My Year of Reading: Best First Lines of 2014

Every book has to start somewhere, right?

These were some of the greatest opening lines of 2014 books I came across this year.  Whether it was through startling imagery, clever grammatical construction or just plain oddness, these first sentences worked hard to get my attention.  They entranced, they intrigued, they hooked, they pulled me inside, they persuaded me to linger.   Whether or not the rest of the book held up to that first promise isn't the issue here (though, in most cases, these books do deliver the goods).  What matters is the first impression.  These lines were the unforgettable ones.

P.S.  If you want to read the rest of the words in these books, make sure you click the title link beneath each sentence and order your copy from R. J. Julia Booksellers.

We shot dogs.
     Redeployment by Phil Klay

It felt like a noble gesture at the time, and I was in the mood for an adventure.
     Blood Will Out by Walter Kirn

A girl always remembers the first corpse she shaves.
     Smoke Gets In Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty

Once upon a time, in a far off land, I was kidnapped by a gang of fearless yet terrified young men with so much impossible hope beating inside their bodies it burned their very skin and strengthened their will right through their bones.
     An Untamed State by Roxane Gay

I'm pretty much fucked.
     The Martian by Andy Weir

Patterson Wells walks through the front door to find Chase working on a heap of crystal meth the size of his shrunken head.
     Cry Father by Benjamin Whitmer

The end came for Jane, and so for us, at the edge of spring, when the leaves of the north country were washed in that impossible shade of lemonade green.
     The Carry Home by Gary Ferguson

They never found his hands.
     The Forgers by Bradford Morrow

There was a town, and there was a librarian, and there was a fire.
     Shouldn't You Be in School? by Lemony Snicket

On the steps of the old mission house, the sergeant sat with the boy who called himself Robin, and watched a pigeon being swallowed by a pelican.
     Tigerman by Nick Harkaway

The king stood in a pool of blue light, unmoored.
     Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

On a very cold and lonely Friday last November, my father disappeared from the Dictionary.
     The Word Exchange by Alena Graedon

We found the woman floating facedown in an eddy where Crooked River made a slow bend north, just a stone skip away from the best swimming hole this side of anywhere.
     Crooked River by Valerie Geary

Exactly once upon a time in a small village in northern Iran, a child of the wrong color was born.
     The Last Illusion by Porochista Khakpour

Every night I stunned myself with gin.
     A Different Bed Every Time by Jac Jemc

There was a time, not long ago, when it was illegal to kill people.
     Pills and Starships by Lydia Millett

A celestial light appeared to Barrett Meeks in the sky over Central Park, four days after Barrett had been mauled, once again, by love.
     The Snow Queen by Michael Cunningham

By the time Joan of Arc proclaimed herself La Pucelle, the virgin sent by God to deliver France from its enemies, the English, she had been obeying the counsel of angels for five years.
     Joan of Arc: A Life Transfigured by Kathryn Harrison

They buried my wife in a shoe box in Central Park.
     Spoiled Brats by Simon Rich

The moose head was fixed to the wall, the microphone in its mouth was broken, but the camera in its left eye was working just fine, and as far as the moose head could see, this was just another Friday night in the Lumber Lodge!
     The Happiest People in the World by Brock Clarke

Leroy Kervin opened his eyes to see a woman in a blue-and-white-starred bikini holding a pneumatic drill.
     The Free by Willy Vlautin

I've always believed that one of the great reasons to be alive is that we don't know what's coming around the next corner.
     Good Grief! by Ellen Stimson

Sixty seconds before the baby shot its father, leaves fell lazily in Central Park.
    Brainquake by Samuel Fuller

Nobody ever warned me about mirrors, so for many years I was fond of them, and believed them to be trustworthy.
     Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi

Ira had been divorced six months and still couldn't get his wedding ring off.
     Bark by Lorrie Moore

        Let's go out
        and fart in the sunlight.
     A Momentary Glory: Last Poems by Harvey Shapiro

I crash through the screen door, arms flailing like two loose propellers, stumbling like a woman on fire: hair and clothes ablaze.
     The Other Side by Lacy M. Johnson

For a ghost story, the tale of Violet Saville Devohr was vague and underwhelming.
     The Hundred-Year House by Rebecca Makkai

You are a hairy painting.
     Mad Honey Symposium by Sally Wen Mao

There is a bullet here on my desk.
     Talkativeness by Michael Earl Craig

Pretend I'm not already dead.
     A Life in Men by Gina Frangello

The funeral is supposed to be a quiet affair, for the deceased had no friends.
     The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

The rumors started before my daddy’s body got cold.
     I Love You More by Jennifer Murphy

This is the story of a murder, of a single soft-nosed bullet that traveled upward through a man’s rib cage, piercing his lung and lodging in his neck, after being fired by an unknown assailant 92 years ago on a cold Los Angeles night.
     Tinseltown by William Mann

The plane smelled of sweat and perfume.
     Friday Was the Bomb by Nathan Deuel

We feel them coming, the low vibration of their wheels, a dark convoy descending upon us, pitching north like a swarm lobbed from the fist of a spiteful deity.
     Cementville by Paulette Livers

Behold Tommy Arney: six-one, two-forty, biceps big as most men’s thighs and displayed to maximum effect in the black wifebeater that is his warm-weather fashion essential.
     Auto Biography by Earl Swift

The cop flicked his cigarette to the dirt and gravel road in front of the house, and touched back his hat over his hairline as the social worker drove up in a dusty Toyota Corolla.
     Fourth of July Creek by Smith Henderson

Because I'd seen part of a documentary on gurus who slept on beds of nails, and because I'd tried to quit smoking before my wife came back home after leaving for nine months in order to birth our first child--though she would come back childless and say it was all a lie she made up in order to check into some kind of speech clinic up in Minnesota to lose her bilateral lisp--I had a dream of chairs and beds adorned entirely with ancient car cigarette lighters.
     Between Wrecks by George Singleton

My Year of Reading: By the Numbers

This should have been The Year of Writing (followed by The Year of Revision and then, if I'm lucky, The Year of Publication)....but instead of using the majority of my spare time to work on the novel-in-progress, I spent a LOT of hours turning pages.  This isn't entirely bad, of course.  As Samuel Johnson once said, “The greatest part of a writer’s time is spent in reading, in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one book.”  Still, I'm sure my agent and editor are off in a corner somewhere wailing and gnashing teeth and rending garments.  Calm down, gentlemen; I plan to flip it around in 2015, making it The Year of the Next Novel.

When it came to reading, however, I surprised even myself in 2014 with the statistics of my book log.  Regular readers of The Quivering Pen may remember previous years' tallies: 81 books in 2013, 56 in 2012 and 55 in 2011.

This year, as my friends over at Book Riot might say, I read harder.  Drumroll, please....

105 books.

This includes six which I expect to finish before New Year's Eve.  The total page count for 2014 was 25,186, for an average of 254 pages per book (up from 231 last year).

They ranged from Edan Lepucki's marvelous novella If You're Not Yet Like Me to Victoria Wilson's equally-dazzling 1,056-page biography of Barbara Stanwyck; they stretched back to 1815 with E. T. A. Hoffmann's The Nutcracker and reached into the future with three novels which will be published in 2015: The Sasquatch Hunter's Almanac by Sharma Shields, The Sympathizer by Viet Than Nguyen and No. 4 Imperial Lane by Jonathan Weisman.  2014 was the year I finally got around to reading long-time residents of my literary bucket list: Anthony Doerr, Donna Tartt, Anthony Trollope and Elizabeth Gaskell.  It was the year I read Lolita.  It was the year I discovered what all the fuss was about with Gone Girl and The Fault in Our Stars.  It was the year I went back to war with Brian Turner (My Life as a Foreign Country), Phil Klay (Redeployment), Tim O'Brien (a re-read of The Things They Carried), Michael Pitre (Fives and Twenty-Fives), Katey Schultz (Flashes of War), Jennifer Percy (Demon Camp), Cara Hoffman (Be Safe I Love You), Adrian Bonenberger (Afghan Post), Joe Sacco (The Great War), and poets Saif Alsaegh (Iraqi Headaches) and Kevin Powers (Letter Composed During a Lull in Fighting).  I spent nearly two months eavesdropping on conversations between Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger (The Nixon Tapes) and a week enjoying poet Michael Earl Craig's Talkativeness.  I went Tenting To-Night with Mary Roberts Rinehart and Trout Fishing with Richard Brautigan.  I spent Christmas at Thompson Hall with Trollope and at Eagle Pond with Donald Hall.  I skated across The Great Glass Sea with Josh Weil and I explored a Cave in the Black Mountains with Neil Gaiman.  In short, I feel like I went everywhere and did everything in 2014 through the creative imaginations of all these wonderful writers.

I doubt my literary intake will be as great next year (though I do hope to make a dent in my Essentials List).  Instead, I hope to be creating worlds of my own.  Let's all lift a glass to The Year of Writing, long may its ink flow.

My First Time: Sarah Kennedy

My First Time is a regular feature in which writers talk about virgin experiences in their writing and publishing careers, ranging from their first rejection to the moment of holding their first published book in their hands.  Today’s guest is Sarah Kennedy.  After completing her M.F.A. in Poetry Writing, she began writing historical poetry.  Seven books of poems later, she turned her scholarly interests in Tudor England to fiction with The Cross and the Crown series.  Sarah earned her Ph.D. in Renaissance poetry and currently teaches and heads the English Department at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Virginia.   Find out more about Sarah and her books at her website.

My Many First Times

The first creative writing class I attended was in college. Susan Neville at Butler University was the professor, and I was scared mute.  She was already a well-known fiction writer—that was enough to intimidate me!—and I was sure that I was a poet.  Dialogue?  Forget it!  I was all about image and compression.  (I was taking a course in Modernism, too, and that didn’t help.)

Our first assignment was to write a scene, and I thought I could handle that.  If I remember rightly, the homework called for a couple of pages of description.  Well, description...that was my strength.  Or so I thought.  I think I described a dilapidated house, but it was so overwritten and so sappy with personification that I was mortified when I got it back.  Tender-ego me.  I asked if I could write poetry, and Susan, being the terrific person that she is, said yes.

I did still try now and then to write prose, but my stories always sounded forced, unnatural.  And dialogue continued to haunt me.  All that talk.  Who needed it?

Apparently, at some point in my writing life, I did.  I graduated and went on to become a teacher myself.  I also continued to write poems.  And after three published books, something happened.  The first turn occurred during a research trip to Aberystwyth, Wales, where the National Library had several old recipe manuscripts.  I was teaching eighteenth-century literature and wanted to investigate what women actually wrote about.  They wrote recipes, to be sure.  But they also wrote about their lives: their children, their friends, their love affairs and marriages, their favorite songs and books, and even their gambling debts.  My understanding of the eighteenth century increased...but I started to hear their voices in my head.  Talking to me.  To each other.  To people I didn’t know.

After seven books of poetry, I turned to prose.  I had a character knocking at my imagination—a young nun at the start of the Reformation in England, who is about to be evicted from her convent.  She’s intelligent, and she’s educated, and she doesn’t know what’s going to happen to her.  She also doesn’t know who her parents are.  That nun called herself Catherine Havens, and she is the main character in my first novel, The Altarpiece.  Apparently her story wasn’t done, though, because I have just published Book Two, City of Ladies; Book Three, The King’s Sisters is on its way in August 2015.

The convents are now closed, and Catherine has to discover who she is and what she can still believe in a country that seems to have thrown out God with the Roman church.  She has some firsts of her own to struggle with: a first marriage and a first child.  A first loyalty—to God—that often puts her in contention with her husband—and her king.

Book Four is underway (tentative title: Queen of Blood), and it should seem that there are no firsts left for me in writing novels, especially about Tudor England.  But, in fact, I find just the opposite is true.  Every blank screen, every empty page, becomes an invitation to try something new, to travel into strange places.  And so I begin again on another venture into fiction, and no matter how well I get to know them, I try to meet my characters all over, as though for the first time.

Sunday Sentence: Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill

Simply put, the best sentence(s) I’ve read this past week, presented out of context and without commentary.

I bought a warmer coat with many ingenious pockets. You put your hands in all of them.

Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill

A Bookworm's Holiday Gift Guide

You probably finished your Christmas-gift shopping last June--or, if you are a super-industrious and insanely organized person, maybe you started shopping for Christmas 2014 way back in 2013.  But for the rest of us who haven't gotten everything wrapped up neatly with a bow (literally and figuratively), might I offer a few suggestions for the readers on your list?

The Best American Comics 2014

Edited by Scott McCloud

This bold, bright book collects the "best" work found in graphic novels, comics and webcomics published between September 1, 2012 and August 31, 2013--a date span which, happily, includes Chris Ware's Building Stories (The Best American Comics anoints it as "Book of the Year"--a reminder that I need to hunker down and read the damn thing).  This year's anthology includes familiar names like Jaime Hernandez, R. Crumb, Ben Katchor, Charles Burns, Allie Brosh (from Hyperbole and a Half) and Adrian Tomine (and if those names aren't familiar to you, then you really need this book to bring you up-to-speed on what's happening in the world of graphic narrative).  For me, the real stand-out of The Best American Comics, however, was the discovery of Raina Telgemeier.  An excerpt from her latest book, Drama, is excerpted here and I was immediately drawn in (pardon the pun) by Telgemeier's terrific pen work which combines realism with occasional cartoon-y flourishes (Telgemeier cites Hi and Lois as one of her influences, and it's easy to see traces of that classic comic strip in the curves and lines of her characters).  The Telgemeier pages found here follow Drama's main character Callie as she and her junior-high friends start preparing for an upcoming school play.  Telgemeier brilliantly captures what it's like to be young, in love, and ripe for public humiliation.  I could totally relate.  Here's the best testimony I can offer up: I loved this excerpt from Drama so much, I immediately went out and bought Telgemeier's other books: Sisters and Smile (her best work to date).  Heck, I even bought one of the graphic novel versions of The Babysitter's Club which she wrote at the beginning of her publishing career.  I am now a die-hard Telgemeier fan and eagerly await her next book.

For the Ignatius J. Reilly fan

'Fess up: you've always wanted a Confederacy of Dunces throw pillow.  John Kennedy Toole's unforgettable character is also available on coffee mugs, tote bags, T-shirts and baby onesies.

Seventies Glamour

by David Wills

Bowie, Blondie, Elton.  Diane von Furstenberg and Halston.  Cocaine and mirror balls, disco and punk rock, the parties, the orgies, the sex Sex SEX.  You get an eyeful of the Me Decade in this lavish coffee table book (and just a word of warning: Seventies Glamour is definitely NSFW, so if you have the very young or very old or the very conservative living in your house, you might not want to display this book on your actual coffee table).  David Wills has curated hundreds of photos from the era--from the nightclub dance floor to the concert stage, from the boudoir to the beach, from Diane von Furstenberg at the top of the Empire State Building to Faye Dunaway down below in the streets on the movie set of The Eyes of Laura Mars.  Seventies Glamour is uncaged hedonism at its very peak in a decade dusted with glitter and drugs.

The Italo Calvino Backlist

from Mariner Books

All praise and thanks go to Mariner Books and designer Peter Mendelsund for repackaging Italo Calvino's backlist this year.  If you have a reader who's into heady, fantastical, allegorical and damn-fine writing, then you should check out these new editions of Calvino's work: The Complete Cosmicomics, Collection of Sand, Hermit in Paris, The Road to San Giovani, Six Memos for the Next Millennium, The Written World and the Unwritten World, Why Read the Classics?, Into the War and several others.  I myself only have a light acquaintance with Calvino, having read Cosmicomics in grad school, but these beautiful new editions make me want to plunge headlong into his works.  For more on Mendelsund's design process (including some other terrific rejected covers), check out this interview at The New Yorker.

Read Harder T-Shirt

from Book Riot

If, like me, your New Year's goal is to read like a freight train burrowing through a snow jam (anyone else see Snowpiercer?), then the Book Riot store might be a good place for you to shop.  Already have too many T-shirts?  No probs--Book Riot also carries book necklaces, dead writers perfume and library card socks.

Literary Soaps

from Pen & Candle

These handmade goat's milk soaps make nice little stocking stuffers for bookworms, dirty or not.  I'll take two bars of Moby Dick, please.

Friday Freebie: Closed Doors by Lisa O'Donnell and Keep Your Friends Close by Paula Daly

Congratulations to Ian Hilgendorf, winner of last week's Friday Freebie, the big o' books (and a Blu-Ray DVD).

This week's book giveaway is a pair of recent hardback novels: Closed Doors by Lisa O'Donnell and Keep Your Friends Close by Paula Daly.  Read on for more info about the books.

In Closed Doors, a tense and brilliant tale from the national bestselling author of The Death of Bees, a young boy on a small Scottish island (where everyone knows everything about everyone else) discovers that a secret can be a dangerous thing.  Eleven-year-old Michael Murray is the best at two things: hacky sack and keeping secrets.  His family thinks he's too young to hear grown-up stuff, but he listens at doors--it's the only way to find out anything.  And Michael's heard a secret, one that may explain the bruises on his mother's face.  When the whispers at home and on the street become too loud to ignore, Michael begins to wonder if there is an even bigger secret he doesn't know about.  Scared of what might happen if anyone finds out, and desperate for life to return to normal, Michael sets out to piece together the truth.  But he also has to prepare for the upcoming talent show, keep an eye out for Dirty Alice--his arch nemesis from down the street--and avoid eating Granny's watery stew.  Closed Doors is a vivid evocation of the fears and freedoms of childhood and a powerful tale of love, of the loss of innocence, and of the importance of family in difficult times.

In Paula Daly's novel Keep Your Friends Close, Natty and Sean have a rock-solid marriage--with two daughters, a successful business, and a beautiful house, they are a model family.  When their younger daughter falls ill on a school trip, Natty rushes to her side.  Luckily, Natty's best friend from college, Eve, is visiting and offers to stay with Sean to lend a hand in the household.  But Natty returns home to find that Eve has taken to family life a little too well: Sean has fallen in love with her.  With no choice but to put on a brave face, Natty attempts to start anew--yet no matter how hard she tries to set herself upright, Eve is there to knock her down again.  Then Natty receives a mysterious note that says Eve has done this before--more than once--and the consequences were fatal.  On a mission to reveal Eve as a vindictive serial mistress, Natty must navigate through a treacherous maze of secrets and lies that threatens her life and the safety of her loved ones.

If you’d like a chance at winning both books, simply email your name and mailing address to

thequiveringpen@gmail.com

Put FRIDAY FREEBIE in the e-mail subject line.  One entry per person, please.  Despite its name, the Friday Freebie runs all week long and remains open to entries until midnight on Dec. 18, at which time I’ll draw the winning name.  I’ll announce the lucky reader on Dec. 19.  If you’d like to join the mailing list for the once-a-week newsletter, simply add the words “Sign me up for the newsletter” in the body of your email.  Your email address and other personal information will never be sold or given to a third party (except in those instances where the publisher requires a mailing address for sending Friday Freebie winners copies of the book).

Want to double your odds of winning?  Get an extra entry in the contest by posting a link to this webpage on your blog, your Facebook wall or by tweeting it on Twitter.  Once you’ve done any of those things, send me an additional e-mail saying “I’ve shared” and I’ll put your name in the hat twice.

The Christmas I Realized I'd Become My Father

Novelist Brenda Bevan Remmes shares a Christmas memory with Quivering Pen readers today.  Brenda is the author of The Quaker Cafe and a contributor to the new anthology Serving Up Memory, from which this essay is reprinted with her permission.  Serving Up Memory is a collection of stories, recipes, and poetry by members of the Camden Writers group in South Carolina.

My father loved Christmas more than any person I know.  He told us when he was a boy growing up in a strict Methodist family in Pennsylvania, he and his three brothers received a basket of fruit and nuts under the tree—the sum total of the gift-giving.

My father and his brothers all became men of substance: important men, busy men, men addicted to proving themselves by putting in long hours at their jobs at the expense of time with their families.  Christmas turned into my father’s moment to give back for all the violin concerts, baseball games and little theater performances he’d missed.

What my father bestowed upon us came in waves, an excess of curiosities depending on the best deal that caught his eye during the few times he walked through the local department store.  In an effort, I think, not to offend or show favoritism, he often gave us all the same thing.  With the advent of 24-hour specials sandwiched in between the occasional television shows he watched, his gifts became amusingly predictable.

I remember Christmases where we all got a suitcase, pillows, or steak knife sets.  Remember those little orange plastic skewers to core an apple?  We got those along with an onion slicer specially designed to make fried onion rings, amusing since none of us liked onion rings.  Only later did I realize my mother loved onion rings, but refrained from eating anything fried.

We received make-up kits, even though we wore little make-up, and numerous boxes of dusting powder which piled up in closets between chocolate covered cherries wrapped in silver foil.  At one point he developed a friendship with a fine jewelry dealer.  That was a banner year.  Alas, the dealer died shortly thereafter and that was the end of what we all hoped would be a new standard of gifts that might appear under the tree.

My father’s generosity extended far beyond our immediate family.  It was a rare person who knew him that didn’t receive a seasonal token of appreciation.  As he approached what he knew would be his last Christmas, he went into a frenzy of catalog buying.  Some days the UPS and FedEx trucks sat bumper-to-bumper in his drive waiting their turn to unload.  Mother would simply roll her eyes and disappear into the kitchen as the packages piled up.  After his death, she overheard several women at her beauty parlor discussing the wonderful shortbread cookies he had sent them for Christmas.  My mother had never met the women and didn’t introduce herself, but she paid the credit card bill for those two dozen orders plus countless other unexpected gifts.

Last Christmas as I sat around the lit tree with my boys and their families we began to reminisce about the gifts they’d received from me in the past.  “Remember the year you gave us luggage?” my youngest asked.  “What were we, eight and ten?  Were you trying to get rid of us?”

“Did I give you luggage?” I asked.  “Surely not.”

“Yep, and then there was the year you gave us pillows,” the oldest said.  “We got pillows from Santa Claus.  I couldn’t believe it.  My friends laughed out loud.”

“Pillows I remember,” I confessed.  “They were goose down—on sale—a rare find.  You slept better, didn’t you?”

“What about those crystal balls from Czechoslovakia?”

“I thought they might be valuable someday,” I said.  “A friend gave me a deal.”

“And the country western CDs of Charlie Pride?  Really, Mom.”

I slumped in my chair.  “All that bad, huh?”

“It was pretty weird,” one said and the other nodded in agreement.  “We just figured you went a little bonkers around Christmas time.  We gave up telling you what we wanted and agreed there was some quirk in your DNA that switched on with the Christmas lights.”

“I suppose,” I admitted, feeling a bit ashamed that I’d let my buying get out of control.  “Honestly,” I paused and threw up my arms in a small gesture of apology.  “I thought I was giving you exactly what you wanted.”

Trailer Park Tuesday: Gray Mountain by John Grisham

Welcome to Trailer Park Tuesday, a showcase of new book trailers and, in a few cases, previews of book-related movies.

Like him, love him, loathe him or leave him, one thing's for certain: John Grisham's new novel, Gray Mountain, has a tense, breathless trailer.  A woman runs through the woods.  A phone rings...and rings...and rings, then clicks over to voicemail.  We hear a frantic message: "Pick up!  C'mon, pick up the phone!"  In short order, we learn a body has been found--"his skull was crushed!"--and, for some reason, this woods-runner is in terrible danger.  It's a pretty good hook for what may or may not be a "pulse-pounding legal thriller" from Mr. Grisham.  According to the publisher's synopsis, Gray Mountain is about Samantha Kofer (the frantic runner in the trailer?) who is a promising associate at a Wall Street law firm--until the recession hits, she's downsized, and she decides to move to Appalachia to work at a legal aid clinic in Brady, Virginia.  There, Samantha enters "the murky and dangerous world of coal mining, where laws are often broken, rules are ignored, regulations are flouted, communities are divided, and the land itself is under attack."  Whether or not Gray Mountain is primo Grisham or just reheated leftovers from The Firm, there's no denying the fact that Doubleday has produced a decent trailer for the novel.  I just wish someone would answer that damn phone!

My First Time: Valerie Joan Connors

My First Time is a regular feature in which writers talk about virgin experiences in their writing and publishing careers, ranging from their first rejection to the moment of holding their first published book in their hands.  Today’s guest is Valerie Joan Connors, the author of the novels Shadow of a Smile, In Her Keeping and Give Me Liberty.  She is the current President of the Atlanta Writers Club, an organization with more than 600 active members and a 100-year history in the Atlanta area.  Valerie has a B.S. in Business from Portland State University.  During business hours, she’s the CFO of an architecture, engineering and interior design firm.  Valerie lives in Atlanta with her husband and two dogs.  Click here to visit her website.

My First Publishing Contract

I will never forget the day I received my first traditional publishing contract.  In 2010, I self-published my first novel, Give Me Liberty, which was inspired by my mother who courageously divorced her abusive first husband in the late 1940s and moved to New York with her three-year-old son.  Although it was a fictionalized account of her story, that first book felt much too personal to be shopped around and rejected by people who didn’t know me, much less my mother.  But with my second novel, In Her Keeping, a story about a tiger sanctuary, I really wanted to go the traditional publishing route.  I felt that I had a good story that was based on my real life experiences as well as a whole lot of research.  I started working on my query letter, which is some of the most difficult writing I’ve ever done.  Trying to condense 80,000 words into a three-paragraph document that represents both the essence of the story and my writing biography was challenging.  As the rejections started to come in, I continued to edit my query letter and found that although the rejections kept coming, they became less abrupt, so I knew that my query letter was improving.  It was a whole lot nicer to hear something like, “your story sounds very interesting, but doesn’t fit our needs at this time” rather than simply, “thanks but no thanks.”

After submitting to twelve agents and one editor, I decided to try a smaller publishing house.  Their submission guidelines said they wanted a full manuscript, a synopsis and a query letter, and they accepted un-agented work.  I put together the materials, sent them off electronically, and promptly forgot all about it.

Two months later, while checking my email, I saw a message from Bell Bridge Books.  I remembered having submitted to them, and I assumed it was another rejection.  While rejection was obviously not my goal, I figured that I would likely experience a good bit more of it before getting that first “yes.”  But to my amazement, the letter said that they were very interested in my story, if I would consider making one small change at the very beginning.

I made the requested change and began the story in a slightly different place.  A week later I signed my first traditional publishing contract. I had struggled for months with the right beginning for the story, and my editor, Deborah Smith, found it immediately.  Not only was Deborah an amazing editor, she also mentored me through the entire publishing process, and patiently answered all my questions.  I told her that in spite of having spent thirty-five years in the business world, with publishing I felt like a kid on the first day of school, not knowing where the bathroom is.  In Her Keeping, will always hold a special place in my heart, not only because of the little tiger cub that inspired the story, but because it was the first time that I felt comfortable saying, without hesitation, that I was a writer.

Author photo by Patrick Connors

Sunday Sentence: "The Mistletoe Bough" by Anthony Trollope

Simply put, the best sentence(s) I’ve read this past week, presented out of context and without commentary.

She had shipwrecked her own happiness in rejecting Godfrey Holmes, but it seemed to her to be the proper thing that a well-behaved young lady should shipwreck her own happiness.  In the last month or two she had been tossed about by the waters and was nearly drowned.  Now there was beautiful land again close to her, and a strong, pleasant hand stretched out to save her; but, though she had suffered terribly among the waves, she still thought it wrong to be saved.

"The Mistletoe Bough" by Anthony Trollope
from Christmas at Thompson Hall & Other Christmas Stories

Friday Freebie: When the Cypress Whispers by Yvette Manessis Corporon, The Stockholm Octavo by Karen Engelmann, Burial Rites by Hannah Kent, Fosse by Sam Wasson, The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta, Selections from Melville House's Art of the Novella series, HitRecord on TV, Rear Window & A Big Little Book!

Congratulations to Amy Morgan, winner of last week's Friday Freebie: Pickett’s Charge by Charles McNair, Sometimes the Wolf by Urban Waite, Three Bargains by Tania Malik, The Family Hightower by Brian Francis Slattery, and Big Little Man by Alex Tizon.

This week's "book contest" is a little something different, designed to assist you in your holiday gift-giving quandary (if, in fact, you find yourself in a quandary).  This giveaway has a little something for just about every reader on your shopping list: some contemporary literary fiction, a biography, a set of classic novellas, experimental short fiction--and I'm even tossing in a couple of goodies from my personal collection, an Alfred Hitchcock Blu-Ray disc and a Big Little Book for the younger readers (and/or those who succumb easily to nostalgia).  Here's what one lucky reader will win in this week's Friday Freebie giveaway:

When the Cypress Whispers by Yvette Manessis Corporon

On a beautiful Greek island, myths, magic, and a colorful cast of mortals come together in a lushly atmospheric debut celebrating the powerful bond between an American woman and her Greek grandmother.  The daughter of Greek immigrants, Daphne has been brought up to believe in the American dream.  When her husband dies in a car accident, leaving her with an inconsolable baby and stacks of bills, she channels everything she has into opening her own Greek restaurant.  Now an acclaimed chef and restaurateur, she has also found a second chance at love with her wealthy, handsome fiance.  Although American by birth, Daphne spent many blissful childhood summers on the magical Greek island of Erikousa, which her grandmother still calls home.  At her Yia-yia's side, she discovered her passion for cooking and absorbed the vibrant rhythms of island life, infused with ancient myths and legends lovingly passed down through generations.  Somehow her beloved grandmother could always read her deepest thoughts, and despite the miles between them Daphne knows Yia-yia is the one person who can look beyond Daphne's storybook life of seeming perfection to help her stay grounded.  With her wedding day fast approaching, Daphne returns to Erikousa and to Yia-yia's embrace.  The past and the present beautifully entwine in this glorious, heartfelt story about a woman trapped between the siren call of old-world traditions and the demands of a modern career and relationship.  When Daphne arrives on Erikousa with her daughter, Evie, in tow, nothing is the way she recalls it, and she worries that her elderly Yia-yia is losing her grip on reality.  But as the two of them spend time together on the magical island once again, her grandmother opens up to share remarkable memories of her life there--including moving stories of bravery and loyalty in the face of death during World War II--and Daphne remembers why she returned.  Yia-yia has more than one lesson to teach her: that security is not the same as love, that her life can be filled with meaning again, and that the most important magic to believe in is the magic of herself.

The Stockholm Octavo by Karen Engelmann

Life is close to perfect for Emil Larsson, a self-satisfied bureaucrat in the Office of Customs and Excise in 1791 Stockholm.  He is a true man of the Town—a drinker, card player, and contented bachelor—until one evening when Mrs. Sofia Sparrow, a fortune-teller and proprietor of an exclusive gaming parlor, shares with him a vision she has had: a golden path that will lead him to love and connection.  She lays an Octavo for him, a spread of eight cards that augur the eight individuals who can help him realize this vision—if he can find them.  Emil begins his search, intrigued by the puzzle of his Octavo and the good fortune Mrs. Sparrow's vision portends.  But when Mrs. Sparrow wins a mysterious folding fan in a card game, the Octavo's deeper powers are revealed.  For Emil it is no longer just a game of the heart; collecting his eight is now crucial to pulling his country back from the crumbling precipice of rebellion and chaos.  Set against the luminous backdrop of late eighteenth-century Stockholm, as the winds of revolution rage through the great capitals of Europe, The Stockholm Octavo brings together a collection of characters, both fictional and historical, whose lives tangle in political conspiracy, love, and magic in a breathtaking debut that will leave you spellbound.

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

A brilliant literary debut, inspired by a true story: the final days of a young woman accused of murder in Iceland in 1829.  Set against Iceland's stark landscape, Hannah Kent brings to vivid life the story of Agnes, who, charged with the brutal murder of her former master, is sent to an isolated farm to await execution.  Horrified at the prospect of housing a convicted murderer, the family at first avoids Agnes.  Only Tóti, a priest Agnes has mysteriously chosen to be her spiritual guardian, seeks to understand her.  But as Agnes's death looms, the farmer's wife and their daughters learn there is another side to the sensational story they've heard.  Riveting and rich with lyricism, Burial Rites evokes a dramatic existence in a distant time and place, and asks the question: How can one woman hope to endure when her life depends upon the stories told by others?

Fosse by Sam Wasson

More than a quarter-century after his death, Bob Fosse's fingerprints on popular culture remain indelible.  The only person ever to win Oscar, Emmy, and Tony awards in the same year, Fosse revolutionized nearly every facet of American entertainment, forever marking Broadway and Hollywood with his iconic style--hat tilted, fingers splayed--that would influence generations of performing artists.  Yet in spite of Fosse's innumerable achievements, no accomplishment ever seemed to satisfy him, and offstage his life was shadowed in turmoil and anxiety.  Now, bestselling author Sam Wasson unveils the man behind the swaggering sex appeal, tracing Fosse's untold reinventions of himself over a career that would spawn "The Pajama Game," "Cabaret," "Pippin," "All That Jazz," and "Chicago," one of the longest-running Broadway musicals ever.  Drawing on a wealth of unpublished material and hundreds of sources--friends, enemies, lovers, and collaborators, many of whom have never spoken publicly about Fosse before--Wasson illuminates not only Fosse's prodigious professional life, but also his close and conflicted relationships with everyone from Liza Minnelli to Ann Reinking to Jessica Lange and Dustin Hoffman.  Wasson also uncovers the deep wounds that propelled Fosse's insatiable appetites--for spotlights, women, and life itself.  In this sweeping, richly detailed account, Wasson's stylish, effervescent prose proves the ideal vehicle for revealing Bob Fosse as he truly was--after hours, close up, and in vibrant color.

The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta

For those who've been enjoying the HBO series, here's your chance to check out the source material for The Leftovers.  What if your life was upended in an instant?  What if your spouse or your child disappeared right in front of your eyes?  Was it the Rapture or something even more difficult to explain?  How would you rebuild your life in the wake of such a devastating event?  These are the questions confronting the bewildered citizens of Mapleton, a formerly comfortable suburban community that lost over a hundred people in the Sudden Departure.  Kevin Garvey, the new mayor, wants to move forward, to bring a sense of renewed hope and purpose to his traumatized neighbors, even as his own family disintegrates.  His wife, Laurie, has left him to enlist in the Guilty Remnant, a homegrown cult whose members take a vow of silence but haunt the town’s streets as “living reminders” of God’s judgment.  His son, Tom, is gone, too, dropping out of college to follow a crooked "prophet" who calls himself Holy Wayne.  Only his teenage daughter, Jill, remains, and she’s definitely not the sweet "A" student she used to be.  Through the prism of a single family, Perrotta illuminates a familiar America made strange by grief and apocalyptic anxiety.  The Leftovers is a powerful and deeply moving book about regular people struggling to hold onto a belief in their futures.

Selections from Melville House's

Art of the Novella series

I'm a long-time fan of (and subscriber to) Melville House's Art of the Novella series.  I have a shelf full of short(ish) works by Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, Mark Twain, James Joyce, Kate Chopin, Willa Cather and dozens of others.  Earlier this month, I was the recipient of some duplicate volumes which I already had in my collection; so, my abundance is your gain.  Titles included in this Friday Freebie prize package are: The Alienist by Machado de Assis, Fanfarlo by Charles Baudelaire, May Day by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and The Devil by Leo Tolstoy.  I hope you enjoy these classics as much as I do; and that maybe you'll think about subscribing to the whole series.  It's always fun to receive a couple of novellas in your mailbox every four weeks.

Hitrecord on TV (Season 1)

HITRECORD ON TV is a new kind of variety show.  Join host Joseph Gordon-Levitt as he directs a global online community of artists to create eight episodes of television--all made collaboratively.  Each installment focuses on a different theme and features short films, live performances, music, animation, conversation, and more.  HITRECORD ON TV invites anyone with an internet connection to contribute, create, and develop art and media collectively through hitRECord.org, an online collaborative production company that brings together artists from all over the world to participate in the creative process, bridging cultural divides and false distinctions that separate professional artists from those who simply love to make art.  Through hitRECord.org, 1,295 artists contributed their original artwork to all of HITRECORD ON TV's eight episodes.  This nine-book box set is the official companion to the first season, taking fans deeper inside the show's themes and the making of the series as a whole.  It comes with special download codes for all eight episodes and the complete soundtrack album.

Rear Window on Blu-Ray

Because I recently bought a Hitchcock DVD combo-pack that included Rear Window, I'm offering up this stand-alone disc to one lucky reader viewer.  It's very gently-used (viewed only once, I believe) and comes with the clamshell case.  Rear Window should hardly need any introduction, but for those pitiful few of you out there who don't know what Alfred Hitchcock's classic is all about, here's a primer: Rear Window is an edge-of-your-seat classic starring two of Hollywood’s most popular stars.  When a professional photographer (James Stewart) is confined to a wheelchair with a broken leg, he becomes obsessed with watching the private dramas of his neighbors play out across the courtyard.  When he suspects his neighbor of murdering his nagging wife, he enlists his socialite girlfriend (Grace Kelly) to help investigate the suspicious chain of events, leading to one of the most memorable and gripping endings in all of film history.  Honored in AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies for excellence in film, Rear Window has also been hailed as “one of Alfred Hitchcock’s most stylish thrillers.”  This Blu-Ray disc includes the following special features:

• Rear Window Ethics: An Original Documentary
• A Conversation with Screenwriter John Michael Hayes
• Pure Cinema: Through the Eyes of the Master
• Breaking Barriers: The Sound of Hitchcock
• Hitchcock / Truffaut Interview Excerpts
• Masters of Cinema
• Feature Commentary with John Fawell, Author of Hitchcock’s Rear Window: The Well-Made Film
• Production Photographs
• Theatrical Trailer
• Re-Release Trailer Narrated by James Stewart

Tom Beatty, Ace of the Service:

A Big Little Book

      Hello, my name is David and I'm a Big Little addict.
      "Hi, David!"
      Yes, it's true: I like little books and I cannot lie.  Over the past 10 years, I've been collecting these cool artifacts from the 1930s and 1940s, primarily those published by the Whitman Publishing Company.  Those of you who aren't familiar with Big Little Books should check out this link.  In the course of collecting BLBs, of course, I've acquired a few duplicates.  This week, I'm including one of those, Tom Beatty, Ace of the Service: Scores Again, in the gift box in hopes you'll get a kick out of this "ace detective of the Secret Service" as he goes around kicking some Depression-era butt.  The book itself is in decent (though not perfect) shape.  It's perfectly suitable for reading and passing on to a new younger generation in hopes they'll get hooked on BLBs, too.  (If anyone needs the number for a good Big Little support group, just let me know.  I'm here to help.)

If you’d like a chance at winning the whole enchilada (all the books and the DVD), simply email your name and mailing address to

thequiveringpen@gmail.com

Put FRIDAY FREEBIE in the e-mail subject line.  One entry per person, please.  Despite its name, the Friday Freebie runs all week long and remains open to entries until midnight on Dec. 11, at which time I’ll draw the winning name.  I’ll announce the lucky reader on Dec. 12.  If you’d like to join the mailing list for the once-a-week newsletter, simply add the words “Sign me up for the newsletter” in the body of your email.  Your email address and other personal information will never be sold or given to a third party (except in those instances where the publisher requires a mailing address for sending Friday Freebie winners copies of the book).

Want to double your odds of winning?  Get an extra entry in the contest by posting a link to this webpage on your blog, your Facebook wall or by tweeting it on Twitter.  Once you’ve done any of those things, send me an additional e-mail saying “I’ve shared” and I’ll put your name in the hat twice.