Satellite Sisters Word-Write Festival
Welcome to the Satellite Sisters Word-Write Festival
Presented by Helen of Pasadena
The Satellite Sisters Word-Write Festival was inspired by Lian Dolan's new novel, Helen of Pasadena. Click on the rose to be taken to the helenofpasadena.com .
All throughout the month of November, we’ll be posting interviews with some of our favorite authors in celebration of the release of Helen of Pasadena by Lian Dolan. We loved talking to these authors about their latest book, their writing process, their inspiration– and how to make a fantastic book trailer. To really celebrate with us, pick up these books ahead of time, read them cover to cover, and enhance your reading by listening to these interviews!
Look for new podcasts posted every Wednesday in November. If you’re a book lover, share the links and spread the word that the Satellite Sisters Love Books!
Week #1
Claire Cook : Seven Year Switch
Claire Cook is a Satellite Sisters fave, a writer who really gets contemporary women and has an inspiring life story for any of you hoping to reinvent yourself in mid-life. Claire started her writing career in the front seat of her mini-van at age 45. She walked the red carpet at the premiere of her book-to-film, Must Love Dogs, at age 50. And manages to keep her husband, kids and 7 siblings in line while writing best-seller after best-seller.
Not to mention the fact that she is a really Satellite Sister, generous with her time and advice to other writers, like Lian. Thanks, Claire!
To read all about Claire, including her tips for writing and reinvention, click here:
http://www.clairecook.com/author/HOME.html
Her Latest? Seven Year Switch Here’s what Publisher’s Weekly has to say about Seven Year Switch… Roll out your beach blanket for this sweet summer read about making mistakes and moving on. Struggling and sassy single mom Jill—left to raise three-year-old Anastasia when husband Seth runs away to join the Peace Corp—is just about over the devastating loss when Seth reappears seven years later ready to pick up where they left off. Jill wrestles with her still-raw anger and her precocious daughter’s heart-breaking need for her daddy back in her life. Honey, if you don’t forgive him, it’ll eat you alive, counsels Jill’s boss and best friend, Joni. For his part, It wasn’t the life we planned, Seth explains. But Anastasia helps him remember it’s the life he needs while Jill discovers letting go teaches you how to hold onto new possibilities. Cook (Must Love Dogs) creates an impossible-not-to-love cast of imperfect, funny, wistful, and wise characters. (June)
Click here to listen to our interview with Claire!
Hope Edelman: The Possibility of Everything
Hope Edelman astonishes with her writing and the depth of her insights. Hope visited us at Satellite Sisters before, talking about her books like the best-selling Motherless Daughters. Her writing is thought-provoking and lyrical. In addition, she’s a dynamic speaker, teacher and advocate. It was our pleasure to talk to Hope again about her unexpected parenting journey in The Possibility of Everything. And, what we like most about Hope, is that with all her big thinking, she is downright funny!
To read all about Hope, including her blog and information about her workshops, click here:
A description of The Possibility of Everything In the autumn of 2000, Hope Edelman was a woman adrift, questioning her place in her marriage, her profession, and the larger world. Feeling vulnerable and isolated, she was primed for change. Into her stagnant routine dropped Dodo, her three-year-old daughter Maya’s curiously disruptive imaginary friend. Confused and worried about how to handle Maya and Dodo’s apparent hold on her, Edelman and her husband made the unlikely choice to bring her to Mayan healers in Belize, hoping that a shaman might help them banish Dodo-and, as they came to understand, all he represented-from their lives.
Examining how an otherwise mainstream mother and wife finds herself making this unorthodox choice, The Possibility of Everything chronicles the magical week in Central America that transformed Edelman from a person whose past had led her to believe only in the visible and the “proven” to someone open to the idea of larger, unseen forces. A deeply affecting and beautifully written memoir of a family’s emotional journey, it explores what Edelman and her husband went looking for in the jungle-and what they ultimately discovered-as parents, as spouses, and as ordinary people-about the things that possess and destroy, or that can heal us all.
Click here to listen to our interview with Hope!
Week #2
Susan Casey: The Wave
Susan Casey is a sharp, funny writer who also has, let’s just say it, the cojones of ten men. She swims with sharks! She chases epic waves! And, boy, are her arms toned. Plus, Susan Casey can really write. Her non-fiction reads like an adventure story, except it’s all real, filled with startling detail, fascinating science and prose that make it come to life. Susan spoke to us before on Satellite Sisters about her bestseller, The Devil’s Teeth. It’s a pleasure to talk to her again about her latest book The Wave that chronicles the ocean’s monster waves and the surfers who chase them.
To read all about Susan and her books, click here:
From Publisher’s Weekly: Casey, O magazine editor-in-chief, travels across the world and into the past to confront the largest waves the oceans have to offer. This dangerous water includes rogue waves south of Africa, storm-born giants near Hawaii, and the biggest wave ever recorded, a 1,740 foot-high wall of wave (taller than one and a third Empire State Buildings) that blasted the Alaska coastline in 1958. Casey follows big-wave surfers in their often suicidal attempts to tackle monsters made of H2O, and also interviews scientists exploring the danger that global warning will bring us more and larger waves. Casey writes compellingly of the threat and beauty of the ocean at its most dangerous. We get vivid historical reconstructions and her firsthand account of being on a jet-ski watching surfers risk their lives. Casey also smoothly translates the science of her subject into engaging prose. This book will fascinate anyone who has even the slightest interest in the oceans that surround us.
Click here to listen to our interview with Susan!
Lisa Birnbach: True Prep
Lisa Birnbach is still a hoot. If the Preppy Handbook was your fashion and lifestyle guide in the 80s, then you won’t want to miss this interview with Preppy Handbook creator Lisa Birnbach. Her follow-up 3 decades later, True Prep revisits the habits, habitues and hairbands of true prepsters, but it’s Lisa’s irreverent bite that make the book fun to read. And what makes her fun to talk to. We discuss how preppies age, the landmark new fabric that expanded preppy fashion: fleece, and the rise of the Preppy Perp. All with our tongue sorta in our cheek!
It’s not too late to be a True Prep. Join your comrades-in-deck-shoes at:
http://www.facebook.com/TruePrep
About True Prep: Thirty years after The Official Preppy Handbook was published comes this new how-to, updated to incorporate such 21st-century givens as gay marriage, dad’s new wife, and rehab, all while underscoring the importance of tradition, which ought to be as reliable as those monogrammed L.L. Bean canvas totes. From what to keep in the pantry (box of raisins, food dye for Easter eggs, etc.) to how to not talk about money, the terse advice and blue-blood humor throughout make this a good stocking stuffer for all those 20-somethings who may have no idea what they’ve inherited with their Sperry top-siders. And tried-and-true Izod fans, who were around the first time, will appreciate the novelty that much more. Especially worthwhile are Edmund White’s contribution on “Where do gay preppies go,” a “real” prep’s response to Gossip Girl, the spot-on Edith Wharton quotes throughout, and the drawings of Randy Glass. Illus.
Click here to listen to our interview with Lisa!
Week #3
Jennifer Egan: A Visit from the Goon Squad
Jennifer Egan is one of the most talented writers working in fiction today. Her books inspire you to ask the question, “How the heck did she come up with that stuff?” We spoke to her on Satellite Sisters about her masterful Gothic tale of of murder at a castle, The Keep. Her latest book , A Visit from the Goon Squad, could not be any more different than her previous book! To fully enjoy this in-depth conversation about her book, her writing and how the heck she comes up with this stuff, please read Goon Squad first! Then listen to a wonderful writer talk about writing.
To check out Jennifer’s most excellent website, click here:
From Publisher’s Weekly… Starred Review. Readers will be pleased to discover that the star-crossed marriage of lucid prose and expertly deployed postmodern switcheroos that helped shoot Egan to the top of the genre-bending new school is alive in well in this graceful yet wild novel. We begin in contemporaryish New York with kleptomaniac Sasha and her boss, rising music producer Bennie Salazar, before flashing back, with Bennie, to the glory days of Bay Area punk rock, and eventually forward, with Sasha, to a settled life. By then, Egan has accrued tertiary characters, like Scotty Hausmann, Bennie’s one-time bandmate who all but dropped out of society, and Alex, who goes on a date with Sasha and later witnesses the future of the music industry. Egan’s overarching concerns are about how rebellion ages, influence corrupts, habits turn to addictions, and lifelong friendships fluctuate and turn. Or as one character asks, How did I go from being a rock star to being a fat fuck no one cares about? Egan answers the question elegantly, though not straight on, as this powerful novel chronicles how and why we change, even as the song stays the same.
Click here to listen to our interview with Jennifer!
Julie Klam: You Had Me At Woof
Julie Klam is a good person who adopted some good dogs. Then turned them bad. But in the interim, she learned the secret of happiness from her rescued Boston terriers, in particular Otto. And found that letting a dog into your life also allows you to let people, like husband and kids, into your life successfully. Very, very funny and the leader of the pack when it comes to the Dog Memoir category, You Had Me At Woof is a delight. We loved talking to Julie about, well, mainly dogs. But some stuff about people, too.
To find out all about Julie, her best-selling books and her twitter feed, click here:
About her book: The hilarious and heartfelt chronicle of a woman learning the secrets of love, health, and happiness from some very surprising teachers: her dogs. Julie Klam was thirty, single, and working as a part-time clerk in an insurance company, wondering if she would ever meet the man she could spend the rest of her life with. And then it happened. She met the irresistible Otto, her first in a long line of Boston terriers, and fell instantly in love. You Had Me at Woof is the often hilarious and always sincere story of how one woman discovered life’s most important lessons from her relationships with her canine companions. From Otto, Julie realized what it might feel like to find “the one.” She learned to share her home, her heart, and her limited resources with another, and she found an authentic friend in the process. But that was just the beginning. Over the years her brood has grown to one husband, one daughter, and several Boston terriers. And although she had much to learn about how to care for them-walks at 2 a.m., vet visits, behavior problems-she was surprised and delighted to find that her dogs had more wisdom to convey to her than she had ever dreamed. And caring for them has made her a better person-and completely and utterly opened her heart. Riotously funny and unexpectedly poignant, You Had Me at Woof recounts the hidden surprises, pleasures, and revelations of letting any mutt, beagle, terrier, or bulldog go charging through your world.
Click here to listen to our interview with Julie!
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