If you happen to be in the United Kingdom and were thinking of going to the Edinburgh Fringe festival, then perhaps you would like to come to Blackwell's Bookshop on the South Bridge and see BEAUTIFUL ME!
Yes, I will be reading from Ceremony of Innocence at Blackwell's Bookshop as part of their "Writers at the Fringe" series. So bring your copy along to be signed, or order a copy right there at the counter, sit back and enjoy seeing someone you actually sort of know doing their thing at the Fringe. Thursday, August 7, 5:45 PM.
Amusingly, my dear husband Benedict Ambrose performed at the Fringe some 20 years ago, all dressed up as a WWI officer--no less a personage than T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia), as a matter of fact. He swaggered about in uniform---which is so August in Edinburgh. In Edinburgh in August there are any number of strange sights, including gorillas ducking into Tesco Metro for supper and gangs of Elizabethans slapping each other with bladders on Nicholson Street.
I haven't worked out yet how I should dress for my performance. As arresting as the thought of reading my work from inside a gorilla suit is, I probably won't do that.
Blackwell's is my very favourite Edinburgh bookshop, even though this is a city abounding in bookshops. Naturally B.A. and I browse the used bookstores with great attention, but there is nothing like a NEW BOOK, if you ask me. The luxury and naughtiness of a brand new shiny book that you don't have to take back to the library!
By the way, is there any Ceremony of Innocence fan art?
Oh, and incidentally, time is running out to buy your copy of Seraphic Singles (Canadian version)... So if you want a copy, do not delay!
Showing posts with label Book Stuff. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Book Stuff. Show all posts
Saturday, 2 August 2014
Tuesday, 10 June 2014
The London Trip Report
"But I want a million hits for Seraphic Singles," said Self. "So far I have only 800,000."
"That," I said, "is a trivial concern."
I had this conversation with myself because instead of posting the letter from the Single reader who is worried because she looks 24 when she is really 29, I want to write about going to wonderful LONDON. And the story of going to London is inextricable from the fact that I am married because travelling when married is so different from travelling when Single.
For starters, there is less panic and, if you are happily married, no loneliness, although, paradoxically, more temptations to bite the person next to you. Groups of tipsy young men are less likely to invite you to join in their sprees, and you can walk back to your hotel through darkened European streets at 1 AM without worrying about your personal safety. If anything you snatch alone time where you can so as to write in your journal.
Of course, married women with small children probably have no idea what I am talking about because travel for married women with small children is just one more obstacle course in their exhausting lives. Fortunately, if they live to see those kids out of the house, then they are free to travel, like my globetrotting mother of five.
So my trip to London is totally from the perspective of a married woman with no kids and a genial husband who enjoys chatting and art galleries. Be warned.
FRIDAY
On Friday B.A. and I triumphantly claimed our seats in the First Class carriage because I had booked months in advance, when they were actually affordable. Train fares in the UK are so expensive that if you're going to go by train at all, you might as well go First Class. First Class entails leg room, a meal, constant offers of hot and cold drinks, crisps and biscuits and protection from any soccer riots and drunken sprees breaking out in the carriages behind.
And there's wi-fi. I felt tremendously sophisticated as I booked us a table for Saturday lunch in South Kensington on my tablet while beside me B.A. attempted to reserve tickets for the William Kent exhibit at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Four and three-quarters of an hour flashed by as I exulted in First Classness, read a Polish novel (in English), obediently looked at the Great Cathedrals of Northern England as we passed them and napped. And then we were in King's Cross station, which now has a modern glass canopy through which the rich warm southern English sun shone. It was about 5 PM, and the station and streets around were full of happy Londoners sunning themselves and thinking gleeful weekend thoughts.
B.A. made loud Scottish remarks about this being a terrible area and to hang onto my bag, but if anything the area around King's Cross looked cleaner, wealthier and jollier than I remembered London being. I vaguely seem to recall that King's Cross-Pancras used to be full of grunge and vice, but those days are clearly over. We walked down a busy street to our hotel which, though itself modern, was inside a smart Art Deco building.
Our room was weeny and windowless, immaculately clean and with excellent fittings. It cost us 90 quid a night which is an amazing bargain for London. We dumped our stuff, answered a text from Andrew Cusack, brushed our hair and rushed out into the glorious sunshine to walk to Bloomsbury and the British Museum.
Very weird things have been done to the British Museum since I was there in the mid-90s, but it still has a great collection, including the history of Scotland written by the late Lord X, most celebrated owner of the Historical House, whom B.A. and I fancifully consider our landlord. We were tremendously excited to find it there. Oh, and there was the Sutton Hoo treasure trove too, of course, although what most impressed me were the wooden Roman British implements found in a bog. Two thousand year old WOOD--how miraculous! And I drooled over various objects produced by Mr Wedgwood.
Next we had a very long search for supper hampered by mistakes in my research. In the end, we ordered supper in the same pub in St Pancras Station where we had arranged to meet Mr Cusack. Mr Cusack fetched up at 9:30 PM, rather tired out from his extensive social life which, the night before, had included a book launch at Ralph Lauren.
I felt rather jealous and envious about this book launch at Ralph Lauren. I don't get to have book launches at Ralph Lauren. But Andrew explained that his friend had produced a coffee table book on rowing blazers, which explained its significance for Ralph Lauren. How very Andrew, I thought, to have a friend who cares that much about rowing blazers. The pub meal, incidentally, was much better than I expected, based on my experiences of the mid-1990s.
SATURDAY
I woke up an hour before B.A. and so sat in the teeny but perfect loo with my tablet so as not to disturb him. When he awoke and we were ready to go, I led him across the street to an amazing little French bakery I had read about. There we ordered the most delicious pains aux chocolats et amandes in history and B.A. exchanged pleasantries in French with the bearded Frenchman behind the counter. We gobbled these pastries in the sunny street outside, making noises of pleasure and greed. And then we took the Tube to South Kensington.
In South Kensington we went to a French cafe, choosing seats outside, and when rain exploded over London, B.A. rushed off to the V&A to buy our William Kent tickets. I happily remained behind to pay the server and write in my journal. Then I crossed the street, passed the Ismaili Centre, and joined B.A. in the V&A, which is so much more lovely than the British Museum, I don't know where to start. I wish we could have spent all day in the V&A, but all the same at 12:45, I dragged B.A. away from the Melville Bed, so as to be on time for lunch.
Lunch was in the (wait for it) Polish club, which is to say, in its restaurant Ognisko. I don't know how the Poles got their hands on the elegant building, but at any rate it has been the Polish clubhouse since 1940, when the Free Poles escaped to Britain from newly occupied France. Apparently the restaurant had been sliding from faded grandeur into squalor when it was rescued by a smart modern Polish restauranteur, who had the walls painted white and turned it into a neo-classical jewel with slender waitresses in black shift dresses. When we arrived, the bar was full of Polish Londoners between the ages of 30 and 80, the men in ties--often club ties-- and jackets and the ladies in day dresses or skirt suits. They were seated after us, and were great fun to watch as we ate. B.A. was very glad he had worn a jacket.
The food was amazing. First we had pork cracklings, and if I wanted to commit slow suicide the nicest way possible, I would eat them non-stop, between gulps of vodka, until my arteries closed and I died of heart failure. (Good retirement plan?) Then I had chlodnik, which is cold beet soup with dill. And then we both had potato pancakes, I with goulash and B.A. with black sausage. Too full for pudding, B.A. just had a second beer and I ordered a shot of pear vodka. It was so cold there were shards of ice in it.
And then we went to Westminster Cathedral and St Paul's Book Shop, where, after greeting Fiorella de Maria, B.A. abandoned me to see the inside of Westminster Cathedral. I do not recommend the loo in St Paul's Book Shop, which is all I can decently say about that. Let's just say it rather ruined my prep time and any chance of coordinating with book shop staff. At any rate, we had a respectable turnout of friends and blog readers (hello Mary and Simca!) and various shoppers were attracted to the strains of Cecilia de Maria's beautiful harp and Fiorella's and my readings.
Naturally I began with the dancing-with-Krishna-at-Mass scene, which out of context could be considered terrifically offensive, and sure enough I soon felt the glare of an East Asian girl who suddenly disappeared and returned with her South Asian boyfriend or husband. By then, however, it was Fiorella's turn to read, and nobody could have found anything offensive in her selection. My next reading, however, was also controversial, as it was the scene where Suzy meet Dennis, Silke says something anti-Semitic and Anna Maria attempts to clear the air by talking about sex. Out of the tail of my eye, I saw Polish Pretend Son disappear. He hasn't read the book, so he had no idea.
"Only Jesuits," he boomed later, "would publish such an INDECENT book!"
As a matter of fact, as I read, I found myself leaving out the indelicacies that are so much of a part of authentic modern-day speech and yet are so inappropriate to Catholic bookshops. There were, like, a hundred covers featuring Pope Francis staring at my back, which made it rather difficult to channel jaded old Silke and coked-up Anna Maria.
Then we had a break, and then we had the last go of readings and harp playings, but by this time the bookshoppers had lost all interest and the most loyal of our friends were shifting from weary foot to weary foot or sitting on the floor. Bless them. From now on, I will stick to a bookshop-MUST-provide-chairs policy. And then we went off for drinks.
When the De Maria and Cummings McLean factions went their separate ways, B.A. and I followed Polish Pretend Son through the streets of London to supper in Chinatown, visiting Jermyn Street--spiritual home of the Dandy branch of Young Fogies since 1700--and Piccadilly Circus on the way. Polish Pretend Son said the former was usually full of Spaniards, but I heard a lot of Polish. I was terribly surprised to hear a girl clad only in black underwear address a gaggle of prostitutes as "Dziewczyny" until I realized that they were not prostitutes but "regular girls" on their way to have a fun night on the town. B.A. observed that the girl who wore least was also the least pretty. Compensation?
We ate in a dark and atmospheric Taiwanese restaurant, splashing out on a bottle of plum wine, and then set off on a long and bantering search for Bar Polski. Alas, by the time we found it, it had closed. And so we went to the nearby "Shakespeare's Head" instead and drank ale. Then Polish Pretend Son went to look for bus or (failing a bus) a "Boris bike", and B.A. and I walked back to our hotel. There were certainly a lot of cars on the road at 1 AM!
SUNDAY
B.A. and I dragged ourselves from bed at 9, so as to check out by 10 and go to the 11 o'clock Mass at Brompton Oratory . We left B.A.'s rucksack in the hotel's storage room (2.50 quid) and went to King's Cross station for breakfast. The fantastic French bakery was shut for Sunday morning, which only increased our reverence and awe. And after we ate our not-as-good-but-perfectly-adequate pastries, we took the Tube back to South Kensington.
The 11 o'clock at Brompton Oratory is a Latin language, High Mass, Novus Ordo, if you can get your minds around that. It features an absolutely splendid choir, and our Catholic friends always go to that Mass when living or staying in London. And, lo, we spotted two people we knew as soon as we got there and chose a spot with a good view of the sanctuary. And then, to my great spiritually maternal joy, Seminarian Pretend Son arrived from Oxford and sat down beside B.A. Hooray! Polish Pretend Son lurked, I believe, somewhere near the back.
It was a very bright, warm morning, and the sun sparkled on our friends after Mass. And after various greetings and chattings, Seminarian Pretend Son led Polish Pretend Son, B.A. and me through Westminster to a gentlemen's club (now open to ladies, btw)in Pall Mall. There we had Sunday lunch in the grandest, most intimidating circumstances possible to an almost empty room, and then decamped, with drinks, to the rooftop terrace, where the Pretend Sons smoked cigars. Big Ben rang four, and we turned to see the spires of Westminster Abbey over the buildings and trees. That was tremendously awesome, as was ringing a bell for a club servant to come and bring the Pretend Sons more sherry. But then--alas--B.A. and I had to rush off and get his rucksack before catching our 5:30 PM train.
All the way home, I thought of delicious pork cracklings and vodka, while B.A. explained why we will never be able to afford to live in London. Ah, London. Sigh, sigh.
Edinburgh was damp and cold.
Update: On further reflection, some thanks are in order. So many thanks to Fiorella for approaching the book shop, and to Andrew Cusack, Anthony, Adela, PPS, Mary and Simca for coming to our event. Adela gets super-special thanks for buying the book! And thanks also to Rafal, who could not come but sent others. And naturally I thank B.A. for heavily subsidizing this glamorous jaunt.
Friday, 4 April 2014
Everybody Loves B.A.
SCENE OF DOMESTIC LIFE IN THE HISTORICAL HOUSE
Seraphic (standing on toes): This is what I would look like if I were 5'4".
B.A.: You're fine at 5'2". Why do you want to be 5'4"?
Seraphic: I don't really. But I would like to decompress my spine. Apparently all you need is five minutes a day on an inversion table.
B.A.: What is an inversion table?
Seraphic: Oh, it's really neat. It's a sort of board and you strap yourself into it and then you flip it over and hang upside down by your ankles.
B.A. (seeing where this is going, i.e. wallet): We don't need an inversion table.
Seraphic: Wah! But I want to decompress my spine!
B.A.: Well, what else can you do to decompress your spine?
Seraphic: Well, I suppose you could hold me upside down by my ankles. Let's try!
B.A.: You're mental. I can't hold you upside down by your ankles.
Seraphic: Why not? I weigh only one-hundred-and-thirty-three pounds.
B.A. Because it is physically impossible.
Seraphic: But you're a MAN. A big, strong MAN.
B.A.: Yes, but I would have to hold my arms up HERE. I could only hold a sack of potatoes from up HERE. And I would hurt my back.
Seraphic (abashed) : Oh! I don't want you to hurt your back. Maybe I could do a headstand or a handstand?
B.A.: But that wouldn't decompress your spine. Gravity would just compress your spine into your neck.
Seraphic: So hanging from my ankles is the only way?
B.A.: Yes.
Seraphic (dubiously): I wonder if I can even do a handstand.
(Seraphic turns her back on B.A. and attempts to do a handstand. Without warning, B.A. grabs her flailing ankles and pulls upward.)
Seraphic: AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!
(B.A. drops Seraphic. Seraphic giggles uncontrollably.)
B.A.: I really don't understand why you want to be taller.
Seraphic: I don't want to be taller. I want to decompress my SPIIIIIINE!
***
My column responding to the deacon who wrote a letter saying I put down the "new Mass" and suggesting I want it banned has appeared online for free. (I guess it's my week for the free-view column.) Here it is.
I suppose the only thing to add is that he was responding to my column (behind a firewall, alas) about how the most beautiful Mass in Toronto is Solemn High Mass at Holy Family Church on Sunday mornings. The point of that column was to alert people who long for beauty at Mass to this Mass, so they would know where to go. As in Toronto you can go to German Mass, Polish Mass, Italian Mass, Chinese Mass, Vietnamese Mass--all kinds of Masses catering to your preferred language or ethnic group--and even a Praise and Worship Music Mass, it seemed fair to me to publicize a Mass that is characterized by the highest possible beauty and solemnity.
I made no claims that it was anyone's dearest Mass, using the analogy of a mother. When you are five, you are convinced that your own mother is the best and most beautiful mother in the world, and so I suppose many, many Catholics feel the same about their own parish mass, and that is good. But naturally Zhang Ziyi and Aishwaryi Rai Bachchan beat old Mum hollow when it comes to objective feminine beauty, as you realize when you grow up. Not that you care. You love your mother because she is your mother while cheerfully acknowledging that she's not as stunning as the brightest stars of the silver screen, and feeling no guilt when you revel in their beauty.
To tell the truth about the Extraordinary Form is not to trash the Ordinary Form any more than to say that my Temporary Pretend Polish Daughter is the reigning beauty of the Historical House is to say I'm a wrinkled old hag. (And, indeed, I said the Holy Family EF is more beautiful than the Edinburgh EF, though naturally I am fonder of the Edinburgh EF.) I know that some liturgists have serious theological objections to the Ordinary Form, but I am not yet convinced this means the N.O. must go. (Can you imagine the confusion and dismay if it did?!) Cardinal Stickler wrote about the "Latin language [acting] like a reverent curtain against profanation" and I find that German, Italian and Polish work like that for me. And Cardinal Stickler points out that when the Novus Ordo is said by the book--he cites the Novus Ordo as said by popes--there is nothing amiss.
***
There are still many copies of Seraphic Singles available for sale, as my Canadian publisher informs me. If you have not read my first book, why not buy a copy and gladden hearts at Novalis? If you want to buy a copy for a Polish friend, the edition you want is the rather more celebrated Anielskie Single.
***
If you live in Canada (especially Toronto), why not get a copy of Catholic Insight magazine and read my latest interview about Ceremony of Innocence? Apparently there's a review, too, which I am dying to read.
Seraphic (standing on toes): This is what I would look like if I were 5'4".
B.A.: You're fine at 5'2". Why do you want to be 5'4"?
Seraphic: I don't really. But I would like to decompress my spine. Apparently all you need is five minutes a day on an inversion table.
B.A.: What is an inversion table?
Seraphic: Oh, it's really neat. It's a sort of board and you strap yourself into it and then you flip it over and hang upside down by your ankles.
B.A. (seeing where this is going, i.e. wallet): We don't need an inversion table.
Seraphic: Wah! But I want to decompress my spine!
B.A.: Well, what else can you do to decompress your spine?
Seraphic: Well, I suppose you could hold me upside down by my ankles. Let's try!
B.A.: You're mental. I can't hold you upside down by your ankles.
Seraphic: Why not? I weigh only one-hundred-and-thirty-three pounds.
B.A. Because it is physically impossible.
Seraphic: But you're a MAN. A big, strong MAN.
B.A.: Yes, but I would have to hold my arms up HERE. I could only hold a sack of potatoes from up HERE. And I would hurt my back.
Seraphic (abashed) : Oh! I don't want you to hurt your back. Maybe I could do a headstand or a handstand?
B.A.: But that wouldn't decompress your spine. Gravity would just compress your spine into your neck.
Seraphic: So hanging from my ankles is the only way?
B.A.: Yes.
Seraphic (dubiously): I wonder if I can even do a handstand.
(Seraphic turns her back on B.A. and attempts to do a handstand. Without warning, B.A. grabs her flailing ankles and pulls upward.)
Seraphic: AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!
(B.A. drops Seraphic. Seraphic giggles uncontrollably.)
B.A.: I really don't understand why you want to be taller.
Seraphic: I don't want to be taller. I want to decompress my SPIIIIIINE!
***
My column responding to the deacon who wrote a letter saying I put down the "new Mass" and suggesting I want it banned has appeared online for free. (I guess it's my week for the free-view column.) Here it is.
I suppose the only thing to add is that he was responding to my column (behind a firewall, alas) about how the most beautiful Mass in Toronto is Solemn High Mass at Holy Family Church on Sunday mornings. The point of that column was to alert people who long for beauty at Mass to this Mass, so they would know where to go. As in Toronto you can go to German Mass, Polish Mass, Italian Mass, Chinese Mass, Vietnamese Mass--all kinds of Masses catering to your preferred language or ethnic group--and even a Praise and Worship Music Mass, it seemed fair to me to publicize a Mass that is characterized by the highest possible beauty and solemnity.
I made no claims that it was anyone's dearest Mass, using the analogy of a mother. When you are five, you are convinced that your own mother is the best and most beautiful mother in the world, and so I suppose many, many Catholics feel the same about their own parish mass, and that is good. But naturally Zhang Ziyi and Aishwaryi Rai Bachchan beat old Mum hollow when it comes to objective feminine beauty, as you realize when you grow up. Not that you care. You love your mother because she is your mother while cheerfully acknowledging that she's not as stunning as the brightest stars of the silver screen, and feeling no guilt when you revel in their beauty.
To tell the truth about the Extraordinary Form is not to trash the Ordinary Form any more than to say that my Temporary Pretend Polish Daughter is the reigning beauty of the Historical House is to say I'm a wrinkled old hag. (And, indeed, I said the Holy Family EF is more beautiful than the Edinburgh EF, though naturally I am fonder of the Edinburgh EF.) I know that some liturgists have serious theological objections to the Ordinary Form, but I am not yet convinced this means the N.O. must go. (Can you imagine the confusion and dismay if it did?!) Cardinal Stickler wrote about the "Latin language [acting] like a reverent curtain against profanation" and I find that German, Italian and Polish work like that for me. And Cardinal Stickler points out that when the Novus Ordo is said by the book--he cites the Novus Ordo as said by popes--there is nothing amiss.
***
There are still many copies of Seraphic Singles available for sale, as my Canadian publisher informs me. If you have not read my first book, why not buy a copy and gladden hearts at Novalis? If you want to buy a copy for a Polish friend, the edition you want is the rather more celebrated Anielskie Single.
***
If you live in Canada (especially Toronto), why not get a copy of Catholic Insight magazine and read my latest interview about Ceremony of Innocence? Apparently there's a review, too, which I am dying to read.
Tuesday, 11 March 2014
Casting Call for "Ceremony"
Some years ago (2008, in fact), I did a "casting call" for my self-published book The Tragical Tale of Aelianus of England. B.A. suggested Timothy Spall for Aelianus, which was rather naughty of him, but made me laugh, and the rest is history, i.e. the destruction of my career as a Professional Single.
Well, yesterday it occurred to me that it would be fun to ask all those who have read Ceremony of Innocence to cast the major characters, or your favourite characters. Personally I stumped for a German actor to play Dennis as cutie-patootie Daniel Bruehl is too old. I like the idea of Laura Linney as Cat, but she is also too old. Cat is about thirty-three, so we're looking at someone born around 1981--an actress (why do people hate that word?) past her Juliet days, but not really old enough for Lady Capulet. Keira Knightley was born in 1985, but...too gorgeous?
I have a theory that Cat is much better looking than she lets on, though. And Keira Knightley does moody very well. But is there a very young actor out there who is even more handsome than Keira K to play Dennis? The mind boggles.
Well, yesterday it occurred to me that it would be fun to ask all those who have read Ceremony of Innocence to cast the major characters, or your favourite characters. Personally I stumped for a German actor to play Dennis as cutie-patootie Daniel Bruehl is too old. I like the idea of Laura Linney as Cat, but she is also too old. Cat is about thirty-three, so we're looking at someone born around 1981--an actress (why do people hate that word?) past her Juliet days, but not really old enough for Lady Capulet. Keira Knightley was born in 1985, but...too gorgeous?
I have a theory that Cat is much better looking than she lets on, though. And Keira Knightley does moody very well. But is there a very young actor out there who is even more handsome than Keira K to play Dennis? The mind boggles.
Wednesday, 19 February 2014
Author as Sales Help
Yesterday I bought nine copies of Ceremony of Innocence from Crux, wrapped them lovingly in bubble wrap and stuffed them in a wheeled suitcase. Off I went with my babies, bumpity bumpity bump.
This morning has been largely give over to shameless book promotion, and I will be interviewed by Salt + Light this afternoon, interview to be aired on Saturday. I also wrote this for IP Novels, inspiring myself to call my old high school afterwards. So far the head of English has not called me back, but I live in hope. It would be so cool if literary-minded girls from my Alma Mater showed up at my book launch. Or Mrs C, my favourite English teacher. (Hmm, must check Facebook.)
Networks, girls. Networks! If we want to promote great Catholic literature, and make the world safe for all the budding Chestertons, Goddens and Waughs out there, we have to get out there, meeting authors of all kinds, buying each other's books, promoting each other, seeing and being seen. If you are a published writer, you can't sit back and expect your publisher's sales team to get out big crowds for you. Chances are, they can't. As I say in my IP Novels blog post, it's not just who you know, it's how many you know.
Personally I love to spend the whole day indoors writing happily away, but I realize I have been remiss. Every year when I go home to Edinburgh I sulk and say, "In Catholic Toronto people know me, and in Catholic Krakow people know me, but in the United Kingdom, I'm invisible." Well, who's fault is that, eh? Mine, all mine. I will have to get cracking in future. In fact, I think I will have to start going west to Glasgow and south to London to meet and support and promote other Catholic writers, like the excellent Fiorella de Maria.
Incidentally, I bought Deb Gyapong's The Defilers over my new tablet today. It's about Boston; I'm looking forward to reading it. (Although maybe I should save it for next week's plane--it's a thriller, and I love thrillers on planes.) I'll see if I can recognize my old stomping grounds.
This morning has been largely give over to shameless book promotion, and I will be interviewed by Salt + Light this afternoon, interview to be aired on Saturday. I also wrote this for IP Novels, inspiring myself to call my old high school afterwards. So far the head of English has not called me back, but I live in hope. It would be so cool if literary-minded girls from my Alma Mater showed up at my book launch. Or Mrs C, my favourite English teacher. (Hmm, must check Facebook.)
Networks, girls. Networks! If we want to promote great Catholic literature, and make the world safe for all the budding Chestertons, Goddens and Waughs out there, we have to get out there, meeting authors of all kinds, buying each other's books, promoting each other, seeing and being seen. If you are a published writer, you can't sit back and expect your publisher's sales team to get out big crowds for you. Chances are, they can't. As I say in my IP Novels blog post, it's not just who you know, it's how many you know.
Personally I love to spend the whole day indoors writing happily away, but I realize I have been remiss. Every year when I go home to Edinburgh I sulk and say, "In Catholic Toronto people know me, and in Catholic Krakow people know me, but in the United Kingdom, I'm invisible." Well, who's fault is that, eh? Mine, all mine. I will have to get cracking in future. In fact, I think I will have to start going west to Glasgow and south to London to meet and support and promote other Catholic writers, like the excellent Fiorella de Maria.
Incidentally, I bought Deb Gyapong's The Defilers over my new tablet today. It's about Boston; I'm looking forward to reading it. (Although maybe I should save it for next week's plane--it's a thriller, and I love thrillers on planes.) I'll see if I can recognize my old stomping grounds.
Monday, 2 December 2013
Busy as a Bee/Book Stuff by Dec 2
Oh cherubs. I was so busy last week, and I am so busy today. Bzz bzz. I hope you don't mind if I just give you a lot of links to the latest reviews and interviews for Ceremony of Innocence, with my remarks.
But first I will share this hilarious comment from "Sexy Sadie" in Norway: "Why should single women need your help? There are no more boring and unsexy person than a married woman."
Well, I suppose her English is better than my Norwegian, but do you think she knows that the Beatles's song "Sexy Sadie" is about John Lennon's disillusionment with his dodgy guru? "Sexy Sadie" is the Maharishi. "Sexy Sadie", indeed.
Meanwhile, there are many exciting and sexy married women, and I would be one myself were I not afraid of tempting the men of four nations to adulterous thoughts. Although occasionally labelled a feminist, I love men so much that for their sake and in the hope of their ultimate salvation, I have chosen to be as boring and unsexy as I possibly can be. The video below will doubtless provide evidence of this self-sacrificing, spiritually maternal love. Sadly, thought, my attempts at uglification are not always enough. Have I mentioned the young Bangladeshi chef who tried to chat me up on the bus...?
Okay, so first here is a splendid review by Jennifer in Melbourne, Australia's Kairos magazine. Thank you very much, Jennifer. It was a timely reminder that I ought to write about weighty subjects more often and not just rabbit on about how men are the caffeine in the cappuccino of life.
And here is Anamaria's review in Oklahoma City's Sooner Catholic, in case you missed it. Anamaria is not related to the Anna Maria in Ceremony of Innocence.
Here is the latest on Amazon, which contains my first (public) squashed tomato. I was wondering when I would get a squashed tomato, and what sort of squashed tomato it would be. It was a "this isn't Catholic enough" squashed tomato. And my disappointed reviewer still gave me 3 stars, so I can't complain.
Now, here is the Toronto Catholic Register interview, which I am afraid to read because my interviewer gave me my first break at the CR and our mutual Church politics are so different when I am at home we shout at each other about Vatican II while others stand outside his office door and giggle. Okay, that happened only once. But look how he referenced Colm Toibin. Oh, oh, oh. David Lodge, okay, but Colm Toibin is... Blah. Incidentally, I am not wearing make-up in that photograph.
And below is a snippet of the live video of the interview, which was conducted over the internet. I was wearing more make-up than Tammy Faye Baker so that my face was not entirely washed out by the many lamps I set around myself so that Michael could actually see me. Oh dear, it's terribly embarrassing, and my hair looks white, but don't forget that although I am trying to sell a book, I am trying to be boring and unsexy, too, so as not to tempt the men of the world. Incidentally, Polish readers will note my momentary confusion of Poland with all of Europe, which B.A. says is the only mistake I made. Naturally I cannot stand to watch this video myself.
Oh, crikey! I have a radio interview at 5 PM today, and I just remembered!
Update: And here's a mention from Sarah. Thank you, Sarah!
But first I will share this hilarious comment from "Sexy Sadie" in Norway: "Why should single women need your help? There are no more boring and unsexy person than a married woman."
Well, I suppose her English is better than my Norwegian, but do you think she knows that the Beatles's song "Sexy Sadie" is about John Lennon's disillusionment with his dodgy guru? "Sexy Sadie" is the Maharishi. "Sexy Sadie", indeed.
Meanwhile, there are many exciting and sexy married women, and I would be one myself were I not afraid of tempting the men of four nations to adulterous thoughts. Although occasionally labelled a feminist, I love men so much that for their sake and in the hope of their ultimate salvation, I have chosen to be as boring and unsexy as I possibly can be. The video below will doubtless provide evidence of this self-sacrificing, spiritually maternal love. Sadly, thought, my attempts at uglification are not always enough. Have I mentioned the young Bangladeshi chef who tried to chat me up on the bus...?
Okay, so first here is a splendid review by Jennifer in Melbourne, Australia's Kairos magazine. Thank you very much, Jennifer. It was a timely reminder that I ought to write about weighty subjects more often and not just rabbit on about how men are the caffeine in the cappuccino of life.
And here is Anamaria's review in Oklahoma City's Sooner Catholic, in case you missed it. Anamaria is not related to the Anna Maria in Ceremony of Innocence.
Here is the latest on Amazon, which contains my first (public) squashed tomato. I was wondering when I would get a squashed tomato, and what sort of squashed tomato it would be. It was a "this isn't Catholic enough" squashed tomato. And my disappointed reviewer still gave me 3 stars, so I can't complain.
Now, here is the Toronto Catholic Register interview, which I am afraid to read because my interviewer gave me my first break at the CR and our mutual Church politics are so different when I am at home we shout at each other about Vatican II while others stand outside his office door and giggle. Okay, that happened only once. But look how he referenced Colm Toibin. Oh, oh, oh. David Lodge, okay, but Colm Toibin is... Blah. Incidentally, I am not wearing make-up in that photograph.
And below is a snippet of the live video of the interview, which was conducted over the internet. I was wearing more make-up than Tammy Faye Baker so that my face was not entirely washed out by the many lamps I set around myself so that Michael could actually see me. Oh dear, it's terribly embarrassing, and my hair looks white, but don't forget that although I am trying to sell a book, I am trying to be boring and unsexy, too, so as not to tempt the men of the world. Incidentally, Polish readers will note my momentary confusion of Poland with all of Europe, which B.A. says is the only mistake I made. Naturally I cannot stand to watch this video myself.
Oh, crikey! I have a radio interview at 5 PM today, and I just remembered!
Update: And here's a mention from Sarah. Thank you, Sarah!
Tuesday, 19 November 2013
American Singles' Thanksgiving Survival Game
Let us turn our eyes to our American sisters, for [NEXT] Thursday is their Thanksgiving Day, and many of them will find themselves deep in the bosom of their extended family being asked if they have found a "special fella" yet.
From my uncle's death until my nephew Pirate was a few months old, my family was entirely blue- and green-eyed, and we used to play this terrible game called "Everyone Stare at the Brown-Eyed Person." Perhaps in some subconscious attempt to add genetic variety to our family, my brothers and I dated people with dominant genes and actually brought them home for supper. (My sisters were understandably cagey about exposing their dates to our family.) The effect of having five pairs of blue eyes and two pairs of green boring into them must have been pretty awful for our dominant-gened guests. Deary me. You could have made it into a story about the Nazi occupation of France for children.
Gestapo: Tell us the location of the Resistance, or ve vill stare at you.
Brown-eyed Frenchman: Non! I weel nevair tell you. Nevair.
Gestapo: Ve vill see about that! Gentlemen, prepare to stare!
Frenchman: Non! Non! Not that blindeenng blue Teutoneek glare! Aaaah!
Single people attest that the same thing happens to them on such jolly family occasions as American Thanksgiving. Wonderful Aunt Tilly, who has been smiling sympathetically at her niece ever since she arrived, finally leans across the sweet potatoes with marshmallow dish and says, just as there is a lull in the conversation:
"So, dear. Find anyone SPECIAL yet?"
And then everyone at the table, including her 20 year old married cousin and cousin-in-law, stares at the poor Single until someone kind clears their throat and says, "Time enough for that!"
Then Aunt Tilly says "Yes, indeed," and the most dysfunctional person present says, "Don't leave it too long, though! After all, tick tick tick!"
Oh the horror! And this is a NICE family, where everyone gets along and nobody gets off their heads drunk and has fistfights on the front lawn. (I shall discuss the dilemma of dysfunction tomorrow.)
To help American Singles get through Thanksgiving, I long ago devised a wonderful GAME. It's an easy game. In short, American readers count how many times their relations allude to their Single status and then report their tally here on Black Friday. Obviously this game depends on the honour system. To make it extra fun this year, you have to pledge to join the American Singles' Thanksgiving Survival Game on the poll in the margin. And on Black Friday*, I want a full report in the combox. The game begins as soon as you wake up on Thanksgiving morning and ends when you retire to your bedroom that night.
Incidentally, in the little anecdote above, the Single gets TWO points: one for Aunt Tilly, and one for Mr Tick Tick Tick.
This is our traditional game. Those who want to add a new game, might be interested in the Orthogals' Single Bingo board. Simply print out the bingo board and hide it under the bathroom sink, and whenever a relation says one of the clichés give yourself a point for the bingo AND for the Singles' Thanksgiving Survival game. When you get a chance, mark the bingo board. If you can figure out how to do it, photograph your Singles' bingo board and send it to me by email on Black Friday. Then I will announce who has won Singles' Bingo.
The beauty of the games, of course, is that they turn your relatives' conversational crimes into delicious and delightful points. In past years, sisters have actually competed with each other for the most points, although naturally this competition is entirely passive, like playing the lottery. I bet one could get the edge over another by wearing grey or 1980s-style glasses or anything that might goad Aunt Tilly into saying "You'll never get a fella if you dress like that." However, I am ruling that if this is done deliberately, it is cheating.
*Black Friday, the day after the third Thursday in November (i.e. American Thanksgiving) is the day Americans begin their Christmas shopping in earnest, and so the businesses "in the red" finally turn a profit and are, therefore, "in the black." I encourage readers to post their results first thing in the morning of Black Friday, because I'm on Greenwich Mean Time and will be dead asleep before y'all come home with your loot.
Book News: Great new reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, for which I thank the reviewers from my heart. Don't forget that although women buy most of the novels, men like thrillers, so my novel makes a good present for men and women alike! I hasten to say that Ceremony of Innocence is not for children, as it has grown-up themes, scary scenes and enough irony to build a battleship.
But to paraphrase Saint Francis of Assisi, let there be a 21st Century Catholic Literary Renaissance, and let it begin with ME. ;-)
First Book Update: Oh, and of course Seraphic Singles/The Closet's All Mine/Anielskie Single makes a great gift from one Single woman to another!
From my uncle's death until my nephew Pirate was a few months old, my family was entirely blue- and green-eyed, and we used to play this terrible game called "Everyone Stare at the Brown-Eyed Person." Perhaps in some subconscious attempt to add genetic variety to our family, my brothers and I dated people with dominant genes and actually brought them home for supper. (My sisters were understandably cagey about exposing their dates to our family.) The effect of having five pairs of blue eyes and two pairs of green boring into them must have been pretty awful for our dominant-gened guests. Deary me. You could have made it into a story about the Nazi occupation of France for children.
Gestapo: Tell us the location of the Resistance, or ve vill stare at you.
Brown-eyed Frenchman: Non! I weel nevair tell you. Nevair.
Gestapo: Ve vill see about that! Gentlemen, prepare to stare!
Frenchman: Non! Non! Not that blindeenng blue Teutoneek glare! Aaaah!
Single people attest that the same thing happens to them on such jolly family occasions as American Thanksgiving. Wonderful Aunt Tilly, who has been smiling sympathetically at her niece ever since she arrived, finally leans across the sweet potatoes with marshmallow dish and says, just as there is a lull in the conversation:
"So, dear. Find anyone SPECIAL yet?"
And then everyone at the table, including her 20 year old married cousin and cousin-in-law, stares at the poor Single until someone kind clears their throat and says, "Time enough for that!"
Then Aunt Tilly says "Yes, indeed," and the most dysfunctional person present says, "Don't leave it too long, though! After all, tick tick tick!"
Oh the horror! And this is a NICE family, where everyone gets along and nobody gets off their heads drunk and has fistfights on the front lawn. (I shall discuss the dilemma of dysfunction tomorrow.)
To help American Singles get through Thanksgiving, I long ago devised a wonderful GAME. It's an easy game. In short, American readers count how many times their relations allude to their Single status and then report their tally here on Black Friday. Obviously this game depends on the honour system. To make it extra fun this year, you have to pledge to join the American Singles' Thanksgiving Survival Game on the poll in the margin. And on Black Friday*, I want a full report in the combox. The game begins as soon as you wake up on Thanksgiving morning and ends when you retire to your bedroom that night.
Incidentally, in the little anecdote above, the Single gets TWO points: one for Aunt Tilly, and one for Mr Tick Tick Tick.
This is our traditional game. Those who want to add a new game, might be interested in the Orthogals' Single Bingo board. Simply print out the bingo board and hide it under the bathroom sink, and whenever a relation says one of the clichés give yourself a point for the bingo AND for the Singles' Thanksgiving Survival game. When you get a chance, mark the bingo board. If you can figure out how to do it, photograph your Singles' bingo board and send it to me by email on Black Friday. Then I will announce who has won Singles' Bingo.
The beauty of the games, of course, is that they turn your relatives' conversational crimes into delicious and delightful points. In past years, sisters have actually competed with each other for the most points, although naturally this competition is entirely passive, like playing the lottery. I bet one could get the edge over another by wearing grey or 1980s-style glasses or anything that might goad Aunt Tilly into saying "You'll never get a fella if you dress like that." However, I am ruling that if this is done deliberately, it is cheating.
*Black Friday, the day after the third Thursday in November (i.e. American Thanksgiving) is the day Americans begin their Christmas shopping in earnest, and so the businesses "in the red" finally turn a profit and are, therefore, "in the black." I encourage readers to post their results first thing in the morning of Black Friday, because I'm on Greenwich Mean Time and will be dead asleep before y'all come home with your loot.
Book News: Great new reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, for which I thank the reviewers from my heart. Don't forget that although women buy most of the novels, men like thrillers, so my novel makes a good present for men and women alike! I hasten to say that Ceremony of Innocence is not for children, as it has grown-up themes, scary scenes and enough irony to build a battleship.
But to paraphrase Saint Francis of Assisi, let there be a 21st Century Catholic Literary Renaissance, and let it begin with ME. ;-)
First Book Update: Oh, and of course Seraphic Singles/The Closet's All Mine/Anielskie Single makes a great gift from one Single woman to another!
Saturday, 16 November 2013
Attention New Yorkers...
My sister-in-law is in NYC this week and wants to buy Ceremony of Innocence. (She probably won't find it in French-speaking Quebec.) Barnes and Noble will order it in, but it's not on their shelves. (The shock!) She's thinking Christian bookstore, but I am thinking more narrowly "Catholic bookstore." Does anyone in NYC know the addresses for the big Catholic bookstores are (D of St P, for example) and/or who in NYC is carrying C of I?
Thursday, 14 November 2013
So How's The Book Doing?
The other day I was interviewed over Google "Hangout on Air", and it was rather funny as neither interviewer nor I had ever used it before. There I was, simply covered in slap ("paint"), whacking away at keys on my computer with loud damns while across the sea my interviewer stared into his web-camera and began to sing. I could hear him, but he couldn't hear me, but at last I got my computer sorted, so he could begin.
"So how's the book doing?" he asked.
Well, what a stumper of a question. Those Canadian boys are tough.
The thing about living in an attic in a 17th century house in the central belt of Scotland is that I am rather isolated from the majority of my readership, who live in Canada and the United States. If I were in Toronto, I could rush about seeing if my book were in the shops, and offer to do readings, and go on the Michael Coren Show, and charm the Paulines, and generally get in everyone's face. Actually, I hope to do all that in February, after buying a super-cheap round-trip ticket. (This means another Seraphic Singles Toronto Valentine's Day meet-up, by the way!)
I am vaguely known in the Catholic subculture of Toronto, thanks mostly to my column, but in Scotland, no. My biggest claim to fame in my Scottish neighbourhood is having spilled a container of single cream all over myself in the Co-op grocery store and therefore getting to see the staff loo behind the doors to the back. (The back of the Co-op, I was fascinated to see, is almost as big as the front.) At any rate, the idea of going to an Edinburgh Blackwell's or Waterstones and saying, "Hey, how about I come and do a reading here?" is intimidating beyond words. As you may recall, I tried to get in with the local writing scene, but the atheist pride and Catholic-bashing in the first group I tried was just too relentless and I chickened out. It's one thing in Toronto, where it's just fashionable; it's quite another thing in Scotland, where memories of sectarianism still linger and David Hume is THE poster boy for the Scottish Enlightenment.
That said, I suppose I should start emailing people at the various British periodicals to see if anyone has read my book yet. The biggest challenge is actually getting people with free copies to READ the book. And that is sad because, IMHO, if you read page 1, you are going to keep reading. The next biggest challenge is to get people to WRITE about the book, so I am most terrifically grateful to you who have already left Amazon and Goodreads reviews, Twittered and mentioned it on your blog. Apparently there was a review in Oklahoma's Sooner Catholic, too, but it is not in the online edition.*
Incidentally, my friend Deb says that Ceremony of Innocence would make a great Book Group read because everyone could talk about the issues--and there are all kinds, political and literary--late into the night.
Meanwhile, Rose, the Ignatius press PR woman assigned to the case, has been doing a great job getting me radio interviews. So far I have done two radio interviews, and I will have one on November 21 with Holy Spirit Radio in New Jersey and another on November 25 by Nebraska's Spirit Catholic Radio, both interviews to be recorded and played later in the week. Then there's my Catholic Register video interview which will go online, if the picture quality is good enough.
But what I told my video interviewer is that the book had been out for less than a month, so I didn't know how it was doing, but I had sold over 84 copies to my blog readers. He didn't look too impressed, but I was impressed because my average blog reader is a Single woman in university, and when I was a Single woman in university, I did not have much of an entertainment budget. Also, most of my writer friends back home are poets, and their own print runs are 200 copies. If I can sell 200 copies by Christmas to my blog readers, I will be able to look Clara in the eye in February.
Incidentally, I love photos of my books in faraway shops, so if you happen to see Ceremony, snap a photo of you and Ceremony in the shop, and then send it to me, I will certainly put it on my blog!
*Actually, that one's not out yet.
"So how's the book doing?" he asked.
Well, what a stumper of a question. Those Canadian boys are tough.
The thing about living in an attic in a 17th century house in the central belt of Scotland is that I am rather isolated from the majority of my readership, who live in Canada and the United States. If I were in Toronto, I could rush about seeing if my book were in the shops, and offer to do readings, and go on the Michael Coren Show, and charm the Paulines, and generally get in everyone's face. Actually, I hope to do all that in February, after buying a super-cheap round-trip ticket. (This means another Seraphic Singles Toronto Valentine's Day meet-up, by the way!)
I am vaguely known in the Catholic subculture of Toronto, thanks mostly to my column, but in Scotland, no. My biggest claim to fame in my Scottish neighbourhood is having spilled a container of single cream all over myself in the Co-op grocery store and therefore getting to see the staff loo behind the doors to the back. (The back of the Co-op, I was fascinated to see, is almost as big as the front.) At any rate, the idea of going to an Edinburgh Blackwell's or Waterstones and saying, "Hey, how about I come and do a reading here?" is intimidating beyond words. As you may recall, I tried to get in with the local writing scene, but the atheist pride and Catholic-bashing in the first group I tried was just too relentless and I chickened out. It's one thing in Toronto, where it's just fashionable; it's quite another thing in Scotland, where memories of sectarianism still linger and David Hume is THE poster boy for the Scottish Enlightenment.
That said, I suppose I should start emailing people at the various British periodicals to see if anyone has read my book yet. The biggest challenge is actually getting people with free copies to READ the book. And that is sad because, IMHO, if you read page 1, you are going to keep reading. The next biggest challenge is to get people to WRITE about the book, so I am most terrifically grateful to you who have already left Amazon and Goodreads reviews, Twittered and mentioned it on your blog. Apparently there was a review in Oklahoma's Sooner Catholic, too, but it is not in the online edition.*
Incidentally, my friend Deb says that Ceremony of Innocence would make a great Book Group read because everyone could talk about the issues--and there are all kinds, political and literary--late into the night.
Meanwhile, Rose, the Ignatius press PR woman assigned to the case, has been doing a great job getting me radio interviews. So far I have done two radio interviews, and I will have one on November 21 with Holy Spirit Radio in New Jersey and another on November 25 by Nebraska's Spirit Catholic Radio, both interviews to be recorded and played later in the week. Then there's my Catholic Register video interview which will go online, if the picture quality is good enough.
But what I told my video interviewer is that the book had been out for less than a month, so I didn't know how it was doing, but I had sold over 84 copies to my blog readers. He didn't look too impressed, but I was impressed because my average blog reader is a Single woman in university, and when I was a Single woman in university, I did not have much of an entertainment budget. Also, most of my writer friends back home are poets, and their own print runs are 200 copies. If I can sell 200 copies by Christmas to my blog readers, I will be able to look Clara in the eye in February.
Incidentally, I love photos of my books in faraway shops, so if you happen to see Ceremony, snap a photo of you and Ceremony in the shop, and then send it to me, I will certainly put it on my blog!
*Actually, that one's not out yet.
Wednesday, 6 November 2013
Stuck on 70?
Buy! Buy! Buy! Kup teraz!
It was very amusing. I remember talking to someone at Ignatius Press on the phone, in the middle of the night because Ignatius Press is in California, and saying something like, "Well, I get X hits a day, so I think I can guarantee Y sales." And the Ignatius Press person said, in tones of horror, "We mean to sell a lot more than THAT!" And I was, like, "Oh."
Most of my writer friends are poets, and back home poets go mad with joy if they sell 200 copies. I would be totally stoked if y'all bought 200 copies of Ceremony of Innocence by Christmas. Oh dear, I suppose I'll have to go to North America myself to flog the adventures of Catriona & Co. It will make a change from mad googling to see if there are any more reviews.
Meanwhile, thanks to the 70 readers who have loyally bought their copy! I hope you are not too scandalized. So far my priest readers love it.
By the way, this is probably the wrong post to write this, but thanks also to M.J. and L.D. for their October donations!
Update: Thanks to #71, 72 & 73!
It was very amusing. I remember talking to someone at Ignatius Press on the phone, in the middle of the night because Ignatius Press is in California, and saying something like, "Well, I get X hits a day, so I think I can guarantee Y sales." And the Ignatius Press person said, in tones of horror, "We mean to sell a lot more than THAT!" And I was, like, "Oh."
Most of my writer friends are poets, and back home poets go mad with joy if they sell 200 copies. I would be totally stoked if y'all bought 200 copies of Ceremony of Innocence by Christmas. Oh dear, I suppose I'll have to go to North America myself to flog the adventures of Catriona & Co. It will make a change from mad googling to see if there are any more reviews.
Meanwhile, thanks to the 70 readers who have loyally bought their copy! I hope you are not too scandalized. So far my priest readers love it.
By the way, this is probably the wrong post to write this, but thanks also to M.J. and L.D. for their October donations!
Update: Thanks to #71, 72 & 73!
Thursday, 24 October 2013
Relevant Interview
I received an email from an Eavesdropper saying that if I were a man writing for men, my shameless promotion of my book would have driven my readers away. This surely cannot be true, as the best way to sell books is for the author to turn up places and talk about it. Incidentally, I wonder how thin I could get if I consumed nothing but porridge, oranges, borscht, fish and coffee?
Since I live in an attic in an old house on the east coast of Scotland, I cannot easily turn up in the midst of large crowds of Catholics wearing a skirt suit and a winsome smile to talk about my novel and deny that it is autobiographical. I keep telling Hilary White that everyone will think Catriona is her, an idea that may please Hilary less when she reads the book. (N.B. I met Hilary years after the book was done.)
I wish I could go on TV more often. I do rather well on TV, not because I am pretty but because I am very animated and have supernaturally thick hair, so that people sitting in front of the TV yell to their loved ones, "Come and see how much hair this lady has!" Meanwhile, when I saw myself on the Michael Coren show, I noticed that my legs, ending in stiletto heels bought for the show, were in shot quite a lot of the time, and this was the Christian TV station. Maybe it was a coincidence.
Anyway, enough about me and TV. This post is about me and radio. I have another radio interview coming up. This one will be on MONDAY, 8:15 AM Central Time (9:15 Eastern Timee), on Relevant Radio. This time the interview will be 20 to 30 minutes long. I want to be more articulate this time, so I will write some interview questions for B.A. and make him interview me for twenty minutes. No more hemming and hawing if I am asked "Why would a person like you write a book like this?" At the time, I thought the Catholic interviewer was mad at me. Only after he mentioned he hadn't read the book did I realize he was just trying to get some basic information.
Perhaps it would have been easier if he had first asked, "Who are you?", although I was so nervous, I may have channeled Pope Francis and just blurted out "A sinner." I suppose a "person like me" is a cradle Catholic who grew up feeling rather uneasy with the world, for although my perception of my city was that it was "half Catholic"--roughly divided between Catholic school supporters and post-Protestant school supporters--I knew that the elites, from the Queen on down, were not Catholic.
I think my parents were wary of making me ghettoized, for they sent me to Brownies at the local Anglican church instead of to the Catholic Brownies at our parish church. But this meant my father had his Evelyn Waugh moment of putting his foot down against me participating in Brownie Church Parade. This led to some tension with Brown Owl or Tawny Owl (probably Tawny Owl) over this, which increased my sense that something was wrong with--not me and my family--but almost everyone else.
I couldn't understand, for example, why I saw so few of my soi-disant Catholic classmates in church. And I couldn't understand why Catholic priests treated Catholic teachings so seriously, and Catholic teachers didn't. And when I found out about the existence of ab*rti*n--whew! That was basically it for me ever winning the Order of Canada because Canada was floating on a river of baby blood, a mari usque ad mare, and as the eldest of five children, I could never, ever make peace with that. The whole scandal rather flies in the face of our insistence that we are are polite and peaceful people. And people call Victorian attitudes towards sexuality "hypocritical"! (!!!)
Islam, which has so many and varied schools of theology that it is actually silly to talk about Islam as if it were one, easily definable religion like Catholicism, does not always outlaw ab*rti*n, at least not in the early stages of pregnancy. And I honestly think this makes observant Muslims more at home in Canadian society than observant Roman Catholics.
Ab*rtion rights are the feminist sacrament, and they mean more to Canadian and American establishment feminists than anything else, including honour killing and forced marriages. As long as Muslims stay out of the pro-life movement, their religiosity is a-okay with (even admired by) the taste makers and the powers-that-be. It helps Muslims aren't usually white, for post-Christian and post-observant Jewish white feminists are petrified of seeming racist or colonialist. Saudi Arabia, I would point out, has no problem with colonization, for it has been sending and funding Wahhabist missionaries throughout the world, in many cases supplanting indigenous, more easy-going forms of Islam. And, incidentally, I learned this interesting fact at Boston College.
I was at BC after 9/11, and I flew in and out of Boston's Logan International Airport rather often. This meant I thought about 9/11 rather a lot, and I was so interested in religion-inspired violence that I alarmed at least one of my classmates. The Mohammed Cartoon Crisis broke out while I was there--that was good for a paper on freedom of speech (what is it for?) and one on whether violence was an appropriate response to blasphemy (works for Muslims!). And then, of course, I went to Germany, where I was when Canadian police stopped what would have been Toronto's 7/7 or 9/11, and where I missed being blown up by the Cologne bombers by two days and faulty mechanisms.
Well, that covers the Catholic and terrorist bits of my book. Probably, though, for the sake of the radio, I should just mention that I am a Catholic former theology student who found modern Germany fascinating and was most exceedingly cross when some Islamist foreign students set a bomb on a train leaving Cologne two days after I left Cologne. I wanted to write a novel set in Germany that addressed the moral weaknesses of the West and the threat of extremist, colonialist, religious terrorism. Just writing it was a slap both to people who don't want people to talk about such things and to a western literary establishment that preaches "freedom of speech" and then caves at once when scary people threaten it.
P.S. Poles often complain about Poland, but 76% of Poles between 15 and 24, i.e. the ones who don't remember Communism, are solidly pro-life. Our Lady of Częstochowa, by your intercession save Poland from the worst horrors of the West's sexual revolution. Módl się za nami!
Since I live in an attic in an old house on the east coast of Scotland, I cannot easily turn up in the midst of large crowds of Catholics wearing a skirt suit and a winsome smile to talk about my novel and deny that it is autobiographical. I keep telling Hilary White that everyone will think Catriona is her, an idea that may please Hilary less when she reads the book. (N.B. I met Hilary years after the book was done.)
I wish I could go on TV more often. I do rather well on TV, not because I am pretty but because I am very animated and have supernaturally thick hair, so that people sitting in front of the TV yell to their loved ones, "Come and see how much hair this lady has!" Meanwhile, when I saw myself on the Michael Coren show, I noticed that my legs, ending in stiletto heels bought for the show, were in shot quite a lot of the time, and this was the Christian TV station. Maybe it was a coincidence.
Anyway, enough about me and TV. This post is about me and radio. I have another radio interview coming up. This one will be on MONDAY, 8:15 AM Central Time (9:15 Eastern Timee), on Relevant Radio. This time the interview will be 20 to 30 minutes long. I want to be more articulate this time, so I will write some interview questions for B.A. and make him interview me for twenty minutes. No more hemming and hawing if I am asked "Why would a person like you write a book like this?" At the time, I thought the Catholic interviewer was mad at me. Only after he mentioned he hadn't read the book did I realize he was just trying to get some basic information.
Perhaps it would have been easier if he had first asked, "Who are you?", although I was so nervous, I may have channeled Pope Francis and just blurted out "A sinner." I suppose a "person like me" is a cradle Catholic who grew up feeling rather uneasy with the world, for although my perception of my city was that it was "half Catholic"--roughly divided between Catholic school supporters and post-Protestant school supporters--I knew that the elites, from the Queen on down, were not Catholic.
I think my parents were wary of making me ghettoized, for they sent me to Brownies at the local Anglican church instead of to the Catholic Brownies at our parish church. But this meant my father had his Evelyn Waugh moment of putting his foot down against me participating in Brownie Church Parade. This led to some tension with Brown Owl or Tawny Owl (probably Tawny Owl) over this, which increased my sense that something was wrong with--not me and my family--but almost everyone else.
I couldn't understand, for example, why I saw so few of my soi-disant Catholic classmates in church. And I couldn't understand why Catholic priests treated Catholic teachings so seriously, and Catholic teachers didn't. And when I found out about the existence of ab*rti*n--whew! That was basically it for me ever winning the Order of Canada because Canada was floating on a river of baby blood, a mari usque ad mare, and as the eldest of five children, I could never, ever make peace with that. The whole scandal rather flies in the face of our insistence that we are are polite and peaceful people. And people call Victorian attitudes towards sexuality "hypocritical"! (!!!)
Islam, which has so many and varied schools of theology that it is actually silly to talk about Islam as if it were one, easily definable religion like Catholicism, does not always outlaw ab*rti*n, at least not in the early stages of pregnancy. And I honestly think this makes observant Muslims more at home in Canadian society than observant Roman Catholics.
Ab*rtion rights are the feminist sacrament, and they mean more to Canadian and American establishment feminists than anything else, including honour killing and forced marriages. As long as Muslims stay out of the pro-life movement, their religiosity is a-okay with (even admired by) the taste makers and the powers-that-be. It helps Muslims aren't usually white, for post-Christian and post-observant Jewish white feminists are petrified of seeming racist or colonialist. Saudi Arabia, I would point out, has no problem with colonization, for it has been sending and funding Wahhabist missionaries throughout the world, in many cases supplanting indigenous, more easy-going forms of Islam. And, incidentally, I learned this interesting fact at Boston College.
I was at BC after 9/11, and I flew in and out of Boston's Logan International Airport rather often. This meant I thought about 9/11 rather a lot, and I was so interested in religion-inspired violence that I alarmed at least one of my classmates. The Mohammed Cartoon Crisis broke out while I was there--that was good for a paper on freedom of speech (what is it for?) and one on whether violence was an appropriate response to blasphemy (works for Muslims!). And then, of course, I went to Germany, where I was when Canadian police stopped what would have been Toronto's 7/7 or 9/11, and where I missed being blown up by the Cologne bombers by two days and faulty mechanisms.
Well, that covers the Catholic and terrorist bits of my book. Probably, though, for the sake of the radio, I should just mention that I am a Catholic former theology student who found modern Germany fascinating and was most exceedingly cross when some Islamist foreign students set a bomb on a train leaving Cologne two days after I left Cologne. I wanted to write a novel set in Germany that addressed the moral weaknesses of the West and the threat of extremist, colonialist, religious terrorism. Just writing it was a slap both to people who don't want people to talk about such things and to a western literary establishment that preaches "freedom of speech" and then caves at once when scary people threaten it.
P.S. Poles often complain about Poland, but 76% of Poles between 15 and 24, i.e. the ones who don't remember Communism, are solidly pro-life. Our Lady of Częstochowa, by your intercession save Poland from the worst horrors of the West's sexual revolution. Módl się za nami!
Tuesday, 22 October 2013
Pop Quiz!
You may be wondering why I am up so late. It is because I have discovered the "Quiz" feature at Goodreads! If you have already read Ceremony of Innocence, you may enjoy taking the quiz. No cheating by looking up stuff in the book!
Well, maybe if you are desperate.
Update: Hooray for the readers who took it! Was it hard?
Update 2: Okay, something is fishy, because B.A. and I both took the quiz and we both got zero. How can I get zero? I wrote the book. I wrote the quiz!
Well, maybe if you are desperate.
Update: Hooray for the readers who took it! Was it hard?
Update 2: Okay, something is fishy, because B.A. and I both took the quiz and we both got zero. How can I get zero? I wrote the book. I wrote the quiz!
Saturday, 19 October 2013
Seraphic on the Radio this Monday
Well, my cherubs, I will be interviewed on the "Son Rise Morning Show with Brian Patrick" on EWTN's Spirit Radio this Monday, October 21, at an eye-opening 7:20 AM Eastern Time. It will be 12:20 PM for me, as the UK is five hours ahead of Eastern Time. And thank heavens because I don't think I would make much sense at 7:20 AM if it were 7:20 AM for me.
The interview will be just ten minutes long. We're going to talk about my novel Ceremony of Innocence. Eek!
Here's a link to EWTN's American webpage. If you click on "Radio" at the top of the page, you can find out how to listen to the show yourselves.
Update: There are UK and Irish EWTN webpages, but my computer doesn't like them for some reason.
The interview will be just ten minutes long. We're going to talk about my novel Ceremony of Innocence. Eek!
Here's a link to EWTN's American webpage. If you click on "Radio" at the top of the page, you can find out how to listen to the show yourselves.
Update: There are UK and Irish EWTN webpages, but my computer doesn't like them for some reason.
Friday, 18 October 2013
New Book Dance Party
Thank you very much to those readers who have already bought my new book and even written reviews or comments. It's been an exciting week; my interview provided a provocative headline for Catholic World Report.
It's not every day anyone asks me about my writing or my influences, and I wrote and rewrote my answer about "most influential authors" a dozen times. But so far nobody has asked me--and if you should ever interview anyone about a novel, you might consider asking them--what I was listening to at the time.
Normally I write in dead silence, but while either writing or reviewing or thinking about (most likely) the chapters of Ceremony of Innocence, I was listening to club music. I wanted a real "rave" vibe for my book and was trying to conjure up memories of feelings and impressions from my time in Germany. After all, my younger characters go to clubs a lot, especially this one. And trance music is called "trance" for a reason.
Here are some of the tracks I listened to repeatedly while writing Ceremony of Innocence:
Scarf: "Odyssey"
Cascada: "Every Time We Touch"
Basshunter: "DotA"
Alice DeeJay: "Will I Ever"
Blumchen: "Heut' ist Mein Tag"
Tune Up: "Raver's Fantasy"
Darude: "Sandstorm"
The Killers: "Mr. Brightside"
The Killers: "Somebody Told Me"
Alice Deejay: "Back in My Life"
Mo-Do: "Einz Dwei Polizei"
and my favourite Canadian song of all time:
Tragically Hip: "Nautical Disaster"
I think I listened to Alice Deejay sing "Back in My Life" a hundred times. You can find all these songs on YouTube, which is where I found them. (The official videos for "Will I Ever", "Sandstorm" and "Einz Dwei Politzei" are Not Safe For Little Brothers.) However, I think I may have to buy them for B.A.'s MP3 player, which I take along to the gym.
Update: Yikes! Did not realize how appropriate "Nautical Disaster" was until now.
It's not every day anyone asks me about my writing or my influences, and I wrote and rewrote my answer about "most influential authors" a dozen times. But so far nobody has asked me--and if you should ever interview anyone about a novel, you might consider asking them--what I was listening to at the time.
Normally I write in dead silence, but while either writing or reviewing or thinking about (most likely) the chapters of Ceremony of Innocence, I was listening to club music. I wanted a real "rave" vibe for my book and was trying to conjure up memories of feelings and impressions from my time in Germany. After all, my younger characters go to clubs a lot, especially this one. And trance music is called "trance" for a reason.
Here are some of the tracks I listened to repeatedly while writing Ceremony of Innocence:
Scarf: "Odyssey"
Cascada: "Every Time We Touch"
Basshunter: "DotA"
Alice DeeJay: "Will I Ever"
Blumchen: "Heut' ist Mein Tag"
Tune Up: "Raver's Fantasy"
Darude: "Sandstorm"
The Killers: "Mr. Brightside"
The Killers: "Somebody Told Me"
Alice Deejay: "Back in My Life"
Mo-Do: "Einz Dwei Polizei"
and my favourite Canadian song of all time:
Tragically Hip: "Nautical Disaster"
I think I listened to Alice Deejay sing "Back in My Life" a hundred times. You can find all these songs on YouTube, which is where I found them. (The official videos for "Will I Ever", "Sandstorm" and "Einz Dwei Politzei" are Not Safe For Little Brothers.) However, I think I may have to buy them for B.A.'s MP3 player, which I take along to the gym.
Update: Yikes! Did not realize how appropriate "Nautical Disaster" was until now.
Thursday, 21 March 2013
My Next Book
Happy Spring! With spring comes the news that Ignatius Press has made Ceremony of Innocence available for pre-order. (The 'A' in the title should be off the cover when the covers are made!)Here is what Ignatius says about it:
Scottish Catholic journalist Catriona McClelland comes home to her Frankfurt apartment to find her German ex-boyfriend Dennis sitting nervously on the couch. Police arrive. A Canadian student, Suzy Davis, has been drowned, and both Cat and Dennis are suspects in her murder.
Subsequent police interviews trigger Cat's memories of her reluctant friendship with Suzy, an enthusiastic supporter of left-wing organizations. The two women had become acquainted while terrorist bombings, student unrest and neo-Nazi riots brought Germany to a boiling point. Cat had tried to maintain her professional aloofness while writing reports on these events, but the political became personal when Suzy fell for Dennis and forced Cat to confront her hypocrisy in refusing either to marry the much younger man or to let him go.
Ripped from the headlines, Ceremony of Innocence is a very contemporary novel of Europe on the edge of social breakdown. Train stations are bombed and migrants targeted for violence as journalists and other tastemakers watch from their positions of privilege.
Cummings' realistic narrative does not describe the feats of heroes. Rather, it unnervingly lays bare the way religious faith and moral reasoning can be easily manipulated and compromised.
Whoo-hoo! Not my usual sort of thing, eh? And I hope the greatest Roman Catholic thriller writer of the 20th century, Graham Greene, would approve. It's very much in memory of him.
Let's see. What can I say? Well, first of all it's not autobiographical. I did meet someone who reminds me greatly of Catriona 20 years ago, but I haven't seen her in 19. And there is someone in Germany who looks surprisingly like Dennis, but he is not really like him. But I know where their flat is, and as I don't know the current occupants, I haven't been in it for some years.
Second, you will really like this book if you are German or know Germany at all.
Third, this is not a good set-text with which to home-school children. It is a grown-up book, with grown-up themes, but I sent the manuscript to my parish priest without a moment's qualm. (He loved it.)
I recommend pre-ordering straight from Ignatius. I feel strongly that Catholics have the responsibility to support Catholic bookshops and Catholic publishers, so that both can actually thrive and be open to taking a chance on relatively unknown Catholic writers like myself. This is especially true for fiction. In the pyramid of "who makes the money" in publishing, the lion's share goes not to the author, nor to the publisher, but to the bookseller. Therefore, it really does matter to the Catholic bookshops, Catholic publishers and Catholic writers where you buy a book.
Ignatius link here.
Meanwhile, I'm very grateful to Ignatius for having taken a chance on me--and on Catriona, Dennis, Suzy and all the people who walked into my head a few years ago. I love them like children, so I'm glad you're going to meet them, too.
Friday, 25 January 2013
Another Kraków Retreat
There will be an Anielskie Single retreat in Kraków between October 25 and 27, 2013. I will tell you the details when I know them. The retreat will be in Polish--although my talks will be predominantly in English, with a simultaneous Polish translation provided--and open to both women and men.
Last May there was one non-Polish speaker besides me at my first Polish retreat, an American girl living in France who speaks fluent French. I thought she was one of the bravest American girls I ever met. To spend a weekend at a religious retreat in Poland surrounded by Poles when you don't speak any Polish is very brave. Fortunately, there was also a Canadian girl there, fluent in both English and Polish, so the American girl had someone to hang out with. Most Polish girls in Krakow speak at least some English, but they are sometimes shy about it. There was also a Polish woman who spoke French very well, so that worked out nicely, too.
Kraków (Cracow in English) is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen, so it is well worth a visit although I imagine, from October 25 and 27, we will all kept very busy in the retreat centre. If you do not live in Poland, it would make sense to make the retreat part of a week-long trip to Poland. Early to mid-October is very beautiful, and November 1st, All Saints Day, is one of the most important holidays in the Polish calendar. Expats fly home to be with their families and decorate family graves. The cemeteries are beautiful, and you just might give up any lingering pagan attachment to Hallowe'en.
It goes without saying that Poland is one of the nicest places in the world for a Roman Catholic to visit. Poles tend not to understand this, but they are always happy when foreigners praise Poland. It is full of beautiful churches, and the churches in Kraków and Warsaw are packed on Sundays and Holy Days and First Fridays, although if you exclaim over this, the Poles will tell you that this is nothing and you should have seen them ten years ago, the congregations spilled into the streets, Catholicism in Poland is in decline, woe. They usually haven't a clue what it is like to be Catholic outside Poland.
Poland is also exciting to visit because it is in the EAST. Poles will tell you that it is not in the east but CENTRAL or even in the WEST because it is so westernized now, but once you get on a neglected highway east of Kraków, you will know you are in the EAST. (That said, Warsaw is a lot more EAST than Kraków is.)
"Wait," I hear a voice cry. "Back up. You said something about the retreat being open to men."
Ah, yes. Ahem. Yes. Yes, it is. And this means poor Auntie has to adjust her thoughts to make them more specifically relevant for men, too, including any with SSA. It will not be like chatting to you girls with the men listening at the door. Presumably they will actually be sitting there and eating with the women and praying among us at Mass. The dynamic will be completely different from last May's retreat, but Father Paweł (whose idea this is) seems perfectly sanguine about it, so I guess it will be okay. I don't know why I am so nervous about it. Oh--just remembered.
Seraphic: And how is your mother?
Polish Man: Why do you want to know?
Seraphic: Um, because it's polite to ask?
Polish Man: British small talk is stupid.
As a matter of fact, a mixed retreat is more usual in Poland than a woman-only retreat, which was then an innovation for the retreat house. And I imagine there will be a good mix in age and circumstances--elderly widowed men, middle-aged divorced men, and youngsters who just don't want to or can't get married right now--so it will not be at all like an American Catholic Singles annual cruise ship party.
(Long pause as I try to imagine myself as a speaker at an American Catholic Singles annual cruise ship party. I bet they get paid hugely. Has anyone been on one? I am dying to know.)
Meanwhile, I plan to be in Poland for at least two weeks in October, so if any Polish readers would like me to come and speak to their group, just contact me. I can read Polish from a prepared text, but otherwise you would need someone to translate.
Last May there was one non-Polish speaker besides me at my first Polish retreat, an American girl living in France who speaks fluent French. I thought she was one of the bravest American girls I ever met. To spend a weekend at a religious retreat in Poland surrounded by Poles when you don't speak any Polish is very brave. Fortunately, there was also a Canadian girl there, fluent in both English and Polish, so the American girl had someone to hang out with. Most Polish girls in Krakow speak at least some English, but they are sometimes shy about it. There was also a Polish woman who spoke French very well, so that worked out nicely, too.
Kraków (Cracow in English) is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen, so it is well worth a visit although I imagine, from October 25 and 27, we will all kept very busy in the retreat centre. If you do not live in Poland, it would make sense to make the retreat part of a week-long trip to Poland. Early to mid-October is very beautiful, and November 1st, All Saints Day, is one of the most important holidays in the Polish calendar. Expats fly home to be with their families and decorate family graves. The cemeteries are beautiful, and you just might give up any lingering pagan attachment to Hallowe'en.
It goes without saying that Poland is one of the nicest places in the world for a Roman Catholic to visit. Poles tend not to understand this, but they are always happy when foreigners praise Poland. It is full of beautiful churches, and the churches in Kraków and Warsaw are packed on Sundays and Holy Days and First Fridays, although if you exclaim over this, the Poles will tell you that this is nothing and you should have seen them ten years ago, the congregations spilled into the streets, Catholicism in Poland is in decline, woe. They usually haven't a clue what it is like to be Catholic outside Poland.
Poland is also exciting to visit because it is in the EAST. Poles will tell you that it is not in the east but CENTRAL or even in the WEST because it is so westernized now, but once you get on a neglected highway east of Kraków, you will know you are in the EAST. (That said, Warsaw is a lot more EAST than Kraków is.)
"Wait," I hear a voice cry. "Back up. You said something about the retreat being open to men."
Ah, yes. Ahem. Yes. Yes, it is. And this means poor Auntie has to adjust her thoughts to make them more specifically relevant for men, too, including any with SSA. It will not be like chatting to you girls with the men listening at the door. Presumably they will actually be sitting there and eating with the women and praying among us at Mass. The dynamic will be completely different from last May's retreat, but Father Paweł (whose idea this is) seems perfectly sanguine about it, so I guess it will be okay. I don't know why I am so nervous about it. Oh--just remembered.
Seraphic: And how is your mother?
Polish Man: Why do you want to know?
Seraphic: Um, because it's polite to ask?
Polish Man: British small talk is stupid.
As a matter of fact, a mixed retreat is more usual in Poland than a woman-only retreat, which was then an innovation for the retreat house. And I imagine there will be a good mix in age and circumstances--elderly widowed men, middle-aged divorced men, and youngsters who just don't want to or can't get married right now--so it will not be at all like an American Catholic Singles annual cruise ship party.
(Long pause as I try to imagine myself as a speaker at an American Catholic Singles annual cruise ship party. I bet they get paid hugely. Has anyone been on one? I am dying to know.)
Meanwhile, I plan to be in Poland for at least two weeks in October, so if any Polish readers would like me to come and speak to their group, just contact me. I can read Polish from a prepared text, but otherwise you would need someone to translate.
Monday, 7 May 2012
The Brave Women Retreat
And--sorry to toot my own horn--I was brave myself. When I discovered that I had missed my Edinburgh to Krakow flight--because I am not only brave but also occasionally stupid--I booked a flight to Gatwick, there to sleep until the first UK flight to Krakow left the next morning at 7:45 AM.
Monday Night, 30 April
Oh, poppets. The horror of trying to sleep in Gatwick. There are, in Gatwick, a few rows of seats without any arm-rests, so people can actually lie down. But the lights shine down relentlessly and old men talk without ceasing and other travellers get the good seats before you, and it is all very unpleasant. However, eventually I did manage to get a row to myself and I wrapped my head in my scarf against the bright lights and stuffed earplugs in my ears against the old men. And thus I managed to get some sleep, if not the deep, deep, sleep of the enviable Polish couple to my right.
Incidentally, the ankle-length denim skirt does have its uses. If you are going to sleep on the floor or seats of Gatwick airport, an ankle-length denim skirt is a good thing. Meanwhile, I went to sleep clutching a postcard of Our Lady Queen of Poland as a protection against Bad People.
Tuesday, 1 May
First I put in my contact lenses. Next I went to Costa coffee and had a "flat white." Then I flew to Krakow, muttering my Polish speech over and over. The correct way to pronounce the name of our beloved late pontiff JP2 in Polish is, more-or-less, Bwogoslavee-ON-ee Yan PAV-ey-oh DRU-gi.
At Krakow airport was Father Pawel, who whisked me away out-of-doors, where it was over 25 degrees Celsius, which is to say absolute heaven after cold and rainy Britain. I took off my tweed coat and wool hat and turned my face to the sky and made noises of joy and gratitude. The sun shone down, the sky was blue, the population of Krakow jammed the highway as they headed for the mountains, and thus we took a country route to the Redemptorists' house.
At the Redemptorists' house I was shown to my room and given half an hour of free time, which I used to wash and change and recover from my eight prone hours in Gatwick airport. Then I was whisked to dinner, which I gratefully munched, and where I met other people in the retreat team. Then I was carted off to an interview in the Homo Dei office, which never happened, and then I went for a lovely sunny walk along the Vistula with beautiful Alicja, who was giving a lecture on Wednesday afternoon.
Then there was a meeting in a board room, and this was very amusing because, of course, I understood enough Polish to know what was going on, but not enough to know exactly what people were saying. Which must be like how it is for some Poles in Scotland. But fortunately I never felt left out or despairing, and when asked if I had anything to say, I croaked out "Cieszę się, że jestem tutaj." This means I am happy that I am here, which was perfectly true.
And at last the retreat began in the little retreat house, which had a nice big room with windows, and it began with prayers and Praise and Worship music, led by the music team, a married couple, the wife playing the electric keyboard and the husband playing the electric guitar. I had a strong sense of "Toto, we aren't in Trid Land anymore." In fact, I had a sense that this was a natural extension of my M.Div. years. And say what you like about P&W, it's very repetitive and therefore ideal for learning theological Polish.
Then was supper. Then was Mass in the 16th century church in which JP2 used to ask for the help of Our Lady of Perpetual Help on his way to his Nazi-occupation era manual labour job. And then there was a lecture about "The Brave Woman, Who Can Find Her?" and women in the Old Testament by Dr. Kantor, who was also my translator. I stayed for ten minutes, but then I was simply too exhausted. Off I went to bed.
Wednesday, 2 May
There were prayers and P&W music the next morning after breakfast, and then it was time for me to do my thing. So I got up and looked at the seventy lovely women who had decided to spend their May vacation on retreat, and said "Dziękuję bardzo. Cieszę się, że jestem dziś z Paniami tutaj w Krakowie." And to my joy, it actually came out Polish-sounding, and the ladies were astonished and applauded warmly. In M.Div. language, I felt very affirmed. So I read out the rest of my 90 word speech and was warmly applauded again. Their generous response was reward beyond my wildest dreams for my six months of ego-squashing linguistic toil. Then I told them all about St. Edith Stein.
Dr. K translated after every sentence, so we all got 74 minutes of St. Edith Stein.
Then there was a break, and then to my relief almost everyone came back and I gave part one of "How Not to Go Insane While You are Single." This was much lighter fare than the thought of St. Edith Stein. By then I had figured out that I had two audiences. One audience could understand whatever I said, and the other audience depended on the translator. This knowledge helped me a lot in delivery.
And then there was dinner--hurrah! The Poles have their main meal in the middle of the day, which is extremely sensible. There was soup and meat and potatoes and veg, all delicious.
After dinner there was Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, confessions with Fr. Pawel and one-on-one chats with Alicja in one room and me in another. I had some very heartwarming chats. There was another short P&W service, and then it was time for Alicja's lecture about Single Life and prayer. Polish-Canadian M very kindly translated for American R and Scots-Canadian me.
Then there was Mass and a little P&W service of healing, but my Gatwick vigil caught up with me, and I didn't make it through the healing service. Zzzzz.
Thursday, 3 May
Breakfast. P&W service. Me. This time my intro was a simple Dzien dobry (Good day) and then I told us all about Mulieris Dignitatem. After an hour, I stopped and we all had a good break. Then I gave Part 2 of "How Not to Go Insane While You are Single", which I think we all enjoyed more than Mulieris Dignitatem, as it was funnier and much less brainy.
Then we went to a scheduled parish Mass in the church. It was the feast day of Our Lady Queen of Poland, and instead of P&W songs there were a lot of hymns featuring the words "Maryjo" and "Polski" and "Polska". And then there was the concluding meeting in the retreat house and delicious dinner. People began to say good-bye and to leave. And then I packed and was taken by tram to the train station, Father Pawel lugging my monster suitcase all the way, and put on the train to Warsaw.
Only when the train was zipping north-east did it begin to rain. Ahh...! I'm telling you, the weather was perfect. Okay, Thursday afternoon was a bit muggy, as there was shortly to be a thunderstorm, but I enjoyed even the mugginess because late April in Edinburgh was miserable.
So what else can I tell you about the retreat? I greatly enjoyed signing books because it gave me a chance to speak one-on-one to many of the women, most of whom were shy about their English, which was always better than my Polish, so they needn't have been shy. And I was very grateful to Dorota and Margareta of Homo Dei for they baked me a big box of kokosanki (coconut cookies) and thus, later on the week, when I was hungry and stuck on a slow train, I had something to eat.
Oh, and I am also very grateful to the porter, for when I returned to the Redemptorists' house from central Poland to spend the night before flying back to Edinburgh, he said, "Ah! Pani (Miss) [Seraphic]!" like I belonged there.
Update: I don't want to stress this, this being a blog for Singles, but I have to say that the hero of the hour(s) on Monday evening was B.A. Even though I was in floods of self-hating tears, B.A. coped extremely patiently and supported all my plans, including buying last minute flights. He came with me to the airport by bus and was cheerful and kind and observed that it was nice that we never have terrible rows in a crisis.
"That is because in a real crisis I go into a catatonic state," I said.
And as this is a blog for Singles, I will say that my dad would have done the same thing. There is something to be said for wanting to marry a nice guy like your dad, if you are so lucky as to have a good dad.
Thursday, 8 March 2012
Zagłosuj i wygraj
Update (Friday): Ooo. Don't like the current margin. Must...beat...other...foreigner. Zagłosuj! Zagłosuj!
***
I see that Anielskie Single is up for "Best Catholic Book" or, rather "Najlepsza książka katolicka" in the Literature section, and all of a sudden I am seized by a large, fat, desire to win.
So if you can read enough Polish to fill in forms, could you toddle over to this interesting webpage and vote for little me? I see I am currently #2.
Have I mentioned how much I love Poland? I love Poland. Poland is very nice to me and my book. I wish I could express this in great, effusive paragraphs of Polish, but so far I am still on "Czy pani może czegoś się napić ze mną dziś wieczorem?"
Update: Świetny! Anielskie Single is ahead for now. Suddenly I think I know how Father Z feels! :-D
***
I see that Anielskie Single is up for "Best Catholic Book" or, rather "Najlepsza książka katolicka" in the Literature section, and all of a sudden I am seized by a large, fat, desire to win.
So if you can read enough Polish to fill in forms, could you toddle over to this interesting webpage and vote for little me? I see I am currently #2.
Have I mentioned how much I love Poland? I love Poland. Poland is very nice to me and my book. I wish I could express this in great, effusive paragraphs of Polish, but so far I am still on "Czy pani może czegoś się napić ze mną dziś wieczorem?"
Update: Świetny! Anielskie Single is ahead for now. Suddenly I think I know how Father Z feels! :-D
Tuesday, 15 November 2011
Congrats to Rosario...
Rosario Rodriguez won The Crescat's Seraphic Giveaway contest. She gets a copy of The Closet's All Mine. If you don't have one, you can of course get one from Amazon or (even better) if you are in the USA in the nearest bookshop run by nuns. If the nuns don't have it in, they will get it in. I think it is nicer to buy books from nuns than from Amazon if you can.
Otherwise, in Canada the book is called Seraphic Singles and in Poland it is called Anielskie Single and the whole reason this blog is up is to promote it/them. This is vaguely amusing because now the blog is longer than all three editions put together. And I hope this is not the literary equivalent of "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?"!
Although this is a blog for feeling good about being Single, I am sometimes tempted to have a Bachelor Giveaway contest. Now that I am married, I meet nice twenty-something bachelors all the time. I wonder if this is because they are far, far away from their mothers and feel the need of an auntie; it is not like I suddenly became more beautiful than I was in my twenties. It could be that I care less; when I see a twenty-something bachelor standing around shyly in the parish hall, my first thought is not "Is he cute?" but "Does he know anybody?"
I don't care what they think when I come up to them and say, "How do you do?" I don't mentally skip to the chase. There is no chase to skip to. Well, actually, I suppose B.A. might succumb to scarlet fever and leave me a youngish widow, but you know, I don't think, when I see some wilting undergrad in tweed, "Oh! I wonder if that could be my third husband!" No. My motives are entirely pure, and then when someone vaguely their age is in earshot, I introduce them to each other, and push off.
In general advice-givers suggest young women not approach men directly, and I agree with this except when one new man is surrounded by people he doesn't know but you do, especially in a parish situation. I think in this case the corporal work of mercy of welcoming the stranger takes precedence over all other considerations.
That reminds me that if there are any Catholic girls living in south-east Scotland who read this blog, our Latin Mass community could really use some more twenty-something girls and thirty-something ladies. Hint hint hint. See the strawberry blonde lady in green tweed in the parish hall after Mass.
Otherwise, in Canada the book is called Seraphic Singles and in Poland it is called Anielskie Single and the whole reason this blog is up is to promote it/them. This is vaguely amusing because now the blog is longer than all three editions put together. And I hope this is not the literary equivalent of "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?"!
Although this is a blog for feeling good about being Single, I am sometimes tempted to have a Bachelor Giveaway contest. Now that I am married, I meet nice twenty-something bachelors all the time. I wonder if this is because they are far, far away from their mothers and feel the need of an auntie; it is not like I suddenly became more beautiful than I was in my twenties. It could be that I care less; when I see a twenty-something bachelor standing around shyly in the parish hall, my first thought is not "Is he cute?" but "Does he know anybody?"
I don't care what they think when I come up to them and say, "How do you do?" I don't mentally skip to the chase. There is no chase to skip to. Well, actually, I suppose B.A. might succumb to scarlet fever and leave me a youngish widow, but you know, I don't think, when I see some wilting undergrad in tweed, "Oh! I wonder if that could be my third husband!" No. My motives are entirely pure, and then when someone vaguely their age is in earshot, I introduce them to each other, and push off.
In general advice-givers suggest young women not approach men directly, and I agree with this except when one new man is surrounded by people he doesn't know but you do, especially in a parish situation. I think in this case the corporal work of mercy of welcoming the stranger takes precedence over all other considerations.
That reminds me that if there are any Catholic girls living in south-east Scotland who read this blog, our Latin Mass community could really use some more twenty-something girls and thirty-something ladies. Hint hint hint. See the strawberry blonde lady in green tweed in the parish hall after Mass.
Saturday, 5 November 2011
"Anielskie Single" Interview
How exciting! At last my Nasz Dziennik interview has come out. Nasz Dziennik is a conservative national Polish daily paper.It is also posted on the Radio Maryja website.
Update: Szczęść Boże Polska. Powitanie!
Update 2: This is a great take on the thorny issue "Is the unconsecrated Single life a vocation?" Hat-tip The Crescat.
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