We have two wonderful novelists participating in our giveaway today. Please help me welcome Nichole Bernier & Randy Susan Meyers!
Introducing Nichole Bernier
Nichole Bernier is author of the novel The Unfinished Works of Elizabeth D., a finalist for the New England Independent Booksellers fiction award. A Contributing Editor for Conde Nast Traveler magazine for 14 years, she has also written for publications including Psychology Today, Elle, Health, Self, Salon, and The Huffington Post. She received her master’s in journalism from Columbia University, and is a founder of the literary blog Beyond the Margins. Nichole lives outside of Boston with her husband and five children, and can be found online at nicholebernier.com.
Learn about The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D., Crown/Random House, hardcover June 2012 & paperback March 2013
Before there were blogs, there were journals. And in them we’d write as we really were, not as we wanted to appear. But there comes a day when journals outlive us. And with them, our secrets.
Summer vacation on Great Rock Island was supposed to be a restorative time for Kate, who’d lost her close friend Elizabeth in a sudden accident. But when she inherits a trunk of Elizabeth’s journals, they reveal a woman far different than the cheerful wife and mother Kate thought she knew.
The complicated portrait of Elizabeth—her troubled upbringing, and her route to marriage and motherhood—makes Kate question not just their friendship, but her own deepest beliefs about loyalty and honesty at a period of uncertainty in her own marriage. When an unfamiliar man’s name appears in the pages, Kate realizes the extent of what she didn’t know about her friend, including where she was really going on the day she died.
The more Kate reads, the more she learns the complicated truth of who Elizabeth really was, and rethinks her own choices as a wife, mother, and professional, and the legacy she herself would want to leave behind.
I asked Nichole three questions about our giveaway’s theme topic, self-expression:
1. Is self-expression an important part of your life today, why or why not?
Absolutely. But probably with less urgency than when I was younger. Back then, there was a sort of desperation to make my mark as a writer, and to protect the time and space that was starting to feel so scarce as we were starting a family. There’s certainly no extra time now that we have a large family, but at least I have faith in my ability to make time and prioritize the activities and creativity that mean the most to me. It happens on its own; there’s no need to yell to be heard, or to rush. And the older I get, the more I put a premium on listening and being inspired by others’ work too. And on helping my children learn to express themselves, verbally and creatively.
2. What does self-expression mean to you and how do you do it in the world?
Self expression is possible in so many things. It’s my fiction and nonfiction, thank you notes and birthday cards, even a thoughtful observation on Twitter or Facebook. A well-made apple pie. A meaningfully organized bookshelf. (Though mine are a bit more like they were done by code, waiting to be figured out.) Most of all, it’s making sure that when I open my mouth I’m saying what I really mean, not just the easy or expected thing. This was a big driver behind my novel of the young mother, discovered posthumously through her journals to be so much more than she presented to the world, even those who thought they knew her best.
3. How does your self-expression impact the world—your family, your friends, your readers, and everyone else?
I hope the things I write bring a unique way of looking at things that is meaningful and true and authentic. I have little patience with posturing or superficiality. I learned something interesting recently from Andre Dubus about the origins of the word “sincere.” In the olden days of Rome (I have no idea how old we’re talking), when stone walls were repaired, real mortar was costly and time consuming. Some masons cut corners by using melted wax sprinkled with rock dust. But when it got hot, obviously, it wouldn’t hold. “Sin-cere” was a craftsman who didn’t take cheap shortcuts and hide flaws using wax. Or so says Andre Dubus.
Introducing Randy Susan Meyers
Randy Susan Meyers was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY and now lives with her husband in Boston, where she teaches writing seminars at the Grub Street Writers’ Center.
The drama of Randy Susan Meyers’ novels is informed by her work with violent offenders and families impacted by emotional and family violence. Meyers’ debut novel, The Murderer’s Daughters was named a “Must Read Book” and one of the “2011 Ten Best Works of Fiction” by the Massachusetts Center for the Book.
Randy is a founding member of Beyond The Margins, a multi-writer site dedicated to the craft of writing and the business of publishing. She is also a regular contributor to The Huffington Post and has recently co-authored the guide What To Do Before Your Book Launch with writer MJ Rose.
Learn about The Comfort of Lies from Atria Books/Simon & Schuster February 2013
“Happiness at someone else’s expense came at a price. Tia had imagined judgment from the first kiss that she and Nathan shared. All year, she’d waited to be punished for being in love, and in truth, she believed that whatever consequences came her way would be deserved.”
Five years ago, Tia fell into obsessive love with a man she could never have. Married, and the father of two boys, Nathan was unavailable in every way. When she became pregnant, he disappeared, and she gave up her baby for adoption.
Five years ago, Caroline, a dedicated pathologist, reluctantly adopted a baby to please her husband. She prayed her misgivings would disappear; instead, she’s questioning whether she’s cut out for the role of wife and mother.
Five years ago, Juliette considered her life ideal: she had a solid marriage, two beautiful young sons, and a thriving business. Then she discovered Nathan’s affair. He promised he’d never stray again, and she trusted him.
But when Juliette intercepts a letter to her husband from Tia that contains pictures of a child with a deep resemblance to her husband, her world crumbles once more. How could Nathan deny his daughter? And if he’s kept this a secret from her, what else is he hiding? Desperate for the truth, Juliette goes in search of the little girl. And before long, the three women and Nathan are on a collision course with consequences that none of them could have predicted.
Riveting and arresting, The Comfort of Lies explores the collateral damage of infidelity and the dark, private struggles many of us experience but rarely reveal.
Watch The Comfort of Lies Book Trailer
I asked Randy three questions about our giveaway’s theme topic, self-expression:
1. Is self-expression an important part of your life today, why or why not?
I am not artistic via paint or clay, nor can I manage crafts with any panache. I do enjoy gardening—a form of self-expression that frees me to be in the moment, but it is truly the self-expression of writing—of telling my truth through words—that suffuses my life.
Write a book that breaks your own heart. That’s one of the reminders I wrote myself before outlining my novel. Writing towards the worst makes me braver—a trait I dearly need to employ more often. In my family, my sister and I are known for doing our ‘death watches’—always waiting for people to disappear and disaster to strike. Reading and writing about the dark side seems to be one of the ways in which I can lighten up.
Lord knows it’s better than whiskey.
2. What does self-expression mean to you and how do you do it in the world?
As a writer, I’ve learned that reaching deep isn’t always comfortable. (My daughters will read this! My husband will think I’m portraying him!) But I push myself to write with a figurative knife held to my own throat, so that my work will hold as much emotional truth as possible.
For me, writing transmogrifies fact into fiction, and thus, soothes my soul.
I used to play a song for my daughters, from Free to Be You and Me, that swore “crying got the sad out of you.” That’s kind of what writing brings me—it gets the sad, the mad, and the glad out of me.
Writing calms me. Writing excites me. Writing sorts out my world.
3. How does your self-expression impact the world—your family, your friends, your readers, and everyone else?
While writing my first novel, The Murderer’s Daughters, I accessed dark emotional truths. I took real events (my father trying to kill my mother) and then punted the reality into a far more dramatic story. Fiction. However, emotional truth, the stuff of trauma can reveal, may offer a gift to the reader — but it’s often ripped from the writer in a way they don’t immediately recognize.
Writing that book meant digging deep into family secrets and crypts. Family facts weren’t really revealed so much as a family culture was uncovered and combed through. After the book was published, after I raised my head from the comforting minutia of plot and structure and query letters and editorial letters, I realized I wasn’t telling fairy tales. I’d ripped away denial that I’d spent years perfecting, denial made up of food and books and television and all the myriad ways we keep ourselves at a distance from ourselves.
Hopefully, mixing up all that fact and fancy turned into nourishing meal for the reader, if cooked and served correctly and honestly, it’s bound to leave the writer with a bit of indigestion. Yet, once it has passed, allowing for that depth of self-expression leaves one far freer.
And Now, Your Turn…
You remember how this works right?
Please read the complete rules at least once!
I ask you a question.
You answer in the comments for your chance to win a book each day.
Please just respond once, even if you make a typo. 
Answer in the comments in 50-200 words (no less and no more to qualify to win one of today’s books).
Describe a moment of heartbreak from your life that you now know was a gift. Write it in the third person if it’s too hard to write it in first person. Be as specific or ambiguous as you want.
Ready, set, comment! I will hold the drawing tomorrow and post the results here in my blog.
Thanks for participating in the Writer Mama Every-Day-In-May Book Giveaway!
And thanks for spreading the word. We will be giving away great books by wonderful women authors all month.
View the complete list of authors and books.
View the giveaway Pinterest board.
We have two winners today!
