Oh, the gods are laughing at us now. But more on this in a moment.

In an exchange with Natasha, she asked if I would speak about judging literary contests. Glad to do so, as this is a very interesting area. But, what a proverbial can of worms!

Judging literary contests is actually one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. Akin to editing, it is always delicate and difficult to pass judgment upon another author’s hard-wrought works. Judging is difficult on several fronts. First, from my side, there is the volume of submissions to deal with — sometimes manageable and sometimes a complete tsunami. Depends on the rules of the contest and nature of the publication/organization behind it. I learned early on that if a contest does not have strict guidelines, it spins out of control, falls apart, and becomes buried beneath an ever-shifting slurry of stories.

Secondly, there is the nature of the publication. After years of various types of editing and judging, I much prefer the more established book contests rather than wide-open Internet lists, websites, or writing contests which are open forums or “dumps” of endless posts and submissions. With books we have already cleared several writing/editing/production hurdles, thus narrowed the field, and enter higher levels of sophistication. I also prefer traditional print over e-books, because for some reason I find reading numerous, flickering-screened, lengthy e-texts to be eye-straining, tiresome, and thus much more difficult than curling up in a secluded corner and plowing through books. Onscreen work forces me to take many more breaks, which lengthens the process, whereas reading can continue unabated all day if necessary. Maybe that is generational on my part, but there it is. I prefer printed books.

Thirdly, there is the question of quality and genre. I am a very strong advocate of all things good — good being the operative word. I do not distinguish between any genre or sub-genre and do not take a dismissive attitude towards things not labeled with the snooty, ivy-covered curlicues of capital-L Literature. Likewise, I find no problem with works of fiction, nonfiction, or poetry. All are equally valid, if they are well-written. That is the entire argument. Quality is the key that unlocks the reader. If writing has merit, it does not matter what the style or content is. High quality writing can withstand any criticism and is always a pleasure to read, regardless of genre/stylistic labels.

Which brings me to judging a good literary contest. Contrary to what you might think, the poorly written works are the easy part of the contest. I have been asked before if it is annoying to have to read “crappy” works. Not really, because poor writing eliminates itself immediately and without problem. After discarding the trash, the hard part remains.

Good writing is very troublesome. Elsewhere, on this same topic, I wrote, “It isn’t wading through the crap that gets you … it is having to pick and choose between brilliant yet often completely different and creatively opposite works. Those are the ones you might read a dozen times and still be weighing back and forth, because they have different, yet valid, merits.”

Last comes the moment you’ve been dreading and everyone has been eagerly awaiting. We have come to the final decision. Unlike editing a journal or anthology, I can’t dodge the “best” question by choosing several works for inclusion. With a contest, to quote Queen from the Highlander soundtrack, There can be only one. The ultimate judgment must be made and you have to choose a single work over all the others. Not an easy task at all, since all the finalist manuscripts are fantastic and the authors equally worthy. Regardless of talent, you have to toss out all the other great works and choose a single tale. This is the thing that will gnaw at you, not just before with the deadline looming, but years afterwards, when you still remember these other, fascinating characters and their compelling stories, or when you run into an author again and are reminded that you chose someone else over their absolutely excellent work. It is a somewhat bitter moment when you feel like apologizing but cannot because it is the nature of a contest. If only everyone could win the Olympic gold medal.

Which brings me to my Theory of Relative Literary Merit: All things good are equally valid and judges are victims of excessively high quality. I think it is good to remember wily old Albert Einstein’s warning: “Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.” We judge at our own risk

Visit Thomas at his website.

I’m really excited to have Hannah from Word Lily on my blog today featuring one of the yummy author recipes!  Today’s recipe is a Espresso and Cardamom Rub which was shared with us in my interview with Leslie Patricelli whom has the most adorable board books ever.  I love them! Unfortunately, I don’t love coffee so I am thrilled that Hannah does and was gracious enough to give us the low-down!  Hannah . . .

When I first looked at the Espresso and Cardamom Rub recipe on Maw Books Blog after saying I’d try it out, I was a little bit confused: It’s called an espresso and cardamom rub, but the recipe didn’t have any cardamom! Well, this was confusing, but also unacceptable.

I was excited to try it because my husband and I both quite like coffee and cardamom. Sounds like a good fit, right?

I tracked down the original recipe, and found that it did contain cardamom:

ESPRESSO AND CARDAMOM RUB for beef, pork and chicken thighs and legs
1/4 c finely ground espresso roast coffee
1/4 c kosher sea salt
1/4 c packed dark brown sugar
3 T hot paprika
1 T ground cardamom
1 T ground ginger
2 t garlic powder

I had to substitute for the hot paprika because I couldn’t find any. Gourmet Sleuth recommended substituting Hungarian Paprika plus a pinch of cayenne, so that’s what I did.

I measured all the ingredients into a bowl and

stirred it all together (breaking up the small but inevitable clumps of brown sugar).

Once the dry rub was assembled, I realized I didn’t quite know how to use one! ChefTalk to the rescue this time. A rub, it stated, “is a massage given to meat, seafood, fowl — even vegetables — immediately before cooking or a few hours prior to grilling.” We poured about half of the rub into a smaller bowl, sprinkled it onto the steaks and then my husband rubbed it into both sides of two 1-pound-plus sirloins steaks.

We let the dry-rubbed steaks rest until the grill was hot, which wasn’t very long.

We had about half of the rub left (or maybe a bit more), which I stored in a jar with a tight-fitting lid (as instructed).

We were surprised that the flavor wasn’t stronger than it was. I found it quite flavorful, it’s just that we expected it to be more so. It was definitely yummy! I think next time we use the rub, we’ll apply it further ahead of time so the rub has more time to permeate the meat. I think I also was probably a bit shy on my use of cayenne to supplement my normal paprika — I’ve been burned by cayenne a few times, and I didn’t want to use too much — I’m guessing the pinch suggested by the experts is in addition to normal amounts for spices, in the 1 teaspoon or 1 tablespoon range, whereas this recipe called for 3 tablespoons. Instead of a just a few shakes, I probably should have used a more measurable amount, because the heat didn’t really come through at all for us.

Thanks for a great recipe, and a new cooking experience, Leslie Patricelli and Natasha!

Visit Hanna at her blog Word Lily.  Visit Leslie Patricelli’s website, check out her books, and read the author interview.

When I saw the tweet from Natasha asking for a guest post while she was away on holiday, I didn’t hesitate, I just emailed and offered my assistance. When I received an email in return letting me know that I was her guest blogger, I suddenly thought, what an earth do I write about?  After pondering a while, I decided I would talk about my  experiences setting up my own book blog, the influences other blogs have had on my reading and my ever increasing obsession with books.

My blog, Book Chick City, was created at the beginning of July this year, with the initial idea being an online book club. Since then, it has evolved into a fully blown book blog with news, reviews and even  interviews!

From the first hesitant steps of setting up my blog and not really knowing what I was doing, to how I build my blog today, is all down to the many fantastic book blogs I came across on my journey through  the blogosphere. I accumulated all the ideas and fun widgets I found to create Book Chick City. Most of the people I have ‘met’ along the  way have been really helpful and others have left great comments on my posts. It does seem that outside the book blog world, reading  seems to be dwindling in favour of other activities. I can honestly say that there are not many people I know who read that much any  more, let alone want to discuss the books they have read, so it feels great to chat with like minded people.

My interest in books and reading came at a very early age and since  then it has grown into a bit of an obsession. If I’m not reading books then I’m shopping for books – what would I do without Amazon 1- Click! I find that a week rarely goes by without a few new books being added to my TBR pile – a testament to this is the fun weekly meme, Mailbox Mondays, hosted by Marcia @ The Printed Page and What’s on your desk Wednesdays? hosted by Sassy Brit. Those of you who  follow these on my blog will have seen photos of the mountains of  books I accumulate. Although I LOVE buying new books, I also visit my  library regularly and my local charity shop, where I have found some great bargains. The books that I don’t want to be a part of my  ongoing collection go straight back to the charity shop.

Over the years my reading choices have been quite varied, from the  classics to horror, from crime to chick-lit, but I have noticed that I do tend to stay with authors I know. But after reading the reviews  and interviews on the book blogs I have visited, their choices of  authors and genre have started to influence my buying, and I have  bought quite a few books that I probably wouldn’t have looked at if  it wasn’t for these blogs.

In the last couple of weeks I have been contacted by various  publishers who want to send me books to review. So, along with the hundreds of books I already have on my TBR list, I am now adding  more, but this is absolutely fine with me. I love reading, I love  books and I love writing. What more could a book chick ask for?

Visit Carolyn at Book Chick City and follow on Twitter @BookChickTweets.

I met Kaleb at BookExpo America and I’m happy to have him on my blog today.  This guest post/interview was conducted by Paul Samuelson, exclusively for the Maw Books Blog.

On the third night of the third month in 2003, 14-year-old Kaleb Nation had a sudden idea that began the story of Bran Hambric, a novel that would take most of his teenage years to write. Kaleb hosted his first radio show in Texas at age thirteen, and has since launched several websites, including KalebNation.com and TwilightGuy.com. Aside from writing, Kaleb enjoys creating music and blogging. A home-school graduate and a former black belt in taekwondo, he currently attends college in Texas and turned 21 in 2009.

Bran Hambric: The Farfield Curse is as funny as it is action packed. It reads like a Terry Pratchett novel for middle grade readers. Kaleb Nation, whose two websites have over a million hits each, delivers an exceptional debut novel where a boy living in a world where magic is banned discovers he has inherited dangerous gifts from his criminal mother, and must uncover a dark secret in his past in order to make sense of his future.

“No Mages, No Gnomes, etc.” Dunce has all of the accommodations the world can offer: TV, cars, computers, and more. The three things it will not have, ever, are mages, gnomes, or anything that might be an “etcetera.” The rest of the world might accept mages, gnomes, and etcetera, but the Duncelanders never would! Which might explain why Bran is having SUCH a tough childhood. Check out www.BranHambric.com for more information!

FULL DISCLOSURE: This interview of Kaleb Nation (@kalebnation) was conducted by Sourcebooks publicist Paul Samuelson (@psamuelson01) specifically to introduce readers of Maw Books to Kaleb Nation and the first installment of the new Bran Hambric series.

Samuelson:  Who is your favorite author?

Kaleb Nation: Hard to pick! I think I’m an equally avid fan of Lemony Snicket and Eoin Colfer.

Samuelson:  As the “twilight guy,” you are obviously well read in the YA genre, and have a lot of followers who are also huge YA fans. Why did you decide to make this a middle grade book?

Kaleb Nation: When I wrote Bran Hambric: The Farfield Curse, I wasn’t really thinking of it being for any specific age. I started it when I was 14 and wrote it all the way up until I was 20, and my main readers were my younger siblings and friends. I would always know which parts were good and which parts were not by watching how they reacted to the new chapters as I wrote them! So the book was formed in a way where it would appeal to my brother and friends (essentially in a YA age group), my sister (who was a middle grade level reader) and me. Inadvertently, I think I really wrote a YA book that can be enjoyed by middle grade readers.

Samuelson:  People always say the first book is autobiographical. Are you really a magician in disguise? (Is Bran somewhat modeled after you, or is he completely fictitious?)

Kaleb Nation: In spite of my greatest attempts, I think Bran ended up a lot like me (except, of course, the magic!). Not so much in literal ways, but more in how he reacts and what he does. For me, writing can sometimes be an escape: for Bran, his escape is drawing. I think also that Bran being 14 and me being 14 when I started writing impressed into his character bits of who I was back then. I am also somewhat claustrophobic, so it’s obvious where Bran got that from!

Samuelson:   The city of Dunce is a very unique setting. Can you tell us a little bit about the city, and how the inspiration for the city came about?

Kaleb Nation: When I had the first idea for the book, I imagined a boy and a banker on a roof, waiting for a burglar who was actually a creature trying to kidnap Bran. That image immediately conjured up questions I had to answer: one of the biggest was about the world Bran lived in. I knew immediately that Bran lived in a modern world, but that he lived in the one city that had outlawed magic. I think the basis of Dunce is that they are strictly opposite to the rest of the world, and it was Bran’s fate to end up in the middle of it.

Samuelson:  For a young person, you have quite an impressive and varied work history. Did you always know you wanted to write, or is this just another career option you’re exploring?

Kaleb Nation: Actually, I really enjoyed writing growing up, but I didn’t know how much of a career I could build with it. I went through a phase of career hopping: I thought I wanted to be a web designer, so I started a company, got a client list, and then closed it after a few years. I thought I wanted to be a radio broadcaster, so I got a show when I was about 13 and was nationally syndicated when I was 17, but two years later became somewhat bored because I felt I had already reached my goal. The one thing that I stuck with through all of that was writing — what I really, truly enjoyed doing. So in September of 2008 I quit my show to focus on YouTube and writing Bran Hambric books! That’s when I found out it had been what I wanted to do all along.

Samuelson:  So, you’ve had a hit radio program, currently have several websites that get millions of hits every month, you have a YouTube channel and a BlogTV show, as well as a legion of Twitter followers-what is your secret? (i.e. what is the secret to creating a following)

Kaleb Nation: It’s really hard to say! I didn’t go into this planning on building a following: I thought it would take legions of marketing people and publicists to make anyone notice me. But I think the one thing I’ve learned (especially online) is that you have to do something that is different from everyone else if you want to be noticed. To succeed online, you have to market yourself and promote the aspects that set you apart from everyone else.

Samuelson:  What is the first thing you check online when you get up in the morning?

Kaleb Nation: Twitter! I am obsessed.

Samuelson:  What are some of the challenges you’ve had to overcome in managing so many disparate social media venues?

Kaleb Nation: Time management, absolutely. When I’m writing for two blogs, filming YouTube videos, doing live shows, and getting lists of emails a day, it doesn’t leave much time to actually write books (much less go to the store, see friends, etc)! Some nights I have to stay up until 3 AM just to finish. It took me a while, but thankfully now I’ve got most of it sorted out — though my email-answering is backed up to June of last year!

Samuelson:  We often hear horror stories about how difficult it is to get published. What was your experience finding a publisher?

Kaleb Nation: Mine was actually quite smooth. I started querying agents right after I finished the book (via email queries, using the amazing website AgentQuery.com) and had nine interested in just a few months. One day, my future agent Richard Curtis replied asking for the full manuscript about five minutes after I emailed my query, and made an offer that evening. We had a lot of rejections (which is typical for new authors) and sold the book about 6 – 9 months later. Certainly not a horror story, even with all the waiting!

Samuelson:  Being a published author and internet celebrity takes a lot of work. What is your favorite part of the job?

Kaleb Nation: My favorite part is when I meet people who like my writing and videos. I love doing shows on BlogTV.com because I can interact with readers directly, and I try to make it to events where I can meet people in person. It’s always great to know they enjoy what I do!

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ENTER to Win!!

Pre-Order Prize Giveaway– (US ONLY) Any person who pre-orders Bran Hambric: The Farfield Curse, and sends their e-receipt or scanned receipt to sbpublicity@sourcebooks.com will be entered into a drawing to win one of the following prizes:

- Personalized copy of The Farfield Curse (give your copy to a friend!)

- Personalized early reader copy of Book 2

- Personalized Bran Hambric poster

- Half Moon Necklace

- Signed CD of soundtrack

- $25 gift certificate to local bookstore

- Kaleb Nation event at local bookstore (fall 2010)

One entry per book ordered (so as many entries as books ordered). Receipts must be dated prior to pub date – September 9, 2009 and bear the subject heading “Bran Hambric Pre-Order Competition.” Winners to be announced September 30, 2009!

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Thank you Kaleb and Paul! Kaleb can be found at KalebNation.com and TwilightGuy.com.

So let’s turn the post over to Cindy!

_______________________________________

When I first saw Natasha’s comments on twitter looking for a fellow blogger to help her out I decided without hesitation to offer my assistance. Not that it had anything to do with the recipe she was offering, which just happens to be my favorite chocolate covered strawberries.

I went and grabbed the recipe to print from the blog and was reading it over. I wanted to make sure that I had everything and what I didn’t I would go out and buy. When I saw that I needed a syringe I began to wonder how could I possibly get a syringe. Honestly I have never needed one so I had no clue how to go about it.   After calling my pharmacy I was told I could buy one from them.

My plan was to make them for Easter but I was unable to make them. I had told my friend that I was making them and she said to keep some for her. That night I had called her to tell her I burned my hand and funny enough she thought I burned it will making the chocolate covered strawberries. Sadly no that wasn’t the case, I didn’t burn my hand that way. With not being able to make them for Easter I was wondering when I would get the chance to make them, although I really didn’t need a reason to make them, who doesn’t like chocolate covered strawberries? The next chance would be my son’s birthday party that we had with family which was this past weekend.

Putting the Grand Marnier in was the easiest part. After two failed chocolate burnings and setting the alarms off I quickly decided to use a double boiler to melt the chocolate. Which worked really well. If you happen to make this then I suggest using this method. It was easy and no chocolate was burned.

The adults loved the Grand Marnier Infused Chocolate Covered Strawberries and were surprised to discover that the Grand Marnier was inside the strawberries. They thought that it was in the mixed into the chocolate. I also made alchol free chocolate covered strawberries for the younger ones. Everyone loved it and I keep getting asked to make more which I will be doing in the summer with the fresh local strawberries.

_______________________________________

Thanks Cindy!  It looks like a great success!  Special thank you to Cindy of Cindy’s Love of Books for today’s guest post, do go check out her great blog!

Links of interest: The Grand Marnier Infused Chocolate Covered Strawberries recipe.  Maw Books interview with Michael Lee West, book review of Mermaids in the Basement.  Mermaids in the Basement is available from your local independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.  Michael Lee West website.

What I found fascinating about The Secret Keeper is that the author Paul Harris is also a journalist who covered the war in Sierra Leone.  I wanted to know how much of his personal experience played into the writing of this book and was thrilled to be able to ask Paul some of those questions.  Please welcome Paul to the Maw Books Blog . . .

Maw Books:  How and why did you become a journalist? Can you briefly share a few highlights from your career?

Paul Harris: I always wanted to be a journalist and I think I have been lucky to have had that ambition from a young age. When I was about 9 years old I started a newspaper at my school (it lasted one edition!). So it was simply a matter of doing student journalism, getting a journalism qualification and then battling to get a job. The reasons why I  wanted to be a journalist are a mix. Every journalist (I would hope) wants to change the world a little bit for the better. But every honest journalist should admit that it’s a chance to have an awful lot of fun, see some exotic places and get to see your name in print. My main highlight would be covering the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. It was a panel set up by archbishop Desmond Tutu to examine apartheid era crimes by all sides. It was a privilege to watch a nation try to heal itself like that, with all the moral compromises and complexities that that involved.

Maw Books:  Starting a newspaper at nine?  It’s no surprise you became a journalist!  You spent a month in Sierra Leone covering the civil war.  It is obviously this experience that drove you to write The Secret Keeper.  But you’ve also covered many other conflicts across Africa and elsewhere. Why did you choose this story over any of the other stories that you could have told?

Paul Harris: I think Sierra Leone held the most fascination because for me it was the most extreme experience.  More so than two months embedded with the military during the invasion of Iraq or other conflicts which I just dipped in and out of.  In Sierra Leone I was operating alone, in a strange country amid utter chaos.  It was a heady mixture of excitement and fear.  It was also the conflict that put a full stop on my African experience. I decided to leave shortly after.

Maw Books:  I can only imagine the things you must have seen and heard.  Why write a novel in the first place?  Is it something that you have always wanted to do or have been interested in?  What led you to turn from journalism writing to novel writing?

Paul Harris: I always wrote fiction, especially when I was a child. I fell in love with Tolkien and spent many hours writing my own stories set in fantasy worlds (writing a fantasy book is still a secret ambition of mine). Then, after I had left Africa, I decided to take my desire to write a novel seriously and followed the dictum: write what you know. So I began the process of taking some of my own experiences as a setting and starting to work what sort of themes I wanted to explore.

Maw Books:  Was it easy or difficult to switch to a different style of writing for The Secret Keeper from your journalism writing?

Paul Harris: It was very liberating actually. Fiction is an opportunity to play around and say exactly what you want. Journalism has rules to stop that sort of thing.

Maw Books:  I imagine being an war correspondent stationed abroad can be very frustrating when faced with the ignorance of others who either have little to no interest in the stories that you are risking your life to bring to them.  Do you think you can reach a new demographic with a novel (as opposed to journalism writing), to those who may not be aware of some of the current conflicts around the world?

Paul Harris: Definitely. The best fiction can bring the most obscure parts of the world to people’s attention and reach people that don’t consume too much news or have become disillusioned with it. I imagine that Khaled Hosseini has done more to bring Afghanistan alive for people than a thousand news stories.  Perhaps, hopefully, what happens is someone will read the fiction and then be inspired to find out more about the reality.

Maw Books:  I must admit that Hosseini spurred my desire to read more books that take place in Afghanistan, which I’m lucky to say I have.  What do you hope the reader learns, if anything, after reading The Secret Keeper?

Paul Harris: I think, at heart, it’s a story about moral complexity. That very few things are black and white. Good people do bad things, bad people do good  things. Everything is a shade of grey.

Maw Books:  What was the personal emotional impact on you from your experience in Sierra Leone?  How does covering war stories change you?  And how do you suppress this emotion in your journalism writing?

Paul Harris: It was pretty intense. I thought I was fine but after I left (and was incredibly relieved to get out) I noticed that I was behaving in certain strange ways: edgy, short-tempered, constantly nervous. I remember walking through a Nairobi street when a car exhaust backfired several times and it set my heart racing so much I thought I was about to have a panic attack.  But I think for most journalists the impact of covering conflicts will be as varied as the person. Some very fine friends make their whole careers out of it. Some of them thrive, others become very damaged. For me, it gave me a great sense of perspective and the preciousness of life and a feeling that war truly is the greatest folly of mankind. As for suppressing the emotion in writing, I think the simple rules of writing journalism will keep a lot of it out. But also a little bit of emotion – and breaking those rules – is generally a good thing. There is no such things as true objectivity, especially about tragedy, and nor should there be.

Maw Books:  Was the experience of writing The Secret Keeper cathartic in any way?  A way for you to release some of the emotions that you felt while in Sierra Leone or any other war torn country?

Paul Harris: I think it was. It felt good to get it out on the page, probably more than I realized I needed.

Maw Books:  After witnessing so much real-life drama how do you recreate that drama in The Secret Keeper?  How are real life emotions different than emotions as written on a page?

Paul Harris: What a fascinating question. I think (I hope) that I tried to recreate that drama as accurately as possible and give my characters emotions that would ring true. I think authors should aim to recreate authenticity. Because readers are not fools and will spot a fake. So I guess it is up to the readers to say if I have succeeded or not.

Maw Books:  How have the real life people you met in Sierra Leone influenced the characters/personalities in your book?

Paul Harris: A lot, but not all. The romance between Danny and Maria was inspired by an affair that a colleague and a local aid worker were having.  Kam, Danny’s driver and fixer, was based entirely on my driver in real life. Ali was inspired by a guy I met on a helicopter trip.  I did not even speak to him, but he just looked so… shady and yet totally at home in his environment. I just extrapolated him from there. The scenes in the hotel bar were all taken from real life. That place was a real “Star Wars” bar that everyone went to every night. Covering a conflict like that at leaves gives one a vast amount of exotic source material.

Maw Books:  I thought Kam was quite the character!  How much (if any) of you is there in Danny?  Is there anything specifically that happened to him that is based upon your real life experiences?

Paul Harris: I think inevitably there is a lot there. A friend pointed out that there is very little physical description of Danny in the book and I guess that is because in my mind’s eye he was basically me. There are several specific incidents inspired by real life events: the shooting outside the RUF leader’s house, the trip to Bo and the fire fight up country towards the end of the book. Mining those events for fictional purposes did feel a little surreal at times.

Maw Books: Knowing what your author photo looked like I have to admit that I kept picturing Danny as you.  And what fascinating experiences!  Was there a particular scene that you knew you had to write about?  That never changed from the moment you conceived it?

Paul Harris: Weirdly, the last sentence was pretty much the first sentence that came to my mind. Writing the book felt like a journey to get to that point and though it took lots of turns and twists, I felt I never really lost sight of it.

Maw Books:  What surprised you most about your book and/or characters as you were writing? Did anything turn out radically different than you’d originally thought it would?

Paul Harris: This is a tough one. I had an unusual experience writing the character of Danny’s girlfriend, Rachel. I wanted her to be a sympathetic, good person.  But at the end of the first draft my editor said she didn’t really care for her at all, saying she came over as negative and complaining. With that in mind I went back and reread those bits of the book with a fresh eye and was astonished to discover she was right. I had written her in print in a way completely different than what I thought I had. So I went back and rewrote her parts to do her more justice.

Maw Books:  While I was reading The Secret Keeper I kept visualizing the story as a movie playing out in my head.  If The Secret Keeper were a movie, who would you cast as your characters?

Paul Harris: That’s a fun question. A lot of people say it feels very cinematic. Perhaps Penelope Cruz as Maria. As Danny is inspired by some of my own experiences, I think modesty forbids me making any suggestions. I’ll leave it to readers’ imaginations. They are likely to be more honest than mine.

Maw Books:  I could totally see Penelope Cruz as Maria.  Good choice!  Can you briefly share with us what you think the current state of Sierra Leone is and what you think is in it’s future?

Paul Harris: Sierra Leone – I am delighted to say – is doing well. It is still desperately poor and has huge needs, but the war is over and has been for almost a decade now. Progress is slow but with such a history any sort of progress is to be celebrated. The same can be said of much of the rest of the region where equally devastated countries, like Liberia, are also recovering and stable. It is good news in a troubled world.

Maw Books:  I was haunted with the blank stares and listless ex-child soldiers as you wrote about them in the book.  Maria, works for an orphanage that took in ex-child soldiers in an attempt to rehabilitate them and place them into homes.  Will you share with us some of your experiences with child soldiers in Sierra Leone? Is enough being done for them?  What, in your opinion, needs to be done?

Paul Harris: My experiences were mostly limited to meeting them at  roadblocks and trying to negotiate my way through them. It is incredibly scary and also incredibly sad, to meet such young children, armed with machine guns, drunk and high and dangerous, and yet fundamentally still children who respond to a laugh and a smile. It is a problem that felt almost impossible to solve and I am no expert. But they need all the help and understanding they can get to help them recover from traumatising experiences that we can never imagine and yet not lose sight of the fact that they remain children.  Like everything else in Sierra Leone, resources are small and the need is great.  But, at the very least, no more child soldiers are being created.

Maw Books:  I have a special interest in Sudan.  You have spent some time in Sudan.  Can you briefly share a little bit about some of the stories that you covered there?

Paul Harris: I spent some time traveling with Christian missionaries who were buying back black African Sudanese who had been captured in slave raids by Arab Sudanese. I know that sounds incredibly medieval but the South of Sudan back in the 90s was just that kind of place. It is a different world.  I also covered a lovely story on a sort of ‘Olympics’ that aid groups organized in the area for local kids who had little else to enjoy in tough childhoods defined by the ongoing civil war. I loved south Sudan.  People were generous and kind and it really felt like going back in time.  My favourite moment was sleeping in a south Sudanese village, deep in the bush and being awoken by terrible screams and shouts. In the middle of a war zone, you could imagine all sorts of horrors. But the next morning we discovered one of the village elders had had too much to drink and his wife had kicked him out of their hut. It was their argument we had heard.  As someone who fundamentally believes that every human being is basically the same, it was a good lesson in the universality of human experience!

Maw Books:  I’ve read a bit about the slave trade in South Sudan.  It’s just so crazy!  And now for a few more “lighter” questions.  What’s the last book you finished and what’s on your nightstand right now?

Paul Harris: The last book I read was the excellent Columbine by Dave Cullen. I have not got anything on my night stand just yet as I am about to start doing research for a new book and am going to draw up a long non-fiction reading list based around US politics to kick things off.

Maw Books:  What is the best writing advice you have ever received and in turn the best writing advice that you could give?

Paul Harris: The best advice I got was write what you know. It was a great help in giving me the focus to write a book after several false starts over the years on less solid ground. My advice would simply be: a writer writes.  So many people say they have books in them, but never finish what they start.  You have to persevere. To the end. It sounds blindingly obvious, but the main reason most people don’t get published is because they don’t write a book.

Maw Books:  That makes perfect sense.  If you could have dinner with any five people, dead or alive, who would they be and why?

Paul Harris:

Jesus Christ (just to solve the mystery of who he actually was)
Archbishop Desmond Tutu (the most ‘good’ person I have ever met) Aristophanes (great sense of humour)
JRR Tolkien (he created an entire world inside his head)
Mae West (she would make it a proper party)

Maw Books:  Speaking of dinner, a question that I ask of every single author I interview is to share with us a recipe that I will later make and blog about.  Do you have a favorite from your world travels that you would care to share with us?

Paul Harris: Food during a lot of my travels has not been that good (two months of military rations in Iraq!). But here is a dish from Cape Town in South Africa, with its origins in the Cape Malay community, people descended from Malaysian slaves brought over by the Dutch in the 17th Century.  It is called Bobotie and is a bit (only a bit) like a moussaka.

Link to Bobotie recipe.

Maw Books:  Seriously, sounds delicious.  I’m going to try to get everything I need for it.  So what are you doing right now?  Do you have any more books in your future?

Paul Harris: I am just starting a second book. Set against the backdrop of an American presidential campaign. I covered the 2004 and 2008 elections and want to capture some of that amazing excitement and drama. As I said earlier: write what you know.

Maw Books:  Anything else you would like to share with the Maw Books readers?

Paul Harris: Just to say thanks for reading and commenting.  The experience of doing this sort of thing online is a lot of fun and also blogs like Maw Books are so important these days. For readers and for authors.  We’re entering a whole new world together.

Giveaway: I was able to pick up a second copy of The Secret Keeper that I would love to pass on to you.  To enter, leave a comment on this post telling me what you found the most interesting from this interview with Paul Harris.  If you would like to double  your chances of winning, also leave a comment responding to my book review of The Secret Keeper.  Giveaway is open world-wide and I’ll pick a winner on May 27th.

Links of interest:  The Secret Keeper website.  Maw Books review of The Secret Keeper.
Genre:  Mystery/thriller.
Publisher:  Dutton Adult.  April 2nd, 2009
Hardcover, 336 pages.  ISBN: 0525951024
The Secret Keeper is available from your independent bookstore, Powell’s, Barnes and Noble and Amazon.
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Nicki Richesin:  Congratulations on the success of your new novel EVERYONE IS BEAUTIFUL.  You must be excited to finally see this baby in print.  I want to talk a little about the heroines in your life and your work.  In your incredibly moving essay “Things To Remember Not To Forget” in BECAUSE I LOVE HER, you describe your mother’s influence and how you often feel like an impostor and she’s the “real” mom you hope will show up for spaghetti dinner to save you.  Why do you think, even as adults, we often feel like our mothers were the real deal?  Gen Xers were labeled as the slacker generation early on, but I get the sense that there’s something deeper than this at work.

Katherine Center: Oh, I’m definitely not a slacker!  Especially when it comes to mothering.  I’m trying as hard at mothering as at anything I’ve ever done.  It is possibly the only thing I’ve ever worked this hard at and not aced flat-out.  I mean: I think I’m doing a good job, but only time will tell.

I actually think young moms feel this way because we’re kind of like Velveteen Rabbits waiting to become Real.  You can’t wish it overnight.  You can’t take a seminar on it.  You can only become a real mom-a competent mom-by putting in the hours and evolving into that role.  My mom assures me that her generation had the exact same feeling about their mothers.

Nicki Richesin: The first time we spoke on the phone, your kids were screaming and begging for treats in the background.  Your life in that moment doesn’t seem that far removed from Lanie your heroine in EVERYONE IS BEAUTIFUL.  Did you draw on your own experience as a mother to create this character?

Katherine Center: Heck, yes!  I could never have written her character if I didn’t have kids and know inside and out what it feels like to be torn between what’s best for your kids-who you love so desperately-and what’s best for you.  Because sometimes those two things are in direct opposition.  Everyone Is Beautiful is kind of a “How Mama Got Her Groove Back” story, and it’s all about that struggle to take care of everybody-including yourself.

Nicki Richesin:  At your recent reading in Oakland, you explained how you found your agent through your friends urging you to talk to “the lady novelist” in your neighborhood. Could you share that story again?

Katherine Center: Well, I’d written The Bright Side of Disaster and I literally had on my To Do list: “Find agent!  Sell novel!”  And people kept telling me there was a novelist who lived just a few blocks over and saying I should call her.  And I was like, “I am NOT stalking the neighborhood novelist.”  So I never called her.  And then I had another baby and the novel wound up in a drawer.   I almost forgot all about it.  But then I ran into her at the park one day with my kids.  My friend told her about my novel in a drawer, and she offered to read it.  I sent her the first three chapters, and she liked them and offered to pass them along to her agent.  Her agent read them and offered to represent me, and before I knew it Random House had bought the book in an auction.  I owe all the writing I’m doing now to this woman’s kindness, and I feel grateful for that every day.  Her name is Vanessa Del Fabbro, and she’s a lovely writer.

Nicki Richesin:   In your essay from Because I Love Her, you beautifully express this yearning we all have to hold onto the moment and preserve the beauty of our children’s youth, but recognize this is impossible. You even wonder whether gadgets like camcorders and cameras prevent us from fully experiencing these shared moments. How have your reconciled this loss?

Katherine Center: I can’t reconcile it.  I think about it constantly-about how life slips through our fingers.  It’s a depressing thought, I know, but being around children and watching them grow and change forces you to notice time passing.  We cut off my daughter’s very long hair last weekend, and my eyes filled with tears.  Even though I knew it was time, and even though she looks like a completely adorable 1920s girl detective with her new bob, I want my long-haired girl back.  I want them both.  And while I’m at it, I want my babies back, too-those plump little muffins that I took for granted when I was so sleep deprived.  I’d give anything to pick up one of my 3-month-olds again and feel that peach-fuzz hair and those little thighs.  It’s the same reason I can’t get rid of some of the baby clothes.  I just have to keep them forever in the attic.  Even if I never take them out again.  I just need to know they’re still there.

Nicki Richesin: If Hollywood were to adapt THE BRIGHT SIDE OF DISASTER for the screen, who would you cast as the lead characters?

Katherine Center: It has been optioned! Varsity Pictures optioned it last fall, which was cool.  And I could see a lot of different people playing Jenny Harris.  But it would have to be somebody with sass-somebody who can banter and sort of crook her eyebrow.  This topic comes up a lot at book clubs.  People have suggested Rachel McAdams and Reese Witherspoon.  I’ve heard Ellen Page-if she were older-and Janeane Garofalo-if she were younger.  Ben Affleck always comes up as an option for either of the guys-since I met him once at a reading and have a photo of him carrying the book.  It would actually be fun to see Jennifer Garner as Jenny and Ben as Dean-the bad boyfriend.

Nicki Rishesin:: Have you ever read a book, and thought oh man, I wish I had written this or it seemed to be a story you wanted to tell?

Katherine Center: When that happens, it’s really exciting.  I recently read a screenplay by Jane O’Brien (Conan’s sister) that had me pacing around the house in the wee hours of the night because I was so thrilled about how good it was that I couldn’t sleep.  There are all different kinds of great writing out there, but the kind that can keep me awake at night is usually writing that’s funny and authentic and sad all at the same time-which of course is exactly the kind I try to do.  David Sedaris, Tina Fey, Catherine Newman, and Marisa de los Santos all do this-make you laugh and break your heart at the same time.  It’s not an easy thing to do, and when I see it done well, I just want to stand up and cheer.

Nicki Rishesin:  Publishers Weekly praised BRIGHT SIDE for its “sharp dialogue and a narrative that’s heavier on the sass than the diaper rash.”  I couldn’t agree more!  How did you create such a rich vibrant and spunky character in Jenny Harris?  Have you ever felt similarly abandoned and been forced to keep calm and carry on?  I know your devoted hubby teaches at your childhood alma mater. Not exactly Jenny’s background?

Katherine Center: No-not Jenny’s background.  I am very lucky that my sweet husband has stuck by me.  But I have had my heart broken a couple of significant and horrible times.  And I’ve certainly faced all kinds of sadnesses and challenges that I feared I wasn’t up to.  And then I surprised myself.  Those moments of rising up beyond my capabilities have often been the ones that stuck with me or changed me or taught me the most.  Those are my favorite stories-about people surprising themselves.  But those moments of surprise don’t come easy.

And as for how I created Jenny: I don’t know.  It’s a good question, and I just don’t know.  It’s magic.  (Or possibly lunacy.)  I’ll just be going about my day and suddenly hear someone talking in my head.  And so I just write down what they’re saying.  I actually can’t imagine writing a book in the 3^rd person, because the main character is usually talking to me, and I’m just writing it down.  It’s not a conscious process.  Characters talk in my head, and then they start doing things, and then other characters come in and say things.  Mostly, I’m just watching them, and listening.  I get to know them slowly-the way you do with friends.

Nicki Rishesin:  Could you explain how you work- your practice, discipline?   How do you carve out the time to churn out so many novels with two little rug rats running around?  Do you have a favorite place to work or a writing retreat?

Katherine Center: Here’s how things would look if I were in charge:  I’d get up at the crack of dawn, take a brisk walk, come home, shower, have a cup of coffee with a tasty and nutritious breakfast, and sit down to write for several uninterrupted hours.

Here’s how things actually are:  I get up, and get the kids up, and scramble around looking for missing shoes and library books.  I think about the coffee, but rarely get to it.  I think about breakfast, too, but usually don’t get that either.  I send one kid off to carpool and then drop the other one at pre-school.  Some days I get a walk after that, some days not.  Some days I can arrange a good block of uninterrupted time, some days not.  Lots of times I’m just getting into a groove when it’s time to go to the grocery or pick up carpool.  That’s why I do a lot of my writing with crayons or in the carpool line.

But the kids are also endless sources of inspiration and laughs.  I didn’t know what I wanted to write about until I had them.  And I truly believe that the tension between your real life and your creative life-on a good day-is really great for both.

Nicki Rishesin:  Could you share some of your favorite childhood books and reading memories?

Katherine Center: My parents read to us all the time when we were little, and I remember Go, Dog, Go, Eloise, How Droofus the Dragon Lost His Head, and all the Dr. Seuss books as particular favorites.  As we got older, my dad read chapter books to us-Alice in Wonderland, The Jungle Book, Tom Sawyer-and made up stories, too.  My dad is a terrific reader.  When he reads, it sounds like he’s just talking.  He also loves words and language-the feel and the sound of them-and I got that from him.  As I got older, I remember loving Fantastic Mr. Fox, Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, The Secret Garden, and A Little Princess-as well as Deenie, by Judy Blume and The Pistachio Prescription, by Paula Danziger.

One great thing about becoming a mom is getting to revisit all those books and stories.

Nicki Rishesin: You’ve been a big supporter of Writers in the Schools. How have you supported them within your community?

Katherine Center: I used to teach for them, so I know about the organization from the inside out.  And I love what they do: teach children about the “pleasure and power of reading and writing” through positive interactions with working writers who come to their schools.  I loved being a WITS writer, because there was no grading and no criticism.  Just finding the things each kid was doing well and praising the heck out of them.  Now, I talk about WITS at every opportunity.  I keep in touch with them and taught at a recent writer training and spoke at their Young Writers Reading series.  I also did a TV commercial for them where I got to read a beautiful poem by a child in the program.

Nicki Rishesin:  Who were your early influences? Did they inform your first story you won for the Vassar College Fiction Prize?

Katherine Center: When I was first learning to write, I loved the minimalists: Raymond Carver and Amy Hempel and Lorrie Moore.  I loved how they stripped everything down to the essentials.  And, of course, Lorrie Moore is so wickedly funny.  I loved her story, “How to Become a Writer” (”First, try to be something-anything-else.”) because it was so funny and heartbreaking at the same time.  I also loved poetry early on: Edward Hirsch and Anne Sexton and Sharon Olds, in particular.  I kept a blank book that I copied poems I loved into. And song lyrics-I still love the sweet melancholy of many of Paul Simon’s lyrics:  “She comes back to tell me she’s gone.  As if I didn’t know that–as if I didn’t know my own bed.  As if I’d never noticed the way she brushed her hair from her forehead.”  I also absorbed so much from funny women writers-Texas political columnist Molly Ivins was absolutely hilarious, and I think I have memorized every single line from Nora Ephron’s When Harry Met Sally.  One time my friend Nicole and I watched it and just talked along with the actors.

Nicki Rishesin: You just finished your third novel GET LUCKY about a woman who offers to have a baby for her sister. How did the idea for this novel first come to you?

Katherine Center: I had this thought once-many years ago-about my sisters.  That if either of them ever wanted a baby and couldn’t have one, I’d act as a surrogate for them.  It seemed like a no-brainer.  But then I actually got pregnant-twice-and re-thought my idea.  I mused on it a lot while I was pregnant, actually-about how pregnancy doesn’t seem like a big deal until you are actually doing it.  And then it’s a huge, all-encompassing deal.  I loved the idea of a character getting herself into something like that-so life-changing and irreversible–with such high stakes.  It seemed like a situation rich for both comedy and heartbreak.  My two favorite things.

Nicki Rishesin:  I know you, like thousands of little girls in the eighties (including me!), had a not-so-secret crush on Duran Duran. Fantasy date night with Simon Le Bon or Nick Rhodes? Candlelit dinner followed by moonlit serenade to “Hungry like the Wolf” or “Rio”?

Katherine Center: This cracks me up!  What was it about Duran Duran?  I honestly can’t tell you.  I go back and look at those videos now and they seem so completely ridiculous.  Women crawling around like animals and all that.  Simon LeBon was my favorite by far, even though John Taylor was technically the handsomest.  That said, in all our defense, they were not nearly as cheesy as many of the boy-bands to follow.  But the idea of me, as a sixth-grader, singing along with my entire soul to lyrics like, “Some people call it a one night stand, but we can call it paradise,” that’s just hilarious.  And so sad.  Just the way I like it.

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Katherine Center is the author of two novels, Everyone Is Beautiful and The Bright Side of Disaster, and she has two more forthcoming.  Everyone Is Beautiful was featured recently in People, Redbook, and USA Today.  Katherine started writing fiction in the 6^th grade, when she wrote a novel about how all five members of Duran Duran fell in love with her and she was forced to pick one.  Later, she graduated from Vassar College, where she won the Vassar College Fiction Prize, and earned a Master’s in fiction from the University of Houston’s Creative Writing Program.  She now lives in her home state of Texas with her husband and her two feisty little kids-a daughter and a son.  For more about Katherine, or to find out which member of Duran Duran was the lucky winner, please see her website: www.katherinecenter.com.

Nicki Richesin is the editor of four anthologies, Because I Love Her: 34 Women Writers Reflect on the Mother-Daughter Bond; What I Would Tell Her: 30 Male Writers on the Father-Daughter Relationship (May 2010); the forthcoming Crush: Real-life Tales of First Love Gone Wrong by our Best Young Adult Novelists; and The May Queen: Women on Life, Work, and Pulling it all Together in your Thirties. Her anthologies have been excerpted and praised in The New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, Redbook, Parenting, Cosmopolitan, Bust, Daily Candy, and Babble. She lives with her husband and daughter in northern California. Visit www.nickirichesin.com for more information.

Natasha here. Check out my book reviews of Everyone is Beautiful, The Bright Side of Disaster, my interview and a guest post with Katherine.  As if that’s not enough, make sure you go make her favorite soup (I wonder if I can ever talk about Katherine without mentioning that soup!).  I loved this interview!  Because I Love Her would make a perfect mothers day gift for the mother or daughter in your life!  It sounds great and I’m convinced that I need to read this book.

Two video trailers that feature excerpts from Katherine Center’s essay Things to Remember Not to Forget:

Book trailer for Because I Love Her:

It is my pleasure  to have interviewed or guest posted a wide variety of authors and illustrators.  Following is a list of those interviews listed in descending order with the most recent interview listed first.

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• Interview with Jean Reagan, Author of Always My Brother
• Interview with Sandra Dallas, Author of Prayers for Sale
• Guest Post: Interview with Kaleb Nation, Author of Bran Hambric
• Interview with Suzanne Kamata, Author of Losing Kei
• Interview with Paul Harris, Author of The Secret Keeper & a GIVEAWAY
• Interview with Kim Norman, Author of Crocodaddy
• Interview with Katherine Center by Nicki Richesin, Editor of Because I Love Her: 34 Women Writers Reflect on the Mother-Daughter Bond
• Interview with Erica S. Perl, Author of Chicken Butt!
• Interview with Ingrid Law, Newbery Honor Author of Savvy
• Interview with Linda Aksomitis, Author of Longhorns and Outlaws
• Interview with Mary Nethery, Children's Author and Co-Author of Two Bobbies: A True Story of Hurricane Katrina, Friendship and Survival
• Interview with Bonny Becker, Author of A Visitor for Bear and More!
• Interview with Carmela and Steve D'Amico, Author and Illustrator of the Ella the Elephant Series
• Interview with Ken Mochizuki, Children's Picture Book and Young Adult Author
• Interview with Kathryn Fitzmaurice, author of The Year The Swallows Came Early
• Guest Post: Katherine Center, Author of Everyone is Beautiful and The Bright Side of Disaster, on Finding Her Voice and Writing About What Matters Most
• Interview with Joshua Henkin, author of Matrimony
• Interview with Jennie Nash, Author of The Only True Genius in the Family
• Interview with Tina Ann Forkner, Author of Ruby Among Us
• Interview with Michael Lee West, Author of Mermaids in the Basement
• Interview with Lisa McMann, author of Wake and Fade
• Interview with Carlyn Beccia, Author of The Raucous Royals
• Interview with Diane Z. Shore, Author of This is the Feast
• Interview with Donna Gephart, Author of As If Being 12 3/4 Isn't Bad Enough, My Mother is Running for President!
• Guest Post: Jennie Nash, Author of The Last Beach Bungalow
• Interview with Shana Burg, Author of A Thousand Never Evers
• Interview with David Ebershoff, Author of The 19th Wife
• Guest Post: Karen Harrington, Author of Janeology
• Interview with Shannon Hale, Newbery Medal Author
• Interview with James Dashner, Author of The 13th Reality, A Journal of Curious Letters
• Interview with Leslie Patricelli, Children's Author & Illustrator
• Interview with Kirby Larson, Newbery Honor Author of Hattie Big Sky
• Guest Post: Dennis Burke, Co-Author of The Translator by Daoud Hari
• Guest Post: Christina Meldrum, Author of Madapple
• Submit Your Questions for a Shannon Hale Interview
• Interview with Cynthia Lord, Newbery Author of Rules
• Interview with Susan McBride, Author of The Debs
• Interview with J. Scott Savage, Author of Far World, Water Keep
• Interview with Sara Zarr, Author of Sweethearts & Story of a Girl
• Interview, Part 2/2, With Mary Ann Rodman, Author of Jimmy's Stars
• Interview, Part 1 with Mary Ann Rodman, Author of Jimmy's Stars
• Interview with Katherine Center, Author of The Bright Side of Disaster
• The Sudan Project by Melissa Leembruggen and an Interview with the Author

Guest Posts

• Writing With Multiple Purposes, Guest Post from Author Melissa Leembruggen
• Guest Posting at the Book Blogger Appreciation Week Blog: On Blogging Friendships and Utah Bloggers
• Guest Post and Giveaway: On Quotes and Inspiration by Kathryn Fitzmaurice, Author of The Year the Swallows Came Early
• Guest Post, Carol Hampton Rasco: Parents and Youngsters Together for Stories, Songs, Rhymes, and More at RIF.org
• Guest Post: Marsha Jacobson on Reading With Feeling

Author Events

I also blog about all author events, readings, book signings, or panels that I attend.  I also keep those local to Utah informed about upcoming events in the area.

To give you an idea of how much food plays into Groovy’s life, I thought I would share some of the really fun chapter titles with you:

• Five-Star Chocolate-Covered Strawberries
• Tortillas in Cellophane Wrape
• Saltines and Liquid Tylenol
• Burned Tuna Melts
• Not Sloppy Joes with Sweet Onions
• Cinnamon Churro but No Root Beer
• A Nice Tuna Fish Casserole with Peas
• Spaghetti out of a Jar
• Scrambled Eggs

What I love about these chapter titles is that each food obviously corresponds with a certain story in the book.  It’s been a few weeks since I read the book, but I can picture what was happening in each of these chapters.

The book begins on this line:

We lived in a perfect stucco house, just off the sparkly Pacific, with a lime tree in the backyard and pink and yellow roses gone wild around a picket fence.  But that wasn’t enough to keep by daddy from going to jail the year I turned eleven.

The day that Groovy’s father is arrested, her mother’s horoscope says Expect the unexpected.  Because Groovy’s mother relies so heavily on her horoscope, what else could she do after that?   As a result, while Groovy and her father are coming out of their small town local store, an officer stops them arrests her father and tells Groovy to run on home.  Groovy’s mother is tight lipped about the whole thing and won’t say a word.  She locks herself in the bedroom and won’t come out.  This is when I began to really feel for Groovy.  What mother in her right mind would treat her child that way, especially when she’s scared and confused?  Eventually, she reveals that she had her father arrested because he gambled away Groovy’s inheritance, the money that she would have used to go to cooking school.  And to top it off, she has him arrested in front of Groovy.  And then to top that off even more, she tells Groovy that she’ll needs to help earn the money back by selling chocolate covered strawberries at the local store down by the bay.  At this point, I am feeling all kinds of sympathy for Groovy and all kinds of let down for her mother.

Kathryn Fitzmaurice develops these characters so well and so early that I just had to see where this story was going to go.  In addition to Groovy and her parents, we meet other wonderful characters who each have a story of their own, including her best friend Frankie and the mother who abandoned him; Luis, Frankie’s older step brother who took him in and runs the local store; Marisol and her younger brother Frankie who always seem to be around, the first Eleanor Robinson, Groovy’s dead grandmother who left her with special treasure; and Tom, the homeless man who Groovy comes to feel a special connection with.

Groovy learns of loss, betrayal, love, and forgiveness and what is needed to bring a broken family back together again, albeit still a little broken.

This is one of my favorite passages from The Year the Swallows Came Early:

As I lay in bed that night, I started a new page in my cooking notebook.  I made a list of foods that reminded me of things.  I decided that it was one thing to come up with the perfect menus for situations, but also that certain foods could end up reminding people of things. Because from now on, scrambed eggs would always remind me of tonight, when Mama and I sat in lawn chairs in the fog, and I told her the whole story.

Like when people say, “Oh, this corn on the cob reminds me of the time we barbecued at Uncle Joe’s last summer.”  That sort of thing.  Or like that test doctors do where they say a word, and you’re supposed to say the first thing that comes to mind.  Dog, cat.  Night, day.  Scrambled eggs, talking.

My list:

scrambled eggs = talking to Mama in the fog
chocolate-covered coconut candy = our house
one of Luis’s tacos = the swallows coming back
white chocolate = Marisol

Looking it over, I realized everyone’s list would be different depending upon their own memories.

I entitled it:  Foodology.

Half the word coming from food, of course, and half coming from astrology.  I decided that if you could look it up in the dictionary, it would say: (noun) the study of food; the way certain foods remind people of things.

I knew if there were such a word, I would be an expert in foodology.

Kathryn Fitzmaurice will be an author to keep your eye on.  She’s off to a great start and I enjoyed the time that I spent with Groovy.  Visit Kathryn’s website and blog.

Stay tuned! Kathryn has an awesome interview here tomorrow!  And remember those awesome author recipes?  This is the perfect type of book for that!  The Year the Swallows Came Early is also on tour today with Kidz Book Buzz at A Christian Worldview of Fiction, All About Children’s Books, Becky’s Book Reviews, Booking Mama, Cafe of Dreams, Dolce Bellezza, Fireside Musings, Homeschool Buzz, Hyperbole, KidzBookBuzz.com, Looking Glass Reviews, Maw Books Blog, Never Jam Today, Novel Teen, Reading is My Superpower.

So, do you have a certain food that reminds you of a certain something?  Let’s hear them!

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It’s not as easy to write a chatty book as it sounds.

I have always been drawn to them:  From Jane Eyre to Richard Ford’s Independence Day to Curtis Sittenfeld’s American Wife—I love novels that just talk to you.

But I’m a tough audience.  Because I want books to feel chatty but to actually be much more than that.  I want poetry hidden in the plainness.

That’s what I’m going for when I write a story, too.  I want the ease and intimacy of conversation, but the power of tight, streamlined prose.

For a long time, as I was studying writing, I wanted to write important things.  And so I wrote about unhappiness.  And ennui.  And disappointment.  I wrote stories that had a basic framework of despair with funny moments sprinkled in. I wanted to be a real writer, and I thought that’s what real writers had to do.

So it’s funny that I didn’t become a published writer until I stopped trying to do that.

I wrote my first novel, The Bright Side of Disaster, on a dare from my sister.  “Write a novel about being a mom,” she said to me on the phone one night.  “How hard can that be?”

I had just become a mom, myself, about 18 months earlier. And throughout that entire, life-altering experience, I had not written one word.  Not even a grocery list.

I was ready to write again.  I was missing writing (which I’d been doing non-stop since about the age of 12) terribly.  Plus motherhood had just redefined every important thing in my life, and, maybe for the first time ever, I really had something to say.

But I didn’t want to write something heavy.  Motherhood is so close-to-the-bone as it is—you’re walking around all day with your heart in your diaper bag.  I wanted to write something hopeful.  And funny.  And entertaining.  And real.  I wanted to write something, you know—bright.

When I started writing, the words just tumbled out.  The story came so fast there were times I truly couldn’t keep up, and I had never once had an experience like that.  And it happened, I think now—in part at least—because I was writing in my own voice.   After all those years of practicing and trying out other writers’ voices (The Hemingway period!  The Raymond Carver period!  The David Sedaris period!), I finally stumbled on my own.

And it was through that process of writing in my own voice, about the things that mattered to me and about “being a mom,” that I figured something out.  These were the important things I’d been thinking I should write about all along:  The heartbreak and hilarity of getting through the day.  The life-saving properties of laughter.  The way joy and sadness work in tandem.  The way all we ever have is each other.  And the way that each moment—no matter what we do—inevitably gives way to the next.

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Everyone is Beautiful is available now! Visit Katherine’s website and blog, my book review of Everyone is Beautiful, my book review of The Bright Side of Disaster and my interview with Katherine.  And because I found this little bit of random trivia interesting, go check out the meaning behind the Everyone is Beautiful book cover.  Another great guest post appears at The Printed Page and this guest post at Reading Group Guides makes Katherine Cry.  (And don’t forget the soup.)

Would you like a copy of Everyone is Beautiful?  I’m giving away a copy! Details here. And last but not least, don’t forget to leave Katherine a comment!