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Muffins and Mayhem, Recipes for a Happy (if disorderly) Life
AUTHORBUZZ: Discover new books, "meet" the authors and enter to win: Goto: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader
Dear Reader,
Today's Guest Column is written by sisters, authors and entrepreneurs, Frances and Ginger Park. How did two sisters collaborate on writing numerous books, including the selection for this week's Nonfiction Book Club, Chocolate Chocolate: The True Story of Two Sisters, Tons of Treats, and the Little Shop That Could? How have two sisters worked together in a sweet boutique for over a quarter of a century? Read all about it and enter to win one of five books Frances and Ginger are giving away.
Take it away, Park sisters...
Readers always seem to have three questions for us.
Q: Are you twins?
A: No, we're Big Sis, Li'l Sis, but even our mom sometimes confuses us. Ginger likes to point out that she's seven years younger than Frances. Frances doesn't.
Q: Do you still eat chocolate every day?
A: Yes, nibble, nibble, nibble, all day long... We knew chocolate was a healthy indulgence decades before the medical community confirmed it. Our philosophy has always been: If it keeps you smiling, it's got to be good for you.
Q: How do you collaborate?
A: Once upon a time--twenty-eight years ago when we opened our chocolate shop--we rented an IBM Selectric typewriter and took turns pecking away in-between waiting on customers. We had so much fun we thought: Hey, why don't we try to write a book together? In time, we returned the IBM Selectric and the true writing process began.
Picture this: Most evenings we were in our separate homes, on our own typewriters, working on different parts of the same manuscript. When we saw each other, we would exchange pages without a word; little red-inked scribbles in the margins and on Post-It Notes said it all. Curiously, it was as if we feared that the sound of our voices would jar the sacred writing process. Eventually, we moved from typewriters to word processors to desktop computers to laptops, but our collaborative method has always seemed to work for us.
To date, we've sold eight co-authored books--in silence--without ever sitting down and actually writing together.
OK, there was one exception. For a couple of years we had talked about writing a fictionalized account of our parents' lives as young people during very turbulent times in Korea. We'd jotted down over a hundred pages of notes, and had a concrete sense of the storyline but struggled with how to open up the book. Racking our brains, we would send countless emails to each other with sample chapter attachments, only to delete them. Then one day, Frances was over at Ginger's house when she felt suddenly flu-stricken. That night, so did Ginger. We ended up couch-ridden together for two weeks, sick as dogs, unable to move. With our stuffy heads blocking the noise of the outside world, our minds miraculously cleared. Feverish in every sense--drinking tea, coughing--we hammered out the opening chapter. So what if we had fevers of 102? The novel was underway! A few years later, we were invited by the White House to speak about this work at the New Executive Office Building.
--Frances and Ginger Park
To enter the CHOCOLATE CHOCOLATE book giveaway, send an email to: [email protected] You can visit their website at: http://www.parksisters.com/ and www.chocolatedc.com
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Tasty chocolate regards,
Suzanne Beecher
[email protected]
www.muffinsandmayhem.com
AUTHORBUZZ: MIME VERY OWN BOOK (PHOTO NARRATIVE) by Doug Jones, Eric Curtis, Scott Perry, Adam Mock, Foreword by Josh Perry
Pan's Labyrinth fan's will be thrilled to see Actor Doug Jones portrayal of a Mime in this unique coffee table book. Take a journey through the 'mime's eye' for a silent but humorous look at pop culture and our world in the unspoken words of a mime.
Go to: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader click on MIME VERY OWN BOOK to read more. The authors would love to hear from you.
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