UNWELL, by Marie Chow Virtual Book Tour, #NEWRELEASE #FICTION
Paperback: 278 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (January 7, 2014)
ISBN-10: 1494941201
ISBN-13: 978-1494941208
Book Title: Unwell
Genre: Women’s/Contemporary
About The Book
Unwell is the story of one woman’s life: neither extraordinary nor fantastical, she nonetheless finds herself at an impasse few around her seem to understand, or even be aware of. She is pregnant, married, and has been told that she has everything in front of her, a life others would envy. Yet the only thing she seems to want is escape from the confines of her body, her life, and her family.
About The Author
Marie is a former teacher, education evaluator, and engineer. A lifelong student, she has degrees in chemical engineering, teaching, an MFA in writing, and a doctorate in educational leadership. Her writing focuses on bilingual and English-only children’s books that feature mixed families, as well as literary and contemporary fiction focused on Asian and Asian American characters.
Tell us about your book?
Written entirely as a letter to her unborn child, Unwell is the story of one woman’s life, written almost as a confession…
She’s married to a wonderful man, pregnant with a healthy child, and knows there’s so much she should be thankful for, and yet– She’s not ready for motherhood. She’s not ready to be a wife. She’s not ready for the realities that have trapped her. To pass the time, fill the void, and in hopes that someone may eventually understand, she begins a letter to her unborn daughter. In it she tells, unflinchingly, her life story that bring her to this moment. She explains what she hasn’t told anyone else: not only who she is, but who she isn’t.
How did you come up with ideas for this book?
When I was pregnant with my first child… I had this moment of panic. I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t sure. It was too late to back out, too late to change my mind.
My moment of panic eventually subsided, and I now have two very… spirited… toddlers. But the idea of being trapped by motherhood, of being unwilling to give up the part of your identity that does seem to get inevitably subsumed by being a parent, was an idea that stayed with me. Eventually, after marinating for long enough, it became this book.
Where can visitors find you online?
What was the most difficult aspect of writing this book?
I had this great introduction that I was so… very… attached to. I edited and re-edited it for, quite literally, months. When I finally finished the novel and began showing it to people, almost half of my friend said the same thing: the beginning’s got to go. The three chapters that I had worked the hardest on, and which had been the foundation for everything that came after it, became a single short page. Cutting out that much, especially when it was the beginning that had inspired the rest… was very, very difficult.
Why do you write? Is it something you’ve always done, or always wanted to do? Or is it something that you started fairly recently?
I’m not one of those people who’s always wanted to write. In fact, I distinctly remember the years when I loathed writing above all other subjects.
I’d spent most of my formative years traveling between Taiwan and the U.S., half a year there, half a year here. I kicked butt in subjects like math and science (which were numbers-based, as opposed to word-based), and sucked in things like history (turns out they don’t teach you about the U.S. presidents in Taiwan, and alternatively, my elementary school teachers said little about ancient Chinese emperors and dynasties).
Writing, especially creative writing was, by far, my worst subject. I had no real vocabulary to speak of, and the idea of an assignment that didn’t have a clear-cut right answer was horribly anxiety-inducing.
I didn’t start writing until midway through my college years. The short version? I was depressed, and started keeping a journal.
Which I found… even more depressing.
It was a bit of a loop for me. I’d be thinking about something sad, and so I’d write about it, which made me think about that sad thing… even more.
So, I started writing, at first, ever-so-slightly-fictionalized versions of real events. Like, that bad break-up where I’d dumped him but then he’d said some really cutting things I’d had no response to? Well, what if I’d said what I thought of days (ok fine, weeks) afterwards? Or, that unresolved fight about a snow globe I’d bought for my father that he’d probably forgotten about long ago? It would have been petty, and immature to bright it up now, but in the fictionalized version of my world…
At some point, the main characters stopped being completely me. A little later, the stories stopped being alternate versions of reality.
And I was hooked.
It was exhilarating, and thrilling, putting words on paper and creating people, characters, voices, life.
Excluding your own, name 3 books you would recommend to your friends
Magaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin
Richard Russo’s Empire Falls
Donald Hall’s Without
Adam Haslett’s You are Not a Stranger Here
Just for fun
Coffee or tea?
Both – preferably super-saturated with sugar.
Lights on / lights off?
On… On… On…
3 things you never leave home without?
You know… I wish there were 3 things I never left home without, that would certainly simplify the number of times I’ve left the house only to realize I’ve left my keys or my wallet, or have misplaced my phone…
Sleep in or get up early?
Sleep in for as long as my children let me!
3 celebrity crushes?
Angelina Jolie, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Tom Hiddleston
Tell us something no person knows about you.
I really, really, would like to go back to school and become a computer programmer (right after I’m done with the writing stuff).
Any advice to give to aspiring writers?
If you don’t feel honestly compelled to keep writing… there are easier jobs out there. If, on the other hand, you’ve admitted that writing is a compulsion from which you can’t extricate or cure yourself, it’d be easier to just devote yourself completely to it…
Any message to your followers?
Please, oh please, leave reviews!
Links to Visit:
Website: http://mariechow.com
Buy Links:
Amazon Ebook: http://amzn.to/1cSEPcE
Amazon Paperback: http://amzn.to/PK0n1j
Hosted by: Write Now Literary Virtual Book Tour
Author Tour Schedule: http://wnlbooktours.com/marie-chow
