this week's authors

This week's Realgoodwords featured conversations with Beth Hoffman, Koren Zailckas and Thurston Clarke. The topics are varied - Beth talks with us about her feel-good bestselling novel that's out in paperback now "Saving CeeCee Honeycutt". I say feel good in the best sense... it's not light, there's a definite weight to the story, but you leave it feeling good about what people have the capacity to do for each other.

It's funny, because Koren Zailckas' memoir "Fury" while it's not the opposite of "Saving Cee Cee Honeycutt" it made be feel pretty empowered. It's about how we, especially as women, express or depress our anger. She brings up the question of "is it okay to feel anger? to show anger?" It's weird, because after the conversation I went home and felt angry all night, got it out, and feel SO much better tonight. I didn't stuff my emotions in, I didn't overeat, I was just angry. And I talked about it. And then moved through it.

And on a completely different note, this week Scott Hall talked to Thurston Clarke in honor of the anniversary of one of the most famous speeches in America - JFK's "Ask Not" speech. Scott said to me, "have you read it? It's a really well written speech. And not that long. It's like a fine piece of literature." Thurston Clarke's book is called "Ask Not: The Inaguration of John F. Kennedy and the Speech That Changed the World".

Bullying this week on Realgoodwords

Rosalind Wiseman has written on the subject of bullies before, in her bestselling book "Queen Bees & Wannabees" that the movie "Mean Girls" was based on. This time, she's written a novel for young adults. It's called "Boys, Girls & Other Hazardous Materials".

Tina Fey wrote of the new book, "Rosalind Wiseman once again writes with humor, compassion and accuracy about the high school experience. The real-life situations she presents are like watching a train wreck if that train were made out of text messages, make-out parties, and benzoil peroxide, and if train wrecks were surprisingly funny, which they are not. You can't put this book down...or it will talk about you while you are out of the room."

She, along with thriller writer Kathy Reichs (with her first book for young adults "Virals") and local author Duane Schwartz are my guests on this week's Realgoodwords. Check out this video from Rosalind Wiseman.

Kim Edwards and "The Lake of Dreams"

Lucy, the main character in Kim Edward's new novel "The Lake of Dreams" thinks of a *Mary Oliver poem as her family's history and her future is cracked wide open. It is "What is it you plan to do/With your one wild and precious life?"

And that, that connection of a line from a great poem quoted by a fictional character in a contemporary novel that weaves the past and future of a family seamlessly is what it's all about. Because even though I am immersed in the novel, when I leave the book it stays with me. It makes me think. It makes me question what I plan to do with my one wild and precious life. And it makes me think about some of the stories of the people that came before me in my family. Especially, my great-great aunt Tilly.

Tilly has been on my mind again lately. I am the keeper of her chair as well as her postcard collection. Tilly and her husband Art never had children, and thru the briefest of stories on the backs of these hundreds of postcards she received from 1904-1911 I have gotten to know her a little bit. I have wondered how or if our lives are woven together.

Do I know the answer to that? Do I know the answer to what I will do with this one wild precious life of mine? No. But I like the questions. And the possibilities. And the book that made me think about them.

Kim Edwards is my guest this week on Realgoodwords. Hope you get a chance to hear it!


*The Summer Day by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

What did you get for Christmas?

who were you then? who are you now? who do you WANT to be?

These are the questions that Joan Steffend found herself asking. Most of us know her as a former anchorwoman on KARE-11 news out of Minneapolis. Or host of Decorating Cents on HGTV. A redhead with a big smile and an easy laugh.

But like everyone, Joan found herself wondering where her sparkle had gone. Where was she headed?

Joan sat down and wrote a very interesting book - a picture book of sorts, but for adults. It's called "...And She Sparkled".

I talk with Joan Steffend this week on Realgoodwords and I found her charming and very real...check out the video here.

I hunt therefore I am

So maybe in your family it's fishing or maple syruping or skiing.... but in all families we have certain traditions or rituals that we hope will continue long after we are gone.

Award winning Bemidji writer Will Weaver has just published his memoir called "The Last Hunter: An American Family Album". Will's book is a sojourn through his life - connecting the stories of his youth with his adulthood, all through the lens of hunting. Will grew up near Dorset, MN... he writes of a place he knew well there:

"A railroad cleaved through our family of farms. It separated Gerry's place from mine, but the crossing, with its slivered planks and tire-burnished bolts, was a meeting spot, and the railroad bed a boy's highway. Almost daily we walked it west a mile to our grandfather's place and sometimes beyond, to the edge of town two more miles away. East took us two miles to Dorset, a town of thirty or so with a lumberyard, bait shop and cafe. Beyond Dorset was uncharted territory - the edge of the earth - so we settled for a candy bar or an ice cream cone at the cafe in Dorset, then turned back. " Chapter 6, page 55 of "The Last Hunter"

Will will be signing books on Sunday December 12th at the Village Bookstore in Grand Rapids from 2-4pm. He's also my guest this week on Realgoodwords!

Adriana Trigiani is back to talk about her Iron Range grandmother, Lucy Bonicelli

Bestselling author Adriana Trigiani is back on Realgoodwords this week talking about her grandmothers. Really, what could be better? Here's an excerpt of our conversation:

(I asked Adriana about her grandmothers and how they have influenced ALL of her writing)

"They're a big part of the rock that I keep turning over and over again. The themes that I'm interested in -- who we choose to love and partner with in life -- the creation of families ---what we choose to make by the labor of our own hands.... My grandmothers shined in all those areas so they're a source of constant inspiration but more than the inspiration I ABIDE by them. What can I say? They're in heaven now but I still feel their presence around me all the time."

She went on to talk about her Grandmother Lucy from Chisholm, MN.

"Those Minnesota roots are really something. I had the great fortune of spending time in Chisholm quite a bit of the time and I just love the people. It was fun for me to paint the landscape for people who may have never visited the Iron Range. It's a very, very special place and I think one of the reasons it really produced so many great people were those deep family ties."