Twenty-five copies of the paperback edition of Shining Sea, before it comes out on August 8, are up for grabs on Goodreads. Deadline is June 29! To enter, look here…(Read More)
“I want to understand human beings, what makes them who they are and why they do the things they do.” The Woolf sent me some of the most incisive questions on the craft of writing, the researching of Shining Sea, the influence of expat life on my work, and writerly responsibility I’ve ever received…(Read More)
If you read Commonwealth by Ann Patchett and are looking for similar reads, The Seattle Public Library suggests you pick up Shining Sea. Having read Commonwealth, I’d agree! Some other great suggestions on the same list–books by Angela Flournoy, Jhumpa Lahiri, Ayana Mathis, Anne Tyler, Tiphanie Yanique…. Very nice to have Shining Sea…(Read More)
Anyone who wants to understand anything about the US prisoner-of-war experience under the Japanese Imperial Army during WWII needs to read this narrative feat by authors Michael Norman and Elizabeth M. Norman. Switching between the minutely researched stories of a young American cowboy and artist named Ben Steele–whose experience informed the character…(Read More)
In Nevil Shute’s 1950 novel, later made into a film, a young Englishwoman working as a secretary in what was then known as Malaya before being embroiled in WWII becomes involved with an Australian fellow prisoner of war. After the war is over, she decides to emigrate to Australia to find him then uses…(Read More)
Laura Hillenbrand’s nonfiction account of Olympic runner Louis Zamperini’s survival, adrift in an army-issue raft after his bomber crashed into the Pacific during WWII and then as a POW under the Japanese, as well as his eventual struggle to adapt to civilian life, is an extraordinarily well-written book about an extraordinary…(Read More)
Thank you to Jill Marsh and Book Muse for this graceful, on point review of Shining Sea and a Recommended Reading Award! “Woodstock and freedom; Vietnam and death; AIDS and counterculture; [Shining Sea] is an evocative yet concise American novel of self-discovery in which successive generations try to define themselves and their notions of…(Read More)
A big merci to everyone who joined me at the American Library in Paris on March 8, International Women’s Day, to hear a reading from and talk about Shining Sea as well as some thoughts on women in life and literature. What a fun, lively evening! A video of the event should be available…(Read More)
Montana-born, Paris-based author Janet Skeslien Charles invited me back on her blog, to talk about Shining Sea, writing craft, and my work plans for the future. I talked also about the importance of place to my fiction, the role of the writer in today’s world, and the gestation period of elephants. “Speak…(Read More)
Martha Frankel, host of Woodstock Booktalk Radio, runs one of my favorite book radio shows, and I was delighted to be on to talk about my “classically American novel, really beautiful, spot on,” as she described Shining Sea. We discussed the book’s original title, how Woodstock appears in the novel, why I chose to…(Read More)
