The Penguin Group would like to invite you to join bestselling author Jane Green for a chat about her newest novel, Dune Road, on Monday, July 6th at 2 PM EST.
You can join the chat by visiting The Water Cooler at the scheduled time.
Dune Road is the story of life in an exclusive beach town after the tourists have left for the summer and the eccentric (and moneyed) community sticks around—from the bestselling author of The Beach House. Warm, witty and gloriously observed, Dune Road is Jane Green at her best, full of brilliant insights into challenges that come with forging a new life.
The chat, which is the first in what will be a monthly feature in the newly launched “From the Publisher’s Office“ network on the Penguin website, will allow readers to ask questions of the author, after having had the first three chapters of the book serialized on the site. The reading experience will be rounded out with a complete Readers Group Guide once the chat has been completed. If you can’t take part, all chats will be archived on the site, so check back at any time.We’ll also be letting participants in on a special offer to express our thanks for taking part in the chat.
We hope that you’ll be able to join Penguin and Jane Green for this special event!
How much time do you spend writing each week? It depends whether it’s a writing week or not. If I’m on my fortnight hiatus, then it’s just blogging, which I aim to do every day, but of late, with the book tour, it has been a few times a week. If I’m on a writing fortnight, it’s three to four hours a day.
Do you need complete peace to work and do you have trouble getting that with your large family? Ha! Trouble? It’s practically impossible to have peace in the house, with sibling fights erupting every other second. Oddly, when I was in my twenties I was a journalist on the Daily Express in the UK, and worked on a super-busy desk with phones ringing and people chatting and editors shouting, and it never phased me, I just kept my head down and wrote. Nowadays I need complete peace, and so I put the kids on the school bus, then take myself off to my local public library, Powerbook under my arm, to write for the morning. I am always done by lunchtime, and back to being Mummy for the rest of the day.
I loved the independence Kit found in Dune Road and her appreciation for things that matter, instead of possessions. Did you have real life inspiration for her character? Is it obvious? I have lived the large life, in the large house, with the labels and the jewels, and I have never been more unhappy. It struck me then, and continues to strike me, what a fallacy it is that money should buy you happiness, and yet, up until recently, I think that is what we were supposed to believe. All of my protagonists are on a journey to find happiness, and peace, and all of them discover that it is never to be found outside themselves.
I’ve read a few of your blog posts – what do you think of blogging as a published author? Is it a good companion to your work, or a distraction? It is an enormous distraction, and increasingly hard to find the time, and yet, I enjoy it so. It seems that marketing and publicity are now increasingly self-generated, with blogs, and websites like Facebook and Twitter (to which I am horribly addicted, partly because they are quick and easy), and I love that I get to stay in touch with my loyal readers – it helps me, and them, stay connected.
Do you read a lot of blogs, and if so, what type of blog do you like best? I don’t, but my secret shame is the gossip blogs. I will say that I’m a regular visitor to Gawker – their comments section is hilarious.
How do you treat yourself, either as a reward or just cause you’ve had a bad day? With a steaming hot and deep bath, and an early night. I am completely addicted to my bed. Me, my cats, a stack of books and magazines, a computer…life doesn’t get much better.
Who is your favorite author. I don’t have a favorite author, as such. I’m more likely to have favorite books. I loved The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher all those years ago, and loved Bread Alone by Judith Hendrickson. And the Tales of the City series by Armistead Maupin are falling apart on my bookshelf, they have been read so many times.
I am sitting in the offices of Penguin Canada, furiously answering bloggers questions, before shooting off to Dove Spa here in Toronto for a 4pm event.
I particularly like these questions from Travels of the Bookworm, and because I have been on a crazy book tour and have been utterly remiss in providing you with updates (they’ll come when it’s done, promise), I thought I’d print them here:
What is your idea of perfect happiness? Being at home, on a beautiful summer’s night, surrounded by family and friends in the kitchen, and cooking up a storm, preferably with vegetables picked straight from the garden.
Which person, living or dead, do you most admire and why? Right now I’d have to say Barack Obama, for overcoming the odds.
Who are your favorite writers? And which ones would you want to meet living or dead and be able to ask one question, and what would it be?I love Dani Shapiro, Ann Patchett, Jonathan Tropper, Patrick Gale, Armistead Maupin. I would love to have met Dickens, and quizzed him about his prescience, and his themes of how a man can go from having nothing, to everything,to nothing again in a heartbeat.
If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?A person who is hopefully further along the karmic path than I.
If you were able to choose what you would be able to come back as, what would you choose? A cat, and preferably one who belongs to someone like me.
Which talent (besides writing) would you most like to have? I have always wanted to play the piano, but have neither the time nor the patience to take the amount of lessons required for me to play in the way I would like.
During your younger years, you quit college. Was there something about the whole college experience of something personal that made you quit, and do you think it has affected your career at all? I was too immature for college, and too irresponsible. I was far more interested in the fact that I was away from home for the first time, and able to party to my heart’s content. Having said that, I do not regret not finishing my degree, and often notice how many more creative types do not do well in stringent academic environments.
You are originally from the UK. In a perfect world, if there was anything at all that you would want from there in the US, what would it be?France, Italy and Spain just a hop across Long Island Sound. Failing that, a good BBC drama series on a Sunday night.
Have you thought about writing any other type of genre as a writer, and if you have, what type? I have attempted more of a mystery with Dune Road. Although I enjoyed it as an exercise, I found I am not, sadly, a natural. I consider myself extraordinarily lucky to have found my voice very early, and I continue to be interested in people, emotions, and how they find happiness. I think I shall just stick to doing what I do best.
Who are your heroes in real life? My husband, who is the kindest, most gentle and patient man I have ever known. I still cannot believe that I found him, and the peace and serenity that is our marriage.
One of my children, the youngest twin, has, we recently realised, fallen prey to the dreaded family disease.
I had hoped he would be free of it. I inherited it from my mother, who has suffered, not very silently, for many years, but I had hoped that I wouldn’t pass it on to my children, that they would lead happy, pain-free lives.
But no. It seems that was too much to ask.
Twin B has Hypochondria.
And not just any old case of Hypochondria, his is chronic.
I feel for him, really I do, for I have lived with it my entire life. In the old days it was manageable, but now that the Internet has made self-diagnosis so easy, I spend my days trawling around the web to see what my symptoms might mean.
Mostly it is (drops voice to whisper) cancer. Whatever is wrong with me, I am convinced it is always cancer.
Many years ago I was talking to a fellow sufferer and I explained my symptoms.
‘I think,’ I said finally, my voice laced with fear. ‘I have prostate cancer.’
She burst out laughing, but I was deadly serious. The humor didn’t last. As soon as she told me I had no prostate, I changed my diagnosis to colon.
A couple of weeks ago I decided I was either developing MS, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease, neither of which are great. Tingling fingers, muscle cramps. I knew what this was.
I took myself off to the doctor who listened patiently, then sent me for a load of tests. When they phoned to say I was absolutely fine, just slightly deficient in Iron, I didn’t believe them.
‘Can you test my thyroid again?’ I pleaded. ‘I know it’s not right.’
And now my son has the disease, and because he is six, and charming, and a drama queen, he has the school nurse wrapped around his finger, and I am now receiving calls from her on a nigh-daily basis.
‘He has a terrible rash,’ she tells me. I get there and it’s a red dot.
‘He says he has a dreadful headache,’ she says. ‘He really must see a doctor.’
Even my doctor is now rolling her eyes when she walks in the room and sees Twin B, grinning away, sitting on the bed.
All I can do is thank God he’s not yet able to trawl the internet…
Dune Road out today, and another fun-packed day. Taking Eldest Daughter to buy glasses this morning, then off to twins scavenger hunt at beach. Cooking more vegan chili for my unwell friend, painting deck if rain holds off, attempting to find time to wash my hair in preparation for tonight’s reading at Westport’s Barnes & Noble.
Oh, and I may scribble down some notes on the new book.
