Podcast appearances and mentions of virginia pye

We're talking about two listeners' questions today. The first worries that her book has lost its “freshness” after so many revisions and worries how to “get it back.” Is this a common worry among writers? Oh, yes it is. The second worries whether it's time to break up with her book, how a writer knows, and how best to make decision. We have authors Emily Ross and Virginia Pye on board to help us out.Watch a recording of our live webinar here. The audio/video version is available for one week. Missed it? Check out the podcast version above or on your favorite podcast platform.Emily Ross is the author of Half in Love with Death, an International Thriller Writers Thriller Awards finalist for best young adult novel, and she's currently shopping her second novel, The Black Sea, an adult mystery / thriller set in her hometown of Quincy MA.Virginia Pye is the author of four award-winning books of fiction, including two post-colonial historical novels set in China, River of Dust and Dreams of the Red Phoenix, the short story collection, Shelf Life of Happiness, and her fourth book that debuted this last fall, The Literary Undoing of Victoria Swann. Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 7amnovelist.substack.com

Author Virginia Pye chats with Daniel Ford on Friday Morning Coffee about her latest novel The Literary Undoing of Victoria Swann.  Caitlin Malcuit also discusses Esquire's feature about the future of book publishing and a new study that found women now publish more than 50 percent of books. More resources: "Women now dominate the book business. Why there and not other creative industries?" | NPR  Community of Literary Magazines and Presses blackromanceconnoisseur | TikTok To learn more about Virginia Pye, visit her official website.  Writer's Bone is proudly sponsored by Libro.fm and Mark Cecil's upcoming novel Bunyan and Henry; Or, the Beautiful Destiny.

Set in Gilded Age Boston.

Virginia Pye's collection, Shelf Life of Happiness, won the 2019 IPPY Gold Medal for Short Fiction. Her novels, River of Dust and Dreams of the Red Phoenix, have also received literary awards. Her short story collection, Shelf Life of Happiness, (Press 53) won the 2019 Independent Publisher Gold Medal for Short Fiction, and one of its stories was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her essays have appeared in Literary Hub, New York Times, The Rumpus, Huffington Postand elsewhere. Virginia graduated from Wesleyan University and holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. She has been a Tin House Summer Workshop Scholar, an assistant at the Virginia Quarterly Review Conference, and a repeat fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.She's taught at New York University and the University of Pennsylvania and most recently at GrubStreet in Boston. Her latest novel is The Literary Undoing of Victoria Swann. Learn more at https://www.virginiapye.comSpecial thanks to NetGalley for a preview of this novel. @netgalley

This week, Boston author Virginia Pye discusses The Literary Undoing of Victoria Swann, a historical novel which she calls a love letter to books and authors and to the literary city she adores. It came to be as she imagined being a young woman writing books in Boston's male-dominated publishing industry of the 19th century.

Virginia Pye discusses the first pages of her wonderfully smart and imaginative novel, The Literary Undoing of Victoria Swann. AND, a special gift to our listeners: The ever-brave and generous Ginny also shares with us several paragraphs from her very first “shitty” draft for us to compare (which isn't so “shitty” after all, but sure makes her published pages look even better). We talk about the importance of narrative distance in historical fiction, how not to overly antiquate the prose and dialog, and how quickly we need to feel that trouble is brewing for the main character.Pye's first pages can be found here.Help local bookstores and our authors by buying this book on Bookshop.Click here for the audio/video version of this interview.The above link will be available for 48 hours. Missed it? The podcast version is always available, both here and on your favorite podcast platform.Virginia Pye is an award-winning author of three novels and the short story collection, Shelf Life of Happiness, which won the 2019 Independent Publisher Gold Medal for Short Fiction. Her debut novel, River of Dust, (Unbridled Books), was an Indie Next Pick and a 2013 Finalist for the Virginia Literary Award. Her second novel, Dreams of the Red Phoenix, (Unbridled Books), was named a Best Book of 2015 by the Richmond Times Dispatch. She is Fiction Editor for Pangyrus, a literary journal based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a board member of the Women's National Book Association, Boston Chapter. Virginia grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and moved back after thirty-five years living up and down the East Coast.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 7amnovelist.substack.com

Good morning everyone. I just want to tell you about what we're doing next on the 7am novelist, which is something I'm lamely calling “Passages of Summer.” But the upcoming episodes this summer won't be so lame, because we're going to be talking about one of the most difficult parts of a story or novel or memoir to get right: The first pages. I'll be interviewing over forty writers as we read and analyze the beginning pages of their novels in hopes of helping you with your own. We'll have Idra Novey, Caroline Leavitt, Paul Rudnick, Amina Gautier, David Heska Wanbli Weiden, and many more. Take a look at our schedule below:PASSAGES OF SUMMER ‘23 RELEASE SCHEDULEAll episodes will be pre-recorded and released at 7am EST. They can be found on 7amnovelist.substack.com and your favorite podcast platforms.May 25: Elizabeth Graver on KantikaMay 29: Vanessa Hua on Forbidden CityMay 31: Marisa Crane on I Keep My Exoskeletons to MyselfJune 2: Jane Roper on Society of Shame~~~June 5: Nathaniel Miller on The Memoirs of Stockholm SvenJune 7: Juliette Fay on The Half of ItJune 9: VV Ganeshananthan on Brotherless Night~~~June 12: Jasmin Hakes on HulaJune 14: Julie Carrick Dalton on The Last BeekeeperJune 16: Amina Gautier on “Lost and Found” in The Loss of All Lost Things~~~June 19: Henriette Lazaridis on Terra NovaJune 21: Frances de Pontes Peebles on The Air You BreatheJune 23: BA Shapiro on Metropolis~~~June 26: Daphne Kalotay on “Relativity” in The Archivists: StoriesJune 28: Wanda Morris on Anywhere You RunJune 30: Idra Novey on Take What You Need~~~July 3: Aaron Hamburger on Hotel CubaJuly 5: Caroline Leavitt on Days of WonderJuly 7: Joanna Rakoff on My Salinger Year~~~July 10: Rachel Barenbaum on Atomic AnnaJuly 12: Alix Ohlin on Dual CitizensJuly 14: Maya Shanbhag Lang on What We Carry~~~July 17: Kirthana Ramisetti on Advika and the Hollywood WivesJuly 19: EB Moore on Loose in the Bright FantasticJuly 21: Allegra Goodman on Sam~~~July 24: Kelly Ford on The HuntJuly 26: Alta Ifland on Speaking to No. 4July 28: Suzanne Berne on The Blue Window~~~July 31: Neema Avashia on Another Appalachia: Coming Up Queer and Indian in a Mountain PlaceAugust 2: Jessica Keener on Night SwimAugust 4: Hank Phillippi Ryan on The House Guest~~~August 7: Nancy Crochiere on GracelandAugust 9: Elizabeth Silver on The MajorityAugust 11: Alyssa Songsiridej on Little Rabbit~~~August 14: Sara Johnson Allen on Down Here We Come UpAugust 16: Julie Gerstenblatt on Daughters of NantucketAugust 18: Paul Rudnick on Farrell Covington and the Limits of Style~~~August 21: Rachel Kadish on The Weight of InkAugust 23: Angel Di Zhang on The Light of Eternal SpringAugust 25: Charlotte Rixon on The One That Got Away~~~August 28: Virginia Pye on The Literary Undoing of Victoria SwannAugust 30: Isa Arsén on Shoot the MoonSeptember 1: Shilpi Suneja on House of CaravansSeptember 4: David Heska Wanbli Weiden on Winter Counts This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 7amnovelist.substack.com

Today our guests discuss why they consider themselves “plotters,” how they go about plotting their books, how they try to keep it loose and easy and discover new material and insight as they go, and methods for making the process visual and physical.Anjali Mitter DuvaAnjali Mitter Duva is an Indian American writer, editor, and dancer who was raised in France. She is he author of FAINT PROMISE OF RAIN, an historical novel set in 16th century India and shortlisted for a William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. Anjali has been a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship finalist, and is an instructor at Grub Street. She co-founded the Arlington Author Salon, a quarterly literary reading series, and serves as Fiction Co-Editor for Solstice Literary Magazine. She is also a longtime student of kathak, the classical storytelling dance featured in her books, and is the co-founder and former executive director of a non-profit organization dedicated to this art form. Virginia PyeVirginia Pye's story collection Shelf Life of Happiness won the 2019 IPPY Gold Medal for Short Fiction and her two historical novels set in China, Dreams of the Red Phoenix and River of Dust, also received literary awards. She is Fiction Editor of Pangyrus and a board member of the Women's National Book Association, Boston Chapter. She has taught writing at NYU, UPenn, and GrubStreet. Virginia is the mother of two grown children and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts with her husband and their miniature poodle, Honey. She has a new novel coming out in 2023, tentatively titled The Book Lovers, from Regal House.Other mentions:Scrivener, the manuscript planning softwareAnd Lisa Cron's Story Genius This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 7amnovelist.substack.com

Charlie talks with award-winning author Virginia Pye about her newest collection of short stories Shelf Life of Happiness. They delve into the nature of short stories and of storytelling, inhabiting characters across differences, setting as character, and even how the weather can effect the mood of a story. If you've ever tried to write a short story, you'll want to listen in!

Of the brutal conflicts that characterized the twentieth century, none equaled in scale the catastrophe that struck China when the Japanese occupied the northern part of the country just as the Civil War was picking up steam. According to some estimates, 22.5 million people died in these twin acts of destruction. Dreams of the Red Phoenix (Unbridled Books, 2015)  takes place during a few weeks in the summer of 1937, as seen from the perspective of North American missionaries who only think they understand the local culture and their place in it. Sheila Carson–mourning the recent death of her husband, the Reverend Caleb–can hardly bring herself to get up in the morning, let alone supervise work around her house or rein in her teenaged son, Charles, who soon causes trouble for himself and his mother by taunting the Japanese soldiers who patrol the area. But when attacks on the civilian population send a stream of wounded and hungry people into the mission looking for aid, Shirley, one of the few trained nurses in the compound, is pulled into service, her house turned into a clinic. The mission’s protected status, based on U.S. neutrality in these years before World War II, falls under threat when the Japanese army suspects that the refugees include Nationalist and Communist soldiers, and Shirley must decide whether to leave with her fellow Americans or stay and help the charismatic Communist general whose philosophy appeals to her idealistic nature. Her memories of her husband, her responsibilities as a mother, and her own sense of right and purpose are pushing Shirley in different directions even before outside forces intervene to complicate her path. As in her earlier novel, River of Dust, Virginia Pye here takes stories of her own ancestors–in this case, her grandmother and family friends–and weaves them into a vivid, evocative tapestry of love and loss, belonging and alienation, deception and truth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Of the brutal conflicts that characterized the twentieth century, none equaled in scale the catastrophe that struck China when the Japanese occupied the northern part of the country just as the Civil War was picking up steam. According to some estimates, 22.5 million people died in these twin acts of destruction. Dreams of the Red Phoenix (Unbridled Books, 2015)  takes place during a few weeks in the summer of 1937, as seen from the perspective of North American missionaries who only think they understand the local culture and their place in it. Sheila Carson–mourning the recent death of her husband, the Reverend Caleb–can hardly bring herself to get up in the morning, let alone supervise work around her house or rein in her teenaged son, Charles, who soon causes trouble for himself and his mother by taunting the Japanese soldiers who patrol the area. But when attacks on the civilian population send a stream of wounded and hungry people into the mission looking for aid, Shirley, one of the few trained nurses in the compound, is pulled into service, her house turned into a clinic. The mission’s protected status, based on U.S. neutrality in these years before World War II, falls under threat when the Japanese army suspects that the refugees include Nationalist and Communist soldiers, and Shirley must decide whether to leave with her fellow Americans or stay and help the charismatic Communist general whose philosophy appeals to her idealistic nature. Her memories of her husband, her responsibilities as a mother, and her own sense of right and purpose are pushing Shirley in different directions even before outside forces intervene to complicate her path. As in her earlier novel, River of Dust, Virginia Pye here takes stories of her own ancestors–in this case, her grandmother and family friends–and weaves them into a vivid, evocative tapestry of love and loss, belonging and alienation, deception and truth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Few possibilities terrify parents more than the kidnapping of a child. Guilt, grief, helplessness, anger, and immobilizing fear mingle to create an emotional stew with a mix of ingredients that varies just enough from person to person to reveal the cracks in once-solid relationships, leaving individuals struggling alone–and often against each other. If the parents are, in addition, early twentieth-century missionaries in a great and ancient land hidden from them as much by their own cultural arrogance and misperceptions as by the unfamiliarity of the terrain, such a crisis raises additional questions: Has my God forsaken me? Have I sinned against Him? Is the husband I considered the master of my soul capable of guidance, or does he in fact require my assistance to find his way home? Virginia Pye in her luminous debut novel, River of Dust (Unbridled Books, 2013), explores these questions and more through the reactions of Grace Watson and her husband, the Reverend John Wesley Watson, to the abduction of their son by Mongolian nomads in northwest China in 1910. Grace and her husband are committed to their separate missions–he to converting the Chinese to Christianity, and she to supporting him. Yet the prejudices of their time and station bind them, even as their differing responses to the loss of Wesley drive them apart–until, in a dusty, drought-ridden land as barren as their lives have become, Grace finds the courage to change. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Few possibilities terrify parents more than the kidnapping of a child. Guilt, grief, helplessness, anger, and immobilizing fear mingle to create an emotional stew with a mix of ingredients that varies just enough from person to person to reveal the cracks in once-solid relationships, leaving individuals struggling alone–and often against each other. If the parents are, in addition, early twentieth-century missionaries in a great and ancient land hidden from them as much by their own cultural arrogance and misperceptions as by the unfamiliarity of the terrain, such a crisis raises additional questions: Has my God forsaken me? Have I sinned against Him? Is the husband I considered the master of my soul capable of guidance, or does he in fact require my assistance to find his way home? Virginia Pye in her luminous debut novel, River of Dust (Unbridled Books, 2013), explores these questions and more through the reactions of Grace Watson and her husband, the Reverend John Wesley Watson, to the abduction of their son by Mongolian nomads in northwest China in 1910. Grace and her husband are committed to their separate missions–he to converting the Chinese to Christianity, and she to supporting him. Yet the prejudices of their time and station bind them, even as their differing responses to the loss of Wesley drive them apart–until, in a dusty, drought-ridden land as barren as their lives have become, Grace finds the courage to change. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices