All about Hemingway
To all readers! There is a give away of 10 copies of my first book (Tell Me When It Hurts) on GoodReads. The main character is a Hemingway aficionado so you may enjoy the novel–a romantic suspense–for that reason as well as for the book itself.
Try this link to “apply.” Hope you will. The book is listed on Amazon if you want to see reviews. Good luck! Best, Christine
https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/187182
The below book is the one I hopped over to work on my book called Hemingway’s Daughter. I love it though and it is featured on Kindle scout. If you are able, could you please nominate it. Then Hemingway’s Daughter will come out sooner. THANK YOU!
Hello my friends and readers:
My second book, The Rage of Plum Blossoms, is being submitted to Kindle Scout for possible selection for publication by their private publisher. You don’t have to have read it as it is not yet published (5000 words are displayed though) but it does need your support to be noticed by the Kindle Scout team. A quick summation:
Attorney Quinn Jones is in over her head. Her husband, Jordan Chang, Annapolis grad and superstar businessman, has been found dead outside their Greenwich Village brownstone. He’s wearing clothes that aren’t his, and was last seen at a place he never went, while consorting with people he shouldn’t. Since NYPD has labeled Jordan’s death a suicide, Quinn is on her own to uncover the truth. Courtrooms, Quinn knows. Chanel No. 5, horses, frizzy hair, and martial arts, she knows. Murder, she doesn’t know but she’s learning fast in order to stay alive. With a few clues to work with, including a photo of Jordan with a stunning unknown Asian woman and a copy of a 1986 check payable to Jordan for twelve million dollars, Quinn stalks the back streets of Chinatown, haunted by the need to know what happened that day and why. And then there’s the daughter Jordan forgot to mention.
May I trouble you to nominate my book for review by the Kindle board for consideration? I would appreciate it greatly.
https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/3W06FFVKSJ4LG
With warmest and sincerest thanks, Christine
News in the Hemingway World
1. The 2016 winner of the Pen/Hemingway Award is a young woman name Ottessa Moshfegh. Ms Moshfegh was raised in Newton, MA is being honored for her first novel, “Eileen.” Patrick Hemingway, the son of Ernest Hemingway, presented the award on April 10th in Boston. A $25,000 prize was also awarded to the winner.
2. The Movie “Genius” is coming out with Colin Firth as Hemingway’s Editor Max Perkins. So far the feedback is mixed. The previewers were concerned that the movie lacked passion. If that is the case, I am sorry to hear it. The Perkins/Hemingway relationship is peripheral in the movie. The focus is on Max Perkins’ relationship with Tom Wolfe played by Jude Law. The movie is based on A. Scott Berg’s biography of Perkins.
3. Caterpillar, the maker of tractors and construction equipment, has donated $500,000 to preserve Hemingway’s home in Cuba. The donation was made for the restoration and preservation of documents and artifacts from the home of writer Ernest Hemingway. It will also be used for the construction of the workshop building which will house a laboratory with archived storage facilities near the Hemingway Museum in Havana. Today, the house turned museum preserves a collection of personal objects and documents including books, hunting trophies, guns, letters, photos, a typewriter on which he tended to write standing up, and the yacht Lel Pilar on which he went fishing and sailed around the Caribbean.
Photos of Hemingway’s retreat on Lake Walloon in Northern Michigan. He and Hadley honeymooned there as well.
I just viewed the trailer and it looks good to me. It echoes Hemingway’s relationship with his great friend, Aaron Hotchner, although this relationship started later in life. Hemingway, for all of his flaws, often was welcoming to young writers and willing to share his personal time and experiences generously.
Please take a look if you have time. Best, Christine
Hemingway often took younger women under his wing and wanted them around. Sometimes it was intellectually stimulating. Sometimes there was an attraction. Sometimes they amused him. Sometimes he just liked them. He had many women as friends: Marlene Dietrich, Slim Hawkes, Ava Gardner, Lauren Bacall. He was infatuated with many: Adriana Ivancich is of great note.
Valerie Danby-Smith was initially providing secretarial services to Hemingway. She was part of the entourage of his trip to Spain in 1959 and by the end of the trip, Hemingway wanted her to continue on. Was he romantically attracted? Probably. Valerie asserts that he begged her to continue on to Cuba as he needed her with him. She was 19 at the time; he was 59.. I also think he simply liked her cheerful ways and good nature.
She has written a book about her time with him and is now leading tours in Paris to the old Hemingway haunts. .
Did I mention that she married Hemingway’s son, Gregory? Yes, she did. They met through the Hemingway connection and had four children together. and while their marriage ended in divorce, she appears to have maintained a good relationship with Gregory until his death. She wrote “Running with the Bulls” about her time with Hemingway. 
I have had two other posts on the letters so don’t want to over do it. Still, I can’t overemphasize the value in reading a bit about it to know Hemingway personally. This article summarizes why you should read some of them. They are funny, vulnerable, disclosing. Again, He specifically did not want them published. Those were his explicit instructions. Mary Hemingway, controller of his estate legally, went against that mandate. I don’t like that but I have to admit to loving his letters and what they reveal. Read and enjoy. Best, Christine
More of Hemingway’s letters are being published and they are so revealing and fun. For example, Hemingway is known as being a bit of a bully to his wives yet some of the letters show great sensitivities to Martha Gellhorn and admiration and support for her career as a writer. Please take a look when you have time.
Best, Christine
Now, who should play the great parts that Hem has provided for us? My selections in bold:
The Sun Also Rises: (1957)
A Farewell to Arms: (1932)
A Farewell to Arms (1957)
A Farewell to Arms (In Love and War) (1996)
For Whom the Bell Tolls: (1943)
The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952)
The Old Man and the Sea ( 1958)
SO HOW DID I DO?
This is an interesting article in praise of “purple prose,” the opposite of minimalist prose favored by Hemingway. It does not pan that prose but argues that there is a place for “more.” nice commentary. Best, Christine
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