Posts Tagged ‘fiction’

Book Passage and The Italian Letters

Monday, January 5th, 2015

Welcome to the New Year, which I welcome with optimism and anticipation.
This coming Thursday, January 8, I will be speaking about The Italian Letters at the extraordinary Book Passage in Corte Madera. I’m delighted by positive feedback about this novel, the sequel to the award-winning The Cairo Codex.

This year will also host the release of the third novel in the Justine Trilogy, A Rapture of Ravens: Awakening in Taos. The world release will be in Taos, New Mexico, in June, 2015.

My resolution…to read and write good novels!

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Book Tour, creativity, Etruscans, Fiction, Italian Letters, Italy, Taos, trilogy, writing | No Comments » | Leave a Comment

Pre-order The Italian Letters!

Friday, September 19th, 2014

The Italian Letters by Linda Lambert

The Italian Letters by Linda Lambert

At your local bookstore or Amazon.

Release date: October 14, 2014.

The Italian Letters is the second in the Justine Trilogy.

 

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Fiction, history, Italy, Travel, trilogy, writing | No Comments » | Leave a Comment

If You’ve Read Etruscan Evenings…

Friday, September 12th, 2014

You need to know that the forthcoming The Italian Letters (October 14 release) is the second edition of Etruscan Evenings. What does that mean? It means that the second edition is a suspense novel, much more so than the first. It alters the characters, the tensions, the events, yet is true to the plot. Such an undertaking is very challenging. I’ve done second editions on textbooks before, but in fiction it means something entirely different. In this case, it meant that the novel shifted genres. Perhaps that’s a new concept, not sure: “SHIFTING GENRES.”  Here is some of what it entails:

• an analysis of the first edition to identify aspects in the current genre

• deciding on the desired genre and what forces will drive it

• discovering the elements that would shift the genre to suspense, in this case (e.g. Justine is more proactive; characters are more edgy; occurrences are more sinister; elements are more entangled, each competing with others; motivations are more complex, delving into the psychological dysfunctions of characters; pace is accelerated.

• shifting genres is intellectually challenging–which I enjoy–in that it is essential to hold a gestalt of the novel in your head and play with the pieces holistically.

Questions about these practices?

 

 

 

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in creativity, Fiction, imagination, shifting genres, trilogy, writing | No Comments » | Leave a Comment

The Cairo Codex wins 3 awards

Wednesday, May 7th, 2014

The Cairo Codex, has now won three prestigious 2014 awards: the Silver Nautilus Award for fiction, the Bronze International Independent Publishers Award for historical fiction, and was a finalist in the USA Best Books Award competition.  The Cairo Codex, a riveting novel of suspense, politics, religion, and romance is set in Egypt during the years 2 and 2007. Anthropologist Justine Jenner discovers the diary of Mary of Nazareth, the mother of Jesus, in an ancient crypt during a major earthquake. She barely survives with the codex and her life, both threatened by the Muslim Brotherhood.

I became enthralled with Egypt as a young girl when my mother enchanted me with tales of her own alleged reincarnation from Egyptian royalty. In 1989, I became a State Department Envoy to Egypt and began two decades of exploration of its culture. I’ve  written several internationally-recognized books in the field of leadership, none as fun as fiction! Before fiction, I was an administrator, history instructor, international consultant, and am professor emeritus at California State University, East Bay.

 The second novel in The Justine Trilogy, The Italian Letters, will be released this fall (I know, I know, I said July!) and the third novel, A Rapture of Ravens, in early 2015.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in creativity, Education, Egypt, Fiction, history, imagination, Leadership, Nautilus Award, trilogy, writing | No Comments » | Leave a Comment

The Nautilus Award–What is it? Why Nautilus?

Sunday, April 27th, 2014

This week our grandson, Jered, was quick to suggest the origin of the Nautilus Award. Of course, I realized.  Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea tells the story of Captain Nemo and his submarine, the Nautilus. Verne is revered for his imagination, innovation, creativity.

My historical novel, The Cairo Codex, won a 2014 Silver Nautilus Award for Fiction. The awards will be announced on May 1. The awards represent “Better Books for a Better World.” Now in its 15th year, this unique book award program seeks, honors, awards, and promotes print books that inspire and connect our lives as individuals, communities and global citizens.
 
Dedicated to excellence and the highest literary standards, the Nautilus Awards seek and promote well-written and -produced books with messages about caring for, understanding, and improving every aspect of our lives and relationships.
 

I’m proud to be a member of the Nautilus family!

 

Tags: ,
Posted in creativity, Family, Fiction, history, imagination, Nautilus Award, writing | No Comments » | Leave a Comment

Writing the Novel: Fiction versus Non-Fiction

Monday, December 30th, 2013

Post Dec. 28

The story of the two Kents (Haruf and Nelson) in my last post represented two ends of the cognition spectrum: stories that spring organically from experience…and stories that present themselves in a more systematic way. The common ingredient: imagination and fine writing.

Imagination is still the driving force, regardless of how we bring it to life. Because I had written non-fiction texts in leadership before turning to the novel genre, I brought along many strategies that serve me well in my former life.  Many of those strategies got in the way!! They had to be discarded, often painfully.

In non-fiction, a writer leads the reader down a primrose path to understanding, bridging and looping ideas, repeating key points, closing arguments—all in service of thorough understanding.

But what about: Surprise? Puzzlement? Tension? Not if you can help it.My first draft of a novel read like a graduate thesis.  But surely some practices served me well in fiction as well as non-fiction…what were they?

1)   The discipline of writing—writing every day.

2)   Tenacity—staying with the project until it is done.

3)   Getting the ideas and story down quickly, revising later.

4)   Not personalizing critique from self and others.

5)   Rewriting, then rewriting again.

Next…New Habits for Writing a Novel

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Fiction, imagination, non-fiction, trilogy, writing | No Comments » | Leave a Comment