Happy Memorial Day weekend. Spend it with someone you love.
Robbie and me. She says there was a spider on the blanket.
All posts by Wendy Lawless
Random Sightings, Connections and Book Group Skypes
A terrific looking woman caught reading Chanel Bonfire in Grand Central Station.
As the publication date for my book came closer, I began to realize that I was about to expose myself and my life to many (if I was lucky) complete strangers as well as people who knew me or had known me and yet did not know very much about my childhood. It’s not that I didn’t realize what I was doing as I wrote the book; I just didn’t realize how completely exposed I might feel.
And when the book was published in January and people began to read it, I did hear a lot of expected responses: I had know idea, You seemed so normal, I did wonder…, I had the same experience, My mother too was insane, I’m glad you wrote this, I don’t feel so alone. What I didn’t expect were the little joys of random sightings of the book and people reading the book. Friends and strangers started sending pictures of the book in airports and bookstores and peoples hands like the one above (Sent by my step-sister Mary while she was on a long weekend trip to New York from her home in Detroit.). I also did not expect the heartfelt praise and gratitude from readers who had also had difficult childhoods and nowhere to turn, or the reconnections with some people who knew me as a kid or are characters in the book.
I like hearing from readers — their reactions to the book, their own stories. One of the most fun things I’ve been doing is Skyping with Book Groups. These Skype sessions are even better than book tour and book store readings and events because they’re so much more intimate. People always have questions or ideas I’ve never thought of. And they like hearing stories which, for narrative reasons, I had to leave out of the book. In a way I suppose these Skypes are like the director’s commentary in the special features section of dvds. Often I get to hear stories from people in the groups too which I would never get to do at a book store.
So if your Book Group is reading Chanel and would like to get together, please email me at chanelbonfire@gmail.com and we can set up a Skype Chat.
Summers Away from Georgann
Flower Children: Striking a pose next to Daddy’s Mustang convertible.
One summer, before Mother took us away to London, Daddy had some time off from the Guthrie and rented a little place in Wisconsin. He’d drive along the back roads at what felt like a hundred miles an hour with the top down and Robbie and I jumping up and down in the back seat as the wind blew back our hair and rushed through our fingers. I still get that feeling of freedom sometimes on a long drive.
Saturday Night’s Alright
One of my musical heroes and great crush when I was a girl…
Here he in Central Park in 1980. I first saw him at benefit at my school ASL in London. Kiki Dee opened. It was before their “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” duet. Our concert was in the fall just after the release of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road which of course became a very important album for me. He appears briefly in CHANEL BONFIRE or at least his bottom does!
Connie Martinson Talks Chanel Bonfire
The Doyenne of the West Coast Literary Scene, Connie Martinson.
I had a wonderful time discussing Chanel Bonfire with the wonderful, insightful reader Connie Martinson on her show “Connie Martinson Talks Books”. She’s read everything, talked to everyone and truly appreciates a good story well told. Her shows are all archived on her You Tube Channel and it’s a wonderful way to hear authors, including Barack Obama, talk about their work, their process and much more.
Gus the Cat
Out of Africa
When we were at the American School in London, a Thames Television show called Magpie sponsored us on a flamingo-tagging trip to Lake Nakuru in Kenya.
We flew into Nairobi and took a buss to Lake Nakuru.
We had to wear paper underwear because there was no way to do laundry.
And we discovered that the woman our science teacher had brought along was his mistress. Oh, and many flamingoes were tagged.
Thanks to my friend Lynn Williamson for the pictures. As anyone who’s read the book can imagine any pictures Robbie and I had didn’t survive.
Happy Return to the Scene of the Crime
I had a wonderful time at my old school, Beaver Country Day in Boston, talking to a number of classes of students in the theater and then reading and signing books for alumni in the afternoon.
People who knew me then frequently say that they had no idea what kind of craziness was going on in my life (although my mother’s arrest at my sister’s Beaver graduation kind of opened a window). Mostly that was because I was afraid to let anyone know. As I say in the book, covering it up was my full-time job.
But kids like the students I met at Beaver are eager to know and ask lots of questions about how I survived — I suspect because some of them are going through their own difficult times. One of the reasons I wrote the book was that I was hoping young people would read it and know that they’re not alone and don’t have to be alone.
With my incredibly brave sister, Robin, co-heroine of Chanel making her first return to Beaver since the cops showed up.
Connie Martinson Talks Books
Barack wasn’t there yesterday…
But I had a wonderful time talking to Connie Martinson on her Santa Monica based show, Connie Martinson Talks Books. She’s a very thoughtful reader and interviewer and it was a real pleasure. A a quick search of her YouTube channel guest list puts me in honorable company.
