Saturday, April 30, 2016

Author Interview: Francesca G. Varela



Francesca G. Varela's new novel Listen is the story of a growing romance between two college musicians who learn about themselves as they explore music and the natural world together. This exciting young author was recently interviewed in The Oregonian and her two books have been reviewed in several publications.


Francesca recently answered questions for Rose City Reader:

How did you come to write Listen? What led you to write a novel about two musicians who fall in love?

I wrote Listen during my sophomore year at the University of Oregon. I’d been taking piano lessons since sixth grade, and I loved classical music. As I delved further into environmental studies—my major—I felt like there was a bit of a disconnect between what we would perceive as “culture” and the natural world. This was something I wanted to explore; could something “refined” and “civilized” like classical music actually bring one closer to nature?

You describe yourself as an author of “ecological fiction”? Describe what you mean by that.

Ecological fiction is about writing with a sense of place. In both Call of the Sun Child and Listen, the protagonists’ relationship with their environment is central to the story. Both my novels have the same underlying theme—return to nature. Look at what’s around you. Reconnect with the natural world. As an environmental studies major I strive to highlight the beauty of nature and what we could be doing better as a society. I want to instill passion in my readers. I want them to take action in their own environments. To me, ecological fiction is, yes, about the characters, and the plot, like any other novel, but it’s also about the human place, and figuring out where we fit in amongst the wild places and the living creatures of the world.

What is your “day job”? How did it lead you to writing fiction?

I began my writing career while I was still a student; I wrote my first novel, Call of the Sun Child, when I was 18 and 19, and I wrote Listen when I was 19 and 20. At 23 I’m still finding my way in the world. I graduated from UO about a year ago, and since then I’ve interned with Oregon Wild and the Oregon Chapter Sierra Club, and I’ve written some articles for 350pdx. In the fall I’ll be heading off to the University of Utah to get my master’s degree in environmental humanities. I’m hoping what I learn there will not only lead me to a rewarding environmental career someday, but will also inspire my future novels.

Did you know right away, or have an idea, how you were going to end the story? Or did it come to you as you were in the process of writing?

Interestingly, I thought of the ending first. The entire story is based off of that ending scene, and trying to weave a story that would lead to that ending. The first thing I saw was a piano in a cabin, way out somewhere in the forest. Listen is the story of how that came to be.

Who are your three (or four or five) favorite authors? Is your own writing influenced by the books you read?

My interest in the environment began with Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, and was later deepened by Aldo Leopold, Barry Lopez, and Farley Mowat. I’ve always been an avid reader of fiction as well, both the classics and new titles. Some of my favorite authors include Meg Wolitzer, for the ease and truth to her voice; Ursula Le Guin, for creating, essentially, a new genre, and one which I love—literary science fiction; JD Salinger, because Catcher in the Rye helped me realize what freedoms could be taken with writing style; Louise Erdrich, Sylvia Plath, Jack London, Elizabeth Strout. All of these writers have inspired me, and I continue to read new things all the time that I want to emulate in my own work.

What are you reading now?

I’m reading The Land’s Wild Music by Mark Tredinnick. It’s a non-fiction anthology about the author’s experiences meeting up with some of the best nature writers, including Barry Lopez and Terry Tempest Williams. It’s beautifully written and lends great insight into the nature of nature writing.

You have a terrific website and facebook page, and you are also active on Twitter and Goodreads. From an author's perspective, how important are social networking sites and other internet resources to promote your book? 

Social networking allows me to connect with readers who I would never be able to reach out to in real life. Based on common interests, people who are, say, nature-lovers, or fans of classical music, can find my blog on Wordpress, or follow me on Twitter, or look up my book on Goodreads. And once we’re connected, I can share news about my books, and continue to connect with readers through posts.

What is the most valuable advice you’ve been given as an author?

The classic “write about what you know” has been incredibly helpful. Of course this should not be taken literally; it is fiction, after all. But I try to base what I write in some form of truth. I try to pull everything from a deep place of either memory or dream, and to shape that piece of myself into something new. I don’t write what I think others want to read. Everything I write is grounded in meaning—everything I write means something to me.

What is the best thing about being a writer?

The best thing about being a writer is the simple act of creation. There’s nothing more satisfying than writing the last page of a novel. I’ve dreamed of being an author since I was in third grade, so when I look on my bookshelf and see my own name on some of those spines, well, I feel what I can only call a surge of joy.

What’s next? Are you working on your next book?

I try to write 500 words a day. I’ve worked on a few projects since Listen. Sometimes I also write in journals, and I post weekly on my blog. I’m planning to see where my graduate education takes me, and perhaps write a book—fiction or non-fiction—for my thesis.

THANKS FRANCESCA!
LISTEN IS AVAILABLE ON-LINE IN PAPERBACK OR KINDLE.


Thursday, April 28, 2016

Book Beginning: From the Heart: The Photographs of Brian Lanker



THANKS FOR JOINING ME ON FRIDAYS FOR BOOK BEGINNING FUN!

Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author’s name.

EARLY BIRDS & SLOWPOKES: This weekly post goes up Thursday evening for those who like to get their posts up and linked early on. But feel free to add a link all week.

FACEBOOK: Rose City Reader has a Facebook page where I post about new and favorite books, book events, and other bookish tidbits, as well as link to blog posts. I'd love a "Like" on the page! You can go to the page here to Like it. I am happy to Like you back if you have a blog or professional Facebook page, so please leave a comment with a link and I will find you.

TWITTER, ETC: If you are on Twitter, Google+, or other social media, please post using the hash tag #BookBeginnings. I try to follow all Book  Beginnings participants on whatever interweb sites you are on, so please let me know if I have missed any and I will catch up.

TIE IN: The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice is a natural tie in with this event and there is a lot of cross over, so many people combine the two. The idea is to post a teaser from page 56 of the book you are reading and share a link to your post. Find details and the Linky for your Friday 56 post on Freda’s Voice.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING



MY BOOK BEGINNING



Brian Lanker, the photographer, was easy to appreciate, to admire, and to comprehend because his photographer's eye was the human eye and every viewer could easily translate what Lanker saw into what the viewer knew.

-- From the Heart: The Photographs of Brian Lanker by Brian Lanker, published by OSU Press. The opening sentence is from the Foreword by Maya Angelou.

Lanker was won the Pulitzer Prize for feature photography when he was 24, for newspaper photos of a couple going through natural childbirth. He brought an artist's gifts to his career as a photojournalist, a career celebrated in From the Heart.

Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Teaser Tuesday: The Man Who Wasn't There by Judy Nedry



It was obvious to me that the two older sisters needed money. Otherwise, why would they care about selling the winery?
-- The Man Who Wasn’t There by Judy Nedry. This Oregon wine-country mystery will get you in the mood for summer road trips! It's available in paperback and kindle.

Judy Nedry writes a mystery series featuring Emma Golden, a sometimes food and wine writer; sometimes amateur sleuth; often prickly, but always loyal, friend of a certain age.  The Man Who Wasn't There is the third book in this fun series and it makes the most out of Emma's (and Nedry's own) history in Oregon's wine making culture, involving the mysterious death of one of Oregon's founding winemakers at the International Pinot Noir Celebration he established. Cheers!

Read my review of The Difficult Sister, the second book in the series, here. Read Judy Nedry's author interview, here.


Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by MizB at Books and a Beat, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event.

Sunday, April 24, 2016

Storyline Serendipity: The National Gallery in London


NATIONAL GALLERY SERENDIPITY
IN TWO NOVELS I RECENTLY READ


The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (2000; Booker Prize winner)
The Bell by Iris Murdoch (1958; her fourth novel)

Both these novels have sat on my TBR shelf for years and only by happenstance did I read them at the same time this month -- when I took a break from the hardback Atwood chunkster to read the short and lively Murdoch on a plane trip.

I was struck by the serendipity that the heroines in both books visit the National Gallery in London alone, and that these visits are turning points in their personal development.

This coincidence made me realize that, although the stories are completely different, the heroines are cut from the same pattern. Both Dora in The Bell and Iris in The Blind Assassin are beautiful girls lacking formal education, with no ideas of how to support themselves as adults, so end up married too young to men too old for them. Their narcissistic husbands want to mold their new brides to their images of ideal wives, regardless of the women's own interests and desires.

In The Bell, Dora's visit to National Gallery is a break from ping ponging between her husband and her lover and the moment she starts to think for herself.

In The Blind Assassin, Iris spends most of her London honeymoon, while her husband is in business meetings, on sightseeing tours of monuments he arranged for her. Her visit to the National Gallery is her first act of independence and marital rebellion.

Iris's story is much longer and more complex than Dora's. But I wonder if Margaret Atwood read Iris Murdoch's book and it planted a seed?

WHAT IS STORYLINE SERENDIPITY?
A ONCE-IN-A-WHILE BLOG EVENT

Have you had the experience of something coming up in a book -- an event, place, idea, historical character, or even an unusual word -- and then shortly after, the same thing comes up in a different book completely by coincidence? I call this Storyline Serendipity.

I don't mean like when you take a class in Russian history and read two books about the Tsar. Or when you read two mysteries and there are dead bodies in each.

I mean random coincidence between two books. I like it when this happens because it makes me slow down and pay more attention to how the event or idea, place or character was treated in each book. I get a little more out of each book than I would have if the universe hadn't paired them on my reading list.

If you experience Storyline Serendipity, feel free to grab the button and play along. If you want to, please leave the link to your post in a comment. Or leave the link to your post on the Rose City Reader facebook page. If you want to participate but don't have a blog or don't feel like posting, please share your serendipity in a comment.

This is a once-in-a-while blog event that I'll post as I come across Storyline Serendipity. If you want to participate, post whenever you want and leave a comment back here on my latest Storyline Serendipity post. If it ever catches on, we can make it a monthly event.

Thursday, April 21, 2016

Book Beginning: The Man Who Wasn't There by Judy Nedry


THANKS FOR JOINING ME ON FRIDAYS FOR BOOK BEGINNING FUN!


Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author’s name.

EARLY BIRDS & SLOWPOKES: This weekly post goes up Thursday evening for those who like to get their posts up and linked early on. But feel free to add a link all week.

FACEBOOK: Rose City Reader has a Facebook page where I post about new and favorite books, book events, and other bookish tidbits, as well as link to blog posts. I'd love a "Like" on the page! You can go to the page here to Like it. I am happy to Like you back if you have a blog or professional Facebook page, so please leave a comment with a link and I will find you.

TWITTER, ETC: If you are on Twitter, Google+, or other social media, please post using the hash tag #BookBeginnings. I try to follow all Book  Beginnings participants on whatever interweb sites you are on, so please let me know if I have missed any and I will catch up.

TIE IN: The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice is a natural tie in with this event and there is a lot of cross over, so many people combine the two. The idea is to post a teaser from page 56 of the book you are reading and share a link to your post. Find details and the Linky for your Friday 56 post on Freda’s Voice.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING


MY BOOK BEGINNING



It's difficult to enjoy oneself or anything else when it's 102 degrees, but I was giving it my best shot.
-- The Man Who Wasn’t There by Judy Nedry. A perfect summer read, available in paperback and kindle. That's an opening sentence any Oregonian can relate to!

The Man Who Wasn't There is the latest in Judy Nedry's Emma Golden mystery series, featuring an Oregon wine country amateur sleuth. Here, when one of Oregon's founding winemakers mysteriously dies at the International Pinot Noir Celebration he established, Emma is pulled into the mystery. What fun!

Read my review of The Difficult Sister, the second book in the series, here. Read Judy Nedry's author interview, here.

TBT Review: Angler Management by Jack Ohman

Throw Back Thursday
This review was first posted on July 7, 2010

Congratulations to Jack for winning a 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning!



Angler Management: The Day I Died While Fly Fishing and Other Essays by Jack Ohman.

Angler Management is cartoonist Jack Ohman’s first book of essays and shows that Ohman is as funny with words as he is with pictures.

In this collection, Ohman discusses the obsession that is fly fishing, writing about the compulsive collecting of gear, the frustration of trying to talk to a fly fisherman (even if you are one yourself), the secrecy of fishing spots, the aggravating hobby of tying your own flies (or even more loony, building your own rods), and other crazy-making aspects of what Tom Brokaw calls the “high church” of fishing.

Most of the essays cover general fly fishing topics. However, as Ohman is a self-described “delusional humorist with a fatal streak of nostalgia,” the best pieces are those involving his own experiences and memories, including his reminiscences on his boyhood stream, the Kinnikinnick in Wisconsin, and his story of “the day I died while fly fishing” on Kelly Creek in Idaho. Even little asides such as this one in an essay on high-tech fishing equipment bring personality to the book:

I was raised by a PhD research scientist, and I can tell you firsthand that he viewed liberal arts majors as ethereal slacker stoners with no real understanding of how the world works, let alone how to turn on a Bunsen burner or create penicillin in a petri dish (when I was a child, my dad once gave me some penicillin that he personally created -- I can't even make a Manhattan without consulting the Internet). One way that we've figured out how to make ourselves feel, well, more scientific, is to inject science into art -- specifically, the art of fly fishing.

Anglers and non-anglers alike will get a chuckle out of Angler Management, but it is definitely aimed at fellow enthusiasts and their co-dependents. It is too late to recommend it for Father’s Day this year, but it would be worth stashing away a few copies for the fly fishermen on your Christmas list.

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Teaser Tuesday: Listen by Francesca G. Varela



It was a still day, without much wind. The forest stood before us, and if it weren't for the dusty, sculpted path, it would have seemed infinite.

Listen by Francesca G. Varela, published by Homebound Publications. Listen is a new young adult novel about the romance between two college musicians who learn about themselves as they explore music and the natural world together.

Listen  is Francesca G. Varela's second novel of what she describes as "ecological fiction" in which she hopes to use stories to describe the beauty of nature and bring awareness to environmental issues. Varela was recently interviewed in The Oregonian and her books have been reviewed in several other publications.



Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by MizB at Books and a Beat, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event.

Thursday, April 14, 2016

Book Beginning: Listen by Francesca G. Varela



THANKS FOR JOINING ME ON FRIDAYS FOR BOOK BEGINNING FUN!

Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author’s name.

EARLY BIRDS & SLOWPOKES: This weekly post goes up Thursday evening for those who like to get their posts up and linked early on. But feel free to add a link all week.

FACEBOOK: Rose City Reader has a Facebook page where I post about new and favorite books, book events, and other bookish tidbits, as well as link to blog posts. I'd love a "Like" on the page! You can go to the page here to Like it. I am happy to Like you back if you have a blog or professional Facebook page, so please leave a comment with a link and I will find you.

TWITTER, ETC: If you are on Twitter, Google+, or other social media, please post using the hash tag #BookBeginnings. I try to follow all Book  Beginnings participants on whatever interweb sites you are on, so please let me know if I have missed any and I will catch up.

TIE IN: The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice is a natural tie in with this event and there is a lot of cross over, so many people combine the two. The idea is to post a teaser from page 56 of the book you are reading and share a link to your post. Find details and the Linky for your Friday 56 post on Freda’s Voice.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING



MY BOOK BEGINNING



"Haven't you had enough of this yet?"

Listen by Francesca G. Varela, published by Homebound Publications. Listen is a compelling YA novel that uses the blossoming romance between two college musicians to explore the connection between the natural world, art, and our inner wild spirit.

Francesca G. Varela considers herself an author of "ecological fiction" and is already getting a lot of attention for Listen, her second novel, which has been written up in The Oregonian and several other publications.

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Teaser Tuesday: Lost Kin by Steve Anderson



As Harry left his mansion Irina ran up to him shouting, arms flailing, her hair in her eyes wet with tears.

Harry's first thought -- my brother is dead.

-- Lost Kin by Steve Anderson. Max and Harry Kaspar reunite in 1946 occupied Munich in Anderson's third Karpar Brothers novel. American Harry wants to find his German brother Max still alive. Max wants Harry to help rescue a clan of Cossack refugees being hunted by Soviet death squads.

This exciting third book follows, The Losing Role, and Liberated. Lost Kin got a great advanced review on Kirkus Reviews, that called it "classic noir" and "a haunting tale" and said, "Anderson deserves a standing ovation for his gritty sketch of postwar, rubble-laden Munich."


Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by MizB at Books and a Beat, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event.

Thursday, April 7, 2016

Book Beginning: Lost Kin by Steve Anderson



THANKS FOR JOINING ME ON FRIDAYS FOR BOOK BEGINNING FUN!

Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author’s name.

EARLY BIRDS & SLOWPOKES: This weekly post goes up Thursday evening for those who like to get their posts up and linked early on. But feel free to add a link all week.

FACEBOOK: Rose City Reader has a Facebook page where I post about new and favorite books, book events, and other bookish tidbits, as well as link to blog posts. I'd love a "Like" on the page! You can go to the page here to Like it. I am happy to Like you back if you have a blog or professional Facebook page, so please leave a comment with a link and I will find you.

TWITTER, ETC: If you are on Twitter, Google+, or other social media, please post using the hash tag #BookBeginnings. I try to follow all Book  Beginnings participants on whatever interweb sites you are on, so please let me know if I have missed any and I will catch up.

TIE IN: The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice is a natural tie in with this event and there is a lot of cross over, so many people combine the two. The idea is to post a teaser from page 56 of the book you are reading and share a link to your post. Find details and the Linky for your Friday 56 post on Freda’s Voice.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING



MY BOOK BEGINNING



Harry Kaspar knew he shouldn't be heading into a bombed-out neighborhood with a plainclothes Munich cop he didn't know, not alone, not with night falling so fast.

-- Lost Kin by Steve Anderson.

This is the third book in Anderson's Kaspar Brothers series. Harry Kaspar is the older brother of Max Kaspar, protagonist in the first book, The Losing Role, that takes place in the last year of WWII. We meet Max's American brother Harry in Liberated, right after the war ends. The brothers are reunited in this third book, which takes place a year after WWII, as the Cold War begins.



TBT: Review: The Stories of John Cheever

Throw Back Thursday
This review was first posted on March 24, 2008

Before there was Mad Men, there was John Cheever.



The Stories of John Cheever, which won the National Book Critics Circle award in 1978 and the Pulitzer in 1979, is a chronological collection that spans Cheever’s short story career, from pre-WWII up to 1973. To read this collection – just shy of 700 pages – is to live in Cheever’s head, tracking his artistic and personal development in a way that a single novel or volume of stories doesn’t allow.

These are not happy stories. The earlier pieces are particularly bleak and raw. While the later stories are deeper and more nuanced, they are still pretty dark. Precious few have cheerful resolutions. The best Cheever’s characters seem to achieve is contentment despite imperfect circumstances.

Cheever’s is a world of commuter trains and cocktail parties, where everyone wears hats, has a cook, drinks martinis at lunch, summers, sails, and commits adultery. Not everyone is rich; in fact, money problems are a continuing theme. But the trappings, however tarnished, of a mid-century, Northeast corridor, upper crust way of life hang on all the stories. And that is Cheever at his best. He can bring us so deep into that world that it feels like living it.

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Teaser Tuesday: The Blind Assassin



When the policeman had gone I went upstairs to change. To visit the morgue I would need gloves, and a hat with a veil.

-- The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood.

This Booker Prize winner has been on my TBR shelf forever! I was intimidated by the idea of its novel within a novel within a novel, but I shouldn't have been. The structure is not as complicated as it sounds. The narrator Iris is telling the story of her and her sister Laura's lives. But the book also includes an apparently autobiographical novel of Laura's, published posthumously, that fills in Iris's story. And part of Laura's novel is an allegorical science fiction story told by the lover to the novel's heroine. So all three works of fiction combine to tell one story.

OK, so maybe it does sound complicated. But it doesn't feel complicated when you read it. It comes out just as a really good story.


Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by MizB at Books and a Beat, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event.

Monday, April 4, 2016

Mailbox Monday


Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring event. Mailbox Monday has now returned to its permanent home where you can link to your MM post.

I got two books last week, and both intrigue me:



Cabal by Michael Dibdin. I've never read one of Dibdin's mysteries featuring police detective Aurelio Zen, but I saw the short BBC series starring Rufus Sewell in the lead role and am looking forward to trying the books. Cabal isn't the first in the series but I found it at a Little Free Library in my neighborhood so I thought I'd give it a try.



The Fox Was Ever the Hunter by Herta Müller, translated by Philip Boehm. Müller won 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature. This is the new release of her 1992 novel about Romania in the last months of the Ceausescu regime. Mine is an early review copy from LibraryThing and the book is available for pre-order for its May 10 release.

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