Tag: IPPY

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I’m Interviewed at Independent Publisher, Along with Evil Wylie!

I’m interviewed today at Independent Publisher magazine, the people who gave me my IPPY gold medal. This is the first interview where I was asked more detailed questions about how autobiographical the psychosomatic disorder aspect of Swallow was, and so I talked a bit about that. It’s funny because when the writer, Nina L. Diamond, was asking me questions about my own experiences with the disorder and how closely they paralleled Sophie’s experiences with it, I really had to think back. I think when you really get into a novel and you start creating your own characters and filling out the details of their lives and creating situations for them that will increase the conflict and the dramatic tension of the novel and will lead to a fuller arc for both the characters and the overall plot, then you really distance yourself from what actually happened. And then, when asked, you have trouble remembering what actually happened! So, I kind of stuttered a bit on that.

Also in the same issue, Diamond interviews the writer known as Evil Wylie (and also Emperor Franzen). Fun to be in the same issue as he!

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SWALLOW NAMED FINALIST IN 2010 IPPYS

So psyched! My novel is a finalist in this year’s IPPY Awards, in the regional fiction division. I’m psyched both because, if the entrants mean anything (and I’m sure they do), this is a pretty prestigious contest for indie publishers (just scroll down to the Literary Fiction division, for starters – I mean, Matterhorn guy is there for cry eye! And the highly regarded indie publisher Other Press has a bunch of finalists, McSweeney’s has one in the Popular Fiction category, Rachel Kramer-Bussel, the queen of erotica, is in the Erotica division, etc. etc.). I’m also happy because I’m in the race for a regional award. I tried to make New York a real character in the story as much as the human characters and I feel my book is as much a New York novel as it is one about a young woman with Globus Hystericus. This makes me feel I kinda succeeded in doing that (at least in someone’s estimation 🙂 ).

I really really wanted an IPPY! And I really wanted to be in the running in ForeWord’s BOTYA (btw, here is a pic of my little ole book in their display at the recent London Book Fair — I’m on middle shelf all the way at the end). So, I am very happy right now — particularly after getting T-rashed by one reviewer — which put me in a blue funk for days… More on that to come!

Book publicity stuff and planning for the party tonight have put me behind on dance reviews (4 to be exact — Luciana Achugar’s rather eerie Puro Deseo at the Kitchen, the birth of a compelling new modern dance company – DeMa — which took place on Thursday night at the Alvin Ailey Citigroup Theatre, and two NYCB performances). I promise to try to get to them tomorrow afternoon and Monday.