JOYCE MAYNARD

Dear Friends,

After a wonderful, hot month in which we got to stay right on the bay side of the Atlantic ocean--swimming every morning (and many evenings), seeing friends, riding bikes, roller blading, eating oysters, playing soccer and polishing our mini-golf scores--the girls and I are heading north to New Hampshire.

Around the time you receive this letter, Almaz and Birtukan and I will be on a boat headed for The Isles of Shoals, off the New Hampshire coastline, for a week of slightly religious (let’s call it spiritual) family camp (with a little writing instruction thrown in) on Star Island. We’ll be staying at a big old ramshackle hotel with a front porch overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and (I hope) spending our days playing softball and drawing and singing campfire songs over s’mores and maybe, if we get it together, putting on a little dance number at the end-of-camp talent show. No internet, no phone service…just seven days to smell salt air and be together with other families and each other.

The truth is, there are not many challenges greater, for me, than staying still. The idea of disconnecting myself this way is more than a little daunting--which probably serves as the best indication of how much I need it. These days, our lives get so scheduled that the old dream of endless summer days to do just about nothing has almost disappeared. I hope we can find it again, for one week at least.

In fact, my week of disconnecting will coincide with the long-awaited (by me, anyway) release of my novel, Labor Day, in paperback. As I no doubt told you here when the book came out in hard cover a year ago, I’m very proud of this novel and now that it’s more affordable, excited to be sharing it with a wider circle of readers--new ones and the loyal readers (including many of you reading these words now) who’ve followed my work for years. I could not tell my stories without you.

I’m particularly happy and proud to tell you that Labor Day was selected Borders’ Books “Book We Love” for the month of August, which means that the new edition will be featured in special store displays at Borders stores around the U.S. The newly-rereleased edition of my memoir At Home in the World, with a new foreword by me, as well as The Usual Rules will also be in the displays. (Target stores are carrying the Labor Day paperback, too, which may help a little to defray the big back-to-school shopping bill I’m sure to incur there next month.)

In the hopes of whetting your appetite for this novel of mine--the story of an unlikely love affair between a single mother and a dangerous-seeming man on the run, as seen through the eyes of the woman’s thirteen-year-old son--I want to share with the readers of this letter the first chapter of Labor Day. If you do read the first chapter and want more, I’m hoping of course that you’ll pick up a copy (or order it today on Amazon.com).

Meanwhile--still in the good news category--the film adaptation of Labor Day appears to be moving forward. My novel has been adapted for the screen by Jason Reitman, the young Academy-Award-nominated director of Juno, Up in the Air and Thank You for Smoking. Jason tells me he’s hoping to begin filming this coming year--an event he’s prepared for by paying a visit to my kitchen for a one-on-one lesson in pie-making last fall.
As you may know if you’ve read my novel, it includes a scene in which Frank--the dark stranger who suddenly appears on a long, hot Labor Day weekend and moves in with the boy, Henry, and his beautiful heartbroken mother, Adele--teaches Henry how to make a pie. (His instructions for pie crust, by the way, are precisely the same as the ones I give when I teach the art of pie.) If you saw the scene in Up in the Air where George Clooney packs his suitcase with exquisite precision, you’ll understand why the director of that film would feel a need to get my pie-making technique down with equal care. Having baked with Jason Reitman--and having read his fine adaptation of my novel--I feel confident he’s equal to the task.

Before leaving, altogether, the topic of the film adaptation of Labor Day, I want to put out a challenge to readers here. I’m eager to hear your casting suggestions for the character of Frank, and that of Adele. (In case you failed to notice, this is a brilliant ploy which should also further entice you to buy my book.) Any great ideas you come up with I will happily transmit to the director. I already know who I hope will play the librarian or the bank teller in this movie. If you have any doubt, check out the under-appreciated actress who played Nicole Kidman’s lawyer in To Die For (but you’ll have to look closely to spot her). Still waiting for her big break…

A few words now about my writing workshops: Right now, with summer in full swing, it’s hard to imagine that we’ll ever feel cold again, but by February 14, I want to remind you that there are few nicer places to be than Lake Atitlan, Guatemala, for the tenth Lake Atitlan Writing Workshop. My right hand woman, Melissa, and I are still working on the details for this year’s workshop, but I can tell you now that it will be a smaller and more intimate gathering than the last few, and that the dates for this one are around Valentine’s Day. This year I’ll be accepting a maximum of fourteen writing students, and--though I have loved hosting writer friends to teach with me--I’ll be teaching solo again. We’ll be posting more details soon, but in the meantime I’m happy to tell you that we’re keeping the prices at the same level they were last year: $2095 for the week (which includes a night in Antigua, and all in-country transportation and meals). Melissa will arrange one of several different levels of hotel accommodations for you, at a cost of a couple of hundred dollars and up.

For those who can’t come to Guatemala, but would like to work with me, I want to add that I’ll be hosting a series of one-day workshops in memoir at my home in Mill Valley, California, starting in the fall. Dates and details to come soon.

Meanwhile, I’m gearing up for the publication, at the end of this month, of my new novel, The Good Daughters. If you live anywhere near Keene, NH, I’d love it if you’d stop by the Toadstool Bookstore there on Aug 18, where I’ll be reading from both Labor Day and The Good Daughters, and talking about whatever’s on my mind and yours. On Aug 12, I’ll be in Portland, ME at a fundraiser for the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance , along with Richard Russo, Ann Beattie, Ann Hood, Richard Ford and many others. The following morning you can catch me on Channel 6 in Portland, teaching pie. And check out my TOUR SCHEDULE for other places to catch up with me on the Labor Day/Good Daughters tour. It is one of the pleasures of a book tour, for me--the greatest one, actually--when I get to meet up with old friends, or make new ones.

With friendship,

Joyce

PS. For daily updates and discussion, follow me on Facebook and Goodreads.com

A LETTER FROM JOYCE:

July 31, 2010

NEW RELEASES & ARTICLES

Release date: Aug 24
View tour dates...
Enter sweepstakes...

*

GOOD HOUSEKEEPING, August issue:
check out the “Blessings” column for an article by Joyce

*

MORE MAGAZINE, September issue:
look for an article about Joyce’s adoption decision

*

And don’t forget to pick up your paperback copy of LABOR DAY and the re-release of AT HOME IN THE WORLD (with a new foreward by Joyce).