AUTHORBUZZ: Click here to discover new books,
"meet" the authors and enter to win.
KIDSBUZZ: Click here to discover new books,
"meet" the authors and enter to win.
Dear Reader,
What an honor. Today author Clea Simon is visiting the book club. After three nonfiction books and 22 cozy/amateur sleuth mysteries all featuring cats, Clea returns to her rock-and-roll past this fall with World Enough, an edgy urban noir set in the Boston punk scene of the 1980s. Her most recent feline books are the black cat-narrated As Dark As My Fur and the "pet noir," When Bunnies Go Bad. Clea describes herself as a recovering journalist, and she lives in Massachusetts.
Clea would love to hear from you. Email and say hello
Welcome to the book club author Clea Simon...
Writers talk about finding their "voice"--their personal style--as if it's a positive thing. But, sometimes, that means discovering that you are completely tone deaf. I've always loved music, maybe as much as I love writing. And long before I became an author, I was a musician.
Drawn to the string bass in grade school--it was so big! The sound so rich and deep!--I was playing in community orchestras by my teens. Of course, by then, I was consumed by rock and roll, too. And since my friends all wanted to be guitarists or singers, up front and center, I was recruited. For the grand sum of $35, I purchased an electric bass, used, at the mall. Someone got a drum kit--a birthday? Christmas?--and we formed a band. It was heaven of the loudest sort, and I was sure I was besting John Entwhistle, playing and singing harmony too, nights and weekends in basements and garages all over town.
I still recall our first professional gig--playing a friend's Sweet Sixteen. We ran out of tunes about 45 minutes in, and jammed on Neil Young's Like a Hurricane for a good hour longer. Yeah, I learned how to solo early on--I did it all! I didn't intend to keep playing in college, but once again I was recruited. A bass player--one with actual musical training--will always be in demand, especially if she sings. Before long, we were gigging at campus parties and frat houses around New England, known for getting people dancing with our mix of originals and New Wave covers and a professional sound system that could fill a room. (We were less popular at our weekly Tuesday slot at the local pub. I can still hear the thwack of darts hitting the board, in the silence between numbers.)
With that sound system, we saw the opportunity to improve. We could tape ourselves, and we did, sitting down to listen track by track: Lead guitar, singer, rhythm guitar. Backing vocals... Good lord! How had I never known? I don't recall if any of my bandmates said anything as we listened to my out-of-tune caterwauling. They didn't have to. I stuck to bass from then on.
I continued to play in bands for a while after college, even as I began writing about music instead. Over the years, I turned from music journalism to the fiction that now occupies my time. I still sing in private, too. But I've found better uses for my voice.
--Clea Simon
Please do say hello. Email Clea.
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com
AUTHORBUZZ: KARMA AND THE ART OF BUTTER CHICKEN (Fiction) by Monica Bhide
Here is an uplifting story about love and sacrifice. "A beautiful tale where the past and present mingle in this charming story about the healing power of food," says the Washington Independent Review of Books. The story offers an insightful lesson in self empowerment: in order to nourish others, we need to first learn to nourish ourselves.
Go to: AUTHORBUZZ click on KARMA AND THE ART OF BUTTER CHICKEN to read more and to email author Monica Bhide, you'll get a reply.
Comments