Diane Chamberlain's Blog, page 20

Do You Have a Favorite Indie Bookstore?

I'm lucky to be surrounded by talented writers here in North Carolina and to count so many of them as my friends. I'd like you to meet one of them, Anne Clinard Barnhill. Anne writes historical fiction and her latest novel is At the Mercy of the Queen, the story of Anne Boleyn's cousin, Madge. I invited Anne to tell us a little about her recent book tour. Reading her post made me want to push away from the computer and spend the afternoon at my local indie bookstore (Quail Ridge Books–the first on her list below.) Have fun reading Anne's words and then I hope you'll tell us about your favorite bookstore.

Bookstores

     I love bookstores.  Always have, always will.  There is nothing more exciting than wandering in, gazing at the colorful books arrayed in the front window and on the tables, looking at posters or photographs of my favorite writers adorning the walls.  When my children were young, they became adept at luring me into a bookstore because they knew I could not refuse to buy them a book.  Toys, I could turn down; candy, a definite NO.  But a book–I've always been a sucker for a book.

     Over the past few weeks, I've had the privilege of visiting several bookstores across North Carolina.  I love the different personalities I've discovered in each one–I even love the sameness of the big chains like Barnes and Nobles.  But I confess, it is the indie bookstores that really captivate me.

     Take Quail Ridge Books and Music in Raleigh, NC.  There's a sunny intelligence permeating the store, a dedication to the written word evident in the signed photographs of the many writers who have given readings here over the years.  I can almost feel my I.Q. go up a notch just being there.

     Then there's The Country Bookshop in Southern Pines, NC.  The atmosphere is intimate and cozy, the staff friendly and willing to go out of their way to help.  In the charming downtown, restaurants are just a short walk away.  This store seems to embody southern charm at its best.

     Being a mountain girl at heart, I was thrilled to discover City Lights Bookstore in Sylva, NC.  This one feels like you're coming home–well, the store is in an old house with a ton of rooms, and the ambiance is warm and welcoming.  The staff made me feel like I was someone special and I noticed that was the way they treated everyone.  The surrounding mountains hover and, when I was there, I felt like I was nestled in, safe and secure, for the winter.

     I wouldn't want to short-change the beach, where I did a reading at Pomegranate Books in Wilmington.  This store also had a previous life as a house and the white railings leading up to the front porch look very 'beachy', which means 'relaxing' to me.  Here, they have an especially  nice selection of regional writers.

     As I crisscrossed the Old North State, I was impressed with the number of bookstores I found and the people who run them.  We shares a love of stories, poems, a literary love that binds us.  As I travelled back toward the heart of the state, I found myself wondering what life would be like if there were no bookstores.  Who knows what the future will bring as ebooks continue to grow in popularity?

     In downtown Salisbury, I found the Literary Bookpost, a large store that keeps going back forever.  The wooden floors and shelves are filled with signed books from writers across the state and beyond.  Deal, one of the owners, is so friendly and laid-back, with his long, grey ponytail and his smile, I almost thought he might pick up a banjo and start playing.  His store seems like one big family as he called out the names of every customer who walked in the door, patting them on the back and discussing which books they wanted next.

     Moving north, I surprised the folks at Only at Barnhill's (no relation) in Winston-Salem–I'd gotten mixed up about dates and just showed up, much to their shock and my own embarrassment.  Immediately, they made me feel right at home and I ended up doing a reading for some folks who showed up.  They also sell wine and hand-made crafts.  I love the idea of wine and books combined!

          When I ventured out of North Carolina into South Carolina, I discovered FictionAddiction in Greenville.  This small store offers a Book Your Lunch with Your Favorite Author event, where I was the guest speaker.  I love the idea of bringing writers and readers together with food!  Again, another wonderful store with knowledgeable staff and a big selection of Southern writers.

     Alas, there are many others I've had the chance to explore, but space is limited.  I hope to have the chance to see them all.  It's heartening to know that the independent bookstore is alive and well in North (and South) Carolina.  I, for one, hope it stays that way.

Story Weekend: Music

Sunday night is the Grammy Awards and American Idol is gearing up and I have music on my mind. I thought it would make a good topic for Story Weekend, so here we go. You may interpret the theme any way you like.

If you're new to Story Weekend, here's how it works: I pick a theme and you share something from your life that relates to that theme, however you interpret it. Thanks to all of you who've been contributing. As always, there are a few "rules":

▪   The story must be true.

▪   Try to keep it under 100 words. Embrace the challenge! That's about six or seven lines in the comment form. I want others to read your story, and most people tend to skip if it's too long. I know how tough it is to "write tight" but I hope you'll accept this as a challenge.

▪   Avoid offensive language.

Have a good weekend, everyone!

 

We Need a Few Good Movie Stars

One of my Facebook friends, Stephanie, asked me what actors I'd like to see play my characters in the movie versions of my books. I hasten to add there are no movie versions planned at the moment, but we can fantasize, can't we? I'd love to know who you think should play some of the roles, and I'll keep my own ideas to the end. Any characters are fair game, but I'd suggest we try to cast:

Noelle from The Midwife's Confession, the younger CeeCee Wilkes in The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes (aka The Lost Daughter), Laurel and Marcus from Before the Storm, Maggie from Before the Storm and Secrets She Left Behind, Annie from Keeper of the Light, and Carlynn from The Shadow Wife. 

I'll be curious to see who you come up with! (PS  from this list, I can tell I need to write more male characters! I've got a good one coming in May with The Good Father. Just wait!).

 

 

 

My Favorite Reads of 2011

Each year, I like to share my favorite reads from the last 12 months. As I looked over the books I read in 2011, two things stood out to me: 1) much of my recent reading has been nonfiction as I research the time and place of my work-in-progress, and 2) I started quite a few books this year that I never finished. I'm not sure what that was all about, but a book really needed to grab me and not let go this year

Here are the books that rose to the top for me, in no particular order. (Disclaimer: Each year several of my closest friends publish their latest releases. Many of them should be on this list, but I don't include them for fairly obvious reasons. How can I be truly objective about a close friend's book? So some true favorites are missing from this list.)

Picking Cotton: Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption  by Jennifer Thompson Cannino, Ronald Cotton and Erin Torne

This book should be mandatory reading for every American. You may know the (true) story, since it received quite a bit of media coverage in recent years. In the mid-eighties, college student Jennifer Thompson was raped by a man who broke into her apartment. She identified the wrong man, Ronald Cotton, as her assailant and Ronald served eleven years in prison for a crime he didn't commit. He was finally freed by a DNA test. But the real story is the relationship between Jennifer and Ronald that developed after his release. The writing is on the simple side but the story is complex. More than a touching story of forgiveness and compassion, it's a treatise on a broken judicial system. Personally, it's hard for me to understand how anyone could still support the death penalty after reading this book.

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

Did you read and love Patchett's Bel Canto? Well, it doesn't matter if you loved it or not, because this book is completely different. I was engrossed and looked forward to every reading session, though I admit when I turned the last page I said out loud "Well, that was a weird book!" This is the story of a young pharmaceutical researcher who's sent to the Amazon to track down an older researcher who has lost contact with the drug company. The young woman's journey becomes both professional and personal and her experiences are fascinating, if ultimately hard to swallow (a pun you'll only understand after reading the book!)

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin

Set in Mississippi, this is the story of Larry Ott, a man who has never quite fit into his small home town, particularly after the disappearance of a girl he took on a date as a teenager. The story opens with the disappearance of another young girl and all eyes are on Larry as the suspect. The constable investigating the case, Silas Jones, has a long and hidden history with Larry. I was gripped from start to finish by this book. I kept thinking "I wish I could write like this!" Franklin's ability to describe people and place without clobbering the reader over the head with the description takes real skill. Although the book is touted as a mystery, the mystery itself is slight and secondary to the character studies of two men with tangled pasts.

How to Bake a Perfect Life by Barbara O'Neal

On a slightly lighter note, I give you a book that will make you smile, cry and bake bread (yes, there are recipes!). This is the intergenerational story of Ramona Gallager, a woman struggling to keep her bakery afloat, her daughter Sophia, who learns that her husband was critically wounded in Afghanistan, and Sophia's teenaged stepdaughter, Katie, who ends up staying with Ramona while Sophia rushes to her husband's side. It's a poignant story of family love and second chances.

 

A Stolen life by Jaycee Dugard  This is definitely not the sort of book I usually pick up, but Jaycee's true life story captured my imagination and I wanted to understand how she could have endured the things she did.  This remarkable young woman was kidnaped at eleven, gave birth to the two children of her kidnaper at fourteen and eighteen, and lived hidden in a shed for eighteen years. She had opportunities to escape, but didn't. The psychology of her existence and that of her kidnapers fascinated me, but I came away from the book touched by her strength, her love for her children, and a hope that her future is far gentler than her past.

A Long and Happy Life by Reynolds Price

I love this book . . . but you might not. I picked it up because it takes place in rural North Carolina in the late fifties, the time and place I'm researching for my work-in-progress. I'd never read Price before and was a bit stunned when I encountered the first long paragraph and realized it was all one sentence. But it was a good sentence, and I kept on reading. I fell in love with Price's description of the area and his colorful characters, but more than anything I was moved by how intimately he understood the heart of a young woman as she pines for her (jerk of a) boyfriend. Price absolutely understood how crazy a woman in love can be. I'm afraid I could relate all too well.

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

I'll be honest: this was one of the books I didn't think I would finish. I tried twice and twice put it down, but friends I respected raved about it, and so I became determined to give it another chance and I'm glad I did. The story, set primarily in Ethiopia, is a coming of age tale of a young man and his twin brother, the offspring of a nun who dies while giving birth to them and a brilliant surgeon, Thomas Stone. The characters and setting are richly drawn and the relationships complex, believable and ultimately touching. Bonus: you will never again take the skill of a surgeon for granted.

11/22/63 by Stephen King

The last Stephen King novel I read was Misery. I recall sitting on the beach in Maui as Misery chopped off the legs of the novelist with her ax (Was it an ax? I've blocked that scene from my mind). I put the book down and swore off King for good. But the premise of 11/22/63—a man travels back in time to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination–drew me in. Who in my generation hasn't wondered what the world would be like if that event had never taken place? I found the book a genuine page turner. To me, King is at his best when he skips the horror and goes for the gut (Shawshank Redemption, Stand by Me, The Stand). This was one of the most engrossing books I read this year.

 

The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom

I read this beautiful, well-researched book for my neighborhood book club and it generated plenty of discussion. It's the story of a little Irish girl, Lavinia, whose parents die while emigrating to America. She's taken in by the ship captain, who deposits her with the slave family on his plantation.  As she grows up, she straddles the world of her loving slave family and the wealthy white family that lives in the "big house." Her story is gripping and my stomach was tied in knots through much of it. Grissom does a marvelous job of putting the reader into the world of both slave and slave owner. Highly recommended.

Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah

As readers of my books know, I'm a sucker for a "story within a story," and Winter Garden offers exactly that. Two sisters, different as night and day, must find a way to come together to help their cold, distant mother after the death of their father. They finally draw her out by having her tell them a fairy tale from their childhood—a "fairy tale" that turns out to be about the mother's growing up years in war-torn Russia. Often when I read Hannah, I feel as though I'm reading one of my own books. We seem like-minded in our approach to family stories and family love. I found Winter Garden both engrossing and moving.

So that's my list for 2011. I'd love to hear about your favorites, too.

 

 

Story Weekend: Hair

I can't believe we haven't had hair as a Story Weekend topic yet. (Isn't this a stunner of a photograph? That's me, in my dreams). Whether "hair" makes you think of childhood perms, fright wigs, your grandma's snow-white bun or the broadway musical, tell us about it!

If you're new to Story Weekend, here's how it works: I pick a theme and you share something from your life that relates to that theme, however you interpret it. Thanks to all of you who've been contributing. As always, there are a few "rules":

▪   The story must be true.

▪   Try to keep it under 100 words. Embrace the challenge! That's about six or seven lines in the comment form. I want others to read your story, and most people tend to skip if it's too long. I know how tough it is to "write tight" but I hope you'll accept this as a challenge.

▪   Avoid offensive language.

Have a good weekend, everyone!

Backlist on Fire! (and a Contest)

As you probably know, last year I published five of my out-of-print books as e-books. Well, today I checked my records to see if it was worth the time and effort. Uh. . . YES! You bought over 50,000 of them in 2011! I'm staggered by that number, especially since I never thought those books that I'd treasured would ever see the light of day again.  Thank you for embracing them. They'll be the subject of my February newsletter, due to go out in a few days, and that's where the contest comes in. Everyone on my mailing list is eligible to win a $100 bookstore gift certificate. Whether you've been on my list for years or are a total newbie, you're eligible. You have till March 18th at 10 pm EST to sign up. I love giving things away, so please join in the fun!

Do You Read the Last Page First?

A friend called the other day. I hadn't spoken to him in a couple of months and I knew he and his family were going through some difficult times. He wanted to catch me up, telling me "so much has happened since I talked to you last." (I really did receive this call, but I'm completely changing the nature of the incidents.) My friend began telling me what happened after we'd last talked. At that time, his daughter, Jill, had broken up with a young man who began flaming her on Facebook. After that initial flaming, my friend told me now, the guy started threatening Jill and stalking her. Jill learned that he bought a gun. She thought she saw him following her in his car a few times. Her apartment was then broken into and he left a threatening note behind. She called the police, who thought she was making it all up.

As my friend described what had happened, I found myself on the edge of my seat, gripping the phone and hoping for a happy outcome. Suddenly he skipped way ahead. "Now that he's in jail, Jill wonders if he's the guy who shot up this other girl's car last year." Ack! He told me the end of the story! The suspense drained out of me. He still had a month of events to describe to me and he'd already told me the end! Now, yes, I was happy the guy was in jail and Jill was safe, but really… Couldn't he have revealed all in good time? Since this is a real friend and a real-life story about real people, I know I'm a cad for even thinking this way. But it made me think about writing fiction and how hard I work to "reveal all in good time", to keep the suspense building until the end–and how it makes me crazy to hear from readers who tell me they read the ending first. I would never do this. I want to learn everything in the order the author chooses to tell me. Delicious!

Are you one of those "read the ending first" readers? Why do you do it? Does it kill your enjoyment of the story or does it, in some perverse way I don't understand, add to it? I'd love to know!

Story Weekend: Rebellion

This week's theme popped into my mind out of nowhere and I look forward to seeing what that word conjures up for you. I'm not going to start it off with my own story this week so as not to influence anyone. Instead, I'll let you take this in whatever direction you like.

If you're new to Story Weekend, here's how it works: I pick a theme and you share something from your life that relates to that theme, however you interpret it. Thanks to all of you who've been contributing. As always, there are a few "rules":

▪   The story must be true.

▪   Try to keep it under 100 words. Embrace the challenge! That's about six or seven lines in the comment form. I want others to read your story, and most people tend to skip if it's too long. I know how tough it is to "write tight" but I hope you'll accept this as a challenge.

▪   Avoid offensive language, unless you want to be a rebel!

Have a good weekend, everyone!

 

Let's Have a Worry-Free Week

All right, I will settle for a semi-worry-free week.

I spend too much time worrying about things. One of my main worries is always the book I'm working on. Will I meet my deadline?  Will it please my readers? Will the reviews be good? Will it make any bestseller lists? Etcetera, etcetera. I was thinking about my book worries this afternoon and realized there was only one book I never worried about, at least not while I was writing it and that was my first, Private Relations, written a zillion years ago. When I wrote that book, I viewed writing as a hobby. It was Just Plain Fun. I was a social worker back then and though I loved my job, I couldn't wait to get home and play with my story. It was actually relaxing, the way knitting or doing a puzzle or playing with the dogs could be fun.

Don't get me wrong: I still adore writing. I love making stuff up, creating interesting characters, figuring out the best structure to tell the tale, and polishing my words. But for the past twenty-five years (holy moly), that whole process has been infused with the worries I described above. So here's my promise to myself for this week: I'm not going to worry about my book. As a therapist, though, I learned you can't simply say you "won't" do something without substituting what you "will" do instead, so I'm still going to write, but every time I sit down at the computer, it will be with a smile and an expectation of discovery and joy. If I don't reach my word goal for the day, I'll say "Whatever!" And I'll take a few dog-petting and lemon-ginger tea breaks during the day. Maybe after a week of this, it will become a habit? I'll still allow myself to worry about all those things that DO merit worry in my life, but not my book.

Do you want to join me in my grand experiment? What would you like to stop worrying about until Monday, January 30th?

Story Weekend: Random Acts of Kindness

This weekend's theme: Random Acts of Kindness. It's a great topic, suggested by one of my Facebook friends. Write whatever true little (and I do mean little!) story pops into your mind. Something you did. Something someone else did for you. Something you witnessed. I can't wait to read what you come up with.

If you're new to Story Weekend, here's how it works: I pick a theme and you share something from your life that relates to that theme, however you interpret it. Thanks to all of you who've been contributing. As always, there are a few "rules":

▪   The story must be true.

▪   Try to keep it under 100 words. Embrace the challenge! That's about six or seven lines in the comment form. I want others to read your story, and most people tend to skip if it's too long. I know how tough it is to "write tight" but I hope you'll accept this as a challenge.

▪   Avoid offensive language.

Have a good weekend, and if you have no story about a Random Act of Kindness, maybe you can make one happen!