Adventures in Research, Volume 1
I found out on Memorial Day that I did not receive the American Library in Paris Fellowship, for which I had applied. I knew it was a long shot going in, but why not swing for the fences, I always say. The American Library in Paris offers a month-long paid fellowship for writers to work on their current projects. The fellows receive $5,000 to cover travel to Paris, accommodation, and expenses associated with living in Paris. In addition to the stipend, the Library will connect the fellow to resources and people in Paris that could be helpful to their project. Visiting Fellows are expected to be in the American Library for at least three half-days a week. During the residency, fellows are expected to present an hour-long evening program, participate in a reception, meet with staff informally to explore a topic of mutual interest, and extend the Library's reach by participating in events arranged by the Library with other organizations in Paris. Sounds like a blast, right?
This is the third year I’ve applied for the fellowship. The first year, they asked applicants to come up with two or three workshops/events as part of the process. I spent a good two weeks reviewing previous events on the library calendar before I came up with what I thought were good ideas. Given that I write genre fiction, I proposed two workshops/events featuring two American writers already living in France; one author writes romance, and the other writes historical fiction. The first event was entitled ‘How to Write Biographical Fiction,’ and the conversation with the romance author was about what makes Paris one of the most romantic cities in the world.
Most of the events on the American Library in Paris calendar gear more towards literary fiction, so I thought going for genre fiction was an excellent way to stand out. I like both authors and their writing, so it would be a win-win if they chose me for the fellowship. The current fellows are Christian Campbell, a published poet, and Adam Shatz. who is the US Editor of the London Review of Books. The newest fellow is a professor from Princeton working on a social and cultural history of the Enlightenment, and the other fellow is a Booker Prize nominee.
I’m not going to lie; I’m disappointed. Spending a month in Paris doing research is an author’s dream. The heroine of my current work in progress spent most of her life in Paris, so being able to do boots-on-the-ground research would have been a plus. My plans also included tracing her steps in Marseille, Lisbon, Madrid, and Morocco while I was there. There is also the Musée de la Libération Leclerc Moulin in Paris that I missed seeing last year because I had a terrible eye infection. I was also hoping to get into the military archives while I was there. Will I apply again for the fellowship? Probably, but I don’t think I will apply next year.
Since my plans to spend a glorious month in Paris doing nothing but research while eating baguettes and sipping wine is over, it’s on to the next best thing: doing research at the Library. I’ve read multiple biographies of my heroine/protagonist, general histories about the period, and copies of the International Herald Tribune for more background. Movies, documentaries, and music have also been valuable resources. I’m constantly flipping through the biographies, looking for morsels I might have missed the first time. Many of the scenes in the book either came from incidents that I read about or imagined could have happened.
Luckily for me, three libraries (the Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center, Butler Library at Columbia, and the Schomburg) in New York contain some of the archives of my main character. Letters, news articles, programs, artwork, and other ephemera. I’ve only been through half of the material at Butler Library and plan on returning. Still, right now, because of the protests, the Columbia campus has been closed off except for people with university IDs, which I don’t have. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to make an appointment at the Library soon. In the meantime, I have a few other books on reserve at the Schwartzman building.
There’s something about holding letters that your protagonist wrote in your hand, seeing how they wrote and what words they used, that is invaluable for a writer, especially if you are writing biographical fiction. Seeing the letters made my protagonist come alive for me in a way that reading her biographies didn’t. I could hear her voice in my head as I read them. Butler Library also has some memorabilia created in my protagonist’s image during her long career.
I plan another trip to Paris to research, probably after this draft is finished. At the top of my list of things to do is tour the American Library in Paris!
What I’m Reading:
Turning Pointe by Chloe Angyal - Like most little girls, I studied ballet as a child and kept up with it through high school before I realized I would never be Gelsey Kirkland. But I still love the art form and go often in New York and London. I have a vast collection of books about ballet, and Turning Pointe is on my shelf. In Turning Pointe, Angyal captures the love for ballet that many dancers feel while grappling with its shortcomings. Ballet has had impossible standards of beauty and thinness, and racism has kept people of color out of ballet for decades and continues to do so. Angyal offers some solutions essential for ballet to survive the twenty-first century and forge a path into a more socially just future. This book is a must-have for Dance Moms, Dads, and anyone who loves the art form.
Rises the Night by Colleen Gleason is the second book in Gleason’s Regency-set vampire series. Imagine if Buffy were an English and she discovers she comes from a long line of vampire slayers called Venators just as she’s about to debut in society. I love the Regency setting and the contrast between dealing with the ton and going vampire hunting at night. The series has five books, and I can’t wait to read the next three.
What I’m watching:
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell—I watched the first episode of this series years ago when it was on Masterpiece Theatre, but for some reason, it didn’t grab my attention. This weekend, I was looking for something to watch that I hadn’t seen before, and that was in the same time frame as Bridgerton. It shows that sometimes you have to be in the right frame of mind to watch something because I loved this show. Based on Susanna Calkins's best-selling novel, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell takes place in a world where magic disappeared from England 300 years ago. When the reclusive Mr Norrell reveals his powers, he becomes a celebrity overnight.
Jonathan Strange is searching for an occupation to impress the woman he loves when he stumbles upon the fact that he can do magic. He becomes Norrell's student, and they join forces in the war against France. While Norrell fears magic being in the wrong hands, Strange is younger and more daring than his teacher. He becomes increasingly drawn to the wildest, most dangerous forms of magic, straining his partnership with Norrell and putting everything else he holds dear at risk.
I had so many questions while watching this series. Why did magic disappear? What is going to happen now that magic has returned to England? Who is the Raven King, and what happened to him after Jonathan Strange brought him back? I may have actually to pick up the book to find out.