January 19, 2021 | Issue #77 |
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Five Facts From Our Friend, Jillian Cantor!
The one thing you’ve learned you can’t live without during the pandemic:
Facetime. It feels so obvious but has been so essential in connecting us with our family across the country.
Your perfect day:
A cup of coffee and reading in bed, followed by a hike with my family.
Your favorite independent bookstore:
I truly can’t pick just one! But Mostly Books is a local favorite for me in Tucson.
The last book you raved about:
Your next book in ten words or less:
A feminist reimagining of another classic
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Five Facts From Our Friends, Jenny Judson & Danielle Mahfood!
The one thing you’ve learned you can’t live without during the pandemic:
Danielle: My exercise bike. I got it when my girls were really young and I couldn’t go to the gym. During the pandemic it was my (and my husband’s) lifesaver. And of course wine - but that’s not really new news :)
Jenny: My milk frother - a tiny, cheap device that allows me to make my own lattes, a game changer.
Your perfect day:
Jenny: blue skies, 70-ish degrees, a bike ride, a beach, a book, a raucous dinner with family and friends, bed.
Danielle: a morning workout, a good read, wine with lunch, a long walk and some shopping, playing a board game with my girls and a raucous dinner with Jenny and our friends.
Your favorite independent bookstore:
The last book you raved about:
Jenny: Serendipitously, I just finished your next guest’s book, Amor Towles’ The Lincoln Highway. Loved It! Also, I just had an opportunity to meet him. Through a mutual friend/colleague of mine, I connected with him and he was willing to do a Q & A with my English class via Zoom! I was totally starstruck. My students were way cooler.
Danielle: I’ve been on a medieval romance kick for the past 6 months - I’m not quite sure why. So, a book reread countless times is Katherine by Anya Seton. It’s a terrific classic romance that goes under the radar for many.
Your next book in ten words or less:
Archie falls in love. Has to work for it, finally.
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Bookseller of the Week
Bookshop.org
Find all the books by every F&F guest, past and present, in the F&F Bookshop.org Shop! Portions of all sales placed in our shop help fund F&F and support our guests! Proceeds from every sale made anywhere across Bookshop go straight into the pockets of indie booksellers nationwide. Since its inception, Bookshop.org has raised more than $18 million for indie bookstores! Find recent books by tonight’s guests Jillian Cantor, Jenny Judson & Danielle Mahfood and by the Fab Four on our Friends & Fiction 2022 Guests list!
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An Original Essay by Kristy Woodson Harvey!
Each week, the Friends & Fiction authors will take turns writing an essay for Parade.com, the online home of Parade magazine. This week, Kristy wrote a column about creating a room of one's own and granting yourself permission to follow a dream.
During those closet-writing months, my husband, son, and I lived in a 1930s brick home with architectural details that had me from hello and an extra room or two that easily could have become a writing space. As I continued working on that manuscript—sometimes even in the light of day—I took to writing in one of the only spaces in the house we hadn’t lovingly updated: our laundry room. The walls and ceilings were painted pea green with coordinating scratchy indoor/outdoor carpet. It was dark and wholly uninspiring, but, even still, I perched an old desk we had in storage underneath a slanted wall where I could almost sit up straight without my head hitting the ceiling.
That was where I began to think that maybe there was something to this writing thing, that maybe I should explore it a little more. That was also when my husband Will asked me why I didn’t turn our light-filled sunroom into an office. Or, at the very least, put a pretty desk in the living room. I had worked too hard decorating those rooms to mess them up, I told him.
I suspect now that I simply could not give myself permission to be a writer, that creating a writing space made the fact that I was trying to do this seem too real. I remember the terror of researching getting published. I remember feeling hopeless after reading statistics and stories. I almost put my writing to the side because I felt like I had a better chance of getting struck by lightning than of becoming an author. I walked downstairs one night after a writing session and asked my husband, “When do I quit doing this? When do I quit writing when I know that this will probably never happen for me?”
He said something that I will never forget: “You quit writing when writing quits making you happy.” It was the single greatest thing that man has ever said to me.
I went on a girls’ trip that weekend. When I came home...
To continue reading Kristy’s essay on Parade.com, click HERE.
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Latest News From "The Fab Four"
KRISTY WOODSON HARVEY is putting the finishing touches on her book tour for THE WEDDING VEIL, and is getting so excited about seeing all of you on the road! She is also excited to record the BOOK MATTERS podcast this week, which is based in Australia, and totally fascinated by the idea that it will already be tomorrow there. (She’ll let you all know what is happening in the future.)
PATTI CALLAHAN is gearing up for the paperback release of Surviving Savannah on April 5th. Have you seen the new cover? With events and Zooms she is so thrilled to be talking about it again. A quiet January in the PCH home, and wish she was more like Marie Kondo than PCH but doing the best she can. Events are gearing for the early part of the year and she can’t wait to be with some of you in real life.
MARY KAY ANDREWS is signing tip-in sheets that will be bound into finished copies of The Homewreckers–which comes out May 3rd, and gearing up to plan the (fingers crossed) in-person book tour. She spent Atlanta’s first real snow day in four years making soup and getting back to work on the synopsis for her next project.
What Mary Kay is reading: Find Me, by Alafair Burke (she’ll be a guest on the show on Feb 2nd!)
KRISTIN HARMEL spent a fun weekend with her nephews and niece and managed to type “THE END” on the very, very, very rough draft of her next novel. Her early drafts tend to be overly long, with big gaps in the first half (according to Kristin), so she has a lot of revising to do before turning in a polished first draft in a few weeks. But at least there’s an ending! That’s worth at least one celebratory glass of Champagne!
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Announcing the Wanda Jewell Scholarship!
F&F Sponsors Scholarship in name
of former SIBA Head
Supporting independent booksellers has been part of the F&F mission from the start. We are so proud and honored to sponsor the inaugural Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance Wanda Jewell Scholarship Fund for Bookseller Professional Development in honor of SIBA’s much-beloved former Executive Director who retired in 2020. The scholarship, funded by authors, provides financial support for booksellers through education and networking at in-person SIBA-sponsored events. Initial funding for the scholarship comes from the four hosts and founders of Friends & Fiction: Mary Kay Andrews, Kristy Woodson Harvey, Kristin Harmel and Patti Callahan Henry. “I’m so humbled by this scholarship in my name," said Jewell when she was told, "it truly means the world to me. And to have many of my favorite writers stepping forward to fund this is simply the best gift. So much gratitude to SIBA and writers and booksellers I cannot express.” Scholarship applications will open February 1, 2022. Read more about the scholarship announcement HERE. Anyone wishing to make a donation in honor of Wanda Jewell may do so HERE.
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The F&F 2022 Reading Challenge
Join the Fun in Our Reading Challenge!
Join us in 2022 for a fun 12-month reading challenge. We will challenge each other all year long to read books in a different category every month. This will help all of us broaden our horizons and read books in different genres we may not have chosen for ourselves. This is a fun way to join with the rest of the F&F community and share a fun reading experience. And the F&F Reading Journal makes the perfect companion piece to this challenge, helping you keep track of all the books you read all year long. Grab your reading journal HERE.
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Debut Spotlight
Here’s what Karin Slaughter has to say about A FLICKER IN THE DARK, the debut thriller by Stacy Willingham: "A smart, edge-of-your-seat story with plot twists you'll never see coming. Stacy Willingham's debut will keep you turning pages long past your bedtime." Stacy just made news when her debut was snapped up by Emma Stone for production as a series for HBO Max. Stacy will be dropping by the aftershow tonight to tell us all about her new book. As a debut novel, it makes a great choice for the F&F 2022 Reading Challenge—January’s theme is debut! Grab a copy in the F&F Shop on Bookshop.org!
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Listen to the F&F Podcast!
Coming soon! Out this Friday, January 21st—Ron interviews Rachel Hawkins about her latest work of Gothic suspense, Reckless Girls.
Out Now! WB_S2E2—Ron & Kristin interview two historical fiction authors, Genevieve Graham & Julia Kelly, about breathing life into history. LISTEN NOW!
Out Now! WB_S2E1—Ron interviews Indian-American journalist, critic and novelist Thrity Umrigar about her latest novel, The Secrets Between Us, recently released in paperback. LISTEN NOW!
Out Now! WB_S1E31—The Beaufort Special! Ron Block interviews F&F Managing Director Meg Walker all about F&F, the founders, her role, and what the future holds and follows it with an interview with attendees live from the June 2021 F&F event in Beaufort, NC. 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
Happy New Year! We have a lot of fun events coming up! Take a look at our book club schedule coming up through the early part of 2022 and be sure to save the dates! All events begin at 7pm Eastern unless otherwise noted.
Grab these books and start reading now!
If you missed our Dec 20th Christmas in Peachtree Bluff book club discussion with Kristy Woodson Harvey, catch it HERE.
If you missed our Dec 6th book club discussion with Mary Kay Andrews about The Santa Suit, catch it HERE!
If you missed our Happy Hour with Ron Block on Friday Dec 3rd, you can watch it HERE.
Not a member of the Friends & Fiction Book Club? Join us! We would love to have you!
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F&F is Now on LoCo+!
Come join Friends & Fiction on LoCo+, a brand-new streaming platform that launched just a few days ago. The platform specializes in locally produced content and will eventually include channels from all over the country, but this is your chance to get in on the ground floor with us; we're part of the platform's rollout, and we'd love for you to be there, too. Eventually, it will be a paid subscription (like Netflix or Hulu), but if you sign up now, you can get the first month free--and you can see past and current episodes of Friends & Fiction as well as lots of other great, independently produced content, including the "Good News Lady" show from our friend (and former F&F guest) Daryn Kagan. Sign up for your free trial here and check it out: https://golocoplus.com/.
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F&F is on YouTube!
Subscribe Today!
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Did you miss last week’s episode with Jeffery Deaver? You can watch the whole thing on our YouTube channel HERE. We air our show live on YouTube every Wednesday night at 7pm ET. And every episode since our show’s inception can be found there too. So if you ever miss one, or Facebook is being difficult, check us out on YouTube. Subscribe today so you never miss an episode and get alerted every time we post new content. We also have book trailers and highlight clips on our channel too! Watch the January 12th show HERE.
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Friends & Fiction Merchandise
SHOP THE F&F MERCH STORE!
NEW! Stay on track with the exclusive Friends & Fiction Reading Journal, featuring 52 book entries (one for every week of the year), a lending library, reading list, and books you put down. With a cloth cover, gold foil embossing, a satin ribbon page marker, elastic band, heavyweight paper, and a back pocket to store notes, this is the perfect gift for the book lover in your life—or for yourself! ORDER READING JOURNALS 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 pride! ORDER T-SHIRTS HERE.
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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CONNECT WITH THE FRIENDS & FICTION HOST AUTHORS! |
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