A Interview with Dorothy James, author of the Vienna Mystery series
“I did want to entertain, I wanted even to be funny, to make people laugh, but I could not altogether break free of a lifetime of trying to convey serious ideas…I hope my mysteries are fun to read, but they are also in their way serious inquiries into certain aspects of living and dying…”
Continue Reading November 8, 2015 at 4:34 am Leave a comment
Does Writing from the Heart Really Matter?
“I believe that if one of us cares enough to write something, someone else will care enough to read it,” says Julia Cameron, [and adds] “We are all in this together, I believe, and our writing and reading one another is a powerful comfort to us all…”
Continue Reading October 14, 2015 at 6:43 pm Leave a comment
An Interview with M. L. Longworth, Author of the Verlaque/Bonnet Mystery Series
“We were determined to have adventures, and to give our daughter, who was four at the time, a bilingual education…It does take courage, and now when I look back on it, I ask myself, “How did we do that?”
Continue Reading September 8, 2015 at 11:05 am Leave a comment
An Interview with Mark Pryor, Author of the Hugo Marston series
“One of the themes that runs through my books is the idea that you can never escape history, either your own personal history or the broader history of the place where you live. So, in The Bookseller I have a little of both. And the truth is, even today the shadow of World War II hangs over much of Europe…”
Continue Reading August 24, 2015 at 10:29 am Leave a comment
A Full Circle of Franco-American Friendship
We first met our friend Jacques in the fall of 1978 when we were hired to pick grapes for champagne in his family’s vineyards during the harvest, known in that beautiful language as la vendange….
An Interview with Cara Black, Author of Murder on the Champ de Mars
“Aimée Leduc was born from my love affair with Paris and my desire to be a Parisienne. I think a lot of us have an inner French girl struggling to get out. I…needed a woman who would be strong, feisty, vulnerable, good with computers, fashionable, and who would solve crimes wearing high heels…”
Bonne anniversaire, Maurice!
Our oldest citizen is thankfully in good health and good spirits. His cheerful, gentle smile brightens everyone’s day whenever they see him, as he makes the rounds of the village shopping for bread and groceries, always ready with a kind word, often with a mischievous quip and a twinkle in his eye…
V-E Day, As Experienced by a French Child
“On the 8 of May 1945, I was alone in our house. My father was at work, and my mother had gone out with my brother and my little sister…Suddenly all the bells in the three churches of Les Riceys began to peal at once, which both startled and worried me….”
Book Review: David Downie’s “A Passion for Paris: Romanticism & Romance in the City of Light”
…I found myself instantly drawn in and not only interested, but mesmerized, by Paris of the Romantic Age as he has brought it to life….
A Conversation with David Downie, author of A Passion for Paris
“My early relationship with Paris was pugilistic. Then I became enchanted…I’ve been here about 30 years, and I have always tried to understand the spell Paris casts on people from all over the world…Why Paris? Why not Rome, or Amsterdam, or New York, or Tokyo, or San Francisco?”
Writing from the Heart, Reading for the Road 