Last weekend was the Left Coast Crime mystery conference, held in San Francisco, a city I haven't visited in nearly 21 years--and I know this because last time I was there, I was pregnant with my son who is now 21. Here I am at a San Francisco antique shop with my sisters Kristin, who was living there at the time (left), and Jen (center), and my daughter Julia. When it came to the steep hills, Jen carried Julia piggyback when my three-year-old got tired.
San Francisco is such a striking, beautiful city. Here is the mermaid sculpture near the Ferry building. Isn't she gorgeous?
LCC is probably my favorite of the mystery conferences. It's medium-sized ... not so ginormous that my inner introvert feels overwhelmed but large enough that I feel heart-full by the end of it, seeing all my friends.
Events began with a pre-LCC night at the Best Bookstore in Union Square.
My friend Rob Osler had organized a night of flash fiction; 10 writers would read short pieces -- no more than 1,000 words -- with Fog as a character. Most people wrote about fog in San Francisco, or somewhere in the US. I wrote about fog in London. (Big surprise there, I know.) One of the readers was Sara Paretsky(!). Another was Gary Phillips(!). Others were Rob Osler, Gigi Pandian, Audrey Lee, John Copenhaver, Faye Snowden, James D.F. Hannah ... these are legends of the mystery world, people who have received Edgar nominations and NYT "best books" labels, and so on. I was the least famous person there.
Six of us had gathered beforehand to have dinner at Johnny Foley's Irish House, and I pinched myself a bit. "You're sitting across from Sara Paretsky. Don't stare," I thought to myself. But she was so down-to-earth and genuinely warm and interested in all of us that within minutes she made it easy to just relax and enjoy her company.
For those who don't know (I'm not sure who those people are, likely they are much younger than I), Sara wrote the V.I. Warshawski mysteries set in Chicago. With these, Sara revolutionized the mystery novel genre, moving women out of the supporting roles of side-kick or victim (or femme fatale, once in a great while) and casting her heroine as a kick-ass woman detective solving crimes. The first novel was Indemnity Only, and she followed it with nearly two dozen more. They're international bestsellers and have been translated into 30 languages. In 1991, there was a film made starring Kathleen Turner.
Perhaps not surprisingly, given her wonderful feminist bent, Sara Paretsky is also the first president of Sisters in Crime, the international group, established in 1987, as an advocacy group for women mystery writers. (This earned her the Woman of the Year award from Ms magazine.) Back in the 1980s, women writers in the mystery genre were not getting reviewed with the same frequency that the men were (they had numbers to back this up); and they weren't getting into bookstores the way men were. So a group of women who had gathered at the 1986 Bouchercon (good things happen at conferences!) decided they would advocate for themselves and each other. Sisters in Crime now has around 5,000 members worldwide and advocates on behalf of all writers (sisters and misters, all siblings). I've belonged to the group for years and have the honor of serving on their board.
For the Wednesday evening FOG event, we had a fabulous MC -- Elsa Touche -- and the event space at the store was PACKED, as you can see here.
We all took turns reading our pieces. (Below: Rob, Faye, Gary.)
A few days later, Sara attended the panel where I was presenting at LCC, and then she came to the book sales room to buy a book. From me. Okay, so I gave her one -- I refused to let her buy it -- and the gift came from a grateful heart. I had a difficult time in high school. I was the kid who spent my lunches in the library, so I wouldn't have to sit by myself at a table. Sometimes I'd read those V.I. Warshawski books, to feel vicariously kick-ass instead of kicked out.
And here I am, forty-five years later, with Sara herself.
Have you ever met one of your literary heroes ... perhaps one from childhood?
Blazing Altocumulus: A Fiery Sky, A Soothing Evening in Oviedo*
I moved to Spain for my mental health. Associated changes began to appear later, noticed only after familiar numbers began behaving differently.
Over time, it became difficult to ignore how living in Spain affected my health in measurable ways. Not dramatically. Not magically. But consistently.
This is not a story about a cure. It’s about what happens when the body no longer has to brace itself as often.
How Living in Spain Affected My Blood Pressure
Full disclosure: I have longstanding hypertension. My father's side has all the cardiovascular disease. It became prominent in medical school and residency training when I began my low-sodium diet. Hypertension did not disappear when I changed countries from the US to Spain. What shifted was stability.
After settling into daily life here, my readings began trending lower until I was able to drop one of my two medications and became more consistent without major medication changes or dramatic lifestyle overhauls.
Blood pressure is tightly linked to sympathetic tone. When vigilance decreases, vascular resistance often follows. Living in Spain affected my health not by curing hypertension, but by reducing the subtle daily stress responses that sustain it.
Vigilance: Living in Spain and the Reduction of Ambient Threat
Spain is not perfect. But the default posture feels less suspicious.
One moment stands out clearly a few nights after I arrived in Oviedo: a young white woman was approaching me on the sidewalk. My mind switched to Black American mode. Oh, no. I know she's going to cross the street. I was in for a surprise. Not only did she not cross the street, she passed so close that she practically brushed against me as if she hadn't even noticed me.
That reaction revealed how deeply American racial conditioning had embedded itself in my nervous system. Chronic vigilance reshapes cortisol rhythms. Cortisol reshapes blood pressure, glucose, sleep, and mood.
When vigilance drops, physiology follows.
Twice, in the early days, when I entered one of Oviedo's flagship department store, El Corte Inglés, I warily glanced back at the security guard at the door to see if he was following me with his eyes. He was not. In fact, he had shown little to no interest as I had entered the store.
Security guard at El Corte Inglés
Cortisol, Diurnal Rhythms, and Chronic Vigilance
Cortisol normally peaks in the morning, declines through the day, and drops at night to allow repair. Chronic stress disrupts this rhythm.
Among many Black Americans, studies show altered diurnal patterns—blunted morning rise, elevated daytime baseline, and insufficient nocturnal decline. This pattern correlates with hypertension, insulin resistance, and mood instability.
This isn’t about dramatic trauma. It’s about chronic vigilance.
Early in Spain, I noticed the absence of something. Walking at night, I wasn’t mentally rehearsing explanations for my presence to a citizen or police officer. Entering a department store, I expected scrutiny from security and received none.
These moments might seem minor, but physiologically, they are not. The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis responds to anticipation as readily as to threat. When vigilance becomes unnecessary, endocrine tone likely shifts.
Living in Spain plausibly affected my health, particularly in cortisol regulation—before I consciously named it.
How Living in Spain Affected My Depression
I have lived with long-term depression for decades. Spain did not erase that.
What has changed, preliminarily, is stability. My mood feels less reactive, and more stable. Under supervision, I am cautiously evaluating whether one antidepressant can be tapered--so far, so good! This is an ongoing assessment, not a conclusion.
Depression is neurochemical, but it is also contextual. Fewer aggravating inputs make regulation less effortful.
Olive Oil and the Siesta
When I first arrived, I found it irritating that shops closed for siesta (mostly 2-4:30 PM) and that Sundays were largely shut down. My reflex was impatience.
What! The Apple Store closed at
3:00 PM? Why?
Over time, that shifted. If everything is closed, there is nowhere to go. If there is nowhere to go, there is nothing to chase. So Sundays, when so many places are shut, it's a permission slip to sleep in, have a leisurely breakfast at a café (those don't close!), or Netflix and chill.
The culture imposed a pause and I learned to embrace it as a way to slow down..
That matters. Structural limits on productivity reduce structural arousal. Taken together, the cumulative effect is not trivial.
How Living in Spain Affected My Blood Sugar
My fasting glucose has hovered near the borderline range for years. Recently, those numbers have begun to resemble values I last saw two decades ago. The trend is encouraging, although the verdict is still out, and long-term monitoring will tell the real story.
One change has been the quality of dietary fat. In Spain, fresh, high-polyphenol extra-virgin olive oil is standard. The bitterness and peppery finish signal the presence of antioxidant content rarely encountered in typical American supermarket oils.
Olive oil alone does not explain improved glucose trends. Stress hormones likely play an even larger role.
Olive Oil in Spain vs. Olive Oil in the United States
One dietary difference deserves more precision.
In Spain, especially in producing regions, fresh extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO) is widely available and often locally sourced. Varieties like Picual are unapologetically robust—green, bitter, peppery, sometimes almost aggressive to an unaccustomed palate. That peppery sensation in the throat is not a flaw; it reflects high polyphenol content, particularly oleocanthal compounds associated with anti-inflammatory effects.
For many Americans, the first taste of fresh Picual EVOO can be startling. It does not resemble the neutral, soft, sometimes flat oils commonly sold in U.S. supermarkets. It can feel sharp. Almost too sharp. That reaction itself says something.
A bottle of early-harvest Spanish extra-virgin olive oil
“Primer Día de Cosecha 2025” indicates oil pressed from olives harvested on the very first day of the season. It is extra-virgin olive oil made from the Picual olive variety, produced by the renowned Castillo de Canena estate in Andalusia. As in this case, EVOO should be in a glass bottle (never plastic) or a metal can.
In the United States, olive oil quality is highly variable. While excellent oils certainly exist, much of what is sold in large supermarkets:
Is blended from multiple countries
Has been stored for long periods before purchase
May be past peak freshness by the time it reaches consumers
Often lacks harvest date transparency
Several industry investigations over the past two decades have shown that some imported oils labeled “extra virgin” fail to meet strict chemical and sensory standards. Oxidation during transport and storage is also common, reducing polyphenol levels and altering flavor. The result is that many Americans have never actually tasted high-polyphenol, freshly pressed extra-virgin olive oil. When they do, the bitterness and throat sting can come as a shock.
Why does this matter clinically?
Polyphenols in high-quality EVOO are associated with:
Improved endothelial function
Reduced oxidative stress
Better insulin sensitivity
Anti-inflammatory activity
How Living in Spain Affected My Migraines
Finally, migraines have been another long-standing health challenge. For years, nocturnal headaches were a regular feature of my nights, often followed by daytime episodes severe enough to interrupt normal activity, including, significantly, my writing: hours looking at a laptop screen is a strong migraine trigger. This wrecked my novel-writing throughout 2025.
Under the skilled guidance of a highly regarded Spanish neurologist, that pattern has changed markedly. My nighttime headaches have fallen by roughly 75 percent, and daytime events are now far more manageable. Occasionally, a severe episode still forces me to lie down for an hour or two, but those disruptions have become uncommon.
The story is still unfolding, but the direction is encouraging. Better medical management—including thoughtful medication adjustments—may be contributing to the improvement, as may reduced stress signaling.
Migraines and depression are also closely linked. Migraines can trigger depressive episodes, and depression can lower the threshold for migraines. Stabilizing one often helps stabilize the other.
Final Thoughts
Spain did not cure my hypertension. It did not eliminate borderline glucose levels. It did not erase depression. However, all of these are trending in the desired direction. What it appears to have done is remove a layer of chronic strain.
Health is not only what we ingest or prescribe. It is also what the body prepares for. Living in Spain affected my health not through intervention, but through subtraction. And sometimes subtraction changes the numbers.
*All images by the author unless otherwise stated.
★ Don't forget to follow me on Instagram for more content @kweiquarteyauthor★
In the interests of sanity in the age of AI, I am keeping it simple today (Sunday March 1). Having been delightfully ensconced here in Florence for the past 2 1/2 months, in a couple of days I will be heading back to NYC. Getting organized to do so is a complicated process.
Keeping up with blogs has been a major challenge while here. Today, I worked out a process to get photos from my phone to my laptop. There may be an easy way to do this, but I have not hit upon it. For me today it has involved four steps worked on the phone and an iPad to the laptop, one photo at a time.
I hope you will enjoy them.
I've spent five days this past week happily hosting dear friends, one of whom hasn't been to Florence in 30 years and another who had never been here. I had the great pleasure of showing them around. One of our stops was a visit to the de rigeur Uffizi Gallery.
When visiting major museums I never try to see everything. If I do, my eyes and my brain blur over and nothing sticks. For the past several years, when visiting a museum with a large collection that I know pretty well, I decide on the theme. Earlier in this stay in Florence, I posted pictures of angels from a massive exposition. This time in the Uffizi, I decided to take pictures of books, hoping the book lovers of Murder is Everywhere would be amused.
Here they are: a smattering of the many glorious works of art in one of the most revered art collections in the world.
The gorgeous image that suggested books as the target that day.
No book here, but I could not resist putting in
Caravaggio's Medusa, since it portrays exactly
how I feel when dealing with the Blogger software.
The real estate mantra – location, location, location – applies to mystery fiction, too. Readers often choose a book because its setting sparks their curiosity and reading or listening to it transports them to a world of distinct flora and fauna, voices and cultures, moods and – I am discussing mysteries – shattered peace.
I gabbed with Malcolm Kempt at CrimeScene Bookfest in Pittsboro, NC. Michael’s debut book, A Gift Before Dying, is set in Nunavut, which forms most of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The only way to get around is by boat or plane. “The territory has the highest murder rate of anywhere in Canada,” Michael told me. He spent 17 years a criminal lawyer in the region, flying to tiny villages to represent clients, so he knows what he is talking about. Of course I bought the book!
The Canadian Arctic is foreign to me, but I know another rugged landscape: Stewart Island, New Zealand, separated from the tip of the South Island by the often treacherous Foveaux Strait. Like Michael's Nunavut, you must arrive by plane or boat. It is the setting of my second Alexa Glock Forensic Mystery, The Bones Remember.
Stewart Island is roughly 45 by 25 miles, yet there are only 14 miles of paved road. (Sometimes the road is blocked by sea lions.) There is one fishing village, one pub, one six-hole golf course, and one police officer for the 400 locals who call it home. The rest of the island is Rakiura National Park, a dense primeval thicket that attracts hunters (for white-tailed deer, imported from the U.S. in 1905) and hikers. It is a landscape that can disorient and kill.
When we lived in Christchurch, we planned a trip to Stewart Island. My husband asked if I’d like to go shark cage diving during our visit.
I did not know the waters around Stewart Island are a great white shark hot spot. Many Stewart Islanders make their living in or on the sea and have coexisted peacefully with the sharks. Two shark cage operations opened up in 2007-2008 and in the years that followed, that peace was threatened. The locals believed luring the sharks with fish parts and blood was changing their behavior, making the whites a threat to their lives and livelihood. The sharks were coming close to shore and following boats. Residents wanted to ban the cages. This inherent tension between ‘local and other’ is the spine of The Bones Remember.
I found a reason to send Alexa there from the following 2016 newspaper article:
Otago Daily Times: Joe Freiman, a 64-year-old farmer, went missing during a hunting trip on Stewart Island in 1991 and was never found. Search and Rescue will today return to the area to resume the hunt. About 70 police and volunteers from the Southern District will make use of the new SARTrack system as they search the area on foot. "The search area is probably one of the most remote parts of New Zealand so it will be difficult for police to provide good communications," Community Constable Dale Jenkins said.
The search was unsuccessful.
Alexa enters those woods when the skeletal remains of a fictional hunter is discovered. After being charged by a sea lion on the beach – she thought she would be steamrolled – Alexa wedges between clawing branches and enters the forest primeval. She is instantly attacked by another enemy: sandflies. (I was rough on her.)
When a shark-ravaged body washes ashore elsewhere on the island, Alexa is whisked out of the woods to examine the remains and use teeth marks – Alexa’s specialty is teeth – to identify the culprit so the shark can be hunted down like in Jaws. Surprise: it wasn’t a shark that killed the victim.
In its recorded history, there has only been one murder on Stewart Island. Eighty-two year old André Jose was bludgeoned to death with a manuka branch in 1927. I felt like it was time for another.
One scene in The Bones Remember still gives me nightmares. Alexa, snooping aboard a moored shark-cage diving boat, is attacked by a gaff-wielding assailant. To save herself she jumps overboard. It is night. The cold waters of Horseshoe Bay are inky black. Suddenly a whoosh of warmth, of slick oil, of putrid rot, coats her head, blinding her. Alexa was chummed. I get shivers rereading the passage.
When Alexa dog paddles into a bed of thick rubbery kelp, she thinks she’s safe from the sharks. Later she finds out from a budding scientist studying kelp that researchers in South Africa attached cameras to the dorsal fins of eight Carcharodon carcharias. Seven swam into the kelp forests.
Gulp.
I like a smidgen of romance in my series. What better place for Alexa and Detective Inspector Bruce Horne – a continuing character in the series – to have their first kiss than under a starry sky? “I’ve never seen so many stars,” Alexa says in the book. “It’s like a glowworm cave.” Due to its remote location and sparse population, Stewart Island is virtually free of light pollution and is designated a Dark Sky Sanctuary. That darkness also ramps up tension.
William Kent Krueger – whose Cork O’Connor mysteries are set in the great Northwoods of Minnesota, said, “Stories rise out of and are inexorably shaped by the unique elements of the place in which they occur.” Stewart Island teems with sharks – yes – but also teems with those unique elements which make for a great read: geographic isolation, darkness, dorsal fins, and treachery.
Where have you traveled in recent books? By the way, when my husband found out how much it cost to go shark cage diving, we went birding instead.
This past week marked the beginning of Lent for the Eastern Orthodox faithful. It runs for forty days and ends on the Friday before Palm Sunday. This year Greek Easter is April 12th, one week later than Easter will be celebrated by Protestants and Catholics in 2026. As I explained in other articles around this time, Eastern Orthodox calculations of the events surrounding Easter are based on the Gregorian rather than Julian calendar.
So what does the beginning of Lent mean? For those of you looking for a liturgical or religious answer to that question, I can assure you this is not the place to find one. Yes, I know that for the Orthodox Lent begins not on an Ash Wednesday (as it does for others) but on “Clean Monday” (which actually begins the night before), that the reference to “clean” refers to leaving behind sinful attitudes and forbidden foods during Lent, and that the theme for Clean Monday is set out in an Old Testament reading from Isaiah 1:1-20, stating in part, “Wash yourselves and ye shall be clean.”
But that’s not what this piece is about. What the beginning of Lent means as far at this piece is concerned is one thing: FOOD.
In Greek the name is Katharι (clean) Deftera (Monday) and is a public holiday. It probably also is, or at least should be, a holiday for vegetarians around the world. That’s because Clean Monday generally does not permit the consumption of any animal with red blood or of anything derived from those animals. In other words, no meat, fish, milk, cheese, yogurt, eggs, etcetera. Many also exclude olive oil. You see, Lent is about fasting. If it’s starting to sound like a pretty boring feast day, trust me, you’re wrong.
But just to keep the interest of those unrepentant red meat lovers out there, the Greeks also have a day for you to circle on your calendars. It’s two Thursdays before Clean Monday. In Greek that day is called, Tsiknopempti, “pempti” meaning Thursday. Tsikno is hard to translate, though most settle on “burnt” and call it “Burnt Thursday,” or use the rest of Europe’s name for the day, “Fat Thursday.” To me, though, tsikno conjures up the engulfing smoke and scents of endless grills sizzling with meats.
Personally, I think a more appropriate name would be “Lipitor Thursday.”
As for Clean Monday, to Greeks it’s a time that is about a lot more than prayer and food. It’s regarded as the first day of Spring, a time to celebrate outdoors and picnic. Kite flying is a huge tradition, as is dancing and music, and thoughts of a new beginning ... please God.
But back to the food. No one is supposed to eat until noon, but once it’s here, kali orexi!
Unique to Clean Monday is lagana, a generally unleavened bread eaten only on that day which serves as the perfect compliment to the rest of the holiday table (and is far different from the “matzoh” familiar to many as another form of unleavened bread). Here’s just an example of what you might find to nibble on while you dream of that Big Mac.
Taramosalata, made of cod or carp roe, is sometimes called “the common man's caviar.” It’s one of the tastiest and most famous of all Greek dips.
A fava (split pea) puree.
Yigandes, giant kastoria beans (similar in look to lima beans) generally combined in a casserole with tomatoes, onions, herbs, and spices.
Salads of marouli (romaine lettuce), three beans (fassolia), or perhaps something more daring such as revitho (chickpea) salad with artichokes and sun-dried tomato.
Dolmades, the traditional grape leaves stuffed with rice and fresh herbs
Peppers stuffed with bulgar and herbs.
Calamari, squid prepared fried or in any number of other ways.
Octopus grilled as is, or dressed up with tomatoes, capers, and other special touches.
Cuttlefish in wine sauce with pearl onions.
Garides, giant shrimp grilled with oil and lemon
Stews of wild mushrooms, onions, and herbs.
loukoumathes
Halvas (semolina pudding), loukoumathes (puffs of fried dough in sweet syrup sprinkled with cinnamon and walnuts), pasteli (sesame-honey candies) … and on and on.
Then, of course, there’s the ouzo, wine, and beer.
Some fast, huh? Gotta got run now. Suddenly, I’m very hungry.
AI is a
very strange industry. Basically, as far as I can see, it is an answer in
search of a question. I’m not saying it’s not useful, or at least helpful, but
is it multi-trillion dollar useful? That is the question.
One area
where the AI companies have been focusing is on writing. After all,
they are working with Large Language Models (LLMs), computer systems designed to
absorb languages and their structures and uses in order to "comprehend" human
communication and be able to communicate with us.
So while
humans seem to write more and more in shorthand with emojis and acronyms, it’s
very important for AI companies that their systems actually write (or speak)
clear, contemporary languages. And they are not very particular about how they
achieve that.
Probably
most authors (and many readers) have heard of the big settlement that Anthropic
agreed to with authors of books that they used for training their systems. The
law suit wassettled for $1.5 billion
dollars, but that turns out to be only part of the story. The judge has now
unsealed some of the documents from the case, and it turns out that
Anthropic’s aim was to scan all the books
in the world to train their systems. The effort was called Project Panama. And
it was secret. The company, along with the other AI giants, didn’t see it as
practical to get the authors permission, so they acquired troves of books,
separated the pages, and scanned them to feed their voracious LLMs hoping they'd learn to read and, perhaps, write as well as the authors of the books.
At some point that became too slow and cumbersome and one of the company’s
founders downloaded and shared a huge number of pirated books from an online
library called LibGen. The newly-released court papers make it clear that he was well aware
that this was a copyright infringement.
It was this
direct copyright infringement that lead to the settlement. The deeper issue is
about the legality and the morality of AI companies sucking all these books
into their LLMs. I guess the moral arguments depend on which side of the fence
you sit (as they usually do) and are unlikely to make much impact if they don’t
lead to actual enforceable laws. The legal arguments are tricky, and so far no
court has found against the companies. Their argument is that what they are
doing is “fair use”.
Here’s what Google's AI
thinks “fair use” is:
Four Factors of Fair Use: Courts determine fair
use by analyzing the purpose (e.g., nonprofit educational vs. commercial), the
nature of the copyrighted work, the amount used relative to the whole, and the
effect on the work's market value.
Transformative Purpose: Using material in a way
that adds new expression or meaning, rather than just replacing the original,
strongly favors fair use.
Common Examples: Quoting a book in a review,
using clips in news reporting, parodying a song, or using small portions of
video for commentary.
Not a Rule, but a Defense: There are no strict
legal limits (e.g., "under 30 seconds" is not a rule), and only a
court can ultimately determine if a use is fair.
The AI
companies claim that their work is “transformative” and “educational”.
Anthropic also said that it hadn’t used the actual materials “read” for
financial gain. (Hmm. Why do it then?) The settlement was based on the fact that the books were
downloaded from an illegal site (in terms of copyright laws) and that the
company was well aware of the fact that they were doing that. The use those
pirated books were put to was not the issue. Other cases carry on in various
courts against various companies, but my bet is that they won’t end with the judges
ruling against the companies.
So where
does all this go? Can LLMs write books? Of course they can. You can buy as many
as you want on Kindle or another electronic or print-on-demand site. I
certainly can’t tell if a random book from Amazon is written by AI or an
unknown, mediocre, human author. If people keep buying them, they must find them
readable. We like to think AI has nothing original to say and that may be true,
but the same criticism applies to some human authors. Some publishers are
requiring that authors of manuscripts sign that they haven’t used AI. The
question is to do what? To write the book? To do research? To check geography?
Publishers have famously released books with large parts lifted from other
works. I can’t see them being successful as AI gatekeepers. And if a LLM comes up with a
really good book (Borel's monkeys typing the works of Shakespeare comes to mind),
is it wrong to publish that? If so why?
More
questions than answers, I guess. In the meanwhile, AI systems have their own
social media sites now. So they can try
out their new writing skills on each other. Cut out the middle man so to speak. No humans allowed as members. See: A Social Network for AI Bots Only. Maybe we humans should start writing novels for them. They certainly have the disposable income.
I’ve been thinking quite a lot these days about human connection.
Apparently, a loneliness epidemic is worsening--even though the pandemic is over. Twenty years ago, most Americans felt they had more close friends than they do today. In addition to the pandemic cutting down on gatherings that never got restarted, we might also consider the ubiquitous presence of social media—and overwhelming YouTube and entertainment streaming options, and online games—and filling space. All this is an effortless replacement for the risk of reaching out to real people.
But I am not here to judge. The loneliest time in my life was my years from age seven to eighteen. I was in the American Midwest, a place that has changed considerably since the 1970s. During my childhood I was an outcast because I didn’t look like or have the same interests as my peers. Plus, I sucked at gym games.
My parents did all they could by giving me chances to take extracurricular lessons and summer camp. In these arenas, I was well-liked and happy. Yet every day I went to my elementary/junior high/high school, my stomach knotted. I didn’t have anyone I could count on sitting with at lunch, and I had the added fear of not knowing if I was going to be bullied. Words have the power to be so hurtful!
St Paul, MN
And there are other miracles that come through words.
I started reading fluently and with exuberant joy in first grade. By second grade, I was unstoppable. And while I don’t want to be as corny as to say books were my friends, the fact is that I could depend on them more than anything else in my life. And within the pages, I felt aligned and that I had faraway friends among my favorite protagonists. I loved Sara Crewe, the little girl marooned without parental support in a cruel boarding school in Victorian London in Frances Hodgson-Burnett’s A Little Princess. I was captivated by a young Laura Ingalls, who like me, suffered through brutal Minnesota weather without much social contact outside of her own family. Small things Laura was crazy for like maple syrup on snow, or a hand-whittled toy, or an orange at Christmas, made me wish for the same. Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfield had three orphans under guardianship in London becoming child stars in acting and ballet, glamorous arenas that I certainly thought should become my career goals. Another British author, Rumer Godden, delighted me first with her stories featuring doll characters, and then with middle-grade stories about girls who were also fishes out of water.
Juvenile fiction is the most impactful fiction I’ve read—I take it very seriously. It helped me survive, and it shaped my character. But teen reading was great, too. Adolescence meant being able to read and fully bask in the glory of the best adult fiction. Some of the most transporting books were by young authors and featured coming of age themes. The year I was sixteen I found a used-bookstore copy of Bonjour Tristesse (translated into English, it means Hello, Sorrow) published in the 1950s when its author, Francoise Sagan, was about the same age. This story about a girl’s disillusionment in her philandering father, and her own bold decision to take a lover for herself, takes place on the France’s Côte D’Azur, an area that stayed in my imagination and that I’ll finally visit in a few months. Another great read from my high school years was This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald: the author’s debut novel about a young man leaving my own city of Saint Paul to go to Princeton. I recall his struggle to find himself socially, and to find love in a new sophisticated world. There I was, seeing a dreamy vision of escape for myself, too.
Yes, these books were my friends. And reading them made me feel so warm toward the authors. I wanted to ask them, what made you write this book? Is your protagonist you—because I really like them!
Minneapolis MN
For a reader to meet an author of a beloved book is a rare occurrence. What happens between a reader and a favorite book is intensely personal; it’s hard to express, even with a glass of wine at book club. Admiration, tenderness, distain and anger—we feel all of this while reading, and we are somehow linked in a relationship with the person who made these people.
I’ve experienced all of this as a reader. I also feel the emotion when I have my author hat on get to meet people through book signings and online book club presentations, and letters.
Lawrence, Kansas
Today fan letters don't travel in envelopes to publishers, but as emails to authors. Here are some I’ll never forget:
The email from a young woman in Finland, as miserable in school as I was, who submersed herself in Rei Shimura books which were published between 1997 and 2012. She was contemplating dropping out of school but stayed because her parents promised her a trip to Japan, if she did graduate. Her books were her comfort; and that brought tears to my eyes. The second letter I received was a few years later, post-Japan. She’d loved her time there and was thinking about a future possibility of working there—perhaps like my protagonist Rei Shimura.
Another reader I recall was a man in his seventies, originally from India. He drove six hours with his wife at his side to a signing I did in San Diego. Not only did the two readers care about the books; they also had detected through careful reading of acknowledgements, my father’s identity. You see, my dad had studied at the Indian Institute of Technology, just as the reader had done, a few years earlier, and in the exact same field. Thus—a kinship network arose--and to that gentleman, I was as good as any niece who'd written a book!
Los Angeles
Just the other day, I received an email from a retired teacher in Hawaii who with his wife had gone traveling to India, visiting many sites in Mumbai that correspond to my character Perveen Mistry’s exploits. The concierge at their hotel wanted to help with any need, so on a whim they asked her to phone up Mistry Law. Could not be arranged, the concierge reported with an apology, not realizing she was playing a part in a comedy that would be later submitted to me via email. You are a mischief maker! I wrote back to him.
The greatest thing that ever happens when I release a book is the chance to meet the readers. They are the only thing that keeps me going, that gives me the blood circulation I need to attempt another work of fiction.
I start a national tour next week to promote my new Perveen Mistry novel, The Star From Calcutta. I’ll tell you about its plot next time, because right now I am overwhelmed with tour preparations. The most wide-ranging tours involve a lot of flying, often with airport show times as early as 5 a.m. There are meals that are unpleasant or missed altogether, unfamiliar beds in sterile (if you’re lucky) hotels and unpredictable Uber rides. But I tour because of the readers, the independent booksellers, and I hope to see some of you guys in some of these cities.
.jpg)
Posts
