Archive for June, 2008

MoonPies and Movie Stars

Published on June 30, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

It’s my pleasure to introduce another great beach read from one of my girlfriends’ cybercircuit friends: MoonPies and Movie Stars by Amy Wallen.

Amy Wallen chronicles the journey of a group of spunky Texas ladies from their small town to the glittery streets of Hollywood in her enchanting and funny debut, MOONPIES AND MOVIE STARS (Plume; 978-0-452-28895-9).
Ruby Kincaid has her hands full these days. In addition to running the bowling alley after the death of her husband, Rascal, she has the daunting task of caring for her two boisterous grandchildren, since her daughter Violet disappeared without a trace four years earlier. It’s 1976 and Ruby and her nearest and dearest in Devine, Texas are watching their favorite soap opera at the bowling alley when they see Violet in a Buttermaid commercial. Expecting it will only take a little motherly guilt to rein in her wayward daughter, Ruby loads up the Winnebago and heads for Hollywood to try and bring Violet back to the Lone Star State.
Along for the ride are Imogene, Violet’s over-bearing and pretentious mother-in-law (who’s ready to assume the title of “celebrity-in-law”), and Loralva, Ruby’s wild sister who is itching to visit Tinsel Town because it’s where all the game shows are taped – and nothing’s going to stop her from making it to her favorite, The Price Is Right. Rounding out the group are Ruby’s grandchildren Bunny and Bubbie who are confused, sad, and excited at the prospect of finding their mother. They give Ruby the courage she needs to track Violet down and try to make things right.
While MOONPIES AND MOVIE STARS is great fun and a lot of laughs, it is also a poignant story of dreaming big, finding home, and coming to terms with family.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Amy Wallen has studied with a number of acclaimed writers, including Janet Fitch (White Oleander). She has taken those talents cultivated in the workshops of these great writers and brought them to her own creative writing classes at UC San Diego Extension. Amy also hosts an open mic night in San Diego, Los Angeles and New York called Dime Stories Live, in collaboration with the national public radio show airing this summer. This is her first novel. Visit her on the web at AmyWallen.com.

ROBERTA: Dr. Rebecca Butterman, the protagonist in my advice column mysteries, is a clinical psychologist (like me.) If your protagonist made an appointment to talk to Dr. Butterman, what would that first session be like? What deep dark secret or problem would she be there to discuss and how much of it would she tell?

AMY: Ruby Kincaid would be scared to death to go see a psychologist, although she’d be fascinated. She’d spend the first part of the hour asking the Dr all about herself (the dr.). She’d tried to avoid talking about herself because that would be rude in her opinion. Even though that’s what she’s paying for. But she would be there to find out why would someone not respond to being loved. She’d want to know what she was doing wrong to make her daughter run away. She’d want to know what she could do to make it all okay. But most importantly she’d want to know if Dr. Butterman could tell her the future, because she’d think that the dr would know things about people that she could figure out what was going to happen to, say, her grandchildren. She’d finally, at the very end of the session, that 5 minutes before the hour is up when all the good stuff comes out, she’d say she was very afraid that her grandson’s attraction to fresh roadkill has her worried that he was going to grow up to be a serial killer.

ROBERTA: At the times you fall victim to writers block, what’s most likely to be going on in your life? What gets you out of the woods and back on the writing path?
AMY: I’m usually trying to please too many other people, my editor, my agent, my reader friends, and not myself and not the characters in the story. I get back on the path when I stop, regroup and remind myself that I need to just be an artist and put down on the page whatever comes to me and shape it into whatever it’s supposed to be. I have to quiet all those voices in my head.

ROBERTA: If you were magically transformed into your protagonist for a day, what would you most look forward to experiencing? And what might you dread?
AMY: I would look forward to spending the day with my friends. I would dread having to eat pork rinds and pickled eggs.

“With a pitch perfect ear for comic dialogue and fine sense of the absurd, Amy Wallen writes herself a place on the porch swing of great Southern writing, as she follows the misadventures of three determined Texas ladies sworn to find a runaway daughter…”
–Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander

“[S]pirited and honest… Wallen capably illustrates that it is not only possible but also compelling to be funny, captivating, and compassionate, all in the same book.”
-Los Angeles Times

“A delightful and exhilarating journey, kind of like being on a tour bus
guided by Eudora Welty on speed.” –Mary Gordon, author of Pearl

“Wallen launches a funny, touching, and bittersweet ride in search of family, but what her characters find is bigger than Texas and better than MoonPies.” –Booklist
MOONPIES AND MOVIE STARS
By Amy Wallen
On-sale: June 24,2008/Price:$14.00/ISBN: 978-0-452-28895-9
A Plume Trade Paperback

Whirlwind tour: New Hampshire!

Published on June 26, 2008 in book tour, life, psychology and recipes and food. 2 Comments

I had a wonderful though quick dash to New Hampshire over the last two days, starting with a visit to Sally Sugatt, a sandplay therapist in Exeter. Sally was a huge help to me as I wrote ASKING FOR MURDER. She advised me on many fascinating details of what her office looked like, how she works with her clients in sandplay therapy, and the meaning of certain arrangements of figurines. All of this will be revealed as Rebecca Butterman’s good friend Annabelle Hart takes center stage in ASKING FOR MURDER. (Coming September 2…)

Sally Sugatt in her amazing officeHere’s Sally in her amazing office…

Next I made quick visits to two gorgeous independent bookstores, Water Street Bookstore in Exeter, and River Run in Portsmouth. Look for your advice column mysteries there and support your local independents. If you happen to be in Exeter on friday, stop in and say hello to Julia Spencer-Fleming, signing her newest Clare Fergusson mystery, I SHALL NOT WANT.

I capped the visit off with a book group meeting at the most adorable Blaisdell Library in Nottingham. Librarians Rhoda Capron and Donna Bunker made me feel most welcome–and there was a healthy crowd too! This kind of night is what an author lives for! And for the lady who was salivating for Dr. Butterman’s cornmeal/cheddar scones, here’s where I found the recipe.

Shrink Links

Published on June 22, 2008 in book tour, life and psychology. 2 Comments

Last week I began to wonder why I don’t have any psychology links on my blogroll…which gave me license troll the Internet. Result: some really cool links in the sidebar, including websites on new psychological research, procrastination, forensic psychology, the musings of 3 shrinks, and more. Go have a look. I really enjoyed the latest podcast from Dr. Dave on Shrink Rap Radio in which he interviewed Dennis Palumbo, former screenwriter, now psychotherapist to creative types. Palumbo is the author of “Writing From the Inside Out: Transforming Your Psychological Blocks to Release the Writer Within” and a new book of short stories, “From Crime to Crime.” Click on episode #159.

Also, another grand book to recommend: SWEETWATER by Roxana Robinson. Falling into the category of literary fiction, the book follows the trail of one woman’s first marriage, and in alternate chapters, the exposure of the fault lines in her second. Just about the point where I was thinking I might set it aside as slow read, all hell broke loose. Masterful really! ( This morning Robinson’s latest book, COST, was reviewed in the NY Times Book Review.)

I’ll be heading up to the Blaisdell Library in Nottingham, New Hampshire this week for a book group. I was delighted to have this wonderful review by Rebecca Rule about PREACHING TO THE CORPSE come out in the local paper. Come join the discussion if you’re in the area.

summertime reading riches

Published on June 19, 2008 in writing. 0 Comments

It’s not like I have a lot more spare time, but I must be spending more of it reading–yippee! And I seem to have been on a mini-run of animal/wilderness books…

CAPTIVITY by Debbie Lee Wesselmann

Dana Armstrong is the director of a chimpanzee sanctuary in South Carolina, working hard to bring chimps formerly used in research back to the wild. But she has a tragic past too. As part of her father’s psychology experiment on communication, Dana’s family took in a chimp to live as a sibling among them. The entire academic community has seen video clips of Dana as a girl in the bathtub with “Annie.” Dana’s position and the sanctuary are threatened when someone releases her animals into the surrounding neighborhood. At the same time, she must come to terms with her irresponsible younger brother, brutal academic struggles, and the truth about her past. Fascinating story, lovely writing, sometimes painful to read…

WINTER STUDY by Nevada Barr

Park ranger Anna Pigeon has been sent to Isle Royal in Lake Superior in the dead of winter to learn about their wolf study project. The cold, darkness, and close quarters with a small group of people with conflicting motives and secrets in their pasts come together to create the equivalent of a locked room mystery. Then the wolves begin to act strangely–is there a new monstrous breed on the loose? This a spooky, chilling, masterful entry in the Anna Pigeon series.

And here’s the link to my review of CJ Box’s BLOOD TRAIL on the wonderful site writerarereaders.

Finally, if you are a writer, looking to take your manuscript to the next level, I highly recomment Elizabeth Lyon’s new book, MANUSCRIPT MAKEOVER. One of the top books on writing I’ve seen.

Questions to Ask Before Marrying

Published on June 10, 2008 in writing. 0 Comments

No, this is not a blog complaining about my husband, with whom I just celebrated a sixteenth anniversary–hooray!

I’m happy to introduce another member of the Girlfriend’s Cyber-Circuit, Melissa Senate, whose book QUESTIONS TO ASK BEFORE MARRYING is now on bookshelves everywhere. Congratulations Melissa! Here’s a taste of the book:
coverquestions2.jpg
A very popular New York Times article lists fifteen questions couples should ask (or wish they had) before marrying. Ruby Miller and her fiancé, Tom Truby, have questions 1 to 14 almost covered. It’s question 15 that has the Maine schoolteacher stumped: Is their relationship strong enough to withstand challenges?

Melissa is the author of seven novels, including her debut, the bestselling See Jane Date, which was made into a very cute TV movie for ABC Family, and Theodora Twist, her first YA. A former editor of romance novels and teen fiction, Melissa lives on the southern coast of Maine with son, his Pokemon cards collection, and their two witchy black cats. She’s hard at work on her next YA for Delacorte, and just sold her next two adult novels to Pocket Books.

And here are her answers to insider questions from Roberta’s blog:

1. Dr. Rebecca Butterman, the protagonist in my advice column mysteries, is a clinical psychologist (like me.) If your protagonist made an appointment to talk to Dr. Butterman, what would that first session be like? What deep dark secret or problem would she be there to discuss and how much of it would she tell?

Ruby is so private that her estranged twin sister, Stella, who essentially kidnaps her on a three-thousand mile road trip from Maine to Las Vegas so she can convince Ruby not to marry her “all wrong” fiance, can’t get her biggest secret out of her. But if Dr. Butterman pressed, Ruby might confess her feelings for another man. Ruby, a conservative school teacher, would not hesitate to mention how irritated she is by her twin, a professional muse and “face reader” who is searching for the father of her unborn baby without knowing the guy’s name.

2. At the times you fall victim to writers block, what’s most likely to be going on in your life? What gets you out of the woods and back on the writing path?

If I’m suffering from writer’s block, it’s because I’ve got too much on my mind and can’t focus on my book, can’t hold the scope of it in my head to find the connections I need. What always works is a long walk (no music!) or sleeping on it. I very often wake up at 5am with a lot mysteriously worked out. If I could write from 5am to 10am every day, I’d be working at my best time, but my five-year-old son seems to magically sense in his sleep when I’m awake and trying to work.

3. If you were magically transformed into your protagonist for a day, what would you most look forward to experiencing? And what might you dread?

Ruby very unexpectedly reunites (which is not quite the right word for what happens) with her biological father, who she hasn’t seen since she was a little girl. I often write about the “missing” father because I’ve stolen it from my own life. I think I’d look forward to meeting him again and dread it equally! This is the second time I’ve sent a character—siblings, actually—on a search for a missing father. The first set don’t find him. I tried to do that with Ruby and Stella in Questions To Ask Before Marrying, and my editor very wisely suggested I do have them find him. This is what I love most about writing fiction: I can make anything happen, however I want.

Sounds like perfect beach reading Melissa. We wish you all the best with the new book!


And What I’m Reading

Published on June 1, 2008 in life. 0 Comments

I just finished THREE CUPS OF TEA by Greg Mortenson and David Olive Relin. I had to be dragged kicking and screaming to this book. It was chosen as my book club’s May read and the only only only reason I started it was so I wouldn’t be considered a bad sport. No, no, not one more onerous tome about the miseries of the Middle East, I moaned, as I turned the first few pages. But I ended up enjoying it very much. Mortenson’s astonishing work building schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan is enough to give the most entrenched skeptic a glimmer of hope–no wonder it lurks near the top of the bestseller list. I found myself fascinated with this man’s complete disregard for his own physical safety and comfort–so not my cup of tea!

And then I sailed through an old favorite’s new book: Ellen Gilchrist’s A DANGEROUS AGE. The characters are familiar from decades of her novels, though I’ve forgotten much of their history so I don’t think it would be difficult to start with this book. A DANGEROUS AGE is set in America during the first years of the Iraq war, and Gilchrist’s characters are all affected by it in one way or another. Really lovely writing and engaging characters. But sad…51jmuax-ol_sl160_aa115_.jpg

And last night I finished Julia Spencer-Fleming’s I SHALL NOT WANT, the sixth in the Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne series featuring an Episcopal priest and a small town police chief. I loved this book! Well-drawn characters, heart-stopping action, and tons of steps on the rocky road to romance. The last installment in the series left readers in a pit of despair, wondering how lead characters Russ and Clare could possibly recover from the tragedies thrown at them. Spencer-Fleming handles the sequel masterfully, providing believable police procedure (Hey what do I really know?), sharp insights into her people, a light but fascinating touch of religion, and tension on many levels.n252721.jpg

Next up on my nightstand: CAPTIVITY  by Debbie Lee Wesselman, to be followed by ISLAND OF LOST GIRLS by Jennifer McMahon.