Posts by Robin Wood | Books & Books

All posts by Robin Wood

Wild Land – Peter & Beverly Pickford

December 12, 2018

Spanning seven continents, Wild Land showcases a unique journey to document and protect the last untouched expanses of wilderness. In more than two hundred awe-inspiring images, renowned wildlife photographers Peter and Beverly Pickford portray the epic visual story of some of the most remote and pristine places on the planet, from Africa’s savannahs to Tibet’s highest peaks, Alaska’s expansive system of rivers and lakes, to the Antarctic Ocean.

This book about wild land and wildlife is also the fascinating tale of the Pickford’s own adventures once they chose to devote their lives to the search for untouched wilderness areas. And most of all, this unique book also expresses the timely and urgent message to protect wilderness areas for future generations and for the future of our planet.

Santa Bruce – Ryan T. Higgins

December 12, 2018

by Robin Wood

Bruce is a lot of things. He is a bear. He is a grump. He is a pretty decent cook. And he is a mother.

One thing Bruce is not?

Santa Claus.

But that doesn’t stop the whole forest from lining up to give him their Christmas wishes when he becomes the victim of mistaken identity-again.

Kids will howl with laughter as award-winning author-illustrator Ryan T. Higgins delivers another hilarious story about this bear who just can’t catch a break.

Meet the Latkes – Alan Silberberg

December 12, 2018

by Robin Wood

Imagine James Marshall’s The Stupids celebrating Hanukkah, and you’d get the Latke family!

Lucy Latke’s family is just like yours or mine. Except that they’re potato pancakes. And also, they are completely clueless. After lighting the menorah and gobbling the gelt, Grandpa Latke tells everyone the Hanukkah story, complete with mighty Mega Bees who use a giant dreidel to fight against the evil alien potatoes from Planet Chhh. It’s up to the Latke family dog to set the record straight. (To start with, they were Maccabees, not Mega Bees…) But he’ll have to get the rest of the Latkes to listen to him first!

Meet Andrew Simonet, TSKW Artist in Residence, author of Wilder

December 6, 2018

by Robin Wood

Andrew Simonet, author of debut young adult novel Wilder and current Artist-in-Residence at The Studios of Key West will give a talk Tuesday, December 11, at 6 pm at the store. The presentation “13 Thoughts on Writing and Fighting,” is geared towards teens and adults and will include excerpts from Wilder, stories from Andrew’s life, and reflections on masculinity and violence.

Andrew draws from a wide range of professional and artistic experiences from his work as a writer, choreographer, teacher, documentarian and artist advocate. We recently sat down to talk about writing process and the importance of artists having the skills, knowledge and community to build sustainable lives.

One of Andrew’s projects, Artists U, is a collaborative professional development workshop for and by artists designed to equip them with the tools for the business side of managing an artistic life, including financial and strategic planning. Andrew has written a book called Making Your Life as an Artist and, as part of his Studios residency, is teaching a workshop called “Building a Sustainable Life as an Artist.”

He has had a multifaceted career, running a dance company, teaching high school, building Artists U, and now publishing a YA novel. I asked him how all the pieces fit together and how he ended up following this particular path.

“I started dancing when I was 19 and it changed my life,” Andrew says. He’d always participated in theater and sports. “For me, dance has the physical movement and energy of sports combined with the creativity and artistic expression of theater.”

About 14 years ago, as Andrew was serving as choreographer for his dance company, Headlong Dance Theater, the desire to write “just showed up.” Writing, he says, is very different from the collaborative, social process of dance, but creatively the process felt seamless.

Since leaving the dance company to focus on fiction writing, Andrew has participated in a number of residencies, enjoying the opportunity to meet different artists and experience different communities. He thought spending time in Key West would have the added benefit of helping him flesh out the setting he planned for a follow-up to Wilder, but things didn’t work out quite as expected.

Though he completed the sequel, it didn’t get picked up by his publisher. That’s one of the things you have to know and accept about publishing, he says, “there are a lot of gatekeepers.” Knowing how to deal with rejection and move on to the next project is one of those key skills in building a sustainable life as an artist. “There is value in doing the work. [That project] made me a better writer,” Andrew says.

~ Robin Wood, Associate Manager

A Q&A with Rosalind Brackenbury, author of The Lost Love Letters of Henri Fournier

December 6, 2018

by Robin Wood

If you’ve been keeping up with novelist, poet and short story writer, Rosalind Brackenbury, you might know that she was literary editor at Key West newspaper Solares Hill, and you might know she was Key West’s second Poet Laureate (2014-15), but you probably don’t know that her first job locally was as a deck hand on the Schooner Wolf.

She’s didn’t talk much about her deck hand days, when she and Jessica Argyle, author of No Name Key, got together Dec. 18 2018 to discuss Roz’s new novel The Lost Love Letters of Henri Fournier. But she did answer a few questions for us, including talking about the real-life letters that inspired her new book.

Q: What was the genesis of The Lost Love Letters of Henri Fournier?

A: The Lost Love Letters had its genesis in my finding in a rural used book store in France, a copy of Fournier’s embryo second novel as put together by some Italian academics in a sort of proof-style format.

I’d always loved Le Grand Meaulnes (The Lost Domain) and this got me excited – I hadn’t known he was writing another when he went to war. Reading about him brought me to Pauline Benda, his lover from 1912-1914. A French writer friend sent me in Key West an enormous package of books and photo-copied letters and excerpts of writing by and about Pauline. I read, translated, starting thinking about a novel.

It was far the most difficult one I’ve ever written.

The second “layer” – Seb interviewing the old Pauline – came next, as yes, I am fascinated by old age these days! Then a reader in London suggested a third ‘layer’ with Seb in the present. He was a woman at first, but then I wanted the challenge of a male protagonist. And so on, for years…

What fascinates me about juxtaposing history and contemporary stories is the idea that we do all face very similar challenges in life, when it comes down to it – but deal with them in different ways, because of the times we live in. I’m hooked on writing about war and its aftermath, having been born in the middle of one – but this time it’s World War I. I’m a historian by training but a novelist by choice – a sort of hybrid, I suppose.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I’ve just finished a lot of edits on a novel coming out next July, called Without Her. Also edits of a poetry collection Invisible Horses, due out in May. So – looking forward to writing rather than editing!

Q: Where are you when not in Key West?

A: I spent most of the summer months in France and/or England and Scotland. Paris, because it’s great for writing and I’ve always loved it. England, Scotland, because my family and old friends are there. I love Key West for winter weather – yes, becoming a snowbird – and so many friends, and our house here in Old Town that my husband has worked endlessly on, and the ocean – and it’s now my “home port.”

Q: How did you end up in Key West?

A: I went to a poetry reading on Caroline Street 25 years ago, met a man – the rest is history.

~ Robin Wood, Associate Manager

Queen of Air and Darkness – Cassandra Clare

December 4, 2018

by Robin Wood

All first editions will include exclusive reverse-printed jacket art, ten black and white interior illustrations, and a new short story!

Dark secrets and forbidden love threaten the very survival of the Shadowhunters in Cassandra Clare’s Queen of Air and Darkness, the final novel in the #1 New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling The Dark Artifices trilogy. Queen of Air and Darkness is a Shadowhunters novel.

What if damnation is the price of true love?

Innocent blood has been spilled on the steps of the Council Hall, the sacred stronghold of the Shadowhunters. In the wake of the tragic death of Livia Blackthorn, the Clave teeters on the brink of civil war. One fragment of the Blackthorn family flees to Los Angeles, seeking to discover the source of the disease that is destroying the race of warlocks. Meanwhile, Julian and Emma take desperate measures to put their forbidden love aside and undertake a perilous mission to Faerie to retrieve the Black Volume of the Dead. What they find in the Courts is a secret that may tear the Shadow World asunder and open a dark path into a future they could never have imagined. Caught in a race against time, Emma and Julian must save the world of Shadowhunters before the deadly power of the parabatai curse destroys them and everyone they love.

The Dakota Winters – Tom Barbash

December 4, 2018

by Robin Wood

“In The Dakota Winters, Barbash delivers a sweeping family saga that transports readers to the New York City of the late ’70s and early ’80s, to Central Park, The Village, the restaurant and club scenes, from The Beatles to The Flying Lizards to your average dysfunctional family living at the Dakota — the Winters. The story follows two conflicting arcs: that of fading father and late-night host Buddy Winter and that of his emerging 23-year-old son Anton. I loved Barbash’s first novel, The Last Good Time, and The Dakota Winters does not disappoint. You’ll want to savor every sentence of this powerful chronicle of the times!”
— Bill Reilly, The River’s End Bookstore, Oswego, NY

An evocative and wildly absorbing novel about the Winters, a family living in New York City’s famed Dakota apartment building in the year leading up to John Lennon’s assassination

It’s the fall of 1979 in New York City when twenty-three-year-old Anton Winter, back from the Peace Corps and on the mend from a nasty bout of malaria, returns to his childhood home in the Dakota. Anton’s father, the famous late-night host Buddy Winter, is there to greet him, himself recovering from a breakdown. Before long, Anton is swept up in an effort to reignite Buddy’s stalled career, a mission that takes him from the gritty streets of New York, to the slopes of the Lake Placid Olympics, to the Hollywood Hills, to the blue waters of the Bermuda Triangle, and brings him into close quarters with the likes of Johnny Carson, Ted and Joan Kennedy, and a seagoing John Lennon.

But the more Anton finds himself enmeshed in his father’s professional and spiritual reinvention, the more he questions his own path, and fissures in the Winter family begin to threaten their close bond. By turns hilarious and poignant, The Dakota Winters is a family saga, a page-turning social novel, and a tale of a critical moment in the history of New York City and the country at large.

You Are a Badass Every Day – Jen Sincero

December 4, 2018

by Robin Wood

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author, pocket-size inspiration and guidance to keep your transformation on track—the perfect gift for the holiday season

For anyone who has ever had trouble staying motivated while trailblazing towards badassery, You Are a Badass Every Day is the companion to keep you fresh, grateful, mighty, and driven. In one hundred exercises, reflections, and cues that you can use to immediately realign your mind and keep your focus unwavering, this guide will show you how to keep the breakthroughs catalyzed by Sincero’s iconic books You Are a Badass and You Are a Badass at Making Money going. Owning your power to ascend to badassery is just the first step in creating the life you deserve—You Are A Badass Every Day is the accountability buddy you can keep in your back pocket to power through obstacles, overcome the doubts that hold you back from greatness, and keep the fires of determination roaring while you reach your goals.

Wishing our customers, donors, volunteers, neighbors & friends, a joyful holiday season and happy 2019!