Ann Brashares

Exciting News

2009-12-03T01:39:01Z

My Name is Memory was optioned for film. If you are interested in more details, you can read about it here. It happened really quickly. In fact the book hadn't yet been copyedited, and I felt bad for those scouts and producers having to soldier through my typos and other dumb errors. But it was thrilling, more than anything, to feel that this book was connecting with readers. Peter Chernin is the buyer, and I've heard only great things about him.

You never know what will happen. Most options never turn into movies. (I'm practiced at keeping my expectations in check). But I am hopeful. I can't help it.

My Name is Memory

2009-10-27T15:37:55Z

My name is not memory, in fact. But that is the name of my new book, which I just finished this week. I am excited about it. It will be published by Riverhead Books in early June.

But before I go on, I have to apologize. I think I am the worst multi-tasker in the world. No, that is too grand. I am a bad multi-tasker. I have a lot of trouble focusing on writing a book while also keeping my website up to date (not to mention taking care of my children, making dinner, calling my mom back, keeping the pets alive and so on.) To those of you who have continued to check in, thank you. I am so grateful to you for being interested in my books and for letting me know your thoughts. I'm sorry I haven't been writing in and updating the site more frequently. I hope to do better.

This new book is kind of a departure for me. Not a total departure--it's mainly about love. But it takes place on a broad canvas of time. I'm going to include a part of a scene below to give you an idea of it. This scene is told from the point of view of Daniel, a young man blessed (or cursed, it often seems) with a long history and a very unusual memory.

Thanks for reading. I'll write again soon.

"Well. It's a strange thing," I explained. "With each birth your body starts out fresh and mostly blank, but then you print yourself on it over time. You hold onto old experiences: injuries, injustices, and great love affairs, too." I glanced up at Sophia. "And you hold them in your joints and your organs and wear them on your skin."

"You do." She was giving me that same look of indulgence, but it was less confident.

"We all do."

"Because we live again and again?"

"Most of us."

"Not all of us?" Her indulgence showed more signs of genuinely wanting to know.

"Some live only once. Some a very few times. And some just go on and on and on."

"Why?"

I put my head back on my pillow. "That is hard to explain. I'm not sure I really know."

"And you?"

"I've lived many times."

"And you remember them?"

"Yes. That's where I'm different than most people."

"I'll say. And what about me?" She looked like she wasn't going to believe the answer, but slightly feared it anyway.

"You've also lived many times. But your memory is just average."

"Clearly." She laughed. "Have you known me for all of them?"

"I've tried. But no, not all."

"And why can't I remember?"

"You can more than you think. Those memories are in there somewhere. You act on them in ways you don't realized. They determine how you respond to people, the things you love and the things you fear. A lot of our irrational behavior would look more rational if you could see it in the context of your whole long life."

It was amazing the things I was will to tell her if she was willing to listen, and she was. I touched the hem of her sleeve. "I know enough about you to know you love horses and you probably dream about them. You probably dream of the desert sometimes and maybe taking a bath outdoors. Your nightmares are usually about fire. You have problems with your voice and your throat sometimes--that was always your weak spot . . ."

Her face was rapt. "Why?"

"You were strangled a long time ago."

Her alarm was a mix of real and pretend. "By whom?"

"Your husband."

"Awful. Why did I marry him?"

"You didn't have a choice."

"And you knew this man?"

"He was my brother."

"Long dead, I hope."

"Yes, but bearing a grudge through history, I fear."

I could see by her face, she was trying to figure out where to put all of this. "Are you a psychic?" she asked.

I smiled and shook my head. "Although most psychics, if they are any good, do have some memory of old lives. And so do most of the people we consider insane. An asylum is about the densest concentration of people with partial memory you will ever find. They get flashes and visions, but usually not in the right order."

She looked at me sympathetically, wondering if that's where I belonged. "Is that what you do?"

"No. I remember everything."

My new hobby

2009-05-01T01:27:24Z

A little over a year ago I started taking piano lessons. I last took them when I was ten, so it's been awhile. I am terrible at it, and my brain and fingers are maddeningly slow, but I really love it. The piece I've been working on is a Mozart sonata (#16 in C) and it is beautiful. Well, it's not beautiful when I play it, but you know what I mean.

Another thing I love is the movie Groundhog Day. It is a profound movie in many ways. I watched it again recently, because I am writing a new book that is partly inspired by it. And then I watched it another time, really slowly. I was trying to figure out where the turning point of the story occurs--the moment when Phil (Bill Murray) begins his transformation from a selfish, hedonistic, misanthrope into a person capable of loving and being loved. I kept starting and stopping the movie, trying to figure it out. And then I did. Or at least I think I did. I think it's the moment when he's sitting in the diner and is struck by a certain beautiful piece of piano music playing on the radio. And guess what that piece is? Mozart's Sonata #16 in C. The very piece I've been playing over and over for weeks. I thought that was a nice confluence of things I happen to love.

The latest

2009-01-26T23:23:30Z

There has been some confusion in switching over from my old website to my new one. I think it's all figured out, finally. Thanks for your patience. We're still trying to bring the comments section over from the old site. They should get here soon.

I set up a new mailbox (ann@annbrashares.com or just click on "write to Ann"), and the thing is, it actually works! I am getting emails from readers and writing back. It didn't work on my old site, so I'm very excited that it works on this one. Thanks to those of you who have written to me.

In other news, I was sick the week before last and I had to cancel my bookstore visits in Connecticut, Atlanta and Miami. If you were planning to come to one of those, I am sorry. I've never been sick enough to cancel an appearance before, and I felt terrible for it (in addition to feeling generally terrible because of being sick). I'm feeling much better now and thankful for modern medicine and antibiotics. I'm rescheduling those visits, and I will post them on this site as soon as they are definite.

And last of all, I found out that 3 Willows is going to be #1 on the New York TImes bestseller list of Children's hardcovers next week. I was pretty surprised and excited about that. The only problem is that I made a deal with my kids that if 3 Willows made it to the top spot on the list, I would take them somewhere warm this winter. I was sort of kidding around when I made the deal. I didn't think it would happen and I promptly forgot about it. But my kids have been very eager to remind me. So I guess we're going somewhere warm this winter. So much for the deal I made with myself that I was going to save money.

Today's the day

2009-01-13T16:58:23Z

That my new book, 3 Willows, goes on sale. I've got the usual anxiety. I've also got the usual excitement, but I guess excitement never feels usual. It's the beginning of life for new characters and their stories. Now they are in the world and they get to interact with readers and change and evolve as they go.

I start my book tour in Southbury, Connecticut tonight, move on to Atlanta and Miami later in the week, and then go to Chicago and Denver next week. The full tour schedule is posted on this site under "Events," so please do come if you live in one of the cities I'm visiting. I'd love to meet you.

On the subject of this site, I'm sort of reintroducing it today. It's been simplified a bit, it can now be reached by the address annbrashares.com (as well as annbrashares.net), and I will be able to update it much more easily. Also, you can now write to me directly (see the "Write to Ann" link on the homepage). All these changes are for the better, I hope, and I am thrilled to be able to interact with the site and with readers more easily.

Thank you for your interest in my books. Thank you for posting your lovely comments. I'll write again soon.

An Update

2008-09-09T18:40:23Z

My deep thanks to all of you who have read my posts and left comments. It is so nice to hear from you. I wanted to take a minute to answer some questions several of you have asked.I am gearing up to write another book about the girls (women) of the Sisterhood. I am thinking about them quite a bit later in their lives (mid to late twenties), and I promise the big questions, issues, and love interests (Kostos, among others) will not be left out. I have been missing all of them recently. I have quite a bit of (fun) work to do, so I would guess that book will come out in 2010.In the meantime, I have a new book coming out this January. It is called 3 Willows. The main characters are new, but the book takes place in the same world as the Sisterhood. In fact, there are certain secondary characters you will recognize. (Effie!) So that's the news for now. Please stay in touch.

Writing Young

2008-09-08T18:38:48Z

I tend to write about characters who are younger than me. In the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants books, the characters started out being sixteen and by the end were nearly twenty. In the Last Summer (of You and Me) the three main characters are in their early and mid-twenties. At readings and in interviews people often ask me why this is so. I'm not sure exactly why. But it's a pretty fascinating stretch of life. Many if not most of the great novels of the last couple centuries are about teenagers or characters in their early twenties: Jane Austen's novels, the Bronte novels, much of Dickens, Thackeray and so on. It's the time in our lives when we are making critical decisions (and mistakes) about who we are going to be and whom to love. We get to take longer to figure it out this century, but it's still a pretty dramatic period of life. Besides being asked why I write about young characters, I am often asked how I write about young characters. How do I throw myself across the chasm of full adulthood to relive that period? I guess I don't, really. Age is not so much a feature of your character, as the spot where you stand for a pretty fleeting time on the arc of your life. When I write about a character who is eighteen or twenty, I try to include her as she was when she was four and eleven and also as she'll be when she's thirty-five and seventy. When I think of my own self twenty years ago, I don't feel like I was a different person. The circumstances in my life have changed a lot, but I don't feel like there is any chasm to cross between me now and me then. My interior life feels very much the same. The other explanation is that I have a deep emotional attachment to that juncture of life and haven't quite moved on from it. I guess that's possible too.

It's Been a While

2008-04-26T18:32:39Z

I'm sorry to have been away so long. After having had a very busy year last year with two new books out, Forever in Blue and The Last Summer (of You & Me), I took a long break from all professional enterprises other than simply writing. I think it's hard to promote your writing while actually trying to write. It's hard for me, anyway. Some people are capable of looking outward and inward in a kind of seamless way, but I've never been good at that. So I have been doing some writing (I'll have more on that soon) as well as hanging around with my kids and my husband, learning the piano (badly, but with enormous effort), running, traveling, seeing friends, and reading. More recently I've been following politics somewhat obsessively. (I'm from Washington, D.C., that's partly my excuse.) And, more relevantly, I'm gearing up for the paperback publication of The Last Summer on May 6 and the sequel to the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants movie on August 8. There's a lovely new paperback cover for Last Summer which I'll post on this site as soon as I figure out how. And there's a new movie poster to show you too. In other news, the paperback of Forever in Blue just came out this month. Now you can get the whole four-book set in a box. (I do love boxed sets-ever since I got my Little House on the Prairie collection.) So that's the quick update. I'll have more for you soon. Thanks for visiting this site.

Publication Day

2007-06-05T18:28:17Z

This is the day my new book comes out. Always a slightly (or profoundly) nervewracking experience. I got up at 6 am to start doing radio interviews. I talked to Whoopi Goldberg. That was fun. I tend to get involved in the conversation and forget to mention the title of the book and website info at the beginning and end, which is what you are supposed to do. I'm not much of a salesperson, I'm afraid.

It's tricky to do live phone interviews from home-at least from my particular home. I try to be smooth and professional and put on a radio voice while my kids are banging on the door because they can't find their shoes and another phone is ringing and a siren is blaring out the window and the fire alarm is beeping because I forgot to replace the battery.

I always worry on such a day. I worry that no one will buy the book. I worry that many people will buy the book, but no one will like it. I worry that my mind will wander on live TV: I will stare blankly at the camera while my hair is sticking up in some funny way. I worry that no one will come to my bookstore signings. I worry that lots of people will come and that I will be boring and disappointing. "You do this every time," my husband points out.

But this day also brings a certain joy. I am launching these made-up people into the world and giving them a kind of life. I am turning a private, meditative writing experience into a reading experience I hope to share. I am trying to connect my inner life and my stories to the inner lives of others. As E.M. Forster famously wrote in Howards End, "Only connect."

It's always nervewracking to put yourself out there. But it's the root of joy.

The Wedding Dress

2007-05-25T18:27:03Z

If any of you have come to one of my bookstore events, you've probably heard the story of my wedding dress. I won't give the whole thing right now, but the general idea is that it is a magical dress that not only conforms to the wearer-whatever her shape-but also transforms her and connects her to the women, before and after, who have worn it. Does this sound familiar at all?I wore it when I got married 14 years ago. Then my sister-in-law Kirsten wore it when she married my older brother. Then my sister-in-law Katrina wore it when she married my younger brother. Then by my life-long friend Beth wore it at her wedding. Now my youngest brother Ben is getting married and there was some suspense as to whether his fiance, Kate, would wear it. Well, guess what? She's wearing it. (I didn't pressure her, I swear).

Kate emailed me a couple of days ago to say that a woman (I think a co-worker) asked her what she was wearing to her wedding. Kate explained the great history of The Wedding Dress and all of its wearers. The co-worker said, "That's just like the Traveling Pants." And Kate explained that, in fact, I, her sister-in-law to be was not only the originator of the dress, but also wrote the Traveling Pants. According to Kate, the woman was "gobsmacked." I love that expression, but do not feel entitled to use it in regular speech, because I am not British. Kate is British, so it sounds just right from her.

Movie

2007-05-19T18:23:32Z

Well, I think Warner Brothers is really making a sequel to the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants movie. I think this because my phone rang from a place called Sisterhood, Inc. I was quite confused until the very nice woman on the other end told me she was calling from the production office of the new movie. "Does that mean it's really happening?" I asked. She laughed at me. In a kind way. They start shooting in less than two weeks.

It turns out the prop guy wants to call my husband about using his paintings (or maybe his students' paintings) for the scenes of Lena in art school. How about that? I think it shows good taste on their part. Which brings me to the spousal plug: you can see my husband's beautiful paintings on his website Jacobcollinspaintings.com. I'm so subtle

Pie

2007-05-15T18:22:14Z

My brother is a lawyer. (One of my brothers. I've got three in total.) His job is intense and he works really, really hard. He works for a firm here in NYC and his area of specialty is called Private Equity. I throw this term about with the slight fear that someone will ever ask me what it means. Recently my brother was coming up for partner in his firm, and when he made it, I congratulated him. I was excited for him not only because he's such a dern bigshot, but because I thought it meant he would get a break. I figured he'd paid his dues and now he'd get to hang out more with his family and play hockey. (He loves hockey.)

My brother explained, though, that that's not quite how it works. Apparently there is a oft-quoted analogy among lawyers involving pie: Becoming a partner is like winning a pie-eating contest, and the reward for it is . . . more pie.

This got me thinking about pie, which I love, and winning in general, which I admit I also like. I think it's also true of my job-and probably most jobs-that the reward for success is getting to do more of what you already do. The better I do at writing the more writing I get to do. Which is a lucky thing because I love to write. (Except for the times when I hate it.) If I liked winning more than I liked writing, then the winning would be hollow indeed. As would be the writing, I suppose.

So my thought for the day is this: whatever contest we enter, we should do it not because we love winning, but because we love pie.

I should add that my brother is funny and nice and a great lawyer, so if you are ever having trouble with your, er, Private Equity, you should give him a call.

The Other Woman

2007-05-10T18:20:23Z

I had an insight about our dog, Finny. (His actual name is Phinneas. That sounds very fancy, doesn't it?) Finny does not quite consider me his mother or even his owner. Though well-meaning and sweet, he doesn't listen to a thing I say. He drags me around by his leash when we take a so-called walk. In the Finny hierarchy, my husband, Jacob, is alone at the top and the rest of us are down here duking it out.

A couple of days ago, my husband came home from a trip. He reached out to hug me hello, and Finny jumped up right between us, put his paws on Jacob's shoulders, and attempted to stick his tongue in Jacob's mouth. Meanwhile I stumbled backward, recognizing that in my marriage, Finny is the other woman.

When Jacob goes to bed first, Finny lies next to him in my spot with the covers up to his shoulders. When Jacob drives, Finny likes to sit proudly in the front passenger seat. I picture the two of them motoring off together in a convertible-Finny's ears tied back in a flowered kerchief. Finny is attentive and loyal, desiring only the glory of Jacob's presence. His goodbyes are sorrowful. His greetings are ecstatic. In so many ways, he is the perfect wife.

It's not that Finny doesn't love me too. When Jacob's not around he gives me commiserating looks, like we're two girls left in the harem.

And when it's time for dinner and then dish-washing, Finny knows who the sucker is. For that one hour of the day he loves me first and best.

The First One

2007-05-08T18:19:03Z

I am kind of excited because this is my first blog entry. I don't know if anyone will actually read it, but it is fun to sit here and write it.

To begin with I am a writer. I live in New York City with my husband and my three kids and a large sweet dog named Finny, and a hamster named Moonbeam, who bites. The first book I wrote was called The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. My newest book is featured on my profile. It's called The Last Summer (of You and Me) and it will be published on June 5. My main hobbies are running and eating, which sort of cancel each other out. I don't have a TV and I don't have a drivers license. That makes me kind of odd, I know. And very unsuccessful in carpools and pop culture trivia quizzes. I do have a movie projector.

I love to read. I guess that's not shocking. The most recent book I read was called Lonesome Dove, the hugely great and famous novel by Larry McMurtry. It was amazing and I loved it. Now I go around saying "dern" a lot-as in "put your dern cereal bowl in the dern sink." Also, I have fallen in love with Gus McCrae. I miss him when I'm not reading about him. My husband might be jealous except that Gus is fictional. It's not the first time I've fallen in love with a fictional character.

In my ardor for the book, I couldn't help renting the movie of it-or TV miniseries to be more accurate-from Netflix. This is never a good idea. You must wait for your ardor to die down before you rent the movie. And even then it's not usually a good idea. Not because it wasn't a fine movie. It really was. Robert Duvall is one of my favorite actors. But he is not Gus McCrae. Movies and books are completely separate experiences-each potentially enjoyable, but not to be compared. As a reader, I feel like Gus belongs to me in a way that Robert Duvall up there on the screen in my living room never will. Robert Duvall is an actual person and not subject to my beliefs or hopes as Gus is. Gus, you see, has become a collaboration of sorts between Larry McMurtry and me. (Larry McMurtry may not see it that way.)

I do believe that characters in novels belong to their writers and their readers pretty equally. I've learned a lot of things about the characters I write from people who read about them. Readers expand them in ways I don't think of and take them to places I can't go. That's partly why it's fun to sit down and write this dern blog with the hope that I'm connecting with a few readers. We've got a lot of people in common.

On a different and completely irrelevant note, I love sour gummy candy-in the shape of worms, fruits, kids, whatever. I love it.