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E-mail YingHello friends! It’s been a busy week. I was at Kingston WritersFest on Thursday, where Adwoa Badoe and I read and talked about our books. Adwoa’s first YA novel is called Between Sisters and it’s about 16-year-old Gloria, who goes to work as a maid in modern-day Ghana. You can’t really get further, geographically and culturally, from the Agency, but our terrific moderator, Susan Olding, led us through a lively conversation about social pressures, personal expectations, imperialism, our protagonists’ characters, and our writing process. She bridged the two worlds of the novels beautifully. I loved the really thoughtful audience questions, especially from Beth and Clara (hi!).
with Susan Olding and Adwoa Badoe; photo by Bernard Clark
photo by Bernard Clark
I also stopped in at Lethbridge, AB’s first-ever Word on the Street festival and chatted with readers there about the link between research and writing. Good times.
I’m reading Claire Tomalin’s Austen bio, Jane Austen: A Life, at every stolen moment and absolutely adoring it. It’s not just that I’m an Austenphile; Tomalin is such a wise, sympathetic, subtly observant biographer and she makes me think about things anew. For example, she really challenges my opinion of Sense and Sensibility, until now my least favourite of Austen’s novels. Tomalin argues that S&S is a debate connected to the politics of the 1790s, and that Austen’s characterizations of Elinor and Marianne are much subtler than I’d previously thought. I’m determined to re-read it, now, and see if I agree.
And finally, I have an official North American publication date for The Traitor in the Tunnel! February 28, 2012 is the Big Day. Huzzah!
SO excited! February can’t come soon enough!!!
CANNOT WAIT for February!!!!! Wish I could have gone to the Kingston Writer’s Festival, but unfortunately I was down in Port Rowan….
Thank you, Jennifer and JaneE! I’m ridiculously excited myself.
Love it! Already read The Traitor & the Tunnel- got mine from Amazon UK, but I really want the series to match on the book shelf. Those US covers are so beautiful.
OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!eeeeeeeeeee!im so excited and always thinking about it.
wat am i gonna do in the spare time?
i already read the excerpt from here (well not literally here here but on this website in the traitor and the tunnel…page.)
and the part that amazon gave.
and on top of that sometimes i stay up late thinking about a whole bunch of dramatic things that might happen between Mary and James.
and in orchestra we are playing this dramatic song and i think about Mary and James and drama that might or might not happen.
EEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i am sooooooooo excited for it to come out!!!!!!!
ps…
the Y at the end of rayray was a typo.
pss….
the title for the book about jane austin’s friend is on the last post’s comments.
Perla, I’m a stickler for matching covers, too! Glad you enjoyed Traitor; I think the UK covers are gorgeous, too. Thanks for the book title, rayray, and I’m glad you’re so excited! Have you read the deleted scene, too? (And I thought you were being all avant-garde, capitalizing the last letter of your name!
)
for a moment i thought this said that you had a publication date for the 4th book! steady on…must be the heat
Hee! But how lovely to have heat to addle you…
i loved the deleted scene!
when i read the part in amazon, i didn’t realize who Mr.Jones was and then i read the deleted scene and i freaked out again cause he is my third favorite character.
Actually, he is tied with Mrs. Vine.
I have a soft spot for Octavius Jones, too! His is some of the best dialogue to write. So glad you enjoyed the deleted scene!
What is your favourite dialogue to write? And what book has been the most fun to write?