An Evening With Cathy Marie Buchanan and Robin Oliveira

By Kim

Those of you who have been reading the blog for a while know that I’m a huge fan of Cathy Marie Buchanan. (You can see my review of The Day the Falls Stood Still here and The Painted Girls here.) I was so thoroughly haunted by her debut novel back in 2009 that I wrote her fan letter, and we've periodically kept in touch online ever since. When I learned she was coming to speak at the Dallas Museum of Art on February 18^th, I jumped at the chance to finally meet her in person.

Robin Oliveira's My Name is Mary Sutter has been on my to-be-read list for quite some time. I knew nothing of her new book, I Always Loved You, until a few days ago. How I missed a love story about two artists, I have no idea, because that’s the sort of book I devour. I am, in fact, scrambling through this post because I’m anxious to return to I Always Loved You. I’m currently on chapter ten and already I know this story of Edgar Degas and Mary Cassatt will stay with me. Expect a review here in the next few weeks!

About 300 people packed into the Horchow Auditorium at the Dallas Museum of Art. Cathy Marie Buchanan spoke first, making the audience laugh when she confessed to being a terrible speller who wanted nothing to do with the written word until the invention of spell-check. In fact, she had chosen her college major (biochemistry) partly because it would involve very little writing. Her inspiration for The Painted Girls came from the years she spent training as a classical ballet dancer in her hometown of Niagara Falls, Ontario. Degas prints hung on the walls of her dance studio. Years later she watched a documentary about Degas’ statue, Little Dancer, Aged Fourteen, and knew she must write the model’s story. Her reading of the passage in The Painted Girls when Marie first sees her statue drew sympathetic gasps from those seated around me, especially as Buchanan had already discussed the hateful comments made about it at its unveiling. I admit I got misty-eyed, partly because Buchanan significantly changed the tone of her voice. I "heard" Marie and I ached for her.

I'm surrounded by brilliance! - Photo by Deborah Downes

Robin Oliveira then took the stage and entranced the audience with a story of how Edgar Degas’ friends come to his apartment to sort through his things after he had died. Mary Cassatt and her maid were among them, and Mary was on a mission to find something in particular—the letters she had written to Degas over the years. She found them and kept them alongside his letters to her until near the end of her own life. Rather than risk their correspondence being found and published later, she elected to burn them, leaving the nature of her relationship with Degas forever a mystery. This sort of gap in historical record is gold for both a novelist and their readers. One of the most moving parts of Oliveira's speech came when she showed a picture of one of Degas’ prints that featured Mary Cassatt. A reader once showed up at an event with a copy of this picture tucked into a manila folder and said Oliveira would be interested in it. In the print, Cassatt stands in front of an Etruscan tomb featuring an image of a man and woman resting in each other’s embrace. A message to Cassatt? Perhaps. I like to think so.

During the Q & A, both authors agreed their favorite part of the writing process is research and that they much prefer re-writing to composing a first draft. Buchanan is already researching her next book which, from the little she was at liberty to say, sounds both engrossing and entirely different from her other two novels. I Always Loved You just launched a couple of weeks ago; Oliveira is sorting through ideas for her next project, which is certain to be brilliant.

I made sure I was last in the book-signing line, so I could chat with both authors and they graciously posed for a picture with me. My mom, also present with her ready camera, snapped a few more candid shots while my father was left carrying all our bags and books. (Thanks, Dad.)

If you have the chance to see Cathy Marie Buchanan or Robin Oliveira speak, definitely go. They are both brilliant speakers. Click on the author’s name to be taken to their ‘upcoming event’ pages and see if they will be coming to your area soon.

An interesting side note:

After we left, I realized that I have in my possession original correspondence written by a Civil War nurse whose name Oliveira surely encountered in her research for My Name is Mary Sutter. The letters were written, interestingly enough, to my 3x great-grandmother, Martha Angell, in the 1840’s, when both girls were teenagers. Martha Angell is the grandmother of the protagonist in my novel. Such a small world! Wish I had thought to bring copies in a manila folder of my own. (Robin, we must talk!)

On being a groupie

By Pamela

I've never been a People magazine subscriber. I'm not a fan of celebrity interviews, per se. Nor do I stalk follow many people on Facebook or Twitter I don't personally know, unless they have something interesting to say.

Pinewood Book Club members meet Julie Kibler!

To that end, I will admit that authors tend to draw me in, and I try to not pass up an opportunity to attend a book signing or talk by someone whose work I admire. This month, we in the Dallas area have been fortunate to have several authors stop through on tours.

Of course, Julie has been back in town, making the rounds to local stores. She was even gracious enough to spend a couple hours with my book club friends at my nearby retirement community. They read (or listened to) Calling Me Home this month and seemed to be delighted to have Julie discuss her story with them. The fact that Susan came, too, made it even more special.

Cheryl Strayed signs Joan's copy of Tiny Beautiful Things.

Last Tuesday Susan, Joan and I met at the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) for an evening with Cheryl Strayed. I've read both Tiny Beautiful Things and Wild, so it was wonderful to hear Cheryl speak about her creative process.

Tonight, most of us from What Women Write will be back at the DMA to spend the evening with Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout, author of several books including Olive Kitteridge and her newly-released The Burgess Boys.

Even if you're not close to a big city where authors frequently stop, you can enjoy virtual tours via Facebook or their websites. Also, Oprah's OWN featured her interview with Cheryl Strayed yesterday. My mother, who lives several states away, was able to watch Cheryl's interview, giving us something to share over the miles--a treat for us both.

We'll keep posting about authors as they cross our paths and would love to hear about your experiences, too. As for me, I've dedicated a special section of my bookshelf for my autographed books. Not only did I treasure the stories they told, but each also holds a memory of the time I met the author--typically while in the company of my dear friends.

Me with Susan and Joan at the Cheryl Strayed event. 

Chris Cleave at the DMA

by Joan

Last week, Chris Cleave spoke about his new book, Gold, to an intimate crowd of a hundred at the Dallas Museum of Art. As usually happens when authors we love come to town, an email trail buzzed through the What Women Write wire when his Dallas date was announced. As it happened, Julie and I were the only two available and so we enlisted our husbands to join us.

Susan introduced me to Cleave when Little Bee came out. “He’s brilliant!” she said. I was blown away. Reading just the first paragraph or two was enough to make me question my chutzpah in dreaming my book might one day share shelf space with his exquisite writing.

"Most days I wish I was a British pound coin instead of an African girl. Everyone would be pleased to see me coming. Maybe I would visit with you for the weekend and then suddenly, because I am fickle like that, I would visit with the man from the corner shop instead—but you would not be sad because you would be eating a cinnamon bun, or drinking a cold Coca-Cola from the can, and you would never think of me again. We would be happy, like lovers who met on holiday and forgot each other’s names.

A pound coin can go wherever it thinks it will be the safest. It can cross deserts and oceans and leave the sound of gunfire and the bitter smell of burning thatch behind."

Cleave is as enchanting in person as he is in his writing. He’s engaging, clever, funny and wholly appreciative of his readers. He amused us with previous book tour questions (what does the queen keep in her purse?) and generously shared the inspiration for his novels and his emotional connection to his characters. For all his awards and bestselling books, he was humble and soft-spoken. A regular guy, a dad, a husband, a lover of literature and a former journalist on the hunt for a good story.

He refers to his writing as “investigative reporting crossed with fiction.” Meeting women refugees in London compelled him to share their plight with the rest of the world and the novel Little Bee was born. Charlie, the Batman costume wearing boy was based on his own son, who wanted to fight crime. Cleave’s novel, Incendiary, is a raw look at one woman’s search for answers after suffering horrendous tragedy. She is flawed and broken and has nothing more to lose, yet manages to keep living. The book is unputdownable.

To research Gold, he took up competitive cycling and trained for months, learning to press so hard during a race, he thought his heart would stop beating if he pedaled one more rotation. In the book he examines endurance and rivalry, which he says is close to hate, but also close to love.

After the talk, we bought copies of Gold and queued up to meet the author. Our husbands waited patiently on the sidelines and even managed to snap a few photos.

When we finally made it to the table, I was star-struck, stammering and rambling about his genius writing. We told him about What Women Write, about Julie’s book coming out in February, about our annual retreat where we write all day and critique all night (with a few breaks for photos and wine). He graciously chatted with us and afterward, Julie and I agreed we’d met a rock star. A brilliant rock star.

Here's what NPR wrote about Gold: “If Olympic medals were awarded for dramatic stories about what drives athletes to compete and succeed, Cleave would easily ascend the podium. Gold does for sport racing what Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild did for high-risk adventure: It demystifies its allure, giving readers an inside track on a certain type of compulsive mindset. But Gold is also about time, ambition and love, three life forces continuously jockeying for supremacy. Novels, like racing, depend on careful pacing, and Cleave calibrates his performance with the skill of a real pro, carefully ratcheting up the intensity as he finesses curves and heads into his final laps. . . .”

If you have not read his work, I encourage you to get yourself to a bookstore.

The Majestic John Irving

by Joan

Last Tuesday, I went to the grand Majestic Theater in Dallas with my son, fresh from his first year of college, to see an extraordinary writer. After a short detour (to the Horchow Auditorium as noted on the Dallas Museum of Art's website then redirected to the theater—what’s up with that DMA?), we enjoyed listening with a crowd of several hundred fans while John Irving, as in his books, shared wry observation and ironic humor in his humble style.

I scribbled on notepaper in the dark to an onstage conversation between Irving and Kevin Moriarty, Artistic Director of the Dallas Theater Center, who demonstrated an encyclopedic knowledge of Irving’s novels. Irving shared insights about his creative process, his previous works, and his new novel, In One Person, “a story of unfulfilled love and a passionate celebration of our sexual differences.” DMA billed it as “Irving’s most political novel since The Cider House Rules and A Prayer for Owen Meany. In One Person is a tender portrait of the solitariness of a bisexual man who is dedicated to making himself worthwhile.”

Irving is aware of “social contentiousness” and “takes a side” and that he’s “sardonic about politics.” It was a bad day to be a social conservative in that audience, but no one seemed to take offense; I didn’t see anyone leave at the politically charged bombs he launched. Perhaps like me, the audience was mesmerized at Irving’s gentle nature, his unfailing honesty and his willingness to share personal background to show he is indeed human.

At one time he wanted to be an actor (his delivery of Owen Meany's high-pitched, warble-y voice was proof he might have done well), but realized he liked and needed to be alone. What better way than to spend days speaking to no one but the characters on your page? A wrestler from age 14 to 34, Irving says wrestlers must also pay “minute attention to details” and run the same drills over and over, as in the process of rewriting. His tales of failed attempts to unite his wrestling and writing friends had the audience chuckling.

He won’t begin a novel until he knows the end, perhaps the exact last sentence, and is committed to hurting a character “as bad as you can.” He learned from Dickens, Hardy, Melville and Shakespeare that a writer can create an unlikeable character, make them sympathetic, then throw them into the grips of tragedy. He’s aware his writing is a bit morbid, but says he has lost several key people in his life and “writes for those who died.”

As Moriarty asked him questions, Irving stared at his folded hands, as though typing the words across his mind to elicit a careful answer. When he was given a stack of audience questions on 3X5 cards, he shuffled through them, choosing ones that brought intense responses, both laughter and shock. Much like his writing. He is indeed a distinguished writer and I feel lucky to have had the chance to hear him. 

Lessons on Writing from Kathryn Stockett

By Pamela

One of the perks of living near a big city is taking advantage of the cultural offerings. I always reach for the entertainment section the Sunday Dallas Morning News first. Book reviews, movie listings, plays, musicals—all sorts of goodies to read about. Three weeks ago, I happened to see a tiny blip on the calendar featuring The Help's author Kathryn Stockett’s stop in Dallas, sponsored by the Dallas Museum of Art | Arts & Letters program.

I quickly emailed my co-bloggers and only Susan had the night free. On Friday, she recapped our adventure. But I wanted to share today, some of the writing advice Kathryn shared during her talk.

While I own a shelf full of writing books—some by agents, others by authors, a few by editors—and each book shares a unique angle on writing, for some reason, hearing nuggets straight from the mouth of an author who once obsessed over her query letter the same way we do, just makes the end goal seem that much more obtainable.

Here’s what we learned from Kathryn Stockett…

on writing: One of the first things Kathryn said from the lectern, as she began her talk, was that she wanted to address the writers in the room. And several times, throughout the 90 minutes she talked and answered questions, she made specific references to the task of writing. “Reading a lot makes for a good writer,” she said. “You learn the turn of a phrase and, if you read it enough, you can rip it off.” She good-naturedly continued to downplay her success, assuring us that everyone can learn the craft as she has. “There are those who are truly gifted—Hemingway, Steinbeck—but really, I’m just makin’ shit up.”

on editing: “When you write you spend a lot of time editing; a lot of time revising; a lot of time rockin’ in the corner; a lot of time on Prozac.”

on persistence: When she started sending out The Help to agents, she said her first rejection letter was pretty exciting. “It showed me someone had read it.” With the second one, she still felt it was pretty cool to think someone out there was responding. “After number 15, I started to get a little depressed. After 35, I thought about sticking my head in the oven. Number 60 just about put me under the bed. But all along, I kept writing and refining.” (Minny started out in third person.) “And at number 61, Susan Ramer took pity on me. What if I had given up after 60? You just never know.”

In response to a question from an audience member as to whether or not she’s had any contact with the agents who rejected her, to give a little nanner-nanner, Kathryn said, “You know, if I did meet one, I’d need to thank her. Every ‘no’ made me go back to the story and make it better.” (To give you an idea how much I think those rejections affected her, though, she brought some of the letters with her and read some excerpts.)


on choosing cover art: The first cover option for The Help was a B&W photo of a black woman’s hand holding the hand of a white child. She loved it, thought it was perfect but the editor was concerned that “people might think it’s about race.” Three months and 50 covers later, Kathryn said, “I don’t care a rat’s ass what you put on the cover, as long as it’s not purple and yellow. I went to the University of Alabama and we don’t care much for LSU. Of course, it’s a perfect cover because it has absolutely nothing to do with the book.”

Since The Help’s United States printing, its foreign rights have been sold 39 times. First version was the UK. The UK publisher sent Kathryn a photo of the cover they were going to use, featuring a photo of a white child with two black maids. (The publisher had found it in the US Library of Congress and it had a city and state on it—small town in Mississippi.) Kathryn sent a copy of it to a woman she knew there and that woman identified the little girl as a child whose family owned the local newspaper. “They had so much money, they had two maids,” the woman told Kathryn. To that, Kathryn added, laughing, “This just perpetuates the notion that the South is just one small town where everyone knows everybody.”

on the evolution of book-into-movie: “When I found out I was going on my first book tour, I asked my good friend Octavia Spencer to come along with me,” she said. “I didn’t feel comfortable reading in front of people in a black voice.” Octavia then read for the audio book (“She told me she’d never do that again!”) and was later cast in the movie as Minny.

Tate Taylor, screenwriter and director, went to kindergarten with Kathryn. When they were 14, they stole his daddy’s car and drove it to New Orleans, ate at Brennan's, drank champagne, and slept it off before driving it back. “I knew when we got home, we’d be in trouble but we didn’t care. It was worth it.” Later they moved to New York together and were roommates before he left for LA. Tate was one of her first readers. He asked for the movie rights and at first she said, No. Then she worried who might end up buying them … “possibly even someone from Canada!” So, she gave Tate the movie rights and he spent about a year writing the screenplay. Then he shopped it around and got nowhere until, one day, Steven Spielberg called him and said he wanted to make the movie.

Along with Octavia, the movie features Emma Stone as Skeeter and Viola Davis as Aibileen. Bryce Dallas Howard (Ron Howard’s daughter) plays Hilly. “She’s never wanted for anything,” Kathryn said, and Kathryn’s daughter plays young Skeeter in a scene with Cicely Tyson as Constantine. “My daughter has no lines but, as soon as we got on set, she asked me, ‘Where’s my trailer?’”) Kathryn has a cameo and even dons a beehive hairdo. From the stills, I noticed she’s wearing purple!

on writing her second book: She didn’t say when we can expect it to hit shelves but shared that it takes place in the 1920s and ‘30s in Oxford, Mississippi. “Y’all, I’m so bummed I missed the depression,” she said. “It was such a defining moment for women.” In the story, the women “really didn’t have a skill set, but they come up with a unique idea to make money.”

She shared that the problem with writing the second book is: “Y’all are all the room with me. It takes me a while to clear everyone out of the way so I can write.”

on writing every day: Kathryn used the analogy of her granddaddy having a leather strap with all these keys on it. “When one would fill up, he’d just add another strap.” And, even though he knew what they opened, she never did. If she doesn’t write every day, it’s like “standing at a door with that strap of keys in my hand, trying to figure out which one to use.”

A Review of Stephanie Cowell's CLAUDE AND CAMILLE

By Kim

Synopsis (from the book jacket):

In the mid nineteenth century, a young man named Claude Monet decided that he would rather endure a difficult life painting landscapes than take over his father’s nautical supplies business in a French seaside town. Against his father’s will, and with nothing but a dream and an insatiable urge to create a new style of art that repudiates the Classical Realism of the time, he set off for Paris.

But once there, he was confronted with obstacles: an art world that refused to validate his style, extreme poverty, and a war that led him away from his home and friends. Except there were bright spots as well: his deep, enduring friendships with men named Renoir, Cezanne, Pissarro, Manet – a group who together would come to be known as the Impressionists, and who supported one another through the difficult years. But even more illuminating was his lifelong love, Camille Doncieux, a beautiful, upper-class Parisian girl who threw away her privileged life to be by the side of the defiant painter and embrace their lively Bohemian life.

His muse, his best friend, his passionate lover, and the mother to his two children, Camille stayed with Monet – and believed in his work – even as they lived in wretched rooms, were sometimes kicked out of those, and often suffered the indignities of destitution. She comforted him during his frequent emotional torments, even when he would leave her for long periods to go off on his own to paint in the countryside.

But Camille had her own demons – secrets that Monet could never penetrate, including one that, when eventually revealed, would pain him so deeply that he would never fully recover from its impact. Although Camille never once stopped loving the painter with her entire being, she was not immune to the loneliness that often came with being his partner.

A vividly rendered portrait of both the rise of Impressionism and of the artist at the center of the movement, CLAUDE AND CAMILLE, is above all, a love story of the highest romantic order.

About Stephanie Cowell (from the book jacket):

Stephanie is the author of Nicolas Cooke: Actor, Soldier, Physician, Priest; The Physician of London (American book Award, 1996); and The Players: A Novel of the Young Shakespeare. She is also the author of Marrying Mozart, which was translated into seven languages and has been optioned for a movie.

Review:

Normally I can breeze through a 330 page novel in an afternoon. CLAUDE AND CAMILLE took me five days. Like a Monet painting, I wanted to linger with it, to savor the composition, the colors, the emotions within. That Stephanie Cowell was raised by and around artists is evident from both the lush, visual imagery and the conversations between Monet and his contemporaries. She writes as a painter paints. A sensitive reader will, in turn, read in the manner of an art lover gazing upon a canvas.

Even if you don’t love art, you will be moved.

The bond between the two protagonists is so consuming I physically ached for them. I rejoiced in their triumphs, wept with them in their despair, and forgave them their trespasses. Camille may have been Monet’s muse, but there would be no water lily paintings today if it weren’t also for the love and devotion of Cezanne, Pissarro, Manet and Renoir. The power of friendship between these men can not be discounted.

Until recently, the only images I had seen of Claude Monet were photographs of an old man in his garden at Giverny. That man appears in the book, though a much younger Claude is at the forefront. On Stephanie Cowell’s website, you can see a stunning portrait of Monet as he would have appeared when he met Camille Doncieux. I confess to having a bit of a crush on him before even opening the book. After hearing his voice so vividly in my head for over 300 pages he’s flesh and blood to me; a loving, moody and virile man. If I were an upper-class Parisian girl with a stuffy fiancé, I’d be tempted to throw it all away for him, too.

I considered skimming a brief biography of Monet in between reading sessions, but refrained, and I urge anyone reading the book to do the same. You will only find facts about Monet there. Cowell offers something far richer; a glimpse into the artist’s soul.

I don’t advise reading the last thirty pages in public. Have tissues handy.

Today, I will visit the Dallas Museum of Art to see an exhibit called The Lens of Impressionism. I have already warned my companion that if she finds me lingering in front of certain Monet canvases she should forgive me the tears that will surely flow. Thanks to CLAUDE AND CAMILLE, part of me will always feel as though I stood beside Monet, watching him paint the Normandy shore.

CLAUDE AND CAMILLE is available at bookstores throughout the United States and Canada. You can also purchase it here at amazon.com.

Author and book cover images were taken from the author's website. Author photo by Russell Clay.

In Praise of Author Events

by Pamela

I’ve had the privilege of attending a few author talks and book signings over the years. Not only do I go whenever I can, the women of What Women Write regularly support authors who make their way to the Dallas/Ft. Worth area.

Friday night Joan, Julie, Kim and I trekked to the Dallas Museum of Art to see and hear Melanie Benjamin as she promoted her new book Alice I Have Been. Kim interviewed her here on the blog and mentioned to Melanie we would be attending. Melanie suggested dinner afterward and we eagerly agreed to accompany her.

Author events I’ve attended have run the gamut—from a folding table set up in an out-of-the-way corner of a book store to an auditorium filled with enthusiastic fans. Melanie had the benefit of being tied in to a museum-wide promotion of Alice in Wonderland, with activities running throughout the museum all evening. Her presentation was well-received by several hundred people (by my estimation) and the line for the book signing stretched down the hallway.

True to her promise, Melanie joined Joan, Kim and me for dinner, and we chatted like old friends until the restaurant closed. Melanie shared insights into the publishing industry and offered encouragement about our own writing journeys.

Why attend author events?

As a writer, I feel a bit of an obligation to support those paving the way to publication before me. As a reader, I love hearing an author tell about how the seeds were planted that grew into a treasure for me to hold in my hands.

During Melanie’s presentation she shared how an afternoon spent viewing an exhibit at The Art Institute of Chicago transformed her from a little-known writer of chick-lit to an in-demand historical fiction author. The transformation wasn’t instantaneous. Like most creative people, she had a problem leaving her comfort zone, but when she took that leap of faith, she never looked back.

The exhibit, Dreaming in Pictures: The Photography of Lewis Carroll, featured photos taken by the author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland—among them, pictures of Alice Liddell, the child who inspired the famous story. The photos haunted Melanie and years later, she decided to tell her interpretation of Alice’s story: Alice I Have Been.

Over dinner she shared more about her writing career, overcoming losing her first agent only to be inherited by an agent who admitted to not liking her book. Eventually she landed another agent who has championed her writing and landed her a two-book deal.

Everyone’s publishing story is unique, but listening to Melanie’s path to success simultaneously encouraged and discouraged me. As long as you endeavor to write the best book possible, your odds of becoming a published author drastically increase but, so many obstacles stand in your way, it’s surely not for the meek. Ultimately I found Melanie’s enthusiasm contagious—as she talked about her newest project, the looming deadline she’s trying to meet while promoting Alice, the foreign rights for her current title, the cover art she clearly loves.

To keep up with author events in my area, I signed up for email alerts from BookTour.com. And I'm carving a special nook into my bookshelf to house autographed book copies--so I don't lend them out! (Does anyone have my signed Elizabeth Berg novel?!)

Do you attend author events/book signings? Which were your favorites?