Martha Southgate and Occupy Wall Street

Dec 082011

Martha Southgate is the author of The Taste of Salt, and multiple other novels. She is also a signatory of OccupyWriters.com. Today she is here talking about why she supports Occupy Wall Street. For more information about Martha, check out her website|twitter|facebook.

I had a hard time getting started on this piece. For one thing, OWS is not a movement that I wholeheartedly embraced from the moment it began—I didn’t think they were wrong. I just couldn’t see what they were going to get done. Further, I don’t think of myself as a political writer in any way. None of my fiction engages the great issues of the day (at least not yet). While as an African-American woman and writer, I can hardly ignore the weight of history and of political movements on my life and the life of my family, taking an active part in the political process is not something that I engage with easily by temperament, even though I come from a long line of rabble-rousers. Both parents were active in the civil rights movement and my mother was an abortion clinic counselor in the 1970’s, shortly after abortion was legalized. Following in their footsteps, I became a community organizer in Cleveland in the mid 1980’s. The organization I worked for was built on the model that Saul Alinsky outlined in his seminal Rules for Radicals. Briefly, the goal was to start with getting communities mobilized around a small goal, like better trash collection.

Then over time, as they became more skilled and organized, Alinsky posited that the grassroots folk would make the leap to actions that would change the system altogether. The community organizing that Obama did was in an organization that worked on this model. Mostly the work was phone calls, door-knocking and meetings, meetings, meetings.

Noble work, I still believe. But I hated it. I hated the meetings. I hated knocking on strange doors. Every phone call made my heart contract. Finally, after a few unhappy months. I quit. I never doubted the rightness of the organization. But I wasn’t certain that they would ever reach their ultimate goal of systemic change. And I was not the person to get out there and get my hands dirty finding out. I was too internal, too meeting-averse, too full of other notions. Too much a writer (or at that time, a writer-to-be. I did not start writing fiction seriously until my 30’s)
I’m not particularly proud of walking away from organizing but one thing about getting older is that it forces you to come to terms

with who you are, not who you wish you were. I’m not the activist type. I got out there for Obama (and imagine I will again) but I’m never going to do it in the bone-deep, vivid way that true activists do. And I think that may contribute to my ambivalence about Occupy Wall Street.

Let me say here loud and clear that I have absolutely no ambivalence about the overriding message of the movement. The gap between the wealthy and the poor in this country has reached obscene levels and the breakdowns in the system that have led to it are mind-boggling (in a bad way). The crazed Republicans who hope only to carry out policies that will make everything worse terrify me. There is no doubt who is in the right in this fight.

But it took me a while to get on board. Like many, I couldn’t quite see what was being accomplished at first. They seemed to just be sitting there, with a mass of very vaguely articulated demands and a lot of justifiable anger. Even though I live here in New York, it took me a while before I got to Zucotti park to see what was up—and the night I finally went, frankly, not much was. Drumming. Sitting. Signs.

And I’ll admit that I still have some concerns about what the next step is. In the civil rights movement, which some of the images of OWS directly echo, there was a clear series of more easily specified demands: Let us be full citizens. End laws that prevent that from happening. With OWS, because the roots of the problem are so much more complex and entrenched, it’s harder to see what specific actions can be taken and how they should be taken. I am hopeful that as the winter wears on, that those actions will begin to emerge, just as what started out as vague popular sentiment in the 1960’s ultimately wrought enormous changes in the nation.
I’m not gonna grab a sleeping bag and move down to Zucotti Park. But as the phrase “the 99%” has entered the lexicon and there is discussion, substantive discussion about how this country might begin to be repaired, I have come to believe that this is where change starts. With a rumble. With a noise. With a sleeping bag in a park. With pointing out an injustice and refusing to waver. This is where it starts.

Interview with David Nicholls, author of One Day

Aug 102011

OD 1Sht picture On August 3, I was lucky enough, along with a group of bloggers, to be able to speak with David Nicholls his novel One Day, and the movie adaptation. For a giveaway, as well as my thoughts on the book and expectations for the movie, see my review post.

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Jen: You have written both books and screenplays, how does the process compare?

David Nicholls: It’s a long time since I wrote a book, unfortunately, because I’ve been sort of tangled up in these various screenplays, which I love. But, the hardest thing is, when you write a novel, you create the characters. You kind of cast them in your head… You’re very much the director, the designer, the music coordinator, the editor. And when you move on to a movie, you have to kind of spread that load. You might get asked what you think of a particular location or a costume design, but it isn’t your responsibility.

And that’s not a bad thing. That can be quite liberating to know very precisely what the parameters are of your role. But, inevitably you can feel as if you are losing a little control. And so, on this movie, I felt that much less than I have in the past….
The other difference is you lose a lot of your equipment, if you like, your technique. It’s very hard to do an internal thought process.

A lot of what happens to Emma in the three years she leaves University happens in her head. And unless you use acres and acres of voiceover, minute after minute of long, protracted voiceover, you can’t really get a thought process. You can’t really get an interior monologue onto the screen.

So, there’s this terrific pressure all the time to move things forward and to concentrate on what people say and what they do rather than what they think and feel. And that can be quite tough…

And finally, I suppose there are the budgetary and scheduling restraints. I mean, the most obvious example of this, and I’ve used it before, is if you write in a novel, you know, “it’s raining,” then it’s sort of just words on the page. It’s nothing. And if you write “it’s raining” in a screenplay, then suddenly they’ve got to hire all this equipment, stand around in the rain all night, and it costs an extra 200,000 pounds. It’s not your 200,000 pounds. And someone is going to ask, “Does it really need to be raining?”

Jim Sturgess and Anne Hathaway as Dexter and Emma

Jen: I’m really interested in Emma and Dexter’s relationship, because it’s this grand relationship and there are all these obstacles in the way, but they never feel like you’re just throwing obstacles for the purpose of throwing obstacles. And they’ve got this love that’s this great cross between romantic love and friendly affectionate love.

David Nicholls: Yes. I mean, this is the great conundrum for the writers of modern love stories. You know, what are the obstacles? What are the modern obstacles to people getting together? The sort of golden age love story, there are kind of class divisions and family feuds and all of these very powerful barriers, the kind of Romeo and Juliet barriers. And now, what are those barriers? And I think they’re to do with temperament and personality.

And in One Day, there’s a mixture of plot driven obstacles, like letters that don’t get sent and phone calls that don’t get answered and a single stupid remark that pushes them away from each other for a period of time and being with someone else….
Those things are fun to plot, but the main obstacles are to do with their growing up. There’s a period of time where Emma is just much too self-involved and lacking in self-confidence and much too depressed, I think, for it to be the right time with Dexter. I know definitely a long period of time where Dexter is just too immature and just too self-involved and too foolish, really, to be the right match for Emma.

David Nicholls

And that seemed to me to tally with real life, with the observation of the relationships between my friends, that often the process of getting together was incredibly protracted, incredibly complex, incredibly complicated because it wasn’t quite the right time. And I think maybe that’s the great modern obstacle, that we all take a lot longer to settle into a relationship and to settle into thinking that it’s the right time.

This post was written as a result of an interview set up at the behest of Big Honcho Media

Authors Helping Authors – An Interview with Authors Kim Wright and Sarah Pekkanen

Jul 212011

Recently, authors Kim Wright and Sarah Pekkanen sat down to talk about their experiences in publishing. Both have just published their second novels: Love in Mid Air and Skipping a Beat, respectively.

Kim: One of the things that’s most surprised me about publication is how much writers help each other. Like a lot of people, I’d had some harsh experiences while trying to get published, so part of me figured that the deeper you got into this world the more elbow-slinging and competitiveness you’d find. But the opposite happened.

Sarah: I’ve had the exact same experience. Jennifer Weiner was so pivotal when my first book The Opposite of Me came out. She was, of course, a very established and successful author so it was incredibly generous of her to take an interest in someone who was just starting and a complete unknown. And as I’ve gone along I’ve found that same spirit of helpfulness everywhere.

Kim: There’s sort of a sisterhood among the recently published. I think it’s because writers are expected to promote their own books and so many of us aren’t very good at it. We’re private people who stay home, work in our nightgowns, and talk to people who only exist in our heads. Then all of a sudden you’re published, boom, and you’re expected to know how to establish a platform and interact with the public.

Sarah: Yes, so we’re all trying to help each other and exchange ideas. Things like the blog tours or the giveaways or taking out ads together and splitting the cost. Female novelists will often recommend the work of their peers, saying something like “If you enjoyed my book, maybe you’ll like hers as well….” Or “Here are two books with a different take on a similar issue.”

Kim: Do you think male novelists help each other like that?

Sarah: No.
EDIT 8:30 Eastern 7/21/11: But I certainly don’t mean male writers don’t support each other – or don’t support women authors, for that matter – but I haven’t seen the same formal banding together of male authors on social media as I have among female authors. Several male authors have been enormously helpful to me personally – like the brilliant writer Matthew Quick, who chatted with me on the phone when I was panicking about my second book – and I count many male authors as friends.

Kim: Me either, and it’s just another example of the male ego sabotaging the man. Because people who are readers tend to read a lot. When I go into a bookstore I usually buy two or three books at a time and the Amazon free shipping system is set up to encourage people to buy several books at once. And who checks out one book from the library? You leave with an armful. Writers aren’t really in competition with each other, since if someone buys my book they might well buy yours at the same time. A rising tide lifts all boats, as my grandfather used to say.

Sarah: There’s also the emotional component of providing support for each other. Having a book out is scary and it’s really hard for anyone who isn’t going through the process to understand it. That’s how we met, isn’t it? I remember my publicist raved about your book and sent it to me to read. I loved it too, so we connected on Facebook and one day you wrote something about how you were struggling with your second book. I had just finished my second and could relate so much to what you were saying that I emailed you and offered to talk….

Kim: That’s precisely right. That phone call was a godsend for me.

Sarah: Have you met most of your writer friends through social media?

Kim: Yes. This is kind of funny. When Love in Mid Air first came out I got on a Facebook friending frenzy and sent friend requests to all these established authors. Here I was this total nobody reaching out to all these somebodies. But a lot of them friended me back and some of those relationship have turned into real dialogues, real online friendships, like ours.

Sarah: And then sometimes the people who have met on line meet in person if they all find themselves at a writing conference like the AWP. It’s amazing how quickly these relationships can grow and spread and I think they’re a tribute to the fact writers are sometimes a little bit lonely. We have our friends and families in real life but they can’t completely understand the ups and downs of writing or the kind of pressures writers put on themselves. So I’ve loved using the social media to connect to other writers….we’re figuring it out together as we’re going along.

Kim Wright

Sarah Pekkanen

Randy Susan Meyers’ Oh, D.E.A.R.

Feb 012011

Do you remember D.E.A.R? At my elementary school that meant “Drop Everything And Read,” something we typically did for 10 or 15 minutes every day. Best part of my day, really. As my TBR and Library piles are battling for supremacy and trying to sneak in around the review copies who have staked out places on my calendar, I’m thinking back to the simpler days of D.E.A.R., when I believed I had time to get to any book I wanted. And that, of course, got me fantasizing about a world where I really could just Drop Everything And Read for more than just 15 minutes a day.

5406756456 ffd6943380 m picture Randy Susan Meyers is busy celebrating the paperback release of her debut novel, The Murderer’s Daughters, but she is here telling us about the books calling to her, the books she wants to just drop everything and read:

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My teetering pile of bedside books is matched only my the length of my writing ‘to-do’ list, but as I drill down, these are the books I can’t wait to dig into:

The Report by Jessica Kane

I read an excerpt on Granta’s online site, which drew me in immediately. This is a story of the largest loss of civilian life in the UK in World War II, when 173 people died in a crush on the stairs down to a tube station used as a shelter during air raids. A friend (whose taste I trust implicitly, fellow writer Kathy Crowley) said it was a book that “sticks.”

The Quiet Americans by Erika Dreifus

I read an essay about this recently launched book, (on writer Ellen Meeropol’s blog) which described it as a book she immediately read twice. The collection includes stories of “A high-ranking Nazi’s wife and a Jewish doctor in prewar Berlin. A Jewish immigrant soldier and the German POWs he is assigned to supervise. A refugee returning to Europe for the first time and the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. A son of survivors and technology’s potential to reveal long-held family secrets.” I am drawn to stories of the Holocaust told from all the angles of the prisms

Eden Lake by Jane Roper

Eden Lake won’t be available until May 2011—but other work I’ve read by Jane has been very funny (to wit, this piece from Poets & Writers on what writers really mean in workshops.) The book’s description reads: In 1968, newlyweds Clay Perry and Carol Weiss transformed a sheep farm in central Maine into Eden Lake—a nontraditional, progressive summer camp for children. Thirty years later, at the height of the Lewinsky scandal and the dot-com boom, Clay and Carol’s marriage is long over and the camp has become a pricey playground for entitled suburbanites. When an unexpected tragedy strikes, the Perryweiss children have to decide what role Eden Lake—and all that it stands for—will play in their lives. I am obsessed with summer camp, so this book had me at hello.

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The Uncoupling by Meg Wolitzer

I have loved every book Meg Wolitzer has written (The Position, The Ten-Year Nap) so I only had to know she had a new book coming out (in April) to be dying to read it. I know only what I’ve read on the Amazon page, but it has me totally intrigued (a sexual-distaste spreads through an entire town.)

The Memory Palace by Mira Bartók

In the realm of memoir, I was captured by Judith Bolton-Fasman’s Boston Globe review of Mira Bartók’s THE MEMORY PALACE: Bartók’s mother, Norma Herr, was a schizophrenic who felt both haunted and hunted. But Norma was also a musical prodigy whose concert career was abruptly halted after her first breakdown at the age of 19. By the time she divorced Paul Herr in 1963 she had two young daughters whom she shuttled between her parents’ home shadowed with memories of abuse to a dump of an apartment on the other side of Cleveland.

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RANDY SUSAN MEYERS spent eight years as assistant director of Common Purpose, a batterer intervention program where she worked with both batterers and domestic violence victims. Previously, she was director for the Mission Hill Community Centers where she worked with at-risk youth. She is the co-author of the nonfiction book Couples with Children. Her short fiction has been published in Perigee, Fog City Review, and Grub Street Free Press. She currently teaches fiction-writing seminars at the Grub Street Writers’ Center in Boston, Massachusetts.

Buy The Murderer’s Daughters at:

Indiebound | Powells | Amazon *

*These are affiliate links. I received a copy of this author’s book from the publisher for review.

Books Guaranteed to Put Me To Sleep – Guest Post by Lauren Grodstein, author of “A Friend of the Family”

Nov 102010

Lauren Grodstein teaches creative writing at Rutgers-Camden and is the author of “A Friend of the Family,” which I reviewed yesterday.

A few nights ago, after yet another round of searching for the lost pacifier, I found myself, once again, unable to fall back asleep. The house was quiet – the kid snored, the husband snored, the cat snored at the landing at the base of the stairs. These three are frankly outstanding in their ability to go from alert to unconscious in the time it takes a normal person to sneeze. Meanwhile, once I’m up, I’m up – and, at three a.m., I’m usually ticked off, surrounded by snoring and pacifiers, wondering once again how I got into this mess. There was a time in my life when I slept, regularly, til noon! These days it’s a triumph if I’m still asleep at five-thirty.

However, on those occasions I’m able to go back to sleep, it’s usually due to the help of one of four books that now stake permanent territory on my nightstand. These books are well-written enough not to wake up my irritable inner grammar maven, but boring enough not to wake up my imagination, either. They’re like literary Ambien. This week, in honor of daylight savings, I’m sharing this list as a gift to all the exhausted parents out there, since I cannot give them the biggest gift of all: a child who sleeps through the night.

1. In Suspect Terrain, by John McPhee

John McPhee is a masterful reporter who’s done books on everything from oranges (fabulous) to Alaska (a bit meandering at times, but still well worth a read). However, in “In Suspect Terrain,” McPhee, alongside intrepid geologist Anita Harris, documents the geographical history of the eastern United States, spending a whole lot of time at the Delaware Water Gap and dropping mad knowledge about igneous rock and conodonts. The writing is lovely; the topic is dull as, literally, dirt. Four pages in I’m asleep and dreaming about sediment.

2. Fascinating Womanhood, by Helen B. Andelin

This gem is actually very absorbing the first few times you read it; it’s a 1960s guide to man-catching, akin to 1996’s The Rules, and full of such pearls as “Beneath his desire for worldly acclaim lies an even more intense yearning, and it is HIS DESIRE TO BE A HERO IN YOUR EYES. It is for this he lives and breathes.” (caps author’s). When I first read this book in my twenties, this advice seemed hugely amusing, but ten years later, with my hero fast asleep next to me, reading it not only knocks me out, it also knocks out my ability to feel any sort of amusement whatsoever.

3. The Moosewood Cookbook, by Mollie Katzen.

Virtuous vegetarian recipes; sweet black-and-white illustrations. Pass me some of that Arabian Squash-Cheese Casserole before I lose consciousness forever.

4. Lonely Planet Vancouver, by the Lonely Planet people.

Vancouver, as a city, has many of the same qualities I look for in a sleeping aid: it’s pleasing, calm, attractive, and, deep down, just the tiniest bit boring. Believe me, I love Vancouver the way any normal person loves maritime Canada, and I keep this guide on my nightstand because it’s as close as I’m going to get to the city any time soon. Nevertheless, what is Vancouver if not rainy weather, homemade scones, urban kayaking, and efficient public transportation? Just thinking about it makes me drowsy in the nicest possible way.

5161873461 676a159800 m picture So there you go: my four insomniac go-tos. If you have any suggestions of books that knock you out, please email me at laurengrodstein@yahoo.com. Three in the morning is coming all too soon, and believe me when I tell you I need all the help I can get.

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A Writer’s Life – Guest Post by Melanie Benjamin, author of Alice I Have Been

Oct 262010

4866515992 41b02a5de1 m picture It’s a funny thing about being a writer. People often have the most romantic ideas about what your life must be like; they assume that it consists of long, soulful walks for inspiration, or days spent sitting dreamily at a desk, capturing genius on the page only whenever it happens to alight upon your shoulder. Movies and TV shows don’t help; they perpetuate these stereotypes, wrapping them up in Hollywood art direction to boot. Pottery Barn desks and flickering candlelight; exquisite views conveniently just outside the soulful writer’s window.

Well, I hate to break it to you, but—my life isn’t exactly like this.

My desk is a cast-off IKEA desk that neither son wanted to take to college. The view outside my office is that of a basement window well. And I rarely have time to sit dreamily at my desk, waiting for inspiration.

If you are lucky enough to be a full-time writer, that’s the thing. It’s a full-time job. Yes, there’s inspiration involved, but there’s a heck of a lot of perspiration, too. Multi-tasking. Prioritizing. Rushing to meet deadlines.

Take, well—now, for instance. Right now, I’m in a very blessed position. I have one book out (ALICE I HAVE BEEN); one book coming out in July (THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MRS. TOM THUMB); and one book due to my publisher in August.

5111726428 297e23a744 m picture So instead of having the luxury of just losing myself in the manuscript I’m writing—the one that’s due in August—I find myself having to switch gears between three different books. ALICE I HAVE BEEN comes out in paperback in December; I’m getting ready to go out and talk about it again, a year after its initial publication. I love this book, I love the story and I love meeting readers. But I’ve written another book since then that I’m itching to talk about—the book that’s coming out in July. I’m now starting to gear up for its hardcover publication, which means going through page proofs, approving jacket copy, answering questionnaires for my publicist & marketing team, clearing my schedule for July. Meanwhile, there’s that third book. The one that’s due in August. The one that I have to, you know—write.

Now, I am not complaining about any of this! I love every minute of it and know myself to be blessed. But I wanted to share a little insight into how the life of a writer is just like the life of every working person out there.

Like you, I have to prioritize. Someone wants to interview me for a blog? Great—but considering the deadline, the upcoming travel, do I have the time? Or how about that book club that wants me to meet with them for a couple of hours? And what about that Tweetchat I was asked to do? Sometimes, unfortunately, I have to say no.

Just as I’m hitting my stride with the new book, really getting into the story, there’s a knock on my door. It’s the UPS man delivering the page proofs for the July book, and they’re due back to my publisher by November 1st. Reluctantly, I close the file for the new manuscript, and sit down, instead, with a colored pencil to re-read, for the umpteenth time, my soon-to-be published book. It’s tough going, because by now I’m looking at it only for the mistakes; the typos, the inconsistencies that neither my editor, my proofreader or I have caught, but which, for sure, exist. And this is my last chance to find them before the book goes to press.

Bye-bye, inspiration! I will not be able to pursue you today. But next week I will have to summon you, no matter what, because I will have a window of opportunity, between the upcoming paperback release and the blog posts and the final look at the proofs for the next manuscript, in which to write. And so, somehow, I will simply have to.

So that’s what a writer’s life is like. My desk is messy, filled with paperwork that needs to be filled out, contracts to be mailed. I have an in box and an out box. I have a calendar that fills up at an alarming rate.

And I have little time to sit dreaming out the window; I can’t afford simply to sit and listen for my muse. Writing is my job. It’s what I do, and like any skill, I have to be able to summon it on my own command. Inspiration is part of the process but for me, it’s most important at the very beginning, when my initial idea for a book is forming. That’s the one time I get to sit and dream and think.

But soon enough, it’s back to work; to writing, and it’s a darn good thing I really love it, that I consider myself lucky to be able to do it. And that I’ve worked hard to master it so that it’s second nature to me now.

Because deadlines – and guest blog posts – don’t wait for inspiration.

Melanie Benjamin is the author of ALICE I HAVE BEEN, a novel about Alice Liddell, the muse for Lewis Carroll and the inspiration for Alice in Wonderland. Currently available in hardcover, it will be released in paperback December 21st. Her next novel, THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MRS. TOM THUMB, will be published in July 2011. She lives in the Chicago area with her husband and two sons. Visit her at her website, www.melaniebenjamin.com. You can also read her previous guest post at Devourer of Books.

Confessions of a Chicago Lawyer – Guest Post from David Ellis, author of Breach of Trust

Oct 192010

Author David Ellis

Somebody once asked me where I come up with my ideas for crimes and political scandals in my books. I told him I just open my eyes every day.

I’m kidding. Sort of. I’m a Chicago lawyer, and I work in the political arena, so I tend to see a lot of interesting things. As the lawyer for the Speaker of the Illinois House, I spent two years basically trying to prevent Governor Rod Blagojevich from doing all the goofy and corrupt things he wanted to do. Then I served as the House Prosecutor who tried and convicted him before the Illinois Senate during our historic impeachment trial.

So getting fodder for my plots isn’t the hard part. The hard part is topping reality. My best example concerns our dearly departed governor, Blago. In December of 2008, I was putting the finishing touches on a novel about a governor who becomes corrupt. It had some of your basic pay-to-play scandals, and I thought it would be an interesting character study as well. It wasn’t exactly about Blagojevich, but it’s fair to say that Blago inspired me.

Blago's mug shot

And then he did more than inspire me—he trumped me. Along came December 9, 2008, and “Blagojevich” became a household name with the news of his arrest. Compared to the sensational allegations that followed, my manuscript seemed completely tame. Truth, it so happened, had become far, far stranger than my fiction.

What to do? Well, I had to go back to the drawing board. Even though the manuscript (now my upcoming novel, BREACH OF TRUST) wasn’t precisely about Blagojevich, I knew that everybody would have certain expectations about a novel of political corruption written by Blago’s impeachment prosecutor. So I had to dial up the volume on everything I was doing and spice up the scandals. I had to make my fiction stranger to keep up with reality.

Voting early and often. Buying and selling a U.S. Senate seat. Putting your cronies on the payroll. Shaking down government contractors for campaign contributions. Two consecutive governors with felony convictions. The challenge for a Chicago lawyer isn’t coming up with ideas for crimes and scandal—it’s trying to come up with ones that haven’t already appeared in the headlines!

David Ellis is a graduate of Northwestern Law School and Chief Legal Council to the Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives. He is also the author of seven novels the most recent of which, “Breach of Trust,” will be published by Putnam Books in February of 2011. His first novel, “Line of Vision,” won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best First Novel by an American Author. More information about Ellis can be found on his website or his Facebook page.

Note: I am also hosting a giveaway for Ellis’ most recent two books.

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Haunted by Chicago History – Guest Post by Kelly O’Connor McNees, author of The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott

Oct 122010

When you start paying attention to history, history starts following you around everywhere you go. And it’s not a silent companion. There’s the city you see and the city that once was, residing just out of sight. No bridge or street corner or neighborhood block is without a story, and once you’ve made it known to the universe that you’re interested in this sort of stuff—by, say, writing a historical novel—these stories seem to come pouring into your life.

A few blocks from where we live in Chicago, for example, notorious mobster “Big Tim” Murphy—famous for orchestrating a robbery of $400,000 from a Pullman mail train—was gunned down in front of his house when he answered the door in June of 1928. The main road in our neighborhood (and many others on the east side of Chicago), Sheridan, is named for the Civil War general who restored order after the Great Fire in 1871. As you can see, a simple afternoon stroll conjures up one phantom after another.

5074832613 e4a0161991 m picture The ghosts currently haunting me reside in this striking pink stucco building in the shape of a Maltese Cross, on the corner of Sheridan and Bryn Mawr in the Edgewater neighborhood.

This condo building is all that’s left of the luxurious one-thousand-room Edgewater Beach Hotel, built in 1916 by the Chicago architects Benjamin Marshall and Charles Fox—also know for designing the Drake. For the next thirty-five years or so, the Edgewater Beach Hotel was the most glamorous ticket in town. The icons of the era opted to stay here, from Sinatra to FDR and Eisenhower to Babe Ruth, Charlie Chaplin, Nat King Cole, Judy Garland, Lou Gehrig, and Marilyn Monroe. 5075431908 7e06a19714 m picture

The hotel offered guests a private bathing beach and an eleven-hundred-foot promenade, along with on-call seaplane service to downtown. But it’s hard to imagine why they would have wanted or needed to leave the grounds.

5074832645 15f2cd9e1c m picture The place offered a formal dining room able to accommodate twelve hundred guests, plus an outdoor marble ballroom, golf and tennis courts, chocolate factory, soda fountain, post office, flower shop, and even its own film and radio studio. Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller both played here to packed rooms. When Gandhi stayed, the chef prepared special vegetarian meals and made sure fresh goat’s milk was delivered to his room each morning.

5075431950 84202e3f4a m picture You know what’s coming next, and it’s a heartbreaker. Eventually, the glory faded. New, more modern hotels sprung up downtown, and in 1951, the city of Chicago began to extend Lake Shore Drive north of Foster, cutting off this magnificent development from the beach—its major selling point. Business tanked and, eventually, the hotel was sold and its older buildings torn down. The remaining structure contains ground-level retail space and condos up above. Their sagging window-unit air conditioners dot the pink façade. Every day, hundreds of people walk by without giving a thought to this building’s former glory.

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Thank you to Chicago writer Adam Langer for his Reader piece “Remembering the Edgewater Beach Hotel,” which was reprinted here and Chuckman’s Chicago Nostalgia for the old postcard images.

Kelly O’Connor McNees’s first novel, The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott, was published in April by Amy Einhorn Books / Putnam. Kelly lives in Rogers Park and takes lots of walks that include frequent stopping to write things down on index cards.

What’s In A Blog? – Guest Post by Libby Hellmann, Author and Founder of “The Outfit”

Oct 052010

I am pleased today to welcome Libby Fischer Hellmann, founder of the group blog: The Outfit: A Collective of Chicago Crime Writers, as well as an award-winning writer of crime fiction and thrillers. Two of her novels, EASY INNOCENCE (2008) and DOUBLEBACK (2009) feature Chicago P.I Georgia Davis. In addition Chicago video producer and single mother Ellie Foreman is featured in four other novels, which Libby describes as a cross between “Desperate Housewives” and “24.”

Libby has also published over 15 short stories in NICE GIRL DOES NOIR and has edited the acclaimed crime fiction anthology, CHICAGO BLUES. Her next release (December, 2010) is a standalone thriller, SET THE NIGHT ON FIRE. Originally from Washington DC, she has lived in Chicago for 30 years and finds the contrast between the beautiful and the profane in that city a crime writer’s paradise.

We’re not the most popular writers’ blog around (although we did make it to #6 in a Mystery Blog ranking). We’re not the most disciplined, either — eleven writers making deadline? You’ve got to be joking. There’s no strict enforcement of the topics we blog about. Indeed, with posts about baseball, alt lit, crime, or pigeons, the polite word to describe us probably is “eclectic.”

But we’ve been around now over four years. We’ve occasionally broken news, we’ve been nominated for awards, and only one of our seven founding authors has left.

No one is more surprised than me.

I didn’t start the Outfit out of dewy-eyed idealism. I saw it as a practical, marketing tool that would help us connect with readers. And while four years seems like an eternity in today’s blogosphere, we began, more or less, on the cusp of the blog explosion. At the time there were only about four or five crime fiction authors’ blogs, and some of those are now defunct. That we’ve survived is a testament to our stubbornness. Or masochism.

At the time we started, there weren’t any “regional” group blogs, i.e. writers from the same area. And while most people know Sara Paretsky lives and writes about Chicago, there were other authors under the radar, like Barb D’Amato and Michael Dymmoch , whose work wasn’t known as widely. There were also several excellent new voices on the horizon, including Sean Chercover, Marcus Sakey, and Kevin Guilfoile, who deserved recognition.

And let’s face it: in Chicago there’s always something to write about. The lawlessness, the corruption, even the perverse sense of pride Chicagoans take in their “bad boys,” is a never-ending source of material. How many other states have convicted three governors in the past 40 years? (Be quiet, Louisiana)

5033017155 a131d46797 m picture So I gathered together some veterans and some newcomers, and we launched. Now, four years later, Sara has retired, but we’ve added Bryan Gruley, Jamie Freveletti, Laura Caldwell, Dave Heinzmann, and David Ellis, who lives in Springfield but left his heart in Chicago.

What have we accomplished? I think we’ve helped bring Chicago crime fiction authors out of the closet. I see talk about Chicago authors more often these days, and most sources mention the Outfit. So that all-important marketing concept – branding – is happening. Articles like this in various publications haven’t hurt either .

We’ve also shed light on crime-related issues and events. Perhaps our most fascinating series of blogs occurred during 2007, when Kevin Guilfoile posted the first photo of Hans Peterson, accused of murdering Chicago dermatologist Dr. David Cornbleet the previous year. That led to a series of comments between Peterson’s father and the daughter of the victim, all on the Outfit.

Has the Outfit helped us sell books? Probably, although we don’t have accurate measurement data. We know it gives us a platform, and we aren’t shy about using it, whether we’re holding forth on crime, writing, skunks, or letting readers know when we have new books coming.

5033636448 8ec6324763 m picture But the most gratifying result is actually one I never anticipated. None of us really knew each other well four years ago. We do now. And while we communicate largely by email, and sometimes through the blog’s comment section, we’ve also been known to get together. Greek Town will never be the same. In an age where writing a novel and getting it published is both easier and more difficult, the friendship and mutual support has been a delightful – and welcome — surprise.

So if you don’t know us, come on over. We’d love to hear from you. And thanks, Jen, for letting us introduce ourselves to your readers.

Libby Fischer Hellmann, who founded The Outfit, is releasing her 7th novel, SET THE NIGHT ON FIRE December 1, 2010. It’s a stand-alone thriller that goes back, in part, to the late Sixties in Chicago. More at her website: www.libbyhellmann.com

“Someone is trying to kill Lila Hilliard. She doesn’t know who and she doesn’t know why. As she desperately tries to figure it out – and save her life — she uncovers information about her father’s past. Part thriller, part historical novel, and part love story, Set the Night on Fire paints an unforgettable portrait of a turbulent time: the riots at the Democratic Convention . . . the power struggle between the Black Panthers and SDS . . . and a group of young idealists who tried to change the world.”

The Chouans and the Downfall of Napoleon – Guest Post by Catherine Delors, Author of “For the King”

Jul 272010

Catherine Delors is the author of “Mistress of the Revolution.” Her latest book, which I recently reviewed, is “For the King.” She’s here today giving more background as to some of the different groups that arose after the French Revolution. In particular, the Chouans, who play a large role is “For the King.”

The Chouans

On Christmas Eve 1800, a group of Chouans, royalist insurgents, detonated a bomb along Napoléon Bonaparte’s path. This assassination attempt provides the backdrop of my new novel, FOR THE KING. Readers have asked me for more information about them. Why the name Chouans? What drove them to political violence? Were they a major political force?

First the name comes from one of the early leaders of the insurgency, Jean Cottereau, nicknamed Jean Chouan. Chouan was a colorful character, already in trouble with the law years before the French Revolution for, among other misdeeds, killing a tax collector. Then the Revolution brought many changes. The Constitution Civile du Clergé required priests and nuns to pledge allegiance to the new Constitution of the kingdom, a step many considered a violation of their religious vows. Then King Louis XVI was guillotined. The war against the Austrians and their Prussian allies was off to a disastrous start. Soon the French armies were outnumbered, requiring the legislative body that ruled the country to decree a draft. That was the real trigger for the insurgency.

Jean Chouan

Peasants from the western provinces, already outraged by the persecution of their priests and the execution of their King downright refused to go die in faraway lands for a Republic they loathed. Fight they would, but against it, and from home.

The insurrection turned into a full-blown civil war. Soon the Republic had to fight not only the foreign war, but the Chouannerie in the West. The Chouans called themselves the Catholic and Royal Army. Atrocities were committed aplenty by both sides, but civilian populations bore the brunt of the hostilities. Entire villages were razed, churches burned to the ground, tens of thousands became refugees in their own country. The war raged on for years, with much British gold financing the Chouans, until Bonaparte put an end to the Revolution by the bloodless coup of the 18th Brumaire in 1799.

Bonaparte presented himself as the bearer of national reconciliation after the bloodshed of the Revolution. He offered the Chouans a full amnesty if they would lay down their arms, and he proclaimed the West pacified. Prominent leaders of the Catholic and Royal Army rallied to the new regime, but its most charismatic leader, George Cadoudal, scornfully declined Bonaparte’s offers.

Jean Chouan

Some Chouans went on fighting, engaging Bonaparte’s troops in skirmishes, attacking stagecoaches to steal the hated Republic’s gold, and also rob travelers. In 1800, at the time of FOR THE KING, the West was “pacified” in name only. Towards the fall of 1800, hundreds of Chouans converged on Paris, with the design of assassinating Bonaparte. As explained in FOR THE KING, they came only a few seconds away from succeeding.

They failed in 1800, only to try again in 1804. Again the assassination attempt missed its target, and again Bonaparte deftly used the fallout to crown himself Emperor Napoléon. But the Chouans, though defeated, had not lost the war.
In 1815, when Napoléon was facing an entire Continent united against France at Waterloo, a good part of his troops was far away, in the West, fighting… the Chouans. The insurgency had arisen once again. The Chouans never succeeded in assassinating Napoléon Bonaparte, but they were instrumental in his ultimate defeat.

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