Laurel Zuckerman's Paris Weblog

"We will need writers who can remember freedom" - Ursula K. Le Guin Video

Honored at the 2014 Book Awards, gave this thoughtful speech about writers and "this beautiful reward".  

Paris Theatre in English

Paris English Theatre news from the Smith Prize for Political Theatre, Moving Parts, Montmartre Dionysia, Shakespeare and Company's Bard en Seine reading and more!

 

Nov 2014: What's on in literary Paris

This month, news from the Paris Book Award, NanoWriMo, Shakespeare and Company, Celso Ganzalez-Falla; Christodoulos Makris , Freke Räihä, Carole Birkan, Will Cox, Peter Watson, Mah Jones, Alexandre des Isnards, Leslie Clack, Tony Stowers, Vanessa Place, Marc Perrin, Alex Danchev, Christophe Dickey, William Strangmeyer, Paris Lit Up, Ralph Bismargi, Alice Notley and more (update ongoing, images to come)

 

BOOK NEWS

Shakespeare and Company is expanding! Larger premises, a new website, exciting new projects! Paris' preeminent independent English-language bookstore bursting with creative energy - a boon to Paris writers and readers! Bravo, Sylvia and David!

The winner of the prestigious and highly competitive Paris Book Award for 2014 is Robert Harris' An Officer and a Spy. This thrilling - and according to historians -  accurate account of the Dreyfus scandal is an absolute must read, as much for the entertainment pleasure as for the stunning revelations. Highly recommended. 

Random House Germany, Diana Verlag, has purchased the German language rights to Marie Houzelle's oustanding debut novel, Tita. Congratulations, Marie!

Mystery Writer Betty Webb Plans A New Series, Set In Paris. Interview

by Marylee MacDonald

DESERT RAGE, the eighth in the Lena Jones series, grabs you and doesn’t let go. Private Investigator Jones, who grew up in foster care, uncovers the truth behind the brutal murder of a Scottsdale doctor, his wife, and their 10-year-old son.  Jones isn’t just taking on this seemingly hopeless task for the money. She has a personal stake in finding the real killer. Like Lena herself, the young man accused of the crime is a foster child. That makes her doubly determined to overcome harassment and physical threats until she can get to the truth.

Marylee MacDonald sat down with writer Betty Webb and learned that she’s planning two more books in the Lena Jones series, and then she’s off to Paris, the setting for a new series with a different sleuth.

 Betty Webb, creator of Lena Jones, talks with Marylee MacDonald about Murder and Motherhood,

a Paris Writers News interview

***

Albert Alla on creating English language theater in Paris

 An innovative showcase for English-language theatre opens in Paris and invites writers to submit plays. But hurry! The deadline is October 21!

 Albert Alla on the Montmartre Dionysia: showcase and competition for English-language playwrights in Paris

a Paris Writers News Interview 

Judith Starkston, author of Hand of Fire, on writing historical fiction

An interview with Judith Starkston about writing historical fiction.

Classicist Judith Starkston writes historical fiction. Her new novel, Hand of Fire, is set against the backdrop of the Trojan War. What is historical fiction? How to blend fact with imagination?  Which rules of the genre must be observed? We asked Judith to share some insights into historical fiction.

Judith Starkston, a Paris Writers News Interview (see part 1 here)

Best thing happening on the internet? Last Week Tonight's John Oliver

Foreign funnyman John Oliver has lined up the most penetrating - and also hilarious - videos of investigative journalism you can find anywhere.

Honed by years of aggressively funny muckraking for Jon Stewart's The Daily Show, Oliver's Last Week Tonight is absolutely mustsee reporting of the highest grade.

Segments are long - usually nearly 15 minutes - detailed and amply documented. And they attack, with intelligence and wit, the most horrific abuses of the current American Republic: massive shakedowns by police;  cable monopolists' attack on the internet; the terrifying mess that is our nuclear arsenal.  Why, one wonders, weren't these stories brought to our attention earlier?

A taste:

CIVIL FOREITURE

 

 OUR NUCLEAR WEAPONS

 

 STUDENT DEBT AND FOR PROFIT COLLEGES

 

 

FERGUSON

 "more than just a couple, but I don't think many more than that..."

 

Hot new books about France, Paris

If you are a reader/writer who would like to interview one of the authors of the books below, please contact me about publishing the interview in the Author on Authors series!

If you read French and have a particular interest in cheating husbands or the future of France, don't miss France's hottest bestseller of them all, Trierweiler's ferocious tell-all Merci pour ce moment. (More on how the former first girlfriend evaded French censors here.) Also, just released, bad boy French expat and immense talent Gerard Depardieu's memoirs, Ca s'est fait comme ça. In English, hot new titles include Flirting with French, How to be a Parisian, Tita, French Pastry Murder, Mademoiselle: Coco Channel, My Grandfather's Gallery, Murder in Nice and more! (see below)

French schoolchildren continue to suffer due to absent teachers

A few years ago my Franco-American daughter was visiting Mississippi, and she met a 10-year-old boy whose situation was unlike any she had ever encountered in France.

"He doesn't go to school!" she said. "His parents refused. Said he should be homeschooled. But they're busy. So he's homeschooling - HIMSELF!"

Paris Literary Events, Readings, New Books October 2014

This October in Paris, news from July Carr, Leslie Kaplan, Joan Schenkar, Marylee MacDonald, Nancy Green, Alexander Lobrano, Clotilde Dusoulier, Marie Houzelle, Meredith Mullins, Margaret Macmillan, Paul Ham, de Selby Press, Judish Starkston, Milly Unwin, Dan Gunn, Daniel Hartley, Bonnie Greer, Joanna Walsh, Harriet Alida Lye, Samuel L Barrantes, Johnny Lloyd, Hayden Kays, Will Cox and... UPDATE ONGOING! send us your events  and new books or post in comments!