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Guest Post: Regina Jeffers’ Writing Space

November 10, 2011 by

With an influx of new Jane Austen inspired short stories and novels hitting the market, authors are looking for the best way to get readers’ attentions.  Regina Jeffers has written Christmas at Pemberley, in which Georgiana Darcy must embrace the challenges of her hostess duties while her brother and his wife, Elizabeth, are stranded in a small town on the way to Pemberley by a blizzard.  Jeffers uses the Christmas season to bring the Darcy, Bennet, and Bingley families under one roof, and you can imagine what kinds of rivalries and misunderstandings will occur.

Today, Regina will give us a sneak peek into her writing space and habits.  It also seems that we share a certain Mr. Darcy obsession, and my husband would definitely love her selection of NFL Quarterback since he loves the Miami Dolphins.

Finally, one lucky reader will receive a copy of her book by entering the giveaway below.  Without further ado, please welcome Regina:

For writing my novels, I prefer to have everything within my reach. Purposely, I separate where I actually compose my books from where I word process and edit my novels. I need the “disconnect” in order to separate the steps. I write my novels in spiral notebooks, usually wide ruled because I write large. I know from experience that 30 pages of my handwritten story equals ten pages of typed text (Times New Roman, 12 point font). I, personally, hate to read chapters that are longer than ten pages so I have trained myself to work toward that goal. If you read my novels, you’ll note the consistency in the length of my chapters.

Regina's Favorite Chair!

I love the reflected sunlight of this room. In the Regency period, this would have been a small sitting room used for waiting guests to be announced to the master. Note the lap desk, encyclopedic dictionary, and synonym finder beside my favorite chair. Some day, I will have to have this chair reupholstered. I fear my “inspiration” lies in the lumpy cushions. Normally, there is a cup of tea sitting on the nearby table. I brew my own – no American tea bags for me. One can also see my journal sitting at the side, along with my Bible. This is where the creative process comes about.

Once I have written the book, I retreat to my “office” space to do the hard work. My office is the smallest of the three bedrooms in my North Carolina home. From the window, I overlook the curve of the cul de sac upon which I live. Not much happens in this small incorporated village, something I appreciate. It is quiet and relatively crime free. When I first moved here in 2003, “Miss Kitty,” my neighbor, brought me over a chocolate cake. (I didn’t tell her that I prefer white cake to chocolate. It would be rude.) I love the South!!!

Matthew Macfayden Photos

The office reflects my eclectic tastes. I love oversized furniture. The walls hold my “interests.” Of course, there are multiple pictures of Matthew Macfadyen. I enjoy Colin Firth’s work (am a big fan), but I really LOVE Matthew. All the pictures are signed. Yes, I realize this is an obsession, but daily I remind myself that the word “fan” comes from “fanatic.” (BTW, I have seen “The Three Musketeers” six times to date.) I use post it notes of different colors to keep track of appearances, guest blogs, etc.

Miami Dolphins Quarterback Chad Pennington

I also am a big fan of Chad Pennington, the NFL quarterback. He attended Marshall University, where I went to school, but my respect for Pennington comes from his kindness to my son during the difficult period when my mother was dying. He showed himself to be a true gentleman. In Darcy’s Temptation, Chadwick Harrison is so called because of Pennington.

Although I do not write much outside, I often take a cup a tea and a bit of research of which I want to peruse and sit in one of the two “cozy” spaces I have created. The first is a sheltered area at the front of my house. I bricked it all in and set up the potted plants and benches. I loved my hybrid roses and the hibiscus, but mums and pansies surround the area also. In North Carolina, the vegetation lasts well into late November. Behind my house, there is another bench draped by a weeping willow. It serves the purpose well.

So, this is where I have managed to write twelve novels (Darcy’s Passions, Darcy’s Temptation (a 2009 Booksellers’ Best Award finalist), Vampire Darcy’s Desire, Captain Wentworth’s Persuasion, The Phantom of Pemberley (took 3rd in romantic suspense for the SOLA Awards), Christmas at Pemberley, The Scandal of Lady Eleanor, Honor and Hope, A Touch of Velvet, A Touch of Cashémere, First Wives’ Club, and Second Chances), in addition to two novellas (His Irish Eve and His American Heartsong) and one short story (“The Pemberley Ball”) in a little over four years.

Christmas at Pemberley is my newest release and is currently available. I have a December 1 deadline for The Disappearance of Georgiana Darcy, which will take up where Christmas at Pemberley leaves off, but it will be a cozy mystery, rather than an inspirational romance. I am working on two others (one Austen, one non-Austen) at the same time. This is my Writing World. Quite simple. Quite plain. All me.

Thanks, Regina for sharing your writing space with us.Please also check out the slide show of the remaining photos from her writing space.

For those readers interested in reading about the Darcys, Bennets, and Bingleys during the holidays, enter the giveaway below.

1. Leave a comment about what you found most interesting about Regina’s writing space.

2. For up to 3 more entries, share the giveaway on your blog, Facebook, and Twitter, and leave a link for each in the comments.

3. Follow Savvy Verse & Wit for another entry.

Deadline is Nov. 18, 2011, at 11:59PM EST (US/Canada only)

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Guest Post: The Next Best Thing to Being There by Gillian Bagwell

November 2, 2011 by

Gillian Bagwell‘s The September Queen was released on Nov. 1, and I was thrilled to host her again.  Today, she’s going to share with us her journey and give us a sneak peek into her opportunity to write the first fictional account of Jane Lane, an ordinary Staffordshire girl who risked her life to help the young Charles escape after the Battle of Worcester on September 3, 1651.

Jane Lane was a heroic figure, and I just adore historical fiction with such high drama.  Besides, isn’t the cover of this novel just gorgeous?

Please give Gillian a warm welcome.

I was thrilled that when my agent sold my first novel, The Darling Strumpet, she also sold my second book, as yet unwritten, and was very excited to have the opportunity to write the first fictional account of Jane Lane, an ordinary Staffordshire girl who risked her life to help the young Charles escape after the Battle of Worcester on September 3, 1651.

I wanted to retrace the path Jane had taken in her travels with Charles II, and as some of the places associated with my story would be shortly closing for the winter, and traveling around England wouldn’t get any easier as it got colder, wetter, and darker, I immediately planned a research trip. My friend Alice Northgreaves and I set out from London on October 26, 2009, making our way to Worcester, the site of the battle, from which Charles had fled to Staffordshire, where Jane became involved in his desperate flight.

Charles’s six-week odyssey covered more than 600 miles before he was finally able to sail from Shoreham near Brighton on October 15. After he was restored to the throne in 1660, the story of his escape became known as the Royal Miracle, because of the numerous times he narrowly eluded capture. He told the story to Samuel Pepys, and others also recorded their parts in it, so that the route of his travels is well known. The Monarch’s Way footpath can still be followed.

Some of the sites associated with Charles’s adventures are well preserved. It was thrilling to visit Boscobel House and Moseley Hall and to see the actual priest holes into which the fugitive king curled his six-foot-two-inch frame when hiding from Cromwell’s cavalry patrols. These lovely houses are beautifully maintained by English Heritage and the National Trust respectively, and we enjoyed very informative tours. Whiteladies, where Charles arrived and was hidden at about three a.m. on the morning after the battle, is now a ruin, but is only a short walk from Boscobel, and easily found. Jane’s home, Bentley Hall, is unfortunately no longer standing, but thanks to directions from the staff at Moseley, we were able to get pretty close to the site.

Following the path of Charles’s travels with Jane Lane, and in particular finding the sites of the some of the places where events on the journey had taken place – the inn and the smithy where Charles had to have a horse re-shod, for instance – was a little more complicated. Contemporary accounts provided their general route, through Bromsgrove, where Charles’s horse threw a shoe; to Stratford-Upon-Avon, where they had to ride among enemy soldiers crowding the street; and down to Long Marston, where they stayed at the home of Jane’s cousins John and Amy Tomes. They spent the next night in Cirencester, and reached Abbots Leigh near Bristol the following evening.

Finding that no ship would leave Bristol for France or Spain in less than a month, Charles and Jane then made their way southward to Castle Cary and then to Trent, in Dorset, where they stayed at the home of the Royalist Wyndham family.

When Alice and I weren’t sure about the location of some of we had very good success by popping into a pub to ask the locals, and in this way we were helped by the staff and patrons of the Red Lion in Bromsgrove, the Crown in Cirencester, and the George in Castle Cary.

Jane left Charles at Trent and returned home when it appeared that he would shortly be able to find passage on a boat from the southern coast of England. As it turned out, Charles spent another month in England before he was able to make his way to France, traveling to Charmouth, back to Trent in Dorset, then spending several days near Salisbury before sailing from Shoreham. But that part of his ordeal takes place offstage in The September Queen, which tells Jane’s story. Very little is known about what happened to her after she parted from Charles.

From the preliminary research I had done before embarking on my trip to England, I learned that when Jane’s part in helping Charles escape was discovered, she had fled with her brother and walked to Yarmouth, hoping to reunite with Charles in France. As one book identified Yarmouth as a small town on the south coast near the Isle of Wight, I believed that her travels took her through much the same country through which she had journeyed with Charles.

It was only when I got home to California that I learned to my dismay that there was another Yarmouth – on the east coast of England, and so in a completely different direction and through vastly different country than where I thought she had walked. This part of her story was very important, and I needed to know what she had experienced. But it just wasn’t possible for me to go back to England for a second trip.

I would have to reconstruct Jane’s journey some other way. From a book on historical maps, I learned that in 1686 John Ogilby had published a book of road maps of England – 35 years past Jane’s date, but close enough that not much would have changed. I was overjoyed to find online and be able to buy a 1939 facsimile of the book, which shows the routes between major cities, laid out on parallel strips across the page. It’s a little hard to get used to looking at a map like that, but it gave me an idea of much of the route that Jane would likely have traveled to get from Staffordshire to Yarmouth, and just as wonderfully, depicted the roads and the country surrounding them in great detail, showing the kind of terrain, and features such as villages, bridges, and even large houses and windmills.

But the book didn’t provide guidance for some of the way that Jane must have walked. Another difficulty to surmount. Fortunately, a writer today is blessed with the vast resources of the internet, and I was able to accomplish forensic travel research in a way that wouldn’t have been possible even a few years ago. Google Maps and Google Earth to the rescue! I used Google Maps to ask for directions from one major town on Jane’s route to the next, and then zoomed in close enough to discover the names of the roads, which provided major clues. Unlike many roads in the U.S., which are named somewhat haphazardly or fancifully, old roads in England are frequently still called simply by where they led. So, for instance, finding a road labeled Norwich Road let me know that it was likely that was the path Jane would have followed to reach Norwich. Then I could soar along above the road to see what the landscape was like – and again fortunately for me, even now much of England is rural, and the countryside hasn’t changed substantially from what it had been like in 1651.

So miraculously, I was able to write the long sequence in which Jane and her brother walk from Bentley to Yarmouth accurately describing what they would have seen.

I was able to use up-to-the-minute technology to help me with this very old story in another way, too. When Alice and I were where we thought should be the site of Jane’s home Bentley Hall, just off the Wolverhampton Road near Walsall, we weren’t sure we had found it. There was a muddy building site that we thought might be where the house had stood, but the area is sadly very run down and not at all like what it would have been in Jane’s time. We asked in a shop if anyone knew about Bentley Hall, and were directed to the home of a local lady, Pauline Gibson, who we were told knew a lot about the area’s history. But she wasn’t home, and the neighbor with whom we left a note didn’t know when she’d be back.

We had to press on in order to get to our appointment to tour Packington, where Jane lived in later life. But having come so close, I was reluctant to leave without knowing we were in the right place. On an inspiration, I pulled out my iPhone and Googled “Bentley Hall Staffordshire.” Bingo! Up popped Michael Shaw and Danny McAree’s article “The Rediscovery of Bentley Hall, Walsall,” originally published in West Midlands Archaeology Vol. 50 (2007), pages 2-5. It told me that we were very near the site of Jane’s home. We still couldn’t find the cairn that was supposed to mark its location, and it wasn’t until I spoke by phone with Pauline Gibson later that I learned we should have continued another hundred yards or so south, but still, I had been able to find the place that Jane had lived, to see the horizon at which she would have gazed, and to feel the cool October breeze she would have known in that spot.

Still other parts of Jane’s story took place in Paris and The Hague, and to a lesser extent in Breda, Spa, Aix-la-Chapelle, Dusseldorf, and Cologne. It was just as impossible for me to visit those place in person as it had been for me to return to England. But once more I was fortunate in being able to find online old images and descriptions of these places, which, with modern images and descriptions, and help from my friend Kirsten Shepard, who was fortuitously in Paris at the time, I could conjure the backdrops for scenes from my book without ever leaving home.

Not as much fun as traveling for research, but as Jane might have said, “Needs must when the devil drives!”

Thanks, Gillian! Sounds like you really enjoyed your research, and we look forward to more novels.  Please check out the slide show below:

Gillian Bagwell Copyright Brendan Elms

About the Author:

Gillian Bagwell grew up in Berkeley, California, and began her professional life as an actress, studying at the University of California Berkeley and the Drama Studio London at Berkeley before relocating to Los Angeles to pursue a career in film and television. She moved into directing and producing theatre, founding The Pasadena Shakespeare Company, where she served as artistic director for nine years, producing thirty-seven critically acclaimed productions.

She united her life-long love of books, British history, and theatre in writing her first novel, The Darling Strumpet, based on the life of Nell Gwynn. Her second novel, The September Queen, is the first fictional account of the perilous and romantic odyssey of Jane Lane, an ordinary English girl who risked her life to help the young Charles II escape after the disastrous Battle of Worcester in 1651 by disguising him as her servant. Gillian recently returned to Berkeley and is at work on her third novel, about the formidable four-times widowed Tudor dynast Bess of Hardwick.

Please visit her Website, her blog, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

To enter to win 1 copy of The September Queen by Gillian Bagwell (US only):

1.  Leave a comment about why you’d like to read the novel.

2.  Follow Gillian on Twitter and Facebook for 2 more entries, leave your Twitter/Facebook names.

3.  Blog, Tweet, or Facebook the giveaway for up to 3 more entries and leave a link to the posts.

Deadline is Nov. 9, 2011, at 11:59PM EST.

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Guest Post: Trick or Treating with Jane Austen Made Me Do It by Laurel Ann Nattress

October 30, 2011 by

Earlier this week I reviewed Jane Austen Made Me Do It edited by Laurel Ann Nattress of Austenprose fame.  This collection provides readers with a wide breath of Jane Austen inspired short stories that range from love and romance to witty humor and mystery.

Today, Laurel has graced us with her presence (and a giveaway) to talk about the more spooky stories in the collection in honor of Halloween, which is tomorrow.  Get your candles burning and your costumes on; it’s time to trick or treat . . . or at least have a costume party with a little Jane Austen.

Without further ado, here’s Laurel.  Please give her a warm welcome and stay tuned for the giveaway.

Hi Serena, I am so honored to be here today at Savvy Verse & Wit during my Grand Tour of the blogosphere in celebration of the release of my new Austen-inspired anthology, Jane Austen Made Me Do It.

Halloween is tomorrow and I am all anticipation of a favorite holiday. One of the things I loved about it as a child was that I could be anyone, or anything, I wanted to be for one night of the year. I used to get very creative with my costumes! Being a child of the “television generation,” my costume choices were strongly influenced by what I had recently seen on T.V. I remember trick or treating in a hoop skirt one year as Scarlet O’Hara after seeing the movie Gone with the Wind! One wonders out loud what I would be influenced to be now? Jane Austen? Oh, I wouldn’t dare. I think I could be one of her characters, but never the Incomparable One. 😉

We don’t know if the Austen family celebrated All-Hallows Eve in Hampshire when Austen was a girl, but since they were very fond of family theatricals, I could imagine them reading out loud from the popular Gothic fiction novels of the day like, The Mysteries of Udolpho or The Monk, and scaring each other with horrid tales. Jane would later be so influenced by the Gothic genre that in 1798-99 she would write a parody of it. First entitled Susan, and later renamed as Northanger Abbey, the novel was published posthumously after her death in 1817. One of Austen’s lesser known works, I consider Northanger a hidden jewel, full of tongue-in cheek humor, allusions to Gothic fiction and more importantly, containing one of her most charming and endearing heroes, the teasingly witty Henry Tilney.

Because of its Gothic elements, I always gravitate to Northanger Abbey during this time of year. It never fails to charm, delight and make me laugh out loud at Austen’s audacity at having fun with her characters and the genre. My new Austen-inspired short story anthology, Jane Austen Made Me Do It, contains twenty-two original stories, five of which are perfect for a Gothic reading on the Halloween holiday. Interestingly, they all are contemporary tales. The first two are heavily inspired by Austen’s Northanger Abbey: “A Night at Northanger” and “The Mysterious Closet,” the third, “The Ghostwriter” features Jane Austen as a advice giving ghost, the fourth transports Austen’s most iconic romantic hero, Mr. Darcy, into the twenty-first century in “Me and Mr. Darcy, Again,” and the fifth, “Intolerable Stupidity,” is a high burlesque comedy involving Mr. Darcy in a law suit against those responsible for modern adaptations and spinoff’s. Here is a description of each:

“A Night at Northanger,” by Lauren Willig

Our heroine, Cate Cartwright, is part of the cast of “Ghost Trekkers”, currently filming at one of England’s most haunted homes, Northanger Abbey. Naturally, Cate knows there’s no such thing as ghosts. It’s all smoke and mirrors for the credulous who watch late night TV. At least, that’s what she thinks… until she meets the shade of one Miss Jane Austen during one fateful night at Northanger.

“The Mysterious Closet: A Tale,” by Myretta Robens

In the wake of her most recent failed relationship, Cathy Fullerton takes an extended vacation in a converted Abbey in Gloucestershire, England. Ensconced in the Radcliffe Suite, a jet-lagged Cathy mistakes a walk-in closet for a Vaulted Chamber, a clothing rack for an Instrument of Torture and an accumulation of cobwebs for her True Love.

“The Ghostwriter,” by Elizabeth Aston

Sara, obsessed with Pride and Prejudice, is jilted by Charles, who can’t compete with Mr. Darcy. His parting gift is a lock of Jane Austen’s hair. Sara wakes the next morning to find a strange woman sitting on the end of her bed. A figment of her imagination? No, it’s the astringent ghost of Jane Austen. On a mission to restore the reputation of forgotten Gothic author Clarissa Curstable, Jane Austen saves Sara’s career and brings Charles back before taking herself off into the ether, but there’s a price to pay, as the couple discover when they wake up to find another ghostly visitor at the end of the bed. It’s Jane’s friend, Clarissa – and she plans to stay.

“Me and Mr. Darcy, Again…,” by Alexandra Potter

Mr. Darcy is every woman’s fantasy. But what happens when he becomes one woman’s reality? In 2007 Emily traveled from New York to England to go on a Jane Austen-inspired literary tour. There she met and fell in love with Spike, an English journalist.

She also met Mr. Darcy… Or did she? She can never be sure if it really happened, or it was her over-active imagination. Now, four years later, she’s had a huge row with Spike and is back in London nursing a broken heart. And there’s only one person who can mend it. Mr. Darcy….

“Intolerable Stupidity,” by Laurie Viera Rigler

Well hidden from the ordinary world, in a little-known corner of jurisprudential hell known as the Court of Intolerable Stupidity, a legal drama of literary proportions unfolds. The plaintiff is none other than the most famous romantic hero of all time, Mr. Darcy. The defendants are the authors who dared write sequels, adaptations, and inspired-by’s of his Creator’s most beloved work, Pride and Prejudice. One of those works, whose author was tried and convicted in absentia, is so popular that its salacious swimming-in-the-lake scene has resulted in Darcy’s being forced to endure a perpetual state of shivering wetness in a transparent white shirt. For when Darcy’s adoring public isn’t throwing water on him, his umbrella breaks in the midst of a downpour. And now, between the zombies and the vampires, Darcy and his wife Elizabeth are at their wit’s end. So is defense attorney Fritz Williams, who not only fights a losing battle in a kangaroo court ruled by Darcy’s tyrannical aunt, the Honorable Lady Catherine de Bourgh, but also his secret infatuation with prosecuting attorney Tawny Wolfson. Who has her own secret: a hopeless addiction to the illegal miniseries that she is supposed to abhor.

I hope that readers find Austen’s creative spirit and witty Gothic humor this Halloween by indulging in a bit of trick or treating with Jane Austen Made Me Do It. Please enjoy one of my favorite passages between Austen’s hero and heroine of Northanger Abbey to set the mood.

“You have formed a very favourable idea of the abbey.”

“To be sure, I have. Is not it a fine old place, just like what one reads about?”

“And are you prepared to encounter all the horrors that a building such as ‘what one reads about’ may produce? Have you a stout heart? Nerves fit for sliding panels and tapestry?”

– Henry Tilney and Catherine Morland, Chapter 20

 

Thanks so much, Laurel; it was great hosting you!

About the Editor:

A life-long acolyte of Jane Austen, Laurel Ann Nattress is the author/editor of Austenprose.com a blog devoted to the oeuvre of her favorite author and the many books and movies that she has inspired. She is a life member of the Jane Austen Society of North America, a regular contributor to the PBS blog Remotely Connected and the Jane Austen Centre online magazine. An expatriate of southern California, Laurel Ann lives in a country cottage near Snohomish, Washington.  Visit Laurel Ann at her blogs Austenprose.com and JaneAustenMadeMeDoIt.com, on Twitter as @Austenprose, and on Facebook as Laurel Ann Nattress.

To Enter the Giveaway for 1 copy of Jane Austen Made Me Do It edited by Laurel Ann Nattress (US/Canada only):

1.  Leave a comment about your favorite Halloween story or what intrigues you about reading an Austen-inspired short story anthology.

2.  Follow Laurel Ann Nattress on Facebook and Twitter, leaving a comment here that you did with your Facebook and Twitter names for 2 more entries.

3.  Leave a comment on my review for another entry.

4.  Blog, Tweet, Facebook the giveaway and leave a link here for up to 3 more entries.

Deadline is Nov. 7, 2011, at 11:59PM EST.

Winners to be drawn at random! Good luck to all!

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Guest Post: Abigail Reynolds Ponders 200th Anniversaries of Jane Austen Novels

October 19, 2011 by

Abigail Reynolds is a master at answering the What If? question when it comes to Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet’s romance in her re-tellings.  Whether Mr. Darcy decides to hold his tongue at the Meryton Assembly or doesn’t botch his proposal to her in Kent, Reynolds finds new ways to keep this couple and readers guessing as to whether they will get together.  Mr. Darcy’s Undoing is the latest in her What If? series of books and seeks to uncover how far Darcy will go to woo Lizzy if after his disastrous proposal she accepts one from another man.

Today, Reynolds will share with you what inspires her to write her re-imaginings and what the significance of this year’s 200th anniversary of Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen means to her.  Without further ado, please welcome Abigail.

This year’s Annual General Meeting of the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA) was dedicated to the 200th anniversary of the publication of Sense & Sensibility. It’s a major event in the Janeite world. Although Pride & Prejudice was the first novel Austen wrote, Sense & Sensibility was the first one published, so it’s our first bicentennial publication event. Pride & Prejudice, Austen’s best known and most popular book, won’t have its 200th anniversary of publication until 2013.

I write variations on Pride & Prejudice, novels in which I’ve taken the original and changed one key event. In my latest release, Mr. Darcy’s Undoing, the change is a whopper. Elizabeth Bennet, rather than remaining single until she encounters Darcy at Pemberley, becomes engaged to another man, a childhood friend whom she cares for and trusts, but doesn’t love. This changes the plot quite decisively, creating dramatic tension about how Darcy and Elizabeth will reach their happy ending. That’s the trick of a variation: to find something that changes the events of the novel but doesn’t interfere with the ending. Most changes I could make to the plot don’t produce dramatic effects. If Darcy doesn’t attend the Meryton Assembly, he’d have the same reaction to Elizabeth at a later date. If Elizabeth didn’t travel to Kent where she re-encounters Darcy, the events there would just take place whenever they next met, or they would never meet again and the ending would be different. I couldn’t make a book out of those.

When I’m asked which Austen heroine I resemble most, it’s an easy call. I’m definitely an Elinor, and as a result, Sense & Sensibility will always be very dear to my heart. It’s tied with Persuasion for my 2nd favorite Jane Austen novel. I’ve often considered doing a variation on it, but it’s hard to find an appropriate turning point to change. Part of that is because the novel follows three romances rather one – Marianne/Willoughby, Marianne/Colonel Brandon, and Elinor/Edward Ferrars. To create a balanced variation, something would have to occur to interfere with all three of those romantic possibilities, but without causing a change in the ending. That’s very tricky, given the complexity of relationships between many of the characters. Another issue for me is that, being an Elinor, it would be hard for me to portray Elinor fairly or Marianne as effectively as I’d like. Persuasion is a more promising candidate for a variation simply because of the possible turning points in it.

Truth be told, aside from attending the JASNA celebration, the 200th anniversary of Sense & Sensibility hasn’t affected me much simply because it’s been overwhelmed by another anniversary for me as an author of Pride & Prejudice variations. It’s also the 200th anniversary of the events of Pride & Prejudice. The Meryton Assembly took place on October 15, 1811. November 12 will be the 200th anniversary of the day Jane Bennet rode through the rain to dine at Netherfield park with the Bingley sisters. I’m involved in a project with many of my fellow authors of Austen-inspired novels at the Austen Authors website wherein we’re tracking the events of Pride & Prejudice in real time. Dubbed the P&P200 project, we take turns portraying missing scenes from Pride & Prejudice and existing scenes from different points of view, and we post them on the 200th anniversary of the given event. It’s turned out to be a fascinating project, not only in making me consider the time frames involved in the book in a different way, but in making me look more closely at secondary characters, and discovering they have backstories of their own that I’ve never considered. It’s a different kind of anniversary celebration, but it’s been enriching my understanding of Jane Austen, and that’s what all my writing is about.

Thanks for hosting me today!

Abigail, thank you for sharing your thoughts with us today on Sense & Sensibility and Jane Austen.  Stay tuned for my review of Mr. Darcy’s Undoing at the end of the week.

Filed Under: guest post, Publishers/Publicists, sourcebooks Tagged With: ,

Guest Post: The 200th Anniversary of Sense & Sensibility

October 6, 2011 by

Depending on how much you love Jane Austen and her books, you may already know this, but Sense & Sensibility turns 200 on October 30 and was her first published novel.

According to GoodReads:

Marianne Dashwood wears her heart on her sleeve, and when she falls in love with the dashing but unsuitable John Willoughby she ignores her sister Elinor’s warning that her impulsive behaviour leaves her open to gossip and innuendo. Meanwhile Elinor, always sensitive to social convention, is struggling to conceal her own romantic disappointment, even from those closest to her. Through their parallel experience of love—and its threatened loss—the sisters learn that sense must mix with sensibility if they are to find personal happiness in a society where status and money govern the rules of love.

While not my favorite of Austen’s work, it’s an accomplishment to have a novel still be well-known and popular among readers almost 200 years after publication. I’m sure many authors would be pleased to have such an accomplishment.

Today, Mary Lydon Simonsen, author of Mr. Darcy’s Bite, will share her thoughts on the 200th anniversary.  Please welcome Mary:

Hi, Serena. Thank you for having me back at Savvy Verse & Wit. It’s always a pleasure.

You asked me to write about the significance of the 200th Anniversary of the publication of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility and my reaction to it and Austen’s novel.

I recently took one of those online quizzes to see which Austen character I most resemble. As it turns out, I am Elinor Dashwood, the main protagonist in Sense and Sensibility. Even though I like Elinor, I have a lot of problems with this novel. I don’t think Edward Ferrars deserves Elinor, and I think Marianne Dashwood and Colonel Brandon are poorly matched. I would like to strangle Lucy Steele and perform surgery on John Willoughby. Although Austen wraps up the story with a happily-ever-after ending for Marianne and Elinor, I don’t think that’s the way it would have played out in real life.

Having said all that, you can still appreciate Austen’s genius with her brilliant prose and delightful wit in this story of a family of four females trying to survive without a strong male presence in their lives. But it is mostly because of the 200th anniversary of the publication of Austen’s novel that it is now front and center (that and Emma Thompson’s 1995 brilliant film adaptation).

But in my opinion, Austen’s masterpiece is Pride and Prejudice. Like Edward Ferrars, Fitzwilliam Darcy is a flawed character, but because of his love for Elizabeth, Darcy evolves, recognizes his shortcomings, and becomes a man worthy of her love. It is because of these two strong characters that most of my stories are re-imaginings of Pride and Prejudice, including Mr. Darcy’s Bite. Although Darcy is a werewolf, it is primarily a love story. Obviously, there are difficulties when a loved one grows fur every four weeks, but our favorite couple is determined to climb every mountain, ford every stream, follow every full moon until they find their dream.

I did write a short-story parody of Sense and Sensibility titled Elinor and Edward’s Plans for Lucy Steele in which Elinor doesn’t wait on Edward to make an offer of marriage. Instead, Elinor hops in the driver’s seat and drives the bus (or phaeton) herself. I wanted to shine some comedic light on a story that has a lot of darkness in it.

Every author hopes that with each succeeding work of fiction, they become a better writer. I certainly think that is true of Jane Austen. Although flawed, Sense and Sensibility is still a novel well worth reading. In fact, the Annual General Meeting of the Jane Austen Society of North America is using this novel and Austen’s anniversary as the focus of their meeting in Fort Worth this month. It will be the main topic of conversation among hundreds of Jane Austen admirers now and for decades to come.

Thanks again, Serena, for having me.

Mary, it is always a pleasure to host you.

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Guest Post: Keeping out the Distractions by Heather Lynn Rigaud

September 29, 2011 by

Anyone who reads this blog knows that Pride & Prejudice spinoffs and retellings are my guilty pleasure, and another guilty pleasure of mine is providing my readers with an inside look into author’s writing spaces.  Heather Lynn Rigaud, author of Fitzwilliam Darcy Rock Star, is the latest author of a Pride & Prejudice retelling to offer up a glimpse into her writing space.

About the book from Amazon:

Fitzwilliam Darcy, Slurry’s tall, dark, and enigmatic virtuoso guitarist, knows that this is no time to be picky, but he never expected what was waiting when he, Charles Bingley and Richard Fitzwilliam crashed the Meryton Public House.

Elizabeth Bennet, the fiercely independent and talented lead singer of Long Borne Suffering has serious reservations about joining such a trouble laden tour with the bad boys of Rock and Roll, but the opportunity is just too good to pass up!

On the Slurry tour, the music’s hot, but backstage is an inferno.

Stay tuned for my review tomorrow (9/30).  Without further ado, I will turn it over to Heather Rigaud.

Hi Serena,

Your name reminds me of Venice, which has always been known as the ‘Serene Republic‘ or ‘Serenissima’. Its history is a special interest of mine.

Anyway, you’ve asked me about my writing space. That means I need to do some cleaning, before we get to pictures.

There we go. Now, I have to admit, my writing area sounds a whole lot better than it looks. Its tucked into a corner of my living room, and my living room, like the rest of my house, is the home of a very active family. It’s a place where things happen and so consequently its not going to look like a showroom. That’s not to say it’s covered in filth, not by any means. But it means things are out. There are books everywhere, there are papers in the midst of being worked on are on many of the surfaces. There are knitting projects, sewing projects, soapmaking projects, … you get the idea.

Heather's Writing Desk

The other thing you’ll notice is that it’s a pretty uninteresting corner. There’s no art on the walls, there’s no window. That’s by design, because I’m easily distracted. I need someplace not stimulating to be able to work on the stuff in my head. And that’s what writing really is. By the same token, I really prefer to be alone when I’m writing, so most of my work happens when my sons are at school.

Now that I’ve made all my excuses, let’s talk about the good stuff- the desk. When my husband and I were freshly married and furnishing our home, we looked at the desks that were available new. Frankly, we weren’t impressed. For what they cost, the quality was very poor and they were, sorry-there’s no other word, ugly. We just couldn’t bring ourselves to spend that much money on something poorly made that looked like it wouldn’t last a year.

We were both fans of the classic roll-top desk style, so we hit on the idea of buying an old desk-an antique. And we found one. It was solid, made from oak, and the price was right. It will never be on Antiques Roadshow. It doesn’t have a fancy provenance or anything. It’s just a good desk, so it came home with us and it’s been my writing station for years.

We even found a matching rolling chair, in the same color and style to go with it. I’d include a picture, but the seat is caned and needs to be replaced. (We’ve already done that twice, so frankly, it’s not high on our priority list.)

What you can’t see in a picture is my music. I might not tolerate visual distractions, but I love audio ones. When I’m writing, I’ll often set up a specific songlist for the chapter I’m working on. It helps me get into the head-space I’m seeking, and in Fitzwilliam Darcy Rock Star, was usually included in the chapter. It’s not just Rock music, either. I use classical, Celtic, Jazz and other styles as well.

My computer is an Apple MacBook. We’ve been Apple fans since the 80’s and while it’s an expensive love affair, I don’t see it ending any time soon. I write directly into my computer, instead of hand writing it on paper and then typing it in, as my handwriting is more of a hindrance than a help. Plus, I’m way faster at typing. I have noticed that while I’ll surf the internet in any location and in any position, when I’m writing, I need to be sitting up straight in a hard chair. I don’t know if it’s a hold over from my school days or what, but doing work calls for a work posture for me.

That’s my work environment. I wish I had a prettier place for the pictures at least, but I don’t believe it would help my writing and it might actually hurt it. Thanks for having me here today and thanks for reviewing my book. I’m looking forward to hearing from your readers.

Thanks, Heather, for sharing your writing space with us, but we wouldn’t have minded the mess.

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Guest Post: Navigating a Flexible Writing Space by Joan Leegant

September 27, 2011 by

Joan Leegant, author of Wherever You Go, will be sharing her writing space with us shortly, but I wanted to share a bit about this book and offer a giveaway to my U.S. readers (sorry, the publisher is sponsoring it).

From the publisher:

“In this sweeping and beautifully written novel, Joan Leegant weaves together three lives caught in the grip of a volatile and uncompromising faith. Yona Stern has traveled to Jerusalem from New York to make amends with her sister, a stoic mother of five dedicated to the hard-line settlement cause. Mark Greenglass, a gifted Talmud teacher and former drug dealer saved by religion, has lost his passion and wonders if he’s done with God. Enter Aaron Blinder, an unstable college dropout with a history of failure who finds a home on the radical fringe of Israeli society. Emotionally gripping and unmistakably timely, Wherever You Go tells the story of three Americans in Israel and the attractions–and dangers– of Jewish extremism, its effect on families, and its threat to the modern democratic state.”

Doesn’t this sound like a great book club selection; there’s so much to discuss.  Check out reviews of this book from Unabridged Chick, Life in the Thumb, Among Stories, the TLC Book Tour stops, Caribousmom, and For Book’s Sake.

Please welcome Joan:

The novelist Kent Haruf writes his first drafts with a stocking cap pulled over his face so he can’t see what he’s producing and second-guess every word and comma, and thereby lose the thread of his story. John Steinbeck required the noise of a washing machine in the background in order to compose The Grapes of Wrath. Once, during a residency at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire—an artist retreat on hundreds of secluded acres where painters, writers, composers and other creative types are given their own studios and abundant solitude—a newly-arrived novelist appeared at dinner flush with excitement after her first day’s work. What had she accomplished? we all asked. She’d covered every soaring window in her assigned space, a handsome stone structure abutting picture-postcard fields dotted with the occasional deer—and where, 60 years earlier, Aaron Copland wrote the music for the ballet Billy the Kid—with black construction paper. The view, she said, was too distracting.

Joan's writing room

Writers do all kinds of strange things to create the necessary conditions for writing. Perhaps because I began writing fiction when my children were very young, my sons then 3 and 5, I’ve cultivated a certain useful flexibility. For a time, I wrote in a small overheated room next to the one my boys shared. When they began staying up later into the evening (my peak writing hours), I decamped to the basement. This was next to the laundry, which was both convenient and conducive; getting up to change the wash was often precisely what was needed to clear my head and solve a thorny problem. When my younger son took up the drums, he and his instruments migrated downstairs and I went up a level and took over an enclosed porch.

I didn’t mind moving around and I didn’t care, and still don’t, about the furnishings; in fact, my preferred working surface is a folding table. Outfitting whatever space is mine with a proper desk or other items meant to bring to mind the word “writerly” feels pressured or forced. It reminds me of a visit to a clothing shop before my first book tour. I owned mainly jeans and a few dresses more appropriate for funerals and weddings than book talks. I told the saleswoman I was a writer and needed a couple of things I could quickly pack into a suitcase and just as quickly unpack. After dramatically draping me in black, she then layered on all manner of elaborately tied scarves and chunky necklaces and bohemian-ish silver bracelets and belts because, she said, “this is how authors are supposed to look.” Problem was, I didn’t know how to put any of the stuff on by myself. I would have had to pack her in the suitcase too.

Joan writing at her friend's apartment

These days I do most of my writing in a rented room attached to someone else’s house a fifteen minute walk from my own. It’s part of a former dental office—the house’s owners think it was the original waiting room—which seems fitting. I often feel like I’m waiting for someone, mostly my characters, who sometimes seem as eager to be hanging out with me as I would be to hang out with the person about to give me a root canal. And there are certainly days in that room when I feel like I’m pulling teeth.

During the final revisions of my novel Wherever You Go, I added pages and pages of hand-written prose, and heavily marked up the manuscript. For months, this was my only working copy. I wouldn’t let it out of my sight. I brought it home from my writing room every night and carried it back there the next day. When I flew to Tel Aviv to teach for a semester, the manuscript took up all the space in my carry-on. Among the many pleasures of emailing the final version to the publisher was that I could stop lugging around all that weight. Until I began the next project, of course. But that is—I hope—another story.

Thanks, Joan, for sharing your writing space with us. I wish you great success with your book.  Please check out these interesting videos about her work and the book.

About the Author:

Joan Leegant is also the author of a story collection, An Hour In Paradise, winner of the 2004 PEN/L.L. Winship Award for outstanding book by a New England author and the Edward Lewis Wallant Award, as well as a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award and selection for the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Series. Formerly a lawyer, for eight years she taught writing at Harvard University. The mother of two adult sons, she divides her time between Newton, Massachusetts and Tel Aviv, where she teaches at Bar-Ilan University.

To Enter the giveaway for 1 copy of Wherever You Go by Joan Leegant, you must be a U.S. resident or have someone in the U.S. willing to accept the book for you.

1. Leave a comment about why you want to read this book.
2. Facebook, Tweet, or otherwise spread the word about the giveaway and leave a link (up to 3 additional entries).
3. Follow this blog for another entry.

Deadline is Oct. 4, 2011, at 11:59PM EST.

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Guest Post & Giveaway: Liza Gyllenhaal’s Move to Rural Inspiration

September 21, 2011 by

Today’s guest is Liza Gyllenhaal, author of So Near, and she’s going to share with us her writing space.

But first, let’s take a look at her book.  According to Amazon.com’s synopsis, “In the aftermath of a devastating loss, Cal and Jenny Horigan’s marriage is unraveling.  Both are plagued by guilt, unable to seek comfort from one another.  Burdened by remorse, they begin to lose sight of the love that once anchored them-together with their sense of right and wrong.  As the Horigans try different ways to deal with their pain, a new acquaintance seems to offer the support they desperately need-though at times they are unsure whether his guidance is leading them back to each other or further apart.”

Look at that cover, those big flowers are just so eye-catching and remind me of spring and renewal.  Let’s hope the same renewal can happen for Gyllenhaal’s characters, which you can find out if you win the giveaway. 

For some reviews of So Near, please check out Life in the Thumb and 5 Minutes for Books.

Without further ado, please welcome Liza Gyllenhaal:

Where Liza works in the winter

During the years I worked in advertising in New York City, I would try to fit in an hour or two of writing every morning in my cramped apartment. I used to dream of one day having my own writing studio. If Henry James thought “summer afternoon” were the two most beautiful words in the English language, I began to feel that “writing studio” took a close second. I imagined it in the woods somewhere with a fireplace or wood-burning stove — rustic and musty and so quiet you could hear the mice scrabbling around in the walls.

Writing studio in the Berkshires

Fifteen years ago, I was able to sell my advertising agency and buy my dream — a place in the country — or, more specifically, the beautiful Berkshire Hills of Western Massachusetts. It included a small farmhouse and an old horse stable which became my “writing studio.” It still has the old iron stall feeders and leather harnesses on the walls. It remains permeated by a wonderful smell of animal and old hay. It’s where I wrote most of my first novel Local Knowledge and my just published new novel called So Near — both set in the Berkshire area.

Liza inside the studio — on the laptop

I wake up early and reread and rewrite on my laptop in the house, but in the afternoon I go out to the studio, bolt the door, and start the hard work of writing the next new word, sentence, paragraph, chapter. In the winter I have a fire going in the Jotul stove, in the summer I have all the windows open and can hear the seasonal brook and birdsong. This summer, I watched a family of wild turkeys — 17 in all — parading up and down in the old paddock. Other sightings: woodchuck, coyote, fox, and early last spring, when the trees were just greening out, a big black bear. It was a breathtaking moment when this wall of darkness lumbered right past me — so close that, if the window had been open, I could have reached out and run my hand through the bear’s ink-black fur.

Thanks so much for sharing your writing space with us, Liza.

Sounds like a place I’d love to visit just for some down time and relaxation, though I do more writing in public places where there are lots of people to watch!

About the Author:

She was raised in a small town in Pennsylvania which, at the time she was growing up, was fairly rural and very lovely—much like the area of the Berkshire Hills in Massachusetts where she now live part of the time with her husband.

She studied poetry at University of Iowa Writing Workshop before moving to New York City and began a career in publishing and advertising.  She tried to continue writing poetry, but gradually moved to romance and other genres before her first novel.

In addition to writing, she works on behalf of various non-profits in New York City and the Berkshires. She also is the past chairperson of The Academy of American Poets and currently serves on its executive committee. (– excellent news to me since I just love that organization, am a card-carrying member, and blog about it all the time — funny how small the world is sometimes).

Please follow her on Twitter and Facebook, and check out her blog.

Now for the giveaway.  I have 2 copies So Near for US/Canadian readers.

1.  To Enter, leave a comment about where you do your blogging or reading and why.

2.  Facebook, Tweet, or blog about the giveaway for additional entries. (for up to 3 other entries).

3.  Follow this blog for another 2 entries. If you already follow, let me know.

Deadline for the giveaway is Sept. 30, 2011, at 11:59PM EST.

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Guest Post: Mark Mustian’s Writing Space

September 8, 2011 by

The Gendarme by Mark Mustian comes out in paperback this month. 

This cover is so captivating with its vibrant blue head covering and eye, but it is also mysterious.  These elements are what attracted me to the book when it was initially talked about during the hardcover release. 

Check out these reviews from Booking Mama, She Is Too Fond of Books, S. Krishna’s Books, and Devourer of Books.

Synopsis from GoodReads:

Emmett Conn is an old man, near the end of his life. A World War I veteran, he’s been affected by memory loss since being injured during the war. To those around him, he’s simply a confused man, fading in and out of senility. But what they don’t know is that Emmett has been beset by memories, of events he and others have denied or purposely forgotten.

In Emmett’s dreams he’s a gendarme, escorting Armenians from Turkey. A young woman among them, Araxie, captivates and enthralls him. But then the trek ends, the war separates them. He is injured. Seven decades later, as his grasp on the boundaries between past and present begins to break down, Emmett sets out on a final journey, to find Araxie and beg her forgiveness.

Today, I have an inside peek into Mark Mustian’s writing space and a giveaway for 1 lucky U.S. reader.  Without further ado, here’s Mark:

This is me. That’s my desk. I’m in my study at home, where I do most of my writing. The only thing that’s missing is my coffee cup. I write when I first wake up in the morning, which can be daunting and sometimes quite difficult—next to impossible without jolts of caffeine.

I have a full-time law practice, and so I write only for an hour or so each day. I’ve done this for a long time now, to where I’m used to it; I write every day, even holidays, even my birthday, even while on vacation. I find that doing it this way keeps my head in whatever I’m writing, so that I think about things subconsciously throughout the course of the rest of the day. My novel, The Gendarme, was written this way: slowly, painstakingly. It took some time, but I’m always amazed at how much can be done, a little at a time, day after day after day.

I often think that if I had to sit down and put in six hours every day writing, it wouldn’t be lots of fun. Some days I’ll be on a roll, where I’ll hate to have to leave my home desk and get on with the rest of the day. On other days it feels about right. I’ve tried writing at night, or writing after a drink or two, but both produce results that seem less than satisfactory. If I’m tired or sloppy things don’t really work right. I have to be focused to do it justice, to be on my best game, to do it well.

I never wanted to be a writer. It’s something I’ve more or less fallen into, but I’ve discovered that I like it, and have (I hope) some modicum of talent for it. Writing every morning or even every day for some people would be drudgery. But for me it’s an hour where I can follow my mind where it leads, which is my definition of creativity, and the essence of fun and being free.

Thanks, Mark, for sharing your writing space with us.  To enter the giveaway, you must be a U.S. resident or have a U.S. resident to accept the book on your behalf.

1.  Leave a comment on this post about why you want to read The Gendarme.

2.  Blog, Tweet, Facebook, or otherwise spread the word about the giveaway and leave a link for a second entry.

3.  For a third entry, follow the blog and Mark on Facebook.

Deadline is Sept. 16, 2011, at 11:59 PM EST

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Guest Post: After the Novel: Re-Finding Your Writing Groove by Áine Greaney

September 2, 2011 by

Yesterday, I reviewed Áine Greaney‘s Dance Lessons, which is a phenomenal story about the secrets families keep and how forgiveness can transcend the grave.  Part mystery and part romance and family drama, the story follows Ellen Boisvert as she uncovers her husband’s past.  Today, Áine Greaney has graciously offered to talk about her writing space and the time between a finished novel and the next one or the next project.

After the Novel:  Re-Finding Your Writing Groove

My second novel, DANCE LESSONS, took me seven years to write. During the early years, I worked on that book in spurts. There were entire weeks and months when I abandoned it altogether, when I let the book’s women characters slip from my mind.   Jo? Jo who?

Interruptions, they say, are not what distract us from life. They are life. During my seven-year book process, there were urgent trips back to my family in Ireland. There was a day job to go to.  There was a house move. There were other deadlines to meet.

Eventually, in fits and starts, I whipped and whittled that book into shape.

During those final edits and re-writes, my women characters moved in to live in my head and house. At night I dreamed about Jo Dowd, the book’s 84-year-old Irish character.   When I went out for a walk, I tramped along with Ellen Boisvert, the book’s 39-year-old American widow.  Once, as I panted my way through a workout at a local gym, one of the staff smirked at me and said, “You’re grinning again. That means you’re thinking about that teenage character of yours. I can tell.”

The gym woman was right. I was thinking about 14-year-old Cat and her hip-hop dance lessons.

Last April, 2011, I stood in my local Indie bookstore with almost 140 people (I have good friends) at my book’s launch party. For the next month, I read about my book and myself in blog posts and articles. At a fundraiser dinner one night, a woman crossed the room to tell me why she personally had it in for Jo, my Mommy Dearest old-lady character.

And then?  The summer of quiet.

It’s been four months since the release of my novel.  During the four months, the national bestseller lists have changed, then changed again (and again). The titles and rankings have flipped and clacked like that T.V. advertisement for the price slashers at Wal-Mart.  In maternity wards across America, new babies have been born. In chapels and homes and hospice facilities, people have bade a final goodbye to people they loved.

In other words, the world doesn’t stop or change because you write a novel.

A month after the release of DANCE LESSONS, an inner voice urged me to get off the poseur podium and get to work on the (gulp!) next writing project.

So I’ve started two new projects: a third novel; and a fledgling creative non-fiction (a memoir?) book.  Thing is, I find myself working on both of my new projects in scattered, hand-written drafts.  I oscillate between loving my new ideas and hating them.

They both terrify me, especially the non-fiction project.

I’m impatient with my disorganized, scattered process.  A no-nonsense voice tells me to sit up straight at my desk and focus. “Stop scribbling and start typing,” says that strident voice. “And for God’s sake get the cat off the table.”

But it’s not time. Not yet.

Thanks, Áine, for sharing with us your writing space and the time of refocus following that published novel.  I love that she writes her novels in long hand, or at least her notes, and that red wall I spy is my favorite!

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Guest Post: No Saber Tooth Tigers Allowed by Samantha Sotto

August 25, 2011 by

***First, I want to call attention to my poll in the left sidebar about my best of list at the end of the year.  I’m trying to gauge interest in it.  Please take a moment to weigh in.

I LOVED Before Ever After by Samantha Sotto so much, I just had to have her on the blog!  She was kind enough to stop by my review of her book, which I LOVED (OK, maybe I already said that, but if you don’t believe me, read my review; if you want other opinions, check out the TLC Book Tour stops) and friend me on Facebook, which I can now use to keep track of her latest books!

Today, she’s going to share with you her writing space, well the space she writes in since writing her first book, Before Ever After, in a coffee shop.  Enough from me, let me turn it over to Samantha.

No Saber Tooth Tigers Allowed

The oldest known cave art can be found in the Chauvet cave in France. The most common cave paintings are of large wild animals. One theory behind this theme is that it was meant to magically help increase the number of animals the cavemen hunted. Hmm…now if I could only figure out how I could make that work in writing caves. I’d probably doodle something like this:

I wrote Before Ever After at the same table at Starbucks over the course of a year. Now that I’ve started writing my second book, I’ve switched venues. (This novel is an entirely different beast from my first one. For starters, it has bigger horns – and it knows how to use them. I am presently firmly skewered onto one of them and am unable to budge from chapter twenty-two. But enough about the-novel-that-is-slurping-my-brain-out-with-a-straw. This post is about caves. And magic.)

The cavemen were on to something when they lived in caves. Caves sheltered them from the elements and made them feel safe. Inside them, they didn’t have to worry about being eaten alive or drowning in tar pits.

There are arguably less life-threatening dangers surrounding us today, but one doesn’t need the threat of a horrible death to need sanctuary. Whether it’s a quiet place to put our feet up and inhale cupcakes or a spot to hunker down with the iPad and break our Angry Birds record, we need to stake out a little corner of the Earth for ourselves, even for just a little while. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy. It simply has to be large enough to stretch our legs and spirits – without leaving any room for guilt. In this magical cave, for a stolen moment, it’s okay to not care about anyone but yourself.

Today, I thought it would be fun to take a field trip to my current cave. It’s perfect for hiding out from large predators, wrestling, er, writing second novels while the kiddos are in school, and exhaling. If that isn’t magical, I don’t know what is.

Thanks, Samantha, for sharing your writing space with us. I just love those shelves and all those great windows.

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Guest Post & Giveaway: Author Genni Gunn’s Writing Space

August 19, 2011 by

Today’s guest post is from author Genni Gunn, whose latest book Solitaria is a mystery set in Italy spanning from 1926 through 2002 as the Santoro family uncovers the truth about their ancestor Vito’s death.

From the publisher about Solitaria:

When Vito Santoro’s body is inadvertently unearthed by a demolition crew in Fregene, Italy, his siblings are thrown into turmoil, having been told by their sister Piera that Vito had fled to Argentina fifty years earlier after abandoning his wife and son. Piera, the self-proclaimed matriarch, locks herself in her room, refusing to speak to anyone but her Canadian nephew, David.

Now scattered over three continents, the family members regroup in Italy to try to discover the truth. They all arrive rife with their own resentments and conflicting desires: Aldo, the successful barrister everyone leans on; Teresa, the angry, abandoned wife; Renato, who lost Teresa to his brother Vito; Mimi, the bitter, ironic baby of the family; Clarissa, the famous opera diva whose peripatetic life had her frequently leaving her son David in the care of Piera; and David who reluctantly accompanies his mother to Italy to bury his long-lost uncle.

Set against the countryside of Italy’s Adriatic coast, Solitaria is a tale of longing and family honour, told from two points of view: Piera’s and David’s. With the unravelling of their stories, we glimpse a woman’s growing awareness of her own capacity for self-delusion, and of the consequences of her actions on others, and a young man’s awakening to the depth of his roots.

Gunn was kind enough to share with us her writing space and inspiration today.  Please give her a warm welcome.

First of all, let me confess to a peripatetic nature, which shows up in all aspects of my life, including how and where I write.

For example, the writing for my latest novel, Solitaria, has spanned two continents. Set in Canada and Italy, it required a lot of research – a real bonus – into both contemporary Italy, and the Italy of the 30s and 40s where some of the novel is set. I was born in Trieste, and have many relatives in Italy, so travelling there was more than a research trip, it was a journey into my family’s past, and turned a large portion of Italy into my personal writing space.

I spent many hours writing in Rutigliano, a small town in the Puglia region of Italy, which rises amid olive groves and vineyards, a small circular town with a walled historic centre, and concentric waves of nondescript houses erected in the late 1960s. If you follow the curving one-way street on patched pavement from the town’s outskirts, you will end up in front of a gigantic archway called Porta Nuova, the “New Door” built in the eighteenth century. To the right of the portal is a small piazza with outdoor tables and chairs, where, at night, men congregate to play cards, and directly above it is the room where I spent a month each year for four years, writing and researching, and immersing myself in the world of my protagonist, Piera.

Inside, I reclined on a pink, silk, frayed chaise lounge – like an 18C heroine – typing into my laptop in English, while people I interviewed spoke about their lives and times in Italian. This, in itself, I found rather extraordinary, because it didn’t seem to require any effort. At the end of the day, my family would convene for a late supper, then I’d go back to the laptop and read my day’s work, trying to determine what I could use, and rewording what I’d typed.

And when I left to return to the airport in Rome, the writing emerged from the rhythm of trains: I scribbled in journals and typed into my laptop, the southern Italian landscape hurtling by. I have a particular love of trains, which I suspect has to do with the lulling movement, and with open-ended destinations, a continuum of departures and arrivals, which eventually always leads home.

And home is where I do many of the drafts and final editing of books. Here, my writing space is an office on the second floor. A bookcase covers one wall, and because I work in several genres at once, it is packed not only with books, but with ongoing projects, which are neatly hidden behind closed bevelled-glass doors. Across from the bookcase is my desk – a vast area which, depending on how well the writing is going, is disordered (working well) or tidy (not working well). The wall between desk and bookcase is mostly window and faces the back garden so that in times of dreamy summer reflection, I can stare out at the cluster of magenta dianthus, the pink and white foxglove, the brilliant blue puffs of the California lilac, and the coral geraniums against the green cedar hedge. It’s a lovely distraction, and writing, I find, feeds on distractions and diversions, which may well explain my love and need for movement and travel, for altering landscapes to nurture the creative in me.

Thanks, Genni, for sharing your writing space with us.  Also, check out this book trailer.

About the Author:

GENNI GUNN is a writer, musician and translator. Born in Trieste, she came to Canada when she was eleven. She has published nine books: three novels—Solitaria, Tracing Iris and Thrice Upon a Time; two short story collections—Hungers and On The Road; two poetry collections— Faceless and Mating in Captivity. As well, she has translated from Italian two collections of poems—Devour Me Too and Traveling in the Gait of a Fox by renowned Italian author, Dacia Maraini. Two of Genni’s books have been translated into Italian.

To enter the giveaway; either a hard copy of Solitaria for US/Canada or Kindle download open worldwide:

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Deadline Aug. 26, 2011, at 11:59PM EST.

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