January 29, 2013

Bio of author, Colette Freedman: COLETTE FREEDMAN is an internationally produced playwright, screenwriter, and novelist who was recently named one of the Dramatist Guild’s “50 to Watch”.

Her play Sister Cities (NYTE, 2009) was the hit of the 2008 Edinburgh Fringe and earned five star reviews: It has been produced around the country and internationally, including Paris (Une Ville, Une Soeur) and Rome (Le Quattro Sorelle). She has authored fifteen produced plays including Serial Killer Barbie (Brooklyn Publishers, 2004), First to the Egg (Grand prize shorts urban shorts festival), Bridesmaid # 3 (Louisville finalist 2008), and Ellipses… (Dezart Festival winner 2010), as well as a modern adaptation of Iphigenia in Aulis written in iambic pentameter.

She was commissioned to write a modern adaptation of Uncle Vanya which is in preproduction and has co-written, with International bestselling novelist Jackie Collins, the play Jackie Collins Hollywood Lies, which is gearing up for a National Tour. In collaboration with The New York Times best selling author Michael Scott, she wrote the thriller The Thirteen Hallows, (Tor/Macmillan) The play version of The Affair (Kensington) is touring Italy next month.

INTERVIEW

Today is the release day for your book, “The Affair!” How are you feeling? Incredibly excited and hungry! When I get excited I eat so I can’t even imagine how many calories I’ll be devouring today.

Have you always wanted to be a writer? Yes. I wrote my first play when I was eleven and have been writing ever since.

Who and/or what inspires you? My parents inspire me. My teachers past and present inspire me. Good writers inspire me: Ann Patchett, Michael Scott, Eudora Welty, Charles Dickens and Gabriel Garcia Marquez inspire me.

Describe what the writing/editing/publishing process is like for you: I actually love the process. I come from a background of sports where my job was to train to be the best athlete I could while the coach, assistant coach, athletic trainer, grounds crew and school administrators did their jobs to make sure that I could play. The writing/editing/publishing process is the same way. My job is to create the material and deliver it on schedule and I have a terrific support team to make sure that it gets from my vision into the public arena.

Which do you prefer, writing plays or books? Plays. There is nothing like sitting in an audience and watching actors bring your words to life and feeling the collective energy as an audience experiences your story.

You’ve had the pleasure to work with Jackie Collins. What was that experience like? Jackie is unbelievable. She is a true pro, a wonderful writer and a savvy businesswoman. She was incredibly generous throughout the process and I learned a great deal from her. I can’t wait to see the play!

What must a writer have at all times? Thick skin, tenacious optimism a hard chair.

Hard/paperback or eBooks? Both. I used to be a purist who refused to give in to the digital age, but when my brother bought me a kindle…well….let’s just say I’m addicted to being able to hold 1,000 books in my hand.

What is the best advice you’ve been given? Believe in yourself

Can you tell us about any of your upcoming projects? I’m writing the novelization of my play Sister Cities and working on a Young Adult book about a boarding school for girls where not everything is what it appears to be.

GUEST POST

When I moved to Hollywood after grad school, I expected it to be the happiest place on earth. After all, everyone was beautiful, the sun was always shining, the air was fragrant with the smell of citrus and it was close to both the ocean and the mountains. Jay Leno drove his cool antique cars down my street, George Clooney frequented my favorite restaurant, I got my hair done by the same guy as Jennifer Aniston….what could go wrong? While Hollywood should be the happiest place on earth, it is often the saddest and the loneliest. When I first moved here, most of my friends were in committed relationships: They were in love. They were happy. Yet, time passed and now, only a handful of those relationships survived. Why? They were torn apart by affairs.

Affairs are dirty little secrets that no one likes to talk about; rather, they like to speculate, judge and gossip. It is so much easier to point fingers than to simply ask why. Why did it happen? And the answers, when you really ask the hard questions, are surprising. No one sets out to have an affair. Why would they? The universal answer to why people have affairs is “It just happened.” But nothing just happens. As humans we are constantly searching for the new experiences; the rush of adrenaline felt from something new, the newness of someone looking at us from a fresh perspective…seeing only what is presented to them rather than the heavy baggage loaded with history and shared experiences. “New”…that is always the operative word. We get bored by what we see every day and an affair, an illicit relationship with someone outside our mundane world of watching the kids and taking out the trash, offers a freshness which we so desperately crave.

Before I became a novelist, I was a commercial director and it was a world rife with affairs. We’d often be in an exotic location (okay, maybe North Carolina wasn’t terribly exotic..but it was different…and new) for a limited amount of time and people got frisky. There were so many affairs between the cast and crew I couldn’t count. And people didn’t go to North Carolina to shoot furniture commercials to have an affair…they “just happened.”As the director, I had to keep my distance from everyone. I was the authority figure, plus I was both young and a woman, so I had to keep a modicum of decorum. But that didn’t stop me from sitting at the bar and observing. A writer’s job is too observe…especially when people let down their guards and think no one is watching. A few of these affairs continued long after the shoots. And, eventually, one or two things would happen: the wife found out and kicked the husband out or the wife found out and forgave the husband. And there is no judgement to be placed on either decision. After all, we never know what goes on behind closed doors and what those confrontations boiled down to.

In The Affair, I tried to show the consequences of an affair from three different perspectives…placing the guilt equally on all three parties while trying to understand and empathize with them as well.

**Contact Colette!

**Buy “The Affair”

LouiseWiseBookCover

The Fall of the Misanthrope: I Bitch, therefore I am

Genre: Contemporary romance/chick lit

Book blurb:

‘I thought you were the type of man who could handle a one-night stand. I’m sorry. I don’t want a relationship, sexual or meaningful.’

The Fall of the Misanthrope is a hilarious tale of one woman’s handling of the modern world. Snowed under with work, drinking espressos and popping energy pills to keep her awake at night to avoid a recurring nightmare, she plays with her health when she realises the depression, which caused her mother to kill herself, has caught her.

Bossy Ellen Semple thinks she has the answer: maternal love and cream cakes.

But Valerie begins dating playboy Lex Kendal, unaware that he’s Ellen’s nephew and the very reason why her brokerage has taken ‘exceptionally good business lately’. Ellen believes his ‘bed ‘em and leave ‘em’ ethos will damage Valerie even more but Lex rubbishes her fears.

But it’s Lex who falls for Valerie and she dumps him.

Then Valerie has a nightmare that turns everything she’s ever known the right way up. She’d been walking on a time-bomb. Or is she losing her mind?

Chapter 1 tease:

There was that woman again.

I saw her out of the corner of my eye. She was sitting on the wooden bench looking up at the church and then occasionally in my direction. I crouched at the graveside, pushing stems of daisies and carnations through the wire holes in the top of the vase.

Crikey, it was cold. I stood up and pulled my gloves back on before stepping back to admire my handiwork. The flowers looked pretty. There was a plaque – but only my brother was buried there, my parents’ ashes had been scattered over the top.

I picked up the paper the flowers had been wrapped in and mashed it in my hands. I could still feel the curious stare of the woman, whom I did my best to ignore. The bins were by the bench. I headed over, keeping my head low.

‘Hello,’ she said.

I nodded, dropped the litter and turned away. I pulled up the collar on my coat, not only to block out this stranger’s inquisitive eyes but because the air was stinging my cheeks. I wondered how she could sit for so long without freezing up.

‘I’m Ellen,’ she said. Good manners made me turn back.

‘I’m Valerie, good day.’ Oh, how very English and polite, I thought, as I walked away.

‘November’s turned cold, hasn’t it?’ she said standing and falling into step beside me. ‘Do you think we’ll have snow?’

I walked faster, but the woman kept pace with me.

‘We’ve been lucky with the weather so far, but I think it can be safely said that winter has arrived,’ she said. ‘Are you a winter person, Valerie?’

Not only had she invaded my space, she was asking anal questions too. She didn’t bother to wait for an answer, which was good, seeing as I wasn’t going to supply one but prattled on with another:

‘Who’re you visiting?’ She nodded over to my brother’s grave.

‘Family.’

‘Close family?’

With the gates in sight, I afforded her a brief glance. ‘Not any more.’

Her smile waned a little, but I strode forward, hoping to be first through the gates. But it didn’t happen like that and we ended up locked together between black iron.

She burst into peals of laughter before stepping back and allowing me to exit first. I gave her a no-nonsense smile, and stepped through the gates towards my car. The car park was almost empty, so I couldn’t understand why a bright red Mini was parked so close to my Vectra.

I heard Ellen giggling behind me, and I had a horrible feeling the Mini was hers. I bleeped my car open, but there was no way I could get access unless it was from the passenger side.

I turned to Ellen. She grinned at me, aimed the keys and bleeped her car. ‘Brilliant things, aren’t they?’ she said.

‘What?’

She jiggled her keys. ‘These bleepy things.’

I placed my bag on the bonnet of my Vectra, and pointed at her car. ‘You’ve an entire car park at your disposal, and you chose to park not only next to me, but right on top so I can’t get in!’

She stared at me, but much to my chagrin, her smile only got wider. She winked, then circled to the driver’s side of her car where she slid behind the wheel. ‘Take care of that blood pressure of yours,’ she said and closed the door.

She drove away leaving me staring after her in shock.

‘Cheeky bitch,’ I said. I climbed into my car and drove towards work.

There was a holdup at the traffic lights, which I couldn’t understand because the lights were green. Impatiently, I stabbed at my horn with the heel of my hand, and a car in front of the car I was behind shot off just as the lights changed to red. I noticed it was the Mini from the graveyard. ‘Typical,’ I muttered.

I thought back to the first time I’d seen her. It was summer time, and she was on that same bench and I was tending to the grave. She’d smiled but hadn’t attempted to speak. Come to think of it, I’d seen her before then too, and I remembered her because she was wearing a bright green raincoat with a huge sunflower on the back. At first glance I thought it had been a target board.

The lights changed and I eased my car forward. Obviously she had lost family too, I thought. I’ll change my visits from the middle of every month to the end. That way I’d not encounter her again.

I stepped inside the foyer of my office and, ignoring the lift, I climbed the stairs. It wasn’t that I wanted the exercise, I just didn’t like lifts. I didn’t like most things to be honest: animals, people, modern music, Keith Lemon to name a few. I liked numbers and data. They were my forte; safe and solid numbers.

The office block was only three storeys. The first floor was all taken by one firm, and besides saying ‘hello’ we never spoke at all. I shared the top floor with an accountancy firm. I rented the largest office, which had a connecting door to a smaller one. The smaller office was mine, and it overlooked Sallington Park; the other room was for my staff.

Inside, I heard the steady drone of office banter – all two of them. I ran a financial advisory brokerage for Sunny Oak. I pushed open the door.

‘Mr McFindley has called to cancel tonight’s appointment,’ Tim informed me before I was barely over the threshold, ‘and I’ve chased Tracey Sadark for her previous insurance details. She’s promised to phone them through later this afternoon. I’ve three new appointments booked for tonight and it’s only eleven o’clock! Oh, and I’ve ordered new stationery from HQ, but there’s going to be a delay on stamps for the new logo.’ He jumped up to give me his list and then proceeded over to the bubbling percolator and poured me a coffee. He was Tim the Tireless. At five foot nothing and approaching retirement age Tim would never walk if he could run.

‘And did you call Darren Yardley like I asked?’ I asked.

‘Of course. He’s going to fax over his details.’ He grinned and handed me a cup of steaming coffee that resembled tar – just as I liked it. ‘I’ve arranged an interview for your new assistant at three tomorrow afternoon.’ He whipped out his notebook. ‘I’ve her details—’

‘Later!’ I raised a hand to shut him off. My eyes fell on a pile of customer files still sitting on top of the filing cabinet. ‘Paul?’ I said, pointing. ‘Why hasn’t the filing been done?’

‘There isn’t any filing, Miss Anthrope,’ he said. He insisted on calling me by my surname at all times. He’d only recently learned to stop standing when I entered a room, so small mercies. I noticed that he was busy sorting coloured paperclips into little piles of blue, red and pink, on his desk.

‘What’s that then?’ I said, still pointing at the filing.

He peered at me through his owl-framed glasses, and then at the files. ‘Are they for filing?’

‘Yes, Paul,’ I said. ‘They were there yesterday and probably before the weekend, too. Do it immediately. This inefficiently of yours is getting ridiculous!’

Paul dived on a coloured paperclip and held it up to the light as if admiring a diamond. ‘An orange paperclip,’ he said. ‘Now these are unusual.’

‘Tell me again when I can retire him?’ I said to Tim.

‘Leave him to me, Valerie,’ he said.

‘Pleasure.’ Feeling a headache coming on I left them for my office. Inside, I placed my coffee on my desk, and unbuttoned my coat but didn’t take it off. I was still cold from the graveyard visit.

I touched the radiator. It was lukewarm. Rubbing my hands together, I stared out of the window while trying to encourage warmth from the radiator below. I’d meant to bring in my little heater from home but forgot – must remember for tomorrow. I didn’t want the cold to put off my interviewee. I hadn’t much success with staff; Tim and Paul were seemingly the only ones I could hang on to.

Tim was my sales representative; he was good at selling, or rather, talking. I think people signed on the dotted line just to be rid of him. Paul, a general assistant, wanted to work fewer hours and I thought hiring someone to job-share alongside him would be a good idea, with the added benefit that he or she could be a sort of PA for me. I wanted to concentrate on sales and presentations and leave the general running of the office to someone else.

I vowed to try and be nice in the interview. It wouldn’t be easy.

**Contact Louise:

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