giveaway

Deirdre Madden's most recent novel, Molly Fox's Birthday (Picador, 2010), is a beautifully written story that aptly conveys the complexity of a woman's emotional bonds with her family and friends. The story is focused on a single day in the life of an unnamed narrator, a playright who is staying over at the Dublin home of her closest friend of 20 years, an actress named Molly Fox. The narrator is trying to work on her latest play, but keeps getting distracted and winds up doing far more reminiscing and thinking than writing.

 

I was honored to conduct this interview via email with Deirdre, an acclaimed Irish novelist, to have her respond to some questions about the book, about writing, and about her own friendships. Molly Fox's Birthday was a nominee for the prestigious Orange Prize for Fiction.

 

Irene:
Why did you choose to tell your story within the confines of a single day in the life of the main character?

Deirdre:
A book that was very much in my mind when I was writing Molly Fox's Birthday was Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. I liked the balance between the past and the present, and it seemed like a good model, a good way to arrange the material. My writing tends to be quite introspective and is concerned with memory rather than being active and narrative-driven. Setting the novel over a single day allowed for these elements to find a suitable balance.

 

Irene:
Why did you leave the main character unnamed?

Deirdre:
I liked the idea of knowing a great deal about a character - pretty much her whole life story - and yet not knowing her name. Usually it's the other way round: when you present or describe someone, the first thing you say is ‘This is...' and you name her. So it was a way of holding something back, of signalling a bit of distance between the reader and the narrator. On the same subject, when writing a novel, often you know that you've got to grips with a character when you've got a name for them that you know really suits.

 

Irene:
Is the narrator's flow of thoughts, procrastination, and writer's block something you've experienced first-hand?

Deirdre:
When you're writing a novel there are times, particularly at the start of the project, when, I find, you need to be quite passive and vague. You need to be receptive, to day-dream a bit, to follow stray thoughts that might or might not lead somewhere and become useful. The trick is to know when to move on from that phase to a more focused and active mindset. If you don't get it right, you do end up wasting time and procrastinating, stuck on something that's going nowhere. I suspect that sooner or later most writers go through something similar to the narrator's creative problems in Molly Fox's Birthday. You just keep going and you get through it.

 

Irene:
Do you have many long-term friendships of your own and how have they weathered the years? Do you believe in such a thing as "friends for life?"

Deirdre:
Yes, I have quite a few long term friends, some of them very long term indeed! Everyone changes as the years pass, but in a true friendship there's something at the heart of it that either evolves with the changes, or else over-rides them so that they don't matter. Circumstances can change but the thing that drew you to that person in the first place can stay constant. But like any important relationship, you can't take a friendship for granted or neglect it. It merits attention and respect.

 

Irene:
Why did you characterize Molly as a friend-poacher? What are your thoughts about friend-poaching (taking someone else's friend and making them your own)?

Deirdre:
Although she is vulnerable in many ways, Molly Fox has a much stronger personality than her friend, the playwright who narrates the novel, and has a stronger will. What one person sees as friend-poaching another will see simply as mutual friendship. Much depends upon the nature of the friendship that is being encroached upon: often the person about to become the wounded party won't have fully understood or admitted to the real nature of a friendship until they feel it to be under threat. That's certainly the case in the novel.

 

Irene:
Do family relationships, in any sense, predetermine our friendships?

Deirdre:
I'm very interested in relationships within families, most particularly siblings where one person is an artist - a painter, a writer or an actor - and how that impinges upon their brothers and sisters. Family and friends aren't, of course, mutually exclusive, and I believe people who are happy and at ease in their families are more likely to be relaxed about making connections and friendships outside the family. I suppose most of us take some kind of lead from our parents on how we conduct friendships, without our even being conscious of it. Molly Fox's Birthday is about family as well as about friendship.

 

Friendship by the Book is an occasional series of posts on The Friendship Blog about books that offer friendship lessons. 

 

 

*****BOOK GIVEAWAY

To be eligible for a free copy of Molly Fox's Birthday, post a comment about friendship, writing, or friend poaching here. Please include your email address so I can contact you if you are the winner. (If you don't want to post your email address here, you can post the comment and send your email address to me at irene@thefriendshipblog.com/)

Winners will be selected at random from all entries received by 11:59 PM on Sunday, August 15, 2010. U.S. shipping addresses only, please. Good luck, girlfriends!

 

New York Times best-selling author Jane Green is a mother of six. Remarkably, she has written a book a year for the past 12 years. Like her other books, the newest one also focuses on the emotional lives of lives of women.

Promises to Keep, was inspired by the life and death of her real-life friend Heidi, who was diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer. The journey she shared with her girlfriend, accompanying her to chemo and spending time with her when she was too weak to leave her bed, profoundly affected the way Jane thinks about relationships, especially her friendships. My interview with Jane highlights some of her thoughts about that life-changing friendship with Heidi:

 

Irene:

Jane, I know you were born in London. What challenges did you face as an expat making friendships in a new country? How did you meet those challenges?

Jane:

It took me a long time to find my footing here. I moved and made instant friends through having a young child and joining a mommy and me group, but few of them were lasting. By the time a year was up, I had a core group of three who remain amongst my dearest.

 

Irene:

How did you meet your friend Heidi, who inspired the book? What was special about that friendship?

Jane:

Heidi was one of those three mentioned above. I met her first at a children's music class. I didn't know her name, but we cracked up laughing at the ridiculousness of the teacher. When she left, I was instantly regretful that I didn't ask for her number. All I knew was that her name was Heidi, she had a son, and she lived on the other side of town. I spent a week trying to find her, and on the Friday I was hosting a playgroup in my yard. I was alone with my son, waiting for our regular mothers to arrive, when my garden gate opened and in walked Heidi. She had been invited by one of the regulars.

We became instant fast friends, and put our children into pre-school together, so we were together every day. She was a remarkable girl. She had more confidence and sparkle than anyone I have ever met, was utterly comfortable in her own skin, and as a result drew people to her. She was incredibly wise, and measured, and the first person I always turned to for advice.

 

Irene:

What impact did the premature and tragic death of a friend have on your life/friendships?

Jane:

I am very busy, life is very busy, and I was, I think, a somewhat lazy friend. I love them, I know they love me, but I didn't make much of an effort. I would forget to call, and was relieved that even if we didn't see each other often, our friendships somehow stayed the same. Going through an illness and then death of a close friend, has changed my attitudes to friendship enormously.

I learned that saying you love your friends isn't enough; that love is a verb, it requires Acts of Love. It is all about the doing, not the saying, and now I make a point, every day, of emailing, or phoning, or making a plan with those I love.

 

Irene:

You have four young children, a new husband with two children of his own, and an active career. How do you balance friendships with the rest of your life?

Jane:

I have learned that it is imperative that I make time for my friends, that they demand to be as much a part of the mix as my family and my work, and perhaps more so, because they are not an inevitability. All relationships, be it your spouse, your family, your friends, take work, and I make sure that a part of every day is spent connecting with friends.

 

Irene:

What friendship lessons do you think that mothers need to convey to their daughters?

Jane:

Kindness, I believe, is key. Avoiding "girl drama" by not engaging and walking away. Consideration of others.

 

Book Giveaway:

Jane's latest book is so gripping that I had a hard time putting it down. Would you like a chance to win a free copy and be one of the first people to read Promises to Keep? If so:

Post a comment here about the most important friendship lesson you've ever learned or else email it to me at Irene@TheFriendshipBlog.com with the subject line: FRIENDSHIP LESSONS.

Please be sure to include your email address if you post it so I can contact you if you are the winner.

Winners will be selected at random from all entries received by 11:59 PM on Tuesday, July 6, 2010. U.S. shipping addresses only, please. Good luck, girlfriends!

How many times have you felt that there simply aren't enough hours in the day? Or perhaps, thought you really would like to spend more time with girlfriends but don't have the time?

 

If feelings like these haunt you, you'll want to read Laura Vanderkam's inspiring new book, 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think (Portfolio, 2010). Based on interviews with happy and successful people who have mastered the art, Laura provides practical tips to manage the ample time you have so your life and your relationships are more satisfying and efficient. I was delighted to interview Laura about the book and its relevance to female friendships.

 

Irene: Why do you think so many people feel time-challenged, never having enough time to do the things they want to do?

Laura: We live in a distracted world. If something is important to you, you simply have to put it in your schedule first. But if you schedule time at work to think about your career, and where you'll be in five years, you'll be far more likely to reach your goals. Your email will still be there in 45 minutes, so go for a run now. Television is fine in small doses, but many people don't take it in small doses. Instead of watching 2 hours after the kids go to bed, trade off with your spouse and spend an evening catching up with a friend you haven't seen in ages. This takes a lot of self-discipline, but has a big payoff in terms of happiness.

 

Irene: What are some of the worst time-wasters?

Laura: People always mention things like Facebook and Twitter, but these tend to waste minutes. A meeting you didn't need to attend, or a business trip you didn't need to take can easily waste hours or days. More broadly, if your job isn't getting you toward where you want to be in life, you're wasting even more time. Fix the big things first, and then you can tune up the little things.

 

Irene: How does the perceived time crunch affect people's friendships?

Laura: It's an almost universal complaint among working parents: there's just no time for maintaining friendships. Not only do you want to make sure you spend plenty of your non-working hours with your kids, there's the hassle of finding babysitters and making get-togethers work with everyone's schedules. Not all friendships may be worth preserving, but some are. You just have to get creative.

 

Irene: In your book, you talk about making "alignments." Can you give some examples of how you can align your life to have more time for your friends?

Laura: To "align your time" is to build in time for friendships by including friends in your regular activities. I try to meet friends for lunch sometimes - I have to eat anyway, and this is usually a time when I have childcare. Or we have friends who don't have the babysitter problem over for a late dinner. I'd love to find an occasional running partner. I'm a big fan of scheduling playdates with kids whose parents you really like. And over the years, I've actually found it easiest to keep up friendships with people who also sing in my choir, the Young New Yorkers' Chorus. We rehearse every Tuesday night, so it's pretty easy to grab a drink afterwards or socialize during our breaks.

 

Irene: Why did you write 168 Hours?

Laura: A few years ago, when I was a new mom, I kept hearing how hard it was to build a career and a family at the same time, or if you did manage to keep your job while raising your kids, you'd never sleep. I was quite concerned about this, so I set out to write about this time crunch. But then a few things happened. First, I discovered that many of the most successful people I was interviewing didn't feel particularly starved for time. I also found plenty of studies and data sources suggesting that the widespread perception that Americans are overworked and sleep deprived is inaccurate. And finally, when I was honest with myself, I realized that I usually didn't feel too frazzled either. I wrote this book to share this message, which I hope will be inspiring: we can choose how to spend our time, and we have more time than we think.

 

BOOK GIVEAWAY

If you would like to revisit your own "168 hours" and have the chance to win one of the first copies of Laura's book:

• Post a comment below about how you make time for friends by JUNE 2nd. (Plenty of time between now and then :-)

• Be sure to include your email address or send it to me at Irene@TheFriendshipBlog.com so I can follow up if you win.

• Put 168 HOURS in the subject line and we'll randomly pick one person to win a copy.

Friendship by the Book is an occasional series of posts on The Friendship Blog about books that offer friendship lessons.

The Nine Rooms of Happiness: Loving Yourself, Finding Your Purpose, and Getting Over Life's Little Imperfections (Hyperion Voice, 2010) offers straightforward strategies, or "pearls" of wisdom, for resolving relationship conflicts. One gem that particularly resonated with me was: "You can't change them. You can change yourself." Having wasted incalculable time in my own youth trying to change others, I couldn't agree more.

 

Co-authored by Lucy Danziger, the editor in chief of Self-Magazine, and Catherine Birndorf, M.D., a psychiatrist at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, this new book joins the burgeoning genre of happiness literature. The authors cleverly employ a house as a metaphor for a woman's emotional life. As in any house, the rooms (chapters) of this one are interconnected, but, of course, I took an immediate detour into the chapter named the Living Room, which represents the area of women's friendships and social connections.

 

In the Living Room, we're introduced to a number of women whose friendships are "messy" for a variety of reasons. Whether it's the friend who is insatiably needy, self-involved, mistrusting, or jealous, the authors provide insight into the unconscious motivations that impede these women from achieving healthier friendships that can enhance their happiness quotient. The book helps the reader identify and understand the psychological defense mechanisms that often undermine and destroy friendships. By offering readers tools, they can take ownership of their messy rooms and make changes that improve their friendships and their lives.

 

Friendship by the Book is an occasional series of posts on The Friendship Blog about books that offer friendship lessons.

 

To find out more about The Nine Rooms of Happiness or its the authors, click here.

 

 

BOOK GIVEAWAY:

 

You have TWO chances to win a free copy of The Nine Rooms of Happiness, courtesy of Hyperion Voice.

1. Post a comment here telling why you would like to clean up your own messy "living room." Please include your email address so I can contact you if you are the winner.

2. Click on this link at Girlfriend Celebrations to catch their exclusive interview with Lucy Danziger and enter the contest there as well. While you're there check out their great ideas for Girls' Nights In and Girls' Nights Out.

Winners will be selected at random from all entries received by 11:59 PM on Tuesday, March 23, 2010. U.S. shipping addresses only, please. Good luck, girlfriends!

GirlfriendCelebrations

September 17, 2009

 

Do you have a circle of girlfriends, or just wish you did? For many women, having a "circle of friends" is still a dream. Irene Levine, author of Best Friends Forever: Surviving a Breakup with Your Best Friend, explores the "circle" concept and offers her expert advice on how to grow your girlfriend circle. We're honored to have her guest post, written just for GirlfriendCelebrations. Find out how to win a copy of Irene's book below!

By Irene S. Levine, PhD (aka The Friendship Doctor)
The idea of a "circle of friends" isn't new. Beginning in the late 1800s, Amish women formed quilting circles to share expertise and companionship...

Click here to read the entire post.

 

Best Friends Forever: Surviving a Breakup with Your Best Friend has hit the bookstores before its official pub date.

 

Displayed (See larger image) in the collage are the three winners of the BFF Labor Day Giveaway:

1) Denise Reynolds of Fort Lauderdale, Florida who placed a copy of the book on the non-fiction bestseller shelf at Barnes & Noble on Federal Highway.

2) Fred Osher of Rockville, Maryland who placed the book on the new paperback releases rack at Barnes & Noble on Rockville Pike.

3) Mickey Goodman of Marietta, Georgia who placed the book on display with its cover faced forward at the Barnes & Noble on Cobb Parkway in Atlanta.

It's great to have friends and fans across the country. I'd love to be able to post more pictures of BFF, the book, in prominent places!

 

Win a free copy of Best Friends Forever: Surviving a Breakup with Your Best Friend.

The Rules:

• Go to your favorite bookstore; ask for a copy of the book.
• When you locate it, pick it up and display it prominently on a shelf or table.
• Take a picture of the book (prominently displayed) with your cell phone.
• Leave the book on display (more prominently displayed) than you found it.
• Email your picture to Irene@IreneLevine.com/

First 3 entries received this weekend will receive a free book! Winners and their pictures posted here.

Please include the location of the store where the picture was taken in your email.

Feel free to share this with all of your best friends!

 

This post is about artificial friends. (No, I don't mean the phony kind). Actually, I'm announcing my latest blog contest.

These electronic toys caught my eye because they seem like the season's perfect friendship gift for young women. When the prizes arrived, they were so cute that I was tempted to break into the tamperproof plastic to try one out myself. (I didn't.)

Huru HumisTM (which means ‘HU R U' and ‘HU M I" in text talk) are interactive, artificial high-school friends that talk back to you (or to each other) when you talk to them. The battery-operated dolls turn on and off at the flick of a switch. (If only we could do that with our real friends!)

The ability to be a good friend is something that every woman needs to acquire, and it is through play, that many young girls learn how to befriend. Each Huru Humi has a distinct appearance, style, personality, and voice. Warning: They aren't shy about expressing their opinions. But like all good friends they respect differences, are funny, and have mastered the art of good conversation.

As grown-ups just found out during this very prolonged and polarized election season, we don't necessarily agree with every woman we meet; we are more compatible with some than with others. But by being able to communicate with personalities that are both like and unlike their own, children can learn how to build solid friendships that can potentially enrich and expand their lives.

Huru Humis are intended for kids 10 and older (tweens). I have two prizes to award, Heidi and Sierra, for the best pictures of two childhood friends.

Contest rules:

• Enter your favorite picture of any two or more childhood friends (pictured together). It need not be recent---old pictures of childhood friends are welcome.

• With your entry, include the first name of each child shown in the picture and send your own name, snail mail address, and email address to me, so I can mail the prize to your home if you win.

• All pictures and accompanying information must be emailed to: IreneLevine@gmail.com. By submitting a picture you agree to allow me to use your photograph on blogs and/or in books about female friendships.

• All entries must be submitted by November 28th, 2008. The photos will be judged by a small committee of my best friends. Please enter the contest and email this contest announcement link to your friends. The two prize winners will be announced shortly after the photo deadline.