Just came across a wonderful video on YouTube of some bedouin musicians in the Jordanian desert near Wadi Rum singing, playing oud and drumming around a campfire at night. It's so atmospheric. It pulls me into the world of A CARAVAN OF BRIDES. It reminds me of nights spent in the Moroccan desert in a campfire circle playing music and singing. Enjoy! The video was filmed by and posted on YouTube by 'Tillytuck'.
To view the clip, click on the words below, or the title of this post.
Bedouin Campfire Music in Wadi Rum
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Sunday, December 20, 2009
First Snow of Season - Happy Anniversary
It's a wonderful morning to be snowed in at home. It's the Sunday before Christmas. A blizzard is blowing. I've a pile of books to read (book reviews due very soon), and lots to think about and write. Homemade oatmeal is just about ready. The cat is spending his day purring and sleeping. In New England, we've had a lengthy Indian summer - and just a week or so ago it was 70 degrees and sunny. This rousing Nor'easter is more fitting.
The blanket of white is a tribute to my parents' wedding, 67 years ago. They were married on a snowy December night in Iowa in 1942. My mother wore a white velvet gown. White mums and pine boughs decorated the church. They were wed by candlelight. In 2002, their 60th, we four children wrote haikus in their honor, and my father responded in kind. Here are my personal favorites.
Atop the altar,
Candelabra on each side,
White chrysanthmums.
- Sister Jo
And now, the future.
Those we love, will love again.
Draw us in today.
- Brother Mark
Driving through Canada,
Every day a picnic lunch,
My, it's EL-E-GANT.
- Brother Eric
Sixty years tonight,
Began your loving journey.
This full moon is yours.
- Me
Anniversaries,
It is hard to keep a count.
Sixty seems very good!
- Father
The blanket of white is a tribute to my parents' wedding, 67 years ago. They were married on a snowy December night in Iowa in 1942. My mother wore a white velvet gown. White mums and pine boughs decorated the church. They were wed by candlelight. In 2002, their 60th, we four children wrote haikus in their honor, and my father responded in kind. Here are my personal favorites.
Atop the altar,
Candelabra on each side,
White chrysanthmums.
- Sister Jo
And now, the future.
Those we love, will love again.
Draw us in today.
- Brother Mark
Driving through Canada,
Every day a picnic lunch,
My, it's EL-E-GANT.
- Brother Eric
Sixty years tonight,
Began your loving journey.
This full moon is yours.
- Me
Anniversaries,
It is hard to keep a count.
Sixty seems very good!
- Father
Friday, December 11, 2009
A CARAVAN OF BRIDES
In the last few months I've trimmed and polished the manuscript, and made many improvements suggested by a wise reader.
The book's new working title is A CARAVAN OF BRIDES, with a possible subtitle of THE LAST STORYTELLER OF JEDDAH. Those two were the front-runners in a survey of trusted readers and advisors. The two were tied for the lead, but the women, who are my target readers, felt drawn to A CARAVAN OF BRIDES. My writers group also voted for that title.
Thank you readers and friends who weighed in on the working title question.
The book's new working title is A CARAVAN OF BRIDES, with a possible subtitle of THE LAST STORYTELLER OF JEDDAH. Those two were the front-runners in a survey of trusted readers and advisors. The two were tied for the lead, but the women, who are my target readers, felt drawn to A CARAVAN OF BRIDES. My writers group also voted for that title.
Thank you readers and friends who weighed in on the working title question.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Zoe Ferraris' next book - "City of Veils"
I'm very excited to learn more about Zoe Ferraris' sequel to FINDING NOUF, her award-winning literary mystery set in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Her next book is CITY OF VEILS. Nice title! It will take the reader from Jeddah deep into the Empty Quarter. Her website is gorgeous, (click on my entry title to visit it). I'm looking forward to her book tour, hoping she'll come through Boston.
This week I was invited to a book group discussion of FINDING NOUF. It was interesting to hear reactions to the characters and plot twists; the things the readers 'bought' or didn't 'buy' about the plot. What's fun about a mystery set in the Kingdom is that everyone seems to be fascinated with how social rules might allow or restrict the progression of the plot. While each person had his or her favorite scene, the scene in the coat market was in everyone's top three. One reader believed the book was more properly categorized as a tragedy. As for me, I loved the humor that lurks just under the surface in FINDING NOUF. It reminds me of the laughs we had living there. Unusual things happen in Jeddah, and eccentric people live there. In fact, I think Jeddans are proud of the unusual characters in their midst. And they have a great sense of humor, which of course makes them quite endearing.
Murder mysteries aren't supposed to be all fun, and certainly Zoe's books deal with serious social issues. However, they are full of quirky cultural twists that make us rethink our assumptions about how Arabs and Muslims live.
This week I was invited to a book group discussion of FINDING NOUF. It was interesting to hear reactions to the characters and plot twists; the things the readers 'bought' or didn't 'buy' about the plot. What's fun about a mystery set in the Kingdom is that everyone seems to be fascinated with how social rules might allow or restrict the progression of the plot. While each person had his or her favorite scene, the scene in the coat market was in everyone's top three. One reader believed the book was more properly categorized as a tragedy. As for me, I loved the humor that lurks just under the surface in FINDING NOUF. It reminds me of the laughs we had living there. Unusual things happen in Jeddah, and eccentric people live there. In fact, I think Jeddans are proud of the unusual characters in their midst. And they have a great sense of humor, which of course makes them quite endearing.
Murder mysteries aren't supposed to be all fun, and certainly Zoe's books deal with serious social issues. However, they are full of quirky cultural twists that make us rethink our assumptions about how Arabs and Muslims live.
Another Kind of Blooming - Boston Book Festival
There are so many times each year when I find myself thinking, "This is Boston at its best." I think this while strolling through the Public Garden in midsummer as the Swan Boats float by. The ever-changing plantings and sweeping landscape up the hill never fail to impress me. On a summer's day, I think it while eating a sandwich in the shade at Rowe's Wharf, gawking at visiting yachts and tall ships. At First Night, standing in the bundled up, down jacketed throngs lining the streets for the parade and fireworks, and admiring the ice sculptures, an old-fashioned winter-defying frivolity fills the air. Year round, strolls through the back streets of the North End yield all kinds of surprises. Observing early spring blooms in the miniature yards of Commonwealth Avenue townhouses keeps hope alive. In so many ways, the physical setting of Boston makes my heart skip, again and again.
This year's first-ever Boston Book Festival brought a different flowering to the streets, even as the weather played out around us with a strange kind of fusion, like a hastily thrown together band from Berklee. It was, all at once, blustery, rainy and tropical. Very odd for a Saturday in late October.
No matter, enthusiastic readers of all ages packed into venues around Copley Square like Old South Church. An impressive roster of our most admired authors, including Orhan Pamuk, Anita Diamant, and Anita Shreve, read to us and spoke about the world of books, reading and writing. Grub Street sponsored a jam-packed 'Writers' Idol' where first pages of books were read aloud and critiqued.
We completely filled the long pews of Old South's massive sanctuary, proving a point that Orhan Pamuk put forth in his Norton Lectures at Harvard this fall, (another unforgettable Boston experience). He said that modern man makes sense of life through fiction. That we need it to feel at home in the world. And that reading, we redefine our world outlook.
Seeing the crowds pack the halls that day made me so grateful to be a writer, here, now, in this fascinating city where ideas bloom too.
This year's first-ever Boston Book Festival brought a different flowering to the streets, even as the weather played out around us with a strange kind of fusion, like a hastily thrown together band from Berklee. It was, all at once, blustery, rainy and tropical. Very odd for a Saturday in late October.
No matter, enthusiastic readers of all ages packed into venues around Copley Square like Old South Church. An impressive roster of our most admired authors, including Orhan Pamuk, Anita Diamant, and Anita Shreve, read to us and spoke about the world of books, reading and writing. Grub Street sponsored a jam-packed 'Writers' Idol' where first pages of books were read aloud and critiqued.
We completely filled the long pews of Old South's massive sanctuary, proving a point that Orhan Pamuk put forth in his Norton Lectures at Harvard this fall, (another unforgettable Boston experience). He said that modern man makes sense of life through fiction. That we need it to feel at home in the world. And that reading, we redefine our world outlook.
Seeing the crowds pack the halls that day made me so grateful to be a writer, here, now, in this fascinating city where ideas bloom too.
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