Rickie Lee Jones

4176W7HVMCL._SL500_AA300_.jpg The story you write, you live.

from Rickie Lee Jones’, Wild Girl, (Balm in Gilead CD)

I lived in LA in the early eighties when Rickie Lee Jones’ first album appeared and changed my musical tastes. Everything she described I understood on a level that I could not put into words. I was an LA transplant from back east. She was from Phoenix. The street was foreign to me, and yet. . . . This was Los Angeles, its essence, the place I both loved and hated at the same time and the first place where I had ever felt free enough to be my sometimes terrifying self. My experience of LA may have been different from hers, but she captured the feelings I was having about the place where I wasn’t raised but where I finally grew up.

As quickly as I discovered her, Rickie Lee and I lost touch, or rather I did which I realize in retrospect was a huge mistake. It left a gap, one that was not only self-punishing but pointless. Rickie Lee has consistently been making innovative music and evolving as an artist. Both Pirates and The Magazine are wonderful CDs which I have just recently discovered. I don’t know why or how I missed those works. I will mark it down as one of life’s enduring mysteries.

So, when I had a chance to see Rickie Lee last December at the Berklee School of Music in Boston, I took it as an opportunity to not only hear a great performer but to revisit my former self.

I have to say that her concert had the same effect on me that her first album did. She has grown. She has changed. Life has happened. His Jeweled Floor, the song she wrote inspired by her mother’s death, is meant to ease a soul from one life to the next. I had heard the song the week before without realizing it was hers. Just hearing it had sent me into tears for my mother, whom I lost over a year ago. Rickie Lee had written the song that connected me to my most heart opening experience.

And then there was Wild Girl, a song written from Rickie Lee to her daughter on the occasion of her 21st birthday. I don't have a daughter, though, over the years, my two nieces have done an admirable job as stand-ins. But I remember my own wild girl, and my next book, The Map of True Places is the story of a wild girl who has been temporarily tamed. And so, as once before, Rickie Lee, you are speaking directly to me. I promise not to lose touch with you again.

Hey! Look! A contest! Enter to win a trip to Salem, MA.

Dear Faithful Readers, I set my novels, The Lace Reader and The Map of True Places, in Salem, MA because it is my hometown, one of the places on earth that I know best. As a small city, Salem is rich in history -- it has lived through prosperity as a shipping town, through notoriety as the epicenter of witch hunts, and it still enjoys a literary burnish as home to Nathaniel Hawthorne and others.

Now, I invite you to enter The Map of True Places sweepstakes for your chance to win a trip to visit my city. Destination Salem and William Morrow are sponsoring the sweepstakes, and many local shops, restaurants, and museums have stepped forward to build a fun and interesting weekend for you in my town!

So enter the sweepstakes today -- and please tell your friends they can enter, too. I hope to see you soon in Salem! In the meantime, head over to my website to download excerpts from The Map of True Places.

Best of luck,

Brunonia Barry

Wait, wait. What the heck happened to January?

It’s been such a hectic past few months! The manuscript for the new book went in at the end of December, so I’ve been busy tying up loose ends. January came in bearing many joys for me. The Lace Reader continues to create awe-inspiring hubbub. The Lace Reader won the General Fiction contest in the New England Book Festival, which was hosted down in Boston a couple weekends ago. It’s also the January Book Club Pick, and was selected in Reading Group Choices 2010. Successes continue to be humbling.

Hope you all had a restful and fulfilling holiday season. A very Happy New Year to you and your families (though at this point, my wishes are a month late). Winter is considered a time of death and hibernation, the time of slumber before spring and the earth is reborn. I continue to work hard for the release of The Map of True Places on May 4th, just in time for spring. You can check out the website via the link, if you haven't already, to read an excerpt from the book. Spring is, in my opinion, the perfect time for a new book. I am just so excited.

The Map of True Places by Brunonia Barry

Keep an eye on the blog, as well as my Facebook and Twitter pages, as I’ll be posting upcoming events. I’m headed to Florida soon for vacation, but once back, things should be slingshotting into motion again. Always on my mind, those in Haiti. My warmest thoughts go out to them during this horrific trial they must live through.

Starbucks / Red Cross Haiti Relief Effort

Dear friends, Starbucks has enabled their 10,000+ North American stores to receive donations at point of sale that will be given directly to the RED CROSS in support of Haiti relief efforts. WYCLEF JEAN has joined to help, kicking off the campaign with his PSA and announcing STARBUCKS’s $1 Million donation.

Join Wyclef Jean by donating to the Haitian relief effort at participating Starbucks.

With your help, we can make a significant impact on the devastation in Haiti.

Read from my new book "The Map of True Places"

The Map of True Places by Brunonia Barry My new book, The Map of True Places, will be available on May 4th. In the meantime, you can read excerpts from it starting today and in the weeks to come. It's a story about relationships and family and finding your true place in the world when you have no map to follow. If you'd like to read the first part of the book now, please click here. I'd love to hear your thoughts so feel free to post something on my blog or on Facebook. There'll be two more excerpts released soon so stay tuned.

Two MA Events: Duxbury on 11/29 and Lexington on 12/1

The Lace Reader paperback cover 11/29 Sunday - I'll be at the Duxbury Free Library in Duxbury, MA from 2 to 4 PM for a reading & signing. You can get more information about the library here and about the event here.

12/1  Tuesday - I'll be at the Cary Memorial Library in Lexington, MA from 7 to 9 PM for a reading & signing. YOu can get more information about the library here.

Both events are free to the public. I look forward to seeing everyone.

Events: Hampton Falls, Marblehead, and Salem

The Lace Reader paperback cover Tonight, Tuesday Oct. 27th,  I’ll be appearing at the Hampton Falls Library in Hampton Falls, NH at 7 PM.

On Wednesday, October 28th, I am teaching a writing class at Abbott Public Library in Marblehead, MA at 7 PM.

Also tomorrow, I will be on air live for an hour on Amazing Women radio show on the VoiceAmerica / WorldTalk network. 5PM est. For details, click here.

And on Halloween night, Gary and I will be costume judges at The Witches Ball at the Hawthorne Hotel in Salem, MA.. I hear there are still a few ticket left to the event, so if you’re interested, click here.

Please join me for any and all events.

Brunonia

This week: Mequon, WI & Dallas & Wichita

The Lace Reader paperback cover I'll be in the Midwest this week doing readings and signings for The Lace Reader. If you live near any of these bookstores, please stop by and say hello.

Monday         10/12 MEQUON, WI/Next Chapter Bookshop, 7-9PM

Tuesday         10/13 DALLAS, TX/ Legacy Books, 7-9PM

Wednesday   10/14 WICHITA,KS/ Watermark Books & Cafe, 7-9PM

Watch out Orpheus, I'm a wild woman now

THe 2009 Baccante award necklace This Saturday, at the Women's Fiction Festival in Matera, Italy, I was honored to be the recipient of the Baccante award for best fiction of 2009 for The Lace Reader. Below is, word for word, a description of the Baccante award. The award is pictured above. It is a beautiful necklace which was crafted by a wonderful Italian designer whom I had the priviledge to meet. My thanks to The Woman's Fiction Festival. If you write, you should really consider attending next year. Matera is amazing (more on that in future posts), and the women are all talented and welcoming. You can learn more about the festival here.

Here is their description of the Baccante Award:

The Bacchantes killed Orpheus and dismembered his body. They bring chaos and destruction and are controversial figures in Greek Mythology. They are priestesses of Dionysius, bound by the rites of the mysteries and by knowledge of the occult. They are at times cruel, embodying the dark side of the human psyche, instincts, the very principle which, when released by frenzy and possession, gives rise to song, to music and dance, to every type of artistic expression.

Indeed, it is precisely because of their disturbing and ambiguous position, in a poetic overturning of values, that we chose this figure as the very symbol of the precious and all-important role of women in culture.

The Bacchantes were custodians of knowledge and of the secrets of nature. The shape of the necklace, in fact, reproduces the shape of a mirror, the symbol of knowledge.

Women's Fiction Festival in Matera, Italy

  A few of the thousands of stone steps in Matera, Italy

We are in Matera, Italy today to attend the 6th annual Women's Fiction Festival. Matera is an ancient city that was originally a series a caves carved into a limestone hillside. We are staying in one of the Sassi (stones) districts. The festival was kind enough to name me the recipient of their 2009 Baccante award for best women's fiction for The Lace Reader. I am honored to be here with such wonderful women (and a few good men) in such a magical place. More later. Ciao!

Rome to Matera

  Bernini's Four Rivers Fountain at the Piazza Navona in Rome, Italy

Today we are in Rome, wandering around the ancient city, stopping for water and maybe a little of the dark chocolate gelato they have at Piazza Navona. We sat and watched a group of art students sketching the Bernini sculptures at the Four Rivers Fountain, and I wondered if they knew how lucky they were to be young aspiring artists in Rome. We certainly feel very lucky to be here. Tonight we meet our friend Francesca. Then, it's on to Matera for the Sixth International Women's Fiction Festival (click here for details).

9/20 - The Wyndham Hotel in Andover at 2PM

On Sunday, I will be speaking at a benefit for PATHS (Patient Advocacy Training and Health Services), a wonderful organization that I wish I’d had access to when I was helping to take care of my parents. Whether faced with a debilitating disease or just navigating though the number of doctors and specialists we all seem to need at some point, this organization provides a helpful and much needed service. The event is at the Wyndham Andover Hotel, in Andover, Massachusetts, from 2-4:30 and features a dessert buffet as well as my presentation about The Lace Reader.  If you’re in the area, there is still time to reserve your ticket. For all of the details, visit  the PATHS website here.