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Alternate Rialto (ebook) is now FREE!

29/1/2014

In case you've missed the news, Alternate Rialto is once again available in paperback - and the ebook is currently FREE via Amazon US, Nook, Sony, iTunes, Diesel and Kobo! Grab a copy today!

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Thursday Thirteen - 13 Paragraphs from Stage Thirteen

10/10/2013

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Ciao a tutti! Hi, everybody! I'm off to a late start, and since I didn't have a Thirteen ready for you this week, I thought I'd do a quick post instead.

So, with no further ado, please allow me to share:

Thirteen Paragraphs from Stage Thirteen of 27 Stages!

(Abigail)

I only wanted to get to my hotel, find my room number and send it to Federico. No sense in actually starting to expect him to arrive, only to be disappointed later.

One of the clasps on my camera bag refused to close. I fussed with it fruitlessly until someone reached out and pushed it from a different angle, sliding the sticky plastic tab shut with apparent ease. Startled, I looked up and found my photographer acquaintance smiling at me.

"Oh, um… Merci," I said, and he grinned at me.

"I wondered where you'd gone when I didn't see you around, this morning."

"Yeah, I was running behind."

He nodded and then extended one hand to me. "I'm Pascal, by the way," he said, taking my belatedly-offered hand in his. "And you are…?"

"Abigail."

With one gentle shake of my hand he released me, and I exhaled a quiet sigh of relief. At least he hadn't tried to kiss it or anything.

"Abigail. Would you like to have a coffee?"

"Um, no, thanks… I'm, uh, married." I raised my hand to show him my rings, and he chuckled softly.

"It's only a coffee."

"I'm sorry, but I can't. I have to get back to my hotel." I pulled the strap of my camera bag higher on my shoulder and turned to go.

"Which hotel?" he asked, and damned if I didn't nearly tell him.

So, there you have it - a quick snippet from Stage Thirteen of 27 Stages.

I hope you find your curiosity piqued and perhaps are intrigued enough to the check the book out.

As for the final pic, well...

I know this is well-traveled territory for many of you, but...

I sure hope you don't mind too much.

Ben Swift - professional cyclist

Ciao for now!

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Thursday Thirteen: 13 Things Which Have Been Keeping Me Busy

20/9/2012

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Hello, everyone! I've been away for a long while, it's true, and haven't posted much until the last couple of weeks. Well, I'm back, and hope to get "back in the saddle" again now I'm in Italy once more.

I thought I'd take advantage of this week's Thursday Thirteen post to share what I've been up to lately, so if you'll permit me, here are

Thirteen Things Which Have
Been Keeping Me Busy!

1) Recovering from Jetlag. After four months in the US (from April to the end of August), it's hard to get back into my normal schedule in Italy. I'm still not quite completely adjusted (if my plans allowed it, I could easily stay up until four a.m. with no problem), but I can get up in the a.m. without wanting to hurt myself or somebody else, so I'm doing as well as can be expected.

When I'm awake, I have, of course, been reading. It feels great to get some reading in, as I've been too distracted and busy all summer to just settle in with a good book. Here are the last three books I've read - all since I've been home.

2) Will You Love Me Tomorrow - Danny Gillan

Some aspiring musicians wait a lifetime for that elusive record deal. Bryan Rivers waited a lifetime plus three days. As if dealing with the suicide of her clinically depressed husband wasn't difficult enough, to Claire Rivers' amazement one of the biggest record companies in the country suddenly wants to offer him a contract. When his status is viewed as only a minor inconvenience, she begins to wonder if someone, somewhere, is playing a very distasteful joke on her. Will You Love Me Tomorrow is a comedy about death, depression, grief, loss, friendship, family, haircuts and the music business.

3) Conversations with S. Teri O'Type -
Christopher Allen

Curt Child is a man who just can't seem to get gay, so he's enlisted the help of his oldest--and gayest--friend S. Teri O'Type to drag him a few inches down The Road to Greater Gayness.

(Some of you might remember this title from last week's Thursday Thirteen where I interviewed the author - I'm currently reading the book and am laughing with every page.)

4) The Diary of a Single Parent Abroad - Jill Pennington

When Jill and her family moved to Italy she expected life to change but she had no idea how massive that change would be. Shortly after the move, she discovered her husband had been having an affair and had no intentions of staying in Italy.

Despite being in a foreign country with no income, limited language skills, a house that needed rebuilding and three young children to care for, she never once considered returning to the UK. With strength and determination she accepted any challenge, dismantling a derelict house to ground level, digging out a three metre deep well with her hands to get free water and overcoming her fear of the chainsaw to cut the winter wood. When there was very little money for food she made risotto with nettles collected from the roadside. She overcame many problems, learned new skills and discovered that money is not important, the only things in life that matter are health, happiness and her children.

Jill's story is delivered with an ever present hint of humour because, as she says, 'Without laughter life wouldn't be funny'.

5) I built a bookshelf - at least, that's what I'm calling it. Yes, it's from IKEA. Yes, the kitty seems to approve.

6) In addition to the bookshelf, I've also built two IKEA chairs for the kitchen. Unfortunately, they're a tad wobbly. (Uh-oh.) I'll see if I can sort that out, shortly.

7) I've watched several episodes of Big Bang Theory - including a few I didn't see while in the US!

8) Since the hubby had the chance to stay home and use up some vacation time the first week we were back from the US, we got some serious housework done. As suspected, I needed some good, strong muscle to get it all taken care of. There's more to do (Autumn cleaning?), but the place is looking better all the time!

9) As mentioned above, there was a spur-of-the-moment trip to IKEA.
I maintained control, much to my own astonishment, and walked out having purchased ONLY WHAT I'D GONE IN FOR!!!!! I should have written that day down in my diary...

10) I did another voiceover job. As before, it was fun to do, and Paolo, who does the recording on a professional-grade video camera (no, I'm not filmed, we just tape the audio), is a really sweet guy. Luckily, my hubby was home this time to keep tabs on the kitty and make sure she didn't get into mischief which would have ruined the recording.

11) I renewed my Italian I.D. card. Belatedly.
Very belatedly.
As in, one year late.
Oops.
Upon my return home, I found this snail on my sidewalk.
Et tu, Snail?

12) I started sketching out ideas for my next project(s). Included among them are The Off Season (a sequel to 27 Stages) and an untitled novel (a sequel to Ask Me if I'm Happy)

13) Due to my efforts over the summer on my mother's exercise bike, my hubby and I decided to purchase a bike for me when we got home. We selected this one.
Unfortunately we've had some mechanical issues with it, so were trying to get those sorted out. Once we have, I'm hoping to get back to my twenty- and thirty-mile rides again.

Wish me luck!

And there you have them: Thirteen Things Which Have Been Keeping Me Busy!

I'm willing to bet we have some of these in common, right?

Because I know just about every one of you is a busy, busy bee.

And I know the reason most of you normally stop by here.

It's been a long summer, but I haven't forgotten. No way!

And as summer fades into autumn...

How about a little musical interlude?

Yeah, it's good to be back.

Ciao for now!

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A Matter of Place - Why Bologna?

20/12/2011

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"Why Bologna?"

"Al centro esatto di Piazza Maggiore
con leggerezza da pattinatore
Bologna adesso voltati
mi fai commuovere
lo sai che esagero con le parole..."

"At the exact center of Piazza Maggiore
With the lightness of a skater
Bologna you now turn -
You move me
You know that I exaggerate with words…"
- "A Bologna" ("In Bologna") by Samuele Bersani (translation mine)

I frequently have to explain "Why Bologna?" I mean, I live in Italy – I'm surrounded by historic locations which could have hosted Emily and Davide's story in Ask Me if I'm Happy, right? So why limit myself to a frequently cold and foggy setting in northern Italy that readers might not be very familiar with in the first place?

Well, why not?

The truth is there was no other place as well-suited to the story as Bologna was. I cited some of the reasons elsewhere once, in an interview I did prior to Ask Me if I'm Happy's initial release in 2010: "It's the major train travel hub for northern Italy; it's simply a place I love; it is, as my husband might say, characteristic of the region where I live; and finally, it's a beautiful and historic city.

"Most of all, I feel it's one of the unsung locations in this country. Nearly everyone knows about Tuscany, Rome, Naples and Venice, but very few folks, it seems, are even aware of Bologna. I wanted my area of northern Italy to be represented, for better and for worse, and I think I've done that in Ask Me if I'm Happy."

I've done my best to give a real sense of the city and to show how it affects Emily and Davide throughout their relationship. I tried to not make the story feel like a travelogue, preferring to let the city peek through from time to time, by citing real places and inventing amalgamations of others. From what I've been told, I've done a decent job of it.

In spite of Ask Me… being a love story, I really hoped to write a story which could serve as an antidote of sorts to many other Italy-set stories. I wanted to show the Italy where I – and my ex-pat co-workers and friends – live and work every day. All of us had grown tired of the oh-so-perfect life described by so many novelists and travel writers, the false la dolce vita-isation of these places we know too well. As a result, I aimed to write about this place I've come to love with all my heart, but to write about it warts and all.

Yes, Italy is a beautiful country, there's no doubt about it. I don't deny that, and I do think this aspect shows through in Ask Me if I'm Happy. But there are other aspects of living here which fall quite short of the idealized imagery in those "Ex-pats in Tuscany/Rome/Venice" tales we're all familiar with. This discrepancy is what Emily struggles with, and it's something Davide deals with, too, although in slightly different ways.

From the beginning of the novel right through to the end, I've tried to show the Italy I know in the season I love best: the cold air, the grey skies, and the style of urban living which is the reality for the majority of Italians I know. I wanted to show the romance in a foggy afternoon and in warming one's hands over a hot cappuccino or in the grasp of an attractive companion. I wanted the reader to imagine strolling along the porticos of La Grassa, the city of Bologna, and see her rather weathered charms in all their flawed splendor.

Emily rediscovers these aspects of Italy every time she leaves and returns, just as I – and many of my friends who came here from abroad – do. And every time they open Emily and Davide's story and journey into an Italy they might not previously have been familiar with, I sincerely hope that readers of Ask Me if I'm Happy will do the same.

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How The Primroses Changed My Life (or, In Praise of Description)

22/11/2011

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The poster for the film version of Watership Down.

When I was very young – about the age of nine or ten, actually – I saw the film version of Richard Adams's Watership Down. I was entranced by the often disturbing visuals (my parents had no idea what the film was like, as they never bothered watching it with me, thinking it was "just a cartoon") and captivated by the story. The idea that rabbits had such traumatic lives (and deaths) was something so absolutely foreign to me, I simply couldn't grasp it. I loved the film so much, I was inspired to try to write my own story with similar themes – the problem was, I could barely understand what the film was really about, and so my pale imitation remained just that: an imitation.

After I'd watched it countless times (I literally lost track of the viewings), I finally noticed that the film was in fact based on a book. The emotion which followed this discovery was indescribable, as though I'd just had a moment of divine intervention in my life, because I loved books. I carried my favorite titles around everywhere I went, reading them every chance I got, even though I'd long since memorized them.

Finally, I found myself in a bookstore, perusing the titles away from the children's fiction section, and after standing on my tip-toes and craning my neck, I spotted it, way up high on a the top shelf. The spine was an autumnal mix of yellows and golds, the title framed in a box of brown so dark it was almost black. I know I must have gasped, or made some sort of sound of surprise, because a man browsing in the same aisle was startled to hear it. I stretched out my arm, cursing the fact I was so short, unable to reach the top shelf even though I hopped up and down to the best of my ability. The man gave me a funny look, then, understanding my dilemma, smiled at me.

"Do you want one of these?"

Oh-my-goodness-yes-yes-YES!!!

"Yes, please."

"Which one?"

"Watership Down." I was so excited I could hardly stand it. He kindly pulled the book off the shelf and handed it to me, and after I managed to squeak out a "Thank you!" I went barreling down the length of the store looking for my mom, clutching my treasure close.

I found her at the front of the store, looking through the bargain books.

"Did you find anything?" she asked, then turned her head and looked at me while I danced in place like a hyperactive bundle of pure energy on a sugar high, needing to pee. Desperately.

"Iwantthisoneplease!"

Mom frowned. "Oh, Kim. No."

WhaaaaAAAA???

"Why not?"

"That's a book for grownups."

"So?"

"You'll never read it."

"Sure I will!"

One hand on hip, she turned to fully face me. "How many pages is it?"

I opened the book, still jogging in place. "Four hundred seventy-eight pages."

Mom sighed. "It's too big. There's no way you'll read that whole thing."

"I-will-I-will-I-will! I promise! And I won't ask for another book until I'm done with it!"

Mom sighed again. "Fine. But you can't get any more books until you're done with that one. And I want to see you reading it."

She knew this was the biggest threat she could level at me. I got a book at least every other week. I looked forward to those books as much as I did Christmas or my birthday. "Okay. You will."

And so I went home with my very own copy of Watership Down in my hot little hands, resisting the urge to open it until I could get home and savor the first pages. On the ride home, I stared at the cover, committing it to memory, loving those earthy colors, the rabbit on the front, the golden grass in watercolors on the back cover, the red outer edges of the pages.

Once I was home, I bolted to my room and sat on my bed, then turned on my bedside lamp. I perused the maps on the first few pages, stumbled over the segment of Agamemnon quoted before the chapter's start, and then dug in and started reading:

The primroses were over. Toward the edge of the wood, where the ground became open and sloped down to an old fence and a brambly ditch beyond, only a few fading patches of pale yellow still showed among the dog's mercury and oak-tree roots. On the other side of the fence, the upper part of the field was full of rabbit holes. In places the grass was gone altogether and everywhere there were clusters of dry droppings, through which nothing but the ragwort would grow. A hundred yards away, at the bottom of the slope, ran the brook, no more than three feet wide, half choked with kingcups, watercress and blue brooklime. The cart track crossed by a brick culvert and climbed the opposite slope to a five-barred gate in the thorn hedge. The gate led into the lane.

Time passed. My confidence was a tad battered, but I emerged from my room after completing the first few chapters, feeling strange. It wasn't at all what I had expected, but not in a bad way. It was like the movie, but different. It was also very different from what I'd written for myself, in so many ways. It was richer, layered, full of details which – when I understood the words, and there were a few I honestly couldn't fathom at the time – pulled me in and made me feel like I was really, truly there in that doomed warren of rabbits, needing to escape but not sure how to do so.

"So? How is it?" Mom asked, and I know now she expected me to say "It's too hard!" or "I don't understand it!" or something along those lines.

"It's very… descriptive. There's lots of description in it."

"Oh, really?"

"Uh-huh." I nodded and then looked down at the book, still in my hand. I looked up at her again, wishing she could understand what I felt at that moment. The wonder, the rightness, were beyond my ability to explain. So I settled for "Thanks, Mom," and went back to reading in my room.

I read the book more than twenty times that summer. I re-read it every year, and even now, thirty years on, I discover something new and beautiful with every reading. To this day, it's the detail in the descriptions I savor. I read those details, and the way they unfold, painting the scene, makes it seem as though I've closed my eyes and opened them in another time and place.

Yes, I can appreciate the allegory, now. I can see the symbolism and understand the themes threaded through the narrative, almost all of which flew over the head of my nine-year-old self. I no longer try to write in the same style, but in the back of my mind, as I describe a place and try to set the stage, a desire to draw the reader in as Adams drew me in, so utterly and completely it was a shock to stop reading and find I wasn't actually there, remains.

One day, I might just manage it. But until then, the primroses are over, and there's a gate leading onto a lane I need to stroll down. It's been a while since my last visit.

(This article originally appeared on the Power of Language blog in 2010.)

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Alternate Rialto (ebook) is now FREE!

Thursday Thirteen - 13 Paragraphs from Stage Thirteen

Thirteen Paragraphs from Stage Thirteen of 27 Stages!

Thursday Thirteen: 13 Things Which Have Been Keeping Me Busy

Thirteen Things Which Have
Been Keeping Me Busy!

A Matter of Place - Why Bologna?

How The Primroses Changed My Life (or, In Praise of Description)

Kimberly Menozzi

Please note: Thanks to an increase in spam comments, I'll be approving the comments before they post. Sorry!

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