Katherine Center and Allison Winn Scotch

Recently, I had the privilege of "meeting" 2 authors I really like, Allison Winn Scotch and Katherine Center, via Twitter of all things! Ah, the power of the internets. It all came about like this - I did a program at the PLA national conference this year, my portion was on Women's Fiction (surprise!). I mentioned Scotch and Center as 2 of my top picks for up-and-coming WF authors (although, now that they each have 3 books under their belts, they've arrived, really). Library Journal picked up the program to blog about, Center got notification of it via Google Alerts, tweeted the program, sent it to Scotch, and voila, the next thing I knew I'm following them, they're following me, and boom, internet friendship blossoms. : )

Anyway, over on the Booklist blog that I contribute to, I've started talking about good WF picks for book clubs, and, have featured both of these stellar authors. I was lucky enough to snag a review copy of Scotch's upcoming novel and got my hold in early at the library for Center's latest, so here are condensed blurbs about them. Head over to the Booklist postings about Scotch and Center to read more about them. Enjoy!

Katherine Center: Full post here. "Center’s newest, Get Lucky, was just published this month in trade paperback, so even though it’s new it won’t be a hassle to obtain for groups. Sarah, an ad exec, is fired from her job when she forwards an inappropriate email to her entire firm. She decides to leave the rat race of New York to stay with her sister in Houston for a while. Her sister, Mackie, has been trying unsuccessfully to have a baby. Sarah decides that what the heck, she’s not working anyway, she’ll be the surrogate! While of course, wackiness ensues… this is also a story with real heart and depth."

Allison Winn Scotch: Full post here.
"Her latest book, The One That I Want (due out in June 2010) has the same sense of whimsical fantasy - only this time instead of going back in time, we get to take a look forward. Tilly actually loves her seemingly perfect life, until she realizes it’s not so perfect after all. When her husband leaves her to follow his basketball-coaching bliss, Tilly stumbles through life until a psychic pal grants her the gift of clarity - the ability to flash forward into the future and see where life is going to take her. Again, Scotch handles a whimsical premise that could be downright silly in another writer’s hands and manages to make it sound perfectly reasonable and possible. Her down to earth characters and snappy sense of humor are a real treat, and readers will enjoy discussing Tilly’s fate."

Recent Salon article on women's fiction: Women's Fiction: All Misery and Martinis?

http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet/2010/03/19/womens_fiction

"As Rebecca Traister wrote in 2005, 'Beating on 'women's' fiction -- and dismissing certain literary trends as feminine rubbish -- has a history as long as the popular fiction itself.'"

The article also goes on to define a big issue with women's fiction, which is that it's a very vague definition, and no one seems to know who gets to decide (publishers? readers? authors?) what ends up tagged as WF or not.

Beach Reads... Summer will be here before you know it!

The upcoming issue of Library Journal (May 1, 2010) has my latest Beach Reads roundup:
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6726026.html

Would like to point out that I would also add to the list 2 more books I just finished (not in the article, but they were positively reviewed in LJ by others. I'll be posting my own reviews here this week sometime) -
Allison Winn Scotch's The One That I Want (due out in June); and Kathleen Center's Get Lucky (out now).  I'm  also really looking forward to Jennifer Weiner's Fly Away Home, which is due out in July, but from what I gather from following Weiner (OK, OK, stalking, LOL) on Facebook, she's in the final edit stages, so there isn't an ARC available yet... I'm hoping my editor at LJ gets her hands on it and sends it my way when it needs to be reviewed!

And I simply LOVED Isabel Wolff's A Vintage Affair (due out in June).  It came to me as part of the article, but I liked it so much I asked LJ to run a separate, starred review of it so it wouldn't get lost in the roundup. Will post the review once it's published!

Well, hello there! And mind if I brag?

Well!  It’s been way too long since I’ve posted, but let me take a moment to tell you why!  I recently published an article on Readers Advisory for Public Libraries magazine,  titled "Jack of All Trades Reader's Advisory" for the Jan/Feb 2010 issue.  When it’s available online, I’ll post the link here.

I also have this year's women's fiction  "beach reads" roundup coming out soon for Library Journal... should be the May or June 1st issue, I think.  Will certainly post the link when it's available.  Here's the link for 2008's list (I didn't write this one, but it's still fab!), and the 2006 roundup.

I’ve done several presentations in the last month, Feel the Need to Weed for the Illinois State Library’s On the Front Lines conference, and Books:  The Top 5 of the Top 5 for the national Public Library Association conference.

And, I’ve snagged 2 kudos this year.  I am the 2010 recipient of PLA’s Allie Beth Martin Award, as well as named one of Library Journal’s 2010 Movers and Shakers. 

So you can see, some of this has kept me from posting on this blog!  I plan on being able to post at least weekly in the coming months – we'll see!

The Article that started it all...

Here's a link to the chick lit article I wrote for Library Journal back in 2005, which was my entryway to becoming a library expert on women's fiction (editors at Libraries Unlimited had come across my article and that led them to asking me to write the 2 books for them!)


Hip Lit for Hip Chicks

Older titles, but still relevant info.

"Chick lit offers fun, entertaining reading—don't go looking for timeless prose, philosophical musings, or unpredictable plots here!—but that does not completely explain its allure. The genre's aim of eliciting a response of "I'm exactly like that" or "That just happened to me!" has really struck a chord with women in their twenties and thirties who want to be reassured that they are not alone in screwing up their lives—or that screwing up doesn't preclude a happy ending."  Read More...