Four Questions: Madame Chic

 

 

 

 

1. What inspired you to create a blog and how did it culminate in a book?

I started my blog, the Daily Connoisseur, in 2008 to write about things I'm passionate about: living well, beauty, fashion, etiquette, etc. I also loved to blog about France as I'm a big Francophile. I started a series called The Top 20 Things I Learned While Living in Paris that became very popular. I had so much more to say on the subject so I turned the series into my book, Lessons from Madame Chic.

 

2. What is it about the French that personifies the essence of being chic?

 

France is unlike any place I've ever traveled to. The French are so passionate about the simplest things: food, style, detail and order. Their 'chicness' comes from paying attention to detail but also infusing passion into everything they do. 

 

3. Why do you think Americans are fascinated by the French lifestyle and culture?

We are beguiled by how the French seem to live so well. Their style is effortless. Their pleasure, whether it is from art, food or wine, seems to run so deep. They are mysterious people too and Americans are fascinated by mystery.

 

4. As a Francophile, do you plan on returning to live in France one day?

It would be a dream of mine to have a vacation home in France one day, but I am very happy living in California. I love to travel and infuse the best elements of other cultures into my American lifestyle as I did with my time in Paris. The art of living well is something I'll never get tired of exploring. 

 Jennifer's blog:  http://www.dailyconnoisseur.blogspot.com

 

Q& A with author Pamela Druckerman

author of

Bébé Day by Day

100 Keys to French Parenting

 

You’ve written a new book. Why? What’s in it?

 

Bébé Day By Day is the offspring (the bébé, if you will) of my previous book, Bringing Up Bébé. The first was a journalistic memoir describing how I stumbled upon French parenting, then attempted to apply some of its ideas in my own family. In the new book, I’ve distilled what I hope are the 100 smartest and sanest principles and tips I’ve learned from the French. Alongside the 100 keys are drawings (by the fabulous French illustrator Margaux Motin) and delicious recipes from Parisian daycares.  Even I can make the from-scratch chocolate cake.

 

I decided to write the new book because, after Bringing Up Bébé was published, I received many letters from readers asking for more specifics, or for a kind of manual that they could give to spouses, grandparents and babysitters. Some told that me they’d dog-eared and highlighted BUB, and that they’d like to have all the main points in one place.  What they were very politely saying was: with all due respect to your personal journey, we’d like to know what to do!

 

 

What’s the best way to read the new book.

 

I hope that readers will have a look at the introduction (an author can dream). But really, Bébé Day By Day can be read in any order. It’s mean to be a book that readers will keep dipping back into. Certain keys might resonate more or less at different times, based on what’s happening in your life. Some are probably things that readers already do; they’re more like common-sense reminders. When it comes to raising kids, the French don’t always reinvent the wheel. They’re pragmatists. They tend to stick with what works.

 

 

What are the most important tips that parents should follow from French Parents?

 

I wouldn’t say that parents should follow any of them. They’re not rules. They’re more like a framework to put parents more in the “French” mindset, and arm them to make decisions for themselves.

 

One of the book’s overarching ideas is that a household centered entirely on a child is no fun for parents, but it’s probably not even good for the child. One of the keys is: Don’t let your child interrupt you. When this happens in France (and of course it does), parents try to politely say, “I’m in the middle of speaking to someone, I’ll be with you in a minute.”

 

Notably, this is followed by an equally important key: Don’t interrupt your child (for instance, when he’s happily playing). In other words, the respect should be mutual. French parents believe that being able to cope with boredom and be absorbed in an activity and play is a valuable life skill, which strengthens with practice.

 

 

Which key is the most difficult in the book for you?

 

One of the principles in the section on authority is: “Sometimes your child will hate you.” The French believe that it’s your job as a parent is to sometimes say “no” and really mean it.  When you do this, the child may get angry. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you should concede, or that you’re doing something wrong. French parents try to be sympathetic to the child’s anger, without giving in. They don’t want to fall into a cycle of perpetual negotiations with a five-year-old.

 

Of course, the French approach isn’t just about saying “no.” French experts say that kids need to learn to cope with frustration, but of course they also need lots of love and attention. And they need respect. Another equally important principle in the book is, “Say ‘yes’ as often as you can.”  (I sometimes have trouble with this one too, but everything tends to flow better when I apply it).

 

 

So French kids are perfect?

 

Of course not! And French parents themselves don’t follow all the principles in the book. But it’s what they aim for. The 100 keys do sum up the middle-class conventional wisdom in France. It’s what parents generally aim to do, and what parenting magazines, psychologists, day-care works and experts generally say they should do. There are households in France where kids really rule the roost, but the French consider this a big problem. They call these children “child kings.”

 

 

What about French mothers? Are they all impossibly chic? 

 

Well they do tend to be skinnier, especially in Paris. There’s a lot of social pressure to lose the baby weight by three months post-partum. But what impresses me about French moms is that they manage to reclaim their pre-baby identities. My French girlfriends think the expressions “Milf” and “yummy mummy” are hilarious. In France there’s no reason why a woman wouldn’t be sexy, just because she happens to have kids. And they believe that after the hectic first few months, the mother and father should “find their couple” again. Another of the keys in the new book is, “Your baby doesn’t replace your husband.” I quote a French psychologist who says, “The family is based on the couple. If it exists only through the children, it withers.”

 

 

Talk to us about cooking with your children. Do you create weekly menus?

 

Gosh no. I tend to improvise. I usually dash to the supermarket or a food shop at the end of the day, looking for inspiration. But my guiding principle is a French one: variety; i.e., not falling into a pasta-and-red-sauce rut. French parents believe that if a child is used to eating all kinds of foods, she’ll be more likely to eat a balanced diet. They also think it’s more social: you can take her anywhere, and she’ll find something she likes. Above all, they’re convinced that a child’s world expands as she discovers different tastes, and that it’s their role as parents to lead her on this journey.  You’ve got to admit it’s a nice idea.

 

 

The French way of parenting does seem to produce a calmer, higher quality of life for the parents. But what about the children?  Well behaved doesn’t necessarily mean well-adjusted and happy, right?

 

I would never have written either Bébé book if I thought the French way of parenting made children joyless and obedient. French kids are just as boisterous and playful as the Anglophone kids I know. But in my experience, they’re generally more even-keeled. They can hear “no” without collapsing. In the many dozens of hours I’ve clocked at French playgrounds, I’ve rarely seen a child except my own throw a temper tantrum.

 

 

What is the wisdom of French parenting?

 

The French believe that it’s important to be very strict about a few key things, but then to give kids as much freedom as possible about the rest. You can really see this at bedtime.  Many French parents tell me that at bedtime, their children must stay in their rooms. But within their rooms, they can do what they want.

 

I introduced this concept to my daughter, and she really liked it. She didn’t focus on the fact that she’s confined to her room. Instead she kept saying, proudly, “I can do whatever I want.” She usually plays or reads for a while, then puts herself to bed. The French don’t try to micromanage their children’s lives, and they aren’t scheming from the crib to get the baby into Harvard one day. They give children a lot of autonomy; but what rules there are, the child has to obey. In my own experience, this fosters self-reliance and mindful behavior that I might never have imagined in such young children.

 

The other big lesson that French parents have taught me is that, sometimes, there’s nothing you can do. The perfect mother doesn’t exist. And that’s okay.

 

 

 

About the author:  Pamela Druckerman is a former staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal, where she covered foreign affairs.  She has also written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Marie Claire, and appeared on the Today show and NPR’s Morning Edition.  Her previous book BRINGING UP BÉBÉ was an international bestseller.  Her book Lust in Translation, was translated into eight languages.  She has a master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia.  She lives in Paris with her husband and children.

 

 

BÉBÉ DAY BY DAY:  100 Keys to French Parenting

by Pamela Druckerman

Price: $19.95; Pages: 144

ISBN: 9781594205538; Hardcover

Publication Date: February 12, 2013

www.pameladruckerman.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PUBLICITY CONTACT:

LAURA ROSSI

Laura@laurarossipublicrelations.com

 

What Haunts You? Rochelle Jewel Shapiro

 

 

 

 

 

 

WHAT HAUNTS YOU

By Rochelle Jewel Shapiro

Maybe you’ve convinced yourself that the person-shaped shadow you glimpsed from the corner of your eye must be one of those floaters you heard people can develop and you will ask your ophthalmologist about. And surely that whispering you heard was the wind, no matter how breezeless the day. And that whiff of roses you smelled while walking mid-winter on a desolated stretch of boardwalk must be someone’s perfume. Still, you have to admit that something haunts you. And that’s what you need to write about! That’s what will be the most vivid, most compelling to your readers.

According to dictionary.com, one of the definitions of haunting is “to recur persistently to the consciousness.” Miriam Kaminsky, my heroine in both Miriam the Medium (Simon & Schuster) and my newest novel, Kaylee’s Ghost (CreateSpace) a phone psychic like myself, is such a big part of my consciousness that people call me Miriam and I answer to it. And her Russian grandmother from whom she inherited her psychic gift as I did mine is so much in my psyche that every morning I see her sitting at my dining room table, sipping a glass of tea, the steam fogging her small silver-rimmed eyeglasses. I can even smell the lavender talc that she powder-puffed onto her creased neck.

I’m haunted by the tragic plight of people who have had to flee from their homelands because of religious or political persecution as my paternal grandmother fled her Russian village with her five surviving children (five sons murdered in the pogrom) and my husband’s parents escaping Hitler’s Europe. The immigrant experience is always part of my consciousness, part of my writing. Whenever I see or read about people fleeing countries or huddled in refugee camps, it doesn’t matter how different their backgrounds, I feel that I know them intimately, that they are my people. And I know their generations, how they will carry the experience, be haunted by it.

Another thing that stays with me, that is part of my writing, my psyche, is those moments of giddiness that can happen even when things seem at their worst. For example, both in waking life and in dreams, I can see my maternal grandpa, Eli, pale and heavy, falling down our long flight of steps like a float in a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, then landing dead-still at the foot of the stairs. In my gut, I feel my childhood terror when my grandmother pulled up his eyelids and there were no pupils. I can see her pinching his nose to make him swallow the dose of strong laxative, her cure for everything. Then I hear his stomach growl to life, watch him hobble top-speed to the toilet.

Writing about what haunts you will help you stay the long course of a novel, from its inception to its final word. Watch and listen for the energies of your imagination—or is it the spirits?—who will guide you and not let go.

BIO:

Rochelle Jewel Shapiro is a phone psychic. Articles have been written about her psychic gift in Redbook, The Jerusalem Post, the Dutch Magazine, TV GID, and the Long Island section of the New York Times. She’s chronicled her own psychic experiences in Newsweek (My Turn), and The New York Times (Lives) which can be read on her website at http://rochellejewelshapiro.com.

twitter @rjshapiro

Rochelle Jewel Shapiro
http://rochellejewelshapiro.com

Winter Nigh

                                          The Granary: Andrew Wyeth

                                          

Good Hours

 Good Hours

Robert Frost

 

I had for my winter evening walk—

No one at all with whom to talk,

But I had the cottages in a row

Up to their shining eyes in snow.

 

And I thought I had the folk within:

I had the sound of a violin;

I had a glimpse through curtain laces

Of youthful forms and youthful faces.

 

I had such company outward bound.

I went till there were no cottages found.

I turned and repented, but coming back

I saw no window but that was black.

 

Over the snow my creaking feet

Disturbed the slumbering village street

Like profanation, by your leave,

At ten o'clock of a winter eve.

Robert Frost

 

                                            

 

Interview: Composer, George Higgs

 Interview with Dublin, Ireland based Composer:  George Higgs

Website: http://www.georgehiggs.com/

 

Composer in Latin means, “One who puts together.” What are your

methods as a composer?

Each time I create something I try to think of a distinct way to approach

an audience, and then to create a narrative using that approach. This is

generally my way of working. My most recent piece, DOOR, is a good

example of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hI3pOdzPqs

 

You have always had a unique perspective on life. How does that

influence your work?

I think I'm always barking up the wrong tree. It just so happens that I

never give up, no matter how misguided my approach might be.

 

As a child, what propelled your fascination with invented languages and

whimsy?

My feeling of intellectual alienation from my older brother and sister,

with whom I was always trying to catch up in terms of learning. I

figured the only way I could outdo them would be to create my own way

of communicating, and thereby alienate them!

 

What artists of any genre inspire you and influence your work?

At the moment, I am fascinated by an astronomical clock created about

a thousand years ago in China. The creator of this clock inspires me.

Actually, I like the Chinese poetry from that period as well, the Tang

dynasty. It's very much based on immediate experience. Poets like Su

Tung Po, and Tu Fu.

 

In Ireland, you have brought your art to working with the deaf. Can you

describe this work and your impressions on this endeavor?

The main thing I can say is that, just as with hearing people, deaf

individuals each have a distinct way of approaching music. There is no

pattern for their response based on a lack of hearing.

 

What are some of your most successful and favorite pieces of your own art?

 I like all of it for different reasons. I also feel

disappointed by all of it for equally different reasons.

 

How do you balance your work with parenthood and what do you hope

to give to your children as an artistic legacy?

There is no balance. It's generally a mess. I try to keep aware of what

interests my children. I try to have fun with them and teach them what

I can. I do my utmost to mix my work with my life, but it's not always

possible.

 

You were born in Pennsylvania to British parents. What made you

move to Ireland as a young adult and what do you miss about the United

States?

I went as a student, and became romantically entangled. Three children

later, I am still here and will probably never leave. I don't miss the US,

except for my family. It's not that I don't like it, but I think that any place

is simply what you make of it.

 

As an accomplished artist, what can you share with everyday people?

about using their short lives to become more creative?

I like to think of myself as an everyday person, so I would feel out of

line to patronize anyone else. We're all creative in our own way. Some

people, like me, simply go out of their way to prove it.

 

What is currently exciting you and driving your artistic passions?

That Chinese clock.  I love that clock.

Caroline Leavitt Interview: Jennifer Gooch Hummer

 

Caroline Leavitt is the New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You. Her new novel IS THIS TOMORROW will be published in May by Algonquin Books. She can be reached at www.carolineleavitt.com

 

 

 

 

It's very strange that you started out as my student, writing about Apron, and

from the first line, I knew the novel had something special. When did you know?

First of all, thank you for saying that. And second of all, when you told me it did!

In the middle of that first novel class with you, you sent me a note that said, “Your

characters are breathing off the page.” I jumped up and down and cried a little.

And then I did something really smart; I asked if I could work privately with you.

As my mentor, you were my traffic cop. This subplot? Too long. That scene? Not

enough conflict. You treated me like a “real” writer way before I did.

 

When did you first become a writer, and when did you first feel as if you could

call yourself a writer, and why?

When I was seven years old I was brushing my teeth one day, minding my

own business, when this girl in the mirror pointed at me and said, You’re going

to be a writer. Nope, I said. Writers wore huge glasses, had really frizzy hair and

weren’t famous (it was the 70’s). Plus, I already had big plans to be a singer. But

then in Fourth grade the headmaster of my school read a poem I had written to

the entire student body. That was when I realized it was true; I was doomed to be

a writer. Now I prefer to call it “destined” but back then it was definitely “doomed.”

It took me two years to write Girl Unmoored and eight more to get it

published. I didn’t tell anyone but my family and a few close friends that I was

writing, so when the book came out I had some explaining to do. And that was

when I first allowed myself to be called a writer.

 

What's your working life as a writer like? Do you plan things out or just follow

your pen?

The blank page is my mortal enemy. We can’t even be in the same

room together. So we’ve worked out a deal: Four pages and I’m out. I’m really

competitive so there’s no way I’m going to let that blank page win. I write when

my kids are in school, which isn’t as many hours as I wish it was. Some days

our oldest one goes to school at 10:00 am and the youngest gets out at 1:30.

On those days it means keeping my laptop close and sneaking in more work at

a daughter’s dance practice or while dinner is cooking. It makes me a little crazy

truthfully but I don’t know how else to do it.

As for the way I write, that makes me crazy too. After I get the blank pages

out of the way, I rewrite and cut, rewrite and cut, rewrite and cut until it’s worthy

of being read by outside eyes. And then I do it all over again for the second draft!
 

Your road to publishing with Fiction Studio Books is really fascinating. Can you

talk about that process? And what has it been like working with the Fiction Studio

Books?

For eight years my book was rejected by just about every credible editor

in New York. A few times it got so close that my husband sent me congratulatory

flowers… but then in the last second for one reason or another it didn’t happen.

So when I sent my book to FSB and a week later the publisher contacted me

with a contract, it was a whole lot of awesomeness all at once. Fiction Studio

Books is a small press so there are unique gifts and challenges that come with it.

I had a big say in my cover art, for instance, but marketing was virtually all up to

me. So I did two things: I hired BooksparksPR and entered my book into every

awards contest I could find. Crystal and Kim at BooksparksPR have done

magical things for me (Entertainment Weekly to name but one) and I have been

floored and so honored by the successes I’ve had with the book awards.

I have also been utterly amazed by the dedicated and insightful book

bloggers out there. For authors who publish with small presses, these bloggers

give us the review opportunities that traditional magazines usually don’t. Megan

at http://writemeg.com, Mandy at http://www.wellreadwife.com and of course

Jenny (to name but a few) have been so incredibly supportive of me. They tweet,

they review and they give me opportunities like this to be interviewed by you, all

for nothing in return but an advanced copy. Book bloggers are doing God’s work

as Grandma Bramhall would say, and an author like me owes them a debt of

gratitude.

 

If you had three pieces of advice to give to writers, what would you tell them?

1. Promise your characters you will tell their story. The truth is that not too

many people really care if you ever finish that novel (unless you’re paying

their salaries/mortgage with it.) And it’s bending-a-spoon-with-your-mind

hard to write a book, so there are a bazillion reasons never to do it. But

by promising your character(s) that you will tell their story you have no

excuse not to. You promised.

2. Give yourself permission to write the worst first draft in the history of the

world. Because even if it is so horrible that you wouldn’t read it to a deaf

dust mite, there is still a tiny fragment of a good idea in there somewhere

and you’ll find it in the second draft.

3. Show up at the page. If you don’t show up how do you expect your

characters to?

 

What's obsessing you now and why?

Right now I’m writing the worst first draft in the history of the world (see above)

and it’s so hard not to hurl my computer through the window. But I made that

dang promise (see above) so I have to. Arrgh.

 

What are you working on now?

A fairy(ish) tale. Which means that while I’m writing it I’m in a place far, far away

and snapping myself back into reality tends to make my head explode. Dinner?

carpools? bills? None of these exist in my land far away.

 

What question didn't I ask that I should have?

What does Caroline Leavitt want for Christmas?

 

Love Anthony: Lisa Genova

 

 

Love Anthony: Lisa Genova

In her third fictional novel, Love Anthony, author Lisa Genova examines the themes of autism, marital infidelity, motherhood, and female introspection against the beautiful backdrop of Nantucket, Massachusetts. The novel deviates between the female voices of Olivia, a recently separated mother of an autistic child named Anthony and Beth, a local Nantucket mother of three daughters who has found out that her husband, Jimmy has been unfaithful to her. The novel digresses between the two voices of Beth and Olivia.  Olivia struggles to find meaning in life after losing her beloved son, Anthony, as Beth tries to find a new normal without Jimmy. Beth is drawn finding her former writing voice about a young boy she saw one day on Dead Man’s Beach, a place Olivia has frequented before with Anthony.  Similarly, Olivia begins photographing families on the Nantucket beaches to support her income as a single mother. As the novel progresses, their lives intertwine and the women become immersed in each other’s stories. The novel examines themes of motherhood and maintaining the creative voice that drives our artistic passions.

Lisa Genova has built a following with her fantastic gift of portraying authentic female protagonists in her novels. The voices of these women seem real and readers become quietly immersed in her plot lines. In Love Anthony, Genova has also again brought her expertise as a Harvard trained scholar of neurology to discuss the field of autism. I was thrilled to receive an advance copy of Love Anthony and am happy to report that Ms. Genova’s third book is currently receiving rave reviews.  If you are looking for a wonderful novel to dive into in the cold months, this one will not disappoint. I am waiting with excitement for her fourth book to arrive!