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Dear Reader,
She's written sixteen books, imagine that! Her many awards include the Cartier Diamond Dagger Award for lifetime achievement from the British Crime Writers' Association. But I imagine the opportunity that today's guest author, Sara Paretsky, is most grateful for is being able to work with Chicago teens in the city's most troubled schools, and support local literacy groups.
Critical Mass is Sara Paretsky's latest release. Read on about her book, the advanced reading copy giveaway, and the memories of Sara's delightful childhood tale
It's my pleasure to introduce author Sara Paretsky...
Learning by Heart
Sara Paretsky
Do you know what? Do you know what?
I have red mittens and you have not!
This couplet was in a book of rhymes and fairy tales given to me by my mother when I was four, to celebrate my new life as a reader. I was so proud of being able to read that I learned all four verses by heart and marched around the apartment chanting them over and over, until everyone in the family shouted at me to stop. Except my mother.
Mother knew dozens, maybe hundreds, of poems by heart. She loved having that well of language at her command, and wanted to instill it in her five children. She used to hold poetry reciting competitions, herself paired with the youngest, my older brother and I another team.
Because of my mother, the beauty of language, the play of other people's words, fill my head whenever I'm trying to describe an event, whether to friends or on the page.
When V I Warshawski tries to rid herself of the bloody bodies she's encountered in my upcoming book, Critical Mass, the first words that come to me are from that avatar of bloodiness, Lady Macbeth. Shakespeare used most of the good lines first, which makes it harder for the rest of us. And even if he hadn't already said, "all the perfumes of Arabia/ will not sweeten this little hand," the language doesn't suit V I Warshawski. The image does, though, and as she bathes, scrubbing her skin until it's raw, Shakespeare's imagery underlies the words I choose for her.
My own best writing comes with an ear cocked toward poets, listening for the cadence, the ideal rhythm of the English language. In Critical Mass, when V I is floating in Lake Michigan to undo the mortal weariness of her day, what comes to me, her chronicler, are lines from Tennyson's Ulysses: "The long day wanes/The slow moon climbs: the deep/moans round with many voices...my purpose holds/to sail beyond the sunset and the baths/of all the western stars, until I die."
The words create in me a sense of a precarious balance, the knife point between grief and hope. That's what V I is feeling in the dark waters of the lake, the grief over what can't be undone, the gathering of her strength to continue on her quest. My challenge is to put those feelings into language as evocative as Tennyson's, but to make it my own.
In the spirit of challenges, my publishers, G P Putnam's, have generously offered to give an advance reading copy of "Critical Mass" to five readers. If you'd like a chance to win one, please email viwarshawski@mindspring.com, telling me what person or book in your own childhood gave you a lifelong love of language. And if you want all four stanzas of "Do you know what?" I can still chant them and will be glad to send them to you.
--Sara Paretsky
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com
AUTHORBUZZ: THE APOLLO ACADEMY (Science Fiction) by Kimberly P. Chase
All Aurora Titon's ever wanted was to leave her life behind for the stars. Training as the first female astronaut at the Apollo Academy is a dream come true. Her life would be perfect if it weren't for her unreciprocated crush on a fellow student, the sexy astronaut bent on making her life miserable, and the fact that someone keeps trying to kill her.
Go to: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader click on THE APOLLO ACADEMY to find out more about the book and the author, Kimberly P. Chase. Send her an email, she'd love to hear from you.
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