To participate in the Tweet Chat, the easiest way to participate is to go to www.tweetchat.com and sign in, then add the hashtag #bebabes. It’s a way for people to follow one stream of conversation. It automatically adds that hashtag behind every post you do so it saves time. Simply ask questions and you can respond to @replies. You’ll get the hang of it after a bit.

Each month we do a Wine & Book Tweetchat to honor one or more of our Top Pick authors of the month. In October we were fortunate to have two agree to join us for our wine & book chat so we’ve got a DOUBLE FEATURE on our hands!

At 7 p.m. EST, THE RED LEATHER DIARY author Lily Koppel will be in our guest throne. Get to know more about her and her book on her web site so you’ll have good questions to ask her. At the end of the hour, one lucky tweeter will receive this pretty journal!

At 8 p.m. EST, CROSSING WASHINGTON SQUARE author Joanne Rendell will be wearing the tiara. Check out her web site & go to our Top Picks page or click on the books in our right sidebar to find out more about them. Our prize for one lucky participant for this chat will be a set of sparkly Girls Night Out invites for your next gathering!

It so happens that both of these authors are New Yorkers and the setting of their books are in NYC, so at the recommendation of BEbabe Bonnie Kerr, from Chapter 1, our official wine for the chat is BIG YELLOW CAB Cabernet Sauvignon. It’s BYOB (bring your own bottle), so if you don’t have time to explore BIG YELLOW CAB with us, tell us what you’re drinking. (We just hate to drink alone. Sort of.)

We’ll Tweet you later, babes!

For my Book End Babes side dish, I’d like to offer what could be considered a “literary side dish”! In other words, I would like to offer a short passage which didn’t make it into my new novel, Crossing Washington Square. Although it ended up on the cutting room floor, I still love the passage and I think it gets at why women and book groups, novels and friendship are so important – and thus why Book End Babes rocks!

Here’s the set up: Rachel Grey and Diana Monroe are both literature professors in the old boys club of Manhattan University. Stuck in a male-dominated and crusty English department should create a kinship between them. However, they are very much at odds. Rachel is young, emotional, and impulsive. She wrote a book about women’s book groups which got her a slot on Oprah and she uses “chick lit” in her classes. Diana is aloof, icy, and controlled. She’s also a scholar of Sylvia Plath and thinks “beach” fiction is an easy ride for students.

Throughout the novel, the women have a number of run-ins where they argue about their very different views of literature. In one exchange (an exchange which got cut in the final version), Diana is being pretty rude about book groups implying that they are just an excuse for “bored suburban housewives” to get together and gossip. This is Rachel’s passionate response:

“Have you ever been to a book group, Diana?” Rachel blurted out, an angry flush rising on her cheeks. She didn’t wait for an answer. “If you ever go to one, you will see how wrong and short-sighted you are.” Rachel ignored Diana’s bored, slightly amused gaze and continued. “Book groups offer women so much. They offer an escape from families, demanding kids, the laundry, and the drone of a ball game. They offer a place to nurture and sustain friendships. Also, when women go to book groups, they are free to talk about books and ideas, stories and fantasies. In other words, once a week or once a month or whenever they meet, women can discuss something other than their kids, their husbands, the demands of their jobs. Book groups offer them a time to talk about what they love: books.”
Diana’s lips tightened a little and then she said simply, “I see you feel very passionately about this, Professor Grey.”

You can order CROSSING WASHINGTON SQUARE by clicking on the title cover in our side bar. Don’t forget to put October 29th on your calendar for our October Wine & Book Chat with Joanne!

Tell us what book you are PASSIONATE about and you’ll be entered to win an 8-pack 3 Musketeers Mint with Dark Chocolate (highly addictive), which is a great pick considering Diana & Rachel would definitely not be musketeers together at the beginning of the book. You’ll also be entered to win our Impulse Prize of the Week.

I named our lil prizes “Impulse Prizes” because they are the type of things you buy on an impulse when you go into a boutique or grocery store. Fun, frilly and feel-good. I’ve bought them with my own $$, impulsively, myself. At least it lasts longer than a Starbucks Pumpkin Spice latte. However, if you’d like some free promo and have a fun prize you’d like to give away – promoting your Etsy store or other busines – I’d be happy to include you.

We’ll still be giving away books on the site, especially for bigger prize packages and when guests and publishers host contests, but every week you can find an Impulse Prize up for grabs here. Real-life BEbabes chapter members automatically get an EXTRA entry in every contest they participate in. We’re giving our next four new queenBs who set up a BEbabes chapter a fun trendy momma tote with a book from our book closet to kick off their chapter.

How to Win Our Weekly Impulse Prize:
1. You get one entry per comment per post.
2. EXTRA: If you’re also a chapter member, you get one extra entry.
3. EXTRA: Tweet about us – by retweeting or doing an original tweet.

At the end of the week – at 5 p.m. CST on Fridays, we’ll gather up the entries and use the random number generator to find our winner. Please check the site in the comments on FRIDAY or over the weekend to see if you’ve won. I’d love to be a detective and track you down, but, no, that’s a lie. I don’t want to track you down, but I DO want you to win your prize because I get to feel like Santa Claus giving them a fun gift. I’ll need your physical address to mail it to you, obviously.

Remember to check the Contest Closet page for the latest contests. We’ll be doing an EXTRA prize for one commenter on author Joanne Rendell’s SIDE DISH post on Tuesday – chocolate.

Thanks for supporting BEbabes! Here’s our first Impulse Prize of the Week, picked from our prize closet by my darlin’ 9- year-old Prize Princess: PhiloSophie’s magnet set
Sponsored by: Malena Lott

I’m generally very unenthusiastic when it comes to cooking and I like to channel my creative energies anywhere but the kitchen! However, I do have one recipe. It’s probably the easiest recipe that will ever appear on this site, but I promise you it’s yummy and will make great little hors d’oeuvres for a Book End Babes get together. I’ve even given it a French name so you can impress your guests! Most of all, these little morsels capture the spirit of my new novel, Crossing Washington Square, which tells the tale of two women who are as different as cheese and pineapple! (their tastes in literature are as different as cheese and pineapple too)

Ingredients: Sharp Cheddar Cheese, One Pineapple, a box of cocktail sticks

1. Cube the cheese
2. Cube the pineapple
3. Take a cocktail stick and spear a piece of pineapple. Then using the same cocktail stick, spear a piece of cheese. Place on big place and serve to eagerly awaiting guests!

Thanks, Joanne. I’ll definitely make it for my next BEbabes chapter party! – ML

CROSSING WASHINGTON SQUARE By Joanne Rendell

We welcome Babe Joanne to BEbabes today to help her celebrate the launch of her second novel into the world. So raise your mimosas this morning and let’s give an atta-babe to Joanne!

Thanks for stopping in to our circle of friends. Kick off your platforms and give us the skinny:

If Oprah invited you on her show to talk about your book, what would the theme of that show be? 

Women are the biggest readers. Women are the biggest selling authors (think Nora Roberts and J.K.Rowling). Yet why are books written by women and for women so often demeaned?

You go, girl! Because, really, when’s the last time Ms. W did a feature on pop fiction? 

Speaking of Oprah, she’s in your book! Tell us about your two protagonists. 

Crossing Washington Square is a story of two very different women and their very different love of books. Rachel Grey and Diana Monroe are both literature professors in the old boys club of Manhattan University. While this should create a kinship between them, they are very much at odds. Rachel is young, emotional, and impulsive. She wrote a book about women’s book groups which got her a slot on Oprah and she uses “chick lit” in her classes. Diana is aloof, icy, and controlled. She’s also a scholar of Sylvia Plath who thinks “beach” fiction is an easy ride for students. But as is often the case, it’s a man that truly divides the two women. Smooth-talking Carson McEvoy, a visiting Harvard professor, has his sights on both Rachel and Diana and gets sparks truly flying. 

Do you have a muse, good luck charm, writing vice? 

I don’t really have a muse or a charm. And my vice? Picking the M&Ms out of trail mix while I write!

Ha. Don’t we all do that? Don’t raisins cause wrinkles. No?

What do you write on (type of computer, or notebook, etc.) and where do you write?

I write on a laptop PC at my desk at the front of our apartment. We live on a very busy street in Manhattan so my writing is “lulled” by taxis honking, firetrucks hooting, and jackhammers pounding. With all this practice, I could probably keep writing through a asteroid shower!

Have you had a “rock star” moment regarding your writing career? If so, what was it?

My first novel was The Professors’ Wives’ Club. A couple of months after its release, a woman contacted me and said she’d read and enjoyed the book. She told me she was a professor’s wife and after a few emails, she revealed that she was the wife of a very distinguished professor of cultural studies whose work I’d read, who I’d seen giving keynotes talks at conferences, and whose work greatly influenced the writing of Crossing Washington Square. Not really a “rock star” moment, but still exciting to know the wives of influential professors (professors I really dig!) read my book.

What do you do to celebrate your writing successes?

Drink margaritas and eat burritos.

A babe after our own heart. 

Describe your personality with five adjectives that would make your 5th grade English teacher proud.

Procrastinatory. Determined. Postmodern. Pragmatic. Feminist. 

Well, we knew we loved you for a reason. Let’s rally BEbabes & buy Crossing Washington Square, stat!

Across Washington Square live two very different women …with their very different love of books.

Some women follow their hearts; others follow their minds. In this “charming, witty, and cerebral” second novel from the acclaimed author of The Professors’ Wives’ Club, we return to Manhattan University, where two strong-willed women are compelled to unite their senses and sensibilities.

Professor Diana Monroe is a highly respected scholar of Sylvia Plath. Serious and aloof, she steadfastly keeps her mind on track. Professor Rachel Grey is young and impulsive, with a penchant for teaching popular women’s fiction like Bridget Jones’ Diary and The Devil Wears Prada, and for wearing her heart on her sleeve.

The two conflicting personalities meet head to heart when Carson McEvoy, a handsome and brilliant professor visiting from Harvard, sets his eyes on both women and creates even more tension between them. Now Diana and Rachel are slated to accompany an undergraduate trip to London, where an almost life-threatening experience with a student celebrity will force them to change their minds and heal their hearts…together.

Advance Praise for CROSSING WASHINGTON SQUARE

“As readers spend time with these bright and engaging women, Rendell offers an interesting debate about the merits of studying popular fiction in an academic setting.” The Romantic Times

“Rendell’s second novel is thoughtful and open, with plenty of interesting academic debate for truly bookish readers.” Booklist

Order it already!