Melanie Gideon » Uncategorized

The Romantic Life of Alice B . . .

melaniegideon — Thu, 17 May 2012 14:05:31 +0000

AKA Wife 22 hit the shelves in France last week. Here’s the ad that ran in French Elle. I’m going to France in July. It’s the first time I’ve ever been and I’m so excited. I’ll have a chance to meet my French publishers and to do all the touristy things one does in Paris. The trip is part business and part pleasure. My husband and I will be celebrating our twentieth wedding anniversary as well. Where better to celebrate than the city of light?

Thirsty anyone?

melaniegideon — Mon, 14 May 2012 13:57:06 +0000

My lovely publisher made coasters for Wife 22. I don’t know if you can see the writing on the coaster but it says “Sometimes marriage is a Catch-22.” This tagline refers to the moment in Wife 22 when Alice realizes that some of the things she found so charming when she first married her husband, William, are the very things that twenty years later drive her crazy. What do you think about that? Do you agree?

Cowboy Creamery and Point Reyes

melaniegideon — Fri, 11 May 2012 13:48:19 +0000

The other day we went on one of our favorite jaunts to Point Reyes. It felt like summer. Seventy degrees on Limantour beach. Wild lupine. The air smelled of roses. Afterwards to the Pine Cone Cafe for an expresso milk shake and Thai beef salad. And after that, to the Cowboy Creamery for Red Hawk cheese–the stinkiest, most wonderful cheese ever. It’s all gone but I’m still dreaming about it. I’ve decided if this writing gig doesn’t work out I want to open a cheese store. Truly, what would life be without cheese? Those are the kinds of big thoughts I’m thinking today.

30 days and supermoons . . .

melaniegideon — Sun, 06 May 2012 02:38:15 +0000

Less than thirty days until Wife 22 hits the shelves. It’s the calm before the storm (hopeful thinking here). If I had to define slipperiness, these last weeks before the book launches would be slipperiness incarnate. I keep reminding myself to breath. The book has a destiny of its own. My job is to let it go. Easier said then done, of course!

I’ve become the queen of distracting myself. Reading as much as I can. Gone, Girl, by Gillian Flynn with whom I did a bookseller event with–you HAVE TO READ THIS BOOK! It’s brilliant and I couldn’t put it down. Carry the One, by Carol Anshaw. Breathtaking. Also just finished Joan Didion’s Blue Nights. I’m not sure how I feel about this one yet.

Since I last wrote, Wife 22 got another starred review from Publishers Weekly. And Harper Collins, my UK publisher, created a wonderful trailer which you’ll find in the video tab in the Wife 22 section.

It’s summer weather here in Northern California and tonight is the supermoon. I love that word–supermoon. My son is graduating from middle school. The jasmine is already blooming. Too soon, too early, all of it, but luscious and trying not to miss a second of it all.

Finland and my first star

melaniegideon — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 22:00:41 +0000

The covers for the foreign editions are starting to come in. Here’s Finland, one of my favorites. Also a bit of wonderful news . . . I got my first trade review from Library Journal and it’s a starred review. I’m so pleased!

The Way I Read Now

melaniegideon — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 20:04:05 +0000

I’ve been reading non-stop these days. Hungrily. Voraciously. Like when I was a kid and my mother took me to the library every week and I checked out five books, read them all, and went back to the library the following Monday after school and checked out some more. I have a special reading chair. A reading blanket. Reading lamp. And a reading brain. That now requires quiet. Absolute quiet. Otherwise I can’t concentrate at all. Otherwise I fall asleep. I read somewhere (don’t ask me where I can’t remember) that the middle-aged brain is less able to filter out distractions. I can’t, for instance, like my son, read upside down, in the dark, listening to my iPod.

Last two amazing books: Emily, Alone, by Stewart O’Nan and Pure, by Julianna Baggott. This photo was taken by my friend Kerri Arsenault. It seemed right for today. Maybe gazing out at the landscape is the way a dog reads.

Oh, Happy Day and Married Women Don’t Talk About Love.

melaniegideon — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:37:17 +0000

This just in! According to the New York Times “A federal appeals court panel ruled on Tuesday that a voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage in California violated the Constitution, all but ensuring that the case will proceed to the United States Supreme Court.”

I’m so very happy to hear this!

Also very happy to see the cover of the Spanish version of Wife 22. It’s so interesting to see how people interpret the book. They’ve changed the name to MARRIED WOMEN DON’T TALK ABOUT LOVE. They don’t? I certainly do. Wish I lived in one of these row houses.

Cover

melaniegideon — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:56:00 +0000

Well, here’s the cover for Wife 22. I love it. It’s so clean and bright and especially welcome on a gray day exactly like the one we’re having here in the Bay Area today. So speaking of winter. Here are some things that help me make it through the dark, cold days of January. Collard greens (done the Southern way with red onions, chicken broth, apple cider vinegar and brown sugar), Breaking Bad Seasons 1-3 (yes, I know I’m late to the table) Satsuma tangerines, dreaming what to do on summer vacation, down vests, wearing socks to bed, the smell of wet eucalyptus and beeswax candles.

News and the Mountain Room

melaniegideon — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 21:34:09 +0000

Well, Wife 22 is finally done. It’s a heavyweight, clocking in at 90,000+ words. It’s the most challenging book I’ve ever written—but, it’s finished! At least the heavy lifting (the writing and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting) is finished; still have lots to do on the marketing front. I went to New York a few weeks ago, and met the amazing team of women at Ballantine who will help me to get Wife 22 out into the world. I couldn’t be in better hands.

Speaking of being out in the world, Wife 22 has already sold in 25 other countries, beside the U.S. and the UK. And the film rights sold to Working Title Films which I’m absolutely thrilled about because they’ve made some of my favorite movies and TV shows: Elizabeth, Atonement, Billy Elliot, Four Weddings and a Funeral, The Tudors, Pride and Prejudice (the version with Keira Knightley) Bridget Jones’s Diary, My Beautiful Launderette and Fargo. Their latest, an adaptation of John Le Carre’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (starring Gary Oldman and Colin Firth) is getting rave reviews and I can’t wait to see it.

Other less exciting news: I’m working on my next novel in hopes it will keep me sane, i.e. distracted, for the next seven months before Wife 22 pubs. It feels so good to be focusing on something new. I won’t name names, but I have friends who easily move back and forth between short stories and novels, screenplays and non-fiction giving each their due simultaneously. I am not one of those people. I am stalwartly monogamous when it comes to writing. Working on more than one project at a time feels like cheating, and honestly, my brain and heart simply aren’t capable of splitting that way.

Meanwhile, here’s a hysterical, oh-so-true Shouts and Murmurs piece from the New Yorker that had me shaking my head in recognition. My son is in 8th grade now, but in some ways, not much has changed—he’s still in the mountain room!

It’s been a very long time . . .

melaniegideon — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 03:40:28 +0000

Since I last posted. No excuses except that I’m hip deep, okay, maybe neck deep in writing Wife 22. My life right now consists of sitting at my desk, taking the dog for a walk at lunch, returning to my desk and driving like a maniac so I don’t miss pickup at my son’s school. I hope to be done with Wife 22 by the end of summer at which time I’ll become Wife 1 again which I’m sure will make Husband 1 very happy.