Topic of the Week: Genre-Bending Books June 22, 2009

Malena Lott

Genres help readers pick books based on what they enjoy, while they help publishers market and booksellers shelve books. Popular genres include thrillers, romance, mystery, women’s fiction, chick-lit, science fiction, et al. Some books, however, aren’t easily classified. This  week on LitChat we’ll discuss books that don’t fit squarely on a typical genre shelf.

We’ll conclude on Friday, June 26th with guest host Malena Lott, author of Dating da Vinci. Dating da Vinci follows young widow Ramona Elise as she experiences her own renaissance, with the help of a sexy young Italian immigrant named Leonardo da Vinci. Mostly chick-lit in style and vibe, Dating da Vinci breaks the mold with its serious undertones of dealing with grief. While the story reaches to entertain, the subtext about loss is a bridge over the waters of typical chick-lit.

Malena Lott is the author of The Stork Reality (Dorchester) and Dating Da Vinci (Source Books). Malena hosts a book blog called Athena’s Bookshelf, is working on a new women’s fiction novel, and a screenplay.

Follow Malena on Twitter at @MalenaLott.

Topic of the Week: Open Discussion with Bethanne Patrick June 14, 2009

This week at LitChat, Bethanne Kelly Patrick, aka @thebookmaven, is hosting open literary discussion on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at the regular time, 4 pm/edt. Here’s your chance to ask questions about books, authors, publishing and reading.

Bethanne is the Managing Editor of TheBookStudio.com, a WETA-PBS book review and author interview site. Her Book Maven blog ran on AOL from 2004-2007, on PublishersWeekly.com from 2007-2009, and now lives on at StillLifewithBookMaven.com. Bethanne is a member of ASJA and the NBCC. Her first book, “An Uncommon History of Common Things,” will be released by National Geographic Books this fall. A graduate of Smith College, Patrick holds a master’s in English from the University of Virginia and lives in Arlington with her husband and their two daughters.

If you’d like to pose questions for Bethanne to present during the chats, please send them to her through Twitter at @thebookmaven.

Topic of the Week for June 8-12: Non-fiction to Educate and Entertain June 8, 2009

Amy Stewart

Non-fiction rides the tide of academia and soars to the top of bestseller lists. Inspirational, pictorial, educational, biographical, humorous, non-fiction is a steady seller even in challenging economic times.

This week at LitChat we’ll discuss great non-fiction that entertains as it educates. Joining us on Wednesday, June 10th is Amy Stewart, author of Wicked Plants, The Weed That Killed Lincoln’s Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities.

Amy’s essays and commentaries have appeared in the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, Garden Design, Organic Gardening, and elsewhere. She’s been featured on NPR, Good Morning America and CBS Sunday Morning. She is the author of From the Ground Up: The Story of a First Garden, The Earth Moved: On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworms, and the New York Times bestselling Flower Confidential: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful in the Business of Flowers.

Stewart lives in Eureka, California, with her husband Scott Brown. They own an antiquarian bookstore called Eureka Books and tend a flock of unruly hens in their backyard.

Follow Amy on Twitter at @amyeureka.

Topic of the Week for June 1-5: Great Beach Reads June 1, 2009

Ah, the sun on your shoulders, the sand in your toes and a good book open in your lap. It’s summer and this week on LitChat we’re going to talk about what makes a good beach read. Some prefer fluffy romances, others need a compelling plot, still others want character-driven stories. Yet most agree it’s fiction that fuels beach and poolside page-turning.

Kristina Riggle

Joining us on Friday, June 6th is Kristina Riggle, whose debut novel REAL LIFE AND LIARS releases just in time for summer reading. Kristina has published short stories in the Cimarron Review, Literary Mama, Espresso Fiction, and elsewhere. She is also a freelance journalist writing primarily for The Grand Rapids Press, and co-editor for fiction at Literary Mama. Kristina was a full-time newspaper reporter for seven years before turning her attention to creative writing and freelancing. On Mondays, she can be found blogging at The Debutante Ball, a group blog of authors debuting in 2009. As well as writing, she enjoys reading, yoga, dabbling in (very) amateur musical theatre, and spending lots of time with her husband, two kids and dog. Kristina lives in Western Michigan.

Real Life & Liars is set in Charlevoix, Michigan, a town close to Kristina’s heart as the home of her grandparents where she has visited often over the years. Some recognizable Charlevoix landmarks appear in the novel, as well as fictionalized versions of real places. The home of the Zielinski family on Dixon Avenue is based loosely on the house where her grandmother grew up.

Kristina is hard at work on her next novel of complex family relationships, also due from Avon/HarperCollins.

Follow Kristina on Twitter at: @KrisRiggle.