When I first started to pull together my notes for The Birth House, I often referred to it as my "scrapbook novel". Journal entries, letters, bits of local folklore, clippings from newspapers and women's literature were tacked all over the walls of my studio. My desk was littered with old photographs and dusty books on science and sex in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
This scrapbook page (looking more beautiful and enticing than the top of my desk ever does) is meant to give you a glimpse into the journey behind my writing. To me, it reflects the way so many of us go through our days...collecting bits of information and ephemera, secreting away the best and most revealing parts of ourselves between the pages of notebooks or the bottom of a shoebox.
October 2006 - The Birth House scrapbook now includes essays and features on The Conception of the Novel, The Occasional Knitters Society, and The Halifax Explosion. Roll over the scrapbook to find the hidden cards, and then click on them to read more about the true stories and place that inspired novel. (And watch for more entries in the months to come!)
(If you'd like to be informed of new scrapbook entries, readings, announcements and more: Sign up for my newsletter, Incidentally. Your email won't be given to anyone else, I promise!)
