Hello, Protagonists! In this post, you’ll find:
🎥 The video replay of our August Book Club meeting
☀️ Readalong for One Year Ago in Spain: Update a.k.a. Oops!
📚 October Book Club Invitation + Discussion Questions: PRACTICAL MAGIC
🎥 The video replay of our August Book Club meeting
If you missed our book club meeting, you can watch the replay now.
We had such a fantastic discussion of Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert and talked about:
How did Liz Gilbert use storytelling techniques to make a non-fiction work so compelling?
How is the book structured, and why is that effective?
What can fiction writers learn from the narrative structure of Big Magic?
In the writer hangout portion, we chatted about:
the business of writing: should you think about money when you’re working on art?
»To keep our members’ conversations private from the general internet, the book club replay is behind a paywall.
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☀️ Readalong for One Year Ago in Spain - Oops!
I am such a dork! I forgot that I’ll be traveling for a big chunk of September, since I’ll be a Guest of Honour at the Danish Fantasy Festival in Esbjerg, Denmark (September 14 - 15, 2024).
That means we’re going to have to take a raincheck on the One Year Ago in Spain Author Readalong, I’m so sorry! 💛 But thank you to everyone who expressed interest. You can still buy a copy of the book here or from your favorite bookseller, in paperback, ebook, or audiobook format.
📚 Our Book Club for Writers and Curious Readers: OCTOBER Invitation
For the same reason why we’re not doing the Readalong (see above), we will be skipping the book club in September. But we shall reconvene in October!
Who is invited?
Writers who love reading and want to examine stories more closely, and
Readers who are curious about why they feel the way they do about a book.
When is the next meeting?
Sunday, October 27, 2024 at 8 pm EDT / 5 pm PDT
🥰 Introverts, you are welcome to keep your cameras off.
» To prevent Zoom-bombing from not-nice people, the Zoom link will be sent to paid subscribers 2-3 days before the meeting.
What is our next Book Pick?
Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman
‘Tis the season for some witchy magic, and no one does it like Alice Hoffman.
We’ll discuss:
World-building: How does the author weave in magic in a world that otherwise looks just like ours?
Character work: How does Hoffman’s use of different character types affect the story?
Genre question: What is the difference between a book like Practical Magic and fantasy novels?
Why does one kind of book get shelved under general “Fiction” while others are categorized as “Fantasy”?
Timelessness: This book was published in 1995. (The movie came out in 1998). Why do you think Practical Magic has become a modern classic, revisited year after year?
Bonus assignment: Practical Magic movie
Since we have an extra month before this book club meeting, if you have time, watch the Practical Magic movie and we can contrast it with the book.
How faithful was the screen adaptation?
In your opinion, were the differences between book and film merited?
I think this is going to be an interesting conversation!
November Book Club preview
For those wanting to get ahead, our November Book Pick is No Two Persons by Erica Bauermeister.
How I Choose our Book Picks
Based on my many years of running another book club for writers, I’ve come up with some guidelines for our Book Picks:
We never read our members’ books — this was a hard and fast rule from my last book club, because even though we discuss our book picks with kindness and curiosity, it’s still virtually impossible for a writer to listen to other people critique their work, especially if it’s already published and there is nothing they can do to change things. (And sometimes, hearing analysis from their friends is the hardest thing!) So if I ever accidentally choose one of your books (or one of a dear friend whom you’d rather not hear analyzed), please let me know and I’ll pick something else. We are a supportive community and want everyone to feel buoyed by what we do!
Paperbacks, not new releases — For the most part, I will pick books that have been out for a while and already in paperback, because this makes them more affordable to buy and/or accessible via libraries (because new releases tend to have longer wait lists). There may be occasional exceptions if you all are hankering to read a specific new release, though.
Varying genres — We have writers and readers of all different genres in our wonderful community, so I’m going to try to reflect that. I find that even when a novel might not initially be what I’m normally inclined to read, I am often the most surprised and delighted by those very books. Plus, there is always something interesting to study and learn, no matter what the genre.
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there is nothing below this line, just a paywall notice because I wanted to make sure you could all read the whole post above (did not want Substack to randomly insert the paywall somewhere in the middle).
😂
