Madison Authors I Can't Wait to Blog About
The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York (Penguin Press, 2010) The fifth work of creative nonfiction by my former grad school advisor, friend and mentor Deborah Blum, this book just sounds cool. True, I am wildly biased toward anything Deb writes because I adored her as a professor and so admire her body of work (and her new “culture and chemistry” blog is really fun!) She’s also a lovely, uber-smart and funny person. Back when she was writing her book on the infamous primate psychologist Harry Harlow, I conducted research for her at the UW–Madison Archives, performed phone interviews with former Harlow colleagues, and transcribed a handful of her interviews. She’s passionate about the art and craft of journalism and generous of her time and expertise. One of my all-time favorite Deborah quotes: “All good writers are neurotic.” P.S. Did I mention she won a Pulitzer? Oh. She won a Pulitzer.
The Teashop Girls (Simon & Schuster, 2008) I’m scheduled to have tea with author Laura Schaefer before I write up this blog. I’m intrigued by her complete fascination with the beverage and feel I must experience it with her at least once before I am qualified to write about her, and it. Schaefer's young adult novel, set in a Middleton teashop owned by the thirteen-year-old protagonist’s grandmother, is the author’s fiction debut. To be honest, I was a bit embarrassed by how thoroughly engaged I became in a book written for ’tweenagers. I can’t wait for her next one. To share with my daughter, of course.
Any day you get a call from a New York publishing house is a good day as an editor. It would be an even better day if said call was pertaining to your own writing and editing career (nothing yet), but I will settle for a publicity push for a Madison author’s debut novel. The book is by Susanna Daniel and is called Stiltsville (HarperCollins, August 2010), a reference to “stilthouses,” or homes built on stilts next to bodies of water that tend toward hurricanes and flooding. The book is set in Miami, so I cannot wait to get lost in the heat of it.
All of Michael Perry’s books. I confess. I ashamed to admit it but I haven’t so much as leafed through the celebrated, down-home memoirist’s three, count ’em, three, books. So I’m going to find and buy them, pack them in my suitcase, and read them in order—Population: 485; Truck: A Love Story; and Coop: A Year of Poultry, Pigs and Parenting—on my sunny vacation. I just hopped onto Perry’s lively website and read a snippet of an interview he conducted for his next book. He’s talking to an old farmer about his “two prize oxen Chester and Lester.” Reminds me of my mom when she regales me with stories: “You couldn't make this stuff up if you tried!” Meanwhile I’m listening to Michael Perry and the Long Beds’ CD, "Tiny Pilot," due out next month. It’s not half bad.
Another book I should’ve digested a long time ago is The Typewriter Satyr by Dwight Allen (Terrace Books, 2009), a former staffer for the New Yorker who moons ago judged Madison Magazine's now-defunct short fiction contest. His collection of stories entitled The Green Suit remains one of my favorite books by a local author, and Allen has since published Judge (also very good) and now The Typewriter Satyr, the last one set in the fictional Wisconsin city of Midvale (which Madisonians know as a near-west-side artery and slightly hiptopia enclave).
Last but not least is that I really should read one of the umpbillion (OK, fifteen, but that’s a lot in ten years, isn’t it?) quilting novels by prolific fiction writer Jennifer Chiaverini to see what all the fuss is about. She seems to have a cult-like following (I once mentioned her on Twitter and I got followed by a quilting fan in a heartbeat) for her Elm Creek Quilts Novel series but all I know is she churns out books so fast I have a private stack in my office reserved for them. The latest is The Aloha Quilt but by the time I hit the publish button another one could be on the way.
OK, wish me luck in my literary pursuits (and cancel my Neflix subscription, grant me early retirement and hire me a nanny).
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