, ,

Brenda Janowitz, THE GRACE KELLY DRESS

, ,
Brenda Janowitz, THE GRACE KELLY DRESS

Brenda: The Grace Kelly Dress is about an heirloom wedding gown and three generations of women whose lives are influenced by this dress and changed by the dress. It takes place in three different timelines, which is something I've never done before. In 2020, we see our modern bride. She's under pressure from her mom to wear this heirloom gown. In 1982, we see the bride's mother who's really excited about wearing the dress herself. She's gearing up to wear the dress and make it her own. Since it's 1982, you know that means Princess Diana sleeves, of course. [laughs] Then in a little twist in 1958, we see the dress being made. We see the seamstress's life and what she's going through as she creates this dress. It's really a look at an heirloom item and three generations of women and how things have changed throughout time.

, ,

Meng Jin, LITTLE GODS

, ,
Meng Jin, LITTLE GODS

Meng: Little Gods is a story about migrations, migrations through time, place, and class. It is centered around a Chinese woman physicist named Su Lan. The seed of the idea, which was in the opening scene, came to me maybe six years ago. That was the idea of a child being born on the night of June 4th, 1989 in Beijing and her father disappearing that night. Very much like the reader, I didn't know what had happened to this child, who she was, and who her father was, and why he had left. I spent some years trying to figure that out through many abandoned drafts. [laughs] Then the book really came together for me when I realized that Su Lan was going to be this intentional absence in the narrative and that the narrative would revolve around her.

, ,

Richie Jackson, GAY LIKE ME

, ,
Richie Jackson, GAY LIKE ME

Richie: I had finished producing a TV series for seven seasons. I had sat down to create a series. I wanted to do a series about the difference between being gay when I was a teenager and what it’s like to be gay now. I wrote plot outlines. I came up with characters. I thought it would be really funny if an older gay man found himself living with a twenty-something gay, and the hilarity ensues. Just as I was trying to figure out this show, our fifteen-year-old son told us he was gay. Everything I was trying to put in the pilot was happening at our dinner table. I thought, this is not a TV show. It’s my real life. He told us, “It’s no big deal. My generation thinks it’s not a big deal.” I thought, oh, I need to tell him what a big deal it is. Being gay is the best thing about me. It’s the most important thing about me. It’s been the blessing of my life. I wanted to share that with him so he wouldn't undervalue what a gift it is. Then in 2016, Donald Trump was elected and declared war on gay people. I also had to warn him, what it takes to be a gay man in America right now. That was the impetus for the book.

, ,

Lisa Jewell, THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS

, ,
Lisa Jewell, THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS

Lisa: The Family Upstairs [is] a story told from the point of view of three different people. The first person we meet is Libby Jones. Libby is twenty-five years old. She lives in a small town just outside London. She sells design kitchens for a living. She's a very sensible girl. She's a very organized girl. She doesn't really do spontaneity or surprising things. She was adopted as a baby. She's known all her life that on her twenty-fifth birthday she’ll find out what her birth parents have been holding in trust for her. She's got no idea what it is. We meet her in the first chapter opening a letter from the solicitors to tell her what this is, her bequest from her birth parents. She discovers that she has inherited an eight-bedroom mansion in Chelsea overlooking the River Thames, which is a quite extraordinary thing. She also finds out when she goes to visit the house with the solicitor that this house comes with a whole host of terrible, terrible, dark secrets.

Cart (0)