Our Connections

By Pamela

Last week I wrote my mother's obituary.

She didn't pass away but she is quite ill and, being 'the writer in the family,' I assumed the task would fall to me--an honor I didn't want to attend to in the midst of inevitable grief.

A month ago she underwent a procedure that didn't go quite the way any of us had planned, and she wound up with a feeding tube inserted and the inability to swallow. Coupled with several other serious health issues, she lives now in skilled nursing care near her home in Indiana. Fortunately, I was able to stay with her for a period of time in the hospital but had to return to Texas. Coordinating her care long distance, along with my siblings and a case manager (who can't possibly be paid what she's worth!), has created a level of stress in me I've not experienced before.

So, this past week, when a girlfriend trip that had been planned for months loomed nearer, I simultaneously panicked that my mom's health might cause me to cancel (three friends flying here from three different states) and looked forward to a welcome distraction from my worries.

Trisha, Traci, Sonya and me at the Dallas Arboretum on Saturday.

These three friends--Sonya, Trisha, Traci--and I share a rich history, one that began with a book club that started over a dozen years ago. Together we've cried over tremendous loss and heartbreak and celebrated adoptions (four!) and births. It was no surprise then, this long weekend, that we found ourselves talking about and sharing books.

In our book club we read classics such as A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and The Scarlet Letter, popular fiction including A Prayer for Owen Meany and Year of Wonders and one or two titles that no one really liked--ahem, The Corrections. In the eight years since I've moved away, we've shared several titles long-distance (from me: Jantsen's Gift and, of course, Calling Me Home, and more). Being able to recommend books and knowing that my friends are experiencing the pages I've read has helped bridge the physical gap between us.

After four glorious days of shopping, eating, movies, eating, talking, eating, shopping ... it's no surprise, that in the somber stillness of this Monday morning--with my dear friends back in their faraway homes--the church pew that sits in my foyer is stacked with items too large/heavy/breakable to be tucked into suitcases. Among the treasures waiting to be mailed home are books--books I've read and feel my friends must read, too.

What a lovely thing, this sharing of stories--our own and others', some true and heartbreaking; some fictitious that have allowed us to escape, to laugh, to indulge. What a lovely experience, to have friends come to visit and spend time together after many long months apart. What a lovely gift, to know people and to allow them to know you--even your flaws and mistakes and shortcomings--and realize you are loved.

Publicity by the numbers, or Wow, did that really happen?

By Julie

Nine months out from publication of Calling Me Home (February 12, 2013), I'm about to take an eight-week break from most publicity efforts while I prepare for the paperback release (January 7, 2014). Not only do I need a break to rest my brain and my body, but I'm looking forward to focusing on my family and the holidays. Oh, and did I mention focusing on writing?

Signing books after event at Palouse, Washinton,
Public Library

I think lots of readers assume that being a published author involves day after day after day of sitting around in your pajamas staring into space and moving only when your fingers are inspired to record the images flitting in front of your imagination. I mean, that's what *I* pictured years ago as I dreamt of the romantic life of an author.

Speaking at
West Texas Book Festival

I'm not going to lie. I do spend a lot of time in my pajamas. I do spend a lot of time staring into space. And I do spend a certain amount of time dreaming about what I'm writing and attempting to put it down on paper. I wouldn't be doing this job or pursuing this career if not. What would be the point of being an author if you didn't write?

Phone in discussion with
Northwest Houston Bookclub

But the eye-opening thing about being an author is exactly how much time you spend NOT doing these things while you're promoting your published books. I thought it might be enlightening not just for readers, but for ME to take a look at what the last nine months have looked like for me from a publicity standpoint. Granted, I have sold my book into a lot of foreign countries, which has multiplied exponentially the time I've spend on certain activities. But it was still mind-boggling to discover how many hours I've spent doing these things. And it makes me feel a lot better about how exhausted I am mentally and physically, and a LOT less guilty about taking this break! In fact, I'm downright gleeful about it now.
 
I think it's important to take stock every now and then, even if you are a self-employed person with your own business, just like we do in traditional careers, where we receive statistics and evaluations, and ratings.

So here goes. By the numbers, here's what I've done in support of Calling Me Home that I was able to quantify:

Dinner with sales rep and booksellers in
Dublin, Ireland

250+ fan mails answered
23 nights in hotels in support of events
22 in-person book clubs attended in Dallas/Fort Worth
14 Blog Q&A interviews
12 book club discussions attended by Skype
12 Radio interviews, including several conducted with interpreters in Italy
10 Guest posts written for other people's blogs
7 Bookstore events, including talk and signing
7 Bookstore drop-ins to sign stock, including ones in Venice, Italy; Dublin, Ireland; and Lahinch, Ireland
6 Private events, including talk and signing
5 Library events, including talk and signing
4 Newspaper Interviews
4 Dinners or lunches with publishers/booksellers
4 Book festival events in Abilene, Buchanan Dam, and Austin, Texas, and one in Turin, Italy
3 Back-of-book interviews for various editions
3 Television interviews
3 Magazine interviews
3 Book club discussions by telephone
2 Video interviews
1 Book club discussion by Twitter
1 Library association signing

Meeting with book club at
The Ranch at Las Colinas

I know some of those are low estimates because I couldn't track every single thing (and didn't think of doing it ahead of time--I just looked at my calendar, email and document files, etc.). 

Here are the things I couldn't quantify, but are part of this career:

-Driving as a rule, because that's kind of like commuting, but there was a lot of it
-Answering general emails from my publishers, agents, etc.

Book signing at
A Real Bookstore
Allen, Texas

-Scheduling events
-Calculating numbers for and ordering extra books for private, non-bookstore events, including having extra books on hand for book club members to purchase if they wanted to
-Applying for state sales tax licenses and filing quarterly taxes for sales tax
-Answering emails from or talking to aspiring writers about publishing and writing
-Reading friends' novel manuscripts, blog posts, etc., for critique
-Regular blogging at What Women Write (2 per month, so about 18)
-Reading books for blurbs and composing blurbs (about 6 books)
-Reading books about writing (about 3)
-Attending other author's events (about 10)
-Social media in support of the book (posting statuses or links to blog posts and interviews, tweeting, replying to tweets with thank you's)
-Updating website and event schedules
-CHECKING AMAZON RANKINGS… (I don't even want to think about the time suck here, but it happens)

Signing stock at
Libreria Goldoni
Venice, Italy

And finally, writing, editing, and thinking about new books—woefully underrepresented here, which is why I'm taking a break before the paperback releases!

How long has it been since you took stock of your activities and accomplishments, even if you are self-employed or aren't earning money from a creative field yet? How do you feel when you realize how much time and effort you're pouring into something like writing?

I adore this career. I think all this time and effort is paying off, and that makes me very happy!

Fiction vs. Reality

by Julie

I've been traveling in the UK and Ireland for the last few weeks, doing a little publicity for Calling Me Home, but mostly just spending time with my family, staying in all the places I researched for hours and hours before we came, visiting the sights, eating the food, getting lost on the roads. (Mainly in Ireland--everywhere else, just lost in the neighborhoods!)

Something interesting I've noticed, though, has illuminated a truth about fiction in my mind. 

People love fiction because it takes us places we may not be able to visit ourselves, puts us in situations or relationships we might like to be in, but can't, and basically, allows us to live other lives. And a strange result of that is the stories, for the most part, are untarnished by reality.

In reality, traveling for nearly three weeks with my family hasn't been the fantasy version of a family trip to England, Ireland, and Scotland I've carried in my mind for the five years since I first visited some of these same places with my husband. I dreamed of this trip. We saved frequent flyer miles obsessively to make it affordable. And it was going to be perfect, right?

Just to note a few things from our last fifteen days ....

My teenagers like to sleep. They like to eat when they like to eat. They like to stay connected to their friends and they get homesick even when they are in the Highlands or the Emerald Isle.

We ride a train from London to Edinburgh and the air conditioner in our coach is broken. As usual, we have brought the heat wave with us from Texas, and the country is experiencing record heat. We are kept company by a "hen party"--a group of about ten young women returning from a bachelorette weekend. They are drunk and rowdy and singing at the top of their lungs. It's four long, miserable hours. My husband and daughter take turns standing in the space between cars where they find a little breeze.

My husband and I bicker over directions as much in Ireland and London as we do at home. Well, maybe more. The GPS gets a little confused. We can't remember if the castle we see from a distance is the RIGHT castle and argue about it until we spot the house we're renting, because we use the castle as a landmark to find it. 

The car air conditioner has funky controls and doesn't make sense to me, but it makes perfect sense to the other three passengers, so they get all hot and bothered when I, closest to the controls, can't make the car cooler in less than ten seconds. 

In a pub, we stand awkwardly to the side, squeezed into a doorway while we "listen to Irish music in the Irish Music Capital of the Word." We leave after 20 minutes because it's unbearably hot and we really don't know how to do this. How do you order? How do you pay? Do you tip? Do you sit if you're not drinking? Can a 15-year-old even be in this place?

We realize the house we're staying in, advertised as having "washer and tumble dryer," really only has a washer, and though I guess clothes tumbling in the breeze from the window while hanging on a rack counts, I pray the underwear I washed will be dry before morning, because I'm out.

We plan to make spaghetti one night to save money and because it seemed like the easiest thing to cook in another country. We realize we forgot Parmesan cheese, so we make a side trip of ten extra miles to grab some at the nearest supermarket--about the size of the local convenience store at home, and if possible, even less choice. It's unclear if the one canister labeled "grated cheese" really is Parmesan cheese or not. But we buy it and come home. We brown the "mince," not sure it's actually good as the refrigerator isn't quite as cold as the one at home and it looks and smells a little off. We eat, praying our stomachs don't start heaving before morning, and throw about half of the finished dish away because ground beef in Ireland doesn't taste like ground beef in Texas and nobody really likes it.

Anyway, you get the picture. This is nothing like the romantic visions of Ireland or Scotland or England I signed up for when I read Maeve Binchy or Rosamunde Pilcher. This is real life. 

And of course there have been moments on this trip when I've looked around and thought, yes, this is what I was going for. This was my dream trip. 

The moment in another pub tonight when I was swept up in the music, immersed in the sense of being in a "real Irish pub" and in the feeling that we were doing it right this time.

The moment when we laughed hysterically along the narrow, narrow road at the sign that said, "Dangerous Fridge Ahead"--some teenager's prank, a B changed to an F. 

The moment when we sat in an Italian restaurant on the High Street in Edinburgh and practically lapped up the delicious carbonara sauce left in our dishes after the pasta was gone.

The moment when my daughter turned to me and said, "It's pretty amazing to be in Ireland."

But if all these perfect moments were written into a story within the context of the others, the reader would be pretty stressed out--maybe even bored.

And it makes me realize that authors have something extra in our job description I hadn't seen so clearly before: 

Make fiction better than life. Take the reader away. Even if the story isn't all roses, even if it's dark, give the reader in the best possible version of a setting, a situation, a relationship. Reality may never be as perfect as fiction, but in the long run, it's why we read.

Calling Me Home hits the UK and Ireland!

By Julie

Calling Me Home releases in the UK and Ireland tomorrow (Thursday, June 20)! I mentioned in my last post that I was thrilled to be selected for Amazon UK's 2013 Rising Stars program. This week, the online site All About You posted info about the book and a drawing for UK residents 18 and over. Here's what they say:

In celebration of Calling Me Home we’re giving one lucky reader the chance to win a luxury short break at a Pride of Britain hotel – up to the value of £500. With an exquisite collection of luxury and boutique hotels set in some of the UK’s most stunning locations, they are the perfect place to unwind in elegance.

The theme my UK publisher has used for the book is, "In a time of hate, would you stand up for love?" It looks like for the drawing, you simply need to leave a comment about a time when you stood up for something! Click here to go see the drawing page and to sign up! If you're eligible, I hope you'll enter the drawing. If not, please do share about it with your friends who are UK residents.

It's interesting to see each publisher's vision not only for the cover, but also for how to market the book. This edition is quite small compared to the hardcover in the U.S., with much smaller text, and it's paperback. It'll be available not only in bookstores, but supermarkets. In a few weeks, I'll be traveling to England and several other spots in the UK and Ireland, and I can't wait to experience the thrill of walking into various stores, like we did in Italy, and seeing the cover pop out at me! I received my author copies from Pan Macmillan a few days ago. The foreign editions are stacking up on my bookshelf, and I'll take a photo after they've all been released, but for now, here's a photo of the UK books!

That's a pretty big pile ... I see a few giveaways in my not-too-distant future  

Calling Me Home: To Italy and beyond

Here's a report of what's been happening with Calling Me Home lately.

The book has now released in Germany, the U.S., Australia, Finland, Poland, France (book club edition only), Italy, and Denmark. At least, those are the ones I know about as of today!

I traveled to Italy in May for book publicity for my publisher there, Garzanti. Their edition, titled Tra la notte e il cuore (Between the Night and the Heart), released May 9. I spent May 15 in Milan doing interviews for radio, tv and print and online media sources, then May 18 in Turin doing a presentation at the Salone Internazionale del Libro di Torino, along with some additional media interviews and photo shoots, followed by a fancy dinner at Il Circolo del Lettore, an organization dedicated to books and readers in Turin.

I thought I'd share a few fun things and pictures with you.

Here's a TV interview conducted by a charming young woman who reports on books. We were in the lobby of the hotel where I stayed in Milan. In the video, I do a lot of blinking while listening to her talk in Italian (because I mostly have no clue what she's saying, though she spoke very fluent English to me in between!), and my voice gets faded in a few times. Maybe you'll find it entertaining even if you don't understand Italian! And hey, my scarf looked great, don't you think? ;) This was really a lot of fun.

I also stood on a busy island at an intersection while a photographer attempted to take my photo. We laughed a lot because my eyes were watering so much from the sun that I couldn't smile without crying, too. I haven't seen the result of that photo shoot ... Perhaps there are good reasons.

Here's a photo of me with Teresa, a woman who won a getaway to Turin for herself and a friend by submitting an amazing photo she shot to a contest held for the book release by Vanity Fair, Italy. The theme was "The Journey of your heart." She attended the fancy dinner and we ate together with my editor and publicist and other Garzanti folks and authors. We had the chance to chat (her companion for the getaway was very fluent in English and able to easily translate for us!), and it was lots of fun. I'm not sure what was happening with my dress collar, half in and half out under my sweater, probably for the whole evening, but kindly, nobody pointed or laughed. ;)

My 19-year-old daughter accompanied me to Italy, and we spent an extra week traveling around, mainly trying to figure out how to get to places, how to pay for things, and how to eat. I think those are your three main tasks when traveling to a country that mostly doesn't use your language. Italy's public schools teach foreign languages much like they do in the U.S.; students select one when they enter middle school, and it's not always English. Everyone seems to speak at least a few sentences--similar to our everyday grasp of Spanish here in Texas!--but the language barrier was much higher than we expected, especially in the less touristy towns. It was fun, but also a bit stressful at times. We realized how spoiled we are on so many levels here in the States, too, and that was while traveling in a highly developed country!

We kept an eye out for Tra la notte e il cuore in bookshops wherever we went, and were excited to find it in so many places. This (left) was the biggest surprise--and what a crazy feeling it was to encounter these mountains of books and huge poster in the window of the Mondadori shop in the main square in Milan!

We saw this bookstore in Rome from a city bus and managed to grab the phone in time to get a decent shot! Look close or you might miss it, too ...


I didn't say anything to most of the booksellers when we'd see the book inside stores--the language barrier made it pretty time consuming. BUT ... I decided to go out on a limb in one particularly friendly store in Venice (we found Venice in general friendly and fun!). Once I managed to explain to the employees that I was the person who wrote the book they had on display in the store, and that I was willing to sign their stock if they would like me to, they became very excited. The manager not only had me sign their big pile of books, but he asked me to pose for a photo with him for their Facebook page. I felt, briefly, like a rockstar--before we went back into the anonymous world of touring. Here's the shot of me with the manager of Libreria Goldoni.
 
The really exciting thing is, all this hard work by the Garzanti Team has helped Tra la notte e il cuore show up in the bestseller lists there in its first two weeks. The first week, it was #8 in the Foreign Fiction list of La Stampa, and the second week, it was #6. My editor tells me it is also in the foreign fiction bestseller list of Corriere della Sera. I am so very pleased and feel so fortunate to be with this wonderful publisher for the Italian Edition of Calling Me Home. I'll leave you with a final shot of me at Garzanti's gorgeous, light-filled headquarters in Milan--or as they say, Milano--signing the guestbook they have for visiting authors. I felt a bit inadequate as I tried to express my appreciation there.

Next up is a trip to the UK in July, mostly for family vacation, but where I'll also be doing some publicity around the launch of Calling Me Home in England, Scotland, and Ireland. (It launches June 20, but we have a baby arriving in the extended family that day, so postponed our visit by a few weeks.)

I was ecstatic to learn the book has been chosen for the UK Amazon Rising Stars program--one of 12 for the year! There is even potential for awards through this program, and they are greatly based on customer reviews, so if you know folks in the UK, please do share about this with them and ask them to leave reviews on the site if they are so inclined! Here's the link.

If you made it to the bottom of the post, thanks for indulging me in sharing all this news about Calling me Home!

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. 

Author Event: Let there be cake balls and scones

by Joan

Julie Kibler on Calling Me Home

I love book signings. I love meeting the authors of my favorite books, hearing the stories behind the stories and, yes, dreaming of a time when the one at the podium might be me. 

Long before our own Julie Kibler’s book came out I told her I wanted to host a signing at my house. Though I’ve only been in Dallas for eight years, I’ve made pockets of friends here and there and wanted to get a chance to spread the word about Calling Me Home. Plus I love to entertain, especially when there will be sugar involved.

Dallas friends at the Mora's house

We had a nice turnout, great conversation and just the right amount of books. Julie told the rapt group about the seeds of the story, her grandmother’s doomed relationship with a black man in a sundown town, and about her journey to publication.

Pamela's scrumptious cake balls

Pamela made gorgeous cake balls, Elizabeth made decadent scones and clotted cream, and my husband graciously agreed to shoot the photos.

As writers, we gravitate to book events. In fact, over the next month, at least 3 or more of us are going to see Cheryl Strayed, Elizabeth Strout and George Saunders at the Dallas Museum of Art.

Over the past several years, several of us have seen KathrynStockett, Vanessa Diffenbaugh, Chris Cleave, John Irving and Jamie Ford to name a few.

Thanks, Julie, for treating my friends to a great day!

Tell us about your favorite author events. 

photo credits, Rick Mora

Calling Me Home tour highlights: Part two

My husband and me near
Pike Place Market in Seattle

By Julie

At more than a month since the release of Calling Me Home, it's hard to believe how fast the time has flown. At the same time, it seems like just yesterday I was counting the months, then weeks, then days until release.

I've spent the last few weeks since my last update traveling more, doing events in Seattle, Spokane, and Palouse, Washington, and received some really big news in the midst of all that. I found out last Monday night, after a great talk and signing at Third Place Books in Seattle, and dinner out with a cousin and new friend after, that I'd sold the film option for the book to Warner Brothers, with Roy Lee producing.

I knew a deal was in the works for a few days, but it was really a pretty lightning fast process--a rarity in this business, from what I understand. I'm thankful to have a set of really awesome agents to handle these things, and knew my film agent, Jody Hotchkiss of Hotchkiss and Associates, had things well under control while I was gallivanting around doing book events. I *almost* didn't see the email late that night confirmimg the deal had happened, but Google alerts also had things under control. While driving across Washington State the next afternoon, one notified me that Hollywood Reporter had broken the news. Right about then, my Facebook and Twitter pages went nuts and it was a pretty fun afternoon and evening answering all the congratulatory posts and Tweets.

Warner Brothers produced the Academy Award winning film, Driving Miss Daisy, as well as The Departed, another winner, with Roy Lee. Lee and the studio seem very enthusiastic about the potential for developing Calling Me Home into a feature film, and I can't wait to see how this unfolds. Typically, these things take time, so I'm only holding my breath a few seconds at a time. In the meantime, it feels fairly surreal to get the occasional email from Roy Lee with updates. And ... I'd be lying if I said I hadn't put a few bugs in his ear about potential actors I could see playing parts. :)

Lonesome...

The last few days of my Washington trip saw my family and me digging through old photos and sorting through my Grandma's jewelry box, with my sister and me and my teenage daughters laying claim to things we particularly liked or remembered, more than 15 years after her death. I'm not sure I knew my dad had these things squirreled away in the attic until recently, when we started really contemplating what items remained that might give us additional insight into the woman who inspired Calling Me Home. I'm not even sure he knew or remembered he had them squirreled away until my brother mentioned something about them. This was my first opportunity to explore these family treasures since I started writing the book, and there are boxes upon boxes left for another visit.

We were all intrigued to find and examine photos of my grandma as a curvy teen with a sassy smile, and amused to see she'd written tiny notes at the bottom of several snapshots of herself-- "Just me" on one. "Lonesome" on another. She changed more, physically, from those teenage photos to adulthood, than any of her sisters. It felt like a bittersweet confirmation of the heartbreak it seems she suffered, though we also enjoyed seeing many photos of her being the sometimes goofy, playful person we all glimpsed at times, too.

Not my grandma's egg, but one just like it!

I brought home a small box of well-used cookie or biscuit cutters--stacked inside each other like Russian dolls, originally round, but now lopsided circles of various sizes. I also brought a little gold-etched Estee Lauder egg Grandma must have treasured as a gift from someone at Christmas. A few other things as well--gaudy costume jewelry, a set of keys, and silver bracelet that looks surprisingly modern and I've already worn once.

This has been a time of great celebration for my family, as well as a time of contemplation and memory.

I'm thankful for the prompting the publication of Calling Me Home gave us.

Calling Me Home book tour highlights

By Julie

The last few weeks have passed in a blur of activity. I've had more fun than the legal limit. I want to share just a few highlights with you--I wish I could sit and write an entire travelogue, because there have been so many moments I never want to forget. Alas, time is short and this post needs to go up! Please bear with me if this seems a bit self-indulgent.

At left was me at my BookPeople event in Austin, Texas with my hairstylist of nearly 15 years, Fannie. Her personality is VERY much the inspiration for Dorrie in Calling Me Home, though she'd never do many of the things Dorrie did and vice versa. Dorrie's life and situations are fiction, but she wouldn't exist without the presence of this beautiful, generous, hilarious, amazing person in my life. Fannie recently moved, leaving me to cope with finding a new hairstylist. She's the recipient of many whining texts as I search. But there are also texts and phone calls about our kids, our heartbreaks, and our joys. She was hairstylist first. Now, she's my dear friend.


These little charmers are smart girls who read--and I believe they might even be writers one day. I've known them since before the youngest was even born, though I hadn't seen them in a while. One shares a name with one of my characters, and I was thrilled to autograph a copy to her, and share that with her. The other already has the ability to read Calling Me Home, though her mother will screen each chapter as she goes to be sure the maturity level isn't higher than she can handle emotionally at this point in life.

Girls like this are the future of the United States, and it is so exciting to see their parents bring them to events like an author reading/signing, and watch the wheels turn in their heads as it occurs to them that careers can be made from the passions that burn inside them.

The feeling as I held their sweet heads close to my heart was beyond description.

My son, Ryan Pickop, released his first full-length CD the same week Calling Me Home launched, and he shared a release party with me at a cool little bakery venue in Waco, Texas. I was honored to read and share a bit about the book, and humbled to watch my son play his music and sing the amazing lyrics that come from his brilliant brain. He's more writer than I'll ever be, and I am so very proud of him.

His CD, Lie in the Leaves, is about life and death, grief and celebration.  You can listen to his songs and purchase it here. 

Finally, this last photo is quite possibly from the highlight of my book tour so far. I talked and signed books at the Tattered Cover in Denver, which meant so much to me as I spent my junior and senior high years in Denver and grew up in the stacks of the original Tattered Cover in Cherry Creek. Reading at the Colfax location, which was a former theater I visited for field trips as a student, was a blast. I was surrounded by friends I've made in Colorado from the age of 15 until less than two months ago at the Pulpwood Queen's Annual Girlfriend Weekend (read about Alyse Urice here). Authors Barbara Samuel/O'Neal and Carleen Brice, who both blurbed Calling Me Home, were in attendance, and I loved being able to hug every one of these folks in person.

But my most meaningful moments in Denver were spent at Manual High School. I graduated from there many years ago, and leaving those rooms behind was a bittersweet celebration. My years there were some of the hardest of my life. I was painfully shy. My family life was in turmoil. I didn't fit in at school. I was neither a minority kid who lived in the school's inner-city neighborhood, nor one of the kids bused from the wealthy neighborhoods further afield. I lived in a small house with my struggling single mom and my brother, in a transforming neighborhood with few children. The unlikely friends I made were often decades older and different in so many ways. I had a close-knit group of friends at church, but my close friends were not at school, as a rule. I went about my days with my head down, lifted occasionally by the teachers who saw some glimmer in my schoolwork that indicated I might one day be a writer and nudged me that direction whenever possible.

This first public high school in Denver has a long, troubled history. It has reinvented itself several times, and has been closed and reopened because of dismal passing rates. The New Yorker magazine devoted a long feature to Manual several years ago because of its challenges.

I stopped by Monday morning in the aftermath of a snow storm, unsure whether I'd be welcomed or viewed with suspicion. I took a few books with me, hoping to give them to the secretary or librarian to add to the school's collection. Instead, I ended up talking to the vice principal, who then took me to meet some of the English teachers, and before I knew it, I was talking to a classroom full of students, sharing a little of my history at their school, a little about my book, and reading a few scenes. I returned the next morning to talk with another class.

These are kids who might have given up on the system, but the system keeps trying not to give up on them. Their teacher told me every single student is affiliated with a gang. They deal with things most of us could never even imagine dealing with as an adult, much less a kid.

But they were curious. They were intelligent. They were mostly polite, or shushed by their classmates if they weren't. They wanted to know why I was there, why I'd written a book about an interracial relationship, why I'd decided I could make it as a writer, why I'd bothered to come talk to them. We talked about voice and point-of-view, pre-writing, revising, reading our work aloud. In the class on the second day, I read the short scene from Calling Me Home where Dorrie shares her fears with Isabelle about the trouble she thinks her son might be in. As I read, one young man, who tried to unnerve me at first with a series of loud questions, not allowing the other kids to speak over him, became very quiet. He listened intently, and when I finished, he said softly, "I'd read that." My heart overflowed.

I see him here in this photo, listening. I think one day he'll accomplish bigger things than he can even imagine while he's a junior in this school that refuses to quit on him. Just like me.

Foreign Lands

by Joan

I took a journal with me to China. If there is a book to be written of my adventures in that foreign land, then I was determined to arrive prepared.

I have traveled by myself many times before, but never in a city where I did not speak the language. I was truly alone. All alone to lug my wheel-less carryons, to navigate a layover in Seoul’s Incheon airport, to arrive in Beijing with a borrowed cell phone and a nervous smile.

I mentioned in my Calling Me Home post how shocked I was at the air quality. From the first step off the plane, the stench assaulted me. On the route toward immigration, it slightly dissipated, then grew stronger. From the workbench in our garage, I had smugly tucked away a utility mask to protect myself. After snapping the elastic over my head, I realized immediately how useless it would be. Particles of coal dust infiltrated the airport, so while waiting to clear customs I tasted it on my tongue, mask be damned. As I reached the exterior door, it grew into an ugly dragon’s breath, permeating my nostrils, my bespecled eyes, my hair.

On the first morning I looked out the picture window on the 5^th floor of my hotel’s breakfast room to find a grey haze of the previous night’s burned coal hanging over the city like storm clouds. Despairing tree limbs wilted from the oppression, while masked city dwellers plodded through another day. Mothers bicycled past with their bundled children in tow, to or from the long day in a city that seems poised for an apocalyptic melt down.

The atmosphere might be drab and brutal, but the people I worked with were bright and joyous and positive. This is their home, after all. I am the foreigner. They instantly welcomed me to the company and took me to lunch for Peking duck. One woman, a young mother who traveled from Tianjin to work with me, took special care of me, linking arms with me as we waited in the dark for a cab and delivering me to my hotel room each night. She spoke little English, but we always seemed able to communicate. Her work ethic was as brilliant as her smile and when she answered a question, she always started with a sing-song “for example…” I close my eyes and hear it still, smile on my face.

At night I fell into bed, too exhausted to write or even read. But I did jot notes in stolen moments. Such is a writer’s life, to always wonder where your next book will be set, which traits of acquaintances or passersby can you memorize, whether the whining, black-lunged cat will be rescued by my next character, if there is a scene to be captured from the night I arrived for an overnight layover in Korea. At one a.m., after traipsing from one end of the airport to the other in search of the transfer hotel, I sobbed when an airport security guard kindly commandeered my unwise carryons and escorted me to the hotel check-in desk.

I might have arrived in China armed with a journal and mask, but I wasn’t prepared for just how foreign I would feel in a land others call home.

Calling My Characters Home

By Kim

All of us here at What Women Write have been thinking a lot about “home” lately, thanks to the release of our own Julie Kibler’s debut novel, Calling Me Home. We’ve weighed in on what we consider home to be and what it is about that place that calls us.

I wrote my post about a place I’ve never actually lived, but with which I feel a primal connection. I was in the midst of a major revision of The Oak Lovers at the time, and it struck me that my great-grandfather and I both had spiritual homes far away from where we lived. (He pined for the far north of Ontario and I long for Georgian Bay.) We’ve also both had many physical homes.

While I fictionalized portions of Carl and Madonna’s lives in order to make a compelling narrative, their various “homes” in the novel are real places, many of which still stand today. I thought it might be fun to share a few of these.

One of Carl and Madonna’s first homes was this Eli farm wagon. Carl had been commissioned to paint the old California missions in the summer of 1906. Motor cars weren’t allowed on mountain roads, and so this served both as their mode of travel and their residence. This photo was taken near the mission at San Diego. Madonna, then about four months pregnant, is doing the laundry. Carl almost certainly held the camera.

 

This photo was taken at Carl and Madonna’s Toronto residence (1909-1911), likely by Carl, in the summer of 1910. All people in the photograph are characters in The Oak Lovers. The adults, from left to right are, Sarah Wainwright (Madonna’s mother), Madonna Ahrens, Isabella Hynds (Carl’s mother) and Richard Hynds (Carl’s step-father). The children are Dickadee Wainwright (Madonna’s half-sister), Penelope Ahrens and Laird Ahrens. This house still stands.

 

This is Carl and Madonna’s house in Lambton Mills (1911-1919). That’s Carl on the porch along with one of his daughters, probably my grandmother Chloris, who was born in the house. Lambton Mills is now part of Etobicoke, just west of Toronto. The house still stands today, though the porch is gone, as is the building Carl used as his studio.

During the summers of 1913 and 1914, Carl and Madonna called this cottage home. It was located on the beach at Leith, a small village near Owen Sound on Georgian Bay. The baby is my grandmother, Chloris, and judging by her age, this photo was taken in 1913. Also in the photo are Madonna Ahrens and Sigrid Ahrens. The house has been torn down, but there are still summer cottages along this beach today.

This photo features the house closest to Carl and Madonna’s heart, their Galt, Ontario, residence called Big Trees. They lived here from 1923-1935. That’s Carl and Madonna in rockers out front. Carl’s studio was in the small wing on the right. At the time, the house was a half mile from their nearest neighbors, but now the neighborhood is completely developed. Miraculously, the house still stands and has been beautifully taken care of. I visited the first time when I was eight and have been back three times since.

Have any of you used real houses as inspiration for your settings, even if your characters are fictional?