Book recommendations Spring 2020

Here's the latest installment of my periodic (but maybe not reliably scheduled) twice-yearly book recommendations list. I'm thrilled to share these titles, and hope they bring joy in the midst of stay-at-home reading time!

I'm going to list them in alphabetical order by author:

Lian Dolan's The Sweeney Sisters:
This book is near and dear to my heart for many reasons. The author is a total sweetheart, and I was a developmental editor for this book when Lian was drafting it. It's a book about sisters; Lian has four; I have three. It's absolutely beautifully written, and even if you're not a sister, you will find this riveting. The elevator pitch: you learn after your father passes that your next door neighbor is actually your "sister from another plot-twister!" (that could be a thing, right?) My favorite story about this book is that my eldest sister texted me that she was reading a book about sisters that she wanted me to read because it was so good--and then she finished it and saw my name in the acknowledgments. Small world! Plus: this is honestly one of the best covers I've seen.

Gini Grossenbacher's Madam of the Silk:
This is the second in Gini's series about madams (yes, the prostitutional kind!) I attended Gini's book launch and it was a really fun and informative event. I haven't yet read this, but I know it'll be a thoughtful read, based on all the research she talked about at the launch. The elevator pitch: it's about real-life historical San Francisco madam Ah Toy. Gini and I belong to the same Historical Novels Society group, and she is always fun to catch up with!

Anara Guard's Hand on My Heart:
This is a poetry collection by another friend IRL. And speaking of sisters, she did a book tour before the pandemic with her sister, who had also brought out a book. Very sweet to think of doing that with a sister. The poems in this collection are strong and remind me of how much I love poetry. Anara's also a great fiction writer. Watch for more from her!

Sands Halls's Reclaiming My Decade Lost in Scientology:
This is a memoir that caught my eye because Sands was recommended to me and the other directors of the Gold Rush Writers Conference as a possible presenter (and yes: she will be one of our headliners at the conference, rescheduled from right now to October 2-4. It's Saturday, May 2, as I type this in the evening: we would be eating dinner and literally listening to her keynote THIS VERY MINUTE. Wild!) In other small-world wonderfulnesses, soon after we scheduled her, she and I were both presenters at the Sierra Writers Conference which took place in January before all the madness descended, and so we got to meet in person and attend each other's presentations. Her book is so well written and disturbing. The elevator pitch: an earnest, smart young woman falls into and out of the grip of Scientology, Sands's own story.

Greer McAllister's Woman 99:
I don't know Greer in real life, but we've had some great interactions online, and when she launched this book, she did a wonderful series of blog postings with 99 other authors invited to recommend another woman's book. How cool is that?! It was an ambitious project with the hashtag #read99women. She kindly hosted me for one of those. I'm a 99 woman! Click through to see what I recommended (and then come back). I really loved Greer's book The Magician's Lie, and was thrilled to jump into Woman 99. The elevator pitch: a woman gets herself committed to an insane asylum to rescue her sister there.

Anna-Marie McLemore's Dark and Deepest Red:
Anna-Marie is the queen/king/mermaid/merlad of brooding magical realism, and you will love their latest, which is about the real-life "dancing plague" of medieval Strasburg. An amazing person in real life, Anna-Marie and I are both members of the aforementioned Historical Novels Society group (as is the next author in this list) and I was so happy to attend their launch at a local bookstore seemingly just moments before the shelter in place mandate was announced. I'm also proud I got to interview them for this Washington Post article about how the pronoun "they" will have the same staying power as the similarly originally-conflicted title Ms. Elevator pitch: Dark and Deepest Red is also a sideways retelling of the Brothers Grimm "The Shoes that were Danced to Pieces" or "The Twelve Dancing Princesses." Don't miss this beautiful novel!

Gina Mulligan's Remember the Ladies:
Gina's novel was traditionally published in hard cover by Five Star and she recently got the rights back and released an ebook version. This is a fantastic look at the fight for suffrage, which hello!, this year is the centennial of. Can you believe U.S. woman have only been voting for 100 years? (Well, in places like California and a few other states, suffrage passed earlier: 1911 here). Elevator pitch: this is the novel to read to get a good look at what it was like to lobby for suffrage. And plus: Gina in real life is a true and genuine friend. Check out her other novel From Across the Room as well (same situation with getting rights back and releasing an ebook), an epistolary masterpiece with a total kicker of an O'Henry at the end.

Rebecca Pittman's The History and Haunting of Lizzie Borden:
Rebecca is a devoted researcher of paranormal spots, and her books sell incredibly well. I was so excited to read this book about Lizzie Borden, especially since I know she found out a shocking new theory about who might've been there that fateful day of August 4, 1892. Elevator pitch: a thorough and innovative look at a historical double-murder case that continues to haunt us today. Rebecca and I planned to put our heads together on a book project just before Coronavirus came to town, and I hope that when the world is back to normal we can resume! In the meantime, check out her oeuvre, and most especially this book! I've got just a tiny hint: let's play balllllll.

Lisa Redfern's Phases of Gage:
I couldn't help but be drawn to this story. Elevator pitch: a novelization of the true-life morbid case of Phineas P. Gage, a medical curiosity in the 1800s whose skull was punctured by a 13 pound iron rod...he continued to live and be studied by neurologists. Today his skull resides in a Harvard museum. Lisa's a kindred spirit and I know you'll enjoy this look at a very strange life.

Kate Schatz and Miriam Klein Stahl's Rad American History A-Z:
Yes yes yes yes yes, you need this book, and you need to buy copies for the young readers in your life too! Elevator pitch: this is the latest in a series of books celebrating rad women, with Kate's great text and Miriam's amazing illustrations. I did a minor bit of invited brainstorming along with others, and am proud as PUNCH to be in the acknowledgements because of that. Seriously, buy this book and others in the series both for yourself, and as gifts for the young people in your lives. Get the word out about the powerful accomplishments of rad women! I couldn't love these books more. They are the equivalent of those old wonderful orange biographies of women that some readers will remember from their childhoods.

Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation:
Exactly my kind of book. That is all.

Next in line to be purchased:

• Ed Skoog's poetry volume Travelers Leaving for the City, 
• Meredith Arthur's Get Out of My Head: Inspiration for Overthinkers in an Anxious World, and 
• Nanea Hoffman's The Anxiety Blob: Comfort and Encouragement Journal. 

You'll see these on the list in Fall!
. . . . .

8th annual Chin Up for Writers Day

Gulliver from the New York Public Library's collections

Yep, akin to Festivus, I invented my own national day, and it is on its eighth year: the National Chin Up for Writers Day. It originated as a response to a friend on Facebook bemoaning the seeming impossibility of achieving traditional publication, and each year I post a new take on it because it seems so important.

When you're in the rejection stage, it just feels endless. It feels like you can't refresh your email often enough. You wonder what agents are doing. You muse over whether the fact that your email account was pharmaspammed in the last few years means that your emails aren't actually making their way to agents' inboxes, because surely only something so drastic could explain why you aren't hearing back immediately with jaw-dropping interest.

In some ways, you actually deplore the arrival of Friday, because it means you have two days to live through until business hours start up again (but on the other hand, it makes Mondays something nicer than they normally are, because they become hopeful days! Cue the endless refreshing of email).

I've been there and I continue to be there, despite having six traditionally published novels under my belt from publishers like Random House and Kensington. And I too need to remind myself to keep my chin up, because it does seem harder than ever now to capture an agent's heart, mind and willingness to represent you.

Hope springs eternal, though, as I winch my chin up (I imagine a pulley system connected to my ears, something Lilliputians have hooked up to me as if I was Gulliver), and as I write this to you, dear reader, to keep your chin up, too.

It only takes one person to say yes. And in the meantime, while waiting, we can read beautiful books to learn from them, we can start a new project or turn wiser eyes on old ones, and we can even binge-watch The Haunting of Hill House while binge-eating leftover soda bread from St. Patrick's Day! Or is that just me?

Believe in yourself and your book.

That is all.


. . . .

Interested in previous year's posts?
First year
Second year
Third year

Fourth year

Fifth year

Sixth year: the year I forgot

7th year: I reposted year one, as an "evergreen" post. I never said I wasn't lazy.


. . . . 

Introducing the Mailstrom Writing Clinic

For nine years, I taught the online novel writing classes for mediabistro, including developing curriculum for an advanced class. When that company sold a few years ago, my time ended. I've wanted since then to start up my own classes, and that is happening now.

A maelstrom is a vortex or a powerful whirlpool, so I'm playing on my name with the class title of Mailstrom Writing Clinic. I enter the confusion and turmoil of a novel in progress to cheerlead students on, while also...you guessed it... cracking the whip.

Several of my students have gone on to find traditional publication: Lian Dolan, Lisa Beazley Kling, Jenny D. Williams, Lisa Takeuchi Cullen, and Barbara Barnett (there may be others; pardon me if I am missing you! And let me know so I can add your name). My class was featured in an article at Books Make A Difference; I love working with writers to spur them on to keep working on their book, to love it harder, to make the pages flow.

I'm opening up a small class, limited to eight writers, in March. If all goes well, I'll offer this class on a rotating basis, starting up in May when this one ends, and every three months henceforth. Here are the details for this upcoming class.

Welcome to the Mailstrom Writing Clinic

a vortex of cheerleading with a whip

These classes are intended for people who are already underway on a novel, who don't need help getting started but do need it to push forward to a final draft.

We meet online for 10 weeks, which includes:

• Ten downloadable lectures aimed at craft issues and motivating you onward
• The chance to share up to six double-spaced pages every week for peer and instructor critique
• The opportunity to learn from others' work, by reading closely and offering up fair critique
• A live, one-hour text chat on Wednesdays 5 p.m.PST/8 p.m. EST, which is fun and encouraging
• Camaraderie with other writers on the same exciting journey
• Accountability! Everyone loves a deadline, right?
• An intimate environment (classes cap at eight students) to share your work privately
• A cheerleader with a whip (me!) who loves inciting writers to productivity

Erika Mailman is the author of six traditionally-published novels (Random House, Kensington, and others) under her own name and the pen name Lynn Carthage. She has been a Bram Stoker finalist, a Yaddo fellow, and winner of several awards, including the IPPY gold medal for historical fiction. Her historical novel The Witch's Trinity was a San Francisco Chronicle Notable Book and appeared on Entertainment Weekly's list of "Wickedly Great Books about Witches." She holds an MFA in poetry and taught mediabistro's online novel writing classes for nine years, as well as teaching community college English and leading workshops at many national writing conferences, including the Writers Digest Novel Writing Conference. www.erikamailman.com and www.lynncarthage.com

Our first session is March 11-May 26, with a break April 15-21. The first chat is Wednesday, March 13, and the last is May 22.

The charge is $400, which must be prepaid by PayPal by March 8.

Financial details: If you are unsatisfied and wish to withdraw after our second chat, I will refund half the class amount. After that point, I cannot provide a refund. Please be aware that since the class is capped at eight, you may be taking a slot that cannot later be filled.

For more details or to register, contact me via email at erika {\\at\\} erikamailman.com.

Wa-kiiiiiiish!

UPDATE: WE'RE NOW on our second session of the class, which ends in late August 2019. We'll start another one in September. Stay tuned, or email me at myfirstname AT myfirstnamemylastname.com to learn more (remember, I'm spelled with a K!)

. . . .

Entertainment Weekly lists Witch's Trinity as #5 in their list of witchy reads

I was dazzled to learn that Entertainment Weekly listed my witchcraft novel in their fun list of Wickedly Great Books About Witches. I had pulled up the list for another project I'm working on and started clicking through, believing I was not even included on the list. I gasped when my own book cover showed up in the #5 slot.

Yay! Thanks, EW and authors Christian Holub and David Canfield, for including me. So many wonderful witchcraft books are out there. I love this genre and these writers. It's important to remember and learn from the horrific tragedies of the past, when simple bad luck could be blamed on the woman in your village—and she could burn or hang for it.



. . . . 

More on Bridget Sullivan's grave

Me connecting with Bridget

Raise your hand: how many of you visit cemeteries on your road trips?  When one of my children found out the incredible coincidence that my novel's real-life character Bridget Sullivan's grave was in the small town we'd be visiting, she said—and I quote— "Here we go again."

Anaconda, Montana, has a population of about 9,000, the same as the Vermont town I grew up in. It was founded by Copper King Marcus Daly in 1883; he tried to call it Copperopolis (which is really fun to say) but the name was already taken. Bridget Sullivan—Lizzie Borden's maid— is listed on Wikipedia as one of 25 notable people who lived there. Bridget settled here sometime after the 1892 murders in Massachusetts; intriguingly, no one knows what happened to her for an intervening period of years before she wound up in Montana. Perhaps she went back to Ireland for a bit? That's definitely a happy thing to consider.

See the preceding post for a little bit about the uncanny nature of learning I'd be visiting Anaconda.

The east-west streets in Anaconda are named for charmingly named for trees, but not alphabetized. Tucked in there between Oak and Hickory is Main Street, and at the end of it is a stunning county courthouse.

Anaconda courthouse

 
Check out that eagle of justice!

I sometimes like to think I have intuition about things and I just felt like the cemetery must be near. Sure enough, to the right of the courthouse we spied a little curving road up into the hillside. Jackpot!
We had a decision to make: choose between the upper cemetery or the lower. We chose upper, parked the car and started walking. There were four of us, and we fanned out to better seize upon Bridget.

View of Anaconda from upper cemetery

There were some incredible markers there, like this one that has tree limbs "falling off" in a beautifully stylized manner.

We quickly found some Sullivans, but not a Bridget.

Then, one of my children called excitedly from a few rows away. She had indeed found a Bridget Sullivan, but someone whose birth date was about twenty years off (even given that it's not fixed in stone—ha ha—when Bridget was born, but she claimed to be 26 years old at the time of the 1893 trial). So we kept plugging. It was a hot day. I decided it was time to call it quits, that I'd go to a local establishment where I could pick up wifi, check the website findagrave.com, and then go straight to Bridget. (My cell carrier gave zero service in Montana).

My laptop malfunctioned and I couldn't get wifi on it, but I did pick up the wifi in my phone...for all of ten minutes before it died. I had been left at the wifi place for an hour while the rest of my family went for ice cream, so I spent some time cursing my luck; I couldn't call them to return earlier! I was over-air conditioned and shivering, went outside and boiled. Am I complaining enough yet? Luckily, those ten minutes of scant wifi did let me ascertain that the whole time we'd been plugging through that cemetery near the courthouse, we were in the WRONG CEMETERY.

So much for intuition!

When the family picked me up, I directed us straight to Mount Olivet Cemetery, which was small enough that we could troll the paths in our car. Even better, I had seen a picture of the gravestone so could describe what we were looking for. We found it pretty quickly.

I loved it that Bridget was up on the hillside. Here's her view of the town (you can see that smelting chimney in the distance). I'm glad she found love, that she had a husband beside her in the ground. And I thoroughly believe she must've loved the wild landscape of Montana, its breathtaking mountains...she traded a busy river town for a remote area where you rotate 360 degrees and see nothing but mountains. Montana is gorgeous.

What Bridget "sees" from her grave. See the smelting tower at the upper right.

A writer friend Genevieve Beltran joked that I dig deep as a writer...six feet down. It's true that it was moving for me to see Bridget Sullivan's grave. Although reports from her relatives are that she was stern and had no sense of humor, I hope that she did find peace.

Rest in peace, Bridget Sullivan.

Bridget and John's grave in the foreground

If you want to know more about Bridget, my novel The Murderer's Maid tells the Lizzie Borden story from her point of view.

AMAZON
BARNES & NOBLE
POWELL’S

“Erika Mailman writes a page turner of a thriller that will fascinate as well as terrify….Don’t read this at night; it will give you nightmares.” -New York Journal of Books
“Erika Mailman’s kaleidoscopic narrative melds true crime, historical fiction, and elements of a psychological thriller, all hinging on a singular question: ‘Who isn’t a survivor from the wreckage of childhood?’” -Foreword Reviews
“A complex and riveting parallax view of domestic crimes, decades apart.” -Kirkus
“Those interested in the Lizzie Borden tale…will appreciate Mailman’s research and be rewarded with this new perspective.” -Booklist

. . . . .

Where will I be in June? Fall River, Massachusetts!

At left, librarian Kate Kulpa invited me to come talk about The Murderer's Maid

I'll be doing a free Powerpoint and book talk at the Fall River Public Library 7 p.m. on June 7. Learn more about Lizzie Borden's Irish maid Bridget Sullivan and the events of a horrible day in 1892.

Lizzie Borden took an ax,
Gave her mother 40 whacks.
When she saw what she had done,
She gave her father 41.

I'll be talking about that, how much Bridget Sullivan might've known or seen--and how interesting it was both to invent a personality for this little-known historical personage, and to create a modern-day storyline that connects back to the past.

I hope you can join me there. Village Partners Bookshop will be on hand to sell copies I'll be happy to sign.

Deborah Allard Dion and Linda Murphy each wrote great articles previewing the event:
http://www.heraldnews.com/news/20180525/meet-author-of-the-murderers-maid-lizzie-borden-novel
http://www.heraldnews.com/entertainment/20180601/dive-into-good-book-or-few-this-summer

Thank you both so much! And thank you to Kate Kulpa for inviting me to the Fall River Library!
. . . .

IPPY Awards win!

Note that cool yellow thing in the upper right. It's new!

I found out last week that The Murderer's Maid: A Lizzie Borden Novel won a gold medal in historical fiction from the IPPY Awards. This award series is for independent publishing: small presses like Bonhomie/Yellow Pear Press (who published my novel), university presses and self-publishing. It's truly an honor and it was really exciting to actually win something!

And I note that there is a really nice space near the title where the gold medallion fits in so nicely.

Thanks to the IPPY folks, and to Yellow Pear Press for entering my book.

We went out to dinner to celebrate and I forgot to order a margarita! Ah well...my Arnold Palmer was very satisfactory. ;)

I have a good handful of upcoming events to share. Some free, some not. Some for readers, some for writers. Most in California, but ONE IN MASSACHUSETTS... in fact, in Fall River, where Lizzie Borden lived. If you're an east coaster, clear your calendar for June 7.

Upcoming events:


Saturday, April 28, 2018: Two presentations at Butte College’s WordSpring Creative Writing Conference: “From Murder to Manuscript” and a session on writing young adult fiction. All day event in Oroville with many workshops includes light breakfast and buffet lunch, $75 ($45 for Butte College students). Space still available; visit https://buttewordspring.org/

Saturday, April 28, 2018: Walnut Creek Library Association’s Wonderland Author’s Gala: Cocktail party and dinner with many authors. Tickets go on sale in March; visit http://www.wclibrary.org/gala/

May 4-6, 2018: Gold Rush Writers Conference, Mokelumne Hill, CA. I’ll be presenting on theme in the novel and moderating a panel on publishing. This weekend-long event is stocked with workshops, wonderful food, friendly writers. If you can’t spend the entire weekend ($195), you can come up for the dinner and keynote speech by Booker Award finalist Karen Joy Fowler, $35. You can also dip into individual presentations for $35 each. For details, visit http://www.goldrushwriters.com/

9-11 a.m., June 1, 2018: Presentation to the California Writers Club on how to balance social media time with writing time, Coco’s Restaurant, 7887 Madison Blvd (at Sunrise Boulevard)., Citrus Heights, CA. Free event and open to public; attendees buy their own breakfast. http://www.cwcsacramentowriters.org/monthly-meetings/

7 p.m., June 7, 2018: Presentation at the Fall River Public Library, 104 N. Main St., Fall River, Massachusetts. Free. I’ll present on Lizzie Borden, Bridget Sullivan and my novel. Pretty excited to do an event in the city where the murders took place; this knowledgeable crowd will keep me on my toes. http://fallriverlibrary.org/






. . .

Frankenstein's Maker

Two hundred years ago, the novel Frankenstein was published.

Its author was Mary Shelley, at the time living under the shadow of her famous poet husband Percy Bysshe Shelley. She was also the child of the forerunner of the women's liberation movement, Mary Wollstonecraft, who wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Women, published in 1792 (it is said Jane Austen read this and it influenced her portrayal of strong female characters).

Mary Shelley's life was almost impossibly dramatic and tragic, the kind that makes you say the truth is stranger than fiction. She married Shelley after his first wife committed suicide, he turned his extramarital attentions to her half-sister, she suffered incredible losses with her children and then Shelley.

As immortalized in the 1986 movie Gothic, Mary was part of a literary ghost-telling evening with her husband and Byron. Her nightmare that night led to the first pages of Frankenstein.

My intent in writing this blog post is to talk about a historical novel that tells Mary's story, from her girlhood to the end. From making love on her mother's grave to her husband's drowning death to her own burial with the exhumed bodies of her parents, this novel covers it all in beautiful prose and with an empathetic heart for Mary's brilliance throughout her woes. The book is New York Times bestselling author Antoinette May's The Determined Heart.

I absolutely loved this book and highly recommend it. Now's the perfect time to read it and contemplate the life of this extraordinary author of 200 years ago, Mary Shelley.

Fun fact: It is only through Antoinette that I know Bysshe is pronounced "bish." Looks more posh than it sounds.

Antoinette is the founder of a writing conference now going into its 13th year, the Gold Rush Writers Conference. There are still spots available; one of the keynote speakers this year is Karen Joy Fowler, author of the Booker finalist We Are All Completely Besides Ourselves and the popular Jane Austen Book Club (see? I got to mention Jane twice in this post! Happy me). The other keynote speaker is Ace Antonio Hall.

The conference takes place May 4, 5 and 6 in Mokelumne Hill, California, truly Gold Rush country. I'll be presenting on "Balancing Plot and Theme: How to Make a Novel Resonate." This conference is focused only on the craft of writing in all forms (poetry, screenwriting, nonfiction, fiction) without the sometimes stressful addition of agents and editors. If you want to truly write, meet other friendly folks and relax (as much as one can relax in a haunted hotel), this is the conference for you. Visit this site for more information.

And don't forget to check out The Determined Heart!


. . . .

7th annual National Chin Up for Writers Day

Back in 2012, I designated March 19 as National Chin Up for Writers Day. Each year on this holiday I've written an update post. This year I'm trying something new ... er, old. I've recently been introduced to the term "evergreen" in terms of posts that are always relevant. I'm going to recycle this evergreen post, and in 2019 I'll write a fresh one. So here we go!

I originally wrote this post as an email to a Facebook acquaintance, who was clearly getting depressed about his inability to find a traditional publisher for his novel, but as it lengthened I thought it'd be worth posting here. I remember those dark days myself very clearly, and my heart goes out to anyone in this situation--because getting a novel published isn’t just something that would be cool for us; it’s something that validates how we see ourselves. I remember that before traditional publication, if I met someone new and identified myself as a writer, they’d invariably ask, “So have you published anything?” and I'd have to embark on the Road to Apologia, why this is, and how hard I've tried, and I came close with that one agent, and I attended that conference and had a nice talk with that publisher, and how I keep trying and I…

Yes, it sucks.

So I’m appointing today National Keep Your Chin Up Day for Writers. I have a few thoughts to share that hopefully will serve as a bit of a pep talk.

1. Nearly every published writer I know (myself included) had about six novels under the bed when they finally got that offer. Count up your own manuscripts: two? Three? You may need to keep churning them out, because with each novel your craft improves. Writing is mysterious, and I do believe in innate talent, but as with everything single thing in this life, we get better with practice. So keep practicing. It occurs to me that this bit of cheer may backfire, that a writer may say, “I can’t keep doing this to myself! I just finished my third book, and that’s IT. You’re telling me I have to write three more?!” Someone who really cares about their career will nod philosophically and take the long view that it’s worth it to keep working, keep improving, and finally get a publication contract for a book that’s your best effort.

And after all, you can’t force a book to sell. You can revise based on editorial feedback, you can try again; you can try multiple times! But at some point, you have to cut your losses and start the next project. Soon, the joy of creating a new world within your novel will ease your feelings of feeling frantic about the previous book. And with what you learned from the new novel, you may wish to launch another revision on the old. But at least you’ll have another fresher, better book to try to publish.

2. Joining a writers group really helps with the emotions of being unpublished. Kvetching together, sharing the anticipations as queries go out, consoling each other when rejections happen, cheering each other on to try again: that’s something that non-writers can’t really offer. They don’t “get” what’s so important about being published. The other thing about joining a writers group is that suddenly the idea of being a writer becomes more real. It’s one thing to type away in your home, but when you’re sharing your work with other writers, equally serious about their craft as you, your idea of yourself as an author gains more weight, validity. It will seem more possible that you can do this successfully. I heartily recommend finding a real-person writers group, but online works too.

3. Keep reading books you love. It’s not escapism, it’s not a reason not to write. It’s research--because every single sentence you imbibe resides in you. The more you read, the more those different ways of constructing a sentence moil around in your head. You give your brain more options. You are tutoring yourself subconsciously. 4. “It only takes one person to say yes.” I’m sure you’ve heard that dozens of times, but it’s so true in the publishing industry. It doesn’t matter that 50 agents sent you form rejections, if one says, “I love it!” Your onus is to find the person most likely to say yes. Like I said in #3, keep reading…and when you find a book that’s similar to yours in tone or aesthetic, look at the Acknowledgments section to see if the author thanked their agent. That’s a good person to send a query to. Another good tactic is to subscribe to Publishers Marketplace (you can do it for $20 for one month, jam through the archives, and cancel, if money is an issue): you can see what’s selling right now to editors, and which agents are doing that selling.

See an agent’s name several times, linked with books that are similar to yours? That’s another good person to target. You can also look through those thick tomes of agent directories (or better yet, www.agentquery.com), but that doesn’t give you a feel for what the agent likes. Just knowing they represent historical fiction, for instance, doesn’t necessarily mean that they like books set in Colonial America. Look at the agent’s website and rifle through their client list. Can you get a sense of the agent’s personality through the books he/she has chosen to represent?

Keep your chin up. There’s a part of this process you can control, and you should: the rest of it is out of your hands. The best thing you can do is move to the next project, and let the current novel marinate. Mark your calendar for six months from now, and re-read it.

Is that chin in the air yet? Higher! Like Cora in Downton Abbey, let me see that plastic surgery scar! I offer you an e-hug and a rueful e-smile, because I’ve been there. Believe me, I’ve really, really been there… and I hope the Gods of Publishing will soon smile on you and your novel.

If you'd like to read the previous years' posts on Keep Your Chin Up Day:

Second year
Third year

Fourth year

Fifth year

Sixth year: As I look for it to link to, I am just now realizing I forgot to do it last year! Oh dear. Rats!

. . . . .

...In which I attend three literary events in 24 hours

"One of these things just doesn't belong here..."

And I don’t even live in Manhattan!

Friday night I went to an author event for Kelly Corrigan’s book Tell Me More. Although I read fiction until my ears migrate to the front of my head to compensate for the deteriorating eyesight, I’d somehow missed the nonfiction phenomenon that is Kelly Corrigan. This is great, though: now I can binge-read everything she wrote, because I adore her.

This is a lot like my experience with the Harry Potter books; I was clueless until Book Six or so. And then…180 miles an hour.

Back to Kelly. Luckily, my friend Jeannine knew all about her and invited me, knowing I would love her too.

Imagine the scene. A Barnes & Noble filled to the gills, the organizers having to bring out more seats, freeflowing wine and appetizers…we had to be wristbanded to be there. I marveled and thought someday I want people to be wristbanded to hear me.

And pay $45 a ticket.

But the ticket price was fine because it included a gift bag with her hardcover, a wonderful little book light which I’m very excited about, a Random House stadium cup (wristbands, stadium cups: I think they’re working on converting authors to athletes) and a copy of …Glamour magazine. Jeannine laughed and said she didn’t think that had been preapproved by Kelly. I bet she’d want Mother Jones in there.

(In case that sounds mean of us, one of Kelly’s ongoing riffs is about foregoing showers).

Kelly is freaking funny. I found myself laughing very hard, the sharp bark of surprised laughter, and the murmuring laugh of “oh yes.” Women everywhere were exchanging glances as we/they laughed, because much of what Kelly said was universal, bonding.

And then she spoke of loss, and even though I made a vow a few months ago to cry less, I just couldn’t stop some of these tears. Jeannine said she’d been listening to the audio book on her way in to work and bawling her eyes out. I would add some hard-earned advice to readers here: don’t listen to Schindler’s List in your car.

If you have a chance to see Kelly in person, take it. It’s incredibly rewarding and will make you feel good about being a human.

The line to have your book signed snaked around and around, and thanks to our arrival time, we were literally the last people in line. And when I finally got up to Kelly, what did I say to her? “Thank you for all the feels.”

It would be good if Barnes & Noble could provide a trapdoor immediately in front of the author signing table for people who say stupid things like that. I never even use the phrase “all the feels.” How did that come out of my mouth? Worse, it sounded glib after Kelly had just evoked truly genuine emotions out of all of us and shared some devastating things about her own losses, which reminded us of our own losses, and connected us in the communality of grief.

Accordingly, she responded, “What’s your name?” and signed my book.

Jeannine and I went around the corner, had gin and tonics and some weirdly-cold (but delicious!) truffles with raspberry dipping sauce and only went home when her husband texted us that he was falling asleep watching our brood of kids.

I went home, I slept. I recharged for …Literary Round Two! Ding ding!

Saturday morning, I went into Sacramento for our monthly brunch gathering of the Historical Novels Society friends. We have no agenda and just meet to talk shop and encourage each other. I love this group so much. We meet for two hours in a closed-off room at Ettore’s Swiss bakery and there’s always good talk and laughter.

This time, we were all asking about our leader’s situation with a dearly loved one that is facing cancer for a second time. He’s such an incredibly kind person (and a great writer) and it was hard to see the struggle etched in the lines of his face. It’s always so difficult to know what to say, but I hope he knows how much we all are concerned and want to be supportive and listen while his family undergoes this horrible time. Mark, I hope everyone who reads these lines will pause and send a little heartfelt ping of support to you.

There’s another Erika M. at the group, and she just released a lovely early reader book called Big and Yellow. It has wonderful illustrations and so far, a neat story. I read the first chapter to my kids last night and they were enthusiastic, wanted me to keep reading when it was time to turn off the light. 

The Adventures of Big and Yellow by Erika Nyhagen

She’s using a pen surname Nyhagen, but it was still fun to see her signature on the title page as a flourished Erika. The book involves two bears fretting about being released to a new caregiver now that their boy has grown up (one thinks they are being given away because he failed to learn how to fly when the boy tossed him in the air). It is sweet and funny thus far. And the illustrations threaded throughout are absolutely gorgeous, created by a former Disney illustrator. Nice work, Erika!

Next, I carpooled with my friend Gina and her husband to Jackson, California, for the book launch of another HNS friend, Kathy Boyd-Fellure. Aside from Gina’s brilliant book launch on a boat on the Sacramento River, I have never seen this many people at a “real” person’s book launch before. I mean, she nearly approached Kelly Corrigan levels! I was thrilled to see so many friends support her as she launched her book Language of the Lake. She held the event in the upstairs of Hein & Co. Bookstore, where there is a charming area that has been built out to look like Sherlock Holmes’s Baker Street. She had a wonderful spread of cheeses and Snook’s chocolates. And five of her eight sisters were there! (or maybe she is the eighth). As one of four sisters, I find that thrilling. Can’t wait to start reading, Kathy, and congratulations!

The Language of the Lake by Kathy Boyd-Fellure

Can you tell I had fun staging these book photos?

. . . . .

Writerly community: showcasing recent books

Part of being a writer is finding community. What we do is so solitary that we need to talk to others, realize afresh that we're not as wierd as we think (or at least we have a splinter group of friends who are also wierd), and support each other through all the ups and downs of writing and publishing.

Today's blog post is going to showcase books recently released (in the last six months) those I call friends. Crazily enough, as I started to compile the photos, I realized they all have a J or G name. Guess it's a good time to be publishing if you start with a "Jeh" sound!

Jo Chandler's Y.A. book, start of a series

Jen Laam's latest Russian historical

Gina Mulligan's book of letters written to women with breast cancer;
I sent this to my mom for Christmas

My whale loves Joe Quirk's latest

Jordan's wonderful craft of writing book, in a new edition

At an event for Jim L'Etoile's newest, Bury the Past (I also bought it besides the
At What Cost I'm holding). All of us in this photo are Writers Coffeehouse people.

 So there you have it: Jo, Joe, Jen, Gina, Jim, Jordan. 

(Don't worry, Kathy: yours hasn't released yet so I'll get you next time along with any K or C friends we know...)

. . . . .

The small and big day

Today was one of those days that felt drowned on one edge, burned to char on the other.

It started with returning a rental car and going to get my real car back from the garage, with a little attendant drama because why should these things ever just go easily? A friend came over to help me with a project and our “bad car-ma” continued when we heard her car alarm going on and ran outside to see a neighbor had run into her parked car. I felt so guilty having asked her to come see me and therefore sideways responsible for the accident, which added onto her already-heavy burdens.

I then spent hours battling a new software platform rolled out by my school, which thanks to an administrative snafu, I had not been granted access to until a few days ago although I accepted the class back in November. It’s an online class, so students were panicking and emailing fretful messages.

The terrier we are dogsitting had waken me at 3 a.m. and then again at 7 a.m. with gruff little barks. Reacting to deer or turkeys in the yard? We won’t know in this lifetime unless there is a real-life Dr. Doolittle.

I’ve had a kid sick home all week and struggled with balancing deadlines and sitting on the sofa with her.

Somehow with all this going on, I managed to remain unaware of the ballistic missile alert in Hawaii that probably changed some people’s lives even though it was issued in error. My stomach feels sick thinking of those who thought they might be ending their lives within moments.

And so when I finally settled down into social media after my friend had left and the kids were in bed, I couldn’t believe it when I saw that Traci Foust had died.

How is that possible? Young, funny, beautiful, sweet, edgy Traci is not with us anymore. And I realized because of the perceived “dramas” of the last few days in my life, I had scrolled past her posts about being sick without even clicking on a damn emoticon, let alone taking the ten seconds it would’ve taken to write a nice comment offering some small comfort.

Traci’s last post on her page was two days ago, when she told her friends, “Im being admitted into the ICU with double bacterial pneumonia.” She had Lupus and being weakened by the pneumonia, coming down with the flu on top of it was too much for her body. I scrolled down her feed and saw that not long ago, she was vowing to definitely get the flu shot next year (she procrastinated this year). Given its limited effectiveness, I don’t know if the flu shot would’ve saved her, but it sucks to think it might have.

I really liked Traci and she made me laugh out loud many times on her feed. I never met her in real life. Traci friended me years ago with a compliment about my novel which she had just read, and we shared writerly PMs. She is the author of a memoir Nowhere Near Normal, which I feel like an asshole for never having read and talked to her about when she was so generous with me about my writing.

Because I knew her memoir was about mental health, when I saw the first posts from others about her death, I thought for a moment she had committed suicide. With some digging, I learned it was plain old stupid flu and pneumonia. So unfair, and so wrong. Traci, I wish I had read your book while you were still alive, and I wish you were here to write many more.

So the small and big day, wet and burned day, draws to a close with regrets and tears.

….

Lizzie Borden's staircase

The staircase, seen from the top looking down

In any story, there’s always some detail, large or small, that sticks with you. For me with the Lizzie Borden narrative, it’s the idea that the front stairs curved around such that at some point as you climbed, you’d be looking into an upstairs bedroom at floor level. And that when Mrs. Borden was lying murdered on an upper floor and the maid Bridget Sullivan was trying to open the front door to Mr. Borden (thus facilitating his murder), Lizzie Borden stood on the stairs behind Bridget and laughed.

She may have been looking at Mrs. Borden’s body, eye to eye, when she did that.

I believe I'm standing on the step that lets me see under the guest room bed

The idea simply chills my bones. I opened my novel with that scene (and circled back to it towards the end in an altered, poetic-license kind of way).

The 1893 jurors actually visited the Borden household to see its strange layout and, yes, to climb those stairs and see if it was possible to see a body on the floor underneath the guest room bed.

If you visit the Lizzie Borden B&B, you are given the same chance the jurors were given. A docent may even lie down on the floor where Abby Borden lay, so that you get a more visceral experience.

Stairs are somewhat creepy even without corpses at the top. Discuss?

. . . . .

Fancy a listen to Lizzie Borden? She's podcasting (er, sort of)

This supernatural program is supported by the listeners of KTMM
and the John D. and Catherine C. MacArthur Foundation
as well as listeners like you!

I wanted to compile in one place the various radio spots I did in support of The Murderer's Maid: a Lizzie Borden Novel. It seems there's a real trend towards podcasts now (I personally LOVED S-Town and am now circling back to the original Serial seasons. I've also enjoyed Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History podcast).

I tried to talk about different things in each podcast with the hope that people would want to listen to more than one. Plus, it's more interesting for me when I'm not repeating the same material. However, each usually began with the "Lizzie Borden took an ax" rhyme, since it is the best summary of the case for those who haven't heard of it. So, without further ado, here are five to pick from, with a brief description of each.

with the incredible Beth Ruyak

INSIGHT WITH BETH RUYAK on Sacramento's Capitol Public Radio, an NPR affiliate

11:50 minutes

Wed., Nov. 15, 2017

https://ia800807.us.archive.org/11/items/Insight-171115/Insight-171115d.mp3

This was such an honor to talk to Beth, a Sacramento anchor in the radio community. She is so gracious and warm and has wonderful questions and a great way of keeping a conversation moving. She had baked zucchini bread that was available to guests in the green room (!). There were several other guests on during the hour and we were all linked by talking about immigrants: my novel's Irish maid (during an era when the Irish were scorned—you can see a little taste of this in the movie Gangs of New York), Chinese immigrants in early Gold Rush California captured in a play, and Japanese-American interned during WWII, in a graphic novel. Three mediums to discuss three cultures. It was a fascinating show. I'm only linking to my segment but you can listen to the others by visiting the Insight site.

My big regret is that I didn't think to mention that Lizzie Borden had taught English to Chinese immigrant boys, and there is a scene of that in my novel. 

Beth's homemade zucchini bread in the Insight green room

Joey attended my reading at Avid Reader in Sacramento: what a sweetheart!

 

GUEST HOST JOEY GARCIA ON KFBK, Sacramento

19 mins (recording continues after my interview ends)

Nov. 24, 2017

https://www.iheart.com/podcast/139-The-Pat-Walsh-Show-27274639/episode/pat-walsh-show-november-24th-hour-28678564/

Joey's a great host, and so fun to talk to. She's also the organizer of a writers conference in Belize (the first ever!) so click here to learn more about that. Joey's an author too, and I've enjoyed getting to know her IRL.

THE OPEN MIC WITH RICH EHISEN

Rick and I sat on my back deck and chatted with coffee. He's a great author and journalist who has compiled a book of interviews he's done with authors over the years.

We did two quick Bumpers:

1. "Did Lizzie Borden Do It?" 2:26 mins

2. "The Murderer's Maid" 1:22 mins

(He also had our longer interview transcribed. If you prefer to read rather than listen: click here.)

Tim and I talked about the Lizzie Borden house, today a B&B,
where he has done paranormal investigations

 

SPOOKY SOUTH COAST WITH TIM WEISBERG

Saturday, November 25, 2017

My interview starts around 16:00. We spoke for about an hour.

This interview was unique in that Tim is already a huge Borden case fan and has been to the Lizzie Borden house many times to do paranormal studies. So there was no "let's catch up our listeners on who Lizzie Borden was" and we hit the ground running. He came up with some theories about the case I'd never thought of before, and I reminded him of something he'd forgotten: that the third floor bathroom, next to Bridget Sullivan's room in the attic, was once a bedroom. If you're a serious Lizzie Borden person, this is the one to listen to.

Caveat: we had a phone connection (I was not in the studio—we're on separate coasts) that was very wonky and sometimes I literally couldn't hear him. Then another host joined in and I thought she was "static" from another phone line. So apologies if I sound like a dingbat.

http://spookysouthcoast.com/murderers-maid-erika-mailman/?utm_content=bufferff172&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

WOMEN IN HORROR PANEL WITH SF IN SF, San Francisco

This was a live panel with Loren Rhoads, Dana Fredsti and me, moderated by Terry Bisson. We had a small audience and powerful recording equipment. They assured us they would edit the podcast afterwards, which of course made me eager to do something loony they'd have to edit out. As of this writing, the podcast hasn't been put up on the web yet. I'll circle back and add it as soon as it is.

I'm looking for more podcasts to listen to. I love ones where each episode delivers a new truth or unveils something—the major appeal of S-Town: every episode had a new, strong bit of information to reveal. Can you list your favorites in the comments below?

. . . . .