Adventures in Peru: Titicaca & Colca Canyon
(I meant to post this photo last time. We are on top of Machu Picchu, and you can see the city of Machu Picchu over Spencer's shoulder. Most of these photos are Kate's--I took fewer and fewer pictures as the trip went on, because everybody else's cameras were taking much better photos.)Everything that came after Machu Picchu was...well, not nearly as exciting (which is probably why it's taken me so long to post this). From Puno we went on a day trip to an island made of reeds on Titicaca, which was a little bit like walking around on a giant waterbed. There was a fish-shaped lookout tower made entirely of reeds too.
We were invited into the islanders' homes, which was slightly awkward because we quickly realized they were expecting us to buy their (albeit lovely) needlework. Kate strongly suspected they changed out of their colorful skirts and embroidered jackets back into jeans and t-shirts as soon as the tourists had left for the day.
Our second stop on Titicaca was the Yavari, a steamship built in England in the 1860s and carried in pieces on a mule train over the Andes. Elliot was (as they say) like a kid in a candy store while we were in the engine room, but I started to feel like a bored and sulky teenager by the end of it.There were a couple more highlights in the Sacred Valley (basing ourselves in Chivay) before we took the overnight bus back to Lima. We split off from our Colca Canyon mini-bus tour to enjoy this rather isolated walk on our own:
(Those two specks in the middle are Spencer and me.)
Towards the end of that afternoon walk we crossed a bridge over a ravine and walked up the stairs on the far side. I don't know what I was thinking, but I didn't get hurt so I guess it doesn't matter. (Hi, Ma!) After this walk we took a taxi to the thermal baths at Chivay, and they were ahhhhhsome.Back on the mini-bus the next day, we spotted some vicuñas along the road:
Being cousins of the alpaca, vicuñas have even softer fleece but aren't domesticated, so professional shearers capture them long enough to harvest the fleeces. (Yes, I had a knitting geek-out.)
And here are our last two photographs: a condor over Colca Canyon (hoo-wee, were there a load of tourists there, but the food on offer is really good; we split some sort of spicy rice dish with avocado); and we stopped at several villages on the way back to Arequipa for picture-taking in churches, snacks, and shopping at the outdoor markets. Here Jill and Spencer sample the prickly pear juice:
And that's all I got (but you can click here for the full photo gallery, and here for all Peru entries).Stay tuned for August '11, when it's EGYPT OR BUST!
How to find a literary agent
Every so often someone who's just finished their first novel contacts me to ask for tips on finding a literary agent. I suppose I can only really tell you how it worked for me, but I hope this will be helpful.1. Yes, you DO need an agent.
Junior agents are eager to build their own list, hungry for new talent, and as such are ready and willing to give you more time and attention than their bosses can--and yet they can draw on their older colleagues' experience. Best of both.5. Don't dwell on rejections.
The Fairy Glen (Enchanted Scotland, part 3)
From the bower could be heard the pipe and the song and the voice of laughter as the fairies 'sett' and reeled in the mazes of the dance. Sometimes a man hearing the merry music and seeing the wonderful light within would be tempted to go in and join them, but woe to him if he omitted to leave a piece of iron at the door of the bower on entering, for the cunning fairies would close the door and the man would find no egress. There he would dance for years--but to him the years were as one day--while his wife and family mourned him as dead.
--from The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries, by W. Y. Evans-Wentz (1911)
A 'fairy glen' on the Isle of Skye (that's me waving from on top of the 'fairy castle', photo thanks to Heather. By that time the weather had turned). Below: Dunbeg.
Happy New Year, everyone!
Enchanted Scotland, part 2
Above: photos from The Hermitage.The next day, on the isle of Skye:
Next is the best part: the fairy glen!
Obsessed? Me?
My very own guardian owl. From Sealmaiden on Etsy.
—from Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, by Robert C. O'Brien.
"I understand," said the owl, moving closer to the round entrance of his hollow. "Mrs. Mouse, I cannot see you, for the glare of the daylight is too bright. But if you will step inside my house, I will listen to what you have to say."
Mrs. Frisby hesitated. She knew something of the dietary habits of owls...
Zig-zag baby quilt backing.
Spotted at the piano workshop.
In the back the walls narrowed to a corner, and there she saw that the owl had built himself a nest, as big as a water bucket, of twigs and leaves; from the top she could see protruding some wisps of the feathers with which he had lined it.
When she got near this nest, she stopped and faced the owl, who had turned from the light of the doorway and was peering at her with his great yellow eyes. Jeremy was nowhere to be seen. She could only hope he was still waiting on the limb outside.
"Now," said the owl, "you may state your problem."
Sheets from Garnet Hill (sadly, discontinued).
Edit: How could I have forgotten this? It's a juvenile snowy owl on the Northwest Passage (expedition link here). Photo by Dr. Michael Brogan.
Enchanted Scotland, part 1
After Edinburgh I went on a backpackers' tour with Wild in Scotland, which I can't recommend highly enough. Everyone on the tour was nice, we got to stay in a castle with a secret passageway, went for walks in the snow and learned a lot about Scottish history and folklore. Our guide, Danny, is smart and hilarious and a whole lot of fun all around.[Edit, 2013: Sadly, Wild in Scotland is no longer in business.]
The first day was definitely a highlight—we walked part of the Fife coastal path, which involved quite a bit of clambering up and down the rocks. Below: Danny talks Adrienne down a fairly scary rock wall.
After lunch we drove to a church but walked past it, into the woods to an old Pictish gathering-place. Then, of course, the first Christians came along and made a few tweaks:
Below: the ruins of St. Andrew's Cathedral; Doune Castle, where part of Monty Python and the Holy Grail was filmed; Hamish the hairy cooooooo (i.e., Highland cow) at Kilmahog.
Next post: snow, and lots of it (that's where the enchanted part comes in.)
Merry Christmas! (and a recipe for pumpkin cake)
Another vintage postcard from Nuremberg.
I had a hankering for something sweet and pumpkiny but not pie, so I just jazzed up the Irish Cardamom Cake recipe [Edit, 2013: veganized recipe coming soon!] and the resulting cake came out perfectly. Moist, flavorful, easy.Preheat oven to 350º.
- 2 cups flour
- 2 cups brown sugar
- 1/2 cup melted butter
- 2 eggs
- 2 cups sour cream
- 1 cup pumpkin puree
- 2 tsp. baking soda
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 1 tsp. each of cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp. ground cloves
Mix wet ingredients, fold in dry ingredients, pour into greased 9" loaf pans, bake for 45 minutes. Yields two.Happy Holidays, everyone! (Note: I have become a vegan since I wrote this post. A veganized recipe is forthcoming!)
Edinburgh
I loved Edinburgh. I loved the spooky old alleyways and the baked spuds stuffed with vegetarian haggis and the National Gallery (this painting in particular) and St. Giles (where I wandered in just in time for a free choral concert one Sunday evening).
The view from Edinburgh Castle; the green strip on the right is the dogs' cemetery.
The castle from below, about four o'clock in the afternoon.
St. Margaret: an early 20th-century window from the restored early 12th-century chapel.
At the top of Arthur's Seat. This walk was hands-down my favorite thing in Edinburgh--great panoramic views of the city from boggy hills that otherwise feel wonderfully remote.
(So many more great photos from Scotland, but I probably won't get around to posting them until after Christmas.)
Nine days to go
I picked up a couple of these vintage postcards from the Nuremberg Christmas market two years ago. From the reverse:Aus der Sammlung des Spielzeugmuseums im Alten Rathausturm München.(From the Toy Museum collection in the Old Town Hall, Munich.)
York
After London I spent a night in York (yes, "Old York") en route to Edinburgh. It was just as atmospheric a place as I expected--I really enjoyed walking the walls and wandering through the reconstructed Victorian streets inside the York Castle Museum. The Minster was closed for graduation ceremonies both days I was there, which was very disappointing, but at least it's something to look forward to for next time.
Walking the medieval city walls.
Spotted in the confectioner's window at the York Castle Museum. I wonder what they tasted like.
The York Minster.
One of the many charming things about this town: all the cafés in what used to be tollhouses. I had a delicious gingerbread latté in this one, on the Skeldergate Bridge.
I went on a ghost walk that night. There are several options, and I can't say I recommend the one I went on (this one, so you can avoid it)--so heavy on theatrics that he only told us four or five stories in the space of an hour and fifteen minutes. I wasn't all that disappointed until I passed another guide in the Shambles (the quaintest street in York), and heard what I was missing.Anyway, the house above is the site of the saddest story I heard that night: a little girl had come down with buboes, and after they'd put her to bed for the night her parents locked her room, put an X over the front door, and fled the city. In the morning she called out but no one passing by would help her, and now people say they can see her face peering down out of the bedroom window (sometimes even in the daytime).The other day I was browsing through a book about the plague in England, and I found this quote:
Father abandoned child; wife, husband; one brother, another...and none could be found to bury the dead for money or friendship.
--Agnolo di Tura, Siena, 1348.
I can't imagine abandoning a child in any circumstances, let alone leaving a child to die alone in agony, but it sounds like it happened all the time. I sat down on a park bench opposite the house and stared at the window for awhile, but I didn't see her.
Holy Trinity, Goodramgate, which dates mostly from the fifteenth century. This is the only church in York to have retained its box pews (an intriguing feature, as I'm not sure why it would be necessary to have that much 'privacy' at Sunday service). You only get a slight sense of this from the photo, but the walls are seriously wonky--you look up and think 'I know it's been around for six hundred years and all, but I really hope today isn't the day the whole place crumbles around my ears.'I (surprise, surprise) also indulged in a crafting geek-out at Ramshambles (tiny shop, but very friendly) and Duttons Buttons (thanks to Kate Davies' great York Craft Tour post from spring '09). The stock at Duttons wasn't as quirky as those little red teacup buttons would suggest, and the staff weren't particularly nice, but I picked up some really lovely ones for two 2011 (!) sweater projects.Next post: SCOTLAND!
the Cotswolds, part 3
I took this video somewhere between Snowshill and Stanton. Those strange undulations in the field are left over from an ancient ploughing method called ridge and furrow, as explained here.(We realized not long afterward that we were a teensy bit lost, and had to hoof it back to Stanton along the main road. Oh well.)
Great Book #21: Heart of Darkness
It was written I should be loyal to the nightmare of my choice.I despise the N-word. It makes my skin crawl every time I hear it, no matter the context. I finished Heart of Darkness a few days ago, and I get that the book's about colonialism and capitalist greed and exploitation, and that a white man of that time period would likely speak that way, but did Conrad HAVE to drop that word on every other page?If you haven't read it, here's my condensed version: a white man named Marlow gets a job captaining a steamboat transporting hoards of ivory back from the African jungle, finds himself mesmerized by the completely corrupted ivory dealer Kurtz, and years later (back in England) he recounts the story to a group of amateur sailors who have expressed no interest whatsoever in hearing it. Marlow is a supremely irritating narrator partly for that reason ('Why do you sigh in this beastly way, somebody?' HAH!), but I have to admit that Conrad's prose often had me fumbling for my pen.
Going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings. An empty stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest. The air was warm, thick, heavy, sluggish. There was no joy in the brilliance of sunshine. The long stretches of the waterway ran on, deserted, into the gloom of overshadowed distances. On silvery sandbanks hippos and alligators sunned themselves side by side. The broadening waters flowed through a mob of wooded islands; you lost your way on that river as you would in a desert, and butted all day long against shoals, trying to find the channel, till you thought yourself bewitched and cut off for ever from everything you had known once—somewhere—far away—in another existence perhaps.
While the racism in this book ('they had faces like grotesque masks') repulsed me again and again, I wonder if it isn't rather small-minded to level that accusation on the author himself, as many critics have; but I suppose that basic distinction—between the narrator who grinningly tucks into her filet mignon, say, and the author who will never put her fork in a steak ever again—seems to fall by the wayside when the subject is this serious. At any rate, I understand why Paré hates this book with a red-hot fiery passion, and it's a relief to have it ticked off the list.(See my 100 Great Books list here.)
Further Adventures in London
St. Bart's.
Did I keep busy in London! I went Christmas shopping at Liberty's with Amy (thanks to Maggie's introduction), met up with Marian for a late lunch, went to a cookbook launch event at the Freemasons' Hall (thanks to Henry), did the British Museum and a few great pubs with Steve and Andy (who were on a short vacation in London and Paris), and reveled in tea and knitting at Drink, Shop & Do with Emma. Plus Westminster Abbey, the Jewel Tower, St. Bart's, the National Gallery, and a few other places I'm sure I'm forgetting.Below: St. Bart's, two photos from the Freemasons' Hall, Steve and Andy at the Lamb & Flag on Rose Street in Covent Garden, the Tree of Life at the British Museum, the Victoria & Albert Museum of Childhood.
(So many more photos to put up...York, Edinburgh and the Scotland tour, and I still haven't gotten to Maryland or the last Peru post!)
Midwest, part 2
(Continuing from part 1.)
From Madison I took a bus to Minneapolis to visit Jill for a few days. We went to see The 39 Steps at the Guthrie--really good fun!--and we went shopping at a pumpkin patch in the suburbs and carved it to look like this:
The Witch's Hat Tower.
(Funny that I said 'I shall never carve a jack-o-lantern ever, ever, ever again' after seeing this--Elliot carved it; brilliant, right?--when I haven't carved a pumpkin since I was a kid.)
I also did a reading and signing at Common Good Books on the 1st of November, which was fantastic--along with Jill and Walt, Maggie's brother Max and his wife Jillian came out, and there were three complete strangers, which up 'til now hasn't ever really happened. And they were the most enthusiastic complete strangers EVER. Lots of questions and discussion and I read two passages, one at the beginning and one at the end. It was really, really fun.
And I got to sign the door behind the desk!
(I'm in Scotland at the moment, having a marvelous time. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!)
the Cotswolds, part 2
We stayed in Stanton, which just might be the poshest village of the Cotswolds; it's very small, no shops and only the one pub, the Mount Inn (but it does great food, so between the huge delicious breakfasts and pub dinners--and dessert, my god, the dessert! best sticky toffee pudding ever, and elderflower ice cream!!!--we were set).
It's true, the architecture is heart-achingly quaint. Our (utterly, utterly marvelous) B&B was formerly the village post office, and we stayed in what had been the telephone exchange. The place was spotless; there were two spider-webs in the window, but they were so perfectly formed it was if someone had arranged them there.
We arrived later than expected on Saturday, so we had to do the short version of a walk I'd been really excited for (alas, it gets dark around 4:30); but on Sunday morning we decided to stay another night (instead of walking to the larger town of Winchcombe with our bags), so it turned out we were able to do the long version of the Saturday walk on Monday (Stanton-Snowshill; downloadable map and details here). And on Sunday we walked to Winchcombe--eight miles, give or take--and had an old-fashioned high tea (cucumber sandwiches, scones as big as your head and slathered in cream and jam, cupcakes) at The White Hart before getting picked up by a kind-hearted plumber at nightfall for the return trip. (The public transportation, such as it is, is pitiful. According to the bus timetable, there would be a bus. But there was no bus, although one out-of-service bus did drive by, and that's when our plumber called out his window and asked where we were going.)
Anyway, back to Saturday evening. We walked for an hour and a half or so--you have the public right of way through the fields, so we often found ourselves in the company of sheep or horses--and on our return to Stanton we wandered around the Church of St. Michael and All Angels, the oldest parts of which date from 1200.
Graveyard at dusk. Not the most subtle of metaphors.
After visiting the church we went back to the B&B to rest before dinner, and I came upon this passage in the delightful children's fantasy novel I was reading, Alison Uttley's A Traveller in Time:
The church was sweet and clean, for Dame Cicely had it scrubbed each week, and fresh herbs were strewn in the pews. There was a smell of rosemary and balm, and the cool odor of green rushes from the brook-side, which were soft as velvet under my feet as I stood in a familiar pew. There was a heavy tapestry curtain across one end of Mistress Babington's pew, to screen her from the congregation, and cushions and footstools were placed ready for her. In the windows shone the lovely painted glass, and by the font was the ancient clock complaining with the wheezy voice of a old man.
Perfect.
And here are two of the best photos from our Monday walk to Snowshill, another tiny and utterly enchanting place:
You see why we were sorry to go back to London?
(London photos coming too...along with Minneapolis, Maryland, AND my last Peru entry!)
the Paranormal Podcast
The Paranormal Podcast with Jim Harold (along with the Campfire) is one of my very favorites. Jim's guests run the gamut from ghost-hunters and psychics and reincarnation researchers to UFO experts and conspiracy theorists, and the podcast is always well worth a listen even if you're a hard-line skeptic. I think I've mentioned before how much I love Bob Curran's shows in particular (he's written books on zombies, vampires, and fairies in folklore--really fascinating stuff, not to mention incredibly inspiring for me as a fiction writer.) Anyway, I recorded a show with Jim last week and it's up today, so give it a listen! [Edit, 2013: Paranormal Podcast archives are available to Plus Club listeners only. Check out the Plus Club though, if you like the paranormal you'll find it a great value!]And in case you've found me through the podcast, I'll post some show notes of my own:My blog post on Keats' poem La Belle Dame Sans Merci is here.As for the dancing baby skeletons, you can find Mike McCormack's terrific novel Notes from a Coma on Amazon.com.The Petty Magic Cafepress shop is here [2013 edit: the shop is now closed], and here are some modeled shots:
(With my friend Niki.) 'Misbehave, and I'll feed you to the mermaids.'
(My sister Kate and her boyfriend Elliot.) 'I may not be all that picky, but I draw the line at the clap' and 'Lord of the Slippy' (this is a compliment to the wearer; all is revealed in chapter 23!)
The clap, part 2.
My grandparents are wearing 'They don't call it the witching hour for nothing' (er, sorry, you can't actually see it) and 'troublemaker'.And now I'm off to London on a working holiday! I'll be keeping track of t-shirt contest entries, and will draw a name at random at the end of November. Thanks in advance for your interest, and I hope you enjoy my chat with Jim--and my novel too of course!
Prim Improper: a Q&A with Deirdre Sullivan
Thanks to my time in the writing program at NUI Galway I have a lot of crazy-talented writer friends, one of whom is Galway native Deirdre Sullivan. Dee has written a fantastic novel for young teens called Prim Improper, which was published by Little Island in September.After losing her mother in a car accident, thirteen-year-old Primrose Leary has to move in with her father, Fintan, who (so it seems to Prim) cares more for his moustache and his money than he does his only child. Prim writes in her journal of grieving for her mother, learning to live with a father with whom she has nothing in common, and navigating all the typical trouble with boys, friends, and schoolwork. She's wicked smart, using witty wordplay (don't you LOVE the title?) and a vocabulary that puts most grown-ups to shame. Her voice feels entirely authentic, with all those things you'd expect a bright young girl to write in her diary--like when she calls a hot chocolate a 'gooey cup of yum' or a classmate she dislikes 'a rancid scab of a boy.'Prim's mother's death is treated sensitively but not overly sentimentally, and about her relationship with Fintan in particular there are moments of heart-rending insight--even if our young narrator isn't fully aware of it. For instance, on wanting her father to come out and tell her if he's gotten engaged to his girlfriend:'It would make me feel like I was an important part of his life, as opposed to just this thing he had to feed and clothe because her previous owner had passed away and if he didn't do the right thing people would think badly of him.' (page 196)
Prim Improper is one of those books you feel smarter for having read, and goodness knows a pre-teen girl can never have too many of those on her shelf. The book isn't widely available in the U.S. (though you can order it on Amazon), so I thought I'd give a few autographed copies away so that some American readers can enjoy this marvelous novel. But first, a Q&A with my dear friend the author:Reading a book when you know the author is a peculiar pleasure for those moments of recognition. The writer puts pieces of herself into her story even when those pieces aren't overtly autobiographical--Prim's fondness for wee furry creatures, for instance, although your pets are guinea pigs and hers is a rat. And like you, she's witty and articulate, a quick and acerbic observer of human nature. Just how much does Primrose Leary resemble your thirteen-year-old self? Did you ever go back and read your old journals?I felt the same way when I read Petty Magic--it was delightful to see the little pieces of Camille woven into the fabric of the novel!! Primrose is a lot more articulate and confident in her identity that I was when I was thirteen. At the launch, my fifteen year old cousin came up to me and said that I'd really captured the way she had thought when she was thirteen and that of course, two years on, she was a good deal more mature. I smiled and nodded and thought 'oh dear'--because a lot of Prim is the way I actually think now, not so much the content, but the structure of it and the way of expressing it, if that makes any sense. About halfway through the novel, I read back over some of my old diaries from secondary school, to see what I could find. What I found was pretty cringe inducing. At thirteen, I mainly used my diary to vent and obsess over various boy-bands. And write terrible poetry about being misunderstood and not having a boyfriend.I met you through your boyfriend, Diarmuid, who is a scriptwriter. You two may be writing in very different genres, but I still think it's worth asking if you ever influence one another's work. Do you read each other's early drafts?This summer was lovely, because we spent it holed up in a bungalow in Cork, writing every day. I'd read mine to him as soon as it's written and ask his advice about what works and what doesn't, but I'm not allowed to read his until he thinks they're ready, which is hardly ever! We both use humor in our writing, but he is far more of a craftsman than I am--he fine-tunes and tweaks his work almost constantly. I bang it out and only start to doctor it when I'm finished the whole thing. Or stuck on a particular bit.Prim portrays her father, Fintan, as a 'Celtic Tiger' fat cat. Is he based on any real-life fat cat in particular?No, but my Dad in real life does have a FABULOUS moustache, and he loves the first line of the book because he considers it an homage to his facial hair.You're a primary school teacher, so of course your students are quite a bit younger than Prim, but I'm sure they inspire you on a regular basis...?They do indeed. A boy in my T.P. class gave me a gift of a diary that I wrote the first draft of Prim in. I also stole the names Ella and Syzmon from children I taught. Being a teacher is a strange and lovely thing, you are confronted on a daily basis with a plethora of personalities, all with their own strengths and concerns. And you have to teach them how to spell and do sums and co-exist peacefully from 8.50-14.30. It can exhausting but is also very inspiring and rewarding.Judging from photos of your launch and reading at the Galway City Library, it looks like you were able to connect with a fair number of younger readers. Have you had a chance yet to talk about Prim Improper with girls who've read it?Yes, but only briefly--the launch was packed with people, so I didn't have time to chat to anyone properly!! The girls in sixth class seemed to like it, which is great because while I was writing it I had a sixth class girl in mind as the reader I was kind of going for. (In the first draft, Prim was in her final year of primary school). I'm dying to have a sit-down chat with some girls who have read it, I'd love to discuss how it tallied with their own experiences of being a teenage (or almost) girl.Tell me about where and how you write. Do you have any particular rituals (besides, I suspect, copious amounts of tea)?You're right about the tea. I read a lot when I'm writing--teen fiction and whatever else takes my fancy when I'm typing away and crime fiction when I'm having trouble plotting. Detective stories are normally so tightly structured and have that whole beginning, middle and end thing that I wish I found easier--beginnings and middles are fine for me but endings are tougher. I'm trying to finish another book at the moment and I'm finding it very hard to let go of the characters. Also, I like to read what I've written to Diarmuid at the end of the day--possibly while drinking tea.You are to spend the rest of your days on an uncharted island in the South Pacific, and can bringonly five books. Which ones, and why?Can I cheat and bring a few Norton Anthologies? I read a LOT, so that would probably be the way I'd go. But in case I'm not allowed--
1. The collected Short Stories of Angela Carter--because The Bloody Chamber is my favourite book ever but it's very small so I'd like all the other ones as well please.2. The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits by Emma Donoghue because reading it makes me want to make up stories.3. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy because Dad bought it for me for my twelfth birthday and it is still languishing in my to-read pile.4. Either Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winnifred Watson or Miss Buncle's Book by D.E Stevenson. They are both charming and escapist reads--like dipping into a big hug.5. Another Either/or answer!! Hans Christian Andersen or Oscar Wilde's Fairy Tales because they are so beautiful and sad.
I think I'd be happy out with those five.What's next? Are you working on another novel now?I am indeed--grappling with the ending at the moment, actually. This time it's about a fifteen year old girl named Ampersand, who is a middle child and isn't very happy about it.###Thanks a million, Dee! So like I said, there are three (individually autographed!) copies up for grabs. To enter the giveaway, all you have to do is leave a comment recommending one of your favorite middle grade/young adult novels, and RTs get an extra entry. Entries accepted until the end of the weekend, and in the meantime you can follow Deirdre on Twitter at @propermiss and check out her blog!###Edit, November 7th: Closing the giveaway with five entries. I'm going to pick up two more books while I'm in Ireland next month, so everyone's a winner! Thank you so much for your interest and enthusiasm, Amanda, Cara, Christie, Kate, and Paré!
Strumbox jam!
I finally got around to uploading that other launch party video I mentioned—here Paul and Nick, my dear friends from Harmony Homestead, are treating us to some live music. Paul is playing a strumbox made by our friend Jim (from a cigar box--awesome, right?), and...er...I can't remember which instrument Nick is playing. I can't get a good look at it to jog my memory. Anyway, the jam session made the night all the more special for me, and I hope you enjoy this little snippet.(The other party video is here—I'm reading from a random page.)
Midwest, part 1
I never anticipated that the best part of publishing a book wouldn't be the good reviews, readings, or invitations to literary festivals. The best part isn't seeing a gorgeous book with your name on it on the new fiction shelf at Borders (although that's pretty trippy too).No, the really trippy part is this: making new friends, and eventually counting them among my dearest, all because I wrote a book and somebody decided to publish it.
In August 2008 Maggie left a comment telling me how much she enjoyed Mary Modern, and when I visited her blog I found the best review I've ever gotten. Maggie doesn't usually write about books on her blog, but this time she made an exception. She even took the book into the bathroom with her, and there can be no greater compliment than that.
So we emailed back and forth a bit, and then lost touch until last summer. Thanks to Twitter, I reconnected with Maggie and 'met' Sarah, the friend who'd recommended my novel in the first place. I got to meet Maggie and her family back in August when they came to New York on vacation, but this trip to Wisconsin last week was the first time I met Sarah in real life. She is so good at expressing herself online that I kept having to remind myself that we hadn't ever had a conversation in person before. (You know how it is if you've ever met an internet acquaintance in real life--they're never quite how you pictured them, not necessarily looks-wise, but the way they speak and carry themselves and whatnot. Not Sarah!)
I also wondered how or if we ever could have met in a time before the internet. I like to think that if we'd lived on the far end of the twentieth century we would have written each other letters, but obviously it wouldn't have been the same--it would have taken us months to iron out a visit by mail, if we'd ever found the opportunity to meet at all, and our (sometimes rapid-fire) email correspondence is probably equivalent, wordcount-wise, to a pen-pal friendship over the course of ten years. Every time their names pop up in my inbox I feel amazed and grateful all over again.
We knit and talked about books and writing and had a sleepover and watched classic 80s movies (I fell asleep midway through The Neverending Story—haha!—but The Goonies was every bit as awesome as I remembered it), and I loved spending time with Maggie's daughters. We fondled beautiful yarns at The Sow's Ear and had delicious fancy coffees afterwards. (The Sow's Ear is far and away the coolest yarn shop I've ever been to--huge selection of great yarns and really nice staff, like Brooklyn General, but with coffee and treats!)
Locally produced sock yarn from Sun Valley Fibers.
And before I left Maggie and I went to Madison to sample the amazing local cheeses at Fromagination (she knows a lot about Wisconsin artisanal cheeses, having recently published an article on the subject) and she took me on a tour of UW Madison. I got to see Sarah and her husband Matt one more time for pizza and hot chocolate before I left; and then the next day I hopped on a bus to Minneapolis to visit Jill, and I also did a really fun reading at Common Good Books. Will blog about that next time.
(Edit, 2013: It's strange to be reformatting this entry for my new blog, having very happily not eaten cheese in 2 1/2 years. I won't knowingly eat it again, and for some very good reasons why, read my post on cheese addiction.)