Unlikely Friendships

Posted on May 31, 2011 by Malena Lott

You know how I feel about girlfriends, right? That they are the icing on the cupcake, the cheese on pizza, the sun breaking through clouds? It’s why I wanted to dedicate a blog to friends and books – this one – hoping that we’ll share our good reads with girlfriends, celebrate authors and foster great friendships, both online and off.

With my first novella, Life’s a Beach, a tale of two unlikely friends and one bad case of karma, I got to write about these women who are years apart in age and lifestyle who happen to meet in Mexico on vacation. Each have traveled ahead of their partner and form a bond, which begins simply with Georgia, the forty-year-old stay-at-home, returning the sunhat that Avery, a twenty-five-year-old receptionist, lost when she got off the plane. They share caipirinha, a Brazilian drink, on the beach and talk about life and love. Avery is hoping for a marriage proposal on the trip. Georgia is hoping to re-ignite the spark that has gone out of her marriage on what her husband calls their second honeymoon. Some madcap adventure ensues and the two find themselves entangled throughout the trip, causing each to question what they believed about fate, karma and dreams.

When it came time to dedicate the book, I didn’t have to ask the universe for the answer: it was obvious, to Cynthia, for all the ways the universe brought us together. I’ve heard her tell people many times over the years:

Me, left, with sunshine Cynthia.

she’s yin, I’m yang, she’s the brunette, I’m the blonde; she’s young, I’m old; and on and on. (She’s only 12 years older, but we have always been in different life stages.) Her point was that we have many opposite qualities and yet somehow we are the greatest complement to each other. We’ve been mirrors and sounding boards for each other since 1996 and became closer when we started an ad agency together in 2001 and then closer still when we sold the agency in 2005 and after a year of her moving away for her husband’s job, they returned in 2006 and I’ve counted her as my closest confidante.

So how did the universe bring us together? A job. But no story is that simple. I was referred to her by Rob Andrew, my husband’s boss, one of the coolest guys I ever knew. I’ve learned so much from her about life, how to deal with people and motherhood. I saw her balance work and motherhood and she made me believe I could do it, too. While I feel like it comes easier to her, we probably all feel that way when we’re looking at our friend’s lives. She questions me. We’ve fought. We’ve made up. We’ve had our share of ups and downs and big surprises (my pregnancies, lay-offs, moves, her twin grandbabies, clients who wouldn’t pay, lawsuits, family deaths, Rob’s murder and FINALLY his wife’s conviction and on and on.) Cynthia just now moved away again, and since she’s a new grandma, I know I won’t get to see her or talk to her quite as often. Life happening doesn’t have to cease friendships. It can enhance them, but you do have to work at it. We will call. We will schedule trips. We will stay connected. She’s a soul friend and those don’t come along every day.

What I find most intriguing about friendships isn’t just how they come together, but about the vital energy they can provide to our well being. Good friends are like batteries that recharge us, not drain us.

Thank you, Cynthia. I love you.
—————-
Find out more about Life’s a Beach here.

Readers, do you have an unlikely friendship or fun “meet” story? I’d love to hear it!

And here is the Life’s a Beach drink to share with your girlfriends!

Caipirinha (pronounced kie-purr-REEN-yah) roughly translates to “country bumpkin”. It is made with cachaça, an intensely sweet Brazillian style of rum made from sugarcane juice. The Caipirinha is the national drink of Brazil, where it originated, and is a common Carnavale drink. Although it is more difficult to find, it’s important to choose a premium cachaça for this cocktail in particular because the drink is not heavily flavored and a cheaper brand can ruin an otherwise perfect Caipirinha. You may also like the neater Caipirini.
Ingredients:
1 lime, quartered
2 tsp fine sugar
2 oz cachaca
Preparation:
Place the lime wedges and sugar into an old-fashioned glass.
Muddle well to create a paste.
Fill the glass with ice cubes.
Pour in the cachaca.
Stir well.
Note: Keep the sugar mixed in the drink by stirring often.

Source: From Boca Loca Cachaca , About.com Guide

Side Dish with Author Kathleen Shoop

Posted on May 28, 2011 by Malena Lott

At BEB, we’re planning several Saturday Side Dishes to give you access and insight into some of today’s hottest authors. Comments on the Saturday Q&As go toward the following week’s book giveaway. Welcome, Kathleen!

1. At what age did you know you wanted to be a writer?
I wanted to be a writer since the time I was a little girl. My father wrote every day of his life. He never wanted to get published or anything, but between my family’s endless reading of books and my father’s daily writing, I knew what I wanted to do.

2. Who are some of your favorite authors?
Some of my favorite authors are: Sara Gruen, Geraldine Brooks, Elizabeth Strout, Emily Giffin…John Steinbeck, and Edith Wharton

3. What is your biggest distraction while your writing? The biggest distraction while I’m writing is probably the same as anyone who works—everything else in life! Sometimes it’s my children, sometimes it’s the house itself, and sometimes nothing gets in the way of writing. I work part time at a k-8 school in Pittsburgh. That often is the best thing to help focus me. I’m using many of my writing habits with the students, and though it takes time to prepare for them and then do follow-up, working with them provides just the right bookends for my time.

4. What book are you reading right now?
Little Bee

5. What are three words to describe your book? Redemptive, dramatic, moving…that’s a hard one to answer without sounding sort of arrogant!
6. What advice do you have for aspiring authors? My advice is to write as much volume as possible. I know a certain author who writes one draft of each of her widely published books. She works each sentence until it’s right and then moves on until she’s finished with her perfect draft. I don’t think most people can write productively that way and in my mind, the only way to become good at writing is to write a ton and then figure out that the true work is in revising the volume of text you’ve created. Everyone’s different, but for me it’s volume of writing that allows a person to become good at it.

7. What’s next for you?
Right now I’m editing a women’s fiction novel and also another historical fiction novel set in 1948. I’m thinking about revisiting The Last Letter characters for my next completely new book…but still thinking on that.
Website:http://kathieshoop.bigbigweb.com/

Twitter: @kathieshoop – www.twitter.com/kathieshoop

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Last-Letter-by-Kathleen-Shoop/113685745374882

Buy the Book

Bookie Goodness, Spring Edition

Posted on April 8, 2011 by Malena Lott

by Malena Lott

Sure, spring is wonderful and all that. If we’re hooked up on Facebook, you saw that I even posted a picture of monarchs mating in my backyard yesterday. Monarch, as in the butterfly, not royalty (But that would be more fun, wouldn’t it?)

But as much as I love the wisteria blooming and bees buzzing and azalea buds opening at my new house, I get positively psyched that books are in bloom year around. I know I sound like a total book geek when I say that, but it’s true. While books are more prolific than ever, thanks to Twitter, Facebook and great e-newsletters and blogs, I can always find just the right fit for my mood in the pages of a book.

I don’t get to thank my fellow bookettes often enough for their contributions on the blog. They blog because they love books, love meeting authors and want stories to get their due promotion. It’s tough in the book biz today, so we all need to “share” on FB, RT on Twitter and tell our real life friends about books we heart so much we stayed in the tub until our skin resembled great Aunt Fay’s. (Thanks, Sarah Pekkanen, SKIPPING A BEAT!)

Confession time: I haven’t had an in person book club party since 2010. With my house on the market and the move and now all the fixer upper goodness going on, I’ve put off something that makes my soul soar: getting the girls together to dish about books.

But, NO LONGER. I’m e-mailing my club this weekend and setting a date. I hope you’ll do the same with your girlfriends. I’ve also been way behind in sending out book totes and starter kits to the new book club chapters, so I promise I’ll get to that now that I’ve located the box that had them in it. (Nothing is easy, is it?)

Life is. What I mean by that is we have 24 hours in a day. We choose how to spend it and sometimes the universe forces us to spend it in ways we weren’t expecting. But we forge on and we MAKE TIME for our loved ones, including our girlfriends. That’s what this blog is all about. It’s also about ME TIME and connecting with stories that can make you laugh, cry and give you a-ha moments for life beyond the pages.

I hope you visit Book End Babes often, and remember each month you can click on the book covers in the sidebar for our top picks and read our blog entries for even more book recs in all genres.

Right now I’m laughing my hiney off reading Tina Fey’s BOSSYPANTS, and Rebecca Rasmussen’s THE BIRD SISTERS is so well drawn, I feel like I’m right there in the kitchen with the sisters. If you need a word pick-me-up, then try Sark’s GLAD NO MATTER WHAT. A lot of s*** goes down in life, and peppy people like Sark with her incredible insight into joy really is the icing on the cake some days.

Hugs to all my book-lovin’ friends. Books rock. Girlfriends rule.

Q&A with author Alycia Ripley

Posted on March 22, 2011 by Malena Lott

Today we’d like to give a warm mimosa welcome to author Alycia Ripley who was so kind to stop by and answer some questions about her novel, The Final Alice.

Q. What makes Alice in Wonderland relevant today?
Themes of identity and living up to family expectations are as with us today as when Carroll wrote the original story. I think adults can appreciate a tale that mixes real life with the surreal as well as the sense of escape into a another place where they can apply the lessons they learn there to this world when they return. Social critique, satire, engaging characters, exciting plot, and metaphor are as interesting today as ever.

Q. What is the difference between the classic Alice and your Alice?
My heroine, Alice Pleasance, is the original Alice’s great-great-granddaughter so they exist in two very different moments in pop culture. Her ancestor lived in Victorian times and the new Alice is in modern day America. Whereas the classic Alice is a young child, my heroine is 30 years old and I felt there was much more at stake with a depressed 30 year old writer trying to live up to the expectations of herself and others given what would come in the plot and spiritually allegorical elements of the book.

Q. Why do you think Alice is such a universal character that people can relate to?
She’s very well meaning, funny, and has an attitude but is struggling with issues of identity, what she has accomplished vs. goals still unrealized, frustrations with herself and others around her and we can learn from and relate to her navigations through life and Wonderland.

Q. Are any of the characters in The Final Alice based on actual people?
Very much so. Alice herself is based on my emotions and experiences over the last few years as well as certain aspects of my personality also come out in the Nigerian twins and the telepathic children. The shih tzu that grows to dragon size and eats murderers/rapists/and thugs has a personality very much based on my own shih tzu. The supporting characters are based on people I have known/met/worked with and the villains came to me while watching Nancy Grace and other crime shows because I couldn’t believe some of the things that go on in our country on a day to day basis and felt that some of the perpetrators would make terrific villains for Alice and her team to fight and destroy. A theme of vigilantism is very prevalent in the story.

Q. What inspired you to become a writer? Any plans for the big screen?
The Tri-Star pictures logo of the 1980′s was a huge inspiration because when the Pegasus ran towards the screen and the music swelled it made me want to be part of a crew that wrote/created characters for the world to watch, study, and enjoy in books and film and television and provide that same feeling of excitement for people! I’ve always been interested in writing for both mediums and my books are written in style and with cinematic elements that would make it pretty easily translatable to the screen.

Order the book here.
Learn more about the author at her website, www.alyciaripley.com.

Q & A with the Pioneer Woman

Posted on February 1, 2011 by Malena Lott

by Malena Lott

(photos by Ree Drummond, The Pioneer Woman)

Book End Babes had the privilege to interview the Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond, a fellow Okie and the new author of The Pioneer Woman Black Heels to Tractor Wheels: A Love Story, which is in bookstores everwhere today.

I hadn’t read her serial romance on her website , so when I received the book for review, it was new to me. The book is fresh and funny, told in the wit her readers have come to know and love, and I dare you not to fall in love with Marlboro Man.

Malena: What’s the secret to your successful marriage?

PW: It helps that we really are together pretty much 24/7. He’s on the ranch and sometimes I go with him or the kids work with him. It’s important to keep up with each other’s business. Sure, have your own friends and activities, but togetherness is important.

Malena: Did you start the blog to deal with the isolation of the ranch?

PW: When my blog started in 2006, we were already ten years into our marriage, and I had sort of surrended to the isolation and found contentment. I found myself in a way, started the blog, it became an avenue of connection to outside world. It allowed me to maintain what I had achieved. the contentment in the countryside. i think about the timing and how funny it is that I had to go through the process to get used to the pace and the schedule and then started homeschooling the kids.

Malena: Did you decide to homeschool because of the distance into town?

PW: My daughter had attended kindergarten in Pawhuska and we were happy with her year in kindergarten, but transportation was pretty grueling. The school bus picked her up at 6:30 a.m. – first on the route – and would bring her home at 4:30. My friend Cindy Kane and I met a group of people in Tulsa and they were all homeschoolers. I had this idea of home schoolers as denim jumpers like a lot of people have. We thought, “Wonder if we could do that?” 24 hours later, we decided to do it. It started out as solution to transportation but it wound up you see unexpected benefits.”

Malena: My 10-year-old daughter is jealous that your kids get to ride horses before they are homeschooled every morning.

PW: (laughs): Tell her that my daughter is jealous that your daughter gets to get up and *not* have to ride horses in the morning!

Malena: Marlboro Man once gave you a John Deere riding mower. Have his gift-giving skills improved since then?

PW: No ranch equipment since then. But that riding mower is still working!

Malena: You and Marlboro Man spent a lot of time watching movies in the book, too. What was your favorite movie of 2010?

PW: Movies are what we do. We have a satellite and probably every movie channel available in the universe. We don’t go to a lot of things for entertainment. For years and years, I’ve watched the Oscars blind, because we only go about twice a year to the theater. I haven’t seen the big movies from last year. We saw the original True Grit with John Wayne, but not the new one.

Malena: What type of movies do you like?

PW: The man I married he has eclectic taste in movies. He likes westerns and having the context of living on the ranch makes the whole thing more entertaining. It’s especially fun to watch a western with a rancher and cowboy and detect inaccuries. We also like the Jane Austen movies, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice. There’s not a genre we don’t watch: action/horror/rom coms.

Malena: What’s the latest on your movie?

PW: The story (Black Heels) was optioned and a statement was released on it, but I don’t stay in contact about the status. It’s still in development. I’m focusing on homeschooling and working on the website and the daily brand.

Malena: On Book End Babes, we celebrate great friends and great reads. What book or books are you reading now?

Ree's current read

PW: My sister is huge reader. She’s always saying, “You’ve got to read this book.” I re-read Sophie’s Choice. I love the book. I like to read non-fiction like David Sedaris and just started The Year of Living Biblically. My friend Cindy gave it to me for my birthday. I love the concept. I tend to read things aren’t long narratives that I can pick up and read when I have pockets of time.

Malena: How often do you get together with your girlfriends and how do you spend time together?

Ree's sister

PW: Cooking at my house. My sister is a built-in best friend and my friend Cindy and I spend a lot of time together. We bake cinnamon rolls and deliver them to friends. And once a year, I have a big cowgirl dinner party and invite the wives of neighboring ranchers and cook things that have nothing to do with cowboy cuisine.

Malena: What’s next for Pioneer Woman, the brand?

PW: We’re not really adding, but I’m in the process of redesigning Tasty Kitchen, the recipe sharing section, making it slicker and easier to use. I’m really always interested most in cooking and sharing recipes and the step-by-step tutorial is my main interest. If there’s anything want to do, I put it through the filter of my life on the ranch so it needs to be web-related things. This is where I want to be always, every day.

Thanks, Ree, and good luck on your book tour. Babes, rrder the book by clicking on the cover in the right sidebar.