Ann Marie Meyers: Up in the Air

I'm going to take a little break from the wrap-up posts about the Historical Novels Conference this last weekend in St. Petersburg to host an old buddy.

Ann Marie is someone I remember fondly from the old days at the San Francisco Writers Workshop. We both attended religiously about six or seven years ago. Now she has a children's book out called Up In the Air. Isn't that a gorgeous cover?

I'm very happy to host her today with a little Q&A about the process of writing this book and her career in general.

1)                What inspires you to write

I get my inspiration from just about anything. Something I read, or overhear; a thought that flashes through my mind, the look on someone’s face; my dreams, especially my dreams. Sometimes I just let my mind go blank and write down the very first thing I think of and then see where that takes me. My very first book was written this way.

2)                What about Up In The Air. Which form of inspiration did that take?

Surprisingly, neither of the above. The idea came to me while I was meditating one day. That was the first and, as of now, the last time such a thing has happened to me.

Ann Marie Meyers

3)                Did you always want to write?

No. Definitely not. I have always enjoyed reading. I devoured hundreds of books when I was young, and I loved writing essays in school and letting my imagination fly. Then, one day, (in my late teens actually) to my utter shock, I started a journal and the very first words I wrote were: “I want to be a writer”. I have no idea where that thought came from, though I didn’t actually start to write until much later, and even then I didn’t embrace the idea at first. I resisted.

Some of the famous authors I studied in school (eg: James Joyce and D. H. Lawrence) were so unhappy I wanted no part of it. I wanted to be happy, unfettered by depression (idealistic but true).  Eventually though, over time, I learned to accept the fact that I wanted, even needed, to write and create stories.

4)                And children’s books? How did you get involved in that?

Quite by chance actually. I remember seeing advertisements appealing to people to write children’s books, but I never paid any attention to them. After my daughter was born, I began having thoughts about what she might like to read but it wasn’t until she was about 3 years old that I actually wrote my first children’s book, Up In The Air.

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HNS 2013: the witchcraft panel

From left: me, Kathleen, Mary, Suzy, before the panel

Just got back from the Historical Novels Society conference (held this year in St. Petersburg, Florida), and just can't stop thinking about how much fun it was. Surrounded by people who get what I'm fascinated by, who are kind and supportive and part of a great community of writers and readers (and editors/agents too!)...people who don't mind shaking a little booty  to the DJ in the bar after hours...ha!

I'll be doing many wrap-up posts, but this one is about the witchcraft panel I participated in with three wonderful, wonderful women: Kathleen Kent, Mary Sharratt and Suzy Witten.

Since we all live in different areas of the country, we decided to meet at the conference to plan our panel the day before the presentation.We'd previously agreed on the tenor of the discussion and even come up with a few questions to talk about, but we wanted to chat and plan further. Kathleen was a champ: her flight had been delayed, so she showed up to our get-together fresh off the hotel shuttle!

Immediately we began to see that this was a lovely meeting of the minds, that we'd have no trouble talking about this topic to fill our allotted time. We then continued on to dinner together and continued discussion there.

From left: Suzy, Mary, me, Kathleen

The next day, our panel went really well. We had some great audience questions and acquitted ourselves well, I think. :)  We raffled off copies of our books, and that's the paper bag you see in front of me on the table (no, it wasn't Thunderbird!)

I've got nothing but warm fuzzies for these ladies. I'm hopeful we'll all meet again at HNS 2015 if not earlier!



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Literary (and in no way despicable) Me

After a long hiatus of experiencing no literary events, I just went through a few weeks of very happy creative activity with other writers. The first was attending Summerwords, a creative writing colloquium at American River College in Sacramento. I was there at the invitation of Michael Spurgeon, organizer and faculty member there, who released his first novel during the conference. Although Michael and I never met before six months ago, we attended the same very small liberal arts college in Maine, Colby College, attended the same MFA program in Tucson, Arizona, and both wound up in the greater Sacramento area. Coincidences too great to be ignored! Facebook brought us together and we had coffee and compared notes on our shared, but not shared, experiences.

Here's a photo of Michael and his friend, fellow author Christian Kiefer, chatting during an audience Q&A following their joint reading at Summerwords. The goody bags had both their novels in it. Score!

Christian, on the left, is the author of The Infinite Tides, which looks like a great read. I'm in the middle of Michael's book Let The Water Hold Me Down now, which is wonderful. Photo courtesy of Bethanie Humphreys.

Next I need to talk about T.C.Boyle, who read a short story and did audience Q&A. Oh, this man. His source of charm must be located and destroyed. He must have kissed the Blarney Stone, located in the parapet of a castle in County Cork, Ireland, which confers wit, charm and eloquence upon the kisser. Although it appears clear he didn't just kiss it, but made out with it. I posit that T.C. Boyle frenched the Blarney Stone.

I was there as a presenter, and did a workshop on how to research and outline a novel. People seemed receptive and afterwards a young woman came up and said something so sweet I had to hug her. Then I went to the main hall and did a reading from The Witch's Trinity and signed books. The energy at Summerwords was honestly so upbeat and happy...I just loved the whole weekend. Bravo to the organizers!

That's me reading from Witch's Trinity, above. One final picture from the weekend...I mentioned above that Michael and I attended Colby College. Well, another person was there from Colby too: literary agent Eleanor Jackson. She represents Christian Kiefer and a slew of other wonderful authors. It's truly a small world! And Colby's English Department rocks. From left: Michael Spurgeon, Eleanor Jackson, and me.

All right, on to my next literary adventure. Last week, my friend Susan Spann (her first novel Claws of the Cat launches next month. Two words: ninja hero. Need I say more?) headed to a reading for Karen Joy Fowler's latest book. She gave a great reading and I'm dying to start her book! Especially since there's apparently a big plot spoiler event early on in the novel. She had us raise our hands to say if we knew already so she could talk about it. She gave a very generous Q&A and signed books.

This was her at the Barnes & Noble in Citrus Heights, CA. Many audience members had been part of her writers group many years ago, so it was neat to hear the familiar back and forth.

My next literary adventure is in a few weeks. I'm off to the Historical Novels Society conference in St. Petersburg, Florida. I'll be on a panel called "The Witchcraft Window: Scrying the Past." I have to admit I shamelessly stole the idea from a previous panel put together by someone else (I'd love to know who! Ann Kent?) at Book Group Expo in San Jose way back in 2008. Here's a "historic" picture of us then:

From left, moderator Michelle Gagnon, me (how I miss those boots), Kathleen Kent, and Brunonia Barry. Photo courtesy of Secret Sushi, Flickr.

From this crowd, only Kathleen and I will be in St. Petersburgh, with added ranks of Mary Sharratt and Suzy Witten. Excited to see all three of these wonderful women again, as well as others I met at HNS 2011 in San Diego.

Writing is such a solitary activity--when we can get together, talk craft, laugh, have a glass of wine and listen to sex scenes...oh wait. I forgot (literally! I was just about to wrap up this post). I'm going to be reading a sex scene from Woman of Ill Fame at HNS too. Moderated by the supreme Diana Gabaldon, this event is a Saturday night standard at the conference.  I'm going to gulp some courage and read a scene. Wish me luck.


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Happy to announce... Annamaria Alfieri

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The last in my series featuring Historical Novels Society conference 

presenters, today’s post is an interview with mystery novelist Annamaria 

Alfieri. Her third book Blood Tango launches next month from St. 

Martin’s Press. Congratulations, Annamaria!

Her book’s description: “It is the most dramatic and tumultuous period 

in Argentina’s history. Colonel Juan Perón, who had been the most 

powerful and the most hated man in the country, has been forced out 

of power. Many people fear that his mistress, radio actress Evita Duarte, 

will use her skill at swaying the masses to restore him to office. When 

an obscure young woman is brutally murdered, police detective Roberto 

Leary concludes that the murderer mistook the girl for Evita, the intended 

target of someone out to eliminate the popular star from the political scene.”

Don’t cry for me, Annamaria….couldn’t resist that terrible joke. All right, 

let’s get to the meat of the interview, with questions prepared by the 

wonderful conference organizer Vanitha Sankaran.

Do you follow a specific writing and/or research process?

Yes.  I have the enormous privilege of being a Writer in Residence at 

the New York Public Library.  I am there researching and working four 

or five days a week. My process is to draft quickly and then polish 

and polish and polish.

For you, what is the line between fiction and fact?

I try to portray the facts and the atmosphere of the time and place 

vividly and more or less accurately.  But above all I want to tell a 

really good story, so I don’t let the details of the history get in the 

way of pace and the suspense.  If I want there to be a full moon 

on a certain night, I don’t worry if the moon really was full that day.  

On the other hand, I never portray real people doing things that the

person in question would never have done.  Historical character 

assassination is unnecessary.  There are plenty of bad guys in history 

to go around.

Is there a writer, living or deceased, you would like to meet?

William Shakespeare, who wrote the greatest historical fiction.  

Can you tell us about your latest publication?

Blood Tango is set in Buenos Aires in 1945, against the most 

tumultuous period in Argentine history.  It imagines the murder 

of an obscure girl who was Evita Duarte’s body double.  The 

investigator believes the girl was murdered because she was

mistaken for Evita. 

* * * *

Good luck with your launch on June 25, Annamaria, and thanks for 

participating in the blog tour.

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Tickled to announce...Julianne Douglas!

I’ve always enjoyed popping in and out of Julianne Douglas’s well-written history blog, Writing the Renaissance. No surprise, then, that she will be moderating a panel discussion at the Historical Novels Society conference titled, “Virtual Salon: The Historical Fiction Blog.” This will definitely be a fun one to catch!


I’m hosting Julianne today with questions prepared by Vanitha Sankaran, a fantastic writer and head of HNS’s conference board. Next month is the HNS conference in St. Petersburg, Florida: readers and writers alike are invited to attend.

1. What got you first interested in historical fiction?
Biographies! As a child, I devoured the Childhood of Famous Americans series. I particularly enjoyed the stories about women: Molly Pitcher, Clara Barton, Sacagawea, Amelia Earhart, Betsey Ross. The further in the past the subject lived, the more intriguing I found her story. At the age of 12, I discovered Jean Plaidy's historical novels. Plaidy's books were my first introduction to European history and through them I discovered a new world of kings and queens and courtiers--irresistibly compelling to a romantic teenager. I began to learn French and became a hopeless Francophile. College saw me double-major in English and French. Realizing there still remained many, many books to read, I went on to earn a Ph.D in French literature, specializing in the sixteenth century. When I chose to stay home with my toddlers instead of pursuing an academic career, I began to write historical fiction set in--you guessed it--Renaissance France. I'd found the way to put all that stuff I'd learned to good use!

 2. How do you find the people and topics of your books?
My academic work provided me the topic for my first manuscript, The Measure of Silence. In 1990 I published an article on the work of Louise Labé, the first non-noble woman to publish under her own name in France. Louise was an accomplished scholar whose verse was praised by the poetic luminaries of the day. However, being a woman of the merchant class and unable to claim the protection of a noble sponsor, she was vilified as a courtesan--and worse--for daring to "bare" herself to public scrutiny through publication. Determined to tell Louise's story, but not wanting to be bound by the constraints of a fictionalized biography, I created Jollande Carlet, a woman of similar socio-economic background living in the same center of Renaissance culture, the city of Lyons. While the details of Jollande's life differ from those of Louise's and the narrative follows tangents Louise herself would never recognize, Louise's historical situation and achievements support and justify Jollande's fictional ones. The novel is a salute to the long-dead poet, whose courage and resolution laid the groundwork for women writers of today.

A different poet sparked the genesis of my current manuscript. During a graduate seminar years ago, the professor referred to a poem by François I's court poet, Clément Marot. The work was a tribute to Emperor Charles V of Spain, who paid an extended state visit to France in 1539. The poem confused me at the time because I knew next to nothing about Charles V and his relations with France.  A few years ago, while searching for a topic for a new novel, I stumbled upon a description of this elaborate visit in a history book. Research proved it to be an exciting moment of artistic and political rivalries as France prepared to woo and impress its arch-enemy. Charles V is no longer a stranger to me, nor are the Italian artists who worked to renovate the château of Fontainebleau in time for the event. Anne d'Étampes, François I's mistress of twenty years, and Catherine Clouet, daughter of the famous portraitist, are my new best friends. If someone had told me that day in class that decades later I'd be quoting Marot's poem in a novel, I would have thought her a few lines short of a sonnet!

3. Do you have a crazy anecdote related to your writing you would like to share?
One evening last November, I attended a talk at my church. The speaker assured us that if we had a question for God and were fully prepared to accept the answer, He would provide it. Now, I'd been having some serious doubts about whether I was following the right path in life. My first manuscript, although it had secured me a first-class agent, hadn't sold; my current manuscript was taking way too long to write and the process itself had become arduous and stressful. My father's death a month earlier had shown me how short life could be; I worried I was wasting the little time I had pursuing a goal that would never amount to anything more than a selfish dream.

I prayed as I drove home, asking God outright: "Do You want me to keep on writing or do something else instead?" I pulled into the driveway and walked to the mailbox to retrieve the day's mail. Imagine my surprise when I pulled out a copy of Writer's Digest with "WRITE THAT NOVEL!" splashed across the cover! Immediately beneath it lay Historical Novels Review. I laughed out loud, tears of gratitude in my eyes. I had received my answer and it couldn't have been any clearer. (I’ve tacked that cover up on the wall above my desk to help me through the rough spots.) Let's hope I get as quick and as positive a response to the prayers I'll be sending up when my completed manuscript goes out on submission!

 * * *

Thank you, Julianne! I too loved reading biographies when I was a child, esp. the ones with orange covers: Clara Barton, Louisa May Alcott, all strong women. I loved them.

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Thrilled to announce...Diana Gabaldon

When I signed up to host presenters from the upcoming Historical Novels Society conference on my blog, I had no idea I’d be lucky enough to host big hitters like Diana Gabaldon (and see my last post: Anne Perry). It’s so exciting to have her here today!

I was first introduced to her work by author friend Jordan Rosenfeld, who pulled Outlander off her shelf where it lay in a long line of the series, saying, “Here you go; you’ll love this.” And of course I did. I relished every one of those six hundred pages! And was thrilled to see that, coming late to the game, there were a half-dozen books still to devour. I’ll never look at kilts the same way again.

 

Gabaldon’s bio from the HNS website reports that she: “is the author of the award-winning, best-selling Outlander novels, described by Salon as “the smartest historical sci-fi adventure-romance story ever written by a science Ph.D. with a background in scripting ‘Scrooge McDuck comics.” Outlander began in 1991 and has continued through several more bestselling novels, with twenty million copies in print worldwide. Diana has also written a sub-series featuring Lord John Grey. Diana emcee’d the fabulous “Late Night Sex Scene Readings” at the San Diego conference in 2011, and will be reprising this scandalous event again in St. Petersburg this year.”

(I saw those Sex Scene Readings in 2011 and they were very fun!)

Without any further ado, here are Gabaldon’s fantastic, funny answers to questions created by megamind author Vanitha Sankaran, head board member of the HNS conference. Wait, no, a little more ado: I was told I could pick and choose out of the answers, but I think they’re all wonderful and thus I include them en masse.

What got you first interested in historical fiction? 
I wasn’t any more interested in historical fiction than in any other kind; I just thought a historical novel might be the easiest thing for me to write for practice, since I was a research professor, and did know my way around a library. It seemed slightly easier to look things up than to make them up…and, I figured, if I turned out to have no imagination, I could steal things from the historical record.



How do you find the people and topics of your books?
They just sort of show up. I think it’s probably better if I don’t try to figure out where they’re coming from.

Do you follow a specific writing and/or research process? 
What, like the Palmer Method? (g) I imagine everyone’s got some routines that are specific to them, but on the whole, both writing and research are pretty organic. Personally, I do the writing and the research concurrently, because I find they feed off and reinforce each other. I have a rough sort of work schedule, but it’s flexible. I mostly write late at night, between midnight and 4 a.m.—much less intrusion and psychic noise.

For you, what is the line between fiction and fact? 
Er…are you implying that there are people who don’t know the difference? (g) Fiction is stuff I make up, and facts are…you know…facts. (Though I notice with interest that one source gives two definitions of “fact”: 1. A thing that is indisputably the case. 
1. 2. Information used as evidence or as part of a report or news article. 
I think that’s an interesting distinction, don’t you?)

  

Do you have an anecdote about a reading or fan interaction you'd like to share? 
Well, I have had no fewer than three young ladies come up to me at book-signings, turn around and lower their pants enough for me to see that they had “Da mi basia mille” (“Give me a thousand kisses.” It’s a quote from Catullus, used in one of my books) tattooed on their rumpuses. As my husband remarked, “It’s not everybody who can say, “Kiss my ass” in classical Latin.” 

Where do you feel historical fiction is headed as a genre? 
Frankly, I don’t worry about such things. 

Is there an era/area that is your favorite to write about? How about to read? 
The eighteenth century is one of my favorites, because it’s sufficiently near to our time that there’s a great deal of primary source material still available, and it’s reasonably accessible (in terms both of language and printing)—and at the same time, it was a huge period of intellectual, scientific and political upheaval and ferment. As for reading, I’ll read anything, as long as it’s well written. 

What are your favorite reads? Favorite movies? Dominating influences? 
I read so much of everything, it’s hard for any one influence to be truly dominant. Still, there are five writers whom I’d acknowledge as what you might call literary role models: Charles Dickens, Robert Louis Stevenson, John D. MacDonald, Dorothy L. Sayers, and P.G. Wodehouse. 

Is there a writer, living or deceased, you would like to meet? 
I do meet them, in the pages of their books. Writers really can’t hide, you know; everything they are is right there on the page.

  

What book was the most fun for you to write? 
 It’s always the one I’m presently working on, because that’s the one I don’t yet know everything about. (g)

Can you tell us about your latest publication? 
Well, the eighth Big OUTLANDER novel is coming right up, later this year. That’s WRITTEN IN MY OWN HEART’S BLOOD, set in 1778 (and in the 1980’s), in Colonial America (and Scotland…maybe a little bit in the Caribbean, I haven’t decided yet), and featuring All Kinds of Things, some of which are guaranteed to make the readership scream and hop up and down like peas on a hot shovel, and others that will make them melt into little puddles of goo. The most important thing is probably that THIS IS NOT THE LAST BOOK. (I’m pretty sure the ninth one is the final one.) 

Do you have a most interesting question or crazy anecdote related to your writing you would like to share?
Fortunately, my books seem to attract fairly benign nuts. I think this is probably because anyone who’s truly crazy doesn’t have a long enough attention span to read one. 

* 

Benign nuts, indeed. I think I qualify! Thanks so much, Diana, for taking the time to share your insights into your writing and thinking process



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