Can’t wait until April 1 to read the book? Need something approximately one inch thick to prop up a wobbly table? Enter this giveaway!

All you have to do is one of the following:

• Retweet the link to this blog on Twitter (http://kellyoconnormcnees.com/blog) and include @komcnees in your tweet.
• Post the link to this blog on Facebook and comment on this post (so I have your name)
• If, understandably, you live in fear of social media, forward the link to this blog to some friends in an email and comment on this post.

One entry per person. Contest ends Saturday 3/13 at noon. I will throw all the names in a hat and choose one. Fortunately, Mister has a huge head and hence very big hats, so we are poised to handle lots and lots of entries. Winner will be announced Sunday 3/14. Good luck!

The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott is an Indie Next List Notable for April 2010!

(It’s not about Jem and the Holograms. I checked.)

Rob Hess, of The Triumvirate and Lara Zielin’s Husband fame, is the (evil?) genius behind the planning and execution of this project–a surprisingly large amount of work, I have come to understand now that most of the work is done. For the past couple weekends, Rob, Lara, Sean Craig, Steve Sholtes, and a host of talented and generous friends (including the delightful Gary Clark, Glen Sard, and Matthew Adams, with Caleb Adams assisting, as well as Natalie, Tevis, and others I didn’t have the chance to meet) have been filming various parts of what will end up being about a ninety-second promotional video.

My thought on book trailers is that most of them are lame. My novel is an earnest piece of historical fiction about a writer I deeply admire, but I knew the trailer had to offer something more than a slideshow of review quotes set to pretty music. I actually just fell asleep typing that sentence–that’s how much that sort of trailer bores me. I can’t promise everyone will like what we’ve done (we intentionally destroyed some property and plan to include some pretty terrible acting by yours truly) but there’s no doubt it will be memorable.

Saturday’s shoot took place at the wonderful Jefferson Market–Thanks for letting us crash your cafe and for giving us ginger scones and the best coffee in Ann Arbor, JM! (I know. I used to live around the corner from that place.)

The lovely Lara setting up the scene. She and Rob were such kind, calming influences and so attentive that I almost turned into a diva on the set. (I mean, it was kind of ridiculous that there was no sashimi in my trailer. Also, I could swear I was promised a foot rub by Justin Timberlake, but I concede that that conversation may not have taken place, you know, while I was awake. Either way, I played it cool.)

Rob and Sean setting up the equipment. We had something called a boom, something called a blimp, and a big white posterboard for bouncing light, which I totally did not even know you could do. According to Lara, Rob does it all the time. He’s really more Zeus than regular guy.

After the shoot, we headed back to Rob and Lara’s for pizza. Watching the footage was hilarious!

Amos seemed to like it too. Or maybe it was just all the pizza and peanut butter sandwiches he kept finding.

Can’t wait to post the final cut when it’s ready! Stay tuned.

In the delightful alternate universe that has somehow become my life, I am scheduled for readings at bookstores in Chicago, Boston, and Portsmouth, NH.

On the one hand, this is great news! It’s so much fun meeting other people who love to read as much as I do. Maybe they’ll even like Louisa May Alcott too and we can gab about her all evening — my idea of a splendid time.

On the other hand, have you ever been to an author reading? Yikes. Cornelius Elbowpatches drones about his writing process (which probably bears no resemblance to the way he actually works), then reads from a chapter in the middle of the book, for which no one in the audience has any context or hope of understanding. Then the Q&A begins. This could go on for hours. A woman in the front row, who is wearing a sweatshirt with a cat on it and carrying a surprising number of plastic bags, asks around eight hundred questions no one can hear about how she can get her own novel published.

(I do have fond memories of one event. Jonathan Safran Foer read at the Barnes and Noble on 82nd & Broadway when he was promoting the paperback for Everything Is Illuminated. I really liked the reading, but that was mainly because he is very cute. Short, but cute.)

I need your help, dear readers! Is there such a thing as an enjoyable, engaging author event, or am I doomed to bore as I have been bored? Tell me your stories of the best and the worst.

(And let’s play nice and leave names out of it.)

Chicago skyline in the distance, about six miles south

Walked out a little way but the wind was fierce and the walkway encased in ice

Lots of people out on cross-country skis or snowshoes, walking their dogs

Snow was past my knees when I walked out on the beach to take this one

The waves were crashing up against the snowdrifts on the beach

All of these photos were taken at Pratt Beach, 6800 North.

Early readers of The Lost Summer have posted some kind reviews on Goodreads.

Jackie, a bookseller at The Tattered Cover in Denver, Colorado, said:

I don’t think I can find the words for how very much I loved this book. McNees worked from several biographies and Alcott’s own journals to create this fictionalized account of a rumored love affair that the intensely private L.M.A. covered up. In these pages blooms the walking, talking inspirations for the characters in Little Women and some of Alcott’s other books. It is at once very familiar and very new, and every page was riveting for me–I lost a lot of sleep to this book. . . .

Erin of Marion, Iowa said

. . . Using thorough research plus thoughtful imagination Kelly paints a season of wanting, hurting, jealousy and repression with moments of tenderness and simple pleasures. Every person who reads Lost Summer will come away a little lighter in the tear ducts but richer in the heart . . .

To read the rest, check out the profile for the book on Goodreads!

I have the A.V. Club (via Gapers Block) to thank for providing an explanation: Bill Murray is a philosopher. You must read this article.

Can’t wait to watch all over again tonight!

I spent a bit of time over the last couple years thinking about Emerson because he was Bronson Alcott’s close friend and often paid the Alcott family’s bills during the long stretches when Bronson earned no income. Their relationship was interesting; Emerson–Waldo, as his friends called him–seems at times to admire Bronson, at times to pity him. He was certainly more shrewd than Bronson when it came to his career and finances. Although it helped that he married a very rich girl who was dying of tuberculosis. (Aside: He later remarried, and this relationship is the subject of the wonderful MR. EMERSON’S WIFE.)

Waldo also inspired and supported Louisa in her work. She talks in her journals of having a sort of intellectual crush on him when she was very young (he was about thirty years her senior) and leaving bouquets of flowers on his doorstep.

As much as I’ve tried to understand the profound effect Emerson has had on American literature, I have always shared many readers’ consternation with Emerson’s actual writing. And then last week my very thoughts found their way into an amusing and, if we can judge by the comments, divisive article on this very issue.

In short, the authors argue that Emerson’s prose contains “a set of contradictory, baffling, radical, reactionary ideas that offer no practical guidelines for actual human behavior.” Teaching Emerson, these English professors say, “leaves us frustrated, confounded, and sputtering before a class of students who want to know what they’ve just read and why they should care.”

But I also know plenty of people (most of whom were lucky enough to go to NELP–what was I thinking missing out on that?!) who would say that Emerson profoundly influenced their lives.

So, what do you think? Is Emerson worth grappling with, or is he mostly smoke and mirrors?

But let me back up. One night back in early December I was experiencing one of those Etsy-comas (I almost fell into another one merely clicking to the website to grab that link) characterized by acute wantyness and keyboard drooling. Somehow, I came across these beautiful note cards and bought them for my mom, who is a very creative soul.

The artist emailed me to confirm the order, and it turns out that she lives not only in Chicago, but in my neighborhood! What are the chances? We met today at Jarvis Square’s spooneristic Dagel and Beli. I drank a latte in the afternoon. (Can you tell?) It seems we have an awful lot in common, including love for Jane Eyre and the family who brought you Jane Eyre.

Nice to meet you, Sarah!