April 20, 2022 | Issue #91 |
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Get to Know Our Friend, Lian Dolan!
What would you be if you weren't a writer?
A producer. Which I am in addition to being a novelist. I’m good at organizing, doing rundowns and ordering people around with authority.
What's the biggest misconception people have about you and your work?
I write contemporary character-driven fiction and most of my books have a connection to my current hometown of Pasadena, California. Local readers are convinced that all the characters are based on real people. When I wrote The Sweeney Sisters, people assumed the sisters in the book were my sisters. I think readers don’t realize that real people usually don’t work in fiction and that the best part of fiction is making stuff up.
What is one book your readers might be surprised to find on your bookshelf?
Can I say magazines? I am one woman trying to keep the magazine business alive, so I subscribe to everything from National Geographic to Health to The New Yorker. I also have a magazine museum and my shelves are filled with issues of some of my favorite (late) mags: Gourmet; Bon Appetit; O The Oprah Magazine; Seventeen; and Sunset.
Tell us about the first piece of fiction you ever wrote.
I didn’t start writing fiction until I was 45. I had a novel rattling around in my head for years, so in 2010 I took an online writing class and wrote my first words of fiction prose. I had written screenplays and essays and business plans, but never a novel. At the end of the ten-week class, I had a pretty good start on Helen of Pasadena, a social satire about a woman suddenly losing her husband, her money and her stability. But by the end of the book, she reinvents herself. And so did I!
Do you have any writing rituals?
Coffee, dog walk, writing. Coffee, dog walk, writing. If that gets messed up, I struggle to get down to work. So it’s more of a magic formula than a writing ritual.
Is there a particular independent bookstore or library you'd like to shout-out?
Pages in Manhattan Beach here is Southern California is a gem of an indie founded by three women in 2010. Against a lot of financial odds, Pages has survived in a beautiful beach town by offering great customer service, author events and a charming shopping experience. Yeah, Pages!
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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 $20 million for indie bookstores! Find recent books by our Wed April 20th guest Lian Dolan—and by all of this season’s guests—on our Friends & Fiction Spring/Summer 2022 Guests list!
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Latest News From "The Fab Four"
Mary Kay Andrews is polishing off the last of the Reese’s chocolate eggs in her Easter basket and gearing up for the book tour for The Homewreckers which kicks off on April 30th in Atlanta. Can’t wait to see Friends & Fiction folks at every stop along the way. See the full book tour HERE.
Kristin Harmel was so excited to see Kristy at the Vero Beach Book Center on Monday–and she’s looking forward to seeing all three of her F&F co-hosts (as well as Meg and Ron!) on May 4 in the Cleveland area at our Friends & Fiction LIVE event! She hopes to see lots of Friends & Fiction members there, too!
Kristy Woodson Harvey is currently on vacation for Spring break with her family after a few weeks of touring for THE WEDDING VEIL. She can’t wait to sit on the beach reading Mary Kay Andrew’s new book, THE HOMEWRECKERS. She is sorry she will miss you all on this week’s episode of Friends & Fiction!
Patti Callahan Henry is so excited about Books-A-Million announcing that Surviving Savannah is the MAY BOOK CLUB PICK!!! There will be loads of announcements coming up, and a live event in Montgomery, Alabama. Meanwhile, she is ready to celebrate the launch of The Homewreckers by our beloved MKA. Patti is, admittedly, the worst packer ever, so she is trying to get better as she packs for a few days of events in California this coming weekend. Can she do this with just a carry on? Stay tuned.
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Spring Subscription Box
Subscribe Today for Signed Books & an Exclusive Gift!
Friends & Fiction co-hosts & co-founders Mary Kay Andrews and Kristy Woodson Harvey have teamed up with Oxford Exchange to offer this fun Spring Reading Box! Order the box from Oxford Exchange to get a signed copy of THE WEDDING VEIL (out now!), a signed copy of THE HOMEWRECKERS (coming May 3!), and this fun, exclusive Friends & Fiction notebook with sticky flags for marking all your favorite parts! (We hope there are tons!) Get more information and place your order with Oxford Exchange HERE.
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Listen to the F&F Podcast!
Coming this Friday, April 22nd—Ron explores Women, Science and Fiction with two exceptional new releases, Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, and Atomic Anna by Rachel Barenbaum.
Out Now! WB_S2E16—Ron interviews Andrew Neiderman all about author VC Andrews and his new book, The Woman Beyond the Attic: The VC Andrews Story. LISTEN NOW!
Out Now! WB_S2E15—Ron & Patti talk to author Mary Laura Philpot about writing memoir in essay form as they dive into her new book, Bomb Shelter. LISTEN NOW!
Out Now! WB_S2E14—Part 2 of a 2-parter…Patti and Ron continue the two part series with an interview with the founder of Audible, Don Katz. Hear all about how Audiobooks have expanded in ways we couldn’t have imagined. LISTEN NOW!
Out Now! WB_S2E13—Part 1 of a 2-parter…Ron & Patti interview Martha Hall Kelly and her co-author Kathy Murray about their Audible Original, The Munich Cowboys Cheerleaders, a novella based on Murray's underdog story of coaching a German cheerleading squad. 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
We have a lot of fun events coming up. Take a look at our book club schedule and be sure to save the dates! All events begin at 7pm Eastern unless otherwise noted.
May 6: Happy Hour with Ron Block and special guest Patti Callahan Henry
Grab these books and start reading now!
Not a member of the Friends & Fiction Book Club? Join us! We would love to have you!
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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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F&F is on YouTube!
Subscribe Today!
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Did you miss the March 30th episode with the launch party for Kristy’s The Wedding Veil? 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 March 30th show HERE.
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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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Sponsor Spotlight
Charleston Coffee Roasters
Do you need a great hostess gift for upcoming summer travel? How about for Mother’s Day? Or end-of-year teacher gifts? We think the F&F Book & Coffee Bundles available through our friends at Charleston Coffee Roasters make the perfect gift for the book and coffee lovers in your life! You choose a book by one of the Fab Four, then select the coffee roast and grind of your choice. Pay one price for the bundle and receive your book & coffee pairing in the mail! Bonus—the books are signed with a custom F&F branded autographed bookplate! Check them out HERE. Remember to enter our ongoing coffee-of-the-month giveaway. We’ve got two more 3-month subscriptions (a $90 value) up for grabs with winners announced in each April and May. ENTER NOW! And don’t forget that everyone in the F&F community gets 20% off all bagged coffees on the Charleston Coffee Roasters website with code coffeewithfriends. SHOP NOW! While you’re on their website, please sign up for their email newsletter, and be sure to follow CCR on Facebook & Instagram.
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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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