Posts Tagged ‘book clubs’
Happy Birthday Joyce Carol Oates
Fodder for Fiction Weekly Author Birthday Bash
Happy Birthday to Joyce Carol Oates! I couldn’t resist sharing the following excerpt in honor of her special day. It may not feel very celebratory – and I hope Joyce Carol Oates feels happy on her birthday. However, there is something so moving about how loss can change our perception.
The river! Marina recalled how from Adam’s studio, at the rear of his house, you could stand staring across the river, those long mesmerized moments as light faded on the agitated waves, and dusk deepened at the edges of things; dusk, a quality of earth; while an eerie oily-glistening light remained on the water. In the west, the sun was chemical red and gorgeous, bleeding at the horizon like a burst egg yolk.
On both sides of the river fireworks erupted. Fourth of July: the American holiday celebrating gunfire, rockets, aggression, death to the enemy. Across the river on the east bank of the Hudson, in the vicinity of Tarrytown, gaudy pinwheels of crimson, gold, blinding-white light were rising, soaring and falling soundlessly into the river. And a moment later replaced by more explosions, gaudy glittering colors rising, sinking soundlessly to extinction. “Stop. Stop. Stop.” This idiotic celebration, at a time of death. As if in mockery of a man’s death. Even in Jones Point, where death awaited her. Lurid bright carnival colors pitching up into the now-darkening sky over the river. Exploding yellow calyxes, crimson eyeballs, streamers of rainbow guts. Hideous, hellish. Marina recalled that fireworks are jokey symbols of sexual orgasm, and the thought repelled her. Never us. And now never.”
Middle Age by Joyce Carol Oates
Paradoxically, I find the passage beautiful as it describes something the narrator sees as abhorrent. It’s precisely why I am in awe of the masterful craft of Joyce Carol Oates. Thank you, Joyce, and many happy returns of the day!
Best to you,
Lisa Lipkind Leibow
Author of Smart Women’s Fiction
Happy Birthday Kathleen E. Woodiwiss!
It’s time to honor the birthday of author Kathleen E. Woodiwiss. Her title character Shanna had a father who put a lot of pressure on her to marry before her birthday.
“You have a year to settle your fancies,” he roared. “Your period of grace ceases on your first-and-twentieth year, the day marking your birth. If you have not wed into a family of the aristocracy by then, I’ll name the next ready swain still young enough to get you with child as your husband. And if I must drag you to the altar in chains, you will obey!”
Yikes! I hope author Kathleen Woodiwiss never had that kind of problem! Those kinds of decisions should be personal and be in one’s own time. I hope you enjoyed this little ditty in honor of another great author’s birthday!
Best to you,
Lisa Lipkind Leibow
Author of Smart Women’s Fiction
www.LLLeibow.com
It’s Harper Lee’s FFF Birthday Celebration!
Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird is a masterpiece worthy of its Pulitzer-prize winning acclaim. It’s been called “one of the best-loved stories of all time.” I’m right there with all of the other lovers of this novel. I first read it when I was in seventh grade, and have picked it up so many times since, I can’t count. Thank you Harper Lee for writing such a beautiful story.
This week’s Fodder for Fiction Author Birthday Bash celebration is for – you guessed it – Harper Lee!
In honor of her special day, I’m sharing a where-babies-come-from excerpt from To Kill a Mockingbird.
Enjoy!
“Dill’s voice was his own again: “Oh, they ain’t mean. They kiss you and hug you god night and good mornin’ and goodbye and tell you they love you—Scout, let’s get us a baby.”
“Where?”
There was a man Dill had heard of who had a boat that he rowed across to a foggy island where all theses babies were; you could order one—
“That’s a lie. Aunty said God drops ‘em down the chimney. At least that’s what I think she said.” For once, Aunty’s diction had not been too clear.
“Well that ain’t so. You get babies from each other. But there’s this man, too—he has all these babies just waitin’ to wake up, he breathes life into ‘em. …”
Dill was off again. Beautiful things floated around in his dreamy head. He could read two books to my one, but he preferred the magic of his own inventions. He could add and subtract faster than lightning, but he preferred his own twilight world, a world where babies slept, waiting to be gathered like morning lilies. He was slowly talking himself to sleep and taking me with him, but in the quietness of his foggy island there rose the faded image of a gray house with sad brown doors.
“Dill?”
“Mm?”
“Why do you recon Boo Radley’s never run off?”
Dill sighed a long sigh and turned away from me.
“Maybe he doesn’t have anywhere to run off to. . . .”
Excerpt, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Share what you love about Harper Lee. I’d love to hear it. Come back again next Wednesday for another Fodder for Fiction Author Birthday Bash!
Best to you,
Lisa Lipkind Leibow
Author of Smart Women’s Fiction
www.LLLeibow.com
HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHARLOTTE BRONTE!
Fodder for Fiction Author Birthday Bash
This week’s Fodder for Fiction Birthday Bash is for Charlotte Bronte. Poor Jane Eyre was excluded from the celebrations at Gateshead. But that doesn’t mean she didn’t appreciate the festivities. This passage makes me feel like I’m spying on the party, right along with Jane! I thought it was the perfect excerpt to share in honor of Charlotte Bronte’s Birthday. Enjoy!
November, December, and half of January passed away. Christmas and the New Year had been celebrated at Gateshead with the usual festive cheer; presents had been interchanged, dinners and evening parties given. From every enjoyment I was, of course, excluded: my share of the gaiety consisted in witnessing the daily appareling of Eliza and Georgiana, and seeing them descend to the drawing-room, dressed out in thin muslin frocks and scarlet sashes, with hair elaborately ringletted; and afterwards, in listening to the sound of the piano or the harp played below, to the passing to and fro of the butler and footman, to the jingling of glass and china as refreshments were handed, to the broken hum of conversation as the drawing-room door opened and closed. When tired of this occupation, I would retire from the stairhead to the solitary and silent nursery there, though somewhat sad, I was not miserable.” Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
(Second Jane Eyre): “There are Mrs. Eshton and her three daughters—very elegant young ladies indeed; and there are the Honourable Blanch and Mary Ingram, most beautiful women, I suppose: indeed I have seen Blanch, six or seven years since, when she was a girl of eighteen. She came here to a Christmas ball and party Mr. Rochester gave. You should have seen the dining-room that day—how richly it was decorated, how brilliantly lit up! I should think there were fifty ladies and gentlemen present—all of the first county families; and Miss Ingram was considered the bell of the evening.” Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Share what you love about Charlotte Bronte. I’d love to hear it.
Come back again next Wednesday for another Fodder for Fiction Author Birthday Bash!
Best to you,
Lisa Lipkind Leibow
Author of Smart Women’s
Happy Birthday Eudora Welty!
FODDER FOR FICTION WEEKLY AUTHOR BIRTHDAY BASH
If you’re a regular visitor here at Fodder for Fiction, or if you’ve read any of my fiction, you probably realize that I love food – and I love what a given character notices about the smells, tastes, and presentations of food tells you about that character’s personality. In line with that, in honor of the birthday of Eudora Welty, who is one of my favorite prose-portrait artists, I thought I’d share a bit of dialogue from her work revealing the kind of lovely feast worthy of her special day. I only hope she researched these beautiful and delicious treats first hand in order to write this!
“Listen and I’ll tell you what Miss Nell served at the party,” Loch’s mother said softly, with little waits in her voice. She was just a glimmer at the foot of his bed.
“Ma’am.”
“An orange scooped out and filled with orange juice, with the top put back on and decorated with icing leaves, a straw stuck in. A slice of pineapple with a heap of candied sweet potatoes on it, and a little handle of pastry. A cup made out of toast, filed with creamed chicken, fairly warm. A sweet peach pickle with flower petals around it of different-colored cream cheese. A swan made of a cream puff. He had whipped cream feathers, a pastry neck, green icing eyes, A pastry biscuit the size of a marble with a little date filling.” She sighed abruptly.
Excerpt, The Golden Apples by Eudora Welty
Are you hungry?… me too. Before you leave to grab a snack or watch the food network, tell me some of your favorite Eudora Welty stories. What better way to honor what would be her 101st birthday!
Best to you,
Lisa Lipkind Leibow
Author of Smart Women’s Fiction
http://www.LLLeibow.com
THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY
By Cheryl Norman
RUNNING SCARED, my romantic suspense from Medallion Press, started out a silly game. Good friend Marv Jones and I were training to run the Marine Corps Marathon (when I was younger and thinner), and every Saturday morning we did our long run of the week, a distance of fifteen to twenty-two miles, along the same route in south Jacksonville. Running several hours is a challenge both physically and mentally. We talked as we ran to monitor our pacing and breathing, but also to avoid boredom.
Before dawn one Saturday, we ran through an exclusive neighborhood and saw a suspicious car speed away. We began a game of what if that turned into a murder mystery. We added to it with each mile, naming the characters and fleshing out the plot. We laughed about it later then forgot it for several years.
Later I quit my job and decided to write fiction. What better story to start with than our silly murder mystery? Thus began my first novel, the story of a young woman training to run her first marathon when she witnesses a murder. Ten rewrites later and I finally knew Detective Rick Edwards and Ashley Adams and their dark secrets. I knew why they couldn’t fall in love with each other and why they would. I knew who killed whom, and why.
I’ve written many other books since my first version of RUNNING SCARED, but none took so long to revise. My friend Marv was able to read the finished manuscript but sadly died before seeing the book in print. I dedicated RUNNING SCARED to his memory. Little did we know that Saturday morning when we started spinning a tale of murder and intrigue to pass the time that I would someday write the novel and see it in print.
We writers never know when inspiration will strike. But I’m proud of the book RUNNING SCARED that evolved from that early morning training run. I think Marv is, too.
_______________________________
Cheryl Norman is the award winning author of Last Resort, Running Scared, and Restore My Heart. Her latest release is the witness protection romantic suspense Reclaim My Life. Visit her Website at http://cherylnorman.com . She also hosts the Grammar Cop blog at http://grammar.cherylnorman.com
April 2010 WHAT I’M READING
This month, so far, I read The Photograph by Penelope Lively. The Photograph was an interesting combination of prose character portrait and mystery. I love the premise of an historian trying to put together the pieces of the life of the woman he should have known best – his wife. After her death, he discovers a curious and incriminating photograph of his wife holding hands with her sister’s husband. I found Penelopy Lively’s prose beautiful to read – this was wonderful character-driven fiction.
I also read Eva Moves the Furniture by Margot Livesy. This is the first I have read of Livesy’s work. It was a ghost story and historical fiction wrapped up into one. I enjoyed it, too.
Finally, I still have about two hours left before I finish listening to The Hemings of Monticello. However, my i-pod and several baskets of clean laundry await me after I post this blog. So, I should be done with it soon!
I’ll check back again next month to let you know what I’m reading. In the meantime, you can follow along with my progress at http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/262330-lisa-s-2010-reading-goals.
HAPPY READING!
Best to you,
Lisa Lipkind Leibow
Author of Smart Women’s Fiction
www.LLLeibow.com
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAYA ANGELOU!
Weekly Fodder For Fiction Author Birthday Bash
This week at Fodder for Fiction, we’re celebrating the inspiring poet and author, Maya Angelou. I’m sharing a brief shout of happiness, as described by her. I thought it was a fitting jubilant statement of how happy I am that her work has touched my heart. Thank you Maya! Many happy returns of the day!
“After a few squeaky misses I overcame my reserve and tore my tonsils loose with a yell that would have been worthy of Zapata. I was happy, Dad was proud and my new friends were gracious. A woman brought chicharrones (in the South they’re called cracklings) in a greasy newspaper. I ate the fried pig skins, danced, screamed and drank the extra-sweet and sticky Coca-Cola with the nearest approach to abandonment I had ever experienced. As new revelers joined the celebration I was introduced as la nina de Baylee, and as quickly accepted.” Excerpt, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Join me each week on Wednesdays for another Author Birthday Bash at Lisa Leibow’s Fodder for Fiction.
Best to you,
Lisa Lipkind Leibow
Author of Smart Women’s Fiction
On the Radio…
Since the release date of Double Out and Back, I’ve been touring the blogosphere, and trying to get the word out! One of my favorite ways to reach readers is to chat on BlogTalkRadio shows. I thought it would be fun to share the podcast links to some of the highlights of my radio guest spots over the past several months – just in case you missed them live. Have fun listening!
The Literary Goddess Blog Talk Radio
Introducing Writers on BlogTalkRadio
All Romance eBooks What’s Hot in Romance! on Blog Talk Radio
A Book and a Chat BlogTalkRadio
Best to you,
Lisa Lipkind Leibow
Author of Smart Women’s Fiction
Making a Good Idea Great
by Katie Hines
What elements create great fiction? Oh, the usual come to mind: killer idea, great plot, rich characters, full settings, lots of research, editing, story arc, conceptualization, and so forth.
I’ve been parts of critique groups, both in person and online, and I have to say that without a doubt, it has been one of the most valuable experiences of my writing life. But the thing I have seen, more often than I care to admit, that some writers simply don’t have a good idea for their book, or even worse, write a poor good idea.
There is one lady I am thinking of who is writing a piece of historical fiction that frankly, upon reading it, I find myself yawning, my mind wandering and the words “ho hum” waft through my thinking. I wonder, “And I care about this, why?”
See, it isn’t enough to have a good idea, even a killer idea. You have to make a good idea great by transforming your reader from “ho hum” to “I can’t put this story down.” How does this happen? By transforming your writing by lifting it from the doldrums, by wrenching it from your soul, making your words count in ways that make your readers sit up and take notice.
I read a great book by Noah Lukeman called, “The First Five Pages.” He basically says if you don’t have “it” in the first five pages, this elusive “it” won’t be in the rest of the book.
As a children’s author, you have to capture that kid on the very first paragraph–the first line–if at all possible. Think outrageously! When you pick up a kid’s book, do you want to wait for page three to get fully involved?
No, of course not.
And neither does your reader. With kids especially, you have to draw them in with the very first words. If you don’t make it by the end of your first paragraph, you run the very real risk of having the reader close the book, put it away and never finish reading it.
Your first words must sparkle with character, not descriptions. They must make your reader want to read further. The first words in my middle grade book, Guardian, are, “I have a secret…” Who doesn’t want to read further, to find out what this secret is? Right there, you’ve tapped into something every kid wants to know about – a secret.
Take it from there. Make your reader sit up and take notice. Make them wonder about the secret, throw some action in, perhaps some wild event (that adds to the story). Introduce your characters, but be sure and introduce them within the context of action. See, that’s the real key for writing for children. Action, suspense, and a story that keeps unfolding and keeping them guessing. That’s the key to exciting fiction.
So if you have a good idea, make it great by anticipating what your reader wants. If you don’t know what your reader wants, then you need to go to the library and begin reading everything you can in the genre you are wanting to write in. Once you know, you can know if your story is going to meet the test, and pass it, and woo your reader through to the very last page.
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Katie Hines has been writing snippets here and there as long as she can remember. Then, in high school, she wrote several poems that were published in an anthology. Marriage and raising two children contributed to putting away writing, but she came back to it while in her 40s. Since that time, she has been a contributing feature writer and columnist for a local newspaper, has written several features articles for another area newspaper, and wrote religious and humor articles for an online Catholic ezine. Her first book, “Guardian,” is a middle grade urban fantasy and available through http://4RVpublishingllc.com , Amazon, Barnes & Noble and your local bookseller.