KIDSBUZZ: Click here to discover new books,
"meet" the authors and enter to win.
Dear Reader,
Today's guest columnist, author Sonya Terjanian, is a novelist and advertising copywriter. During her 27 years in the advertising field, Sonya has created print, television, and online campaigns for brands such as Disney, Bank of America, Helzberg Diamonds, Anthropologie, and Comcast NBC Universal. Her first novel, The Objects of Her Affection, was selected as a Top Ten Crime Fiction Debut by Booklist. Her second novel, The Runaways, was described by Publishers Weekly as an "entertaining and atmospheric exploration of class, choice--and hope."
Please welcome Sonya Terjanian to the book club...
Have you ever noticed that certain smells can transport you to a day in your past, triggering memories with perfect clarity? Apparently that's because the part of the brain that processes smell is close to the center of emotion and memory. And yet, paradoxically, we have trouble putting smells into words. They're hard to describe--which could be the reason fiction doesn't always fully deploy this powerful, evocative sense.
I've been trying to pay closer attention to smells, and to use their associations in my writing. Recently I got a whiff of far-off woodsmoke, which triggered a flood of images I wanted to put down in words.
Woodsmoke: for me, it's a smell that conjures two places, Thailand and India. You notice it the minute you leave the city and find yourself bumping down some dirt road, the sky going hazy purple over the fields, your nose and mouth filling with the dry, papery smell of cooking fires and burning trash. No place I've been in the Western world has ever smelled like that. It's the smell of thin mats on ribbed bamboo floors; tiny bottles of beer; giant leaves like umbrellas; crickets and birds that sing through the total darkness of rural nighttime. It's there in the morning, too, when the roosters and dogs bark you awake and the air is dove grey, a light duvet of mist covering the lawns and fields, the sound of someone pulling crates out of the back of a truck perfectly crisp, awake, and rimmed with promise. Then, when the sun climbs into the day and everything goes hard and shiny, the smell of smoke thins and disappears until supper time. Then the fires are lit again and it's back, mingling with the exhaust of the moped you're riding as you bump down another dirt road to another village, another night, another adventure.
-- Sonya Terjanian
Email Sonya and say hello, [email protected]
To see three of Sonya's photos from India visit, Dear Reader's Facebook page.
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Suzanne Beecher
[email protected]
KIDS BUZZ: Great reads ahead! Your favorite historical figures--Abraham Lincoln and Abigail Adams--are on adventures in the wrong places and the wrong times which makes for terrific fun in Steve Sheinkin's TIME TWISTERS historical fiction series for kids ages 7-10; plus for read-aloud or independent reading, the HOW TO BE AN EARTHLING series: Spork and his friends tackle real-world problems on their way to becoming out-of-this-world Earthlings. For a chance to win a free copy and learn more, see http://www.authorbuzz.com/kidsbuzz.
Comments