What We're Writing? Hank is Juggling and Revealing

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:   What am I doing? Juggling. Juggling juggling juggling. First, as I write this on Sunday afternoon, I have just scoured the house for batteries, plugged in every computer and phone in the house to charge, and made sure we have a selection of fully charged flashlights. They are predicting a blizzard, yes, a blizzard, and I am always terrified that the power will go out. Which, they are predicting, it will. I only like suspense in my novels, please, not in life.

In other news, Hooray! Look look look, the gorgeous and fabulous cover of MOTHER DAUGHTER SISTER STRANGER  was revealed in People magazine! I still can't get over it, and I have to admit that I look at the article again and again.

Isn't this great? You can read the whole thing here, but here's the header:

 

They asked me where the idea for the book came from, and I told them it was from my childhood. When my mom used to read me stories, and finally say "the end." And I would never accept that. "What happened after that?" I would prod her to tell me. "They lived happily ever after," mom would say. And I would say Ever ever after? But what happened after that?"

I am also fascinated by the stories families tell about their histories and past. And the pictures we see in albums. Those snapshots have stories behind them too, and how will we ever know what really happened? What those people's lives were really like? Even if they themselves told us, who knows they were protecting or concocting. Anyway, that's MOTHER DAUGHTER SISTER STRANGER.

Here's another picture of the cover.

 

Isn't it fascinating? I love how the Back Bay brownstone is provocatively blue. And the positioning of it is strange, you have to keep looking at it to figure it out. (Very sticky!) I love the figure in the window. I love the unexpected pink and yellow against that stark black. And I love the slashes through the words. Is that a list that someone is crossing off? Is that a description that someone is giving of themselves?  And of course I adore that cover quote from the brilliant Lisa Scottoline. 

And every one of us who is a woman is or has been every single one of those nouns. Mother daughter sister stranger.

Here’s the back cover copy:  

What if your own family history turns out to be a terrifying lie?

Every family has its story, and this one’s deadly. Two sisters. One secret. And a race against time to find the explosive truth in this twisty and captivating thriller by “master of domestic suspense” and instant USA Today bestselling author Hank Phillippi Ryan.

The sole survivors of the fiery plane crash that killed their parents, Eliza Ramsey and her sister Bea share an unbreakable bond. But now, on the eleventh anniversary of the tragedy, Bea fails to retrieve her pre-teen daughter from a sleepover at Eliza’s.

Eliza knows her sister would never leave her precious Piper behind, and fears the worst. But did Bea plan her own disappearance?

The Ramsey’s lives have already crashed and burned once. Now, Eliza discovers she's the only one who can protect her niece from the horrifying legacy of her family’s sinister history. Together, the two must prevent their lives from going up in in flames once again.

A missing mother. Her frightened daughter. And a sister on a desperate search for a happy ending. But someone knows the deadly key to their shared past, and won’t stop until they’ve written a devastating final chapter.  Mother, daughter, sister—stranger. 

 

Also! I am so thrilled that  ALL THIS COULD BE YOURS is a nominee for the Mary Higgins Clark award! I am completely floating about that. I adored Mary Higgins Clark, she was such a role model, and she was the one who taught me to make sure that every one of my signatures in books is readable.

She once said: "A person spent time and money to buy your book, and to come see you. The least you can do is give them a legible signature." So Mary, I try my best. The other nominees in the category are spectacularly talented, but I am floating my way to New York to the award ceremony at the Edgar banquet.

And finally, in this crazy week, what I am doing is waiting. 

I sent three book proposals to my agent, and we will see what happens next. 

You know that Tom Petty/Linda Ronstadt song The Waiting? I am singing that now, top of my lungs: “the waiting is the hardest part.”

So on this pivotal morning, Reds and readers, answer any question you want:  What do you think of the cover? The title?  Do you ever read People magazine?  What do you think of the back cover copy, does it sound intriguing? Or how is the weather in your neck of the woods?

And PS: Happy Pub Day, dear Jenn!

Hallie, and what she's re-writing

 HALLIE EPHRON: Last week, it was my great pleasure to teach a three-day class on "Writing from Experience" for the Studios of Key West.

As always, I'm intrigued by the many reasons we humans seem to need to revisit our pasts.

Preparing to teach the class took me down the worm hole of my earliest writing. Not the fiction I write now, though surely my memories infuse my fiction. Or the how-to essays that channel me as a teacher. 

But this early essay, written back when I was starting to write thirty years ago, is a painful examination of growing up in a family of writers and the ugly truth about my mother.

At that turning point in my life, my mother was very much on my mind. Because she was a writer. And I was only starting to recover from the belief that I was nothing like her, therefore I COULD NOT be a writer.

Preparing for my Key West class got me diving back into that early piece of writing. Looking at it now, it has me thinking about WHY do people like me write essays like this. Is it for others to read and understand? Or for me to examine what I think? Or is it to excise trauma by putting it on the page and examining it in the cold light of day and with the benefit of hindsight.

Eventually (decades later) I revised this essay and parts of it ended up in an essay I sold O Magazine. But I rather fancy an earlier version that this excerpt is from. 

Here's how it starts...

MIRROR, MIRROR

Since I was a teenager, I have carefully contrived my life so that nothing reminds me of my mother. I have no pictures of her on my piano alongside my children. No letters. The few good pieces of jewelry of hers that I have are stashed in a safe deposit box. I erased her from my mind, from my space, and from my identify. She was a writer by profession. I was not. She lived in Beverly Hills. I lived in a New England suburb.

She had live-in help. I helped myself. She was an alcoholic.

I thought, if I can just outlive her, then I can stop worrying about becoming her. But now, as I approach the age at which she died, having for decades denied that even the smallest part of me resembles her, I find myself recognizing her in my body parts. Her stubby feet, red from the hot baths that I, too, love to take; her flat chest and thickening middle; her slim ankles and well turned calves. And her hands -- short, efficient fingers, the nails cut short for typing. To her, long painted nails were the stigmata women who didn't work. When I'd ask her what the wife of one of their friends did, she'd snort and quip, "Her nails."

When I think of my mother, it's not the carefully coiffed and suited screenwriter who, with my father, scripted dozens movies. It's certainly not the tall, slim, stylish young woman who was living the Bohemian lifestyle in the 1930's when my father met her and immediately proposed -- she told him she'd have to read one of his plays before she'd give him her answer.

The person I see is the much diminished matriarch who presided over Thanksgiving dinner in 1970, the year before she died.

That afternoon, my husband and I took the subway and then the cross-town bus to get to the modern East Side apartment building where they'd moved since quitting Los Angeles three years earlier. Even though it was Thanksgiving and we’d been invited, I was apprehensive walking the sixth floor hallway, never sure what we'd find. The door was ajar and the smell of roast turkey wafted from the opening. A good sign.

I knocked. I could hear the sound of a TV from somewhere inside. I knocked again, a little louder. My father’s once brisk, now shuffling footsteps approached. He opened the door, grinning his snaggle-toothed, slightly lopsided grin.

“You’re here!” he said, hugging us both. His jet-black hair was greased into place and he wore a jaunty red cravat at the neck. I caught a flash of matching red socks as he hitched up his trousers and tucked in an escaping shirttail.

“Phoebe, they’re here,” he bellowed.

“How is she,” I whispered.

“Fine, fine. Come in,” he said.

We stepped into the brightly-lit foyer that led to the living room.

“Mom,” I said tentatively. She cleared her throat and coughed.

She was lying on the sofa, almost lost in a billowing gold caftan. One arm, a twig, extended from the wide sleeve. A cigarette trembled from yellow-stained fingertips. Her head wobbled slightly on her long, slim and still proud neck. Gold clip earrings, flowers with a diamond at the center, anchored her jaw in place.

Her hair was cut short and, now thinning, stood out like the puff of a ripe dandelion. She took her free hand and pushed the hair straight up and back from her ear.

Her cheeks, flushed with broken blood vessels, gave the cruel illusion of robust health. Her eyes, once gray and sharp, seemed filled with warm brackish seawater. I leaned over to kiss her and inhaled Palmolive soap, Elizabeth Arden skin cream and Kent cigarettes. And beneath that, scotch whisky.

My mother was disappearing and she knew it. All but her belly which was an enormous hard mound beneath the golden caftan. It was growing while the rest of her was shriveling away to nothing. Water was building up in her abdomen, the doctors told us -- one of the symptoms of liver disease brought on by years of alcohol abuse. I had visions, not of impending death, but of a golden beach ball marooned on the white couch when the rest of her had finished becoming invisible.

I went on from there to talk about her increasing isolation due to hearing loss, compounded by the way women were relegated to observers in the movie making business. Her daytime perfection and nighttime rages.

How determined I was to never be anything like her.

And yet there I was, writing this essay. And here I am thirty years later, reading and revising it and discovering it's not half bad, taken in with the benefit of some distance.

I'm sure I'm not alone, finding that memories that were once too painful to write about and then reread, have become important enough that I want to write about then, and then read what I've written.

Does anyone else find that act of putting pen to paper is a way of exorcising demons?

Happy Release Day: BOOKING FOR TROUBLE!

 

BUY NOW

JENN McKINLAY: BOOKING FOR TROUBLE, my 16th and final (maybe, probably, idk, we'll see) Library Lover's Mystery is out on Tuesday, the 24th! I didn't want to interrupt What We're Writing Week, so I'm sharing my celebratory release day post a couple of days early.

First, I have to acknowledge how gorgeous this cover is! Julia Green has been the artist for this series since book one and I have loved every single cover she has created for this series. I feel truly blessed by the cover gods to have been lucky enough to have her illustrate my world. Thank you, Julia!

Sixteen books ago I introduced librarian Lindsey Norris with a knack for finding bodies and a talent for solving murders in BOOKS CAN BE DECEIVING and somehow that mystery turned into the Library Lover’s series. Sixteen books. Which feels a little like saying I raised a child to driving age and now someone has handed her car keys.

Let’s be honest: series fatigue is real. There comes a moment when you look at your beloved fictional town and think, “What fresh havoc can I possibly wreak upon you?” I’ve hunted for treasure, hosted book sales, planned weddings, solved cold cases, and, yes, discovered more bodies than any self-respecting small town should statistically allow. 

And yet.

Leaving this world feels less like typing “The End” and more like packing up a house to leave a town you’ve lived in for years. I know which floorboards creak. I know which of my neighbors is a busy body. I know exactly how the light falls through the windows in autumn. Walking away is practical. It’s smart. It’s probably overdue.

It's also heartbreaking.

These characters have been my daily companions. They’ve surprised me, comforted me, and occasionally refused to cooperate (looking at you, character who refused to be murdered). Saying goodbye feels like moving away from home—necessary for growth, but oh, the ache.

Still, every good series deserves a final chapter. And if I’ve learned anything from my years as a librarian, it’s this: when one story ends, another is waiting on the shelf.

Thank you, Readers, for joining me on this journey. I've loved every second of it. And who knows, maybe there'll be another...I never say never.

Reds and Readers, how do you feel when a beloved series ends? 

Plot Twists I'd Never...

JENN McKINLAY: Hub and I were chatting the other day about plot twists -- oh, do we love a good plot twist! -- and then we were laughing about some of the worst plot twists. So, here is my short list of plot twists I promise to never use...

1. It Was All a Dream

Three hundred pages of clues… and then the sleuth wakes up.
No. I am not gaslighting my readers.

2. The Evil Twin

Oh look, the identical sibling no one mentioned until Chapter 28. Bonus groan points if they have a scar.

3. The Cat Did It

I love cats. I write about cats.
But unless the cat hired a hitman and falsified a will, the feline is innocent.

4. The Murder Was an Accident (And Therefore Nobody Is Responsible)

A carefully planted mystery that ends with “Oops.”
If I promise you murder, I mean murder.

5. The Sleuth Was the Killer All Along

Unless the book is explicitly psychological noir, I am not betraying the reader I’ve asked to trust the narrator for 300 pages. That’s not a twist. That’s a divorce. 

6. It Was Aliens

Unless I’ve clearly written science fiction from page one, little green men do not get to swoop in and take credit for the body in the library.

 7. Everyone Faked Their Death and Moved to Aruba

If half the cast turns out to be alive, tanned, and sipping rum punches, I have failed you. Also, I am jealous.

Reds and Readers, what do you think of these? Did I miss any? What are some of the worst plot twists you've ever read or seen in a movie? Please be generic so we don't give any spoilers.

Lifelong Learning by Jenn McKinlay

JENN McKINLAY: Picking up on Monday's discussion of languages, I'm realizing that while I was not a stellar student in school (if I wasn't interested in the subject, I was not motivated to study), I have always been a lifelong learner.

Over the years I have picked up classes and courses in whatever interested me at the time. From pottery to investing to master gardening, if there was a class that matched my current field of interest, I took it. 

I was knocked out the other day when Hooligan 1 stopped by the house to announce he'd signed up for a college class in photography - we're talking old timey film photography - just because he wanted to learn about it. "I think I'm a lifelong learner, Mom." This is mostly shocking to me because he just graduated college last May and I was certain he'd take a longer break than nine months. Apparently, not. 

It also cracked me up as I'm currently taking a class in Tai Chi (so much harder than I thought!) and I've joined a women's investment group because I've always been intimidated by investing but now I want to understand it down to the nuts and bolts. So, I think the constant quest for knowledge is hard wired into our DNA.

So, how about you, Reds, what adult education classes have you taken over the years? 

HALLIE EPHRON: For me, early on, I took adult ed classes in cooking and conversational Spanish (I was an elementary school teacher and lots of my kiddoes had parents were non-English Spanish-speaking.)

Since then, it’s been all about writing - finally succumbing to it. First I went to the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center for a week-long summer class on writing fiction. I was in the middle of writing my first unpublished novel. It was there that I learned all about the power of VERBS!

Then for several semesters, I took a weekly creative writing seminar at Racliffe Seminars in Cambridge with Arthur Edelstein. He was a brilliant teacher. That’s where I honed my first published novel.  

RHYS BOWEN:  I have been a lifelong learner/striver in art. Over the years I’ve taken courses in life drawing, pastels, oils and watercolor.  I have finally made some headway in the latter and paint quite often. I find it’s a great way to de-stress. When you are painting you can’t think about anything else.

I also tried ceramics once.  Not a success. Some big lumpy pots are all I have to show for it, and I didn’t really enjoy it. 

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  Well, as I was trying to write my first book. I took a two-day course in… mystery writing! From our very own Hallie Ephron. Talk about a game changer!  That became Prime time, and TRIH. And since then, I’ve participated in many many writing classes–but I have to say, almost always mostly teaching. But I always learn something when I teach!

I am deep into DuoLingo, does that count?  I took Tai Chi and Chi Gung for many years, and still love it. Oh, and let’s not forget that some years ago I decided to go back to ballet. TOTAL DISASTER. My brain knew exactly what to do, but my body was having none of it.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: After I graduated from college, I took some post grad courses in English lit, including medieval English literature, intending to work towards a masters degree. All that was upended by moving to Scotland and I never got back to it. I had already read most of the texts due to a teenage obsession with Arthurian legend and history. I also took non credit courses in French and in Creative Writing–that last one was a total bust as the instructor said I had zero talent.

It took a few years for my ego to recover, but eventually I started taking courses in novel writing and mystery writing, and research projects for different books have kept me pretty well occupied since.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Back when I was a young wife and mother, I took SO many adult ed homemaking courses. Sewing (beginner to advanced) vegetable gardening, canning and preserving… honestly, high schools need MORE home economics classes, not less!

But my formal learning bug was satisfied (or maybe burned out) with getting a masters and a Juris Doctor, so I haven’t done many “take a class activities,” other than the Stone Coast Writing Workshop after my first book sold. I’m more of a lifetime auto-didact; I love nonfiction, and the podcasts I listen to are about current events, economics, history and other interesting, educational topics. I want to feel like I’m learning something new while I’m washing dishes or walking the dogs.

LUCY BURDETTE: Besides French, which you’ve all heard about, I took many writing classes while writing my first mystery. I still like taking them because I learn something new every time. But my latest classes were in the fine points of beginner pickleball. This game is lots of fun, but it has many arcane rules about scoring and when you’re allowed to hit a volley (not in the kitchen, which is a marked off area closest to the net.) Did you happen to see the article in the NY Times about the big brawl over pickleball that happened in a retirement community in Florida recently? I definitely sense a mystery in the making…

JENN: There's a romcom series by Ilana Long called PICKLEBALLERS. Super cute!

How about you, Readers, what adult education classes have you signed up for and how did it go?

Solo Protagonist vs. the Squad

JENN McKINLAY: I'm currently working on my next contemporary romance, entitled IF SUMMER NEVER ENDS, and I'm in the "dead marsh" which for me is and always will be...the middle. If this was a mystery, there would 100% be a dead body to move the plot along, alas, it is not, so we are saddled with a donkey named Maybellene who can tell when people are lying. *Jenn shrugs*

All that to say, as I was toiling away on this saggy middle, I couldn't figure out why the book wasn't coming together for me and then I realized I hadn't crafted my squad. Doh! *Jenn smacks forehead* 

I am a pack animal. I always travel in a squad or a posse or a crew, whatever you want to call it. I’m not sure how it started but I think it goes back to when I was nine years old and my family moved across the state of Connecticut from Kent to Niantic, ripping me away from my best friend and the social status I had carved out for myself as one of the cool kids. Oh, the drama! The move was not easy. I went from a school where we called the bathroom a “bathroom” to a place where it was referred to as a “lav” as in lavatory. What? It melted my nine-year-old brain.

Then, of course, came the big trauma. I'd been at the new school for just a few weeks. I'd approached a few kids but I was freakishly tall in the fourth grade so I was regarded with suspicion at best and contempt at worst. The cool kids were already well established and there was no way I could break in, being a tomboy in a town where Barbie reigned supreme.

One of the only pics of Jenn in a dress in existence before the age of 16.

Naturally, I tried to fit in, clocking the other kids' slang, fashion, and social cues, as all newbies do, and I started wearing (kill me) dresses. But the thing is, you can stick a tomboy in a dress but you can't make her girly. For example, I was one of those kids who liked to tip her chair back in class, titling it on the back two legs and riding it like the horses I rode after school. Now in jeans a spill was no big deal, I'd simply pop back up to my feet and shake it off. But in a dress, yeah, not as easy to pop anywhere, especially when you're blinded by the skirt that is wrapped around your head and the entire class is dead quiet and then roaring with laughter while they check out your Underoos, mine were Wonder Woman, natch.

The humiliation dogged me for weeks. The mean kids mocked, derided and picked on me mercilessly. Good times! Sadly, my mother staunchly refused to let me drop out of the fourth grade. Darn it! I had it all planned. I was going to show them! I'd run off and be a jockey and win the Kentucky Derby, never mind that I was already too tall. With that dream squashed and with no other viable options in sight, I knew if I was going to survive this situation, I was going to have to form my own squad.

Did you ever see that episode of I Love Lucy where Lucy joins a rag tag group called the “Friends of the Friendless”? Yeah, that was me. Every classroom I entered I found the kid who looked as out of place as I felt and befriended them. Being a friend to others is not as difficult as people think. You smile and you ask them their origin story and then you listen and decide whether you click or not (i.e. does their crazy match your crazy?) and BOOM you have a squad or at the very least people to share Jell-O with at lunch. This skill set has served me well over the years and is one of the reasons I became a Red. Squad up with awesome writers? Yes, please!

It has also influenced my writing. While I mostly write my stories in the third person from the perspective of the main protagonist, they are never on a solitary journey. My characters all operate on the buddy system whether it's a bakery squad, library peeps, the Maine crew, a hat shop posse, or a clutch of neighbors on the OBX (Outer Banks).

Needless to say, with my crew formed in the new book the writing has taken off! Woo hoo!

Tell me, Reds and Readers, do you prefer a solo protagonist or one with a squad? Or does it not matter so long as the story is a page turner?

The Great Photo Purge (Send Snacks)

Jenn McKinlay: Recently (last year, the year before, I have no idea), I listened to The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning by Margareta Magnusson. It is exactly what it sounds like, a book about cleaning out your possessions before you die so that the people you leave behind don't have to. 

My best friend is Swedish and we talked quite a bit about the book while I was listening to it. My friend confirmed that this is how most Swedes are - thoughtful about not leaving behind problems for others. I can vouch that this is true because she and I are the same height and weight and every time we visit, she gives me shoes or clothes because she's also 12 years older than me and in constant death clean mode. I'm okay with this because she has excellent taste and takes care of her things so it's a win win.

What I loved about Magnusson's book was that she made the death cleaning easy and straightforward and then you get to the final chapters and she talks about the one thing that makes even death cleaners stumble -- photographs. 

Well, I was determined not to falter. Armed with a trash bag, a shredder, and the misplaced confidence of someone who has watched exactly one episode of a home organization show, I opened our storage unit.

You know the one. The Indiana Jones warehouse of my past where between the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail were seventeen boxes labeled “PHOTOS—IMPORTANT!!!” (Apparently, I felt very strongly about that in 2009.)

Here’s the thing about old photos. You don’t simply “go through” them. You time travel. One minute you’re tossing duplicates, the next you’re misty over a blurry snapshot of a long-gone dog who, in that photo, is mid-zoomie and eternal.

I found hairstyles that should have come with warning labels. Seriously, I think my bangs in the 80's are solely responsible for the hole in the ozone layer. Outfits that were clearly chosen during a period of temporary insanity, I mean, were shoulder pads that doubled as pillows really necessary? Entire vacations documented before smartphones, when I took 24 photos and 19 of them featured my thumb or a sunset that looked beige.

And yet.

There were the Hooligans dressed up as toilet paper mummies. The Hub's grandparents dancing at our wedding. Friends tailgating at the college game where the keg was featured but we're all there in our  day-glo highlighter hued clothing, holding red Solo cups.

I’ll confess: the shredder remained tragically underfed.

Yes, I mailed a decade of photos to an ex so he could remember what he looked like in the 90's. Yes, I let go of the mysterious landscapes that simply didn't translate their awesomeness to a faded 4 X 6 inch print. Yes, I bravely discarded photos of people I absolutely couldn't identify. Who are you, sir, and more importantly why are we hugging?

Still, knowing that my Hooligans (bless their hearts) are never going to care about the 20,000 photos that document their Dad's and my lifetimes, a solid dent was made. Many giant boxes have been distilled into several much smaller ones with their contents to be digitized at a future date. The rest? Well, progress is best measured by hefty bags and I have many to go before I sleep (nod to Robert Frost).

How about you, Reds and Readers, what do your photo archives look like?

Happy Lunar New Year! by Jenn McKinlay

Jenn McKinlay: If you're like me, the new year comes around and you're never prepared. Seriously, I am never prepared! So, decades ago, I adopted Lunar New Year as my chosen start to the new year. This has worked out really well for me and not just as an excuse to order Chinese food, although that, too, is a perk.

This is the year of the Fire Horse, combining the horse's freedom and speed with the fire element's intensity and urgency. A year of chaos and opportunity! Very exciting, I know!

For me, there are two horses in the family, Hub and Hooligan 2. While Hub was born in the year of the Fire Horse, H2 was born in the Water Horse cycle. Hooligan 1 has the coolest of years as he is the Metal (Golden) Dragon, while I am (alas) the lowly Sheep. 

My friend Xui Hai (from China) brought me a beautiful baby outfit from Shang Hai when I was pregnant with H1 and explained that he would be born in the year of the Golden Dragon and would always be lucky. 

Xui Hai then asked my birthdate and when I told her, she sighed and said, "You will always struggle, Jenn." Really, Xui Hai? Really? 

I have since discovered I'm a Fire Sheep so I hope that balances out the struggle. LOL.

The chart below is from: 

https://www.travelchinaguide.com/intro/chinese-zodiac-years-chart.htm

to find your exact Zodiac symbol use this calculator as the lunar year starts later than the Gregorian so you can't go by year exclusively: 

https://www.travelchinaguide.com/intro/social_customs/zodiac/

Now Reds and Readers, tell me, what is your Chinese Zodiac sign and how do you feel about it?

Hablo Español más o menos por Jenn McKinlay

JENN McKINLAY: Growing up in New England, taking a foreign language in middle school and high school was mandatory. We had three choices: French, German, or Spanish. I chose Spanish on advice from my mom who said, “You’ll have more opportunities to use that one.” Little did she know. 

I ended up in Spanish V Honors my senior year and was sent to the neighboring elementary school to teach the littles Spanish. It was fun! Then I went to college where I studied two years of Russian just to expand my horizons. I know enough to understand the basics – Добрый вечер (dobryy vecher -- good evening) – which is delightful as Hub and I are currently watching PONIES (two CIA wives become spies in 1976 Moscow - so good)! 

Fast forward to my move to Phoenix decades ago and because of my Spanish, I was tapped by the library to do story times and teach computer classes in Spanish, where my Hispanic co-teacher teased me by saying I spoke “newscaster Spanish” (very proper). Anyway, nod to mom. She was right about the Spanish!

Presently, I’m studying Japanese with the Hooligans as we are planning an excursion to Japan. Side note: why must they have multiple alphabets? Hirigana, Katakana, and Kanji – you’re killing me. Needless to say the progress is slow but I’m confident that desu ka ですか (roughly meaning “is it?”/”what is it?”) will do most of the heavy lifting.

How about you, Reds? What languages have you studied and what’s your competency level?

HALLIE EPHRON: Wish my mom had talked to your mom. Mine insisted we take 2 years of LATIN! (because other languages derive from it)... And then French. Boy do I wish I’d taken Spanish instead. So much more useful. When I taught in the New York City public schools (Go, PS189M!) I took classes after school in Spanish. I desperately wanted to be able to communicate with my students’ parents.

Needless to say there are precious few opportunities to practice my Latin. Veni, vedi, vici! Gallia in tres partes divisa est.

RHYS BOWEN:  I had twelve years of French… beginning at 8 at my private school and ending with a degree. So my French is pretty good. When I’ve been in France for a couple of days it comes back enough to be able to read newspapers and have earnest discussions.

My German is also almost as good as my English. I spent summers in Austria, took intensive German in school and then went to stay with the family of the German teaching assistant at my school with whom I had become good friends. I took a gap year working in a corner grocery store in Stuttgart, where everyone spoke the Swabish dialect so i became good at that out of necessity.  I also met my friend’s brother… so I took a semester at the University of Freiburg with him, then he came to London for year, then I did a Semester in Kiel. When I am in Germany people ask me what part of Germany I’m from so I guess I would have been a good spy!

Living in California you have to speak some Spanish. I did a year at school and can muddle through. Ditto Italian when I am in Italy. A little smattering of Welsh from my childhood and I did try Russian when I was in college. I signed up for beginner’s Russian only to find most of the class had taken A level in school and could discuss the quietly flowing Don while I was still mastering the alphabet.

Oh, and I took 5 years of Latin in school. Compulsory. I enjoyed it.

LUCY BURDETTE: French all the way for me. I started in high school and went through college. I’ve also taken refresher conversation classes that I talked about here on the blog–helped a lot with confidence! I admire our grandkids who’re going to dual language classes in 1st and 3rd grade. They already speak and read Spanish, which is handy in San Diego!

JENN: The Hooligans did Spanish immersion from Kindergarten through High School - very helpful in AZ!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Rhys, I didn’t know you lived in Stuttgart! That’s where my family was stationed, and yes, all the German I know sounds (I’ve been told) distinctly Bavarian.

My academic language was French, and like a lot of you, I began in sixth grade (why do we start so late in the US?) and took it all the way through three years of college. My vocabulary and verb tenses are extremely rusty, but I’m guessing if I spent any time in France or Quebec, it would come back pretty quickly. 

It was helpful when I was on an archaeological dig in the Apennine foothills of Tuscany; I picked up enough Italian in six weeks to understand the other students (mostly) and to get around confidently. One Romance language = all Romance languages.

I’m gearing myself up to begin studying Nederlands (Dutch.) If Youngest stays there and if things continue with her Very Tall Boyfriend… well, I want to be able to communicate with any grandchildren I might have!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: You know what they call a person who speaks several languages? Multi-lingual. 

What about what they call  a person who speaks two languages? Bi-lingual.

How about what they call someone who speaks ONE language?  An American.

🙂

I used to be extremely fluent in French, but no more, grr. But I bet if I were in total immersion (like going to Paris with Hallie, I wish) I would be fine. Maybe not waxing philosophical, but I could get my size in black, just saying.

I’m fine in Spanish and German, too, halting but manageable. And always when I’m there, I get back into it. I agree, Lucy, a lot of it has to do with confidence.

I always feel so unworthy and uneducated when I can’t speak the language. My sister  Nancy, a chef/caterer, is effortlessly bilingual in Spanish, and her entire demeanor changes when she speaks it. 

That would be so wonderful.

I am doing Duolingo to get my French back, but I’m not sure it’s effective. But it’s fun.

Oh, when we went to Italy I did my best, but my go-to was: “Mi dispiace, no lo sapevo.”

Meaning: I’m sorry, I did not know that.  

Always valuable.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Here in Texas we started Spanish in elementary school. I think French was offered in middle school but I stuck with Spanish. Unfortunately, since I left high school after my sophomore year, I didn’t take advanced classes. But I had spent much time in Mexico with my parents, and when I was eighteen I lived in Mexico City for a summer with my folks’ Mexican friends. I was functional if not fluent.

After college, I took a semester’s French course, but it didn’t stick. My Spanish is rusty but good enough that I’ve unwittingly eavesdropped on some conversations! (Our contractors, when we had our house remodeled. Oh, my. I kept having to remind them that I understood them!) I always have good intentions to brush up. I’m very embarrassed that I’m not at least fully bilingual.

How about you, Readers? Have you studied a second language or mastered one?