Browsing Tag

Maryanne O’Hara

CASCADE GENERAL WRITING Life

PUBLICATION DAY POSTCARD

August 16, 2012

Wow, so it’s publication day. WOW! Today I do an interview for Boston Public Radio, WBUR Radio Boston with Anthony Brooks, then I’m going to go do my volunteering at the Brigham so I don’t have to obsess about me, me, me.

I want to thank everyone who has been so supportive: everyone who pre-ordered the book, who will come to events, who will spread the word, and who will write nice Amazon and Goodreads reviews before the cranky, mean, crackpots do.

I feel so fortunate and grateful today. Writing a book is lonely and an act of faith, and the response I’ve had from so many of you has made me extremely happy to be a creative human being alive on this lovely and magical earth we all inhabit.

And for anyone who is doing that uncertain thing—writing a novel with no real knowledge that anyone will ever read it—let me tell you: there is NOTHING BETTER than hearing this song while you are in New York meeting your publisher. So keep at it. xxx

CASCADE

THE BEAUTY OF BOOKPLATES

July 23, 2012

IF I CAN’T SIGN YOUR BOOK IN PERSON…….I can sign and send you one of these: the beautiful bookplate my brother, the ever talented Michael Bavaro, designed for me. Postcards play a part in Cascade, so a postcard bookplate was the perfect design choice.

Ex-libris means “from the books,” a loose identification of a book as belonging to an individual’s collection. To see some more beautiful bookplates, check out The Stanford University Libraries–Bookplate Exhibit. A little history from their site: “The earliest known use of bookplates took place in fifteenth-century Germany. The Latin phrase “ex libris” was common in early bookplates, which typically featured monochromatic shields of arms of the individual or institutional owners and sometimes contained warnings of the fate that would befall book thieves.”

Another bookplate I’ve admired since I was a child is the Rockwell Kent bookplate my uncle used for his Arctic collection of books. Rockwell Kent also designed the Viking Press logo. Synchronicity! It was a bit startling, like finding a piece of the past, to discover that the correspondence between Uncle Pete and Rockwell Kent is archived at the Archives of American Art.

I ordered my bookplates from www.bookplateink.com. In addition to doing custom work like mine, they have a gorgeous selection of existing designs that they can customize with your name. Hard to choose!

TRAVEL

“NOW IT IS MY DAUGHTER’S TURN”

March 21, 2012

We’ve been working on a short trailer for Cascade, and now I watch all short films with a keener eye, newly appreciative of just how much labor and art is involved in visual production.

This brief piece, via Sundance Digital Shorts, about George Whitman’s daughter Sylvia, who has taken over his Shakespeare & Company bookshop in Paris, is lovely, magical: Sylvia Whitman, Shakespeare & Company, Paris

And their website: ShakespeareAndCompany