Amazing Things

I'm a Goodreads Featured Author on Wednesday, May 15, a big honor. That means I've been asked to do a Goodreads chat on their site that day. The chat will go on all day. I'll be checking in throughout the day.

Details for joining the chat are here. http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/101911-ask-chitra-banerjee-divakaruni---wednesday-may-15th

I love connecting to readers and friends through author chats. I've done a few on my FB page, and am hoping many people will join me tomorrow. It's your chance to Ask Chitra Anything (well, almost anything).

I'm especially looking forward to discussing my new novel, Oleander Girl.

Mother's Day, coming up soon, reminds me of how important my mother, who pretty much brought us up as a single parent, has been in my life. Perhaps the many mothers that I depict in my books--though they have little similarity to the biographical facts of her life-- are my attempt to understand the loving, stern, mysterious woman she was. (She passed away a few years ago. Here is one of the last photos I have of her, at my niece Neela's wedding.)

Some instances of mothers in my books: In the final story in my collection Arranged Marriage, there is the mother who must, in the wake of her failed marriage, establish a new kind of bond with her teenage son. In Sister of My Heart, there are three strong mother figures that bring up the protagonists Sudha and Anju, each focusing on a different aspect she considers crucial: physical beauty, studies, and mythological stories. And in my newest novel, Oleander Girl, Korobi's mother Anu, who died at childbirth, naming her daughter after a beautiful but poisonous flower, is an enigma who haunts Korobi until she must put off her marriage and travels from Kolkata to New York to discover the secret that lies at the heart of Anu's life.

I don't think I'm done writing about mothers--my next novel will feature Sita (heroine of the epic The Ramayana), one of literature's first single mothers.

A wonderful part of the book tour for my new novel Oleander Girl (http://www.chitradivakaruni.com/books/oleander_girl) has been coming across people who love books, who tell people about them, who showcase them, who encourage reading, and who support authors by inviting them to speak at events that they organize. I thank them all for what they do each day for writers like me and our books. They are the book warriors!

Some of these are: John Evans of Diesel Books (LA and Oakland).

Elaine Petrocelli of Book Passage (Corte Madera, CA--Photo below)
and her wonderful booksellers Alison Bildsoe and Karen West.

Geraldine Hills, Phoenix Public Library.

Chris Skaugset, Longview Library, OR.(photo below)



Adrian Newell of Warwicks Books, La Jolla, CA, along with wonderful bookseller Julie Slavinsky.

Joel Sheldon, Jennifer and Connie at Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena, CA.
(Store photo below)

Will, Michael and Jeffrey of Annie Bloom's, Portland.

And Rick Simonson of Elliott Bay Books, Seattle, seen below next to the beloved castle in the children's section of the bookstore. 

Author chats are a lot of fun! They give me an opportunity to interact live with readers who are physically far away, in other states or even other countries. I have to think on my feet as people are throwing questions at me!

AN AUTHOR CHAT IS COMING UP ON MY FB PAGE TODAY, APRIL 5, 2:30 PM EST. CLICK ON "APR 5 CHAT" BUTTON. https://www.facebook.com/chitradivakaruni

I WILL POST ABOUT HOW IT WENT AFTER THE CHAT!

Here's the article:

Tours have their challenges.

You wake up at dawn to catch flights.

You stand in long security lines at the airports.

You go to cities where you are unknown and three people show up at your reading.

You find out at the last minute that your media interview has been cancelled.

You eat on the run, whatever you can find, and then you come home and discover that you've gained ten pounds.

BUT

Tours are also where you meet warm and supportive readers you would never have met otherwise. And that makes it all worthwhile.

At Copperfield's Books, Petaluma, CA

At Evergreen Valley College, San Jose, CA


At Diesel Books, Los Angeles, CA

At Vroman's Bookstore, Pasadena, CA.

My deepest thanks to all who came out to support me!

On to Detroit, Portland, Seattle, San Antonio, Austin, New York, Washington D.C., and Chicago!

These are some photos of places where I read from Oleander Girl, my new novel, and Grandma and the Great Gourd, my children's book.

At Asia Society Texas, in Houston, the national launch, on-stage interview with St. John Flynn of KUHF.

My new novel, Oleander Girl, will be out in about three weeks--I almost can't believe it.

Just received this brand new hardcover copy of Oleander Girl.


An exciting moment in a writer's life, to see the actual, finished product, the result of years of planning, imagining, writing, obsessing, revising.

(Sorry, these are large files, and my techpertise doesn't extend to making them smaller, so you're only getting partial glimpses of the cover). The entire cover can be seen at http://www.amazon.com/Oleander-Girl-Chitra-Banerjee-Divakaruni/dp/1451695659)

I've been writing a series of blogs titled Countdown to Publication about the whole pre-publication experience--including tips-- at SheWrites, a wonderful site for women writers. To read, please go to http://www.shewrites.com/profiles/blog/list?user=2c9n0ngwvs6nm.

Details of my national book tour for Oleander, which includes Houston, the San Francisco Bay Area, San Jose, Los Angeles, San Diego, Detroit, Seattle, Portland (OR), Sacramento, New York, Washington D.C., Austin and San Antonio, are at: http://www.chitradivakaruni.com/about/upcoming-events.

I hope to see some of you as I travel!

 

Some time back, I came across a thought-provoking list at The World's Best Site Ever, titled "Thirty Three Ways to Be Creative." http://www.theworldsbestever.com/2011/06/06/33-ways-to-stay-creative/

We had a lot of fun with it on my facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/chitradivakaruni, noting which ideas people related to most. For me, it was numbers 18 and 2, Carry a Notebook Everywhere, and Allow Yourself to Make Mistakes, in that order. I'll write about Using a Writer's Notebook, which I do in several ways, in another post. But for now, I want to explain why I believe allowing ourselves to make mistakes in our writing is so important.

When we are afraid to make mistakes, it means that the little voice in our head is in control. This is the voice that tells us, This is no good; or, Better do something that's tried and tested that you know works; or, I don't think readers will like/understand/be interested in this; or, What makes you think you can pull this off?or, People will laugh at you for attempting this. (I say "us" hopefully. I sure hope I'm not the only one who hears this subversive voice!)

It's really important to get past this voice, and sometimes to do that we have to consciously push against what we think our limitations are--and this can be a bit frightening. Sometimes it helps to think of what we're writing (this could be a paragraph, a scene, an entire story, a novel) as a game or an experiment.  (I often tell myself, If it doesn't work, I'll throw it away & no one needs to even know I tried it). 

For instance: Men's voices don't come to me as well as women's, so I forced myself to write a story titled "The Disappearance" (later published in my collection Arranged Marriage),from the point of view of a husband whose wife disappears one day, leaving him to obsess over what might have become of her. It was difficult. I stuttered and came to a stop a couple of times. I began the exercise in the first person, and realized after a while that I needed more distance. After some rewriting, the story ended up in a close third person point of view, and I believe this allowed me to bring out the complexities and ironies in the situation (the man is abusive but doesn't realize it until the very end of the story) far better than if I had told the story from the wife's point of view.

I wrote a big chunk of my first novel Mistress of Spices as a collection of linked poems before I figured out that that was not the right form for this tale of magical realism set in inner-city America. I had to rewrite the entire first part, but I gained several valuable insights from the experiment. Mistress of Spices ended up as my most poetic novel, filled with unconventional verbal leaps, and this elliptical style strengthens the mystery and magic that permeate the story.

Which, if any, of these 33 ways appeal to you? Which one might you try? Do you have a different method that works to keep you creative? What is a challenge you would like to push past in your art by allowing yourself to make mistakes?

Please let me know.

Friends, if you have a couple of minutes, would you please take a look at the 2 possible covers for my upcoming novel Oleander Girl which my publisher, Free Press, just sent me, & give me your opinion? I'd really value your input before I make a decision.

Unfortunately I can't seem to upload the images here, so please go to https://www.facebook.com/chitradivakaruni, and vote for

the one you prefer (version A yellow, or version B white). Please, 
if you have a moment, tell
me why you like it better.
 
You can comment on this blog or on FB. I do appreciate your time!

Below is a brief description of Oleander Girl, 
so you'll have a sense of which cover is more fitting.

Thanks as always for your support of my writing. 

Chitra

OLEANDER GIRL, A SNEAK PEEK

Korobi Roy, heir of an old and distinguished Kolkata household, has met and fallen in love with Rajat, the only son of the Boses, a high-profile nouveau riche business family. Their engagement is a grand affair, but that same evening Korobi's grandfather, who has brought her up since the death of her mother at Korobi's birth, passes away. He leaves behind a dark secret, at once devastating and exhilarating, which will shatter Korobi's sense of self and will thrust her out of her sheltered Kolkata life into a courageous and troubled search, with few resources, across  post 9/11 America, a country that she finds at once dangerous, unwelcoming and alluring. What she discovers at the end will force her to make the most difficult choice of her life.

Meanwhile in India Rajat must struggle with his own challenges--outbreaks of Hindu-Muslim violence, in the wake of the Godhra riots, in the Bose's warehouse; money problems stemming from the vandalism of their New York art gallery; an ex-girlfriend who refuses to let him go; and his own jealous suspicions as Korobi travels through America in the company of a disturbingly attractive private investigator named Vic.

Set against a fast-changing world of social, economic and political tensions in India and America that will force the characters to question the beliefs and preconceptions they have grown up with, Oleander Girl is ultimately an exploration of the nature--and the cost--of love, and the ways in which it can help us survive in the midst of hate.