KOPLER FASHION SCHOOL: LOVE IN MID AIR BLOG TOUR: AUTHOR INTERVIEW, REVIEW, AND GIVEAWAY

LOVE IN MID AIR
BY KIM WRIGHT

ABOUT THE BOOK:

A chance encounter with a stranger on an airplane sends Elyse Bearden into an emotional tailspin. Suddenly Elyse is willing to risk everything: her safe but stale marriage, her seemingly perfect life in an affluent Southern suburb, and her position in the community. She finds herself cutting through all the instincts that say "no" and instead lets "yes" happen. As Elyse embarks on a risky affair, her longtime friend Kelly and the other women in their book club begin to question their own decisions about love, sex, marriage, and freedom.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Kim Wright has been writing about travel, food, and wine for more than twenty years for many magazines including Wine Spectator, Self, Travel & Leisure, and Vogue, and has twice won the Lowell Thomas Award for travel writing. She is the food and wine editor for Charlotte Taste. She has written the annual Fodor's Walt Disney World with Kids for 18 years and also writes erotica. This is her first novel. Kim lives in Charlotte, NC.

INTERVIEW WITH KIM WRIGHT:

1. Welcome to BOOKIN' WITH BINGO, Kim Wright, author of LOVE IN MID AIR. To start, can you tell us a little something about yourself?

I've been a food, wine, and travel writer for 25 years but Love in Mid Air(www.loveinmidair.com) is my first novel.

When I got divorced fifteen years ago the strangest things began happening to me. Women I barely knew - women I would have assumed were happily married if I'd stopped to think about it at all - started flagging me down in the supermarket and darkly muttering about their own discontents. It was like though my own marital failure, I became the person it was okay to confess to, the one who wouldn't judge them. My journals from that time in my life became the basis of Love in Mid Air. Of course, a lot of years had to pass before I got the perspective to turn all these stories into a novel.

2. What is the next or current book/project you are working on?

I've developed a furious passion for ballroom dance and I'm presently working on a novel set in a suburban dance studio. It's got love, sex, revenge, passion, tango - the works.

3. What have you just finished reading?

The new Alice Munro short story collection. She's fabulous.

4. What books would you say have made the biggest impression on you, especially starting out?

Probably growing up I was most influenced by Moby Dick and Heart of Darkness. It wasn't just the adventure aspects, it was the first-person voice and the idea that someone had been through this gut-wrenching, life-changing experience and now they were telling you about it. That's the effect I'm always going for in my own writing...like you're sitting across the cafe table from a friend and she reaches over, grabs your wrist, and says "You wouldn't believe what happened to me last night."

5. What gets you started on a new book? A character or story idea or….?

For me, it's almost always an image. An image that has enough force to become a symbol. When I was writing Love in Mid Air, I kept imagining the sound of breaking pottery - of things falling and shattering and my main character Elyse, trying to create something new out of the broken pieces. It seemed a pretty good metaphor for divorce. In the new book the image of dance shoes came to me. They're so impractical with their high heels and suede bottoms and they're so feminine and expensive and whimsical that I think it's hard for your average woman to picture herself owning and wearing something like that. But my main character Abby puts on the dance shoes and it's sort of a Cinderella moment. The shoes have the power to change how she sees herself, and ultimately her life.

6. What is something about you that you would want people to know about you that we probably don’t know?

I walk around the house talking to my characters. And I dream about them. It's a freaky aspect of being a novelist that I wasn't prepared for, even though my fiction writing friends had tried to warn me that at some point the people you're writing become "realer" than the people you actually know.

7. What is your best advice to anyone, including young people, who want to be writers?

Do whatever you can to meet other writers. Go to conferences, join a critique group, find them on line. You'll need to network when it's time to find an agent and sell your book but, even more importantly, you need people to give you feedback and solace as you're going through the process. Most writers are far too isolated.

8. What is something you would like to share with us about writing your favorite genre in general?

Fiction is all about voice. I believe in the end, voice matters more than plot or characterization or theme or anything else. I read every line I write aloud. When I'm reading other people's novels, I often pause and read lines aloud. There has to be a certain rhythm to the words. It should sound like someone is really talking to you - it's a nuanced, sympathetic, honest voice that pulls the reader in and makes them care.

MY REVIEW:

First novel for Author Kim Wright, LOVE IN MID AIR, is the stuff our secret dreams are made of…or perhaps our nightmares depending on your place in life right now. What woman hasn’t looked at a person on television or in movies, or at work, or even someone sitting next to them on a plane and fantasized about what being with that person would be like? Elyse Bearden lives out this fantasy and actually made me wonder if people who have these thoughts might want to reconsider.

Elyse lives a comfortable life in the suburbs in the south where she is well known and respected and would seem to have an idyllic marriage. However, as we first read about Elyse, we understand that her marriage is stagnant and she is bored with it all. Her daily activities are robotic and routine. Her friends look up to her and seek her advice….even after she begins her affair with Gerry!

This affair could be looked at as if it were fate that made it happen. Returning from a pottery show in Phoenix, she is asked to swap seats with someone on the plane so they can sit by their son and decent person that Elyse is, she agrees. Little does she know this change will be more than just a seat change, but a change of life as she knew it up until that point. The man she now sits next to is attractive and as they begin to talk, an attraction takes hold and before she knows it, Elyse is involved in an affair.

It didn’t take much to push Elyse away from her husband, Phil. He appears to be a nice guy but their marriage is boring and dull. He is a good father but is he still a good husband…a good lover? He lives a monotonous life and that includes his daily interaction with his wife…yawn! BORING! Elyse goes as far as counseling to save her marriage but the lure of the unknown is very exciting. Her friends all think it is thrilling and pretty soon they start telling her how their own lives aren’t very stimulating and ask her for advice which rather sets her back a bit (as well as it did me).

Kim Wright, as you see in her interview, has been writing and traveling in her job for years and so when she was divorced several years ago, the friends who sought her out for advice gave her a lot of ideas for this story. You might say that is one reason the book reads so well is because it comes from personal experience. Then again, it may just be that Kim’s wonderful style of writing mesmerizes her readers and her memorable character studies turn a familiar theme into a exceedingly enjoyable novel. Her sense of humor also adds to the gravity of the theme and thus makes it a pleasurable read at the same time. I actually read it on a plane and well, sure, I’ll admit it! I looked around to see who was near me to wonder about….but alas, my luck was moms with babies, teens with lip rings, and an elderly gentlemen who reminded me of my father so that was as far as my fantasy went. Perhaps yours will be different after you read LOVE IN MID AIR!

GIVEAWAY

THANKS TO MIRIAM AND THE
HACHETTE BOOK GROUP, I HAVE
FIVE COPIES OF THIS INTERESTING
BOOK TO GIVE AWAY!

--U.S. AND CANADIAN RESIDENTS ONLY
--NO P. O. BOXES
---INCLUDE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS
IN CASE YOU WIN!
--ALL COMMENTS MUST BE SEPARATE TO
COUNT AS MORE THAN ONE!

HOW TO ENTER

+1 ENTRY: COMMENT ON SOMETHING YOU FOUND INTERESTING ABOUT LOVE IN MID AIR FROM THE SUMMARY AND REVIEW ABOVE

+1 MORE ENTRY: BLOG OR TWEET ABOUT THIS GIVEAWAY AND THEN COME BACK AND LEAVE A LINK

+1 MORE ENTRY: COMMENT ON SOMETHING YOU FOUND INTERESTING ABOUT AUTHOR KIM WRIGHT ABOVE IN HER INTERVIEW OR BY GOING TO HER WEBSITE HERE

GIVEAWAY ENDS AT
6 PM, EST, APRIL 16!
GOOD LUCK!

The participating Touring Blogs are:

http://www.dreyslibrary.blogspot.com

Friday, April 2, 2010

LOVE IN MID AIR BLOG TOUR: AUTHOR INTERVIEW, REVIEW, AND GIVEAWAY

KOPLER FASHION SCHOOL

Followers

Search This Blog

Total Pageviews

Popular Posts

Blog Archive

About Me