I’ve been intending to write about my adventures for several days now, but, apparently I’ve been too busy having adventures to write about them. I have a bit of a breather today. Last Friday I left Mendocino and traveled south to Salinas to the California Writers Conference that’s called East of Eden. It’s Steinbeck country and it was a great conference. I was befriended by Linda McCabe who is VP of the Sonoma branch of the CA writers club and she introduced me around. I felt like I was part of the “California” writing community…. a very vibrant community, indeed. The workshops were good, especially the one on Point of View. I met a lot of people, and, best of all, my book was in the bookstore and sold quite well. Very nice. I left with some really valuable information on using the Internet and a sense of inspiration. I drove north through the central valley and up into Oregon. Hot weather. In fact it’s been quite hot in Portland. It was a nostalgic drive. I hadn’t made it in a long time and it brought back lots of memories of my life. I used to live up here and have family in Washington still. I’ve made the trip up and down Highway 5 lots of times over the years.

I arrived in Portland on Monday after an overnight along the way, I used to drive the whole route in one binge, but not any more… On Tuesday morning I had an interview on KBOO radio, which is the Portland Community radio station, a lot like KPFA. It was great, a live interview on a program called Between the Covers. Ed Goldberg interviewed me. He was funny, insightful and liked Requiem—hard not to enjoy that! The interview actually brought a few people to my book signing last night. It was at 23rd Avenue Books, an independent store that set up their audience area with a couple of charming old overstuffed chairs tucked in amongst comfortable folding chairs—very welcoming and friendly. In fact, I’ve never had a reading quite like it. People, as they arrived, begin introducing themselves, and by the time we got underway, we had pretty much all said hello and it felt like I was talking and reading to a group of friends.

I get very solemn and tense before I go to an event. It seems to happen every time. I worry about whether I’ll have an audience, whether I’ll get there on time, whether I’ve forgotten something important—odd things, really. I always assume I’ll do fine with the talking, I’m not sure what I’m afraid I’ll blow… but it reminds me of dreams I had as a young woman, where I’d show up to give a presentation, or show up at class and I would have forgotten to put clothes on! Fortunately for all involved, that was not the case last night. The reading was well-received. We talked for a long time after about writing and about Mary Shelley and her world. I had a lot of fun. My friend Kathryn, where I’m staying up here, enjoyed it too. She’s been doing all the groundwork, getting posters out, providing a Portland base for the workshop, driving me around. It’s been great. Kathryn also traveled with me in the fall of 2003 in England and Italy, so we have a history of connection to the story. We’ve been friends since 1974—a long time.

There’s still a lot of upheaval and change going on around Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein. It’s interesting and challenging. It seems like there really is a “buzz” beginning. The young man who introduced me at the reading said as much, which really surprised me. I wasn’t sure what had inspired him to the observation. For the moment, I’m just trying to inch my way forward. Very little is clear. I’m hoping it’ll all make sense in the next week or so, but even if it doesn’t I seem to keep muddling along.  I’m expecting to send out another newsletter before long. My interview with New Dimensions is published on the internet and will be out in December on National Radio… more about that shortly.

Well, I wrote a version of my blog post about Who Really Wrote Frankenstein and sent it off to the Daily Telegraph in London, England. Turns out The Original Frankenstein is a new version of Frankenstein that’s being published by Oxford University—my old Alma Mater. Just kidding, just kidding! Although I did spend the summer of 2004 at Oxford University’s Exeter College studying 19th century British literature. I also spent hours and hours and hours in the Bodleian Library that summer, researching the Shelleys. And it’s also where I got that A+ on a paper about Percy Bysshe Shelley I keep bragging about. In any event, my Letter to the Editor got published yesterday. Here’s the link:

Here’s the text. (They edited it aggressively, but the salient points remain):

Who wrote Frankenstein?

Sir – I see that University of Delaware professor Charles Robinson has written a new book, The Original Frankenstein, in which he identifies 5,000 changes made to Mary Shelley’s manuscript by her husband (report, August 25).

Professor Robinson claims that Frankenstein should therefore be credited: “Mary Shelley with Percy Bysshe Shelley”. I disagree.

Prof Robinson is one of the most highly respected experts on Mary Shelley and I depended upon him for my research for Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein, a novel on the life of Mary Shelley. Clearly Shelley edited Mary’s manuscript.

However, I would argue that Shelley was Mary’s editor in the same way that Gordon Lish was Raymond Carver’s. The demands the publishing industry makes on authors fall into a shady area. Prof Robinson’s research opens a discussion on the nature of the author/editor relationship.

Until that conversation takes place, it seems unfair to assert that Shelley should be listed as a co-author. It is also worth noting that Mary Shelley mainly worked on her novel in Bath during the winter of 1816-1817 when her husband was in London. There are letters from Mary complaining of her loneliness.

Although I credit Shelley with some feminist understanding, I don’t believe he had the insight to say in Frankenstein what Mary said about women and their irrelevance – a theme that is also central to her overlooked novel Valperga.

There is also the little acknowledged fact that Mary Shelley influenced Shelley: she was the first person to collect, edit and publish his poetry after his death.

She should be credited with the authorship of her own work.

Dr Molly Dwyer, Fort Bragg, California

And now, I’ve heard from Professor Robinson! He emailed me in response to my letter.

Molly Dwyer,

Once you read the book, you will see that MWS is still credited with writing the novel—what I am attempting to do is to show just what PBS’s contributions were—my Introduction [and even my title page] does not argue for him controlling the novel. What you will find useful in the book is that I print 2 Frankenstein’s, both based n the Draft and therefore taking us back closer to what MWS wrote:

1] the first text is a corrected version [spellings and punctuation corrected and made consistent] of the Draft, with PBS’s words shown in italics—the first time a reading text shows that;

2] the second text, the more ‘original,’ is the uncorrected version of the draft with all PBS words purged and with all MWS words that PBS canceled restored—you get MWS’s original voice that way—one of my points is that it is much more colloquial.

The intent of the two texts is to give the reader the evidence to make his or her judgment on all of this—your analogy of the other editors of writers’ works is a good one.

They are releasing the book in England and it is available thru amazon.com in the uk—not sure when they will release it in USA—might be a year as they attempt to sell the rights. The UK version is reasonable priced, 14.95 pounds sterling for 450 pages and a hard cover and two texts.

Thanks for crediting my earlier work on Frankenstein.

The Telegraph writer apparently got all of his info from the Sunday Times version of the story—and the writer there had never read Frankenstein—and his piece does overstate a number of points—I will be happy when full-fledged reviews come out—TLS is planning one soon.

I send along the Times url—you will see that the Telegraph builds on it—it is

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article4597084.ece

Charlie Robinson

I’m honored that Dr. Robinson responded to my remarks, and interestingly, he’s saying he’s not that pleased with the way the Daily Telegraph represented his work. That he conceded my point about the author/editor relationship, is especially gratifying. My original remarks, as I said above, were aggressively edited. Here’s a what I actually wrote about the author/editor relationship:

I am well aware that Dr Robinson is one of the most highly respected experts on Mary Shelley—I depended upon him for my own research, and clearly Shelley edited Mary’s manuscript. Dr. Robinson is not the first to make that claim. I would argue that Shelley was Mary’s editor in the same way that Gordon Lish was Raymond Carver’s, and that if the same criteria were applied, Lish would have to be listed as a co-author alongside Raymond Carver. Perhaps Lish should be: Carver’s wife has recently argued as much, insisting Lish’s heavy hand tampered with Carver’s work. Certainly some of the demands the publishing industry makes on contemporary authors, in order to secure hoped for commercial success, fall into a shady area. Robinson’s research opens a discussion on the nature of the author/editor relationship—what it should be, and how it should be credited. Until that conversation takes place, it seems imprudent and unfair to assert that Shelley should be listed as a co-author of Frankenstein, “with” or otherwise.

So. I’m still kind of pulling all the pieces together. It’s the Internet age; this would not have happened in another time. I wouldn’t have seen the article, there wouldn’t have been the opportunity for such instantaneous communication. It just wouldn’t have happened. I said in my letter that I wanted to be part of the conversation, and it seems in some small way, I’ve been invited in. Thank you Daily Telegraph, thank you Dr. Robinson.

I found an article this morning, from the Daily Telegraph in England, about a new book on Frankenstein. It’s written by a professor from the University of Deleware, Charles Robinson, one of the foremost experts on Mary Shelley in the US. His new book, The Original Frankenstein—which will be out in October—is arguing that Percy Bysshe Shelley played such a significant role in the writing of Frankenstein that the authorship should be listed as “Mary Shelley with Percy Bysshe Shelley.” Robinson says he’s identified some 5000 changes made to Mary Shelley’s manuscript by Shelley before it was published.

Robinson studied the hand-writen text at the Bodleian in Oxford, not something I had access too, although I did study the facsimiles, the photocopied versions of their writings. He also believes they wrote together in bed, using the same pen—which must mean that some kind of technology has been used to determine the instrument that penned the words. That would make a great scene—I wish I had written it! There is a hint of such shared writing in Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein, when Shelley and Mary are in Paris (before Frankenstein was written).

It’s also worth noting, however, that Mary worked on Frankenstein over the winter of 1816-1817, while she was living in Bath, mostly without Shelley. Mary was holed up near a very pregnant Claire Claremont (Mary’s stepsister), who was carrying Lord Byron’s child. Both women were staying out of sight; Bath was a place where it was easier to do so. This was the Bath of Jane Austen’s day, the very social city where the rich went to play. “A safer choice than London—for although the marriage market was drifting toward Brighton, Bath was still a city of young women looking for husbands, and young men looking for wives. Bath was exactly what was needed: a very good place to slip quietly into anonymity.”

Here’s a quote from, “This So Unhappy Enterprise,” Chapter 38 of Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein. It tracks the events in Bath that winter. This particular quote is taken from the night Mary learns her half-sister, Fanny, has committed suicide:

Mary had been sitting at her writing desk for hours. Willie had nursed and been put down. Elise was sleeping soundly. She looked at the timepiece that lay on the desk. It was well after one in the morning. Shelley had been gone since noon. Surely he could not be much longer, surely he would begin to think of her worrying, of the confusion it must be engendering that she had not been home to receive a kiss of warm reassurance, surely he would think of his lonely Pesksie, would he not?

She stared at the notebook, looking again where Shelley’s words were written, studying them carefully, as she had dozens of times already this evening. Just before he left, he had been reading her story, marking out words, making changes, leaving notes in the left-hand margin as her father had taught her, commenting on the text.

Her story was much expanded since Switzerland. To her amazement, it was taking on entirely new elements of complexity, becoming, as he insisted it was, a novel. She turned several pages, thinking that perhaps the nature of her story was to blame for her strange sense of unease. Maybe she was more like Victor Frankenstein than she cared to admit. What had Byron said, about fiction begetting fact? This was not a story she wanted to see unfold in any sense of the word. Feeling a vague sense of agitation, she turned back to the manuscript and yet again read Shelley’s parting comment.

“O you pretty Peskie!” It was meant to make her smile. Why couldn’t she?

Beside the note he had corrected the spelling of the word enigmatic. He found her inability to spell quaint. She thought it was because she’d learned so little Latin when she was young, and felt embarrassed. Latin seemed the missing structure, the context, as it were, for comprehending language. And she was finally learning it with Shelley’s assistance, although the focus of her study had shifted since beginning her story.

Now what little time she stole with Shelley, who was mostly in London, was spent walking along the Avon, talking, or reading Milton. She loved to listen to his animated voice as he read to her. Shelley was convinced her story—born in Diodati, Milton’s Diodati—was a modern tale of lost innocence, lost paradise. He encouraged her to think in such mythic terms. “A tale that goes beyond the personal and stretches into the universal.”

Mary thought it was somehow comparable to the Ryme of the Ancient Mariner, and when she said that, Shelley excitedly agreed. “Absolutely. Myth, allegory, parable. A story Victor must tell, and with the same horror as the ancient mariner tells his.”

She was writing daily, describing the creature’s plight. He was not dumb, rather capable of thought and eager to understand his world, but abandoned by his creator, shunned by all who saw him because he was so frightening. He had become enraged. His last hope for home and happiness had just ended in rejection, shattering whatever remnant of goodwill his soul seemed to harbor. He was on the prowl now, ready to do damage. She could feel it. Suddenly, there was a rattling at the door. It flew open; Shelley had finally returned.

“Shelley!” she scrambled up from her writing table and rushed toward him.

“Oh, Maië,” Shelley said, collapsing into her arms. “I could not find her, I—“

Holding to him tightly, Mary pulled back so as to see his face. As they stared at one another, a cold silence crept over Mary’s heart; she feared she understood, feared that, indeed, all evening she had been keeping something dark at bay.

“Couldn’t find her,” she said slowly. “Couldn’t find Fanny, you mean?”

It was during the writing of Frankenstein that Mary’s half-sister, Fanny, and Harriet, Shelley’s abandoned wife (pregnant again), both killed themselves. Fanny by taking laudanum; Harriet by drowning herself. Shelley spent much of the winter in London with Leigh Hunt. He was gone a great deal. There are dozens of letters from Mary complaining of that fact, begging him to come to her.

Charles Robinson, as I said, is one of the most highly respected names in the world of academia when it comes to research on Mary Shelley. I’m not arguing that he’s wrong in saying that there wasn’t a great deal of back and forth between the Mary and Shelley over Frankenstein. He’s not the first to claim it and obviously its absolutely true. Shelley was a huge influence on Mary. I’m just not convinced that Shelley should be listed as an author, “with” or otherwise, as Robinson suggests. That is, unless we’re also going to list editor, Gordon Lish, as an author alongside Raymond Carver. And maybe Lish should be—Carver’s wife is arguing that Lish’s heavy hand tampered with Carver’s work too much. I’m just saying the same standard must applied to both.

I also want to point out that when I began researching Mary Shelley, back in 1990, both Books in Print, and the UC Berkeley Library, where I did most of my early research, conflated Mary Shelley (Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley) with her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft (author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman). They were shelved as one author, one woman. I don’t want to see Mary Shelley diminished. As I’ve argued in Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein, I think Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein makes a dramatic statement about the role of women, the enforced invisibility of 19th century women. And although I credit Shelley with some feminist understanding, I don’t believe he had the insight to say in Frankenstein, what Mary Shelley said about women and their experience—a theme I find central to the book.

Robinson’s research, it seems to me, must open up a whole discussion on nature of the author/editor relationship—what it should be, and how it should be credited. I would argue that Shelley was Mary’s editor in the same way that Gordon Lish was Raymond Carver’s. In fact, there are those who argue that Shelley’s influence, especially as he changed Mary’s more pedestrian language into flowery, poetic choices, was problematic—an interference.

And then there’s the fact that Mary Shelley influenced Shelley’s poetry. She was, afterall, the first person to collect, edit and publish his poetry after his death. Frankly, it irks me, that so few in the world of academia place any importance on that, or on Mary Shelley’s contribution to Thomas Moore’s biography of Lord Byron, to which she contributed liberally.

So, there you have it! The Original Frankenstein, got my attention. I’m looking forward to reading it.

I just received my second invitation from the California Writers Club. I’ll be speaking to the Redwood Writers branch in Sonoma County.

Nov. 2, 2008. Cotati, CA
California Writers Club, Redwood Writers
Star’s Restaurant, 3-5 pm
8501 Gravenstein Highway, Cotati
GUEST SPEAKER: Molly Dwyer presenting, Syncronicity and Sensibilité

The California Writers Club holds a special place in my heart. I didn’t know it was the nation’s oldest professional club for writers—founded in 1909—until I read about it, but I did know that Jack London was credited as its founder. Early honorary members included George Sterling, John Muir, Joaquin Miller, and California’s first poet laureate, Ina Coolbrith. I know about these people because last year I started researching the literary history of San Francisco with the idea of writing a novel about the city’s 19th century Bohemian scene. Having lived in San Francisco during the 1989 earthquake, I also wanted to write about the events of 1906.

I got particularly interested in Ina Coolbrith—I’m always looking for the women who disappeared into history without fanfare. London credits Ina with guiding him into books and writing. She was a librarian in Oakland and became London’s mentor. She also influenced Isadora Duncan. Ina has a dramatic story: she came to California by wagon train (crossed Donner Pass as a child) and was recognized early on as a poet. She moved in the most significant literary circles in San Francisco, with the founders of the Bohemian Club, and was friends with Mark Twain. At sixty-five, she watched her lifework, a literary memoir of the period, turn to ashes in the fire that followed the 1906 earthquake. It’s one of those scenes I SEE: Like so many, Ina had to evacuate. The earthquake damaged her home, but she managed to corral and rescue her two Persian cats (of course that would get my attention) and get out. Standing on the street with others, she was directed by the military to take refuge down by the waterfront, which she did. It was from there that she watched as the fire moved toward her home at 1406 Taylor Street, eventually destroying it and the manuscript she had just completed. My God—what a difficult thing to witness! “San Francisco is gone,” Jack London wrote later. “Nothing remains of it but memories.”

So. It’s a personal connection, something I take pleasure in. In fact, I think it’s synchronistic that I’ve been invited to present my talk on synchronicity to the California Writers Club! I’m very happy to bask for a moment in the shadow of legends like Ina and Jack and feel my connection to them. The novel, which I named, Poetic Justice, beckons. (So many ideas, so little time!)

The California Writers Club is “dedicated to educating writers of all levels and disciplines in the craft of writing and in the marketing of their work.” I’m headed to their writers conference, the East of Eden Conference in Salinas. It’s the first week of September, and one of my goals in going there, is to join the California Writers Club and begin the work of establishing a Mendocino Coast branch. If you’re interested in helping me get a branch going—in time to celebrate the club’s 100th anniversary (2009)—please get in touch with me.

Here’s the bit that’s going on out about the workshop that’s scheduled for Portland. Anyone who signs up early, (by August 31st), off the website, gets it for the special price of $50. Just email me and tell me you read it on my blog!! That simple. Honor system operative.

************

SYNCHRONICITY is meaningful coincidence, an inexplicable paralleling of inner and outer events. Dreams often portend synchronicity and feed it—and there’s usually a pot of gold at the end of the synchronicity rainbow, especially for writers.

Dwyer’s workshop presents techniques for recognizing, encouraging, and responding to dreams and synchronicity in both fiction and nonfiction writing. Using a series of hands-on exercises, Dwyer facilitates writers in the discovery of the ancient art of stalking their story.

“I’m borrowing from many traditions here, but the terminology is from filmmaker, Andrei Tarkowsky,” Dwyer explains, “The Stalker is one of his most enigmatic films. The Stalker is a guide who knows the way to the center of the zone where the deepest desires, the true soul desires one has come to pass. No one path works every time. We must learn to listen and respond to subtleties, and as we do, our writing becomes an organic, almost independent force full of surprise and freshness.”

Saturday, Sept. 13, 9:30 am - 4:30 pm
Common Ground Wellness Center • 2926 Flanders St. NE
Writers Workshop: $60 — limited to 12 participants

For info or to register: email me at molly@mollydwyer.com
or if you live in Portland, you can call (503) 287-5434

I’m headed to Portland for a series of events in early September. I’ll be doing a book signing at 23rd Ave. Books on September 11th. Yes, September 11th—so I’m offering the reading as a benefit. I’ve joined forces with the Portland chapter of Veterans for Peace as a way of honoring the events of September 11th and at the same stating my own relationship to the world—which is to say, I believe in pursuing peace. And the more strange and difficult the world becomes, the more it seems to me those of us who believe peace is a human right must make our stand. Portland seems to be my moment. Here’s what the Vets have to say about their organization:

Veterans For Peace is a national organization founded in 1985. It includes men and women veterans of all years and duty stations, including from the Spanish Civil War (1938-39) to World War II, the Korean, Vietnam, Gulf and current Iraq wars, as well as other conflicts. Our collective experience tells us wars are easy to start and hard to stop and that those hurt are often the innocent. Thus, other means of problem solving are necessary.

When I approached the Veterans for Peace, I told them that it might seem far-fetched that my novel about poets and writers from the 19th century had any connection to standing against war in the 21st century, but there is a connection. It springs from the people I wrote about. Shelley, Byron, Mary Shelley, Leigh Hunt—that whole circle had a very radical political bent. They fought against the oppression of their day. One of the little known facts about Byron is that in his maiden speech to the House of Lords, he spoke on behalf of the workers of Nottingham who were suffering terribly from the perils of industrialization, losing their livelihoods to the big, automated looms. The workers were out in the streets demonstrating and ultimately attacking the looms that were starving their families. The British government sent troops against them. Byron spoke on their behalf—not the common stance of a young Lord. Shelley too: he was thrown out of Oxford for his politics and almost jailed. One of his causes was the plight of Irish at the time, another downtrodden group, and because he encouraged them to rise against their oppressors, he was considered a danger to the state.

Mary was the daughter of two of the most radical political figures of the day. Her mother, of course, was Mary Wollstonecraft, a seminal feminist voice coming out of England, calling for equal educational opportunities for women and objecting to the legalities of marriage that limited women’s rights to own property, bank accounts, inherit—think Pride and Prejudice. Remember? The property cannot go to the women, the daughters. It is entailed to the odious Mr. Collins. That’s the time period. Those were the circumstances that Mary Wollstonecraft was speaking out against. They called her a “hyena in petticoats,” not only for her ideas, but because she had the audacity to speak in the public square. She challenged the whole idea that women should be confined to domesticity—and so did her daughter. Mary Shelley wrote Valperga, a novel about the struggle for democracy in Florence in the 14th century. Her women not only speak in the public square, her main character, Euthenasia, inherits the villa Valperga from her father and joins the radicals, offering her land as a haven. She’s hands-on in her support, standing with the freedom fighters as they press for democracy. Ultimately it costs her her life. Valperga is Mary Shelley’s most satisfying and fully realized novel. It deserves much more attention than it’s ever received. We see her working on it in the pages of Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein.

So, these are very political people I’ve written about. I’ve no doubt that were they alive today, they’d be in alignment with the philosophy of the Veterans for Peace and I’m grateful for the opportunity to bring the political aspect of my novel to light. I’m looking forward to my Portland appearance. I’ll be on KBOO radio the Tuesday before my reading. It’s community radio, a little like KPFA in Berkeley. I’m also going to be teaching a writers workshop in Portland on what I’ve decided to call, Story Stalking. More about that later.

If you’ve been on my site before, you’ll notice it’s going through changes. The blog isn’t quite finished; I’ll be adding to it and continuing to customize it in the next week, but I’ve settled on the basics. Let me know what you think of the changes and stay tuned for more. Check out what I’ve done elsewhere on my site. And thank you to Nan Walter of Mendocino’s DogEared Digital Design for the incredible graphics that inspired the change!! And for all your good advice. I’m not done yet, but I’m too a point where I’ve put the new pages up in order to better see what I have before I make anymore changes. Check out my “splash”/praise page.

I’m starting up an email newsletter that will occur “periodically” and “on occasion,” generally speaking when something is up, something like the airing of my New Dimensions interview, which (by the by) probably won’t be until somewhere around the end of the year, hopefully still in time for the Christmas shopping season. I’m hoping some of you want to hear about that and other interviews and/or know about events I might be doing in your area. I’m doing a couple of book signings and a writing workshop in Portland mid-September (for example).

So, I’m asking people to subscribe to my newsletter. I promise that I won’t be playing hanky-panky with your email. I hate spam; I’d never help create it, and I won’t be obnoxious, either, sending out meaningless marketing messages to friends. My commitment is to only send out the newsletter when I actually have something to say that I truly believe you’ll be interested in. So, if that sounds good, please subscribe either here on my blog page or on my news page.

The picture, just a bit of “eye candy,” has absolutely nothing to do with anything, except for the fact that it’s of Selene (in front) and Pele (behind) when they were kittens. They’re about to celebrate their third birthday this fall. They’re the god-daughters of Mercury, to whom I dedicated Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein. “Now there was a cat with a mouthful of Magic.” May he rest in peace.

The Mendocino Coast Writers Conference came to an end today. Everyone I talked to was both bushed and glowing. The conference seems to have been a great success. I certainly enjoyed everything that I took part in, which included a number of really good presentations and, of course, the New Authors Panel that I was fortunate enough to be part of. Last night we had a closing dinner at the Mendocino Hotel with James Houston giving a rousing and inspiring keynote. Contest winner, Shubha Venugopal, shared the piece that won her the Ellen Meloy Writing as Social Change Fellowship. It brought tears to my eyes. So beautiful and passionately written. And Jenoyne Adams, who was attending as a literary agent sang for us. Again, tears; she was incredible. Charlotte Gullick, our fearless leader, was charming and witty and full of insight, as she always is. The whole event made me feel how fortunate I am to live in this community, surrounded by writers who take writing seriously and are good. It really is remarkable. I focused on gathering as much new information about marketing my book, both online and off as I could. I’m gearing up for a fall campaign, hoping I can generate sales for Christmas. I really do think Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein would make a good Christmas present; a nice fat book at a decent price, so please, tell all your friends (she said shamelessly)!!

“Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein is a novel, and brilliantly written. I always enter a new novel hoping that it will be good. This one surpassed my hopes. The story was excellent, the execution of the plot was riveting, and the writing impeccable. . . It is about the Romantic era in England in the late 1700s and early 1800s. It is about Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, Coleridge, Blake. . . Mary’s mother Mary Wollstonecraft who was one of the first feminists and wrote The Vindication of the Rights of Woman. It was altogether a treat to read.”

Justine Willis Toms
Co-founder, Managing Producer
New Dimensions World Broadcasting Network
“Uncommon Wisdom for Unconventional Times
Communicating the Wisdom That’s Changing the World”
www.newdimensions.org

Mendocino artist Claire Fortier (wife of Doug Fortier, a member of my writing group) attended my reading at Gallery Books last week and sketched this picture of me. I think of all the sketches of the Shelleys and the writers of their day and feel very happy to have joined their ranks. Thank you, Claire!

And then I got an email from another friend who attended the Gallery Bookstore reading, Requiem seems to have made it into a San Diego book club. It may be the pick of a Houston book club too. Isn’t that great! And one more bit of good news: One of my tasks today was to put together a biographical sketch for California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco and send it off with a photo. CIIS is planning to feature me as a successful alumni in their promotional material, another very nice thing. Thank you CIIS!

I’ve got a big book week coming up. The Mendocino Coast Writers Conference is at the end of this week and because I’m on the “New Authors” panel, I’m attending. The conference kicks off on Thursday. My panel presentation is Saturday from 12 to 1; it’s open to the public, which means you don’t have to be registered for the conference to attend the panel. It’s at the College of the Redwoods campus. So, come by if you can. Friday evening, starting at 5 pm there’s an open mike at Cheshire Books in Fort Bragg that’s also open to the public. Wednesday evening there’s a kick-off dinner for presenters that I’m invited to attend, but thanks to modern technology, I’m going to be two places at once! I’ll be on KZYX radio, 90.7 on your FM dial, on Thursday evening at 7 pm. The show is called Taking Care of Business and it’s hosted by Rachel Murray, a local small business consultant who has been giving me excellent advice. The interview is about marketing Requiem, an interesting departure from my normal fare. I thought the taping went very well.

For me, the BIG excitement, of course, is on Thursday when I’ll head over the hill to Ukiah to tape the New Dimensions interview with Justine Toms, which is going to air nationally. And if all that’s not enough, I’ve got several more irons in the fire: getting things set up for a little PR tour to Portland in September; meeting with a couple local artists to discuss an artists coalition for promoting our work; and today, my weekly writers group.

I haven’t mentioned it here before, but I am part of a regularly meeting writers group. There are eight of us and we read two or three pieces of writing each week. It’s excellent and keeps me working on The Appassionata, my second novel. I’ve had a productive couple of weeks writing about Paris in 1830, a year of political upheaval when Parisians took to the streets, manning barricades and bringing down a king. I find this inspiring, and although it was not enough to bring democracy to France, it was one more step toward that effort. The political history of France is fascinating: they fought for over a century, really, before they succeeded in bringing their monarchy to an end. Artists and writers were in the middle of the struggle, and the more I write about the intersection between art and politics, the more I feel the present-day parallels. Artists and writers CAN make a difference, so don’t be surprised if you see me leaning into my political disposition and speaking out on behalf of democracy, justice, equality, peace and preserving our constitution. I’m feeling like I must take advantage of whatever small platform I’m gaining from having a book in print, to stand up for saving the Earth and our democracy, which I think is in peril given the last eight years of political corruption.

I’ve been keeping company of late with Franz Liszt, Hector Berlioz, Eugene Delacroix, Victor Hugo, Frederic Chopin and George Sand… and interesting group of Romantics if ever there was one. My main character is Victorine Farrenc, a classical pianist and her mother, Louise Farrenc, a classical composer. It’s a continuation of the theme of Romanticism. All of these people were especially influenced by Byron’s legacy. He, not unlike John Lennon, had a lingering influence on his generation and on the next, becoming a legend. Mary Shelley lived until 1851; she’ll be making a cameo appearance.

Got me started, I see… so, before this rambles on forever, I think I’ll just say, it’s going to be a big week for celebrating the fact that I’m a writer living and writing on the Mendocino Coast.

I’ve just been invited to do an interview for New Dimensions, one of my favorite NPR shows. I’m jazzed. It’ s a wonderful venue and opportunity to talk about the more metaphysical dimensions of Requiem. Poet David Whyte, who has been a guest, had this to say about New Dimensions:

“New Dimensions is a place where extraordinary and imaginative conversations occur. They are the kind of foundational conversations which are necessary where we have so many peripheral and often stressful involvements in the world. New Dimensions provides a sanctuary, a foundation, a deeper conversation that will inform, enable, and embolden you in many parts of your life.”

Some of the other writers who have been on the program include the poet Jane Hirshfield and the writing coach Natalie Goldberg. Not to mention such celebrities as Isabel Allende, Alice Walker, Susan Griffin, Robert Bly, Terry Tempest Williams and Maya Angelou. The show “spotlights radical thinkers, spiritual leaders, indigenous voices, artists, scientists, ecologists, and social architects, among others” and has had a host of interesting people who advocate a new world view, people like Fritjof Capra, Deepak Chopra, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Krishnamurti, Ken Wilber, Jean Huston, Huston Smith, Mathew Fox, Riane Eisler, Andrew Harvey, Carol Lee Flinders (who endorsed my book), even the Dali Lama. That’s pretty amazing company!

It’s also impressive to learn that Stanford has acquired the New Dimensions archive, thirty-five years worth of interviews. They’re cataloging the collection and making it available for future research. According to curator, Roberto Trujillo, it is “one of the most extraordinary archival collections [he has] encountered in [his] thirty-five years as a curator.” What a privilege to be part of it—alongside Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell, no less!

We’re recording next week. I don’t know when the show will be aired—it usually takes two to three months, so sometime in the fall, probably October. When I have a date, I’ll certainly post it. Of course, when you can hear it depends on where you live, since New Dimensions “airs in over 500 communities on radio stations around the US and many more around the world, including Canada and Australia.” They also run an internet radio program, the New Demensions Cafe, where they post podcasts that can be downloaded off their site. It’s actually a second, shorter interview. According to their site description, New Dimensions “seeks out the most innovative and creative people on the planet, engages them in spontaneous, deep dialogues, and broadcasts these programs to a worldwide audience.”

What an honor to be invited to participate!! Justine Toms will be conducting the interview. She and her husband Michael co-host. Justine told me she’d read Requiem, that it surprised her and that it deserved more attention than it has generated thus far. Thank you Justine.

Here’s a comment that Cindy Pavlinac, V.P. of the California Writers Club, Marin Branch left on my blog a few days ago. I thought it deserved more attention than it will get in the comment section. Thank you, Cindy!

Molly, Thank you so much for speaking to our CWC Marin writers’ group in June. You gave one of the best, most articulate presentations about writing I have ever experienced, at any venue. Your lively talk deftly wove the Romantic poets, dreams, and traveling in England with shamanism, quantum physics, genius, and meaningful coincidence. I have long noticed how things like to happen together! (Truth IS stranger than fiction…) I’m inspired to pay closer attention to strengthen subtle truth in my own writing. Through tapping into deep levels of emotional sensitivity, the observer becomes a participant, the key to change. I highly recommend you to writers’ groups and as a conference keynote. Your perspective is very grounding, informative, inspiring, and current. Write on! —Cindy Pavlinac, V.P. California Writers Club, Marin Branch.

BOOK SIGNING: Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein

I’m doing a book signing at Gallery Books in Mendocino, Sunday, July 20th at 3 pm. I hope you’ll come out and listen. I’ll be celebrating Requiem’s Indie Book Award for Historical Fiction and talking about synchronicity and my writing process. Wine & refreshments will be served.

Sunday July 20 at 3 p.m.