Our Boom-Books authors are busy!
From romance writer Charisse Howard: “After way too much foot-dragging, I’ve jumped on the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) bandwagon. Goal: finish a draft of my new Regency Rakes & Rebels romance, Lady Daphne’s Deception, by Nov. 30. Can I write 50,000 words (or even 30,000) in 30 days? Stay tuned!”
From mystery writer Carol (CJ) Verburg: “For the Halloween issue of Provincetown Magazine, I gave a long interview to reporter Steve Desroches about artist/author Edward Gorey’s involvement with the Provincetown Theatre Company and its Playwrights’ Workshop (now Lab). Back in 1990 I had the good luck to be the president of PTC’s board and a founding member of the Workshop, and grabbed the chance to invite my brilliant Yarmouth Port neighbor to stage an original play in Ptown. Edward enjoyed himself so much that he went on to join the Workshop and to write, design, and direct three summer “entertainments” in PTC’s waterfront HQ at the Provincetown Inn. The full story of that adventure is in my multimedia memoir Edward Gorey On Stage.
“I’ve had to put off working on my next book — the sequel to Silent Night Violent Night: a Cory Goodwin Mystery — until three current projects are in hand. First, the novel I just finished writing, Zapped: an Edgar Rowdey Cape Cod Mystery — the way-overdue sequel to Croaked — is finally on its way to publication. Second, so is the script for Edward Gorey’s third Provincetown entertainment, Crazed Teacups. More news on that front as it happens.
“In the meantime, I’m returning to my longtime involvement with international literature. Through all those years of late nights in Cape Cod theaters with Edward Gorey and our floating band of thespians, my day job was editing collections of cross-cultural readings for college writing courses. The urgency of listening to voices from unfamiliar parts of the world came back to me this year, with the news endlessly full of bombings, protests, battles, and refugees. Starting on January 21, 2016, I’ll be teaching a monthly four-session class at San Francisco’s Mechanics’ Institute called Writing the World: Literature from Turkey, Nigeria, South Africa, and Iraq. While the class is rooted in my book Making Contact, it’s hugely enriched by the increased availability in English of stories, essays, and speeches by non-Western writers. And I as a Western writer am enriched by the dazzling diversity of storytelling traditions that’s produced the likes of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar, Es’kia Mphahlele, and Yashar Kemal.
“When I do get back to my own book, it will be with gratitude for these gifted artists who’ve persisted through unimaginable social, political, and economic challenges to send their messages out to the world.”
