by Patricia V. Davis

 

Thanks to my friend and fellow author Patricia Morin for giving me an opportunity to join a long line of writers talking about their newest project. Pat is the author of Mystery Montage and Crime Montage, both short story collections in which the complexities of the human mind play a large part. But this shouldn’t really be a surprise, as Pat holds a Masters in Counseling Psychology and in Social Work. You really should visit her website to learn more about her, because she’s one of those multi-talented women we all admire who has a loving and generous nature to boot.

As for me, this blog chain is a chance to talk about a number of things I’m working on in the hopes that by talking about them publicly, I will be motivated to get them all accomplished! So without further preamble, fuss or fidgeting, here are my answers to the the questions in the author survey, “My Next Big Thing.”

What is the working title of your book(s)?

Well, there are actually two for which contracts are in the works: a cookbook based on my first published title, Harlot’s Sauce: A Memoir of Food, Family, Love, Loss and Greece, and a book about the changes taking place in the publishing industry and how authors can utilize those changes to their benefit.  Both new books are being co-written with other authors, and I’m excited about that and I have never co-authored anything before. I like both of the writers with whom I will be working and I think these two new projects should be great fun.  We’re still mulling  over working titles. The woman with whom I will be working on this project is a fabulous cook and a charming human being who I met when she posted a recipe inspired by Harlot’s Sauce, in an edition of “Cook the Books Club”. Her name is Simona Carini and she has a wonderful food blog called “Briciole.”  As those of you who read my memoir know, there was a entire chapter devoted to my hatred of beans, but Simona disabused me of that notion when in response to that chapter she posted as her entry in “Cook the Books” a delicious recipe for beans. (I won’t tell you what it is. You will have to go to her blog post at Cook the Books and read it. )  It turned out she lives close by my main home in Marin County, California (when she’s not in Italy that is, the lucky thing). We arranged to meet up, we bonded, she attended the 2012 Women’s PowerStrategy™ Conference and then we came up with an idea for a cookbook based on Harlot’s Sauce that is as quirky as the book itself.It’s a project that has been at the back of my mind for some time I’m excited to be getting started on it.

Where did the idea come from for the book(s)?

The idea for a cookbook has long been in my mind, especially when readers began writing to me to ask for recipes based on things they read in the memoir. Also the word” food” in the title got a bit shortchanged in the editing process. There was originally lots more about food and its preparation and importance in the Greek and Italian families featured in the story and some of it was very funny and very poignant. Food is a lot more than just, well, food, and what we plan to do is have some of the anecdotes about food which were in the original manuscript of Harlot’s Sauce in chapters in this cookbook with a recipe based on that to follow.I am excited to be working on this project with one of the best and most creative Italian chefs around, Simona Carini.

As for the book on publishing, there are just too many authors who are floundering these days what with everything in the industry being turned upside down. I’ve been fortunate that I’ve been able to work my way through those changes and with the co-authoring help of two other writers (one very famous, but you’ll never in a million years guess who) I’m hoping to pass on what I know to others. I will say less about that project for now until more of the details are ironed out.

Will your book(s) be self-published or represented by an agency?

Both books will be represented by an agency.

My two other writing projects are still on the back burner, but they include a mystery and an anthology of women’s short memoirs on survival which we hope will be released in time for the second annual Women’s PowerStrategy^TM Conference in 2013. (And I do hope to get my colleague Pat involved in that last one with me, too! Shhh.)

But before I do anymore work on any of these books, my most immediate projects are to decide on a venue and speakers for the Women’s PowerStrategy^TM Conference 2013, as well as preparing for our exciting Harper Davis Publishers “Travel Through Literature” event which is being hosted on November 10, 2012 by the ever-fabulous Book Passage in Corte Madera, CA.

Here’s the great page Book Passage posted about the event on their online site:

 

Sojourns and Compendiums – A Mini-Literary Festival

If you’re an armchair traveler, you’ll certainly want to be there as six authors read from their works and we celebrate the literature, food and music from the locales featured in the books. You’ll also want to be there if you’re a writer — lots of information about the latest in publishing!

Now then, below are some other fab authors continuing “The Next Big Thing” thread. They’ll be posting enticing info on their projects next week, November 1-7, so be sure to drop in on them!

1. Patricia Morin, author of Mystery Montage and Crime Montage, and the very colleague who invited me on this thread. (Thanks, Pat!)

2. Deborah Grabien, the fun, feisty and prolific author of The JP Kinkaid Chronicles, The Haunted Ballad Series and much more.

3. Lee Goff, a new friend and an author of some very uplifting and inspiring Christian literature, The Thunder Trilogy which he has self-published. Lee has a thought-provoking Facebook page which he’s recently updated to a blog on his thoughts about life and spirituality.

4. Eliza Fayle at Silver and Grace, an inspiring site for women who dare to be themselves. For your daily dose of feel-great, also go to Eliza’s Facebook page

Every once in a while, we authors like to give a shout out on each other’s behalf and let our readers know about the fine books they might discover by connecting with the works of our friends and colleagues. That’s what I’ve done today and if you decide to take a look at the works of these writers I hope you find that I haven’t steered you wrong. I would love to hear your thoughts on anything you might read.

Oh, and by the way, a few readers of this post asked me why I chose the poster from the 1993 remake of The Attack of the 50-foot Woman rather than the original 1958 version. The answer lies in the change of ending in the newer version (which you can look up in Wikipedia) This is a women’s empowerment blog, after all!