Amanda and I have spent a large part of this summer editing essays (and writing our own) for a collection of essays addressed to birth mothers. The end result is Silent Embrace, Perspectives on Birth in Adoption. The essays are so touching, many heartbreaking. Our hope is that they offer insight into open and opening adoption. Stay tuned to learn more….
Janis Joplin, Rise Up Singing was named one of the big books of the show at Book Expo 2010 in New York. The book will find its way to store shelves on October 1, 2010. It’s hard to believe that it’s been so many years since I first heard Janis on the radio and then watched her climb to fame.
While I was a young teen, I used to sit in my bedroom and write poetry (pretty bad poetry, but you have to start somewhere) and crank my stereo so loud I managed to shut out the rest of the world.
I couldn’t get over Janis’s voice. But her personality and stardom had an impact. She demonstrated independence and unique style. I copied both. In choosing to write about Janis, I wanted people to see that we don’t always have to run in a group, we can make individual choices and we can celebrate our unique talents and ideas.
I hope the attention that Janis is getting reflects all of this. But stay tuned……..
I received the cover for my biography of Janis Joplin. It’s coming out in October but I’ll be signing advance reader copies in a little less than a month. This was a five year project, a labor of love that came about because, when I was a teen, I would listen to Janis while I wrote wicked bad poetry. She seemed to be everything I wanted to be — a unique woman who lived her life according to her own terms, an idealist who refused to compromise, an artist. I admired her talent and her ability to show her flaws to the world without apology.
I set out to live my own life without compromise and to stand alone, if necessary, with my ideals and beliefs. But Janis’s life became my cautionary tale when she died in 1970. In the end, Janis taught me to be my own person and not to do drugs.
Sometimes I imagine what she would be singing if she were still alive. I believe she’d be onstage still, strutting her talent right alongside all the other rock and roll and blues greats who recognize that you’re always fully alive with music.
Janis Joplin, Rise Up Singing is already posted on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. I’m sure your local bookseller can also pre-order a copy. I can’t wait for you to see the amazing, amazing images and to read about Janis, the first queen of rock and roll.
I’ve got a lot of writing projects which will hit store shelves soon and I hope you take a moment to investigate them.
Here’s the cover to Commutability, Stories about the journey from Here to There. My short story, Into the Underworld is included in this Mainstreet Rag published anthology by editors Molly McCaffrey and David Jack Bell
In November, Silent Embrace, Perspectives on Birth in the Adoption Triad, edited my me and my daughter Amanda will be published by Catalyst Book Press.
I sometimes look at the diverse interests demonstrated in the themes I choose and wonder if people question it. But I write about things and people I care deeply about — birth parents, mothers and daughters, adoption, a rock star who helped me form my own lifestyle based upon her belief to live a life without compromise and Greek myths.
I wonder how other writers land on their topics. Care to comment?
I’m turning to a weekend of teaching from copy editing and image gathering the Janis Joplin bio which is — TA DA! — now posted with a publication date on Amazon. Really. Go see. It’s so cool to see because, after five years, it’s going to happen.
Back to teaching — anyhow, I’m focusing on filtering time through character this weekend. I find that talking about summary or exposition, real time and slow time from the perspective of a primary character helps writers to keep their writerly voices off the page. When readers hear the narrator, it can distance them, as if they’re in the back row of a theater. You want your reader to feel close to the characters and to the story. The goal is to make readers feel they’re sitting first row, center stage.
The leaves are already turning yellow and orange which means that school is in full gear. I’m teaching once again and also trying to make a real commitment to finishing a YA novel I began awhile ago. The working title is CHICKS ON BOARD. I’m at a point where, if I talk too much about what I’m writing, the writing will feel flat so I can’t say much more except that I had a great writing day yesterday….actually, it turned into a revision day where I added to a scene and made a few small changes. But those are the days when I realize I have a scene sketched out, not written yet, that’s set in the wrong house and so I’m moving the scene to the house that it needs to be. That will let me develop characters more fully. It’s great the way everything works together then.
It’s becoming increasingly clear that writers need to play if we’re to write anything worth reading. So, while in Florida, I played with Pan.
That was shortly before I danced with these lovely nymphs.
I fear I may have angered these gatekeepers when I searched through this purse. But I wasn’t the only one playing. Jeff strummed the guitar of this jester while his guitar gently weeped.
Then it was time to go home again where I’ll finish portfolio comments and focus on my summer of writing!
My living room is stacked with twenty-some novel beginnings. I’ve got to get those evaluated and grades in by the end of the week. But I’ve also been finishing final edits for A Reader’s Guide to Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street.
I hope the summer offers huge chunks of writing time. But I’ll take what I can get in small doses if need be. Meanwhile, I’ve committed to talk with local teen writers at three Red Oaks Young Writers summer camp sessions over the summer. The camps are sponsored by Redbird Studio — A Writer’s Place.
I’m also going to take a week to learn more about writing memoir at A Room of Her Own Foundation’s semi-annual writing retreat.
But mostly, these days, I’ve been thinking a lot about good girls. I think all girls are good girls and there are no bad girls. Some good girls just get turned around. I want to write about those girls. So I think it’s time to get back to morning pages and trying to see if I can hear a voice, someone who has a story to tell. Then I can get back on track with writing. Summer is so previous that way.
Spring break has been full of school and library visits. I was one of five writers at Eisenhower Library’s first ever Teen Lit Fest. My friend and author of The Serendipity Market, Penny Blubough, was one of the organizers. The audience was packed with teens from area schools who admitted they received extra credit in their classes if they attended. Still, they were a beautiful group of interested readers.
Thursday’s events included speaking to two groups for Divine Savior Holy Angels High School career day. I’ve done this before and was talking to an alum about that. I mentioned I’d had a student show up two years ago whose father had told her to go to the career session hosted by a district attorney but she was glad to come to my session and hear about writing. Imagine my surprise when she was one of the first session attendees. And imagine the pleasure to hear she’s been accepted to Iowa to study writing! Way to go!
I handed out purple SUCH A PRETTY FACE bracelets and talked about upcoming projects — the Janis Joplin biography, another collection of short stories and my spirit novel. I have more bracelets so if you’d like one, please email me (aangel at aol.com) with your address and I’ll send you one.
On Tuesday, I’ll be visiting Pulaski High School where some of the English classes have been reading SUCH A PRETTY FACE. I’m looking forward to seeing their collages that represent their takes on beauty.
I’ve also managed to get back to some revising and new writing over break. I’m spending a lot of time thinking about good girls. I think my characters are good girls who get turned all around by choice or circumstance. The more they try to escape their problems, the worse the problems get until they figure out what it takes to re-connect to who they really want to be. More on that later….I think I promised my own classes that I’d write something on raising the stakes and irrevocable decisions so I’ll think on that and get back to you.
I received the cover for my biography of Janis Joplin. It’s coming out in October but I’ll be signing advance reader copies in a little less than a month. This was a five year project, a labor of love that came about because, when I was a teen, I would listen to Janis while I wrote wicked bad poetry. She seemed to be everything I wanted to be — a unique woman who lived her life according to her own terms, an idealist who refused to compromise, an artist. I admired her talent and her ability to show her flaws to the world without apology.
I fear I may have angered these gatekeepers when I searched through this purse. But I wasn’t the only one playing. Jeff strummed the guitar of this jester while his guitar gently weeped.
Then it was time to go home again where I’ll finish portfolio comments and focus on my summer of writing!