Author Journeys: Diana Gabaldon

UPDATE: Ms. Gabaldon herself (!!) clarified some points for me and I have updated some inaccuracies I had in my original post.

I first got introduced to author Diana Gabaldon when I was going on a trip to Italy and made a book recommendation request on Facebook with the following criteria: looking for a longish page-turner that will keep me entertained on a variety of flights, ferries, etc.

A very well-read friend came through for me by recommending Gabaldon's Outlander series. One ten-day trip later, I was hooked.

Outlander is a unique blend of romance, historical fiction, and time travel. It starts in the 1940s and centers around a British nurse named Claire who gets sucked through some mysterious standing stones (think Stonehenge) and ends up going back to late 1700s Scotland where she meets some tough (and, yes, hunky) Highlanders.

There are currently seven books in the series with plans for more. And they are LONG. The series stands at a whopping 6600 pages so far. The books are immersive and intense and wholly wonderful for being so. I'm currently on book five.

Here are some fun facts about the frighteningly prolific Diana Gabaldon:

- I feel like she can be described as one of the first author adopters of digital media. She shared some of her first Outlander novel and met her agent through a Compuserv writing community back in 1988! She thanks this community in the acknowledgments of every single one of her books.
- Her novels are incredibly well-researched, ranging on a variety of topics from Scottish history, to Caribbean pirates, to the American Revolutionary War (Claire is very well-traveled). It takes Gabaldon 2-3 years to write each one. Gabaldon has a PhD in quantitative behavioral ecology (nope, I have no idea what that means but it sounds smart) so perhaps that's why research comes so easily to her.
- Gabaldon is American, but her main character, Claire, is British and her leading man, Jamie Fraser, is a Scotsman. She does a remarkable job in writing in these voices, most especially the way she writes the lilting Scottish accents. (Though I confess, it took me three-quarters of the way through book one to realize that "ken" means "know.")

Diana Gabaldon has hinted that the eighth Outlander book might be out sometime in 2012. In the meantime, the series has already been adapted into a graphic novel and a musical.

Author Journeys: Alan Bradley

I recently fell in love with a character in a book: Ms. Flavia de Luce of The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. Flavia is 11; lives in a rambling mansion in a 1950s English countryside; has an affinity for chemistry, specifically poisons; and gets involved in solving a mystery when a dead man appears in her cucumber patch.

I'm very much of the opinion that Flavia and Goldenrod, the 11-year-old protagonist of my novel, would be very good friends if an ocean, a few decades, and a publishing house didn't separate them.  

Even besides that, though, it's no wonder I love this book as it combines quite a few of my very favorite things:

- smart girl protagonists
- English countrysides
-  mysteries
- unabashed quirkiness

If I love a book, I'm one of those people who wants to find out as much about the author as possible. Here are some truly fascinating facts about Alan Bradley:

- Alan Bradley is not an 11-year-old girl, but rather a man who got his debut fiction novel (this one) published at the age of 70.
- Bradley won the Crime Writers' Association's Debut Dagger Award based on 15 pages of this novel. Then the book went to auction and was purchased by a publisher. And then, Bradley actually finished writing it.
- Before going to pick up his Dagger Award, Bradley had never before even visited England.

As a writer, you're often told to write what you know. This is absolutely sound advice but one of my favorite parts of fiction writing is very much the opposite - researching and exploring worlds that I never have and probably never will experience. It's been very cool to find out that Alan Bradley has had so much success with doing exactly that.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie is the first in a series of Flavia de Luce mysteries. I can't wait to pick up the rest!