Book sales and signing on-site. Call the library at 919 870.4000 to reserve a spot.

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“An original, intriguing tale about the ways that love can break us or bind us.” Therese Fowler, author of Souvenir and Reunion

Those of you who write are probably familiar with the acclaimed writing website Writer Unboxed. A few years ago, I became acquainted with one of its founders, Therese Walsh. Through who knows what web of connections, she was also a reader of my blog. In our correspondence, she named herself “the other Therese,” and was one of first to interview me when my debut novel, Souvenir, was on its way to publication.

Over time, I watched this “other Therese” go from aspiring novelist, working on a manuscript called Unbounded, to agented author of a completed novel.  Soon after finding her agent, she asked me to read her manuscript and, if I was so inclined, to “blurb” it before her agent began submitting it to publishers. This is one of many strategies agents/authors sometimes use, hoping that endorsements from more-established authors will help make a sale.

I had begun reading the manuscript but hadn’t finished when Therese told me her agent was moving up the submission timetable to, in essence, immediately, in order to take advantage of interest they were already seeing from publishers abroad. I didn’t even have the chance to finish reading before it was in the hands of editors around New York, and shortly thereafter sold to Shaye Areheart books (an imprint of Random House).

Seeing a fellow author land a book deal is tremendously exciting. Following my own first sale, I’d seen a fellow MFA classmate and two other “blog pals” sell their own debut novels, and was almost as excited for them as I was for myself. When Therese Walsh told me she, too, had a deal, I was delighted for her. And new deals are good news for all of us: each one is proof positive that books by new writers are still in demand–which, to anyone who hasn’t gotten there yet but desperately hopes to, is no small thing. It’s nice for readers, too; new stories, new voices, new perspectives are all good things.

The writing business is tough. The persistence and tenacity required to simply complete a novel, let alone find representation, let alone get a book deal, let alone stay in the business, does not come easily. The odds are stacked so highly against success, and that’s why each new author’s deal is cause for celebration.

Today I want to celebrate the publication of that novel Therese Walsh worked so diligently to finish, to refine, and to sell. (Read her Writer Unboxed interview here.) Its title became The Last Will of Moira Leahy, and I was pleased to be given an advance copy to read and blurb. Her publisher took the pithiest part of my endorsement to use for promotional purposes (as seen below the book’s cover art, above), but here it is in its entirety:

“A bit of the fantastic threads through Therese Walsh’s debut, an original, intriguing tale of the ways that love can break us or bind us, depending. Though it’s Maeve Leahy’s journey we follow, Moira Leahy’s will may well be for us all to discover the triumph of the spirit that’s possible only through letting go.”

Help Therese get established in the crazy, crowded book marketplace by going to your favorite bookseller and picking up a copy of The Last Will of Moira Leahy. You’ll be doing a good deed, but more than that, you’ll be getting a great read! What a treat for these long autumn evenings.

Shortly after my first novel, Souvenir, came out, I was contacted by a person who was interested in having me come speak at a large public high school. This person, who worked for the school system, thought the book and my experiences as a new author would be compelling material for both students and faculty, and we spoke of also tying in a separate event for the adult reading community. I was excited about the opportunity, and waited to hear back about possible dates and other arrangements.

When I did hear back, the news was bad: some faculty members had read the book, and while they themselves found it worthy of reading and discussing, they felt that the sexuality and controversial subject matter might not be considered appropriate for high school students. I suppose they didn’t want to invite trouble from parents, didn’t want to have to fight that particular fight. Therefore, the invitation was withdrawn.

And yet, around that same time (in July ‘08), the popular review site Teens Read Too! reviewed the book and awarded it its highest rating, along with placement in their Hall of Fame. These folks, whose business it is to know all about books for teens, recommended it for grades 9 and up.

Although the book is considered adult fiction, I’d been receiving heartfelt letters from teenaged readers in the UK for a year already (the book came out there first), and was getting them from American teens, and have since gotten them from teens world-wide. I’ve heard from parents and grandparents who gave copies to their teens deliberately. So you can see why the de facto banning of Souvenir in this particular school system was discouraging and disappointing.  The story is a realistic cautionary tale, and teens live in the real world; in my view, reading the book would do them more good than harm.

My consolation, however, was knowing that I’m in good company.

The American Library Association, ALA, shares this list of banned and/or challenged classics. When I view the titles there, I see nothing threatening. I see adventure, exploration, and many topics worth thinking more about. I want to tell all those who have reacted to these (and other) books so negatively that fear and misinformation are a cage, but knowledge will set you free. Sounds lofty, I suppose. Still, I believe it wholeheartedly, maybe because I myself am a good example of someone whose experience of life was expanded dramatically, thanks to books.

So celebrate the freedom to read anything and everything by championing a book that at one time or another has been challenged or banned. Recommend Souvenir, if you like (I won’t mind!), or maybe choose one from this list. I’m going to read The Perks of being a Wallflower, which my 16-yr. old son read recently, and found amazing.

Read on!

A little more than three and a half years ago, I helped to launch a writers’ group. I knew several of the women who would be members, but one was new to me, a poet and short-story writer named Maureen Sherbondy. My tenure with the group ended when I sold my first novel and began writing full-time, but my friendship with Maureen endured. Today I’m happy to announce the publication of her first short story collection, The Slow Vanishing.

Here’s what I had to say after reading it, pre-publication:

In The Slow Vanishing, Maureen Sherbondy looks at our lives through a lens of fantasy and wisdom, then tells our stories in compelling and magical ways. Thought-provoking, entertaining, troubling, and true, these tales will have you nodding your head in recognition, eager to read more.

I asked Maureen to talk a little bit about her work, and this book in particular:

I’m excited to be guest blogging on your site to talk about The Slow Vanishing. It’s difficult to get a short story collection published these days, so I am thrilled that the book has just been released. I’ve been working on these stories for about five years. Many of the stories are flash fiction pieces. For those of you who don’t know what flash fiction is – they are very, very short stories. These are also referred to as “sudden fiction” or “micro fiction”. These stories are different from traditional longer stories in that they don’t always follow the typical story arc of beginning, middle, and ending, with a conflict, resolution, and a change in the main character. These flash fiction pieces are usually image-driven and often surreal. Flash fiction pieces are perfect for readers who don’t have much spare time. In the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee, a reader can read an entire flash fiction story. Some of the stories in this collection first appeared in literary journals.

It’s important for people to support small presses like Main Street Rag Publishing Company, the publisher of this collection. Many authors (like myself) struggle to get that first book published. If not for these small presses, many new authors would never find a home for that first full-length collection. The book can be ordered directly from the publisher here.

This was my second time playing, and unlike my first time, today my opponent was as inexperienced as I am.  I took the first set but suffered an injury in the process: I was catching the ball (Lisa, my opponent, had hit it over to me for my next serve) and it hit the top of a not-so-long fingernail, breaking that nail about half-way down the nail bed. It’s a horizontal split, which began bleeding, and hurt like hell.  A stupid injury, and, unfortunately, not so debilitating that I can claim it’s to blame for my losing the second set, nor, subsequently, the tie-breaking 10-pt. game.

Can’t blame the ugly blister I later discovered on my right pinkie-toe, either. Dang!

It was a good time otherwise, and while I’d have loved to win, I’m happy to have simply been out there playing tennis, getting great exercise and, yes, getting my shoulders, cheeks and nose a little sunburned on a beautiful, almost-autumn day.

practice makes perfect?

The photo above is me afterward…not. I certainly felt like lying down after my eighteen games, but thought it best not to, lest I get my sweat-soaked, stringy-haired self coated with bits of court dust and clay. How does this K-Swiss model avoid that problem? Oh, wait, I see from the ad copy: she Keeps it Pure. Gotta learn how to do that…

Now, since I’m not really qualified to offer tips for tennis but would like this post to be at least somewhat useful, let me share instead literary agent Michelle Brower’s recent blog post Top Ten Tips for Writers Conferences and her Top Ten Querying Mistakes. Michelle, who works with my agent, Wendy Sherman, is currently looking for fiction not unlike my stuff, and would love to read stories that will make her cry.

For those of you who aren’t writers but wouldn’t mind improving your tennis game, I do have some advice: get out there and play more!  That’s what I’m going to do.

When my finger and toe aren’t quite so sore…

…and continued listening to author Kathy Reichs, who stood at the podium to his right, while she described the life cycle of maggots.

The North Carolina Literary Festival launched last night, with keynote speakers Reichs and Grisham treating me, and perhaps a thousand other eager listeners, to their stories of how first being professionals (she a forensic anthropologist, he a lawyer) led to their becoming novelists.

Reichs is a an energetic, youthful woman who has somehow managed to fit several professional lifetimes into one. Her anthropological work (which she continues to do) is grisly, fascinating, and important. Her novels are inspired by real cases, real problems, and the effects of doing the kind of work she does. Listening to her, I was entertained (she’s funny), and intrigued. I would have enjoyed listening to her for longer than her allotted time.

But then Grisham took the podium, and the evening became, for me at least, more than entertaining.

He is a commanding man in person, easy in his skin, and his voice is Southern Gentleman plus a shade of tone that comes from having spent twenty years in active concert with New York. Grisham’s path to publication is well-known to aspiring writers, and if you aren’t already acquainted with it, I’ll leave you to look it up elsewhere.  (I will say, though, that he took a moment to point out that the “urban legend” of his having self-published A Time to Kill is wrong.) What I found so compelling about his talk were two things: first, that I identified in so many ways with him and the experiences of his early novelist days, and second, that even though I’ve already made the arduous journey to publication, am working with a fantastic publishing team, and have won international acclaim and readership, he inspired me.

He related how, in the early days when The Firm had just been published and become a bestseller, he’d had a conversation with someone from Barnes & Noble (a sales rep, maybe) and the man had remarked to him that “the big guys” put out a book a year. Grisham thought, I want to be a big guy. It was, for him, a seminal moment of understanding about the industry, and of committing to a writing career.

I have that understanding already, and have made that commitment before. But now I see clearly that for every author who wants to “be a big guy,” in whatever way that means to him or her, the commitment has to get made, and remade, and made again and again as time goes on. Grisham is not Random House’s top selling novelist for nothing.

He also told how he writes two kinds of legal thrillers: the purely entertaining, high-adrenalin stories like The Firm, and the stories that he hopes will open readers’ eyes to something that matters, like The Appeal. That philosophy, of writing commercial fiction that is both entertaining and thought-provoking, is one I share.

So, while I don’t even entertain the idea of ever matching Grisham’s success, spending an evening in his company left me invigorated about my writing career, and eager to take a fresh look at my newly revised novel with an eye toward making it the best thing I’ve written yet.

Bob has a lot more experience than I do in both writing and teaching writing, so I was intrigued by his approach to the question.  And I found it very interesting that he said “95 percent of students don’t really want to learn—they want validation. The few who really want to learn and are willing to, make great strides.”  That dovetails so well with my experience as an MFA student.

When I got into the NCSU writing program, I was tremendously eager to learn how to take my skills to a professional level. Yes, I needed validation (who doesn’t?), but more than that, I wanted to understand what I was doing poorly, and learn how to do it well. Initially, I was perplexed by those in the program who seemed primarily to want validation. Over time, I chalked it up to our having differing goals. I was aiming for a writing career; not every MFA student is.

I should also note that I viewed Pamela’s question as pertaining to writers who intend their work to be read by others. Long before I ever seriously entertained the idea of a writing career, I wrote (journaled) extensively for myself, with no worries over whether the writing was “good.”

So I’m interested to know, what do you think? Are all successful writers born with the ability (latent though it may be)? Can we ever truly know whether someone who succeeds was or was not born with innate writing talent?

Maybe you’ve seen the stories out this week reporting that sales of Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking have “skyrocketed,” thanks to the exposure it’s getting in the film.  Nothing against the book, or against French food for that matter, but I won’t be among the crowds rushing to own a copy.  The foods I would be tempted to prepare are in most cases so incredibly rich and fabulous that I think I gained three pounds from simply seeing them prepared on film.  The well-featured Boeuf Bourguignon, however, is one of the foods I think I’ll attempt (recipe here), being slightly less of an artery-clogging delight than, say, anything made with a butter-laden pastry crust.

—And speaking of lessening my risk of clogged arteries, I’m proud to report that despite the hours I spent watching the Js cook (and eating most of a large bag of popcorn in the process), I’ve lost five of the fifteen pounds I’m aiming for by year’s end.  This is due in part to my eating a lot more fresh veggies and a lot fewer French fries, and in part to my growing enthusiasm for playing tennis.  I even let myself be recruited onto a women’s singles beginner-level team. Our first match is tomorrow. Yikes!

I’m almost done with the revisions to my next novel, and I’m eager to read the fully revised story.  I think (I hope!) it’s getting pretty close to right. And then there’s this: I’m dying to get to work on book #4. The premise is so right on, so now, and the events are so compelling to me… I feel like this will be one of those stories that pours itself onto the page. I wish I could tell you more about it, but since I haven’t even submitted the proposal yet (that will happen after I’ve turned in the book I’m finishing now), I need to keep the details under wraps.
I can tell you about a different story, one you might have already read: The Time Traveler’s Wife, which I saw in its film version on Saturday.  Have you seen it?  If you’ve read and seen, you know that the film differs from the book in some noticeable ways.  Not surprising; that’s pretty much par for the course, especially with stories as complex and lengthy as TTW.  But I worked hard to watch it with as open a mind as possible, and, for the most part, I succeeded.  I was hugely distracted, though, by one particular scene.  Remember Gomez in Clare’s parents’ house, waiting for Henry? The wallpaper in that room is a precise, exact match to the wallpaper in my powder room!

I got over it quickly enough, and in the end, found that although I still favor the book greatly, the film was effective (yes, I cried), and I had no trouble at all sitting in the dark for a couple of hours with both my husband and Eric Bana.

At an event I did recently, an audience member asked me whether “Hollywood has come calling.”  I told him that yes, the phone has rung, but so far my options are still open.  Honestly, I’m ambivalent about possibly seeing one of my stories adapted to film.  Sometimes, the outcome is fantastic (Memoirs of a Geisha) and sometimes less so (you fill in the blank here). Authors almost never get any say in the production, so if the film’s good, then sure, the book it’s based on soars in popularity. For example, TTW is back at the top of the NYT paperback list. If the film bites dead fish heads, that stench will carry over to the book.

So for now, no worries. For now, I’m happy to be just the reader and viewer. And if I indulge a stray daydream or two about visiting a movie set as an honored guest (or maybe not so honored: anyone a fan, as I am, of the brilliant State and Main?) and attending a premiere with, oh, Clive Owen or Julia Roberts or Jennifer Aniston or Stanley Tucci (have you seen the trailers with him for The Lovely Bones?) or, I don’t know, Harrison Ford, Owen Wilson, Greg Kinnear, Meryl Streep…and maybe even first getting to pow-wow with the likes of directors Julie Taymor or Rob Marshall, well, I’m a girl who has a lot of imagination, so you’ll have to forgive me.  It’s what I do.

I feel that way to a lesser extent about my sixteen-year-old.  Too soon he’ll be his brother’s age…and I don’t know whether he’ll elect to live at home for a time while in school.  He’s more likely to go to university, which probably will mean living on campus from the start.

You can’t know, though, what your kids will choose until they choose it.  We have always maintained the philosophy AND the policy that our kids should pursue their passion(s) so that they have the best shot at a happy and fulfilling life.  (I’m here to tell you that all those adages about work not being work if you’re doing something you love are true.)  There are conditions attached to our follow-your-passion policy, of course; one’s “passion” cannot be remaining jobless and unschooled and sleeping every day until mid-afternoon.

So, when our oldest chose a field (firefighting) where most of the training is provided and the extra education is an A.A.S. degree offered at community college, we encouraged him to live at home for as long as he can stand it, or until he’s done with school, whichever comes first.  It’s working very well so far.  Still, I’m aware that these days are gifts.  I’m aware that many, probably most, parents don’t get to see their nineteen-year-olds daily.  (And yes, I’m aware that there’s a portion of that group who are just fine with that!)

When I was my oldest son’s age, I’d already been married for a year, and was living 10,000 miles away from home.  There were no cell phones, no PCs with Internet communication capabilities.  In fact, my rented house in Angeles City, Republic of the Philippines, didn’t have a telephone at all.  If I wanted to talk to my mom, I had to go onto the air base (where my then-husband, an Air Force A1C, worked) to a special building that had phone banks.  The long-distance rates were astronomical: I remember calling home one day following a terrorism incident, to assure the family that we were okay, and the hour or so total of our calls cost us more than $200–most of that month’s rent money.  In the three years that I lived there, I spoke to my mother maybe three times, and to my father (they were divorced) not at all.

My oldest in college… His brother about to get a driver’s license… It all seems impossible, because I’m pretty sure that it was only a few weeks ago that I was changing their diapers, cutting up their food, reading to them from board books, and, yes, sometimes wondering if they would ever get to the stage where they were both in school for at least part of the day, so I could steal a few hours for myself.

Now I just about have to rent time from them in order for us to do things together.

I miss the little people they were, but I love the big people they are.  So it goes.

Last week, my editor forwarded me the above image, which she’d just received.  It’s the cover art proof for the large print edition of Reunion, an edition that I didn’t know was in the works.  She didn’t know it was in the works.  My agent didn’t know it was in the works.  How can that be? Well, my publisher owns these particular subrights, and apparently when they sold them to the Thorndike Press (who also has Souvenir’s large print rights and published a beautiful edition of that book as well), the news didn’t trickle down.  It happens.  So, if you’ve been looking for/waiting for/hoping for Reunion in large print, your wait will end on Oct. 2nd!  And yes, you can pre-order now from the book retailer of your choice.

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A Brazilian (Portuguese) edition of Souvenir was published early this year, and I’ve been receiving lovely, heartfelt emails from readers there.  The latest came from a sixteen-year-old, who I hope won’t mind being quoted here.  She writes about her reaction to the story, and then:

Only one more thing: I want to be a writer. Until now, I only wrote a few stories, none as long as book. But I think it´s a start. And you made me feel like I’m actually going forward, because you inspired me. And I want to thank you, there is not a word to describe what I feel about you.
And I didn´t do half of want I wanted: Thank you´s and my believes are not enough.
Just know that you made someone cry, and smile, and feel alive.

When I get letters like this one, I am humbled and amazed.  There is nothing more affirming in this crazy career that is novel-writing than hearing that I’ve made a difference in someone’s life.