Posts tagged ‘Midwest’
Searching for Home
Part One: Minnesota Read on Substack
Janet Hulstrand is an American writer, editor, writing coach, and teacher of writing and of literature who lives in France. She is the author of Demystifying the French: How to Love Them, and Make Them Love You, and A Long Way from Iowa: From the Heartland to the Heart of France; and coauthor of Moving On: A Practical Guide to Downsizing the Family Home.
What Book Groups Are Saying About “A Long Way From Iowa”
Clockwise, starting at left: My sister, one of my first (and most enthusiastic) readers; my sister’s book group in Minneapolis; my friend Noble with her book group in Seattle; more enthusiastic readers outside the Red Wheelbarrow bookstore in Paris, at the book launch.
I’m thrilled that my new memoir, A Long Way from Iowa: From the Heartland to the Heart of France has been selected for discussion by four different book groups. Two in Minnesota (one in Minneapolis, and one in Red Wing); one in Seattle; and one in Washington DC.
March 2023 Minneapolis The first book group to read and discuss A Long Way From Iowa was my sister’s group in my hometown of Minneapolis. And yay! (and pshew!) they liked it! They said the book made them think about their own mothers and grandmothers, and that “it started a discussion of mother-daughter relationships, and demonstrated the strength of ordinary women.”
October 2023 Seattle It was such a pleasure to visit this group! You know how some book groups don’t really talk about books, they mostly drink wine and eat food instead? Well this group does both! I was super impressed with the number of details they remembered from reading the book, and the insightful questions and comments they made. We talked about the book over a wonderful meal; and I answered some of their questions about the book, but also about the publishing process. For example, they wondered why I chose to self-publish. (There is so much to say about this: I need to write a post about it soon. Stay tuned!)
April 2024 Washington DC I will have to get up at 1:00 in the morning in order to join this group, which meets online at 7:30 pm local time in Washington DC. (And no: there is no way I will be able to just stay up that late: ask anyone in my family!) So I will sleep a few hours, and then get up, make myself presentable and coherent, and join the group via Zoom. I am really looking forward to this opportunity to talk about the book with a book group sponsored by Politics and Prose, my favorite bookstore in Washington DC.
One of the things I love most about talking to people who have read the book is learning what kinds of memories/insights/reflections about their own lives, and their own families, were sparked by reading the book.
Will your book group be the next to put A Long Way From Iowa on your list? Please let me know if you are planning to read it, and if so let me know if you’d like me to visit your group. Or just let me know what kinds of conversations were generated in discussing it. I’d love to hear about them!
Janet Hulstrand is an American writer, editor, writing coach, and teacher of writing and of literature who lives in France. She is the author of Demystifying the French: How to Love Them, and Make Them Love You, and A Long Way from Iowa: From the Heartland to the Heart of France; and coauthor of Moving On: A Practical Guide to Downsizing the Family Home.
The Long Way From Iowa Book Tour Heads Back to France…
The coast-to-coast book tour for A Long Way From Iowa is now complete. Forty-nine days after the tour began at a library in Mystic, Connecticut, the final event was held last night–with a wonderful book group meeting in the home of a longtime friend, in Seattle.
It’s been a heartwarming, thrilling ride, and I am so grateful for the interest, support, and help I’ve received all along the way from friends, colleagues, family–as well as acquaintances, interested bystanders, and the public.
Stay tuned for the next installment in this adventure–and thanks so much for your interest!
Janet Hulstrand is an American writer, editor, writing coach, and teacher of writing and of literature who lives in France. She is the author of Demystifying the French: How to Love Them, and Make Them Love You, and A Long Way from Iowa: From the Heartland to the Heart of France, and coauthor of Moving On: A Practical Guide to Downsizing the Family Home.
Five wonderful memoirs set in the Midwest
I am so pleased that Shepherd.com is featuring another list of five of my favorite books. This time the theme is literary memoirs set in the Midwest. You can learn why I recommended these five books, and a bit more about them here: https://shepherd.com/best-books/literary-memoirs-from-the-midwest
But don’t stop with my page: keep browsing Shepherd.com, and tell your friends about it. It’s a wonderful new way to connect passionate readers with wonderful books, and it’s constantly getting bigger and better. For example, they’ve recently launched new genre and topic pages. So if (for example) you love memoir but aren’t particularly interested in reading Midwestern literary memoirs (or maybe just not right now), you might want to look at Shepherd’s Memoirs Bookshelf to find memoirs set in all kinds of other places.
Or maybe you’re a Minnesotan, like me, and right now you are in the mood to read about Minnesota. In that case you would definitely want to check out this page.
Or maybe you’re a Francophile: in that case, you might want to know that my other list on Shepherd.com features books about–surprise, surprise–understanding and appreciating the French! 🙂 )
We all owe a big thanks to Ben Fox (the creator of Shepherd.com) for making it easier for readers to find good books about whatever they’re in the mood for. Thank you, Ben!
And Happy Fourth of July to everyone!
Janet Hulstrand is a writer, editor, writing coach, and teacher of writing and of literature who divides her time between the US and France. She is the author of Demystifying the French: How to Love Them, and Make Them Love You, and A Long Way from Iowa: From the Heartland to the Heart of France.
A Long Way from Iowa Launches at The Red Wheelbarrow, Paris
With my friend (and bookseller extraordinaire) Penelope Fletcher, at the launch of A Long Way from Iowa: From the Heartland to the Heart of France.
I stated on my Facebook page not too long ago that having my book launch at The Red Wheelbarrow bookstore in Paris was a longtime dream come true, but that is not strictly accurate.
The truth is I never really dreamed of having a book launch at a bookstore in Paris, at least not until fairly recently. Not until I became friends with Penelope Fletcher, the manager of my very favorite English-language bookstore in Paris (and in my opinion the very best one too).
Penelope is what every indie bookstore manager should be: a voracious reader with boundless love and enthusiasm for books and writers, and a passionate interest in putting the right readers together with the right books. (Being possessed of abundant energy and indefatigable persistence and determination is helpful too. 🙂 )
I could go on and on about Penelope’s talents, skills, and excellence as a bookseller, but perhaps I will save that for another post. For now let me just say that she has become a good friend, and a faithful supporter of my work, and I am deeply grateful for that.
Anyway. So it is that I found myself living that dream come true last night, at The Red Wheelbarrow in Paris. Here are a few photos of the event.
And so this book, a labor of love that I worked on off and on over a period of many years, is finally out in the world–and on the shelves at The Red Wheelbarrow as well as other bookstores (for example at my favorite Washington DC bookstore, Politics and Prose), and online as well. You can learn a bit about the book here, and I hope you will be interested enough to buy it. I hope even more that you will like it (and that if you do, you will write an online review of it). These things help authors so much!
The best thing about the event, at least for me, is that it was a wonderful mix of friends, and people I’d never met before. (The best thing for Penelope, I imagine, is that almost everyone who was there for the reading bought the book!) And I think it was fun for everyone that I had brought one of my favorite champagnes from the Côte des Bar (which is where I now live) to celebrate the event.
There is one more best thing about the event for me. And that is that both of my sons were there, with their very nice girlfriends. Nothing could have made the event more special for me.
Janet Hulstrand is a writer, editor, writing coach, and teacher of writing and of literature who divides her time between the US and France. She is the author of Demystifying the French: How to Love Them, and Make Them Love You, and A Long Way from Iowa: From the Heartland to the Heart of France.
Midwestern Memoirs: An Online Class
Class starts April 7. Hurry up if you want to join us in a wonderful literary exploration of the (ahem!) famous “flyover country.”
Q: Is it really something to just fly over?
A: NO! It’s something to dig into. To explore, enjoy, learn from. And here’s your chance! 🙂 https://www.politics-prose.com/class/online-class-midwestern-memoirs-exploring-heart-of-heartland-2337
Janet Hulstrand is a writer, editor, writing coach, and teacher of writing and of literature who divides her time between the US and France. She is the author of Demystifying the French: How to Love Them, and Make Them Love You, and A Long Way from Iowa: From the Heartland to the Heart of France.
Book Tour! for A Long Way from Iowa
I’m really happy about the initial launch of A Long Way from Iowa. Thanks to everyone who has already bought the book!
If I can ask one more little favor of you, it would be for you to write a review on Amazon and/or GoodReads. These reviews really help writers, and they are so easy to do!
I have not been in the US since 2019 and I am very much looking forward to getting back there this summer, to see friends and family, and to do a little book tour.
My book tour will begin in France, with events scheduled for Paris and Nice. Then in August I will finally make it (fingers crossed) to my ancestral homeland (Sweden), with one of my sons. And I will fly from there to somewhere in the US (exact initial destination to be determined).
I’m very excited about one very special event, scheduled for September 23 in Washington DC, at Politics and Prose bookstore, which was one of my favorite places to be during the 14 years I lived in the Washington area. There I look forward to seeing not only many of those who took the classes I taught there, but also the wonderful friends I made in Washington during those years.
Of course this book tour has to go to the Midwest, and it will! I am also hoping to make it to a part of the country I’ve never been before and have always wanted to go: the Pacific Northwest.
And surely a book that has a chapter titled “A Cheap Loft in the West Village” should have some kind of event in New York City, shouldn’t it?
The details of such a trip take quite a while to arrange. But the first events have been scheduled, and they are posted here. Stay tuned for more as the calendar develops.
Janet Hulstrand is a writer, editor, writing coach, and teacher of writing and of literature who divides her time between the US and France. She is the author of Demystifying the French: How to Love Them, and Make Them Love You, and A Long Way from Iowa: From the Heartland to the Heart of France.
An Interview with BonjourParis.com
Thanks so much to Mary Winston Nicklin for this wonderful interview spotlighting my new book, A Long Way from Iowa: From the Heartland to the Heart of France. BonjourParis.com is a great resource for anyone who loves Paris: if you don’t know about it already, you should!
I hope you enjoy this interview, which touches on a number of the key themes in my book: writing, motherhood, travel, family relatonships, women’s lives, and France!
Janet Hulstrand is a writer, editor, writing coach, and teacher of writing and of literature who divides her time between the US and France. She is the author of Demystifying the French: How to Love Them, and Make Them Love You, and A Long Way from Iowa: From the Heartland to the Heart of France.
The best journeys are the long ones
My friend David Brown is one of the most intelligent, avid, broadly and widely read, and voracious readers I know. And he doesn’t just read; he shares what he has learned from the many books he reads with the readers of his wonderful blog. I am therefore very honored (as well as grateful) that he has chosen to feature my new book (“A Long Way from Iowa”) in his latest post. (PS He writes about things other than books too; for example, music, politics, historic preservation, life. Always with kindness, thoughtfulness, and grace. You might want to follow his blog. There’s always More to Come! 🙂 )
The mail brought a friend’s new book about the journey from her childhood home in Minnesota to life today in a village in France. Her adventures include years in New York, working as Caroline Kennedy’s editorial assistant, and living in a gypsy caravan outside Paris. I dug in with anticipation.
A Long Way from Iowa: From the Heartland to the Heart of France (2023) by Janet Hulstrand is a delightful memoir that takes us from her grandmother’s hometown in Bonair, Iowa, to the author’s home in the French countryside. We learn much about Janet’s journey, including the complicated relationship with the two women who fueled her love for learning and exploration. A testament to family and the writing life, A Long Way from Iowa will interest those who seek to understand the people and places that shape the path they choose.
I caught up with Janet who enthusiastically agreed to…
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Writing from the Heart, Reading for the Road 