Interview With Pam Jenoff, Author of Almost Home

Welcome to my interview with author Pam Jenoff, author of the recently released (in paperback) Almost Home, The Diplomat's Wife, and The Kommandant's Girl (click here for Diary of an Eccentric's mini-review).

Author Pam Jenoff is a former resident of Maryland and graduate of George Washington University in Washington, D.C.  After attending Cambridge University in England, she took a variety of jobs in American government, including positions with the Pentagon and the State Department.  Since then, she's graduated the University of Pennsylvania and works as an attorney in Pennsylvania.

However, her latest pursuits have involved novel writing, and one of her earlier novels, The Kommandant's Girl, became an international best seller and was nominated for the Quill Award.  Her recent novel, Almost Home, was released in paperback and is set in both Washington, D.C., and London as the main protagonist, diplomat Jordan Weiss searches for the truth behind the death of an old college boyfriend and tries to uncover corporate connections to the Albanian mob.

Please welcome, Pam Jenoff and stay tuned for my review of her latest novel, Almost Home.

How would you introduce yourself to a crowded room eager to hang on your every word? Are you just an author, or what else should people know about you?

I jokingly say that I am boring and grumpy.  What I mean by that is I still have a day job (most people are surprised to learn this) as a law school professor.  So I have to go to bed very early in order to get up by five to get the novel writing done.  But I love every part of my crazy, hectic life and wouldn’t trade a minute of it.

Please share a few of your obsessions (i.e. a love of chocolate, animals, crosswords).

I’m a huge eater.  I would always rather eat than drink, and mostly healthy stuff, though I could eat my own body weight in Twizzlers and cheesepuffs.  I’m a shameless napper.  Big football fan (Philadelphia Eagles).  And I love a good sudoku puzzle.

How do you stay fit and healthy as a writer? 


I chase after my one year old son a lot.  I try to run and get to the gym and once upon a time I was a second degree black belt.

Which books have you been reading lately, and are there any you would recommend in particular?  Which books do you think should be read by more readers?

I’ve been reading a lot of children’s books to my son, like Is Your Mama a Llama and Dr. Seuss.  That might be all I have time for at the moment! I’ve also enjoyed authors such as Tracy Chevalier, Kate Atkinson, Laura Lippman, Barbara Kingsolver and Anita Shreve.  I think everyone should read what they want…just read!

What current projects are you working on and would you like to share some details with the readers?

The sequel to Almost Home is called Hidden Things and it will be out this July.  And I’m working on something next about which I am super-excited.  It brings together elements of all of my other books.  It’s tentatively called The Anniversary Clock, but it’s really too early to say more beyond that.

Thanks, Pam for taking time out of your busy schedule to answer my questions.  

Check out the second part of the interview on D.C. Literature Examiner.


FTC Disclosure:  Clicking on title links or images will bring you to my Amazon Affiliate page; No purchase necessary.

Interview With Frank Delaney, Author of Venetia Kelly's Traveling Show

Look to your right and you will see a dashing photo of Frank Delaney taken by Jerry Bauer!  He -- Delaney, not Bauer -- is the author of Venetia Kelly's Traveling Show, which will hit stores Feb. 23.

I've been reading his book and enjoying the author's style, but since I want to do the work justice, I figured I would postpone my review until Feb. 22.  Instead, I'm going to bring you a fun interview with Delaney where he talks about books, writing, and more.

Without further ado, here's the interview. Please give Frank Delaney a warm welcome.

1.  Venetia Kelly's Traveling Show takes place in the 1930s, and many of your previous novels have either dealt with or been set in Ireland during previous decades.  Has it been your intention to revisit Ireland in each book with a new decade?  Why or why not?

I wanted to write a "history" of Ireland in the 20th century, when so much happened to create the country we know today, and in which I grew up. And it's a place and period full of rich incident, eccentric character, and arresting themes. Also, I love the idea of taking the readers into an unknown world - which was after all so familiar to me - and allowing them to stand on the sidelines and observe what's happening in that world, sharing with them what I saw and know. 

2.  Venetia Kelly's Traveling Show reminds me of the gypsy shows seen in many movies.  Did you have a particular inspiration for the traveling show and is it based on an actual show you've seen or researched?

I've seen so many of them! There was one I actually used to follow across the country; it was part theatrical, part medicine show, with the worst and goofiest performers you ever saw. But there were others, gifted acting troupes, who brought Shakespeare and Sophocles and Strindberg and all the great dramas to small country towns, and they live for ever in my mind. I was captivated by them.

3.  Tackling the betrayal of a spouse can be difficult, especially for a child.  Ben MacCarthy must take a journey to bring his father home after he runs off with the caravan.  How would you say your coming-of-age novel that sets a young man out on his own differs from other novels of a similar ilk?

Great question! This is what I was trying to do: I was trying to apply some of today's experience, where children routinely observe such upheavals in their families, to an unlikely time and place - rural Ireland in the 1930's, because I wanted to show that whenever it happens, distress is distress, and therefore a bond is created between past and present. The time-lapse, I felt, might sharpen the edge of his rite of passage. As a consequence, the book is full of deliberate mistakes (perpetrated by Ben or his father), misunderstandings and unexpected discord - as they would be in a story from today's family experience. It's also packed with mythological references, some hidden, some not,, because I like to do that stuff! I believe it gives a book depth and subtlety, all smuggled into a "story," which - like all my novels - starts deliberately slowly, and then (when, as I hope, I've captured you) begins to go much, much faster.

4.  You were born in Ireland and made a name for yourself in broadcasting.  Could you describe the transition you made from being a broadcaster in Ireland to an author in America and any hardships you may have encountered?

It's been a long journey. I don''t know if I'd use the word "hardships" - but there certainly have been obstacles. In the UK I worked as a broadcaster for the BBC for many years and learned so much about one-air audiences at their excellent hands (I hope it shows in my audiobooks: I always read the recordings of my own novels). But that didn't dim or reduce the requirement to learn the skills necessary in reaching an audience for writing, and that will always be, as for every professional writer, the "hardship" of the ongoing challenge. In fact the world is now so full of challenges for authors that I've actually started writing a book about the future of authorship.

5.  Please share a few of your obsessions.(i.e. a love of chocolate, animals, crosswords)? 

Ha! Crosswords, certainly - though I do genuinely believe that the language barrier across the Atlantic makes the New York Times crossword v. difficult for me, so I download the Daily Telegraph Crossword from London instead! Chocolate - Yummmm! BUT - take note; on a significant birthday I made myself a promise that I would never let a day of my life go by without eating ice-cream. By and large I've kept to that. As to animals - if I could, I'd have a Sumatran elephant as a pet. And watch out (in a year or so) for a significant animal pet in the novel I'm writing at the moment.

6.  When writing poetry, prose, essays, and other works do you listen to music, do you have a particular playlist for each genre you work in or does the playlist stay the same? What are the top 5 songs on that playlist? If you don’t listen to music while writing, do you have any other routines or habits?

I have specific music that I use for different phases of work. Dominant of these is techno - and I have a number of Internet radio stations (some coming out of France) that I listen to. I prefer the truly insistent house stuff, I find the the drive of it very energizing. I also try to find North African music; I developed a taste for it in Greece many years ago and it fires me up. I'm looking at my lists now and - a random glance - I see Diana Krall, Manhattan Transfer, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, and one of my all-time favorites, Gundula Janowitz's's recording of The Four Last Songs. For the ultimate kick-start on a slow day - Wagner. Bach for warming down! 

7.  Which books have you been reading lately, and are there any you would recommend in particular?  Which books do you think should be read by more readers?  

Am reading Game Change, the bestseller of the 2008 election campaign; am finishing an excellent biography of John Fowles (whom I knew); re-reading (again) The Great Gatsby; will always be dipping into Ulysses - that's the book more people should read, because it's so huge and rich. Just finished an old Ed McBain thriller - took not much more than an hour or two, but oh, boy! Did he know how to roll a story? To declare my interest - I'm also re-reading my wife, Diane Meier's deliciously edgy first novel, The Season of Second Chances. (And from what I've seen - her second will be even better!) If there's a new Alan Furst coming, I'll be onto it straightaway. And Shakespeare, always Shakespeare. 

8.  As an author and interviewer of authors, what is the one question you would like to be asked and answered?  How would you answer it? 

Good question! Yes, there is - it has been asked a few times and it's always welcome: The question is this: "Frank Delaney, -is there more to your books than meets the eye? Is there more to them than just the simple story?" And my answer is, with a big smile, "You bet! But go looking for it - because the fun I've had building in the layers and references and subtleties might just transmit itself to you."

Thank you for answering my questions, Frank.  We wish you luck in all you do.  Stay tuned for my review of Venetia Kelly's Traveling Show on Monday, Feb. 22. 

FTC Disclosure:  Clicking on title links will bring you to my Amazon Affiliate page, no purchase necessary.

Interview With Moira Egan

I thought I would do a little something different today as part of FreeVerse over at Ooh...Books.

Bar Napkin Sonnet #17
We pause in conversation and the air
around us stills. It feels as if a globe
of yellow light’s enveloped us, alone,
and everyone around has disappeared.
His callused hand is gentle in my hair.
He’s only twenty-five, yet somehow knows
to kiss me now: “It feels like we’re alone.”
(I halfway fall in love with him right there.)
He’s never been to Europe, so we drink
sangria made of white wine, brandy, pears
and apples. "It’s the sugar in the fruit
that gets you gone," I tell him, as I think
tonight he’s going to travel. Then we share
an eau-de-vie, ephemeral as youth.

Here's part of my interview with Moira Egan at 32 Poems Blog.

How would you introduce yourself to a crowded room eager to hang on your every word? Are you just a poet, what else should people know about you?
 
My father was a poet, so I guess I can say I was infused with the Muse through nature and nurture both. That didn’t make it any easier, and there have been years-long stretches when I didn’t even consider myself a poet, didn’t want to be a poet. But here I am.

And here means Rome, where I live with my husband, Damiano Abeni, who, when he is not being an epidemiologist, is (if I may say so) a very well respected translator of American poetry into Italian. He’s done books of poems by Mark Strand, Elizabeth Bishop, Charles Simic, C.K Williams, and many others, and now I am happy to say that he translates my work as well. In fact, now he and I also work as a team on translations, going in both directions, but mostly from English into Italian. Together we worked on Un mondo che non può essere migliore: Poesie scelte 1956-2007, a substantial selection of poems by John Ashbery, which just won a Special Prize from the Premio Napoli. We have several translation projects on the front and back burners, and next summer we will spend a month at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center, translating the “Italian” poems of Charles Wright.

Do you have any obsessions that you would like to share?

They’re there in the poems.

How do you stay fit and healthy as a writer?

Living in the land of pasta, that’s a constant, uphill battle. I try to take a good long walk every day, and it’s true enough that crossing the street in Rome is an Extreme Sport: very aerobic, even if you didn’t mean it to be. I also enjoy yoga.



What current projects are you working on and would you like to share some details with the readers? 

I am a very superstitious poet, so I am not going to say what I am working on right now, but I can happily say that my chapbook, Bar Napkin Sonnets, has just been published by The Ledge (where it won the 2008 Chapbook Competition) and that SPIN, another full-length collection will be coming out from Entasis Press in spring 2010.

To find out her favorite foods, about her writing space, and more, read the full interview.

FTC Disclosure: Clicking on title links or images will bring you to my Amazon Affiliate page; No purchase necessary.

Interview With Lisa See, Author of Shanghai Girls

My review of Shanghai Girls is slated for Jan. 19, 2010, and I had arranged a D.C. Literature Examiner interview with author Lisa See.

However, due to crazy changes going on at my part-time gig, I will be unable to post the interview with Lisa over there.  I thought it was only fitting to share what she had to say with my blog readers.  I think this is a good deal, don't you?

Please welcome Lisa See.

Forgotten history plays a large role in your novels.  How do you come upon these forgotten stories?  And what about them inspires you to write novels based on those stories?

I think my interest in forgotten history and stories goes back to my own family. I come from a large Chinese American family. We had lots and lots of secrets, and most of them were tied to the larger history of the Chinese in America that no one wanted to talk about or write about.  What has struck me is that so much women’s history and stories have been lost, forgotten, or deliberately covered up.  We’re taught that in the past there were no women writers, no women artists, no women chefs . . . . I could go on and on.  But of course women did these things! 

It’s been a great honor and privilege for me to look for those stories, find them, and then use them in my novels.  How do I find them?  All kinds of ways.  I discovered nu shu – the women’s secret writing – when I was reviewing a book on footbinding for the Los Angeles Times.  Sometimes I find things when I’m doing research for something else. 

That happened with Peony in Love.  I was doing research on death rituals in 17^th century China and came upon ghost brides and ghost marriages.  I thought:  Oh, I’ve got to use this.  It’s been happening a lot now as I’m writing the sequel to Shanghai Girls.  I can be looking up something about the weather or shipping schedules when all of a sudden I come across some truly surprising detail.  I know a lot of writers hire researchers.  I could never do that.  They wouldn’t know what to look for.  And I want to experience wow! cool! moments myself.

Shanghai Girls is about two sisters who go to America for arranged marriages.  Do you find sisterly relationships more complex than other relationships and why?

Oh my gosh, yes! The sibling relationship is typically the longest relationship we’ll have in our lives. Typically, your parents will die before you do, you won’t meet your mate until you’re an adult, and your children won’t come along until after that.

A sister, on the other hand, has known you from birth and will know you until one of you dies—hopefully not for a very, very long time. A sister should stand by you, support, you, and love you no matter what. Yet she is also the person who knows exactly where to drive the knife to hurt you the most. (And you know where to drive the knife to hurt her the most too.)

I have a lot of personal experience with sisters. I’m one of four sisters: I have a former step-sister that I’ve known since we were three and four, a half sister who’s my mom’s daughter, and a half-sister who’s my father’s daughter. But it wasn’t enough to rely on my own experience when I was writing Shanghai Girls. For two years, I asked everyone I knew and everyone I met about their relationships with their sisters. I had women tell me they hadn’t spoken to their sisters in two, five, ten, forty years!

I asked the one who hadn’t spoken to her sister in forty years if she even felt like she had a sister anymore. She answered, “Yes, because sisters are for life.” I think this is true—for good or bad. And it’s this sense that sisters are for life that distinguishes the relationship and makes it different from all others. We may have friends “who are just like sisters,” but they aren’t necessarily for life.

Please share a few of your obsessions.(i.e. a love of chocolate, animals, crosswords)?

Your examples made me laugh. I love chocolate, but I can’t eat it because I have migraines. I love animals, but I can’t have them either. When I was young, I had twenty cats, ducks, chickens, a goat, and a coyote mix, but I haven’t had any animals in years because my son Alexander has terrible allergies. (We tried fish and iguanas, but they aren’t great for cuddling or petting.)

I’m mad for crossword puzzles, and this is something I get to do! I start every Sunday morning by doing the crossword puzzle. Then my mom and I talk on the phone to help each other with our one or two missing letters. Of course, I have other obsessions, thankfully. I love going to movies. I love Dexter. (Last season was the best television I think I’ve ever seen.) I love gardens. I love to walk. And I might as well admit it, since I’ve been thinking about it since I first read your question. My husband and I are going to celebrate our thirtieth anniversary this year, and I am still utterly and happily obsessed with him.

(All I have to add is congrats on 30 years to Lisa and her husband!)

When writing poetry, prose, essays, and other works do you listen to music, do you have a particular playlist for each genre you work in or does the playlist stay the same? What are the top 5 songs on that playlist? If you don’t listen to music while writing, do you have any other routines or habits?

I really like the way you asked this question, because usually people only ask what I listen to when I’m writing my novels.  You’re so right to know – or guess – that people would listen to different types of music for different types of writing.

Right now as I’m writing this, I’m listening to Bob Dylan. I’m a huge Dylan fan, but I could never ever listen to him when I’m writing a novel. So when I’m doing this kind of writing – e-mail, interviews, essays – I listen to Dylan, Mary J. Blige, music from the Theme Time Radio Hour.

For writing novels, my playlist is very small: I listen to Puccini without Words, Mali to Memphis, Township Jazz ‘n’ Jive, Mozart Sonatas played by Mitsuko Uchida, and a collection of Yo-yo Ma’s cello concertos.

Which books have you been reading lately, and are there any you would recommend in particular?  Which books do you think should be read by more readers?

When I’m writing, I’m very careful about what I read. I read very few novels because I don’t want someone else’s voice to creep into my head. The only fiction I’ll read when I’m writing will be things like short stories, poetry, plays, operas, or the rare novel written in the time period that I’m writing about.  That puts me in the Yangtze delta in 17^th century China or in Shanghai in 1937. It helps me with the images and ways that people spoke in those times and places.

Otherwise, I read a lot of obscure non-fiction about the subject that I’m writing about. By obscure, I mean published and unpublished dissertations that even the writers’ mothers didn’t read. Right now I have some books out from the UCLA library.  I’m the first person to check out some of those books in ten or twenty years!

When I’m done writing a novel, I take about three months to treat myself with all the books I’ve missed or longed to read. I loved Astrid and Veronika¸ and I’ve recommended it to a lot of book clubs. But there are other books that I absolutely love: Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner, The Age of Dreaming by Nina Revoyr, and The Handyman, by my mom, Carolyn See.

I want to thank Lisa See for graciously agreeing to an interview. 


Don't forget to check back on Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2010, for my review of Shanghai Girls and a giveaway.

Please visit today's tour host, The Book Faery Reviews, and click on TLC Book Tour logo for other tour information.

FTC Disclosure:  Clicking on the title and image links will bring you to an Amazon Affiliate page; No purchase required, though appreciated.

Interview with Michael Landon, Jr., Author of The Silent Gift

Sometimes, I have an opportunity to interview an author, even though I don't have time to read their novel.  In this case, I've interviewed a Christian fiction author, Michael Landon, Jr.  If this name sounds familiar, it should.  His father was the same Michael Landon of Highway to Heaven and Little House on the Prairie fame.

Check out my interview on D.C. Literature Examiner, here and here.

D.C. Literature Examiner Goodies

I know we've all be busy with the holidays and reading our new books.

I've been busily interview poets and authors on D.C. Literature Examiner again.  You knew I couldn't resist.

Please check out my latest interview with Poet and Musician John Amen!  We talk about his writing habits, his thoughts on how music and poetry are similar, and what poets he recommends.  Check out the interview here and here.

One of his books, More of Me Disappears, made my 2009 top poetry books list.

I've also had the pleasure of talking about John Shors', author of Dragon House, charity efforts in providing books to street children in Vietnam.  If you'd like to see how well his project has gone or how his book sales are connected to the charity, please go here.

Finally, I had the pleasure of interviewing Into the Beautiful North author Luis Alberto Urrea.  We discuss how movies influenced him, particularly with this novel, his writing, his playlists, and more.  Don't forget his recommended reading.  Check out the interview here and here.

Urrea's book made my best of audiobooks for 2009!

I hope you'll be checking these interviews out in your down time.