Category: books

Mary Ann and me

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, author, books, italian, Karen's Kitchen, local fun

Mary mary-ann-espositoAnn Esposito and I go way back. Okay, sort of.

I met her in real life at a Stonewall Kitchen Cooking School event in 2008. (Also, once I saw her at the Market Basket, but I didn’t actually talk to her. Does that count?)

I really met her for the first time in my younger years, watching her on TV. She hosted  Ciao Italia on PBS. Years later, I watched all the reruns, too.

She is a skilled, wonderful cook, as anyone who has ever watched Ciao Italia knows. She was as warm and funny and caring in person as she was on TV.

I’m Italian, as anyone who knows me knows. I learned so much not only about cooking, but about life and how to live it from my Italian nana, Mary. Meeting Mary Ann, watching her cook in the Stonewall Kitchen Cooking School’s cucina, gave me back that feeling of being with my grandmother in her kitchen again for a few hours.
Being with your people: Priceless.

Anyway, Mary Ann Esposito is also an author. The Stonewall event was a cooking class and a book signing. She was kind enough to sign my book, and gracious enough to pose for a photo with me. Here’s how much it meant to me: I was able to put my hand on this photo of us from 2008 literally in seconds. I knew exactly where it was.

I am beyond excited to tell you that she will be at the New England Authors Expo March 31st event: 2017 Authors Night by the Sea, in Portsmouth, NH, signing her books. I will be there, too, signing my novel, One Brave Thing.

And visiting with Mary Ann. Maybe I’ll even get another photo with her.

Life’s funny, isn’t it?

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Click here for the information, if you want to come!

 

BOOK REVIEW: This is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett

by Karen, posted in author, book reviews, books, Life's too short to read bad books, writing

I have heard of Ann Patchett before, of course, but I had never read any of her work. Full disclosure: I did try to read Bel Canto once. I have no idea why I didn’t actually finish it. Or start it. I forget.

happymarriageAnyway, my friend and yoga teacher, Kristen, mentioned a book casually in conversation a couple of weeks ago. “Um, I think it’s called A Happy Marriage,” she said. Sometime later that day, because the title was still with me, I decided to look it up. I found This is the Story of a Happy Marriage on audiobook and requested it from the library. Shockingly, it came right away.

I didn’t know what to expect. I knew nothing about the book other than that my friend, whose taste in books is usually a 180 from my own, liked it (e.g.: my expectations were low). But surprise! I loved it right away! I love when authors who are good at it read their own work. Ann (as she tells us in her book), is good at it. The next happy surprise was that she talks about writing and being an author (among other things) in this book. She describes how, early in her career, she used to think ahead to all those rows of empty chairs waiting at her upcoming book talks, knowing that there was a good chance none of them would be filled.

I could, you know, relate.

As I listened to parts of this book, I realized that Ann got it. She gets it. She knows exactly how it feels to be me right now, with my first book that quite possibly ‘no one wants to talk about’ when they come to the book signings. But I go anyway. I get up early. Sometimes, I drive for hours. I am ‘really nice’ to the staff. I remember to drink gallons of water to avoid dehydration. These are all rules that Ann follows at her own book signing events.

So thank you, Ann Patchett, for reminding me that everyone has to start somewhere and at one time in your career as an author, you were exactly where I am right now.

BOOK REVIEW: The Vineyards of Allegretti by Jennifer Davies

by Karen, posted in author, books, writing

I loved this story about Vivian and Michael, who have known each other most of their lives, but have been apart for a period of time and as the book opens, they are just coming vineyards-of-allegrettiback together. They love each other, but have not admitted this to each other. Heck, they have barely admitted it to themselves! Complicating things are paramours from the past. Each of them have a ‘bad guy/girl’ in their dating history that puts them both at risk.
Full disclosure: I was predisposed to love this book! The Vineyards of Allegretti is full of Italian things: food, wine, countryside, and beautiful people, and I myself am Italian, and love all things Italian.
I identified with Vivian’s tendency to try to fix everyone and everything in her life. Vivian at least has the presence of mind to realize that she probably isn’t qualified to give advice since her own life was (at the moment) a train wreck.
The romantic interludes are the perfect escape for your afternoon that is otherwise filled with dishes and laundry.

You can find The Vineyards of Allegretti by Jennifer Davies here. Read this book!

Taping an interview for TV

by Karen, posted in author, books, Brave books, Fashion Sense, friends, Interviews, no fear, writing

It was my great pleasure and good fortune to be invited to be on Write Now with Gayle Heney.  I met Gayle at the New England writenow3Authors Expo last summer. After the taping date was confirmed, a helpful email arrived with instructions for how to get there, what to wear, where to park…

But back to that ‘what to wear’ part. The part where it mentioned to avoid wearing black because that was the color of the backdrop of the set. Oh, and a collar or a lapel of some sort would be good so there is a place to clip the microphone.

If you want to discover really quickly how much you think “Black! I’ll wear black!” when you are in a dress -up situation, be advised not to wear that color.

I realized pretty quickly that I was, you know, in big trouble. Plus, collars? Lapels? I was bereft of them.

I tortured my friend Sheila with photos of dress and sweater combinations. Right up until a half hour before I left for the studio this morning. In the end, it wasn’t about the clothes at all, because it was about the BOOK. I was getting to talk on TV with a skilled interviewer who had read my book, about my book.

How great is that?

My episode should air in April or May. I will post the link when it’s ready! YAY!

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The power of one

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, author, book reviews, books, family, friends, Holidays, local fun, writing

I have been giving a lot of talks at local libraries. For my most recent one, I personally invited and Facebook invited a lot of people.

yorklibraryphoto2

A lot.

Plus, it was a full moon in Gemini (my sign)! At 7:05pm! And my talk started at 7:00PM!

I know this is a busy time of year for us all, but I was expecting at least 10 people or so.

When it 6:59pm and still no one had come, I began to consider that maybe I had saturated my geographic location.

If no one came (as I have heard sometimes happens, but thankfully had never happened to me), my Plan B was to have my husband make a video of me reading so I could post it on my YouTube Channel (still evolving–don’t judge it). At least this would be time well spent, right?

What I learned: Don’t accept a time slot that starts when the library is CLOSED. Duh. I’m not sure why they even did that… oh, wait. Yes, I do. I took the slot because I was hoping to sell a lot of books before Christmas, and this was the only December slot they had. They had one slot available in January, but I thought people might not come out in the cold when they weren’t possibly out already, shopping for the holidays (books make great gifts!). Note: the temperature was in the 20’s last night.

And then, at 7:05pm, one person came into the room.

My audience had arrived. She probably didn’t really feel like going out, but she wanted to support a fellow writer/author, and guess what?

SHE DID.

Thank you again, Katherine. ❤

For some reason, this song was in my head on my way home from the event, so I am including it here for your listening pleasure:

One week ONE BRAVE THING Kindle Sale!!!

by Karen, posted in books, Brave books, shopping, writing

For one week only, One Brave Thing will be for sale on Kindle for only 99 cents! If you have already liked my book, please consider sharing this post with any of your friends who prefer to get their books on Kindle.

amazon-cover

This special price is in effect only from December 9th (TODAY!) through December 16th, 2016.  Click HERE!

Thank you!

 

Look what I FOUND at FOUND!

by Karen, posted in author, books, Fashion Sense, quest for the best, shopping

I followed the articles in the local papers about the evolution of FOUND, a shop that is the vision of FOUNDer 🙂 foundPamela Bennett. Pamela wanted to showcase the talents of Maine women (and some men!) who create from the heart and give them a venue in which to make their products available to people who might not otherwise find them.

 

For example, Amy Rose of  Amy Rose Made in Maine makes lovely jewelry. One of my favorite pieces is her silver charm of the state of Maine on a silver chain. Find it at FOUND, as well as at her ETSY shop: Amy Rose Made in Maine. Below in the slideshow are some photos of her products.

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Also, Jeanne Emerson has some of her designs at FOUND. This is her process (paraphrased from her website): Eco-printing, sometimes known as botanical printing, uses the natural dyes in flowers, leaves and other natural materials to produce one of kind, magical and beautiful designs on paper and fabrics. Check out the slideshow below to see her scarves and cards.

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FOUND also has books! Kathy Eliscu’s wonderful book is there, Not Even  Dark Chocolate can Fix This Mess! Kathy’s book is about Tink, a woman in midlife who is so busy saying ‘yes!’ to everyone else that she starts to lose track of herself. She becomes overwhelmed, and then makes a mistake that turns into a big (you guessed it!) mess. Once you pick this book up, you will not be able to put it down!

My book, One Brave Thing, is also at FOUND. Bebe wants to get married some day but keeps picking guys that are wrong for her. She learns from her mistakes, however, and in the process, learns how to stand up for herself and trust her gut about how to live her life.

me-and-kathy-at-found

Find signed copies of both books at FOUND!

I have given you just a small sampling of the amazing gifts at this great shop. Have some Christmas shopping left to do? Stop in at FOUND in Kennebunk, Maine! You will be able to find a beautiful gift for everyone on your list.

You’re welcome!

Humble

by Karen, posted in books, Grace, local fun, writing

Today I was so excited to get a copy of the York Weekly newspaper that my husband and I braved the ice and snow and rode down to the York Hannaford to pick it up before work. After I ascertained that the article did, in fact, run this week (there was a photo of me and of my book cover right there on page B3 of the Living Section!), I folded the paper back up. I didn’t read it on the way home.

york-weekly-article

This was a do-over chance. The first article that was written in the newspaper about me publishing my first novel had many errors (including the name of the main character! Her name is NOT Bebe Kristen Davis!) and so was very disappointing.
I had high hopes for this time around.

When we got home, I had to go right to work, so my husband started reading it. “I found something that you’re not going to be happy about,” he began.

Seriously?
Here is the line: “…she is a registered nurse, a health coach, weight gain teacher and author. 

Guess which part is wrong? Was it that stupid autocorrect?

Now the irony here is that I was just commiserating with a friend yesterday about how I had lost 30 lbs on Weight Watchers several years ago and then gained some of it back–talk about adding insult to injury!

Also, lesson learned. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I should have asked if I could give it a once over before the story ran.

And then I remembered myoneword for 2016: GRACE. I could just accept this with grace. I have made plenty of errors in my own writing, and have always felt terrible when I noticed them (or they were gracefully pointed out to me by others) after the fact.

Here is the article (it has since been corrected): Wells Author will Speak at York Library

This came to mind after the events of this morning, so I’m sharing it with you all:

I won NaNoWriMo 2016!!

by Karen, posted in books, Brave books, NaNoWriMo, writing

So, this was not my first NaNoRodeo, as many of you loyal readers already know. This was my 7th consecutive NaNo i-won-nanowrimo-2016win. I am so proud! I don’t always know what I will be writing, but this year I did.
I almost never write an outline prior to starting, but this year I did.

I always build in a buffer of five days in case I something comes up and I have to take a day off from writing, but that didn’t happen this year. I finished five days early!

I didn’t really look at my outline much as I was writing, but when I finished I discovered I had covered everything!

One thing that was the same this year is this: once I started writing, the words flowed out in a smooth (mostly) stream. I remembered not to edit as I was going and not to over think it, which is the death of all good “shitty first drafts” (nod to Anne Lamotte’s Bird by Bird).

Success!

Top 10 tips (I think!) for having successful author reading

by Karen, posted in author, books, local fun

As I mentioned in my prior blog post, there is a definite learning curve to this whole ‘promoting your book’ thing. The biggest lesson I’ve learned is this: assume nothing! (Remember Felix Unger’s lesson on what happens when you ASSUME?!).

Anyway, here are what I think are the top 10 tips (in no particular order) for having a successful (eg: well attended) author reading.

  1. Create a Facebook event (you can figure it out; it’s not hard) and then share it on your own page, your author page, and the pages of any friends that will have you.
  2. Make an author page on Facebook, if you haven’t done that yet.
  3. Design some flyers (this can be as simple as a photo of your book, the date, time, and place of your event) and put them up around the town where you’ll be speaking (grocery stores, hairdressers, health food stores…any place that has a community bulletin board).
  4. Ask the person with whom you book your event to send out a press release to any and every newspaper that they can.
  5. Write a press release, so it will be ready when you need it. This can be as simple as your (short) bio, your book title and a little about it, and again the date, time, and place of your talk.
  6. Word of mouth is your friend: tell people and ask them to tell people: their friends, their families.
  7. Make sure you bring business cards, book marks, and any other promotional materials you’ve got to every talk and/or signing you do.
  8. Consider offering a ‘free gift with purchase’ to your book buyers. This doesn’t need to cost  you much at all. In my book, there is an Italian grandmother who makes the best gravy in the entire world, so I gave out a recipe for it (from my own Italian Nana, whose recipe really IS the best in the entire world) as a bonus gift.
  9. It doesn’t ever hurt to have chocolate spread out around your book. As people reach for the chocolate, you are also drawing their eyes (and hands!) toward your book!
  10. If you are doing a library talk, they usually will have a sidewalk easel to put out to alert people about your event. Make sure they use it for you!

That’s all I have for you today. Please comment below if you have any additional tips that have worked for you!