I often find January challenging, and this year is no exception! A close family member is facing a difficult medical situation and we are all, I think, bracing ourselves for what's to come. Taking things day to day and trying not to worry too much about the failure to accomplish pretty much any of the work I'd hoped for (there were more other bits and bobs of work than I had admitted to myself, including Skyping in for a day and a half of MLA interviews for our eighteenth-century search). School starts next week, and will be crazy from the get-go....
However there have been many good things this month too.
Two Days, One Night is utterly mesmerizing in a terribly depressive way (glimpse of hope at the end); also, who knows whether everyone in Belgium eats their ice-cream cones like that or whether it just happens that the two actors in that scene were asked to lick in distinctive and identical fashion?
My friend Tanya's show Sorry Robot is absolutely delightful: like Hedwig, only with robots, and the exact right balance of existential and hilarious! It is really about the human condition, and I am only sorry that the song "Tears on the Treadmill" is not yet available as a Youtube link.... (A nice review at the Times.)
This is the sporting activity I have just taken up. It is making me extremely happy.
Lots of tabs to close:
Peter Hirsch on how a trip to the spa could end your marriage.
Greene Street soundscape c. 1972!
Memorable reference questions at the NYPL.
Identifiable images of bystanders extracted from corneal reflections.
R. Crumb on the Charlie Hebdo deaths.
Checking in with Thomas Lauderdale at the Pink Martini world headquarters in Portland, OR.
And quite a bit of light reading, all things considered (very soon I'm going to have little time for it, between teaching Clarissa and the TRAC committee shifting into heavy mode, although really the quantity speaks to the fact that I've been slightly struggling to get from day to day!):
Two very enjoyable albeit largely fantastical crime novels (I can tolerate preposterousness in the grand scheme of things so long as the sentence-by-sentence and paragraph-by-paragraph developments are plausible, which is so in this case) by Pierre Lemaitre, Irene and Alex. Which I read the wrong way round: ignore Amazon's use of the term "prequel" to describe the first one I list, it was written and published first in France, takes place chronologically prior to the subsequent volume and only happens to have been published belatedly in the US! More on Lemaitre here.
Comfort reread that reminded me of my deep conviction that I should write a long essay or a short book about Diana Wynne Jones, The Islands of Chaldea, posthumously completed by her sister Ursula Jones.
The first three books of Adrian McKinty's excellent Sean Duffy series, set in Belfast during the Troubles: The Cold Cold Ground, I Hear the Sirens in the Street, In the Morning I'll Be Gone. Another installment coming soon, but I felt bereft when I'd finished these three: the comfort of finding a really transporting fictional world and knowing that there is more of it where that came from is inversely proportional to the pain of being cut off at the end. I am always convinced, when I finish a series of books I enjoy, that I am never going to find anything I like to read ever again....
Ben Aaronovitch's Foxglove Summer: these novels are pretty much perfect in my book, though it took me some chapters to become fully immersed in this one - that may have been circumstantial, though, as I have had a lot of minor subway travel and waiting around for things.
Meghan Daum's new essay collection, The Unspeakable, which I enjoyed very much. (Here's an interview with Daum in Bookforum.)
Finally, Ben Macintyre's A Spy Among Friends. Several friends have recommended Macintyre's books to me, and I certainly enjoyed this one (I wanted to follow up the factual story of Kim Philby, so far as it is known, after reading Tim Powers and other alternate-history versions).
I am really beginning to be grumpy about not having written anything recently. I need to think about this semester and whether I can build in a couple sessions a week of writing time. I think it is conceivable, but it will only happen if I make a concrete and realistic plan....
Showing posts with label Tanya Selvaratnam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tanya Selvaratnam. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Wednesday, January 08, 2014
Signal boost
Tanya Selvaratnam has been a dear friend of mine since our first year of college. We acted in a ton of plays together in those days; as well as being a talented and successful actor, she has been an immensely generous friend in intervening years (in particular I recall a wonderful party she hosted for me when my first book came out, not to mention countless delicious meals cooked for me and copious treats provided over several decades!).
Tanya's first book has just been published; it's called The Big Lie: Motherhood, Feminism, and the Reality of the Biological Clock, and she kindly agreed to answer a few questions for me here.
This is your first published book, but you have a rich background as a performer, producer and activist. What past experiences in any of those areas did you find most useful as you worked on the book and as you take it out into the world?
It was more the ways in which my past experiences were different that helped me write. As a performer, I have to be extroverted and relatively social, and also submissive to a director’s vision. As a producer, my head is full 24/7 of other people’s stuff. Writing was the opposite experience and hence thoroughly enjoyable for me. The activism was more useful: finding ways to turn adversity into positive action.
You and I have talked about the importance of hiring a publicist, especially if you are an author of nonfiction books. What are the pros and cons for an author to consider? How did you choose your publicist, and what kinds of thing have you been able to do as a result? Can you share some links to online pieces that have come about in part as a consequence of that relationship?
The support of my publicists, Wunderkind PR: Elena Stokes and Tanya Farrell, has been a necessity. Initially, I solicited publicist recommendations from my agent, publisher, and writer friends, but I ended up finding Wunderkind online while researching another publicist. I was impressed by the expertise and passion displayed on Wunderkind’s website as well as its roster of clients. Both Elena and Tanya had many years of experience at major houses before breaking out with their own shingle. Also, as women around my age and mothers themselves, they connected strongly with my subject matter. The expense is cumbersome, but it’s an investment worth making. I handle PR for many of my projects so I have a strong database of media contacts, and my list converged nicely with Wunderkind’s. There were many media gets that would not have happened without my publicist, such as an exclusive excerpt in Vogue, a guest blogger post on HuffPo Women, and an appearance on the Leonard Lopate Show. And there is much more press to come, which will hopefully translate not only into visibility but also into sales.
The New York Times Motherlode blog has been running a series of columns by a woman trying to become pregnant by IVF, and I have been absolutely horrified by the vitriol in some of the comments readers leave there for her. Why do you think feelings run so high around these questions?
One, we live in a judgmental culture and also a very sensitive one. There is a pervasive polarity of “I hate you. Please love me.” Two, people have loaded, subjective, emotional points of view around these questions. We’re talking about our bodies, sexualities, ambitions, futures, and what we leave behind in this world. That said, it’s important for those who have the mic, like the woman on the Motherlode blog, to understand that people will attack them for simply having the mic. Stay true to your voice and your experience, and be open to multiple perspectives. There is no one answer. I learn something even from those who oppose me.
With my book specifically, I hope to encourage people to embrace the multiplicity of ways in which people build families and also to embrace the different ways in which people live their lives, with kids or without. As Sheryl Sandberg wrote in Lean In, “When arguments turn into ‘she said/she said’ we all lose.”
Buy Tanya's book at Amazon, Powell's, Barnes and Noble, McNally Robinson.
Tanya's first book has just been published; it's called The Big Lie: Motherhood, Feminism, and the Reality of the Biological Clock, and she kindly agreed to answer a few questions for me here.
It was more the ways in which my past experiences were different that helped me write. As a performer, I have to be extroverted and relatively social, and also submissive to a director’s vision. As a producer, my head is full 24/7 of other people’s stuff. Writing was the opposite experience and hence thoroughly enjoyable for me. The activism was more useful: finding ways to turn adversity into positive action.
You and I have talked about the importance of hiring a publicist, especially if you are an author of nonfiction books. What are the pros and cons for an author to consider? How did you choose your publicist, and what kinds of thing have you been able to do as a result? Can you share some links to online pieces that have come about in part as a consequence of that relationship?
The support of my publicists, Wunderkind PR: Elena Stokes and Tanya Farrell, has been a necessity. Initially, I solicited publicist recommendations from my agent, publisher, and writer friends, but I ended up finding Wunderkind online while researching another publicist. I was impressed by the expertise and passion displayed on Wunderkind’s website as well as its roster of clients. Both Elena and Tanya had many years of experience at major houses before breaking out with their own shingle. Also, as women around my age and mothers themselves, they connected strongly with my subject matter. The expense is cumbersome, but it’s an investment worth making. I handle PR for many of my projects so I have a strong database of media contacts, and my list converged nicely with Wunderkind’s. There were many media gets that would not have happened without my publicist, such as an exclusive excerpt in Vogue, a guest blogger post on HuffPo Women, and an appearance on the Leonard Lopate Show. And there is much more press to come, which will hopefully translate not only into visibility but also into sales.
The New York Times Motherlode blog has been running a series of columns by a woman trying to become pregnant by IVF, and I have been absolutely horrified by the vitriol in some of the comments readers leave there for her. Why do you think feelings run so high around these questions?
One, we live in a judgmental culture and also a very sensitive one. There is a pervasive polarity of “I hate you. Please love me.” Two, people have loaded, subjective, emotional points of view around these questions. We’re talking about our bodies, sexualities, ambitions, futures, and what we leave behind in this world. That said, it’s important for those who have the mic, like the woman on the Motherlode blog, to understand that people will attack them for simply having the mic. Stay true to your voice and your experience, and be open to multiple perspectives. There is no one answer. I learn something even from those who oppose me.
With my book specifically, I hope to encourage people to embrace the multiplicity of ways in which people build families and also to embrace the different ways in which people live their lives, with kids or without. As Sheryl Sandberg wrote in Lean In, “When arguments turn into ‘she said/she said’ we all lose.”
Buy Tanya's book at Amazon, Powell's, Barnes and Noble, McNally Robinson.
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