

Thanks

Thanks to Bookswarm for helping me out with file formats & hosting. Thanks to @blackpooltower for testing the story on his kids. Thanks to @suziedoore and @BiscuitsBooks for encouragement and support as ever.

Orwell on Dickens

I’ve just discovered Orwell’s superb 1939 essay on Dickens, and can’t believe I’ve never read it before. The last section is reproduced below & gives a flavour of what to expect. The full text is here. In the main body of the essay, Orwell offers a clear-eyed analysis of Dickens’ shortcomings which serves to separate the chaff & identify what it was about the man that was great.

“Dickens voiced a code which was and on the whole still is believed in, even by people who violate it. It is difficult otherwise to explain why he could be both read by working people (a thing that has happened to no other novelist of his stature) and buried in Westminster Abbey.

When one reads any strongly individual piece of writing, one has the impression of seeing a face somewhere behind the page. It is not necessarily the actual face of the writer. I feel this very strongly with Swift, with Defoe, with Fielding, Stendhal, Thackeray, Flaubert, though in several cases I do not know what these people looked like and do not want to know. What one sees is the face that the writer ought to have. Well, in the case of Dickens I see a face that is not quite the face of Dickens’s photographs, though it resembles it. It is the face of a man of about forty, with a small beard and a high colour. He is laughing, with a touch of anger in his laughter, but no triumph, no malignity. It is the face of a man who is always fighting against something, but who fights in the open and is not frightened, the face of a man who is generously angry — in other words, of a nineteenth-century liberal, a free intelligence, a type hated with equal hatred by all the smelly little orthodoxies which are now contending for our souls.”

- “Charles Dickens” by George Orwell, 1939.

Seattle Reads LITTLE BEE!

I’m delighted to report that Seattle has chosen Little Bee as the book for Seattle Reads 2011. I’ll be visiting the city in May – details here.

I’m especially happy about this as Seattle is one of my favourite cities on Earth or any other planet. Here is a short piece I wrote about the place last time I was there…