Give the Gift of Story

“You just can’t help
but feel better about life
when you read it . . . ”
Emily Quinn, A Quintillion Words

“Two Over Easy All Day Long is a story of finding meaning in the little things. It’s a story of responsibility, redemption, and resilience. Of friendship and hope. In fact, there is so much packed into this story that it’s pretty hard to define in a single sentence, and for that reason, I fell in love with it. These characters are so full of life and personality that you’ll find it hard not to consider them friends afterwards . . . . I found myself laughing one minute and tearing up the next. A really powerful journey of growth and acceptance, with a few laughs thrown in. It really is a hidden gem!”

Find the full A Quintillion Words review here.

Maybe you’ve already been inspired to Give the Gift of Story. Maybe you’ve already bought a book to give to someone you love. If so, why not buy another, or two more, or ten? Why not make it a baker's dozen?

End of year is a particularly critical time for authors, as annual sales data influence media, contest judges, and other people and organizations who can help spread the word about a good book. So if you’re considering giving a book, might I gently suggest that you do it today? After all . . .

The long dark days of winter
are just begging for a good book!

And if you need more justification, there’s this: more and more research confirms what we bibliophiles know instinctively—reading is good. Good for the soul, good for the brain, good for the individual, good for the community, good for the world. Stories, essays, memoirs, poems, plays . . . reading connects us to each other, builds empathy, and feeds the light within.

There is so much that could be said about the value of reading. In the immortal words of Inigo Montoya, “Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.” A 2020 article in the Harvard Business Review reported on findings that:

Fiction builds empathy, because
“fiction provides an opportunity
to complicate standard good versus evil tropes.
Good literature presents characters
with competing and often equally valid viewpoints.”

Developing empathy by seeing the world through another’s eyes is one of the  underlying themes in Two Over Easy All Day Long, as mentioned in the review by A Quintillion Words excerpted above. 

And so, “to flog a horse, that if not dead is at this point in mortal danger of expiring,” (quoting Tom Hanks as The Professor in the 2004 version of the movie The Ladykillers), here is my ask, my recommendation, and my advice:

Give a book —
Two Over Easy All Day Long
or any book.
Better still, give lots of books
and
do it today!

Still on the fence? Check out my website for more reviews of Two Over Easy All Day Long, and past newsletters for other wonderful book recommendations!

www.sharilane.com

Image of a reader by Bowie15 from Getty Images (text added).

Happily Ever After

A few years ago, Netflix put out a miniseries called Hollywood, based on the appalling real-life experiences of women, the LGTBQ community, and people of color in post-WWII Hollywood.

Writers, actors, producers, dreamers . . . the takeaway from the early episodes was that if you weren’t a white man (or a buxom white woman applying for a role as Siren), even genius was likely to be overlooked.

What I enjoyed about the show was that Netflix gave it a somewhat happy ending. Not a Disney-fied, tidy and wrapped-in-a-bow ending, but an ending where, eventually, brilliance and perseverance were rewarded, and prejudices were set aside.***

(***Lots of asterisks here, as will be obvious to anyone who watched the show.)

Interestingly, critics were not impressed.

Here’s a sample of their complaints:

• From The Guardian's Lucy Mangan: “This should be the perfect set-up for a scabrous look at prejudice, corruption, the trading of sexual currency, coercion, the well-oiled machinations that underlie an industry and how it all shapes history—all through a #MeToo lens. But it becomes a mere wish-fulfilment fantasy that, whether it intends to or not, suggests that if a few people had just been that bit braver, then movies—and therefore the world!—would be a glorious, egalitarian Eden.” (Emphasis mine). (Quoted from the Wikipedia article)

• Similarly, FAULT Magazine criticized “the show's dangerous embellishment of systemic prejudice of post-war USA,” saying, “The only ones who benefit from the erasure of Hollywood's brutal history of racism and homophobia, are those that perpetrated it.” (Also quoted from the same article)

I’m not here to argue that Hollywood was great art, but I disagree with the cited criticism, and here’s why: I believe good fiction—on the page or on the screen—can take tragedy, whether real or simply true-to-life, and turn it on its head.

I believe a good story can show us not only life as it is,
but life as it should be.

In my opinion, this is not “erasure of brutal history,” this is John Lennon singing “Imagine all the people living life in peace.”

Hollywood first takes us into a world where anyone who dreams of success in film must exchange sex for recognition, and then allows us to climb out of that sordid world, and glimpse an alternate, happier ending.

And I think we need those happily ever after endings
almost as much as we need air.

We need to see that it is, in fact, possible to have a different outcome if we can bring ourselves to be “that bit braver.”

That is, of course, what I have tried to do in Two Over Easy All Day Long, and what I try to do in all my writing. As I’ve said in Meet the Author events, newsletters, and elsewhere, Tell Your Story is my mantra and fervent hope. And as long as you’re telling your story, why not give it a happy ending?

Postscript

About that photo at the beginning of this newsletter: My personal Happily Ever After involves kids (the hairy kind and the not-so-hairy kind). So here, in addition to the photo of me with lambs and kids, is a photo of me with my grandson. Just because . . .

Two Over Easy All Day Long News

• Check out the new YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@sharilane38

• Subscribe to the Facebook Page

• Meet the Author event scheduled for Monday, October 7, 2024 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm, at Bloomsbury Books in Ashland, Oregon

Book Reviews

Fire Music by Connie Hampton Connally (2024 Coffeetown Press) follows three teens trapped in a basement-turned-bomb shelter in Hungary during WWII. Music becomes escape and salvation, and a way to heal the trauma of that time for the next generation. A lovely read and a page-turner!

And speaking of music . . .

I will be collaborating with the incomparable Adam Brock on some music for the new YouTube channel. In the meantime, check out two of my favorite songs: In This Kitchen, with Claflin and Grace, and Alice Di Micele’s Wise Old Woman.

Shy People and Powdermilk Biscuits

Full quote from A Prairie Home Companion:
“Powdermilk Biscuits
—they give a shy person the strength
to get up and do what needs to be done.”

I love reading, I love writing, and I love talking with good friends about books—my own, and others’ books. Unreservedly, forever and ever amen.

My feelings about public speaking are more mixed.

So when I am asked to talk about Two Over Easy All Day Long, I am (a) thrilled, (b) terrified, (c) proud, and (d) looking for the nearest exit.

(On that topic, if you get a chance, check out this speech by Fredrik Backman, author of A Man Called Ove, My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry, and other marvelous books.  A teaser: “I’m here because my agent said it would be good for my career.  . . . It will be fun, she said. So I told her that I write books. I spend eight hours every day locked inside a room with people I have made up. If I was comfortable talking to real people I would have a real job.”)

Because of the aforementioned shyness, it is with more than a little trepidation that I share my interview with Literary Titan.

Image by Marek Piwnicki @marekpiwnicki

In case you don’t feel like clicking on the link, here’s a mash-up: I refer to my background as an attorney, call into question my own sanity, throw in a little woowoo, celebrate the power of community, and make reference to my/our human penchant for making the same damn mistakes over and over and over, balanced against the possibility, always, of rising, phoenix-like, from the ashes.

Time for some powdermilk biscuits. While answering the questions was fun, seeing my answers in print, on the organization’s published website, made me the tiniest bit nauseous. Just a smidge.

But posting the interview—like Fredrik Backman’s speaking gig—is “good for my [writing] career,” or at least that’s the prevailing wisdom. So there, now I’ve done it. If you have any questions, contact my PR agency. (Hah, that was a little joke. It’s just me and my oh-so-wonderful publisher, no vast team of PR agents. If you have a question or comment, you can post it in the Comments section below, or email me at sharilaneauthor@gmail.com)  

And though I remain deeply uncomfortable blowing my own horn (see previous statements), I am also proud to share that Two Over Easy won Literary Titan’s Book Award this month.

Courtney Maum’s helpful (and funny!) book, Before and After the Book Deal: A Writer's Guide to Finishing, Publishing, Promoting, and Surviving Your First Book, points out it can get tiresome—for authors and for their readers—to always and only talk about their own book, and suggests reviewing others’ books. I’ve been doing that for years (because, as I said, I love reading and talking about books). But Maum goes on to note that most people have already heard about bestsellers, and suggests boosting the underdogs, so there will be lots of that (in addition to reviews of well-known books) in this and future newsletters.

Here's the first installment.

At the end of last year, friend and fellow author Gini Chin came out with her debut novel, The Beautiful Abyss. It’s got: a loveless (and sexless) marriage, an escape to Greece, a shape-shifter, passion, danger, and a criminal caper! A sampling of reader reviews: “A fast-paced thrilling read that will leave you wanting more,” “I didn't want it to end and when it did, I found myself wishing there was more. Night after night I found myself wondering what the main character might be up to now. Possibly a sequel?” “It’s the kind of story that’s hard to put down.” So do yourself a favor and check it out! It’s available on Amazon and Bookshop.org.

Last but not least, if you’d like to support Gini and any other writer you know, the very best thing you can do (after buying the book) is easy and takes very little time: talk about the book. Talk about it on social media, ask your library if they’d consider carrying it, order it from your local bookstore (and ask if they’d be willing to order another copy to have on their shelves), post a review on Amazon, and/or GoodReads, suggest it to your book group . . . . You get the idea. In this information-overload environment, it’s not so much about winning awards or being backed by a big publishing house, it is about word of mouth.

If you’ve read a book and genuinely liked it, spread the word!

Storytelling: Building Bridges

Image by Cody Hiscox @codyhiscox

I’m giving up on the ironic “so little to share” and will tell you plainly: there’s so much to share! Some of the news follows, but if you want to skip right to the heart of this particular newsletter, and the source of the title Storytelling: Building Bridges, scroll down to the bottom. Better yet, click right on through to this NPR Article.

Otherwise, hold onto your hats for news!

Two Over Easy All Day Long has received new reviews, available on the New Release page.  A few of my favorite comments:

• Readers’ Favorite gives it 5 Stars and calls it “a deeply moving and thought-provoking read” with themes of “resilience, adaptation, and the transformative power of compassion.”

• Reader Tammar Paynter says it is “a very well crafted book, finely plotted and beautifully written,” and says, “After finishing the book, I felt a sense of hope, feeling that growth and change are possible even after tragedy.”

• Midwest Book Review says, “Two Over Easy All Day Long is a fun read from start to finish, and an impressive work of literary excellence . . . .”

• Literary Titan gives it 4 Stars and calls it “a compelling story” with “richly drawn characters,” “a thought-provoking and heartwarming read that explores themes of accountability, personal growth, and the power of community.”

• Reader Heather H says she “loved this well-written, quirky, and captivating book. A highly recommended read that speaks to the power of community, hope, resilience, and transformation.”

There was also a marvelous write-up in the Salish Current by talented writer Gretchen Wing: Lopez Author’s Debut Novel Rooted in People and Place (A quick plug for the Salish Current and for independent local media!)

The book launch party was fabulous! Over sixty wonderful friends and family came, many bringing delicious food to share (potlucks are a favorite tradition here on “my” island). The Friends of the Library introduced themselves and their amazing work in our community, and several library staff and volunteers gave up their Friday evening to share the celebration - “grateful” doesn’t begin to describe it! Last but definitely not least, if you haven’t already listened to the original music Adam Brock shared with us at the party, check it out (and if you have already heard it, well, it’s worth another listen or two or three hundred): At the Library

More readings are scheduled in Friday Harbor, Washington and Bend, Oregon, with others in the works. Keep an eye on the Home Page for advance notice.

There are more updates but for today I’m borrowing
the old Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons,
or the Monty Python skits (if you prefer): 
“And now for something completely different . . .”

Last week, NPR’s All Things Considered covered a story titled, “Abortion can be difficult to talk about. These 14 strangers took it on anyway,” by Maayan Silver (NPR 5/24/2024). Accessed 5/24/2024.

Why on earth would I focus on such a controversial topic in this newsletter?

Because the NPR article gets at the heart of what believe is the last best hope for humanity, and, coincidentally, the reason I write fiction. I believe what this world needs now (more than a refreshing carbonated beverage which shall remain nameless, maybe even more than “love, sweet love,”) is communication, people telling their stories to each other, and listening to each other’s stories, and deciding together that they don’t have to agree politically or religiously to recognize our shared humanity.  

I’ve said it before and will say it again, and again, and again: stories build bridges, bridges that span the metaphorical canyons currently dividing us.

The article points out the fourteen participants from wildly different political sides of the abortion issue forged lasting friendships, in spite of their differences, and ends with this paragraph:

“That's how this starts,” says Gardner Mishlove [one of the participants]. “A relationship develops, you get to see someone else's point of view. It challenges you.” She says maybe they only agree on the right color socks to wear, “but that’s a start, right?”

In this time of war (even as we honor those we’ve lost to war), and loss and grief (even as those losses and griefs continue, seemingly unabated), and divisions and broken bridges:

Here’s to Relationships. Here’s to Storytelling. Here’s to Building Bridges.

Tune in next time for more book reviews! Sneak Peek:

• “Stories are life lived backward.” The Book of Form and Emptiness, by Ruth Ozeki (Penguin Books 2022)

• “When we are paying attention, we see how much holds us invisibly. Love is a bench.” Somehow, by Anne Lamott (Riverhead Books 2024)