My Writer Unboxed Interview

I recently had the pleasure of being interviewed by Therese Walsh from WriterUnboxed.com. Therese is a writer herself so her probing questions about process and craft helped me to take a step back and look at what I do as a writer. We really hit it off and ended talking at length so the the interview turned into three separate blog posts. You can read Part 1 by clicking here. Links to the other parts are at the bottom of Part 1. My interview aside, WriterUnboxed.com  is a great website for anyone interested in "the craft and business of genre fiction." For three consecutive years, it has been designated as one of the 101 Best Websites for Writers by Writer's Digest so be sure to add it to your blogroll or your bookmarks.

 

Enjoy!

Happy Easter and Happy Birthday to me!

I love it when Easter and my birthday fall on the same day! Early this morning, I received some beautiful roses in a tea cup from my niece, Whitney (very Eva, I must say), and an Easter basket (with a special wind up chick) from my brother, Mark . We had a lovely family brunch at the Lyceum in Salem. For dessert, as is my family's tradition, I bit the head off of a small chocolate bunny and surreptitiously slipped the headless carcass back into someone else's Easter basket.

Also, my article on Salem was published today in the Sunday London  Times travel section. You can read it by clicking here. 

And the ads for The Lace Reader have gone up around London as well.

UK ad for "The Lace Reader"

Ads for "The Lace Reader" are on display in the London Underground.

 I have taken an oath not to do any writing today even though the deadline for turning in my new book is looming.  It’s a difficult promise to keep, addictions and work ethic being what they are. This little post doesn’t count as writing and to help me avoid any real work today,  Gary and I are going to take a ride up the coast. Fun times! Have a wonderful Sunday everyone.  Details on my recent  trip to Mobile, Alabama next. 

Creativity and a Sense of Place

  Creativity and a Sense of Place workshop

 

As part of the Literally Salem Festival, I led a workshop for writers on Saturday exploring the ways in which a sense of place and creativity intersect. We looked at several aspects of this pairing: where you write, where you live, places you know, and places that live in your imagination. It was great to have so many people participate and share their experiences of writing and location.

For one exercise, I gave out a handout designed to spark the creative process. You can get a copy by clicking here Worksheet handout PDF.

Czech Republic covers

Here's an interesting take on visuals for The Lace Reader. They used lace to construct images for the cover and then made a piece of lace for the inside cover that incorporates many of the elements from the book. Very clever! Click on an image to enlarge it.

Speaking in Haverhill, MA on March 25

I'll be speaking at a meeting of The Women's Network at Northern Essex Community College on March 25 from noon to 1 p.m.. The Women's Network is celebrating Women in History Month and I'm honored to be their speaker. The meeting will be held in the Technology Center on the college's Haverhill campus, 100 Elliott St. Admission is free. Reservations and more information are available from Ginny Anderson at the Women's Network, 978-556-3736 or ganderson@necc.mass.edu.

"The Lace Reader" one of iTunes Best of 2008

The Lace Reader has been selected by iTunes as one of the best fiction audiobooks of 2008.  Here's the list of the other titles that also won:

Best Fiction Audiobooks of 2008 ·        The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman ·        The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry ·        Bright Shiny Morning by James Frey ·        The Given Day by Dennis Lehane 

Congratulations again to narrator Alyssa Bresnahan. This is the second time this month that The Lace Reader has been selected as one of the best audiobooks of 2008 (Library Journal also picked it about two weeks ago).

From Rome to Vermont

I'm back from Italy. What a wonderful week we had. It was a non-stop media blitz interrupted by some of the best food on the planet. The folks at Garzanti (my Italian publisher) were so gracious. I'll be posting more details from the trip soon. This Thursday, January 29th, I'll be at Green Mountain College in Poultney, VT. I attended Green Mountain many years ago and they were kind enough to invite me to give the keynote address ("Creativity & A Sense of Place") at their 175th anniversary event on Women in Leadership. You can learn more about the event by clicking here.

Touring Italy

I arrived in Milan yesterday (a full day before my luggage) and will be here until Wednesday morning when we move on to Rome. I spent the first evening with my Italian editor, Elisabetta Migliavada. I had never met her before but had heard wonderful things which were all true. I feel very lucky to be working with her.  Today,  I did several interviews including radio and a variety of print and online media. Francesca Rodella, from my Italian publisher, Garzanti, has done an incredible  job of getting dozens of interviews all lined up. I find that the Italian journalists ask very different (and very good!) questions. As a special treat, I was able to listen to passages of  The Lace Reader read in Italian in the melodious voice of my translator, Chiara Serafin. 

Ciao!

Brunonia

"The Lace Reader" named one of the Best Audiobooks of 2008

Library Journal just named "The Lace Reader" one of the Best Audiobooks of 2008 saying:

Narrator Alyssa Bresnahan “seamlessly” interweaves this best seller about a family that reads the future in lace.

Congrats to Alyssa for such magnificent performance. To see the entire list, click here.

Brunonia

BTW - Back in July 2008, Library Journal also gave the print version a Starred Review.

To The New Year

The past year was challenging for most of us on so many levels. For me, it was also the realization of a long-held dream with the publication of The Lace Reader and the subsequent book tour that lasted four months and allowed me to meet some wonderful people along the way. It's inspiring to travel around the country and experience the intelligence and kindness of strangers. These person-to-person contacts convince me that there's much that we can accomplish together.

Here's to a 2009 that's better for all of us.

Brunonia

News Update

The Lace Reader has been chosen by Barnes and Noble as their January "New Reads" book club pick. I will be on line every day starting on the 5th. If you'd like to join the discussion, click here.  

Also, The Lace Reader has been chosen by Book Bloggers as one of the top 10 books of 2008. Below is their contemporary fiction list. To see the books in other categories, click here.

Contemporary Literature All About Lulu by Jonathan Evison  Gardens of Water by Alan Drew  The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson  The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen  The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein  The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry  Matrimony by Joshua Henkin  The House at Riverton by Kate Morton  Songs for the Missing by Stewart O’Nan  The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski

Happy. Happy. Merry. Merry.

I confess. I haven't finished my Christmas shopping. I went out yesterday, but the stores were over crowed due to the  post snowstorm frenzy, and I have such a strong aversion to crowds, that I gave up and came home early.  

It's not that it's a difficult task for me to accomplish. Everyone is getting books. Books are what everyone always gets from me.

Crowds or no crowds, I have to admit that I do love shopping on Christmas Eve. It's something we always did with my dad, We'd shop and then visit friends, dropping off gifts house to house. In retrospect, I'm sure the whole thing was really just a way to get my brother and me out of the house so that my mother could finally get something done. Still, it was a very special day with my father, and we looked forward to it.

Family arrives tonight if more snowstorms don't ground their flights. Tomorrow, I will drag my niece around with me to all the local bookstores. Maybe we'll stop and pick up my brother as well.

Have great holidays!

Brunonia

I have about ten more gifts to go, but here are the book titles I've selected so far:

Home by Marilynne Robinson

The Cure for Grief by Nellie Hermann

Best American Short Stories 2008 - Edited by Salman Rushdie

The Garden of Last Days by Andre Dubus III

City of Refuge by Tom Piazza

The Heretic's Daughter by Kathleen Kent

American Transcendentalism by Philip F. Gura

American Lion by Jon Meacham

The Nine by Jeffrey Toobin

Second Sight by Rickey Gard Diamond

Dewey by Vicki Myron

I See You Everywhere by Julia Glass

The Rose Labyrinth by Titania Hardie

Songs for the Missing by Stewart O'Nan

The Other by David Guterson

2008 Original Voices Nomination

I was recently notified that The Lace Reader has been nominated for Borders’ 2008 Original Voices Award in the fiction category. Obviously, I'm thrilled.

They describe the award as follows: “Now in its 13th year, the Original Voices Awards recognize fresh, compelling and ambitions works from the new and emerging talents of 2008 in fiction, non-fiction, young adult/independent reader and children’s picture books.”

The six nominees in the fiction category are:

"Dear American Airlines,” by Jonathan Miles (Houghton Mifflin)

“The Cellist of Sarajevo,” by Steven Galloway (Riverhead)

“The Good Thief,” by Hannah Tinti (The Dial Press)

“The Lace Reader,” by Brunonia Barry (William Morrow)

“The Somnambulist,” by Jonathan Barnes (William Morrow)

"The White Tiger,” by Aravind Adiga (Free Press)

I am honored to be in such great company. 

Judging "The Lace Reader" By Its Covers

Thanks to Rebecca Oliver of the Endeavor Agency, I've had the great fortune of selling the publishing rights to "The Lace Reader" to twenty-five publishers around the globe. Most of these foreign editions will be published in 2009.  Lately, a few international covers have started showing up in my InBox so I thought I'd share them with you (see the bottom of this post). What intrigues me is the diversity of imagery and that a few countries have changed the title of the book to better suit their native language.

To see the complete image of any cover, just click on it. After it loads, you can click once more for an even larger version.

Please feel free to leave a comment. I'd love to know your favorites.

He Wouldn't Eat His Mushrooms

Not sure what you did this weekend but I learned 10 new ways to poison someone. I was at the 7th New England Crime Bake (website), a conference for readers and writers of the mystery genre.  The lecture was given by Lucy Zahray (a.k.a. the Poison Lady). We learned about a variety of poisons: some undetectable, some fast acting, others you can make at home, and what was popular during the Victorian age. Though her subject matter was grim, her presentation was a lot of fun. I'm not sure I'll ever use these ideas in my writing, but you never know. Note: the title of this post refers to the punchline of an old joke about a woman whose four husbands all died suddenly. Her first three husbands died from eating poison mushrooms, the fourth from an accidental gunshot. Why an accidental gunshot for number four? Well...