Category Archives: Chanel Bonfire

Chanel Bonfire Now At Target!

I am very very grateful and flattered to be chosen by Target for their Emerging Authors Program and super excited that Chanel will be available in over 1,700! Target stores nationwide starting today!  

And if you don’t have a Target near you, you can order it from them online!
http://www.target.com/c/emerging-authors-ways-to-shop-entertainment/-/N-55waf#?lnk=lnav_emergelnav_what’s new_3&intc=1051587|null 

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Posted by Wendy Lawless  Chanel Bonfire, Chanel Bonfire Paperback, Target, Target Emerging Authors Program, Wendy Lawless

Merry Christmas from Chanel Bonfire

Merry Christmas from Chanel Bonfire

As any reader of Chanel will know, Christmas was not always the most wonderful of times for me and and my sister Robbie.  It is not so great for many kids for many reasons.  But, seeing the holiday through my own children’s eyes has given me a chance to experience what can be and should be a truly wonderful family time of year.  For everyone, beneath what can frequently be a superficial veneer of holiday cheer, Christmas can be a time of hope.  And I hope that all of you have a very merry season and Happy New Year.

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Posted by Wendy Lawless  Chanel Bonfire, Christmas, Christmas Eve, Robin Lawless, Wendy Lawless

Martell’s Restaurant

RIP
Martell’s Restaurant
1469 3rd Avenue
New York City of My Youth

I can not even find a photo of Martell’s Restaurant on the Upper East Side of Manhattan — the blue-and-white striped awning, the tile floors, blue-and-white checked tablecloths, big burgers and fat fries.  Martell’s was a bridge from the old joints of New York City with their pyramids of hard boiled eggs on the bar, sawdust on the floor and the faint and not-so-faint smell of beer and piss mixed with the grease from a thousand burgers and the new places that hit town in the 70s and began the shift into the world of TGIFridays.

When we didn’t go out for fancy food or to Schrafft’s  with our nanny, we went to Martell’s — our version of McDonald’s (with wine for Mother).  When I returned to New York many years later, I’d go back to Martell’s on occasion for a big bourbon and a plate of French fries — once with my step-sister (Oliver’s daughter) when our worlds and our lives re-collided.
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Posted by Wendy Lawless  Chanel Bonfire, Georgann Rea, Manhattan Restaurants, Martell's Restaurant, Upper East Side, Wendy Lawless, Yorkville

National Women’s Studies Association

NWA

A big thank you to the National Women’s Studies Association for featuring Chanel Bonfire at their 2013 Conference in Cincinnati, Ohio!  I only wish I could have been there.  The NWA  is a terrific organization bringing together scholars, activists and students from all over. 

Here’s a link to their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/WomensStudies?directed_target_id=0
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Posted by Wendy Lawless  Chanel Bonfire, National Women's Studies Association, NWA, Wendy Lawless

Shop Local!

nov30-13

Today is small business Saturday all over the U.S.  If you’re thinking about Christmas, contemplating Kwanza, stumped for those last nights of Hanukah, or just searching for a birthday, thank you or welcoming gift, go out in your neighborhood, look for inspiration and shop local.  Shopping local supports people who live and work in your community.  This is a good practice year ’round and world ’round.  So if you’re one of Chanel’s readers in the U.K., Canada, France, Germany, Russia, China, Australia, Japan, Brazil or anywhere you can participate as well!

If your local bookstore is Vroman’s in Pasadena, California, I’ll be volunteering there today from 3 to 5PM –recommending books.  Come on down!

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Posted by Wendy Lawless  Chanel Bonfire, Indie Bookstores, Small Business Saturday, Vroman's, Wendy Lawless

Authors Work Indies!

Some of your favorite authors will be working at their local independent bookstores all over the country this Saturday, November 30th, to celebrate Small Business Saturday.

I’ll be working and recommending some of my favorite books at my local store Vroman’s in Pasadena along with other Los Angeles area authors including: Michelle Huneven, Quinn Cummings and Hector Tobar.  Come on out and get your holiday shopping done.  A complete list of authors at Vroman’s can be found by clicking on my Vroman’s link button in the sidebar.  Or…

Follow the link to see who’s going to be working at your local Indie Store:
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Posted by Wendy Lawless  Chanel Bonfire, Chanel Bonfire Paperback, Hector Tobar, Indie Bookstores, IndieBound, Michelle Huneven, Quinn Cummings, Small Business Saturday, Vroman's, Wendy Lawless

First Record Album — Roxy Music

My First Album

Of all the glam bands in all the world, in platform shoes or high heels, Roxy music was and is my all-time favorite.  This album, “For Your Pleasure”, released by Island Records in 1973, was the band’s second and the last featuring Brian Eno.  The woman on the cover was lead singer and songwriter Brian Ferry’s girlfriend at the time, transsexual singer and model Amanda Lear.  Judi Dench’s voice can be heard at the end of the title track saying, “You don’t ask.  You don’t ask why.”

I bought the album with my own money at the WH Smith in Sloane Square and played it until the grooves wore out.  That copy is lost now–a casualty of a peripatetic childhood and young adulthood.  I may very well have left it in a taxi stuffed into one of the Bloomingdales bags I used to move apartments at a moment’s notice in New York in the early 80s.  More of that in the sequel to Chanel which will be coming your way sometime next year from Gallery Books.

Don’t forget, there’s one week left in my Goodreads Paperback Giveaway.  Enter Today!

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Posted by Wendy Lawless  Amanda Lear, Brian Eno, Brian Ferry, Chanel Bonfire, First Album, For Your Pleasure, Gallery Books, glam rock, Island Records, Judi Dench, Roxy Music, transsexuals, Wendy Lawless, WH Smith

First Evening Bag

nov19-13
My first evening bag.
I bought this bag at the legendary Biba on Kensington High Street to go with my first long dress from Laura Ashley.  I was fourteen and the occasion was a party for an ambassador’s son at Quaglino’s, a legendary restaurant in London.  The restaurant was opened in 1929 by Giovani Quaglino and quickly became a favorite haunt of royals and wealth socialites.  It was in fact so popular with the Windsors that a special section was cordoned off so there would always be a royal table available.  It was the first public restaurant in which a reigning monarch dined (Elizabeth II in the 1950s).  By the time of our party, it was a haunt for the rich and famous from all over the world.
The restaurant was made over in the 90s by Conran and is still a place to be seen.  The dress is gone but my memories like my Biba evening bag are still with me.
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Posted by Wendy Lawless  70s London, Biba, Chanel Bonfire, Conran, Elizabeth II, evening bag, Giovani Quaglino, Kensington High Street, Laura Ashley, Qualino's, Wendy Lawless