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“If there is one thing worse than being an ugly duckling in a house of swans, it’s having the swans pretend there’s no difference.”
Teena Booth, Falling From Fire
A good book review can tell you what there is to like (or not) about a book. A great review illuminates the theme of the book and places it in the canon of literature where it belongs. I love a truly great review of my books, because they tell me what my theme was. While writing, I don’t usually know what the theme is. The most thoughtful of readers will do this, tell me what meaning they’ve taken away from the book. That’s why I love this review of The Charm School. It’s a discussion of the book’s meaning to this reader. When I wrote the book, I was aiming for a rollicking romantic adventure, but this reviewer mentioned the deeper meaning of Isadora’s storyline, and its relation to the darker theme of the book–bondage (institutionalized, and emotional) and the terrible toll it takes, and the joys and rewards of throwing it off. When I read this bit:
Isadora’s plight and flight are plausible due to deft handling of the hero and heroine and to Wiggs’s creation of secondary characters who exist in other types of restrictive societies. Journey’s wife, Delilah, and others are shackled by the institution of slavery. They, no less than Isadora, are freed emotionally and physically while Wiggs delivers a powerful message with great moral effectiveness.
…I realized, finally, months after finishing it, what my book was really about. So thank you, Sue Klock! You really nailed it with this one. It celebrates everything I love to write about, including my pet theme, the power of love to transform a person’s life.
I often tell people this is one of my “money-back guarantee” books, meaning if you don’t like it, please take it back to the store and ask for a refund (most bookstores will comply). Because honestly, it’s one of the most “likeable” books I’ve ever written, even with that naughty, naughty rain forest love scene with the funny cigars. (The review cited above offers readers a warning about that….) When you’re writing about a young woman’s sexual awakening, you find yourself thinking up stuff like this.
“Charity sees the need, not the cause.”
–German proverb
It’s that time of year again. The tireless Brenda Novak–writer, friend, and mother to a boy living with diabetes–is holding her annual auction to benefit diabetes research. I’m offering up my garden guest house for a weekend at the beach on Puget Sound. Last year, this item was enjoyed by a writers’ group who had met online, and had never been together in person. They had perfect weather and a great time. Here’s some information from Brenda. Knock yourself out and check out the offerings. There’s something for everyone–that’s a promise.
Don’t miss Brenda Novak’s 4th Annual On-line Auction May 1 - May 31st at www.brendanovak.com. There will be nearly 1300 items, many of which you can’t find anywhere else, and something for every budget from a drumhead signed by a whole slew of famous music artists (Michael Jackson, Ringo Starr, Elton John, Justin Timberlake, Bruce Springstein, Madonna and too many others to list) to a treasure trove of fun items donated by aspiring author Lauren Hawkeye. In addition, aspiring novelists can bid on evaluations from some of the most powerful agents and editors in the business—some with the promise of a 24-hour response (unheard of in the publishing industry). And for the person who places the highest number of bids over all (even if that person doesn’t win a single item) a fabulous prize package that includes a brand new camcorder (worth over $1000). Don’t miss this opportunity to make a difference in the lives of others. Go to www.BrendaNovak.com to register and receive a $10 gift certificate to use toward your auction purchases.
The Charm School, first published in 1999, is a USA Today Bestseller again. It was the first of my books to appear on this list–I still have the printout from April 1999. Here we go again. So happy for Isadora, Ryan and the motley gang aboard the Swan. And very grateful to the readers who are embracing this book.
I don’t actually travel that much because the writing schedule doesn’t allow it. However, after updating the schedule of appearances on my web site, I sat back and thought, yikes.
I’ve taught myself to travel light. Not out of any particular virtue, but because waiting for checked luggage to appear is too tense for a traveler who has to catch a ferry. Those extra ten (sometimes more) minutes can mean the difference between catching the 8:I0 and the 9:00pm boats. Doesn’t seem like a huge difference, but at the end of a transcontinental journey, trust me, it matters. So my rule is that I have to fit everything for a trip of any length into a carry-on-sized rollaboard, and a largish shoulder bag. This includes my purse and laptop. If it doesn’t fit, it doesn’t come. My mother–who has been known to fly from Sydney to Seattle with nothing but a pocketbook–sometimes says, “Bring twice as much money as you think you’ll need, and half the clothes.” She’s right, of course.
Anyway, I would love to meet you! I have upcoming appearances in Bainbridge Island, Washington, Seattle, Los Angeles, Crested Butte, Colorado Ketchikan, Alaska, Sacramento and Cannon Beach, Oregon. Please see http://susanwiggs.com/schedule.shtml for details on these and other events.
The Charm School has gone through a few iterations in its lifetime. I thought you’d like to see the genesis of this book from the outside in. The concept for the original cover came from me. I can’t tell you how rare this is for me or any author. We’re writers, not art directors, and we generally do better when we stick with what we know.
A little background–my two covers prior to The Charm School didn’t catch readers’ eyes. So I was extremely motivated to help find the right look. Which I did in (surprise!) a book of Dover Clip Art. It was a little snippet (literally) which I sent to my editor (see above).
Here’s the sketch they came up with. It was faxed to me. Back in the dark ages of the 1990s, this is the way people transmitted images. The minute I saw this, I knew they cover was going to turn out great:
The addition of the butterfly was genius. Perfect for the theme of the book–a tightly-bound young woman finally bursting out of her cocoon. And when I saw the words “die-cut” I thought: Be still my heart. Why? Because a die-cut window in a book cover is a very expensive proposition, production-wise, so I knew this art was turning into a lavish affair. Here’s the final rendering:
The “window” in the page is a peek at the inside art. I’ll post that tomorrow, and also show you the “real” Isadora, compared to the artist’s rendering.
Today you can get a brand-spankin’-new edition of The Charm School, complete with a special preview of Just Breathe.
More about Isadora tomorrow!
This blog is supposed to be all about relaxation and my favorite pasttime, reading. Dog walking and home decorating. Delicious food. Photography and travel. You know, the fun stuff of life.
I’ve tried, really tried, to keep politics out of it, but I can’t keep my mouth shut any longer. There’s a reading-emergency afoot and we need to do something. THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION WANTS TO CUT ALL FUNDING FOR READING IS FUNDAMENTAL. This is the first time in the history of the program that any administration, Republican or Democratic, has eliminated funding.
Destroying this historic literacy program hits me where I live. Taking books away from children is the last straw. So I’m joining with fellow authors to urge you to send an e-mail message to your reps in congress in support of continued funding. The appropriation committee will be meeting in May and June to decide on budgets.
Let me be clear: This is not a controversial program. From its inception in 1966, RIF has been supported on both sides of the aisle because of its demonstrated success. Regardless of politics, thinking people know that we can either educate our children now, or pay later, when we’re dealing with the known consequences of illiteracy: poverty, increased crime, unemployment, dependence on welfare.
According to Publishers Weekly, “while President Bush continually overlooks the organization, both his wife and mother have held positions within the organization. Barbara Bush served on RIF’s board of directors from 1980 to 1988 and then on its national advisory board from 1989 to 1992 (chairing the advisory board for three of the four years.) Laura Bush served on RIF’s national advisory council from 1996 to 2001.”
So what’ll it be? RIF costs $1.63 per child per year. It costs us $22,650 per prisoner per year to incarcerate a criminal, and yes, there’s a connection. 70% of incarcerated criminals are functionally illiterate.
This administration always finds funding for massive tax cuts to corporations, the super-wealthy, and no-bid contractors. Yet when it comes to the education of low-income children, it’s happy to slash the budget to nothing.
RIF’s Web site provides a link for supporters to find their senator and representative and send an e-mail message in support of continued funding. The appropriation committee will be meeting in May and June to decide on budgets.
Funding for RIF was cut from the 2001 budget, but there was such an uproar that it was reinstated. So roar again! Please! It’s a no-brainer.
The good: Online registration for the Field’s End Writers’ Conference has been extended until Monday, 4/21. Yay!
The bad: The conference is nearly sold out, so if you don’t pony up right away, you might miss out.
C’mon, you know you want to come and see what it’s all about. You deserve it.
Today’s guest blog is from the indomitable Sheila Roberts. Her new book is a guilt-free, no-calorie, sweet froth of a story.
I am constantly in the trenches, fighting the battle of the bulge . . . except for when I take a cake break or make a doughnut run. (Fighting fat is hard work. A girl needs sustenance.) But I’m not quitter. I keep fighting. I even teamed up with my girlfriends Kathleen and Kimberly, forming a diet triage, in an effort to regain my girlish figure. I’m still not there yet, but I have hope. (Don’t ask me how long I’ve been in “I have hope” mode – that might prove embarrassing!) Anyway, all this dieting had to lead to a book eventually.
Hence the arrival of my new book with St. Martin’s Press, Bikini Season, which follows the adventures of four girlfriends who turn their cooking club into a diet club. And each woman has her own issues to deal with. Kizzy needs to find a new healthy lifestyle – not an easy task with her husband, who likes her just the way she is, sabotaging her at every turn. Megan needs to change the way she sees herself if she’s going to change the way she looks. Angela needs to realize that, while she might not like herself, her husband loves her no matter what. And then there’s Erin, who is beginning to wonder if the fact that she’s outgrown her wedding dress could be some kind of omen regarding her upcoming nuptials. I had a great time writing this book, and I’m hoping my characters will inspire me to work harder on getting fit. (If nothing else, the recipes in the book should help.) If you’re fighting the fat monster, here are some diet tips that might help you:
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Find an eating plan you like and can stick to. This lets out fad diets, which you are bound to get sick of in a hurry. Better to cut carbs than to eat eggs and grapefruit for three weeks followed by a banana bread meltdown.
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Make it easy. If you have to work a second job preparing your food every day, your resolutions to improve your diet will go out the window. Buy pre-measured, pre-fixed menus like Lean Cuisine. Pre-cut your salad veggies and bake up a batch of chicken breasts on the weekend for the week ahead so you have something healthful and ready to use in the fridge every day. Buy salad in the bag.
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Have a mantra or canned pep talk you can recite in the face of food temptation. In BIKINI SEASON one character regularly reminds the others that nothing tastes like thin feels.
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Pick a form of exercise that suits your personality and preferences so you will enjoy and stick to it. For example, if you’re a social person, don’t take up some solitary form of exercise. And if you value alone time, don’t take an aerobics class. That path leads to boredom, which leads to exercise mutiny.
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Put up your diet shield when going into dangerous social settings. Eat something substantial before that big party so you won’t arrive ravenous. Scope out the food table and pre-select what you will eat. Shrimp. Yes. Veggie Platter. Yes. Chocolate cake. Stay away from that end of the table.
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Give yourself an occasional treat. You’re really changing life habits, not dieting. Diet is a four-letter word and if you diet you will feel deprived and binge. That little (LITTLE) weekly treat will help you be good the rest of the week.
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Get support. Overeating is not a problem to conquer alone. Find family or friends who will support and encourage you and keep you on the road to good health.
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Know your biggest temptation hour and keep your hands and mouth busy. If you get snack cravings at the office, keep sugar free gum in your desk drawer for a quick fix for your taste buds and some chewing action. If you tend to snack in front of the TV at night, make sure you have something to do while you’re watching Grey’s Anatomy, like knitting. Dance along when you’re watching Dancing with the Stars.
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Pick your friends carefully. According to an article in the New York Times (July 26, 2007), our friends can influence our eating habits. According to this article researchers found that people who were overweight had close friends who were also overweight. If one friend became obese, the other had a 171 percent increased chance of also becoming obese. Chose friends who want to develop and keep healthful lifestyles and you’ll increase your own chances of success for a more healthful lifestyle.
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Never give up, never give in. You are the heroine of your own life journey, and sometimes you will stumble. But don’t give up. Toss the rest of that candy bar (yes, toss it!), and go buy a bag of spinach and some oranges. After all, like Scarlett O’Hara said, tomorrow is another day.
So here’s what I was doing just before the phone rang:
…and here’s what I did the rest of the day.
I did a salsa dance, too, but no way I’m showing you the photo.
Win a trip to Willow Lake! I’m not kidding. Check it out here: http://www.eharlequin.com/swinvitation.html?swid=100006
*** CALENDAR ALERT ***SAVE THE DATE
WRITING IN THE GARDEN OF THE GODS
Field’s End Writers’ Conference 2008
WHO: This year’s line-up of authors and speakers includes: Roy Blount, Jr. (keynote speaker), Stephanie Kallos (opening speaker), Knute Berger, Alice Acheson, Lyall Bush, Laura Kalpakian, Thomas Kohnstamm, Rosina Lippi aka Sara Donati, Jennifer Louden, Nancy Pagh, George Shannon, Charley Pavlosky, Sheila Rabe aka Sheila Roberts, Suzanne Selfors, David Wagoner, and Timothy Egan (closing speaker). Professional actor Ron Milton will be on hand for the Page One sessions.
WHAT: Third annual Field’s End Writers’ Conference, “Writing in the Garden of the Gods.”
WHEN: Saturday, April 26, 2008
9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.
WHERE: Kiana Lodge
14976 Sandy Hook Rd. NE
Poulsbo, WA 98370
DETAILS: This one-day conference, held at the spectacularly beautiful Kiana Lodge near Bainbridge Island, is a combination of lectures and breakout sessions presented by an eclectic group of people in the literary world.
The day offers three groupings of breakout sessions. Guests will select three workshops to attend according to their interest (literary fiction, poetry, nonfiction, screen writing, dialogue, genre, travel writing, editing, journalism, historical fiction, and commercial fiction). Each breakout session will also offer a Page One workshop, where conference guests can anonymously submit the first page of something they’ve written for possible live reading and critique by the guest authors.
Lunch is provided and there will be an early evening wine and cheese reception and book signing providing conference guests, authors, and speakers a chance to mingle. Shuttle buses will be available to carry walk-on ferry passengers to and from Kiana Lodge.
Registration begins February 1, 2008. Early registration is recommended as the conference is limited to 250 guests and has sold out in the past. Cost to attend is $135 if you register before February 28, 2008 and $150 after March 1, 2008. Groups of 5 or more can register for $130/person. To register for the 2008 Field’s End Writers’ Conference, visit www.fieldsend.org.
Founded in 2002, Field’s End is a writers’ community whose mission is to inspire writers and nurture the written word through lectures, workshops, and instruction in the art and craft of writing. Located across the Puget Sound from Seattle on beautiful Bainbridge Island, Field’s End is an affiliate of the nonprofit Bainbridge Public Library, which is located at 1270 Madison Avenue on Bainbridge Island. For more information, call (206) 842-4162 or visit www.fieldsend.org.
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MEDIA CONTACT:
Kirsten Graham
Concept 2 Launch
(206) 890-3435
kirsten@concept2launch.net
kirsten graham
c o n c e p t 2 l a u n c h, LLC
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innovation.connections.results
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e:kirsten@concept2launch.net
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Oh, fun! The Winter Lodge is up for a Reviewers Choice Award from RT Book Reviews. It’s up against some of the best books of 2007. I am in good company–every single author in this category is one I regularly read and love, so there’s really no down side to this. Here’s the whole list:
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SIZZLING
Susan Mallery HQN (January 2007) -
NOT ANOTHER NEW YEAR’S
Christie Ridgway Avon (January 2007) -
THE WINTER LODGE
Susan Wiggs Mira (February 2007) -
JUST LIKE HEAVEN
Barbara Bretton Jove (March 2007) -
SUGAR DADDY
Lisa Kleypas St. Martin’s (March 2007) -
VIRGIN RIVER
Robyn Carr Mira (April 2007) -
ALL ABOUT EVIE
Beth Ciotta HQN (May 2007)TANGLED UP IN YOU
Rachel Gibson Avon (August 2007)A TOUCH OF MINX
Suzanne Enoch Avon (October 2007)THE PERFECT MATCH
Kimberly Cates HQN (December 2007)
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Best of luck to us all!
Today’s guest blog is by a wonderful author and friend, Wendy Roberts:
When people first hear I’m an author, the next question is almost always, “Do you write children’s books?” Since I have four children and I’m relatively “nice” they believe that is a logical assumption. Though when I describe whatever book I’m currently working on, usually there is an uncomfortable pause sometimes followed by them slowly backing away with fear in their eyes. To skip to the nitty gritty, my husband has taken to introducing me at business functions as, “My wife, Wendy, who kills people for a living.” At that, people will laugh politely before quickly excusing themselves or slowly back away.
I write murder mysteries and, yes, I’ve been known to kill someone off while sitting on the sidelines at a child’s baseball game. In a recent interview I talked about my newest book, The Remains of the Dead, and told the interviewer the story was about a woman who cleaned crime scenes for a living and spoke to the dead. She joked sweetly, “And you look like such a nice person.”
It seems what people really want to know is when does the “nice” side drop away and the savage, murderous side kick in? For me, it’s usually about the time someone cuts me off in traffic. The truth is, I enjoy writing about seemingly ordinary characters and making their lives extraordinary. Although I enjoy adding a comedic element to my stories, I also love to torture my heroine with relationship problems, day-to-day anxieties and then up the ante with a murder or two.
I confess that, yes, I have been known to get my murderous thoughts from my day-to-day dealings in the real world. Who wouldn’t want to take that rude, cantankerous auto mechanic and brutally slaughter him? Ahem. On paper, of course. Now I know you’re a “nice” person because you read Susan’s blog. But, c’mon, who pushed your buttons enough this week that you wouldn’t mind seeing them suffer? Was it the butcher? The baker? That condescending banker?
I love having company. Especially when it’s Isabel Swift, one of Harlequin’s top executives. She was in Seattle so we got to hang out for a while, talking business and books. We brainstormed some ideas, had an amazing meal and caught up. She’s definitely on the fun side of publishing.
Go read her blog. You’ll learn a lot.
…And the same week, Deeanne Gist, a Christy-award-winning author and friend from waaaay back took a break from her book-research trip to stop by. I first met Dee a hundred years ago when I was new and she was just getting started. I knew she would publish her novels one day. How? Commitment. She had four small children, but she went to the RWA conference in New York, bringing peanut butter and crackers in her luggage in order to make the trip affordable. Would you do it? Leave your family and subsist on peanut butter in order to meet the people who will help you get published? Sometimes, that’s what it takes. Now Dee has published numerous books, won a major award and the kids are in high school and college, one of them about to be married. A writer knows how to make her own happy ending.
For a long time now I have tried simply to write the best I can. Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can.–Ernest Hemingway
I nearly forgot a career milestone this month. It’s the tenth anniversary of my first book with Mira Books, my current publisher. 
The Lightkeeper was a seaswept, Beauty-and-the-Beast-style romantic epic that takes place on the Washington coast in the 1870s. The setting is literally the ends of the earth, on the Long Beach peninsula at the mouth of the Columbia River, an area notorious for raging seas and terrible shipwrecks. The original title of this book was The Edge of Forever, a title I still love (and a tribute to the Star Trek episode “City on the Edge of Forever”), but The Lightkeeper is probably stronger and definitely more straightforward.
The Cape Disappointment lighthouse still stands. 
When we visit this area, we love to stay at the dog-friendly Lighthouse (where else?) or the Klipsan Beach Cottages. A walk through Oysterville is a trip back through time. Every time I go there, I feel like writing stories misted in spindrift. It’s a place where I find myself writing better than I can.
This book has one blooper that I know of–there’s no way the characters can be drinking marionberry cordial, since marionberries weren’t introduced until the 1950s. Thanks to alert readers, that will be corrected in future reprints. 
Happy 10-year anniversary to me and Mira Books!
Here’s an article in today’s New York Times, about the New York Times bestseller list. Hmmm….
Elizabeth Engstrom came for a visit. We met years ago when she was the director of the Maui Writers Retreat, and we’ve been friends ever since. She’s a fantastic writer, editor and innovator. There is nothing quite so relaxing as hanging out with friends, talking endlessly. Liz also has a very wise new blog that is fast becoming a favorite. It’s one of the most genuine, funny, poignant and meaningful blogs on the net.
I’m posting this picture now, during a walloping autumn wind storm, so I can remember that just a few weeks ago, we were sitting in the Adirondack chairs on the beach, watching the dogs play.
Here’s a tidbit from Liz’s blog. I love this because like all writers, I struggle with self-discipline. I mean, when the deadline is weeks or months away, it’s much too easy to procrastinate:
I will never have more discipline than I have right now.
There are many things I hope to accomplish (there’s that whole thing with yearning again), and they all require some aspect of discipline. Clearly, after procrastinating all these years, I can afford another week of bargaining with myself before lowering the hammer. But then I need to take action. I need to either get on with it, or give up on it.
Some dreams I’m sure I will give up.
But some dreams I don’t want to give up. So I better get on with it. Identify the goal, make a plan, and assign the discipline.
Life is short.
It’s time.
Look for more about Liz next year, when her new series, The Northwoods Chronicles debuts.
Last January, I got to spend a weekend with one of my favorite people, author Dorothy Allison. Other than getting the guest house all freshened up for her, I had only light duties, which included fixing Shrimp & Grits for a girls’ dinner party. Dorothy is from South Carolina (remember, her watershed novel is BASTARD OUT OF CAROLINA), so I wanted to make something from her home state. Now, I had never even heard of Shrimp & Grits until last November, when I visited another much-beloved Southern author, Mary Alice Monroe, and her RWA chapter, for a writing retreat. They gave me Shrimp & Grits to eat and I haven’t been the same since. I even brought home some authentic stone-ground Southern-grown hominy grits.
My other duty: Write an introduction for Dorothy and her talk. I didn’t know where to start. Love this woman. Love her books. Her writing speaks for itself:
“I wear my skin as thinly as I have to, armor myself only as much as seems absolutely necessary. I try to live naked in the world, unashamed even under attack, unafraid even though I know how much there is to fear….I tell myself that life is the long struggle to understand and love fully. That to keep faith with those who have literally saved my life and made it possible for me to imagine more than survival, I have to try constantly to understand more, love more fully, go more naked in order to make others as safe as I myself want to be. I want to live past my own death, as my mother does, in what I have made possible for others–my sisters, my son, my lover, my community–the people I believe in absolutely, men and women whom death does not stop, who honor the truth of each other’s stories.” –An excerpt from Skin: Talking about Sex, Class and Literature by Dorothy Allison
Could she be any more honest and brave? Dorothy’s lecture topic for Field’s End was “Scaring the Horses: Writing Those Big Mean Stories.”
Dorothy’s bio reads like one of her novels, only with a happier ending. Born to a fifteen-year-old unwed mother who quit the seventh grade to work as a waitress, Dorothy learned the power and perils of storytelling at a young age. She recalls “hiding out under the porch” and listening to her aunts tell stories, and entering a library or bookstore “with a sense of desperate passion.” Books were her escape from the world. She told Salon Magazine, “To find a way out of the world as I saw it, I read science fiction. To sustain my rage and hope, I read poetry and mainstream novels with female heroines. And I read books by Southerners for ammunition to use against Yankees who would treat me mean.”
The library has long been important to Dorothy. “My most profound library memory was the shock I got after we moved to central Florida and I went to the school library there. I was thirteen and had gotten used to the South Carolina school libraries which were pitiful—full of biographies of generals and judges but not much else. The central Florida Library was enormous and had a world of books I could borrow—novels, poetry and theologies, history books, and my favorite section of the Dewey Decimal system—with all those books on the occult. I tried to check out everything—which earned me a quick note from the librarian to my mama asking if she knew what I was reading. ‘Did I have permission to read those books?’ ‘Let her read anything she wants,’ my mama told the lady. But it took a signed letter to get me the access I wanted.
“I think I scared most librarians – because I wanted to read the books they thought I should not read—the grown-up fiction and those plays by Tennessee Williams and Carson McCullers. But the librarian I worked for when I was in my junior and senior years was a marvel. Mrs. James was fearless and just assumed all young women were like her and wanted to read everything. She was the one who told me about inter-library loan. Suddenly I wasn’t just stuck with what was in the Maynard Evans High School Library. I could request books from other High Schools or even the main library downtown.
“By the time I got to the eleventh grade, I had pretty much exhausted the new books, but Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty got me an after-school job at the school library where I got to record and accession all the new books. That meant I got to read them first. I am still grateful to Lyndon Johnson, and always will be. He may be known to everyone else for his role in the Viet Nam war, but to me he will always be the man who helped me save money for college and made it possible for me to first read the collected poems of Muriel Rukyeser.”
For Dorothy, the library was “the secret world where I could go hide and fall out of this world and into that other one where anything was possible. It had solid wooden tables, sturdy chairs, carpets and air conditioning. If I could have, I would have moved in and lived there. As it was, it was my home away from home—a refuge and a promise. I used to sit on the floor and lean against the bookcases, lean back and dream about having my own place some day—a place where books would be stacked just as high—novels and anthologies and blank books in which I could write my own poems. The library made me think all that was possible, and it was.
“I think the best thing about the library is and was how it always felt to me—not just that it was the repository of what I loved—books themselves—but that it was a place in which a reverence for the word was implicit. Libraries have always seemed to me temples of wisdom—places where study and quiet concentration were honored, and where wanting to read was admired, not held in contempt. I was the child of a truck driver and a waitress, a girl who lived in a claustrophobic house where both the television and the radio were playing loud all the time. The only books in our house—other than the few that were my own—were the big illustrated Bible and my mama’s collection of Mickey Spillane and Ross MacDonald. It worried my family that I tended to hide in a corner and read so much. I was constantly being told to ‘put down that book and go out and play’. But at the library, no one interrupted me, or if they did, they did it softly and with respect. At the library, reading was holy—which is how it felt to me, how it still feels to me.
“In my house now, I limit my son’s access to computer and video games, but the house rule on books is simple. If he wants to read it, we will try to find it. And we not only go to the library frequently, we donate books to our local libraries all the time. I want the children in my county to have what I always wanted—new novels on the shelves waiting to be read. It’s just lucky that now publishers actually send me many of them, so that I, in turn, can pass them on.”
The Greenville, South Carolina native describes herself as a Southern novelist, feminist, confirmed flirt, femme, expatriate rebel, and born-again Californian. In a 1999 Salon interview, Dorothy says, “I was born to a very poor, violent family where most of my focus was purely on survival, and my sense of self as a lesbian grew along with my sense of myself as a raped child, a poor white Southerner and an embattled female. I was Violet Leduc’s Le Batard much more than I was Le Amazon, that creation of upper-class Natalie Barney. People tell me that class is no longer the defining factor it was when I was a girl, but I find that impossible to fully accept. Class is always a defining factor when you are the child one step down from everyone else.”
At the age of thirteen, she “…was always calculating how to not kill myself or how not to let myself be killed. That tends to stringently shape one’s imagination. I did not plan to fill up a hope chest and marry some good old boy and make babies….I was a smart, desperate teenage girl trying to figure out how to not be dismissed out of hand for who I was. I wanted to go to college, not become another waitress or factory worker or laundry person or counter-help woman like all the other women I knew. Everywhere I looked I saw a world that held people like me in contempt.”
After winning a National Merit Scholarship, Allison attended college and went on to study anthropology at the New School for Social Research. But storytelling was in her bones, and that, combined with an awakening feminist spirit, informs and inspires her award-winning work. For Dorothy, feminism “…was like opening your eyes under water. It hurt, but suddenly everything that had been dark and mysterious became visible and open to change.” The author believes her first book, The Women Who Hate Me, (1983) “wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t gotten over my own prejudices, and started talking to my mother and sisters again.”
Her literary influences are surprising. One was Flannery O’Connor — “that astonishing, brave visionary who told hard truths in a human voice — an outsider holding a whole society up to a polished mirror. She was as ruthless as one of her own characters, and I loved her with my whole heart…If I set aside Flannery O’Connor, I would have to say that science fiction made me who I am today. I spent my childhood buried in those books. Every science-fiction novel I fell into as a child…widened my imagination about what was possible for me in the world. There were those perfectly horrible/wonderful stories about barbarian swordswomen who were always falling in love with demons, and there were the Telzey stories and the Witch World books and countless brave and wonderful novels told from inside the imaginations of ‘special’ young girls….On another world, in a strange time and place, all categories were reshuffled and made over.”
Dorothy’s novel, Bastard Out of Carolina (1992), skyrocketed her to fame, boosted by a full page in the New York Times Book Review which proclaimed the novel “as close to flawless as any reader could ask for,” lauding the author’s “perfect ear for speech and its natural rhythms.” The Boston Globe her “one of the finest writers of her generation.” The novel rose to the top of national best seller lists and has been translated into more than a dozen languages. It was adapted and made into an award-winning and controversial movie, directed by Angelica Huston.
“In my family,” Allison says, “…we all commit some unforgivable sin and then spend the rest of our lives trying to redeem it in some fashion. And the romance of self-destruction: I truly do not know why some of us can resist it and some of us can’t, why some of us kill our children and some of us try to send them whole into the world.”
Dorothy serves on the boards of PEN International, the National Coalition Against Censorship and Feminists for Free Expression, and the advisory board of the James Tiptree Jr. Memorial Award, presented annually to a science fiction or fantasy work that explores and expands on contemporary ideas of gender.
Her advice to writers is succinct: “You learn to live with uncertainty and poverty if you are going to be a writer. I’m still very blunt: If you want to be a writer, get a day job. The fact that I have actually been able to make a living at it is astonishing. I know so many great writers who can’t and, oh, it is not about justice. I am trying to carry it off with grace and a sense of humor.
“Understand me,” she writes. “What I am here for is to tell you stories you may not want to hear….And to scare hell out of you now and then. I was raised Baptist, I know how to do that.”
Some of Dorothy Allison’s Favorite Books
Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown.
Sula by Toni Morrison – “I remember…how this great grinding noise went through my brain. Of course, I thought.”
Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers.
My Antonia by Willa Cather.
The Persian Boy, Fire From Heaven and The Friendly Young Ladies by Mary Renault.
Odd Girl Out and Beebo Brinker by Ann Bannon.
Patience and Sarah by Isabel Miller.
The Female Man by Joanna Russ.
The Life of Poetry by Muriel Rukyeser.
My friend Pete took this stunning picture one morning. 
He’s a key organizer of Arms Around Bainbridge, an athletic event and benefit for Olivia Carey, a beloved islander suffering from ovarian cancer. I feel so lucky to live in a place where people take care of each other in creative ways. It’s a perfect example of how a person can use his gift and his passion. to help someone.
Last year I wrote a story to benefit Cottage Dreams, an organization that gives cancer victims a week in a rustic lakeside cottage. The topic was tailor made for me–a lakeside cottage? I am so there. I’m proud to have a publisher that gives authors an opportunity to use their gifts and passions to help others.
All right, grasshoppers, print this out because it’s going to save you all kinds of time and trouble. Oh, and money. How many times have you been asked to send in a photo, “300dpi” or better… Thus leading you on a hunt to a) figure out what 300 dpi is, whether or not your photos possess this elusive quality (probably not; right-click and select Properties and you’ll see) and c) how to get your hands on one without bugging your publisher’s PR rep yet again….
People will tell you that you have to have “Photoshop,” an expensive RAM-hog program, in order to edit your digital photos. You don’t. You just need to go to www.irfanview.com and download their swift little free program. To convert a shot to 300dpi, right-click the photo. Select “Open With” and then select Irfanview. On the menu bar, select Image–>Resize/Resample and in the box that comes up, change the DPI to 300. You might also want to reduce the size in pixels, too. Et voila! Your photo is ready for print.
I have the best little writers’ group on the island and we’re celebrating the debut novel of one of our members. Suzanne Selfors is having a gala launch for her novel, To Catch A Mermaid, an exuberant adventure for young readers. If you’re in the area, stop by the Eagle Harbor Book Company on Sunday, September 9 at 3:00pm. Wear your Viking helmet!
Never has the term “homegrown” been more fitting. Everything about debut author Suzanne Selfors is homegrown, from her Bainbridge Island childhood to her spectacular organic garden, which surrounds the historic house built by her pioneer ancestors. On a storybook farm, filled with blooming flowers and orchards, heirloom tomatoes, free-ranging chickens, ducks and bunnies, Suzanne might seem as though she inhabits a Disney movie.
However, like many writers, she has her dark-and-twisty side, too. This is evident in her first novel, To Catch a Mermaid, a rollicking fantasy adventure with an irresistible balance of humor, the sort that’s broad enough to appeal to kids and sly enough to please their parents. Suzanne’s books also feature the sort of pathos and danger that brings to mind Roald Dahl at his very best. Maybe it’s that Nordic sensibility–Suzanne’s ancestors came from Norway and settled on Bainbridge in the 19th century.
Although she has homegrown roots, Suzanne also has a first class education. She studied at Bennington College in Vermont and graduated from Occidental College in Pasadena, California. She earned a Master’s in communications from UW, married a pilot and moved into a house on the island that has been in her family for generations.
Suzanne’s favorite library memory is of the day she found a stray dog hanging around outside the library door–an adorable cockapoo. “We ended up adopting her and she was the family dog through most of my childhood. We always joked that she was the very best thing we ever checked out from the library.”
Today, one of her favorite features of the library is the books on tape, which she listens to on long walks. “Right now I’m listening to StarGirl by Jerry Spinelli,” she reports. And of course, the library is the ideal place for this busy mother of two to get some writing done. “I use the back tables all the time. Plug in my laptop and escape from the distractions of my house. I get tons of work done.”
Note that she calls writing work. Over the years, I’ve encountered many emerging and aspiring writers. Hundreds, really. But of those hundreds, very few understand the work involved in the process and then make the journey to being published. Like Dorothy’s journey through Oz, there are all kinds of pitfalls along the way. The first time I met Suzanne, she was an emerging writer just finishing her first full-length novel. Almost immediately, I knew she would one day join the ranks of the published. She had the smarts, creativity, drive and stick-to-it-iveness that it takes to launch and sustain a writing career. And the talent.
Behind every “overnight success” is a plan that might be years in the making. Suzanne joined the first-ever novel-writing class offered by Field’s End through the library. Instructor Michael Collins, an acclaimed writer based in Bellingham, was her teacher and mentor in the class.
Suzanne’s writing quickly gained the attention of one of the top literary agents in New York City. Michael Bourret of the Jane Dystel Agency responded to the unpublished manuscript with the kind of enthusiasm a writer dreams of: “When I first read To Catch a Mermaid, I was blown away,” he says. “It’s rare to find a novel that feels like a classic the first time you read it, but that’s exactly [the way this story] reads. It reminded me so much of books and authors I’d loved from my childhood, like Mary Rodgers’s Freaky Friday or the novels of Roald Dahl, and I could imagine children for decades falling in love with this timeless story.”
Michael was not alone in his enthusiasm. The book was sold at auction–something that is exceedingly rare for a first novel–and landed with Little, Brown. Michael has high hopes for To Catch a Mermaid, certain of its broad appeal, “which feels both nostalgic and modern.”
In addition to writing an incredibly strong novel, Suzanne followed it up with not one but two encores–a second middle-grade fantasy novel for Little, Brown and a young adult literary comedy for Bloomsbury. The author’s professionalism and creativity were a huge plus for this agent. “Suzanne, as an author, is a dream,” Michael comments. “She writes from the heart, and has a burning desire to tell stories (and not just for children). She will have a long, successful career writing many kinds of books, and I’m really honored to be a part of her world.”
He has no idea. I wonder how Michael, a native Brooklynite, would fit in with the duck pond and henhouses?
Way to go, Suz! You’re living the dream!
How to Read Like a Grown-upSuzanne Selfors’s All-Time Favorite Books
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
The Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
My book is not done. Does the universe even care?
“When you go to court, you are putting your fate into the hands of twelve people who couldn’t figure out how to get out of jury duty.”
–Norm Crosby
A first for me–this is a video review of my novel. Can such things be?
Judging by the page views on my previous cover art post, it’s a topic of interest. My friend Karen posted a question about cover art on my web site message board.
“Why doesn’t an author have more input? ….it’s YOUR work and I would think…the author would know best. “I’ve passed over books that had terrible covers on them before…only to have them sent by a book review club that I belong to. Authors and books that I NEVER would have read because of a cover…were GREAT! So? What’s the mindset?”
I gave a talk at a library recently, and we touched on this in the Q&A. Covers matter to readers. We writers might wish that it’s all about story and voice and our unique view of the world, but readers are quick to say that reading a book is about more than words on a page. And so often, the writer’s preference isn’t the best choice for the book. One case in point is the Lakeshore Chronicles covers. I favored a really contemporary, more graphic look for the books, but my publisher kept coming back with this peaceful, nostalgic retro scene. And they were right. The look fits the books, and it draws the eye of the reader most likely to enjoy this type of story.
Sometimes the writer isn’t always the best judge of what her book should look like. I’m not saying she shouldn’t get to voice her opinion, but ultimately, it’s a packaging and marketing issue. I’m not a marketer. There are things I understand about marketing, but I feel better knowing it’s being handled by professionals.
On the other hand, authors can be really influential–and boy, can 
they ever be right. A famous example is the great LaVyrle Spencer, so hugely popular in her time that she was able to influence her cover designs. She wanted to be rid of the embracing-couple look on her books, because she knew that what went on in the bedroom between her characters was not the most important element of the story. It rarely is in romance novels, despite what critics (most of whom have never read one) like to think. [Note: My own books average around 400 printed pages. The sex scenes take up maybe five pages of that. ]
You could see LaVyrle’s covers change 
as her popularity grew. She went from a classic bodice-ripper look to covers completely dominated by her name, which was the main selling point, anyway. Ultimately, 
LaVyrle’s publisher found a great look by giving her a bouquet of flowers, with the illustration of the couple on the inside. These were among the first “step-back” covers and readers loved them–a romantic outer cover on the outside and a picture of the characters on the inside. LaVyrle has always been one of the smartest authors in the business.
The degree to which the author is involved in her cover design process varies a lot. Some of us have “cover consultation” specified in our contracts. However, “consultation” can mean anything from major input to simply receiving a picture in e-mail and being asked, “How do you like this?”
An author might be granted the right of “cover approval” in her contract. This might sound desirable, but do you really want to take ultimate responsibility for book design? In my case, no, not anymore than I want an art director telling me how to write my book.
I can think of one writer who would probably disagree with that–James Bernard Frost, a first-time novelist, who caused a bit of a kerfluffle when he publicly and vociferously objected to his cover art. It so happens that his publisher, in my opinion, creates some of the best artwork in the business. According to his blog, he was so hugely unhappy with the art that he took matters into his own hands.
The original version (above, left) was beautiful and evocative. I might have picked it up, but according to the author’s blog, he didn’t care for it. I understand that every author has a vision in his or her head of what the finished book will look like. In my case (and apparently in this author’s as well), it’s a collage of images from the story. Well, guess what? These images don’t always add up to the perfect cover. Sometimes, you have to allow that, in a crowded market, a single, stark image will make your book stand out. If that image doesn’t literally nail the book’s content, so what? That is not the goal. The goal is to get the book into the hands of the reader most likely to enjoy your book.
The second version of the Frost book, created in response to the author’s objections to the first, didn’t appeal to me, but I might not be the reader for this kind of book. Finally, the clearly frustrated author had an illustrator create a sticker to cover up the publisher’s art. I wonder how that’s working for him. The tagline of his blog says “The life and opinions of an agentless novelist.” Agentless? Maybe that’s a clue. My literary agent has extremely good judgment when it comes to things like cover art.
On the other hand, this author’s blog post about the whole kerfluffle shows passion and commitment on his part. In the hopes that this dramatic flair will come through in his fiction, I submitted a patron purchase request for his book to my local library.
To read a series of articles with in-depth information about book covers, please visit author Laura Resnick’s web site and click on the link to “