Are We Allowed to Fail?

Actor and writer Alan Arkin doesn't think so. I had the chance to talk to him this week about his new book "An Improvised Life: A Memoir". I asked him about being a founding member of Second City in Chicago. He had this to say:

We were allowed to fail. It was a completely exploratory environment where we were allowed to fail. Nobody's allowed to fail anymore at anything in any area of our culture or civilization. I don't think you learn anything without failing. I don't think it's possible. And we failed a lot and the audience didn't mind. They knew it was going to happen and so we grew. That's what it was like.

Tune in for our conversation on Realgoodwords - Wednesdays at 6pm, CST - Sundays at 9am,CST. You'll also hear our conversation on this week's Between You and Me as we talk movies.

The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir by MN Author Kao Kalia Yang

I had a wonderful conversation today with MN author Kao Kalia Yang about the book that has been read by so many people, and has been chosen by the Grand Rapids Area Library as the "Rapids Reads" book. Kalia will be speaking about her book in Grand Rapids on Thursday March 17 at 7pm.

In our conversation we talked about language, both English and Hmong, and the art of storytelling. Kalia had this to say:

"My uncle asked me do you know what a storyteller is? And I told him yes, they are writers but in spoken words. He told me no, in order to be good you have to understand. That a story is a like a stop sign on the road of life. Its purpose is to make you pause, look both sides and check the trajectory of the horizon before you continue. I've always had a profound understanding that stories were the gift of life. It was what one person had to give to another and so I grew up surrounded by stories - in both Hmong and English."

She went on to tell me how different English and Hmong are to her:

"The English language never feels quite right. It is eternally breathless. It is always as if I am doing CPR to the language. But in Hmong, it flows beautifully in voice. The way I sound in Hmong, I believe, is the way I read on the pages in English. I think I write like a native. Very fearlessly. I write much better than I can speak because for so long I didn't speak. For 20 years of my life I was a selective mute. I prefer that (writing) medium any time any day. If we could do this interview in email or live chat it would be so ideal for me. Because I don't like the way I sound in English, even today...even right now.

When I speak in Hmong it feels like a song on my lips in English I feel so raspy and breathless. Hmong is a tonal language and every breath that I breathe in the world carries meaning. In English I have to trap the air in my lungs and units of meaning to make sounds to the bigger world. "

Hope you get a chance to hear our interview tonight (2/23) at 6pm or Sunday 2/27 at 9am. Or check the archived interviews.

Christina Meldrum and Melicious tonight on Realgoodwords!!

It's the WE THE PEOPLE 91.7KAXE Spring Fundraiser and we're celebrating the community of Northern Community Radio. That means listeners, readers,or roller derby teams who make up the wide variety of people who support and believe in independent radio for northern Minnesota.

I'm super psyched right now - not just because I'm sitting at my desk in a derby skirt and leopard print tights with my rollerskates on. But because the night ahead is going to be great.

I'm talking to 2 authors on Realgoodwords tonight: Christina Meldrum and Melicious.

Christina Meldrum is an award winning novelist whose latest book is called "Amaryllis in Blueberry". It's the story told from the point of view of an entire family. Not only that, but the novel begins at the ending when the mother, Seena, is on trial for the murder of her husband. "Amaryllis in Blueberry" has been described as being in the tradition of novels like "The Secret Life of Bees" and "The Poisonwood Bible".

At 6:30 some of my teammates from the Iron Range Maidens will be joining me to talk to Melissa "Melicious" Joulwan about her memoir "Rollergirl: Totally True Tales from the Track.". Melicious is a roller girl from Austin, Texas that was instrumental in the resurgence of roller derby. It's hot in northern Minnesota with the Bemidji team Babe City Rollers, the Duluth teams Harbor City Roller Dames and Duluth Derby Divas as well as my very own team, the Iron Range Maidens. Tune in for Melicious!

My teammates will be here to talk with Melicious and answering phones throughout the night On the River. Pledge for community radio! We're independent and we're on wheels! The only reason we get to bring you great programs like Realgoodwords is because you support it with your membership. 800-662-5799/218-326-1234 or pledge online, www.kaxe.org.

Copies of "Amaryllis in Blueberry" and "Rollergirl: Totally True Tales from the Track" are available as a thank you gift for your membership of $60/year or above. Just let us know you'd like one when you call and pledge!!!

P.S. check out Doug MacRostie's documentary on the women of roller derby here.!

Mark Allister and Tyler Blanski on dating

Two Minnesota authors join me this week. Two men talking and writing about subjects they don't always address: DATING.

Mark Allister is a St. Olaf professor who will be at the Grand Rapids Area Library tomorrow (February 3rd at 7pm) talking about his book "Dated: A Middle-Aged Guy's Online Search for Love". Mark, after a 25 year marriage and raising 2 kids, finds himself on the internet, trying to figure out how to date, all over again.

Tyler Blanski is a Minneapolis house painter who is a writer and painter. His book is called "Mud & Poetry - Love, Sex and the Sacred". Tyler grew up a Christian - in a world where dating was not exactly allowed. As he grew up and began to connect with his own desire to connect with others, he began to explore both faith and sexuality. Blanski says that humans are both mud and poetry - living out of both biological and emotional needs... base desires and soaring aspirations. Phyllis Tickle said, "If only Saint Augustine had grown up blogging, he too could have written this book. Either way though, I'm pretty sure the good Augustine would resonate with Tyler Blanski's twenty-first century confessions."

I was struck by both of these men - talking about subjects that aren't openly discussed. Both were thoughtful and sincere in their quest to find connection in the world.

"He's not show quality but he's so sweet and all he needs is a little love"

What would you do if you heard that? For author Julie Klam, she immediately pictured the Charlie Brown Christmas tree and thought "I have to have him". She got in her car, drove to Pennsylvania to meet Otto and immediately fell in love with him. She told me, "He was the man of my dreams".

Julie Klam's book is called "You Had Me At Woof: How Dogs Taught Me The Secrets of Happiness". Check out her book trailer, and tune in to Realgoodwords this week for my conversation with her.

Women and their connection to the land

This is a photo from Gayla Marty's blog where she is writing about memory. It's a great photo that is obviously overexposed but ends up really saying a lot about how we remember our lives. It's not always entirely clear, is it?

Minnesota author Gayla Marty is coming to Grand Rapids on Tuesday November 16th. She'll be speaking about her book "Memory of Trees - A Daughter's Story of a Family Farm" from 6:30-8:30. The event is sponsored by the MN Women's Woodland Network . The organization was formed to help women learn about trees, nature and caring for the land. It's a new program that is informal learning that is conversational by nature. This event is free but a RSVP is required. See here for more information.

I'll be talking to Gayla Marty again this week on Realgoodwords. We spoke last summer about "Memory of Trees" but I was so intrigued I wanted to talk about more of the issues she writes about in her book. It's been described as a story of a farm in Central Minnesota... Marty explores "the relationship of forests, farms, and migration in Western civilization is uncovered through the example of this farm in the “golden triangle” between the Mississippi and St. Croix rivers. On the journey to understanding, trees provide touchstones, connections to sacred and classical history—companions leading the way forward."

Also this week on Realgoodwords - a satire of office life with Richard Hine's "Russell Wiley is Out to Lunch" a book as clever as its website. Check it out here and tune in for our conversation!

Have you ever wondered what your long lost relative was really like?

Author and professor Suzanne Berne did. In her new book "Missing Lucile: Memories of the Grandmother I Never Knew" she does research about the life of her grandmother and the times in which she lived. In our conversation Suzanne said:

"To have a grandmother who didn't have the right to vote - is a really interesting thing for a woman to think about in 2010 - that was just one of the things that I was led to as I was thinking and writing about her."

My conversation with Suzanne really got me thinking about my relatives - the people that I never met but have impact on my life now. I especially thought about my great great aunt Tilly - a woman who I've always felt close to and wondered about. As I was growing up I would always ask my grandma if we could read through Tilly's postcard collection. Later in life my grandma passed these postcards on to me - and I've always read them and tried to somehow piece together Tilly's life. I feel honored to have them in my possession, especially because Tilly didn't have children to pass them on to.

Suzanne's book interested me not just in her family, but in looking more into my own.

What is your quest?

This week on Realgoodwords it's all about the quests. Whether it's traveling the world, paddling every lake in Itasca County or joining a women's roller derby team, we all have a passion for something that can lead to a quest of some sort.

My guests this week are authors Mary Shideler and John Shors.

John is back on Realgoodwords; this time to talk about his new novel called "The Wishing Trees". It's the story of a father and daughter and their quest to travel the world to honor their late wife and mother. Their first stop is Japan where Maddi, the 10 year old, finds out about wishing trees. Wishing Trees are where you write down your wish in life and hang it on a tree. They are thought to be spiritual and mystical places. Maddi and her father Ian not only put their wishes in wishing trees, they follow the plan and itinerary that was left for them. Ian and Maddi's quest is at times heartbreaking but is filled with transformation and redemption. Writer Wally Lamb called it "Poignant and life-affirming".

John's novels have been bestsellers and translated into many different languages. This is due in part I think, to his dedication to his readers. John has visited with over 2400 different book clubs across the country (mostly through speakerphone) - sometimes speaking to up to 3 of them in an evening. Check his website for more information.

Itasca County resident Mary Shideler is also on this week - talking about the completion of her quest to kayak ALL the lakes of Itasca County. She's published a book about this quest called "Mary the Kayak Lady - One Woman, One Kayak, 1007 Lakes." Mary talks about where she got her sense of adventure and how she put together her beautiful new book. Duluth News Tribune writer Sam Cook wrote, "Mary Shideler possesses both a sense of wonder and a sense of purpose. Her kayaking quest should be an inspiration to all of us who dare to follow our dreams."

Mary is at the Grand Rapids Area Library talking about her quest on Thursday September 15th at 7pm.

What's your quest? What drives you? Are you like me and feel the pull of the 8 wheels and knee pads of roller derby?

You can hear Realgoodwords every Wednesday on KAXE from 6-7pm and Sunday mornings from 9-10am. Archived interviews can be found here.

Adventure and Memory on Realgoodwords this week

Linda Greenlaw is one of my guests this week on Realgoodwords this week... she's the only female swordboat captain in America. You may know her from the movie The Perfect Storm or the book by Sebastian Junger... or maybe you've seen her discovery channel show Swords. I talked with her about her new memoir about getting back out on the water to captain a swordboat after 10 years. It's called "Seaworthy: A Swordfish Captain Returns to the Sea". Now I'm not usually the kind of gal who likes this kind of adventure writing - but I found this book to be fun and fascinating about this hardworking world of fishing I knew nothing about. Hope you get to hear the interview, I found my conversation with Linda delightful.

I also talked to Australian writer and speaker Michael McQueen about the book he's put together "Memento: My Life in Stories". After the surprise death of his father, McQueen realized how important stories are to us. He had given his father a notebook with questions and after he passed, they found it, filled out, in his desk. It has helped him deal with such a big loss in his life. Questions in the book include things like "What was your favorite childhood toy" and "What can you remember about your first kiss" and "What was your wedding like".....

We also get the chance to hear my conversation with Nick Hornby again this week - his latest novel is "Juliet, Naked".

If you missed the show, check here for Realgoodword archives.

Memoirs and poetry on Realgoodwords

This week I talk with the author of "Memory of Trees - A Daughter's Story of a Family Farm"- Gayla Marty. It was a great conversation - and I'm afraid I jumped all over the place because there were so many things I wanted to talk with her about. Hers is a memoir - her life growing up on the farm. She's created this in a really unique way. First, she starts the book from her point of view as a young girl - so the language and storytelling changes as she gets older. Also, she's using the idea of her favorite trees on her family farm in Rush City, MN to tell her story. For example:

MAPLE
At the cemetery east of town, a young maple tree grows by the Marty family plot. When I go with Gramma Marty to take care of our plot, she tells me to water the tree too. It's bark is smooth gray and its leaves are yellow-green, like hands with three points, bigger than the pages of the book I use for pressing leaves. Its seeds are attached to a wing like a dragonfly's. There are millions of seeds every spring. page 39 "Memory of Trees" published by University of MN Press

I also talk with Elise Paschen this week about "Poetry Speaks: Who I Am" - a new anthology of written and spoken word poetry for middle to high school age kids. It includes poetry from people like Sherman Alexie, Billy Collins, Joy Harjo, Julia Alvarez and many, many more. One of the poems included is "Mowing" by Midge Goldberg.

You know those chores you always have to do,
like mowing grass: I grumble, go outside—
a lawn this size will take an hour or two
at least—put on my Red Sox hat and ride
around designing circles, lines, a border.
I move from shade to sunshine, deftly steering,
looking purposeful and bringing order
so neat and sure—and sure of disappearing.
With all this sun, I know that what I’m doing
won’t last, won’t keep a week; I ride about
to find the pleasure in the not pursuing,
to learn beyond the shadow of a doubt
the patterns that I long to bring to pass
get mown and overgrown like summer grass.

Time flies when you are reading good books!

It's been a busy couple of weeks at KAXE - and I haven't been keeping up with blogging much at all! I'm headed off on a short vacation, but I'm excited about the upcoming authors I'll be interviewing and the stack of books I'm bringing with.

"Memory of Trees - A Daughter's Story of a Family Farm" by MN Author Gayla Marty. Here's how it is described on her website:

Memory of Trees is the story of a farm in east central Minnesota—Pine County, four miles west of the St. Croix River.

A farm accident triggers an urban woman’s search to understand her attachment to her family’s farm and the reasons—conflict, culture, economics, and illness—that it was sold. As she sits beside her uncle’s hospital bed during an October that ends in a blizzard, she wonders: Why were he and she, once close but now so different, the two who resisted the sale? The search through memory leads to the alpine valley of their ancestors, ruined farm towns of the Roman Empire in North Africa, and ancient Biblical texts about land and exile. The journey uncovers the relationship of forests, farms, and migration in Western civilization through the example of this farm in the “golden triangle” between the Mississippi and St. Croix rivers.

I'll also get a chance to talk with Elise Paschen again. Elise is a poet who was Executive

Director of the Poetry Society of America and co-founded Poetry in Motion that put poetry on buses and subways. I've talked to Elise before about her Poetry Speaks projects that have included audio CDs of famous poets reading their own works. She's already done a Poetry Speaks to Children that's a picture book with poetry... but this time she has created a collection for a little older crowd - middles school to high school age. It's called Poetry Speaks to Who I Am and has been described as "an energetic, visceral collection of poems for that point in life that is at the same time angst-ridden and incredibly exciting".

Other books I'm reviewing for upcoming shows:

My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares

Carrier - Untangling the Danger in My DNA by Bonnie J. Rough

MN authors featured - Nicole Johns and Scott Muskin

Nicole Johns and Scott Muskin have some things in common - they both are writers - they both live in Minnesota - they both graduated with MFAs in creative writing from the University of Minnesota - and they are BOTH on Realgoodwords this week. I happen to think the last similarity is the most important :)

That being said, their books are very different. Nicole Johns "Purge: Rehab Diaries" is remarkable in its honesty. She writes of her experience with and recovering from an eating disorder. Here's an excerpt:

An eating disorder is driving to a gas station in the midst of a blizzard and writing a bad check to buy dozens of stale doughnuts because they are being sold at the day-old discount price and you are ravenous because you have been starving yourself, again. Your car gets stuck in the middle of an intersection, your tires churn up wet snow, you're going nowhere as you cram doughnuts into your mouth, sugar circling your lips and chin, granules of sticky sugar on the steering wheel, and you don't care that there is oncoming traffic, a light is about to change, and the tires are spinning. All you care about is making it back to the apartment before your roommate gets off work, in time to stick the index finger of your right hand down your inflamed throat so that doughnut pieces will heave their way up your esophagus and plummet into the toilet bowl.

Scott Muskin's first novel, "The Annunciations of Hank Meyerson, Mama's Boy and Scholar"is up for a 2009 MN Book Award for Fiction. This is what the book jacket says of it:

Hank Meyerson isn’t the whiny sort of mama’s boy. He’s more the wry, shaggy, chubby sort—an over-thinker, a ranter, and sometimes a crier. He adores Emily Dickinson. He kibitzes. He has the audacity to fall in love with his sister-in-law.

Plus, he mentions KAXE on his webpage!

Minnesota is such a great state for creativity and especially writers, like the two newer voices you'll hear on Realgoodwords this week. Got a MN author to recommend? Email me!

A recipe from Michelle Maisto's memoir

Her new book is called "Gastronomy of Marriage - A Memoir of Food and Love". One of the things I like about it is that she treats food as culture. She uses food memories to tell stories. Like her grandma's famous walnut tarts. Not only does she tell us about her mother making these and 11 other kinds of cookies at Christmastime, she gives us the recipe for these delights.

WALNUT TARTS
crust:
8 oz cream cheese
1 stick butter
1 cup flour

filling:
1 egg, beaten
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts or a combination of the two
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. For this recipe you'll need a mini muffin tin (two ideally). Put these in the refrigerator. Then blend the crust ingredients until smooth. If, like me, you tend to have warm hands, wash them under cold water. Drop teaspoonfuls of dough into each muffin cup and press the dough with your fingertips until each one is like a mini piecrust. Don't press them so thin that you can see the gray of the muffin tin; the thickness of a navel orange peel is about right.

Put the muffin tines back into the refrigerator while you make the filling, simply mixing the ingredients together. Spoon the filling into each little pie shell, leaving a little space before the top of the crust. Bake for 20-30 minutes, until the crust is light brown.

Tune in this week for my conversation with Michelle Maisto about her relationship and her relationship to food. If you miss it, check the archive!

Diet? Milkshake! Diet? Milkshake! Diet? Milkshake...

It's the eternal struggle, isn't it? Succumb to your summer desires of cool ice cream coupled with chocolate sauce or fruit or caramel or basil/lemon, served in a metal cup OR stick to your new food attitude, where milkshakes, while not exactly "evil", are not really on the program.

This week's Realgoodwords battles it out between body image issues and milkshakes. Okay, not really. But somehow, these 2 interviews work well together, kinda like peanut butter and chocolate.

Adam Ried is a cookbook and kitchen equipment junkie. He's the food columnist for the Boston Globe Magazine and the equipment expert for American's Test Kitchens and Cook's Country from America's Test Kitchens.

His new book is "Thoroughly Modern Milkshakes" and along with the standard chocolate milkshake Adam's got some doozies like Shot in the Dark Coffee Shake and Peanut Molasses Shake and Sweet Corn and Basil Shake. Tune in for some fun conversation and memories of those perfect shakes. See the photo of one of Adam's favorite's: the Lemon Buttermilk Shake. See here for the recipe.

Stephanie Klein is a very popular blogger who "tells things straight up and unfiltered". Her first memoir came from that, called "Straight Up and Dirty" and is being made into a 1/2 hour comedy for television. Her latest is another memoir, this time about her childhood as an overweight kid. It's called "Moose: A Memoir of Fat Camp".

I asked Stephanie about being a mom and how she is going to deal with weight issues and her own kids.

She said, "I don't just tell them they are beautiful - I make sure they see that I tell myself that I'm beautiful - even if I don't feel it."

I asked Stephanie if changing the negative self talk to positive helped her in weight loss. I expected her to say yes. Instead she said,

"I don't think petting my arms and complimenting them on what a great job they are doing staying attached to my shoulders worked for me. The whole 'love yourself in the mirror' didn't work for me. What actually worked was seeing my before pictures when I was a kid and really looking at them and taking a step back. Just look at that form, that person, that girl - if she were your daughter...is she beautiful? I look at them and say YES! You WERE beautiful, you were pretty, you were energetic, you had this amazing personality. I wished that someone would have focused on that and focused on bringing out all of my talents instead of "you're the fat girl" and my father puffing out his cheeks at me at the dinner table when I'd go in for seconds. Because I think it all of my energy were focused on singing or painting or learning photography I wouldn't be so apt to sit down in the front of the television and eat a third bowl of cereal."

Or a third milkshake? It's almost the 4th of July, I think ONE milkshake is okay. Don't you?

Childhood and identity

This week on Realgoodwords are two new memoirs from women who are, to some extent, both writing about identity. Laura M. Flynn grew up in San Fransisco with a mentally ill mother. Her story shows not only the onset of schizophrenia and how it affects a family, but it shows the ordinary-ness of it; the good moments as well as the bad. Her father eventually divorced her mother, but left the three girls with their mother, because as she told me, "he didn't know that she wouldn't get better". Laura M. Flynn's "Swallow the Earth" was a finalist for a MN Book Award. The Washington Post wrote:

Despite all, Flynn's childhood contained love. Her salvation came through her father's protectiveness, her closeness with her sisters, and the imaginative world the three girls created together.

While Laura M. Flynn is examining her childhood to more fully understand who she is as an adult. In Mei-Ling Hopgood's "Lucky Girl" she, as an adult, comes to meet and understand the parents who gave her up for adoption in Taiwan. Kirkus Review's writes:

Hopgood writes with humor and grace about her efforts to understand how biology, chance, choice and love intersect to delineate a life. A wise, moving meditation on the meaning of family, identity and fate.

May is National Mental Health Awareness month and the Grand Rapids chapter of NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) is bringing Laura Flynn to Grand Rapids to speak - she'll be at the MacRostie Art Center Tuesday May 19th at 6:30pm. She'll be in Brainerd the next day, signing her book at BookWorld. And in June she's part of the Brainerd Public Library's Brown Bag lunch series.

Janis Ian

Grammy award winning singer-songwriter Janis Ian talked with me this week about her autobiography, "Society's Child: My Autobiography". Her book is her life certainly, but it also gives a glimpse into the times. Janis said to me:

"If I could make it a book thats as much about the times as it is about me then I might be able to write something that's not just a self-serving piece of crap."

Her first hit, "Society's Child" at 15 created a huge stir with its interracial marriage themes. She received death threats and radio stations were hestitant to play the song. To Janis, growing up in a neighborhood with more black people than white people, it was a song about life. Same with "At Seventeen". Remember the moving lyrics?

I learned the truth at seventeen

That love was meant for beauty queens

And high school girls with clear skinned smiles

Who married young and then retired.

The valentines I never knew

The Friday night charades of youth

Were spent on one more beautiful

At seventeen I learned the truth.

And those of us with ravaged faces

Lacking in the social graces

Desperately remained at home
Inventing lovers on the phone

Who called to say come dance with me

and murmured vague obscenities

It isn't all it seems

At seventeen.

What was evident to me, in reading "Society's Child" was that Janis had grown up in the world of music certainly, but more broadly in a world of artistic expression that included music, art and certainly, reading. She said to me:

"Books showed me that I wasn't a freak that there were other people like me in the world. I could basically know the world through books in a way that pre-internet you could never have known the world."

Tune in for our conversation this week. Or check the archive.

Tonight's Show with Martha Frankel and Rebecca Johnson

On tonight's show you'll hear a conversation with Rebecca Johnson, author of "And Sometimes Why". The book has been described as delivering a perfectly pleasant, even enjoyable read about a sad subject: the death of a 16-year old girl.

One of the things Rebecca and I talked about was the evocative title of the book. She said:

"It's a pun on when you learn your vowels as a child A-E-I-O-U and sometimes Y...I love this phrase because it just goes to the heart of this idea that we all try to memorize the rules so that we'll understand. As it turns out there is always an exception - maybe this is our first introduction to that as children - for every rule there is an exception."

We also talked about when tragedy strikes - we all worry about what could happen - what inevitably will happen - the characters in And Sometimes Why are thrust right into tragedy. Sophie, the mother, has been waiting for this horrible day. Rebecca told me:

"I think that some people are almost genetically programmed to expect the worst. Every morning I pick up the newspaper and it's really bad news. After awhile there is something in us that is drawn to it in some way.... and the hopeless contemplation of it over and over. And yet, when a tragedy actually happens we are just genuinely unprepared for it."

Also on tonight's show is my conversation with Martha Frankel. Martha Frankel, how can I describe her? I just kinda want to hang out with her. She's refreshingly honest and direct. Her memoir about her love affair with poker and subsequent addiction to online poker "Hats and Eyeglasses" is fascinating in terms of gambling but more importantly the culture of poker/gambling that shaped her. Martha started playing poker as an adult in her 40's - started playing a weekly game. She became obsessed with it - playing games by herself - consulting with others about the nuances of the game. When she heard from a dealer at a casino "Why play here when you can stay home in your pajamas?" she said, "Something changed in me almost immediately."

She fell into a life of lying, debt and anger. Tune in tonight at 6pm, CST or online by archive afterwards for our conversation.

Hats & Eyeglasses

Today I'm interviewing Martha Frankel about her new memoir "Hats & Eyeglasses - A Family Love Affair with Gambling". It was just published on February 14th but has already garnered great reviews, like:

"The thrill of the chase -- or rather, the chase of the thrill -- powers "Hats and Eyeglasses," a fast-paced and amazingly funny memoir by Martha Frankel. Even those of us who scoff at card games will gain a new understanding of the joys of poker, and if you belong to a weekly poker group, well, beware of Internet enticements." Times-Picayune

"A frank and unaffected memoir" Publishers Weekly

What I liked about this book was how Martha connects her growing up years to her adult life under the magnifying lens of poker. She writes of poker games in her house with her dad, known as The Pencil because he was an accountant, learning the ins and outs of poker. Later, when she comes back to poker as an adult, she comes to realize how life changed after her father died and the poker games at her house stopped happening. Learning to play with her cousin and the guys in the neighborhood brings her back to that loving house she remembered from when her dad was still alive.

Not to say that Martha's mom doesn't play a big role in "Hats & Eyeglasses". Martha's mom cheers her daughter on from the sidelines with shrewd advice all along the way.

The most fascinating part of this book is Martha's addiction to gambling. It's not the friendly poker games or casinos or gambling cruises that pull her into the underbelly - it's online gambling that does it in the end.

It's fascinating - the concept of what is addiction in this context.....she still plays poker now, but not online poker. What is an addiction? Do you have to completely abstain to get the monkey off your back? what monkey?

Memoir v. Autobiography

I didn't read the controversial "A Million Little Pieces" by James Frey but I do remember the hubub of it - Oprah's calling his bluff on her talk show and all.... In some ways the controversy called into question what exactly a memoir is....

Memoir is different than an autobiography certainly, but how? I've read that it has to do with time. In an autobiography, a writer is expected to stick to a strict chronology of life events. In a memoir, time is more fluid. And that, my friends, is exactly why I like memoirs over autobiographies. Life exactly as it happens, isn't always that interesting. The truly good storytellers are the ones who know what to leave out.

I mentioned reading Felicia Sullivan's new memoir "The Sky Isn't Visible From Here" on my previous post; today I got the chance to talk with her about it. Felicia moves in and out of different periods of her life - as a child taking care of a drug addicted mother; and as an adult addicted to drugs herself. The effect is chaotic, and it gave me a sense of how she has puzzled together her life.

Felicia and I had the chance to talk off-air a little bit, and I asked her about the radio show I saw that she had done - interviewing authors. That got us talking about how dicey author interviews can be - how someone who you've been waiting and waiting to talk with about the book that you really enjoyed - the book that moved you - and the conversation just falls flat. And then there's the times that I'm less excited to talk with an author - the book was fine but didn't knock me over - and the conversation turned out to be great.

It's not their fault. Being a writer doesn't naturally make you a good conversationalist or a good marketer of your own work. Same holds true for people on the radio; I'm not so good at talking to a crowd of people in person - even though I do that on the radio pretty frequently.

I would think that it would be even tougher to talk openly if you were like Felicia, and had written about a rough childhood and had bared your soul. But Felicia was great in our interview - forthcoming - talking about cocaine addiction and secrets and lies and all the things that came her way as a child. And she does a pretty amazing thing in "The Sky Isn't Visible From Here" too; she has a sense of humor about it. And she doesn't ask the reader for pity. What a surprise in a memoir!

Keep your eyes open for Felicia Sullivan - I think she'll be writing and surprising us for years to come. And tune in next Wednesday, February 20th on KAXE's Realgoodwords at 6pm, CST for our conversation.

Check out an example of her writing on Huffington Post.

Do you read memoirs? Have any to recommend?

What I'm reading - upcoming interviews

I just finished reading "Seeing Me Naked" by Liza Palmer - I got a review copy of this and was excited to read it, because it looked a little "lighter" and I'd like to stop having nightmares from all the mysteries I've been reading in the last few months. Well, I was right - kind of - it took my mind off of mysteries but I couldn't go to sleep until I finished it.

There's a few things that appeal to me about it: the main character is a pastry chef (which is the next career I'd like to tackle) , the Food Channel is involved, it involves the literary world and the characters make some profound changes. Here's a little synopsis:

Elisabeth is the daughter of a living literary legend - and has grown up in a wealthy and genteel old money world. She's bucked the family though, and studied and worked furiously at being a french pastry chef. Brother Rascal is fast usurping his father's writing career and Elisabeth is beginning to wake up and see her life for what it is: baking, farmer's markets and an occassional visit from her equally dysfuntional childhood love. She begins to see isolation is not all it's cracked up to be and plugs her nose and jumps into the deep end. Publisher's Weekly wrote:

"If it sounds chick litty, it is, but consider it haute chick lit; Palmer's prose is sharp, her characters are solid and her narrative is laced with moments of graceful sentiment. "

I'm also reading Felicia Sullivan's "The Sky Isn't Visible From Here - Scenes from a Life". It's scenes from her life - and it too is affecting my sleep, like reviewer Dani Shapiro wrote "Read this book at your own peril. It will keep you awake at night and haunt your dreams."

Felicia's memoir is about her growing up in 1980's Brooklyn. From a young age, Felicia was a caretaker to her drug addicted mother. When she graduated from college, her mother disappeared. Instead of looking for her or mourning her loss, Felicia decided that her mother was now dead to her - and she would rebuild her life and become who she always wanted to be. What happens is eerily similar to her mother's lifestyle.

Lucky for us, Felicia is now clean, sober and busting with literary talent - writing honestly of finally finding who she really is.

Also in the hopper: award winning Minnesota mystery writer William Kent Krueger's new Cork O'Connor mystery set in Aurora, Minnesota "Thunder Bay" (nominated for this year's MN Book Award). I haven't gotten too far into it yet - Cork is trying to find the long lost son of his Ojibwe spiritual advisor, Henry Meloux. William Kent Krueger will be in Grand Rapids as part of the MN Crime Wave on Monday February 25th with Ellen Hart and Carl Brookins.

I've got a mysterious weekend ahead of me!