February: What’s Not to ❤️ ?

Feb 122019
 

It’s February!

This never used to be a particularly celebratory time, mind you, but I’m turning over a new leaf. Maybe I’m working off a comparison chart. December isn’t particularly joyous to me. The days are short, the energy manic. It’s cold. I hate the cold. I don’t have a holiday tradition—Christmas with the family or some such thing. Nor am I a big fan of January. Same as above but without the slight boost holiday lights offer.

But this month! Short but with more daylight. Clearly the gateway to spring, at least if the clothing catalogues piled into my mailbox are any indication. Robins sit fat and plump on the brown grass and try out their best warbles. And while Valentine’s Day is minimally uncomfortable and even a little… sad for the uncoupled of the world, well, pet love is absolutely a thing.

I admit I’ve been energized by an unexpected spate of warm weather accompanied by the sun, which has been all too scarce this winter. The thermometer climbed past sixty and stayed there—not your grandmother’s winter thaw. My neighbors were out in force, blinking at the pale sun or madly engaging in activities like roller-blading, running, strolling, or kicking and throwing balls. I swear I saw someone in his garden. Of course, we plunged back into the cold because, well, extreme weather is the new normal. Not for long, though. As you read this, temperatures are climbing again.

February holidaysFor such a diminutive month, February features a number of holidays and festivals of varied significance. Did you know February is National Cherry month? Chinese New Year occurs in February this year,  although Fat Tuesday does not. We always begin with Groundhog Day, which seems more meaningful in those parts of the country besieged by extreme weather. Never mind it’s unreasonable to expect a rodent to perform as a meteorologist. Honestly, it doesn’t make sense that we’d greet the sun with an “oh no, six more weeks of winter!” just because some little creature is afraid of his shadow. Talk about seeing the glass as half empty!

We also celebrate Black History month and Presidents’ Day. In the first instance, we set aside a month to remember pieces of history we ought to be celebrating all year round. In the second instance, we randomly meld together the birth dates of two American presidents we consider great, although I wonder if many people under forty knows which two presidents we celebrate—or can name any of the others.

Then there’s Valentine’s Day, whose origin story remains murky. The Catholic Church acknowledges three different martyred souls named Valentine. One was a third century priest who arranged for young lovers to wed in secret. In doing so, he defied the Emperor Claudius II, who figured single young men made better soldiers. Another Valentine apparently helped Christians escape the Roman prisons. That Valentine was subsequently jailed and may or may not have written a note signed “from your Valentine.” Heroic and romantic. Sigh.

John Wick and beagleValentine’s Day seems to have replaced a rather pagan fertility celebration that involved the sacrifice of both a goat and a dog. Now it’s a multi-billion-dollar business that involves reams of paper and toys with the affections of millions. Nevertheless, I’m sure we all agree that exchanging cards is better than blood-letting an animal we’d prefer to see bouncing around on YouTube in pajamas or nuzzling a baby or a cat. In fact, most of us in 2019 would go all John Wick on anyone who hurt a dog.

Speaking of movies: February is a bit of a no-man’s land in terms of sports and entertainment. The Super Bowl and the Golden Globes are both past, leaving only the Oscars, Grammys, and a couple of talent and strength competitions that compete for “most dreadful.” On the other hand, the networks bring back our favorite shows and Netflix continues to pile on the programming.

Molly and me chillinAnd nothing beats reading. After wading through three books I disliked so much I won’t mention them, I read three books in a row I really enjoyed, including an extraordinary science fiction novel and Nebula award winner in 2016 (The Fifth Season by N.K. Nemesin), a lyrical 2018 best seller (Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Ownes) and an important non-fiction read that manages to be uplifting despite its painful subject matter (Parkland by David Cullen). Even better, I read these absorbing books in front of the fireplace with the dog curled in my lap.

That’s the best kind of February.

In Praise of Book Clubs

Oct 022018
 

Dear friends: I love meeting readers. One of the best ways to do that is through book clubs. I’ve appeared before several since the release of The Former Assassin. I’ve interacted with members in person or via Skype. The experience keeps me on my toes; it’s also great fun.

I want to celebrate book clubs this month in several ways. I’ve interviewed a good friend who is a dedicated clubber. Her curiosity and enthusiasm for reading are contagious. She loves to read. In other words, she is an author’s dream!

I’m also running a month-long book club special that include deep discounts on ten or more print orders along with a free Skype or (if possible) in person appearance (“meet the author”) as well as an Amazon Kindle giveaway beginning October 14th.

Meanwhile, enjoy the interview with book clubber extraordinaire Sue Phillips.

Sue Phillips1. How did you become a book clubber?
I’ve always loved reading. My mom, a voracious reader, always said that one could never be truly lonely if there was a book to read (she also always said if you could read, you could cook, but that one hasn’t always worked for me!) I’ve moved around a lot (New York, Denver, San Francisco Bay Area, Missouri, now back on the East Coast), and book clubs have always helped me meet people and get involved in a new area.

When we first moved to Princeton, NJ, we didn’t know anyone. Learning that there was not a book club I could join in our community, I decided to start one. I put it in our Community newsletter, selected The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah and 12 people showed up! We’ve been meeting for almost three years and not only has the group filled my need for book discussions, it’s given me friendships and a sense of belonging.

2. Tell us about your first club.
It began with a group of friends who started reading the same books and thought, why not get together to discuss them? It was part social, part discussion and always fun! Over the years, members left, new members joined, but being a part of that group always remained a constant.

3. What books did you read in that first club?
I remember The Birth Order Book by Dr. Kevin Leman (1998 Baker Publishing Group), where the discussion was much more of a personal nature to The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory (2001, Scribner), where we wore tiaras and drank champagne—how courtly.

4. What do you get out of book clubs?
I love getting exposed to different authors and different genres of books. It takes me out of my comfort zone. It has also made me more aware of how many good books there are out there and please give me enough time to read them!

5. What’s the most interesting observation you’ve made about belonging to book clubs?
I’m always amazed when someone has a totally different perspective on a book. Usually it will be varying degrees of like/love or dislike; but sometimes someone comes up with a totally different way of looking at a character or a theme, and there’s an epiphany! Wow! I may never think or look at “that” the same way again! That to me is fascinating.

6. Do you ever get to meet the author?
Besides the wonderful Nikki Stern, who enthralled our book club, there were 2 writers who visited a book club I was in several years ago. One gave us the historical background of the area we were living in, the other the beginning steps on how to get published. Very different but also interesting.

7. Does your book club have a designated discussion leader?
Not really. I am the one that usually does all the correspondence: reminder of meetings, the book selections we have made, getting the meeting started, etc. but I like to defer to whoever recommended the book to start the discussion.

8. Do you (or does your leader) predetermine discussion themes or are your discussions more free-wheeling?
Our discussions are much more free-wheeling but it depends on the book. When this book club first started, we relied more on Book Club discussion questions and reviews, but now we are comfortable just discussing the book. We also try to balance heavy themed books with lighter ones. While gives us a nice balance, it also means that some meetings can get very intense while others are lighter and a bit more social.

9. Who would you recommend join a book club?
I would recommend a book club to anyone who wants to broaden their interests and is open to new things. Reading is wonderful, but being able to share your thoughts with others, enriches the experience. Discussing ideas and characters, listening to different perspectives, looking at topics and situations from someone else’s viewpoint, these all make me feel more connected.

Shared History

Jan 302018
 

At 7:30 a.m. on a summer morning, the northern Wisconsin air did not yet hint at the promise of another typically beautiful day. Our twelve-year-old selves, denied the future pleasures of hot coffee, had stoked ourselves with pancakes and bacon.

Dressed in the camp uniform of blue shorts and white blouses, some of us with navy cardigans to ward off the lingering chill, we made our way to the platform, picked up our .22 caliber rifles and lay down. Ahead of us-it wouldn’t have been more than fifty feet-were an array of targets. My goal that day was to continue to move through the NRA-designed program and also move into a sitting position with a qualifying score.

Camp Whispering Pines for Girls was a full-throttle camp that offered instruction in a variety of water and land sports. I was a middle-class klutz with no talent for tennis, no build for competitive swimming, no chance of winning a footrace and enthusiasm but little experience on the back of a horse. But I could handle a rifle. It felt natural. It helped me focus. I understood the concept of the easy breath, the slow pull, the steadying opposition of the rifle butt kicking against the shoulder, and most of all, the exhilaration of hitting the target.

My uncle was an outdoorsman and a hunter, so I had a chance to fire a rifle at other times of the year. I never went hunting with him; I couldn’t bring myself to shoot at an animal, even a duck. But Uncle Bob was as enamored of sport shooting as I was. At his farm, we took aim at bottles and cans lined up on a fence and even clay pigeons shot into the air. Sometimes we used pistols but honestly, I was always most at ease with a rifle.

I had fun for a while. I impressed a high school boyfriend or two by winning a couple of stuffed animals at the State Fair. I briefly joined the National Rifle Association as a junior member. For eight years, I indulged my interest in marksmanship. Then the times changed and so did I. Physically and philosophically, target practice no longer attracted me.

Much later, after several intermediary careers, I’ve discovered writing produces a parallel sense of accomplishment. My “target” is a story with a voice, one that transcends the material and reaches the reader. Of course, it helps to write what you know. My two non-fiction books were both prompted by my experiences as a “9/11 widow”-how the death of my husband changed and didn’t change me, how it altered and didn’t alter the culture.

Fiction, I’ve learned, is trickier. As author, I have to relate to the characters I am creating if I expect my readers to do the same. It also helps if I can understand on some level what makes them tick.

Suzanne Foster is the protagonist who anchors my suspense novel, The Former Assassin. She’s a wife and a mother. She’s survived a neglected childhood, time living on the street, a stint in the Army, and twenty-five years in service to a criminal for whom she killed. She struggles with moral quandaries related to her career that I’ve never had to face. Nothing in her resume accords with my personal history.

Well, almost nothing. Suzanne and I have both known loss. We’ve both been rendered helpless by ill-advised choices and worse, choices denied. We’ve experienced the redemptive power of love, the frustration of moving beyond one’s history, the unbidden rage that lives just beneath the surface, and the ever-present awareness of our own mortality.

And we both know how it feels to get off a good shot.

This article originally appeared on The Refresh