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Writing historical fiction: sometime journal of a New York City novelist

all sorts of new and lovely things in this writer's life

with writer Kimberly Eve at the Cloisters
Well no, I have not finished revising my novels...and that is plural! Two are competing for my attention and one of them better be off to my agent/publisher by the end of summer! I went to a panel on historical fiction last night at the NYC branch of The Women's National Book Association with (among others) Carole DeSanti (my editor for MARRYING MOZART and author of the newly published beautifully-written novel THE UNRULY PASSIONS OF EUGENIE R.) and Heather Lazare (who was the associate editor for CLAUDE & CAMILLE). At any rate, I came away understanding from several professionals that to write a fascinating, original historical novel often means you are going in circles for rather a while. And then of course when you get it right (and right is different for every writer and every book), you look at it and say, "Why didn't I do it this way in the first place?"

So here is some of the news of me and my writing:

CLAUDE & CAMILLE has its two year publication anniversary this month and I continue to get requests to speak about it with my PowerPoint presentation. It was the B&N online fiction group read for this month. Thank you, Debbie!

MARRYING MOZART will have its premiere as an opera with dialogue (or singspiel as it is called) mid December, co-produced by DiCapo Opera and Opera Moderne. Dates on my events list. Buy tickets now! I will also present it at the Metropolitan Opera Guild lectures in November. More to come on that.

MY NICHOLAS and SHAKESPEARE books. I have to live to be very old as I have not yet finished the trilogy which remains in draft but NICHOLAS COOKE will come out as an e-book (Kindle, etc.) this summer, to be followed by the others...under the capable care of my husband!

Lots of writerly things I can't think of. On a personal note, I adore my family, am so proud of my sons, went to the Cloisters with a new writer friend and away for a few days to a monastery overlooking the Hudson River and to a reading of Michelle Cameron's group of narrative poems about Shakespeare's life IN THE SHADOW OF THE GLOBE. Thanks to my angelic Italian teacher, I suddenly found I could read a fair amount of my Mozart novel in Italian though I get shy when speaking but give me another three years!

That is all for today from my desk in my apartment on the Upper West Side of NYC! Thanks to everyone for buying my novels and writing me such lovely e-mails! Much appreciated!
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