Trendy But Casual

First look at UNBROKEN

If you're wondering why I haven't written a blog post in months, here's the reason: I was writing a novel instead. This is what it's going to look like.

It's a sequel to RUINED - set in New Orleans, with many of the same characters (Rebecca, Anton, Aurelia, etc), and some new ones - the living and the dead! The character depicted on the cover is a ghost named Delphine, and the house she haunts is on Rampart Street.

UNBROKEN will be published in spring 13 in the US, I think. (Certainly in time for Jazz Fest, one of the settings for the novel.)

I've been up to other things, of course, including a number of appearances at the Writers & Readers Week at the International Festival of the Arts in Wellington, and at the Writers & Readers Festival in Auckland. The German-language edition of RANGATIRA will be published in September, so I have various trips to Germany coming up - more on that in another post.

And there WILL be another post soon, I promise, before I get sucked into the vortex of another book.

 

Make It Mine*

Oh yes. The Scudder Road Circus has been back in Italy for a sunny, wintry break. What were we doing there? Maybe it was a bit of a buying trip:

I can't say anything more than that. These days I have internet stalkers, apparently, who monitor this blog to track my movements and - perhaps - assemble a case (or two) against me. Why? I guess when you have a circus, a lot of people want in. My advice: start your own circus.

For Tikileaks operatives, here is some potentially useful evidence of my ongoing commitment to eating and drinking while in a foreign land:

 

 

The two restaurants pictured are both in Montepulciano - the splendid Caffe Poliziano, and Acquacheta - with its handwritten "completa" sign hanging in the window. After four tries, we managed to squeeze in to an early seating there. It was absolutely worth the wait.The very first picture was taken at Panella in Rome, where we ate outside, coats off, in the sunshine, while the soft Romans around us huddled under blankets and gas heaters. They wouldn't last two minutes in Glasgow, though their commitment to smoking at all times while outdoors would be admired.

By the way, we called into a motorway Autostop on our way down to Rome, and I saw a giant jar of Nutella for sale. 'Who would ever buy such a thing?' I wondered. Now we know: vendors of giant donuts and toffee apples in Piazza Navona. This is why it's important to travel to foreign places. It broadens the mind.

Other things I learned in Italy:

1. If you're not wearing a quilted jacket/coat and long leather boots, Italians will look at you a little strangely, as though you are a sad case, or probably a gypsy.

2. There is no limit to the number of bookmarks I will buy if they reproduce a bit of fresco.

3. When there is no way of lighting the stove in your rented apartment to boil water for tea, then drinking wine instead is the only solution.

4. We really need to get a family crest. (We can only agree on two panels so far - a circus tent and a snake.)

5. During carnival time in Italy, even the cats dress as harlequins.

That's enough Italy. I have other news to report, like a German-language rights sale for RANGATIRA (to the very nice people at Walde+Graf), but that can wait for another post and a web site update. First: a book to finish work on by the end of this month ...

* The title of this post is a reference, of course, to THREE COINS IN THE FOUNTAIN. If you are unfamiliar with this song, or (even worse) the movie, please remedy your cultural ignorance right away.

RANGATIRA. launched

I'm in an LAX transit lounge, on my way back to the UK. There's coffee out of a machine and free wireless: what more could you want? TMiddy has emailed to tell me that DOWNTON ABBEY series 2 just ended, and He Knows Who Died. This is why internet access is so vital.

Last Monday, October 31st, the launch for RANGATIRA took place at Art + Object in Auckland. This is the contemporary art auction house run by my dear friend, Hamish Coney. (Later that week they held a record-breaking auction of rare NZ books and manuscripts). Lots of family and friends there, a big crowd from Penguin, other writers and literary people-about-town. Here are a few pictures. The first is of the podium with a blow-up of the book's beautiful cover.

 

 

Debra Miller of Penguin Books NZ welcomed everyone and said some very kind things about the novel; then Steve Braunias launched it (see a copy of his speech here); and then I stood up and burbled and cried, as I always do, while people laugh at me. (See my mother, seated, and father, standing - both brandishing walking sticks!)

 

 

I was very happy that my cousins drove down from Whangarei, and also that so many people made the long drive down from the Paratene Te Manu marae in Ngunguru, and from the Ngunguru School, which was founded by Paratene and his matua, Henare Te Moananui, in 1870. There was a mihi, a blessing, a waiata. I was very touched. Penguin were kind enough to let the marae take the cover blow-up with them back up North to Ngunguru.

 

The catering was in the capable hands of my nephew, Matthew Hill, and his gorgeous girlfriend Martha Carrillo. Martha is from Mexico and her Chilean friends, Jerson and Francisca, were also helping. (I wanted an all-Spanish-speaking team.)

 Jo from Unity Books was on hand to sell books - as she has been at all my book launches in New Zealand going back to QUEEN OF BEAUTY in 2002. Here I'm signing a copy for Jill Rawnsley, until recently the artistic director of the Auckland Writers & Readers Festival.

 This last photo I took this weekend at Unity Books in High Street in the city. They have a fantastic window display for the novel.

It was a brief visit home, congested with interviews and meetings, but I was really happy to be back for the launch of RANGATIRA. I'm proud of it. The novel is dedicated to my parents.

A Not-So-Bad Author Day

It's over a month since I last posted, after a particularly bad week. This week has been better, author-biz-wise. No word of international sales, or anything like that, but the film option for RUINED was renewed, and lots of publicity requests for RANGATIRA are coming in. The novel comes out on Halloween, and I'll be home in New Zealand for the launch.

Actually, about a hundred hours of this week were dedicated to getting together a mailing list for the launch. I couldn't find anything useful - like, say, the list for my last launch. The only one I could find on the computer was the one for QUEEN OF BEAUTY, a book published in 2002, and everyone has remarried and/or moved house since then.

Much of today was spent preparing for a photo session, because it's time I had some new pictures. First up: hair cut. It looked really great until I walked home in misting rain.

I had to wait a while at the salon, so I decided to use the time wisely, exploring the great moral and philosophical questions of our time – e.g. “Is Beyoncé really pregnant?” To help me in this quest for truth, I read the captions and columns of OK magazine. This is the British version of OK (OKUK, as I think of it), and this means its pages are peopled with the ‘stars’ of BIG BROTHER and the ex-husbands of Katie Price, one of whom may be about to have a Druid wedding ceremony at Stonehenge. OKUK is highly educational, filled with celebrity insight. Kerry Katona is for the Dale Farm Travellers; Cliff Richard is for corporal punishment. My favourite column in the current issue is written by Jedward, brothers with cartoon hairstyles who are popstars of some kind. Jedward contend that the "UK is a really cool country because you've got Scotland, you've got England and Northern Ireland and Wales, and we've got the Olympics coming which will be like an upgrade for the UK." Wise words.

Later in the afternoon I paid someone to ice my face with an excess of make-up ("Is that what you're wearing?" she asked, trying to conceal her dismay). Then I met up with the photographer, Mike Brooke, in the Merchant City. We took pictures in the Trans-Europe Cafe, the Corinthian Club, and an alleyway near the music hall where Stan Laurel made his stage debut. Hopefully I'll look good in some of them. A friend, Sarah Zebaida, sent me an email this morning wishing me well for the session. You still have good skin, she pointed out, "despite your enormous chronological age."

 

 

 

New book, new flat

This is a banner week in the M & M household. Home after a busy month of travel to London, St Louis, New Orleans, Paris and Luxembourg, we managed to stay put for an entire seven days. Our new flat in Glasgow (rented, in case any of you imagine we've come into money) is finally looking habitable - furniture delivered, stacks of paper mostly hidden, books and CDs in categories/alphabetical order and on shelves. So I haven't unpacked my suitcase completely yet, and the stacks are hidden rather than sorted: oh well. It could be worse.

We love our new place. The first two pictures here are our living room; the last is my study, in which many of the stacks lurk. Most of them are notes for RANGATIRA. The blind in this room is closed against the sun, if you can believe that - it's south-facing, and incredibly bright. Glasgow: endlessly surprising.

 

 

 

The other happy news is that this was the publication week for DARK SOULS, my new YA novel. It's another mystery with a supernatural twist, this time set in York, England. The action takes place over one very snowy, misty week in December. I've written some more about the book at my web site.

 

Stories

Some of my stories were broadcast on Radio New Zealand this week, though I forgot to mention it to anyone but my sister. Next week, however, more will be broadcast, if anyone has time to listen. All go out at 10:45 AM on National. Monday and Tuesday: Mon Desir. Wednesday: Bright. Thursday: Many Mansions. Friday: The Argyle. All these stories are from my collection, Forbidden Cities.

I like the way the Radio NZ site refers to me as "Paul Morris." My first-ever story publication was Bright back in 2000, and I was listed as Paul Morris on one of the pages. It's quite hard to be the Oprah of New Zealand when people keep changing my gender.

Also on the RNZ web site: the engineer is named as Darryl Stack. I went to primary school with someone called Darryl Stack. Surely they are related? We West Aucklanders get around.

Tomorrow T. MIddy and I head off to Aberdeen, because Glasgow is not cold enough. I'm taking my computer, so maybe I'll have time on the train to write a post about my ongoing battles with various British people in positions of influence (radio, newspaper, book publishing) about American geography. In the meantime, here is some cutting social commentary from T. Middy - after a morning spent listening to BBC Radio Four.

TM: I don't like Women's Year.

PM: It's Women's HOUR.

TM: But it feels like Women's Year. That's why I don't like it. When is Men's Hour?

Blog update

In a sudden burst of energy this week (possibly attributable to my discovery of the delicious Belgian Chocolate Cornflake Square at Starbucks), I've revamped bits of this blog.

The 'Buy My Books' section now includes links to Amazon in the US and in the UK, where you (i.e. my gentle readers) can buy copies of my YA novel, RUINED. I'm not sure why it's available in the UK when it's not officially published here yet, but the books offered appear to be more or less the real thing.

The rest of my books - three novels, a short story collection, and The Penguin Book of Contemporary New Zealand Short Stories - are not available through Amazon, because they are published by Penguin New Zealand. (Warning to younger readers: these are for older readers, and I don't mean people who are 12 with a reading age of 14.) You can order these books from a number of book shops in New Zealand, and I have links in the BMB section to three of them. Overseas readers: the NZ$ exchange rate is always in your favor.

If you are a reader and want to write to me, send me a message at this blog or send a letter to me care of my agent, Richard Abate at 3Arts in New York. If you click on ABOUT at the top of the righthand column, you'll find his address. Sometimes I get mail via Scholastic and sometimes via the New Zealand Book Council, but I suspect the latter's patience, at least, is wearing thin.

At some point I need to get a real web site, created by a professional, but (as they say in the old Speight's commercial) no hurry.

Another Country

We've lived in another country for almost two months now, and I'm aware that I haven't posted ONE SINGLE THING in that time. I haven't been lolling about, eating haggis-flavored bon-bons, or disappearing Agatha Christie-style. (I used to think she ran off to Istanbul, but she was only in Harrogate, probably going to Bettys every day - as I would, if I were A. Christie and on the lam in 1926.)

The country, by the way, is Scotland, and our new city is Glasgow. Or Glasglo, or Glascow, according to some of our bank statements and magazine subscriptions from the US.

Every day or two, I think: I must write a post. There's so much to write about. So many pictures to share: autumnal scenes; majesty of the Highlands; the weekend in Luxembourg; Gordon Ramsay at the BBC Good Food Show; our stairwell, etc. The photo we took (and lost) of the container last seen in Cucullu Street in New Orleans, now on the back of a truck in the East End of Glasgow, parked outside our storage facility. Pictures of T. Middy glowering at his beloved public over a plate of oysters or a venison burger.

And of course, now that we're in the land of Boswell and Hume, TM and I engage in numerous intellectual exchanges, all of which demand preservation for posterity. For example:

TM: Why are you crying?

PM: I'm watching STRICTLY COME DANCING. [This is the British version of DANCING WITH THE STARS.] Pamela Stephenson has just done a very moving rumba.

TM (stomping off): Ridiculous.

Later:

TM: I don't know how you can watch this show. I find it unbearable.

PM: Because you're a snob.

TM: That's right. I'm Vladimir Snobokov.

 

Here's the real reason I haven't written a post.There's quite a lot to do when you move somewhere new and start a new job. And even on a day at home, like today, I end up doing the following: reading all the applications for a job in another department, because I've been drafted onto the search committee; visiting the Tenement House Museum, because it's about to close this weekend for months, and we live in a 19th-century tenement so it's practically like going around an open home; shopping at John Lewis for Halloween tat for the children we'll be seeing in Wales this weekend; lugging home groceries for tonight's dinner, because we're back to car-free city life, i.e. only buying what we can clutch; replying to emails from students even though it's mid-term break and they've been warned off emailing me unless something tragic has occurred; and realizing that I haven't written the column for NEXT magazine's January issue, even though it was due two weeks ago, and need to crack on with it right away.

So that's all the post you're getting for now. (And by "you" I mean my one loyal reader, Bookman Beattie.)  I've recently finished writing a book, and there's an interview with me about it, and about RUINED, up at Stirling's great Gothic Imagination site. And for those of you pining for a sighting of T. Middy, here he is at the Witchery in Edinburgh, pondering eternal verities and willing me not to steal any of his chips.

For Jane Austen fans

Today is Friday in New Orleans - bitterly cold (OK, cold for New Orleans: I don't want to hear your sob stories, Midwesterners!) and gray. But in New Zealand it's already Saturday, and I have a story published in today's New Zealand Herald. It's called Premises and it's something I wrote for an upcoming Random House anthology called Lost in Translation.

As my niece, the erudite Miss Rebecca Hill, pointed out, the story might make sense only to those readers familiar (very familiar) with the works of Jane Austen. I hope a few of them are reading the Herald this morning.

My mother, by the way, is recovering from her operation (i.e. terrorizing the medical staff of Auckland Hospital) in a bed by the window, looking out at the Sky Tower.

Autumn, New Orleans, November 2009

Hurricane Ida is on her way, curling up through the Gulf after terrorizing central American and the Yucatan peninsula. She’s breaking up now into a tropical storm, but that still means a lot of water and wind, especially along the coast. It’s gray outside, but there’s no rain yet. The Tulane flag hung over the porch railings by our peppy neighbors flaps back and forth. T. Middy has lifted all our plants off their stands, and taken his rain boots to work. As one of our friends said last night, at least when the electricity goes, it won’t be too hot.

The storm is passing to our east, so I don’t think the electricity will go this time. It’s very quiet outside: most schools are closed today, just in case. In Plaquemines Parish, it’s flooding already (storm surge), and some people are evacuating. Everyone’s selfishly hoping it’ll turn a little farther east, and hammer someone else.

I haven’t posted for a while, because I’ve been busy with the semester – including a fantastic visit last week from one of my literary heroes, Deborah Eisenberg, and a dinner with my screenwriting students and the writer/producer Eric Overmyer, veteran of The Wire, who’s creating a new HBO drama here with David Simon.

Also, I’ve been busy with lots of book promotion for Ruined – including four visits to local schools; two book groups (one at Octavia Books, and one at Barnes & Noble); a trip to the SIBA conference in Greenville, South Carolina; and book events here at Octavia and Maple Street, at the Louisiana Book Festival in Baton Rouge, in Mississippi at Lemuria Books in Jackson and Square Books in Oxford, and at the Neighborhood Preservation Center in New York City. I have another event coming up this Saturday at the Catholic Library Association conference. And, of course, there was the great trip to Orlando to film a marketing video for Scholastic Book Fairs. Ruined will be sold in book fairs all over the country from January.

T. Middy – for those of you pining for news – is busy as well, working on the Dean’s Colloquium, and the Ellis Marsalis performance this Thursday (Dixon Hall, November 12). We go up to St Louis for his birthday/Thanksgiving later this month, and then to New Zealand for two weeks over Christmas. My sister sent me an email, saying: “Would you two like to cook Christmas dinner? No pressure.” (Um, sure.) Only four weeks of classes left.

I’ve been scribbling notes for various posts – at the Epcot Center in Disneyworld; at the Angola Prison Rodeo; at the gravesite of Robert Johnson just outside Greenwood Mississippi. My bizarre autumn. Today, for the first time, and thanks to a tropical storm, it almost feels like fall.