September 8, 2021 | Issue #58 |
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Five Facts from Our Friend, Daryn Kagan
The one thing you’ve learned you can’t live without during the pandemic:
It's been the opposite, learning how much I can live without. This list would include fancy clothes, too many social and travel plans, and a TV.
Your perfect day:
Catching the sunrise over our remote marsh, a long walk with ButterDog, workout, creating uplifting content, sharing the beauty of the uninhabited area of our coast with friends and family, seafood feast featuring crabs, shrimp, and oysters from our creeks. End the day with something sweet, probably ice cream and time to grab at least half a chapter in whatever book I might be reading which right now is more history books than fiction. As I write all this, I realize I'd be lucky to fit this "Day" into a single week rather than 12 waking hours. Just keeping it real.
Your favorite independent bookstore:
{Pages} in Manhattan Beach, CA, started by my college friend, Linda McLoughlin Figel. In their own Friends & Fiction reinvention chapter, they decided they wanted an independent bookstore in their town so they created one!
The last book you raved about:
As so many say on F&F FB page, "I'm late to the party." But I would have to say, Where The Crawdads Sing. I love the way it evokes life along a wild marsh, so much like where my husband and I recently moved.
Your next book in ten words or less:
NEXT POSSIBLE: The Messy Journey of Finding Happy After Full-time Motherhood
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Five Facts from Our Friend, Paula Faris
The one thing you’ve learned you can’t live without during the pandemic:
Your perfect day:
on the water with my hubby and our three kids.
Your favorite independent bookstore:
In downtown Greenville, SC, the cutest, quaintest bookstore I’m obsessed with is M.Judson Booksellers.
The last book you raved about:
Your next book in ten words or less:
Next book I’m reading: always on the lookout for a page-turning thriller.
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Bookseller of the Week
Since our very first episode in April 2020, we have featured a bookstore of the week each week. Well, from now on, each week we’ll be asking our guests to tell you about their favorite stores and we’ll occasionally highlight our own favorite indies on the show. But each week, instead of sending you to shop at our store of the week, we’ll be updating our own Bookshop.org shop, where a portion of every purchase goes to help support independent booksellers nationwide. Bookshop functions as a one-stop shop where consumers can either identify the independent bookstore they'd like to purchase from, or buy a book with a single click and a portion of proceeds goes into a giant pot that Bookshop disperses evenly to all of their participating indies around the country. Since its inception, Bookshop.org has raised nearly $16 million for independent booksellers! Now that's a mission we can get behind! This week you can find our guests Daryn Kagan and Paula Faris's books in our Bookshop.org shop. Shop local with Bookshop.org! tell them Friends & Fiction sent you! Shop now!
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Latest News From "The Fab Five"
KRISTIN HARMEL and her family spent the long weekend in Cashiers, NC, where she was honored to meet a woman who’d been a member of the French Resistance during WWII. She hiked with her husband and son and saw the highest waterfall east of the Rockies, and on their drive home, they stopped overnight in Savannah, where Kristin looked out at the Savannah River from her hotel balcony and imagined the steamship Pulaski (from Patti Callahan’s Surviving Savannah) pulling out of port on those very waters in 1838. She was also delighted to visit Savannah’s E. Shaver Bookseller, a Friends & Fiction favorite, where her son picked out three new books.
What Kristin is reading: The 39 Clues series -- Kristin and her family listened to the first three books in the middle grade series on audiobook during their drive to and from North Carolina
PATTI CALLAHAN Did you see that Patti has released the first two chapters of Once Upon a Wardrobe? Yes, she’s teasing us with the beginning of the book to get us ready for October 19th, 2021. She’s also preparing for the book tour -- both real and virtual, coming up soon. Will she be anywhere near you? Patti also joined Rachael Herron on her podcast How Do You Write? You can listen to the conversation HERE.
MARY KAY ANDREWS is spending every morning pounding the keyboard, racing toward the Oct. deadline for her summer 2022 novel. Afternoons, she’s tying up all the details for her tour for The Santa Suit out Sept. 28. Watch for the details for the Atlanta launch party at JCT Kitchen and Savannah at The Gingerbread House.
What Mary Kay is reading: Dear Santa by Debbie Macomber
KRISTY WOODSON HARVEY is so thrilled that Christmas in Peachtree Bluff--is one of Booktrib’s “13 Must-Reads to Keep You Cozy This Fall.” Hooray! Author Julie Cantrell said: “Take a family on the brink, add a life-threatening storm, put them in a boat as the seas churn and you’ve got another heartfelt story that celebrates the value of a place called home — especially for the holidays.” She loved seeing so many people reading the Peachtree Bluff Series over Labor Day Weekend in preparation for Christmas in Peachtree Bluff’s October 26 release!
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An Original Essay by Kristin Harmel
Each week, the Friends & Fiction authors take turns
writing an essay for Parade.com, the online home of Parade magazine.This week, Kristin Harmel talked to Daryn Kagan,
one of tonight's F&F guests, about her experience on the
CNN anchor desk on Sept. 11, 2001—and her path to
finding joy in her journey in the years since.
Twenty years ago this week, Daryn Kagan, then one of CNN’s morning anchors, was sitting in the makeup room of CNN’s Atlanta studios with her co-anchor, Leon Harris, when a producer came in, just past 8:46 a.m. on a Tuesday morning.
“We’re seeing this thing out of New York,” the producer said quickly. “A plane has hit the World Trade Center. You might want to watch what’s happening.”
Along with the rest of the world, Kagan and Harris spent the next several minutes assuming the crash had been, at worst, a terrible mistake, and at best, an isolated incident. As they scrambled to finish in makeup and take their places on set, the speculation was coming in quickly. Had it been a small plane that somehow veered off course? Was it conceivable that it could have been intentional? “At that point,” says Kagan, “the idea that it could be anything more than a private plane was beyond the realm of possibility.”
But then, at 9:03 a.m., with Kagan and Harris at the anchor desk, everything shifted in an instant. “We were on a live shot of the Twin Towers,” Kagan says, “and we saw the second plane hit live on the air. What we knew was possible changed at that moment forever.”
The world itself changed forever, too.
To continue reading Kristin's column
on Parade.com, click HERE.
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Listen to the F&F Podcast!
Coming soon! Out this Friday, September 10th!—It’s all about online reading groups! Ron & Kristy interview Kristy Barrett, the founder of the Facebook group A Novel Bee and Ron & Patti interview Andrea Peskind Katz, the founder of the group Great Thoughts Great Readers.
Out Now! WB_S1E13—Ron Block and Kristin Harmel interview S.A. Cosby, author of this summer’s phenomenal bestselling novel Razorblade Tears. LISTEN NOW!
Out Now! WB_S1E12—Ron and MKA chat with Virginia Stanley, the longtime Director of Library Marketing at HarperCollins, and rockstar librarian, bestselling author, literary critic, and the former Executive Director of the Washington Center for the Book at Seattle Public Library, Nancy Pearl. LISTEN NOW!
Out Now! WB_S1E11—Ron Block and Patti Callahan in conversation with Tracey Lange about how her debut novel, We are the Brennans came to be. Also, Ron and Kristy Woodson Harvey interview Allison Larkin about the origin story of her novel, The People We Keep. LISTEN NOW!
Listen, download, subscribe, rate, review & share wherever you get your podcasts!
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News from the F&F Official Book Club
Have a look at our monthly book club schedule through the end of the year and be sure to save the dates!
Go behind the pages with Leslie Hooton and her upcoming novel, The Secret of Rainy Days. Lisa Harrison will chat with Leslie and special guest Patti Callahan Henry at 6:30 pm ET on Thursday, September 16 on our Facebook page HERE.
Sept 20: The Bookshop at Water's End with Patti Callahan Henry
Oct 1: Happy Hour with Ron Block
Nov 15: Once Upon a Wardrobe with Patti Callahan Henry
Dec 3: Happy Hour with Ron Block
Dec 6: The Santa Suit with Mary Kay Andrews
Dec 20: Christmas in Peachtree Bluff with Kristy Woodson Harvey
If you missed our Sun 8/15 one-year anniversary celebration, watch it HERE.
If you missed our Mon 8/16 book club chat with Kristin Harmel about her beautiful book The Forest of Vanishing Stars watch the replay HERE.
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The F&F Winter Wonderland Subscription Box
Three of the Fab Five (Mary Kay Patti & Kristy) have new books coming this holiday season! Here is your opportunity to be among the very first to read these books just as they are released—and to obtain loads of exclusive extra swag available only to those who subscribe!
This package is available for purchase only through our friends at Nantucket Book Partners. Books will ship as they release this fall.
For the one-time flat-rate charge of $82, subscribers will receive:
- A first edition copy of each book with signed book plate
- A QR code distributed only to subscribers which grants access to a private recorded presentation together with all three authors discussing their books
- An exclusive “Season’s Readings” tote from MKA, PCH and KWH
- A hot chocolate spoon
- A book club kit sent with each book containing discussion questions, a letter from the author, a recipe, and other special content
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Friends & Fiction Merchandise
THE F&F MERCH STORE IS HERE!
Our merch is here!
Cozy cotton with a flattering v-neck and our signature Friends & Fiction logo, these comfy
t-shirts are the perfect way to show your
Friends & Fiction wine sippies are available and shipping now from Oxford Exchange!
But that’s not all! We also have F&F 20oz travel tumblers for on-the-go coffee of drinks!
We can’t wait to see you model your merch!
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