Paris, Again!

Published June 19, 2013 by gaijinmama

So I mentioned awhile back that Gadget Girl was awarded the Grand Prize in the Paris Book Festival. Part of the prize was a plane ticket to Paris to attend the awards ceremony and dinner on May 30, which was my twins’ birthday. I agonized a bit over whether or not to go. After all, I’d just been to Paris with my daughter! And I didn’t want to miss my kids’ birthday! But everyone (except my husband) urged me to go. And, well, it is pretty hard to turn down a free ticket to one of my favorite cities in the world.

This time, I decided to go the budget route. I found the cheapest hotel that I could, which was in Montmartre. My room was on the fourth floor. There was no elevator. But I had free Wifi!

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I did some of the things that I didn’t get around to on my previous visit, in March. For example, I finally had a chance to check out the legendary English-language bookstore Shakespeare & Company. Of course the location has changed, but it’s still a huge tourist attraction, still full of interesting books and history. Of course I bought some books. I also left a copy of Gadget Girl with one of the clerks, in the hopes that someone there will read it, like it, and stock it!

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On  a rainy day, I went to see “Gatsby,” which I loved, and bought some chocolates and chocorons (chocolate-covered macarons) at Sadaharu Aoki’s renowned patissiere. I had a little chat in Japanese with the young woman at the counter, who was from Saitama Prefecture, but who’d danced in the summer Awa Odori Festival here in Tokushima. Small world, huh?

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It was my first time to be in Paris in May. I figured it would be warmer, but it was pretty cold. Nevertheless, irises were in bloom in the Luxembourg Gardens.

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Gadget Girl: The Art of Being Invisible – The Book Blog Tour!

Published May 15, 2013 by gaijinmama
May 15th
-Wintry Words >> Excerpt

-Bookwyrming Thoughts >> Guest Post
May 16th
-Must Read Faster >> Review
May 17th
-Lola’s Reviews >> Review
-Books and Insomnia  >> Excerpt
-Alexa Loves Books  >> Review
May 20th
-Cherie Reads >> Review
-Moosubi Reviews! >> Excerpt
May 21st
-JennReneeRead >>  Review
-Mythical Books >> Excerpt
-Word Spelunking >> Review + Interview
-Alice Marvels >> Review
May 22nd
-Reader Girls >> Review + Interview
-lilybloombooks >>  Review
May 23rd
May 24th
-Nazish Reads >> Review
-Total Book Geek >> Review
May 27th
-Book Adoration >> Review
-Reviewing Shelf  >> Review
-Teen Blurb >> Review + Guest Post

Book Birthday – The Language Inside by Holly Thompson

Published May 14, 2013 by gaijinmama
HollyThompson TheLanguageInside book cover
Today is the official publication date of the long-awaited (by me) verse novel The Language Inside by Holly Thompson.
Here is a description of the book:

Emma Karas was raised in Japan; it’s the country she calls home. But when her mother is diagnosed with breast cancer, Emma’s family moves to a town outside Lowell, Massachusetts to stay with her grandmother while her mom undergoes treatment.

Emma feels out of place in the United States, begins to have migraines, and longs to be back in Japan. At her grandmother’s urging, she volunteers in a long-term care center to help Zena, a patient with locked-in syndrome, write down her poems. There, Emma meets Samnang, another volunteer, who assists elderly Cambodian refugees. Weekly visits to the care center, Zena’s poems, dance, and noodle soup bring Emma and Samnang closer, until Emma must make a painful choice: stay in Massachusetts, or return early to Japan.

Some review excerpts if you want to use any of them (more on the website):
*STARRED REVIEW* “Thompson captures perfectly the feeling of belonging elsewhere. A sensitive and compelling read that will inspire teens to contemplate how they can make a difference.” –School Library Journal“Thompson nimbly braids political tragedy, natural disaster, PTSD, connections among families, and a cautious, quiet romance into an elegant whole. This is an artistic picture of devastation, fragility, bonds and choices.” –Kirkus Reviews

“There’s a lot going on here, but Thompson keeps the many plot elements cohesive, and the vivid imagery in the lyrical free verse lends immediacy to Emma’s turbulent feelings. Readers will finish the book knowing that, like Zena, the Cambodian refugees, and the tsunami victims, Emma has the strength to “a hundred times fall down / a hundred and one times get up.” Lists of poems referenced in the narrative and recommended resources are appended.” –The Horn Book Magazine

Bonjour Paris!

Published May 1, 2013 by gaijinmama

During spring vacation, my daughter and I went to Paris! It was my fifth trip to France, counting my semester abroad when I was nineteen, but it was the first visit for my daughter. It was fun to see everything through new eyes. It was also our first major mother-daughter trip apart from visiting grandparents in the States.

Lilia wanted to stay near the Eiffel Tower, so I booked us a room in an apartment hotel within walking distance.

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She’s holding a copy of Eye-Ai Magazine, which includes an essay by me about another trip we took together. The June 2013 issue has a story about yet another trip – this one to see a musical based on the famous, best-selling girls’ manga The Rose of Versailles.

Later we took a taxi to the Louvre. The entrance is through the Pyramid designed by I.M. Pei, so you get to experience the very old and the extremely modern at the same time. Apparently the Pyramid is now lit up with LED lights from Japan. We were there during the day, however (along with many, many Japanese tourists). There were lots of signs around warning against pickpockets. I felt pretty safe among the Japanese tourists, but the week after we left, the Louvre was closed down because the guards went on strike to protest the pickpocket problem. Supposedly there are bands of Gypsy children running around filching tourists’ wallets.

IMG_2340Lilia took photos of just about everything she saw, including many beautiful ceilings.

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I enjoyed the ripped torsos of ancient Greece.

IMG_2257We couldn’t immediately find a taxi after our visit to the Louvre and the nearby Orangerie, so we wound up taking a spin in a tuktuk. The driver had no problem loading the wheelchair into the back and driving us to our hotel in the crazy Parisian traffic. He was super-friendly, and posed for Lilia at the end of our ride.

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The NEXT Next Big Thing

Published March 14, 2013 by gaijinmama

I was tagged for this meme by Caroline Grant, co-editor of the shiny new book, The Cassoulet Saved Our Marriage, which is a collection of essays about food and family. I’m waiting for the delivery guy to bring it even as I type! Anyway, this post is lon-n-n-g overdue, but here it is, finally. (And I realize I did this meme before, but I have many projects in the works!)

What is the title of your book?

The working title is Lilia’s World: Travels by Train, Plane, Bus and Wheelchair.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Lilia’s World will be a mother/daughter-with-disabilities travel memoir.

What genre does your book fall under?

Travel memoir.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

From my daughter’s desire to travel. I figured if I could get a huge advance to write a book about traveling with my daughter a la Elizabeth Gilbert with Eat, Love, Pray, we’d be able to fulfill her dream of going to Paris. I haven’t gotten a huge advance yet, but I was awarded a grant for this project.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

I’m still working on it! I hope to have a polished draft finished by October. Right now, I’m at about the halfway point, but I cheated a little, because I have incorporated essays that I’ve written over the years.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

My daughter, and our mutual wanderlust.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Hopefully represented by an agency!

What other works would you compare this book to within your genre?

French Milk by Lucy Knisley which is about a  mother/daughter trip to Paris from the daughter’s point of view. It’s illustrated, as I hope my book will be. (Illustrated by my daughter, I mean.) Also, Father’s Day by Buzz Bissinger, about a road trip the author took with his son who has special needs, but my book will have manga and macarons and more exotic destinations.

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

Again, this is difficult to answer because of the shortage of biracial actresses. Maybe my daughter could play herself and Naomi Watts could play me? :-)

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

This is sort of the true life version of my forthcoming YA novel Gadget Girl (which I will be blogging about here heavily shortly, as the reviews, etc. come in). Sort of like life imitating fiction. My daughter and I are going to Paris in one week! We’ll be taking lots of notes, and my daughter will be sketching.

The idea of this meme is that I tag five more writers, and have them answer and ask the same questions. So I tag…YOU.

Seeing the “Monet” at the Otsuka Museum of Art

Published January 14, 2013 by gaijinmama

Last weekend my daughter and I ventured to the nearby Otsuka Museum of Art in Naruto. My husband read somewhere that this museum, which houses ceramic reproductions of many of the world’s famous paintings, was voted “the most satisfying art museum in Japan” by Japanese visitors.

A ceramic reproduction of "La Japonaise" by Claude Monet - one of my favorite paintings and the cover of my most recent book!

A ceramic reproduction of “La Japonaise” by Claude Monet – one of my favorite paintings and the cover of my most recent book!

I’d been there once before, when it first opened. Everything smelled new, like chemicals, so it was difficult to suspend disbelief and pretend that I was looking at the real thing. I thought the whole place was kind of cheesy, to be frank. Plus, the entrance fee (3,000 yen for adults, or about US$45 at today’s exchange rates) was prohibitively  expensive. However, I thought it might be a good way for my daughter to get some exposure to great art, and I thought she was finally old enough to enjoy such as outing.

Since its opening, many fun new features have been added, such as the robot tour guide.

The Sistine Hall with robot.

The Sistine Hall with robot.

The museum covers four floors, and we arrived quite late, so we didn’t make it through all of the exhibits. I thought it was best not to hurry my daughter past the things that interested her. We spent about an hour just on antiquities!

A dragon from antiquity.

A dragon from antiquity.

We did manage to view the ceramic reproduction of Monet’s Water Lilies. Hopefully, on our next art outing she’ll have a chance to see the real thing!

Me and the "Monet."

Me and the “Monet.”

The Next Big Thing

Published December 31, 2012 by gaijinmama
I’ve been tagged in the Next Big Thing by fellow writer Soniah Kamal  (Website: www.soniahkamal.com).  Soniah is a short story writer, a novelist,  speaker and an editor. You can read Soniah’s Next Big Thing here.
I have been invited by Soniah to answer questions about my current  book (or WIP), and then to tag five other authors about their Next Big Thing. Here goes!
What is the title of your book?
Gadget Girl: The Art of Being Invisible
Where did the idea come from for the book?
From my daughter. When she was small, I imagined taking her on a mother-daugther trip to Paris when she turned about 12-14, and then I recalled being very difficult myself at that age, and not getting along with my mother.
What genre does your book fall under?
Young adult contemporary.  I think slightly younger readers and adult readers would enjoy it as well. I read part of an earlier version of this story to an audience of adults at a bar as part of the Four Stories reading series in Osaka, and they seemed to enjoy it.
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
Aiko  – This is a little bit tough because my main character is biracial, and I can’t think of a lot of biracial actresses at work in Hollywood these days. But maybe Emily Kaiho, who is half Japanese, and half American.
Laina/Mom – Angelina Jolie, because I imagine it would be somewhat overwhelming to have a beautiful do-gooder mother like her, when you’re trying to stay under the radar.
Dad – Takuya Kimura. He’s probably too much of a pretty boy to play an indigo farmer in Shikoku, but in real life he’s the father of a child with special needs, so I think this role would resonate for him.
Herve – Maybe a young Alain Delon?
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
Fourteen-year-old Aiko Cassidy, an aspiring manga writer/artist with special needs, goes on a trip to Paris with her sculptor mother and finds out the truth about her father.
Is your book self-published or represented by an agency?
This book will be published in May 2013 by GemmaMedia.
How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
It started out as a novella, so I guess a couple of months. But I worked on it, expanding and revising again and again, for four years.
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
We’re billing it as Anna and the French Kiss meets Stoner & Spaz. It also has some similarities to Justine Chen Headley’s North of Beautiful and Laura Resau’s notebook series.
Who or what inspired you to write this book?
See above.
What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
As I mentioned, it started out as a novella, which was published in Cicada, and won the SCBWI Magazine Merit Award for Fiction.
Here are five authors I’ve tagged to tell you about their Next Big Thing:
Liz Sheffield, whose short stories, essays and articles have been published in many national publications.
Novelist and essayist Anjali Enjeti whose excellent essay “Fade to Brown” appears in Call Me Okaasan .
Literary Mama columnist Katherine J. Barrett.
Thersa Matsuura, fellow expat-in-Japan and author of Robe of Feathers.
Karen A. Chase, author of Bonjour 40: A Paris Travel Log (40 years, 40 days, 40 seconds).
Thank you to Soniah Kamal for tagging me!

The Paris Project

Published December 2, 2012 by gaijinmama

My thirteen-year-old daughter wants to go to France. She plucks at her shirt and signs that she wants to go shopping in Paris, fashion capital of the world. She gazes at me with her brown eyes, puts her hands together as if to pray, and says, “Iaaiii!” Ikittai! I want to go!

“How did you learn about shopping in Paris?” I ask he

“I saw it on TV,” she signs.

Okay, so maybe she watches too much TV and reads too many comic books, but she picks up a lot.  And I admit I may have helped to plant a seed in her head. When she was about three-years old, I began fantasizing about a mother-daughter trip to Paris, maybe when she turned fourteen. We’d pop into the Centre Pompidou and check out the funky shops in Le Marais. We’d sit in sidewalk cafes, drinking citron presse, and roam the galleries of the great museums. I even wrote a novel based upon this fantasy.

Of my two children, my daughter is the one who has inherited my wanderlust. When I suggest foreign travel to her twin brother, he moans about the long, boring plane ride, strange food, and having to miss baseball practice. But my daughter? She’s ready to go!

I didn’t fly on a plane myself until I was nineteen. I worked part-time and saved my money in order to go to France for a semester abroad, but I worry that my daughter won’t ever be able to go to Paris if she has to pay her own way. She has multiple disabilities and no one expects her to go to college. Although she is entitled to an allowance from the government, I fear it won’t be enough for all the trips that she wants to take.

“I’ll take you to Paris,” I tell her, forming a plan. “Just you and me.” I’ll teach her about art and history and the beginnings of sign language. We’ll watch the movie Marie Antoinette and then we’ll tour Versailles. We’ll eat French food and take an elevator up the Eiffel Tower.

“Paris, later,” she signs. “First, I want to go to Disneyland.”

 

 

 

 

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