text:
Hello, and welcome to Book Club Girl on Air, an online radio show that brings readers together with their favorite authors. I'm Jennifer Hart, founder of bookclubgirl.com, a blog dedicated to sharing great books, news and tips with book club girls and guys everywhere. Tonight, I'm so excited to welcome the New York Times best selling author of the Maisie Dobbs series, Jacqueline Winspear, to the show. Welcome, Jacqueline!
Hello, there.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Well, it's my pleasure. I'm glad I got through. I thought I wasn't going to be able to get through to you.
We're very glad that you're here as well. Jacqueline Winspear began her acclaimed Maisie Dobbs series in 2003 with the publication of the first book titled simply Maisie Dobbs. In that book, she introduced readers to 13-year-old Maisie who has been sent into service in the home of Lord and Lady Compton following the death of her mother. An inquisitive and bright young girl, Maisie sneaks off to the house's library nightly to read and learn. When she is discovered there very late one night, she fears immediate dismissal but instead is taken under Lady Compton's wing and set on a path to get her education. When World War I breaks out, she leaved college to become a nurse overseas but she completes her education upon her return. In addition to a formal college education, Maisie is also the apprentice of one Maurice Blanche, a man with a mysterious past who, among other things, solves crimes. As the first novel opens, Maisie is setting up her own shop as psychologist and investigator. Throughout the subsequent seven novels, Maisie investigates crimes but find the root in a lingering effect that World War I has had on the people of England. The series is absolutely wonderful and in addition to the fascinating cases with which Maisie is presented, we learn much about England during the two World Wars and indeed the world itself as it teeters precariously and what is really a fairly short-lived time of peace. As some listeners may know, since January, many of us have embarked together on a Maisie Dobbs Read-Along, reading each book in the series together, one every two weeks. Yesterday, we completed the 8th book in the series which was recently released, A Lesson in Secrets. So, we're thrilled to have Jacqueline here today to talk to us about this series that we've really lived inside so intensely over the past four months. Jacqueline, can you tell us a bit about your initial inspiration for Maisie Dobbs and did you always envision that it would become a series?
Well, the first -- this on to the first part, you know, I didn't set out to write a novel. I wasn't one of these writers that was planning to write a novel sitting there developing characters or whatever. I was actually was having a day job, a writer of non-fiction, but what actually happened I was on my way to work one morning and literally while stuck at stop light in very bad weather and very bad traffic; literally in my mind's eye, the character of Maisie Dobbs walked into my life. I mean, it was sort of like watching a movie. And, you know, and literally, she came up through Warren Street station in London out through the Turnstile, she's got to talk to a newspaper vendor called Jack Barker. She walked down the street, Warren Street, she opened an envelope and inside were a couple of keys and she went into an office and you read the first chapter of the first book, you know where that comes from. And it was extraordinary experience because by the time I got to work, I sort of had the whole story in my head and I since come to refer to that moment as a moment of artistic grace because I can't think of no better phrase to describe it. But having said that, I don't believe those moments in life happen in a vacuum, and certainly for me, I've always had an interest in the years of another integrated war between the war years. And very much those of the people of that era and the cheeky the women who came of age during that time, the women of that World War I generation, and so when I sat down to write with the book that was in my head.
And it was -- I would say around about halfway through, I thought I might have a series because ideas, scenes, conversations were coming to me that I knew were not part of Maisie Dobbs, I knew they were part of something else. And by the time I have finished Maisie Dobbs, I actually had the bare bones ideas I would say for about another five novels in my head.
Oh, that's so interesting.
You know, it was an extraordinary time for me and actually I have to confess at times it looks scary because it's almost like being a sales by characters and their lives.
It's so interesting that you say that because Julie who's one of the bloggers who was along for the whole Read-Along, she just wrote in to say, to ask if you knew the plot to the future books as you were writing it, and if so, how far out did you know? So, it's so interesting to hear that you really were inspired and had all these ideas for so many novels going forward.
Yes. I mean, sometimes when I say bare bones ideas, it was just a conversation or an image that came to mind and then I'm making notes of it. And then when I finished Maisie Dobbs, I took a long look at my notes that I've made, and I'm talking about no more than a page or so of notes, and I started thinking well, that paragraph there which describes a certain thing I don't think that has anything to do with the one in front. So, maybe that's a different book and the characters were just coming together in different ways. So, having sat down and gone through that process as thinking about, my train of thought if you will during that period of time, I was able to write this as sort of a one paragraph on each of the next five books, and this is what it's about. And then I would make -- as time went on, I would make additional notes, and I do that even now when writing and a scene comes to me that I think, "You know, that doesn't belong here" but I'm not going to ignore it. I'm going to put it to one side so I can come back to it and I'll find out where it fits.
So, yeah. So, yes I did. I wouldn't say -- I wasn't like J.K. Rowling on the bus from train from London to Edinburgh suddenly four Harry Potter's came to her, there weren't four books but I would say I had the bare bones ideas.
I'm open to a book number six.
Right. Michelle has written in to ask, were there really psychologists/investigators at this time in the UK?
They're almost definitely psychologists, and in fact, elements of psychology were being brought into investigation at that time. But I don't know if there's someone exactly like Maisie, although certainly in about 1929, the Metropolitan Police started hiring their first women detectives under the I would say the leadership of Dorothy Bishop, but if you remember also that during the early years of the last century, modern psychotherapy as we know it within its infancy. Young had written his doctoral thesis in 1904 and Floyd and Young were having their conversation and that was sauntering down to people who were working, one of them working with a shell shop in the Great War and putting a lot of those theories to the test because before that you would have psychiatrist and very much people would call neurologist and so on. But there was suddenly this new idea, the new ideas of this new -- I would say thesis of the psyche, interesting enough, which we interpreted being the psychology of the mind, but in fact, when Floyd's work is translated properly, it's actually __8:11__. So, to Michelle's question, yes, there is certainly -- there were elements of psychology being brought into the investigative process during the early years of the last century.
In each book the war and the effect that had on everyone involved is that the root of nearly every crime. Can you talk a little bit about how the war affected England in particular and how you research those sections of the book -- of your books?
Well, in terms of how the war affected Britain, and it's not only Britain, I would say it's also Britain and her colonies, and we're talking Canada, Australia and New Zealand, I mean Australia and New Zealand had just had __8:54__ day which is an event where they look back at the terrible loss they've suffered in one of the greatest defeats of the first war were __9:04__. But exactly in Britain, I would say it was a terrible shock to the nation and to people. To give you an example and for me it always comes down to what was it like for ordinary people. I remember reading one account, and this was something that I read just in magazine, a local magazine that's published. My parents live in quite a rural area, one of the local rags so to speak. And it was recounted from the diary of someone who had passed away and he remembers his childhood during the Great War -- this is a few years ago that I got my hands on this -- and he said that there was a certain day, everyday when the postman came. He said you would see the neighbors all running in and out of each others houses saying, "Who have we lost? Who have we lost? Who is gone?" And you see, it wasn't just that in a street that you lost maybe your own son who was killed, but you lost all boys that you had played with as a kid. Even in some of the tiniest villages, they lost you know maybe 100 boys and they were all lost on the same day because of the way they structure the regimens and that's a shock. That's a terrible collective shock. Britain lost 750,000 young men during the Great War and that's Britain without her colonies.
In addition, there was about 1.5 million who were severely wounded and about the official figure say 80,000 profoundly shell shocked. It was probably near 200,000 to 250,000 but you could argue that no one who goes to war comes back in the same line. And that has a huge impact on people on what you see in the streets. When I was a child -- and I was born in the mid 50s -- but when I was a child there was many ladies of a certain age who had never been married. They will miss this, miss that, miss the other, and the reason I have never married is because you know they were one of a generation of women for whom they're only had the one intention for getting married.
And that's what I look at. What does it come down to ordinary people? People like my dad who his father was a veteran of the Great War. He was shell shocked, gasp and he had severe leg wound. And for my father that meant a childhood where his father had to be taken away every now and again to the Coast because he couldn't breathe, because his lungs was so congested. A father around whom you had to be fairly quiet because a shell shocked meant he really couldn't stand loud noises. Even when I was a child, I was told you mustn't make noise are granddad.
Oh, wow.
So, can you imagine that in almost every home and people just bearing the weight of not only a war but the aftermath of war and that's I think one of the things that I consider and that is when we read history books or accounts, we say that, "Oh, this war lasted from 1914 to 1918," and we'll read for example, the first Gulf War started in 1991 and ended -- I can't remember exactly when it ended -- but there is fine nighttime. But in fact that's -- that's not how it goes because there's always veterans of wars. There's always families dealing with the aftermath of the war, and certainly in England after the Great War, that went on for years.
Right. Martha just wrote in to say that was the most heart-rending part of an incomplete revenge where the town lost so many boys in that novel and you really just -- we saw the devastation. And it was just unbelievable.
Yes. And you know I thought of that deeply when I was -- even as a child because every town, every local town, her own village, has its war memorial. And even a bank will have its own memorial to the people who died in the First and Second World Wars, people who were employees of the bank, or a factory, or post office or whatever. But I remember going to the war memorial which was in -- you could miss it, it was in the town so you saw the war memorial -- I'm looking at the names and seeing just the many, many names that were lost in the Great War and knowing also that many of them would have been killed on the same day because of the way they structure the regimen and you think of -- and also. in some cases, it was four or five boys from the same family. There's a whole notion of Saving Private Ryan. That's nothing new if you go to Britain and see almost in every city, every town and every little village that you can see that there are so many families lost all their boys and it's so sad.
And you can really understand how Priscilla is at times barely hanging on just at the mere thought of her brothers were gone and she looks at her sons and I mean whenever she gets on that state, I feel that we can so identify with that, that fear she is living with.
So, you're knowledge of the history of the war is so deep and broad. I've learned so much from the books, from the existence of the White Feather Brigade which I have never heard about to the plight of nurses during the war, the importance of cartographers and so many other things. I'm curious about whether or not you studied history at university or how much research you do into each of the novels.
I didn't study history at university. I reflect upon that and there are times when I think I wish I had. But...
I don't know how you could know more.
But you know, how much research do I do on each book? That's a very good question because what I have at my fingertips, I have a few what a base of knowledge. So, with each book, what I'm looking at a very specific aspects of the time and that might be to do with war and it might not be to do with war. So, let me give you an example for an incomplete, not incomplete revenge, let's say for __15:30__. I wanted to know some very specific things. I wanted to know about the army's intelligence core during the war. Now, that is quite separate from the Secret Intelligence Service. It was separate from Military Intelligence 5, Military Intelligence 6, the Naval Intelligence Service. The army has it 'sown Intelligence Core. I wanted to know more about that. I wanted to know more about the experience of airman at a certain point in the Great War. And also, I knew a bit about the phenomena sidekicks in the Great War and that really happened. Many people tend to have a little bit of British phenomenon that people often in difficult times will actually turn to the occult. Now, when I say the occult, I mean that which cannot be explained, the original meaning of the word 'occult', that which cannot be explained. And certainly in the Great War, there were lots of sidekicks, circle of sidekicks and medium who definitely may pay. So, the many people who wanted that one last conversation, one last touch with their son who had been killed and obviously, many were __16:50__. So, I want to find out more about that and so what I do at the absence of the book I know roughly.
Okay, there's a lot that I know about the basic history of the Great War. There is a lot great specifics, social history that I am very well aware of but then there's the specifics that I need to know more about and I go about finding out about it which maybe be in conversation with archives in different places for example, to find out more about the Intelligence Core, I turned to the historians that works in the Intelligence Core and there were some sort of going back and forth with them. And I find archives is incredibly helpful, people who work at libraries, everywhere from a drug company to the military. So often, my research now is building down in some real specifics and as you can imagine, I had to do that for the mapping of love and death, I mean the whole business of cartography which was fascinating.
Right. Yeah. It was so interesting to learn about that. Someone named Avid Bookreview has written in with the couple of questions. She wants to know, did care for the shell shocked after World War I developed in time to help that generation?
This is a very good question. In some, that might seem familiar. It's funny how history has their way of repeating itself, but frankly, the military authorities really didn't quite know what to do about the shell shock because they started to come through in great numbers. And there's part of a much deeper conversation there in exactly what do we mean by shell shock because it meant different things actually to different classes of people. There were many who suffered from a lot of shell shock, well actually almost like a percussion injury. It was to do with the sound. And there were others who it was to do with the sheer pressure of leadership and so on. But if we talk about the shell shock, it seems about many people are shell shocked because they also are suffering from a physical wound is that you can't see it. And there's those great numbers started coming through. Well, first of all, the military worried because of the situation, and so did the treasury, the __19:16__ are really worried about it because of the pension situation. We are going to be paying out a lot in disability-type pensions and what we have today called disability pension. And so initially, you would have an armband that said that you were wounded and then you would also have an S on it if you were shell shocked and they started doing way with the S. And so that if you were shell shocked and you had no other wound, you were basically sent home and you could end up in an ordinary asylum. You could end up just languishing and with no monthly support at all and they had been promised that the consequent had actually been __20:00__ to be heroes and it was very, very evident to the population that had been followed through because after the Great War, Britain was broke.
And there's only one country that made money during the Great War and that was actually the United States of America. So, Britain was pretty broke and it has an interesting in the way that these things happen, an interesting turn of event and how it impacted our history because if you -- I've talked about the women of that generation, in fact a little we've been to this answer. The women of that generation were definitely in greater numbers by the early 20s because of the number of men that were lost. They were actually confirmed to be 2 million selfless women of marriageable age. Now, if you consider then that women were getting to vote, in 1918, the women less than 30 never gotten to vote. By 1929, it was women 21 and over getting the vote. That ultimately meant that there were more voting women than voting men. Many of those voting women were looking after family members, men who could not look after themselves due to injuries sustained during the Great War and with that voting, public of women that brought Britain a National Health Service after the Second World War.
Oh, wow.
And that much of that was to do with the fact that they knew that people needed help and they knew that people needed that sort of help, and when Clement Attlee ousted Winston Churchill in 1945, it was largely due to the women's vote and his promise that there would be literally a Welfare State. It would be, indeed, a land fit for heroes. So, to sum up that question, how would the shell shock treated, in some cases, very well that there was definitely a difference in the treatment between the -- what was called -- you would call the officer class and the ordinary men, the ordinary soldiers, and very often, most soldiers would turn round as quickly as they could. Basically, they're walking and they could walk in a straight line and they could carry a gun, they would send up the line again. They needed men on the battlefield.
So, I can only imagine how terrible that type of shell shock was, and knowing someone like my grandfather who couldn't bear loud noises around him. You have to be really quiet around him because it would make him very, very, very, very uneasy and discombobulated and yet he held out a job. But I remember reading somewhere, you would have read this definitely in a __23:00__ and listening also, I listen to old audios that's been recorded. And men who said they walk the streets at night during that time because they couldn't sleep because horrors can come back -- it comes back the minute you close your eyes in the darkness and there were many who never slept at proper nights or night again after the war.
Right. I could imagine.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, moving on a little bit to Maisie herself. Maisie is a woman who...she really lives in between in many ways. She lives in between the classes, the class the grew up and that she was born into, the class that she sort of attends to as she gets her education, and she is also a person, a woman of her time but also ahead of her time and that she lives alone, unmarried, has a career. What was it like creating that character in a very specific historical time frame? Were you ever concerned of how to make sure it's not achronistic and positioning her properly in that sort of in between a place?
Well, one of the things that I wanted to do from my part, what it takes in my part is I really feel that developing a character is a two-way process as much as I create Maisie Dobbs so she continues to reveal herself to me so to speak. But from my part, one of the things that I wanted to do was to getting used to this language, to do right by that generation of women. I really wanted to show something of their spirit because I remember that generation of women. As I said, they were -- in a small community where I grew up, there where several women even on our street who miss this, miss that until they had never married and they were -- now, they were getting on when I was a child. But you know, I used to spend time with them and say every single one of them, there was that city of photograph on the mantle piece of a young man lost to war and I remember there was a certain character. I certainly -- I absolutely believe an archetype was born at that time, a woman who was fiercely independent because she had to be. That had taken care of her life in a very poor slight manner because she had to, there was no one to do it for her. And she was -- that woman -- you will see her in all sorts of turn up and all sorts of books, and on TV and so on. That woman, that British woman who is very fiercely independent and rather opinionated and got a heart of gold but really knows what's going on everywhere, a sort of a Maggie Smith if you will.
I wanted Maisie to reflect, not only that __26:00__if you are to use a slightly more modern word and that's fortitude but also that compassion and that almost a yearning as well to worry. That yearning that you -- you know, part of you says I can't think like that because I thought you can't go back and being British. You just have to get on with it. The part of you thinks how imaginative brain is.
And what maybe might seeing very modern, in terms of the British woman of today, those that what they call the bachelor girls at the time, seems like, isn't there. Because they were very, you know, who was going to tell them what to do because they could please themselves to a large extent.
Right. Well, I think one of the most striking and unique things about the series is also how Maisie grows and changes from book to book. She is not at all a static character. We see her move from a life largely living on her own in early books to one with more friends and eventually a lover and I think that's what I think also brings people back to the next book, that things are happening and things are changing for her. She is not staying in one place in any respect which I think really makes the novel so rich. I know one question that's come up along the Read-Along is there is a lot of curiosity about the years that she spent working with Maurice and won her apprenticeship and I have heard from a few readers that they've love to know more about this time period. Do you think we'll ever see anything about those earlier cases when they worked side by side?
Yeah. I'm glad you asked about that because for years, I mean almost in the beginning, that was something I wanted to explore but I wasn't ready to do that and here's why. I often wondered why wasn't I ready to do that? Why did I draw back from that and just wanted to see where Maisie was going at this particular time, and certainly I'm glad, very glad that I have done it in the way that I had. But at that time, Maurice Blanche, it comes down to Maurice Blanche. He's a very powerful character and almost to the point where you could say a little goes along way and I...
That's true.
He is an incredibly powerful character and I wasn't sure when I would be ready to get the grips with him because if I go back to Maisie's the years -- the early years of Maisie's apprenticeship, then I'm going back to Maurice as well.
And I have to be ready to take him on almost.
I think I've...
I know it sounds like a funny language there. And it's something I wanted to do and I haven't worked out exactly how I'm going to do it yet but it's the case of...where is the case to watch this phase? It will happen but not in the next year or so.
Right. Okay. Well that's interesting and sort of leading into my question which was that the secondary characters of the novels are so rich and we come to love Billy, and Stratton, and Priscilla and her father almost as much as we love Maisie which is the real testament to the writing, and I like how a different novels they all took on different and larger roles when Priscilla said -- I think it was in The Mapping of Love and Death that she was trying to keep a Maisie notebook. I can just see it and I love the idea that she is going to maybe sort of helping her. So, that leads to the question, are you ever attempted to write more about them but have to kind of pull yourself back from delving further into their lives?
In a way, I do, that there is certain things that never end up in the books that just have to be written. It might only be a paragraph here or there. I don't know about them carrying a book on their own but definitely, I think at different times, you are going to see more different characters and all those will flip to the background.
Just like in life. There are certain people that for a time will pay a very big part in our lives and then you know maybe it doesn't mean to say they are out of their lives but they don't play the same part, one might play a bigger part, and I think that happens in life and certainly in families and among friends, those friends that you might see a lot of when they're going to a difficult phase and then you know maybe you don't see so much of them when they've got a new boyfriend or __30:29__.
Right. Speaking of boyfriend, there is a lot of chatter in the chat room about Maisie's boyfriend. Martha is wondering, when did you first decide about Maisie and James? Martha asks.
Actually in book one.
Yes. That was that -- when I was writing book one, I decided that Maisie and James, that something would happen with Maisie and James. I wasn't sure when the...
And then...
So that goes back a bit of the way and it was never the right time. It was never the right time and there was something happening really between the minds and an incomplete revenge. And so he has been back and forth, so to speak. He has been on the horizon.
Right. Well, Julie is still hoping that something happen to Stratton.
I'm not saying anything.
Okay. Well, there you go. So, let's see. I'm just going to look to some of the questions that we've gotten. Darsa just wants to say, "Please don't send Pricilla's __31:37__ off to war," I know, not realistic.
It won't be up to me I'm afraid. It will be up here to the __31:43__.
And they're very __31:45__ boy and they're like their mom. She a fine ones tool, I mean Priscilla would be a fine ones tool, wouldn't she, because she was the one that took herself off to war.
Absolutely. I had a question about the titles of your books with each one is so perfect, Pardonable Lies, Messenger of Truth, The Mapping of Love and Death. How do you cope with them, did they come to you as you writing the books or do you have them set beforehand?
It's a very organic process. I don't have to sit and figure it out for long. I've always started a book with a title in lined because to me, in many ways, the title defines the book and so I've always had title in mind. If I think of a good title, I'll even put it away somewhere. I think it was -- which one, oh, An Incomplete Revenge. I had that tucked away for ages. And with The Mapping of Love and Death, it just seemed so appropriate. The whole idea was knowing your way or not knowing your way and having some measure of direction through life. So, I definitely have s title in mind before I start writing.
And as I said, in a way it does define the book and it has some impact from the direction that the story takes.
And I like my titles. I really like my titles and they never change or they might be tweaked a bit, but no, they never change.
That's fantastic. Denise has written in a question about your writing process. She's wondering if you outline or storyboard or do the ideas just flow, and wondering if you make a case map and tack it to the table? Can you talk to us about what you're writing process is like?
I don't tack case map to the table. But that could have as funny person which I'm just thinking about it again today because it came about more through circumstance than through some great design. I started writing Maisie Dobbs in the early part of 2000, and as I said, I was working at that time so I wasn't getting as much time to write as I would like. And then later on that year, I sort of abandoned it because I was very, very busy. And then in early -- so 10 years ago, early 2001, it was in May 2001, May 5th, I wouldn't forget it, I had a very, very bad accident, horseback riding, and crushed my shoulder badly, broke my right arm, and I was hoping it's a very serious time spent in rehabilitation and get trying to use my arm again. And it was during the time after my third year, one of my friends said, "Now is the time for you to finish that book," and I look to her as if she was mad and said, "Look at my right arm, how can I do that?" "At least you can wiggle the left hand, haven't you?" And she's right. I'm going to finish this book with my left hand so I have something to show for myself. Now, because my right arm was completely out of commission -- I mean the structure -- I only had my left hand, and I'm not one of this people that it's greatly ambidextrous. I cannot write very well with my left hand, so I can only write big letters. And I got my husband to go to office depot, buy this great thing poster-sized post-it notes so I could write notes on them and I found that it was easier for me to draw diagrams than to actually write things down and so what I did I ended up with one diagram of the arc of the story.
And if you know anything about stats, it sort of look like the standard mean with the numeral at the top of the arc and then there's working away from it and I scribbled down the major points of the story and the major scenes. In another one of the poster-sized a post-it note, I wrote down my character's names and that's really important because I change my names about character's name. I change the name sometimes there. Someone might start off as Phyllis and end up with Lydia because as the character emerges, the name starts to jar against the characters but I have to keep track of them, otherwise I'll be racing back at the corner stat. So, has the characters and I'll write down anything about the characters. So, I'm looking at this all the time and then on my third one, I write down things that I need to know that I don't know anything about, it's my research needs, and I have kept, even though I can use my arm as well as anybody else, now I've checked to that same message. I'm sitting here in my office and I'm looking at my three post-it notes, my three poster-sized post-it notes, and in fact on one of them, I write it down, I have my right arm now, but it's still so I can look up and see it on the wall. I can see my arc of the story, I can see my research notes, I can see my character names and any other notes, they go up there.
Oh, you have to put the picture online at some point. It sounds awesome.
So, I'm surrounded by my story, I can look up and see it. I don't have to suddenly go to a little book, although I do have a little book that I make notes in, but I like to be able to just look up and say, "Huh, that's what I was going to do there" or "What was her name again?" (Laughs)
Right, right.
So that is my post-it and do I plan it out in great detail beforehand, no, I don't. I know my basic arc of the story but I want to allow time to dance with the moment and what that means is that it's like having a map. If you have a map, you're more likely to be adventurous because you'd always know where you're coming back to. But I don't want that to be too prescribed, I want it to be able to as another character comes that I haven't plan, I want to know why that characters turned up and that happens. What have you turned up on what is your purpose to be here, I'm going to carry on liking and see who you turn up to be. I don't want to think, "Oh, I haven't planned you. You're not going in there."
That's fascinating. I make it to the chat room over there because we have lots of questions coming in here. So, Martha wanted to know beside Maisie, who is your favorite character, if you can name one?
In my own books?
In your own book. Yeah.
I should have told between Maurice and Priscilla. I really like Priscilla. Priscilla is in a way speaking from the perspective of a writer. She's kind of an antidote to Maisie. Maisie can -- how is it -- can be rather serious at times and it's really in a way nice to have Priscilla who can come __39:09__ but couldn't save Maisie. You know, come on, let's go out, let's do this all or yes, I am having another gin and tonic and what about it. She is the -- for almost -- in some ways, the __39:24__ in other ways, she is very much like Maisie.
She is an interesting friend. So, I love Priscilla. I feel she might only be with me for a short time at the beginning, but I had to bring her back not at least because one of my arms was insistent upon it.
But I said I had to bring her back because she is a lovely character for me to work with as well.
And The Book Girl wants to know if Sandra -- if we'll see more of Sandra in future novels?
You know, I think you will. I think you will. I like Sandra and I wanted to bring her back and I have my reasons for doing so. So, I'm not __40:06__ going to say about that, but you will probably be seeing more of Sandra.
Because she's going to a bit of tumultuous time right now, but you're going to see more of her.
And The Book Girl is also wondering if there was a college at Cambridge that was dedicated to promoting, to establishing world peace as there is in A Lesson in Secrets?
No, that is completely fictional, college.
Okay. So, some other questions are coming in about what mystery series do you enjoy reading? Who are your favorite authors?
That's a good question. I go in and out of different series. I mean a few year ago, not a few years ago, 10 to 15 years ago, I read everything I could lay my hands on the Jonathan Kellerman had written because I think it's because I have a bit of crush on Alex Delaware actually. And then I obviously read a lot it with George. He will always come up with a wonderful writer to read, PD James. I'd like a very short series by Rennie Airth for example, A I R T H, that was insisting to me. But I have spent so much time reading non-fiction these days that I tend to dig in and out of now individual novels or often a series, although when I get into a series, I want to read everything now, immediately. But I think you know I look don't back at some of the real classics. I mean I love PD James very much, really enjoyed, really, really enjoyed her work. [Crosstalk] And some other...Sorry.
__41:53__ we've enjoyed about reading the series in such quick succession many of us and many people here have been reading them over the years so the spot that I have to wait now a year. Correct? Is it going to about a year before the next one?
It will indeed. You know, there's another author that I -- she's not a mystery author per se that it grieves me that she hasn't written anything for a few years now and that's Susan Howatch. I love her I think its called the Starbridge Series, and the series about some _42:25_ healing center because although there were mysteries as such, I felt the book was something to really, in many ways, something to inspire you in the way that she combined scholarly research with wonderful storytelling and to present highly commercial fiction and a very, very, very engaging, especially the...if anybody could make the church on England compelling deserves -- I'll take my hat off to them if you really did.
Doris had written in to ask, do you always have an idea for the theme of the book and then do you research or have you ever come across some aspect in your research and then written a book around it?
Let me think about that. Have I come out with anything in my research and written a book of it? Well, that's a good question because as I explained for example there's a little clip on my website where I am speaking about the origins of The Mapping of Love and Death and with that book, and I would say with every book, the story comes together. It's almost like they are two or three things that come together to create a story and sometimes it's something I've read, sometimes it is something I've found out, sometimes it is something in my background or whatever, and none of those things could create a story on their own. One thing is like the kindling and spark comes a long to create the fire. So for example, take The Mapping of Love and Death, I would say the kindling was my interest and curiosity about the whole notion of being missing, being missed to just missing in the Great War. You go to the Great War back with villages as I have several times and you see the endless memorial for to the missing and this take the Menin Gate Memorial, 54,000 names there missing, be me tens of thousands of names, time got tens, all these people, men that were missing, their parents or their loved once received cards saying missing, presumed dead. In another place, there will be a gravestone, a marker saying a soldier of the Great War known unto God and you know that the person that's down although remains down there corresponds to the name up there because the dog tags disintegrated, never __44:59__. And so the whole idea of being missing, I thought about that a lot from not only what it meant to the families but from you almost __45:11__ like a point of view. What does it mean to be missing?
And I kept thinking about that and I knew that one day I would write about it but I didn't know how. And then a few years later, a couple of years later, my husband read an article in a local paper and he said you should read this, it's really interesting. And that article was in fact the reprint of a letter that had been sent to the local paper. And it'd been written by a gentleman who _45:42_ with the whole story but he is involved with trying to identify the remains of soldiers that were unearth in the Great War battlefields and that is even today found as well be digging a field and suddenly they will unearth the remains of the World War I soldier. And there was this one particular soldier that there was enough evidence to suggest that he might have had some kind of link to Santa Barbara and that fascinated me. And I corresponded with this gentleman and tried to see if I could help to identify this young man and of course there was nothing that could be done but at some point in that deliberation, in my mind as a storyteller, Michael Clifton was born.
And it come from that notion of what does it mean to be missing.
And then Michael Clifton as a cartographer. And this young man as you might what have been a cartographer and the idea that you could be a cartographer, you could be a man who makes maps and you're missing. What does that mean? And so that's how that seem come about. So to answer that question, again a recap, what it is that never one thing that makes a story. A story comes about from the alchemy between two or three different influences, sometimes four influences.
Right. That was fascinating. We know that you're working on the 9th Maisie Dobbs book now and I know that we've just pound you from what's going to happen next but is there anything you can share with us about what's in store for Maisie?
Right. Let me think about that. You know, this one probably won't have so much of a link to the Great War. We're looking forward a little bit more and in fact, let's just say it's a little bit about horses. That's all I'm going to say.
Interesting. Okay.
So, several people have also written in to ask another question I have as well is will there ever be a movie or a TV series based on the books that you know of?
There is nothing in the works at the moment. The books had been auctioned a couple of times that the truth is it actually cost a lot of money to make a historical series before you even get to sort of this principal shooting that it cost a fortune to go on location just get people to take down their satellite dishes and things like that. So it's a very expensive proposition and with Maisie Dobbs, there's a lot there and there's a lot of...there would be I would imagine a lot of location shootings. So that -- you know, it's a big proposition for any production company, but having said that, there is currently quite a lot of interest in the books but we'll have to see. We'll have to see.
Okay. Do you have an idea of cast, wish list in mind, someone's asking?
You know, over the years, I have had an idea, I do a wish list and every time I had the idea wish list, everybody -- as time goes on, everybody gets older and suddenly, the people...you can't actually put the people in the place anymore. There is a wonderful actress called Hattie Monahan who I think would make a wonderful Maisie Dobbs and she was most recently seen on the...she was seen I think a couple of years ago on the most recent television production of Sense and Sensibility, not the one with Emma Thompson, that was the movie.
But this was a television production of Sense and Sensibility and she played Elena and she had so much emotion just with almost the flick of one eye. Just a wonderful, wonderful actress, an incredibly versatile actress as well. So, she...you know, depending on if it ever happens in the next three or four years, she will be my first pick, but you know what, it's nothing to do with me. As a write, you have as much say in this sort of thing as we don't have a lot of say, put it like that.
It's out of your hand. It's out of your hand.
Alright, because of the vast attitude you can possibly have.
Yeah. You know, it's a different medium, it's nothing to do with me. I'll just cross my fingers and hope they make a good show of it.
Absolutely. And then I just want to make sure we answer all the questions we have in here. Darsa wants to know will Billy ever go to Canada or do you feel he needs to stay a major part of Maisie's immediate world?
We'll have to see.
Okay. I think that's what happened.
I can't give a definitive answer on that one. I'm not sure yet.
You know, he is very dog eared about this. He believes that the best place in his family is somewhere other than Britain.
And you know, he is not...we don't know yet, we don't know.
Right. Well Martha just wrote in to say that she just looked up Hattie Monahan on the internet and she agrees that she would be a very good Maisie, so you have at least one vote of agreement there. So Denise wrote in...(cross talk) I don't. I knew they were all rushing to IMDB as you're answering that question. Denise wrote in to ask, have you ever thought about writing a book about something else other than Maisie or a different time period?
Well absolutely. Absolutely, and in fact I've got a couple of things on __51:33__. One that I hope to finish later on this year actually which is actually set in the second World War and there is another one that's a bit more contemporary which I...but the thing is that I have to write a book of year and I'm not one of these people that, you know it takes me a lot to write a book of the year. There a lot of background work that I do for my work and I do a lot of thinking but it doesn't leave a lot of time to do other things but I do have a, as I say another novel that I'd like to finish this year that is set to the most part of the second World War. And then there is another one that's more contemporary that I think I'd like to probably get into, maybe I'll have time to go into it next year.
So I have finished a few other things and I've written some essays that have been published and some short stories last year. And I got another short story coming out next year which is coming out in a compendium, the collection of stories, actually about Sherlock Holmes, or inspired by Sherlock Holmes.
So that will quite fun.
Oh yeah, we have to look for that.
What this place and then also there's another book which is being published which is a series of essays by writers on animals they've love and lost, it's called Cherish and that's just being published and I wrote about my dog.
Oh, okay. I have to look for those.
It's fun to do other things.
Right. Martha has written in, and thank you Martha for reminding me because this question got lost in the chat. She loves learning the cockney slang and she looked up so many words but she wasn't sure if she understood what you meant when you say when you and Maisie -- when Maisie and Triton would say that the caf�� that they met at was really more caf than caf��. Can you explain that?
Okay. Yeah. The caf is at first sort of a working class way of referring to a caf��, cool with the caf.
You know, people didn't know their own accent, you know so it would be a caf�� but so you'd call it a caf and in fact there was very much in the old days that's what people would call a caf��. We'd call it the caf. And so there was very much this sense that...there was a slightly, the smaller things that you can instinctively know that you're British but how to explain that a caf was very much of a place where not...I mean wasn't Starbucks but a stop. It was more of...it is sort of place where you get tea from the urn and if you ask for bread and jam, you don't get a little piece of butter on the side and jam on the side. It's already spread for you. I mean when I was first working in London, there where lots of cafs and they were pretty down to us. I'd go in in the morning and I'd ask for my hot chocolate and my croissant with marmalade, and literally, the guy would chop it open and slap in the butter and marmalade, stick it in the paper bag and make me a hot chocolate and being to go and you know there were no __54:44__. You're just waiting to get your food. And something that was caf, let's what you call your caf which usually pretty down to a...I mean it wasn't dodgy but is pretty down to basic tables. I it wasn't...don't get the picture of a nice little French caf��.
It's fun. Although you could post caf��. Some people was a little bit more up scale that the caf is somewhere a bit like a greasy spoon, what we call the great view, is out of town. It's not very American. People don't know that term. The greasy spoons is somewhere that you call a greasy spoon is just where you go to get your basic cup of tea and some bun or something. An ordinary place, nowhere __55:28__.
Okay. Great. The book Carol has written in to ask do you already know, another want to ask this question, but do you already know how the series will end and in what time period? You don't have to tell us how but...oh, you do. Okay.
I actually know the very last scene in the very last book.
Oh...you're killing up here.
Yeah. Yeah. But you know, don't worry, there's a way to go yet.
That's right. Okay. Well, we're very glad to hear that. Jacqueline, this has been so much fun. I think we could talk for probably three or four hours. I've just -- I had such a wonderful experience reading these books as I did back to back. It's just been, oh my God! It made this winter so less dreary than it was and...
Whoa, thank you.
And we just all had such a lovely time and it's has been so great to talk to you and be able to get all this insight into your writing process and I hope that you will come back next year when the 9th novel is published and then we can talk again.
I would love to, I would love to, and I'm sorry that little confusion at the beginning because I was hearing some clicking and I thought gosh, can anybody hear me?
I'm sorry about that as well.
No, it's been great. It's been great listening to the...hearing the questions and I'm just so glad that everybody's cued in and listening, it's great, it's wonderful.
Okay. Well, thank you so much for joining us.
You're welcome. Thank you.
The most recent book in the Maisie Dobbs series, A Lesson In Secrets, is just out in hard cover and the previous seven books are all available in paperback and all the titles are of course available at e-books as well. You can visit Jacqueline's website at jacquelinewinspear.com for more information and you can find her on Facebook, too. Thank you to everyone in the chat room who joined us tonight. This has been such a fun show. Please join us again next week, Wednesday, May 4th, when we welcome Dorothea Benton Frank to discuss her new book in paperback Lowcountry Summer. You can see a complete schedule of upcoming shows on bookclubgirl.com and you can follow Book Club Girl on Twitter and Facebook as well. Good night.


text:
Ohhh, the 90's. The music, the fashion, the style... it was all great. Our Respect The Classics contest is bringing it all back for us and we want you all to participate in the fun! Read about our contest here and then right-click and download one of the memes below to share or use them as your profile picture!
Like what you're reading? Join Made Woman Mag's mailing list for updates, special promotions and more. Click here!
Custom memes created by Phil Quinal.
When a hit song can keep your head nodding years after its release, and remembering all the lyrics is like a badge of honor -- you know you are dealing with a classic. Great music lives forever; and this month we are paying homage to hip hop + R&B with our #RespectTheClassics contest.
Respect the Classics is a campaign with special edition releases from Universal Music Enterprises (UMe), saluting hip-hop's finest. UMe's extensive catalogue includes iconic albums from the Def Jam, Interscope, Priority, and Virgin Records vaults. Titles like the 25th Anniversary Editions of Eazy-E's triple platinum solo debut, Eazy-Duz-It, Ice Cube's solo debut, AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted, and N.W.A's iconic, triple-platinum Straight Outta Compton, to name a few. UMe is also re-issuing many albums this coming year, including Kanye West's 808's and Heartbreaks, 2Pac's Greatest Hits, and Eminem's Slim Shady LP.
When we heard about what they were doing, we knew we couldn't pass up the chance to collaborate with them and show our respect too -- because, hey, we love good music. Their fresh and creative campaign is giving new life to the jams we love. Now, artists and fans alike can join in and potentially become a part of music history.
The submissions are in, and we're loving what we're seeing! From drawings, to jam sessions to belly dancing (yes, belly dancing!) -- you've truly shown us that you #RespectTheClassics. Now, we have to choose a winner! We posted the top entries on our Facebook page, where you can vote for your favorites. Tell us who you want to see win big. Voting ends Friday, February 28th at noon PST and the winner will be announced shortly thereafter. Click here to vote: http://bit.ly/MW-RTC-VOTE
Entrants can draw inspiration from any of the following albums:
Official Respect the Classics Titles
Additional UMe Catalog Titles
Let your talent shine through. If your entry is chosen, you'll win the following:
No purchase is necessary to enter or win the #RespectTheClassics contest. The contest is open to anyone over 18 years of age at time of entry who is a resident of the fifty (50) United States and the District of Columbia.
The contest is sponsored by Made Woman, LLC and will begin on Monday, February 10 2014 at 9am PST.
Submission period will run from February 10th at 9am PST to February 23rd at 11:59pm PST.
Photos will be posted in a gallery on the Made Woman Facebook & on the Respect The Classics Facebook page.
The winner will be announced Friday, February 28th.
Please note: all entries received may be re-posted on any of Made Woman's current or future social media outlets indefinitely and/or posted on Made Woman Magazine's website at a later date. If an entry is posted and/or re-tweeted, only the entrant's first name or Twitter handle will be posted in conjunction with the entry.
Winner will be selected by the Made Woman & Respect the Classics teams, based on quality of entry and the concept originality. Made Woman, LLC reserves the right to select a winner based on their criteria. This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with Facebook. Participant is providing information to Made Woman Magazine and not to Facebook.
By entering the Respect the Classics contest, entrants are opting into the Made Woman & Respect the Classics email lists.
By entering this giveaway, entrants accept and agree to these rules.
At Made Woman, we're always on the lookout for artists that make us sit up and take notice. Great music is made only by those of equally great stature and initiative. As the calendar turns over another year, our eyes and ears are refreshed. We eagerly anticipate those who will define the musical landscape of 2014. We're betting these five ladies below will be making this year their own. These are the Top 5 Female Artists to look out for in 2014:
Why she's Made: Yuna is a Los Angeles-based artist with Malaysian roots bringing a sultry and emotive quality to today's pop music. Her sound fits into the music annals alongside others like Sia and Corinne Bailey Rae. She can sometimes be as sweet as sunshine, and at others, pull at your heart with the sweet aching nature of her crystalline voice. Yuna began her career with the help of MySpace in 2006, catching the ear of US music labels. Undeterred by the lack of instant mainstream success, Yuna has continued to push forward in the music scene the last nine years, both releasing LPs and EPs and working with music mavens like Pharrell, along the way. She spent the later half of 2013 finally making waves with the release of her latest Nocturnal album, so look for Yuna to take over the music scene in 2014.
Why she's Made: You might not know her by name, but chances are you (and 54MM other people) have heard her cover of Bon Iver's "Skinny Love". Birdy, also known as Jasmine van den Bogaerde, can make you feel bad about yourself without even really trying. At just 17 years old this Brit made a splash with her beautifully epic record of covers, and this year she is back to enchant with an entirely original album including a track from The Hunger Games soundtrack. She was recently featured on the star-turning Morning Becomes Eclectic program on Los Angeles' taste-making KCRW radio station.
Like what you're reading? Join Made Woman Mag's mailing list for updates, special promotions and more. Click here!
Why she's Made: Angel Haze is the benefactor of so many musical talents you'd be inclined to think she had multiple personalities. She has innate abilities as a hard-driving rapper and lyricist and is an equally pure vocalist. It is a duality which makes me, of course, think of another phenom: the talented Ms. Lauryn Hill. At 22, Detroit-native Haze looks no more than 15 because -- you guessed it -- she has the face of an angel. An embattled childhood, an independent mind and an unflinching desire for the world to hear her music are what fuel Angel Haze. She recently leaked her own studio debut Dirty Gold ahead of its release. You'll be thanking her that she did.
Why she's Made: Another "Angel" tops our list for 2014. Though she, too, often uses music to exorcise some of life's most tormenting demons, this Angel finds her home in the singer-songwriter genre. There is no pretense about Chicago-based singer-songwriter Angel Olsen. Her style moves counter to the trends of today's soundscape -- raw, stripped-down and beautifully underproduced. I had the pleasure of seeing her live last year, and Olsen's performance was beautifully understated belying her grand voice. A voice that is both staggering and unique; and untrained in the best way possible. It sits somewhere comfortably between an operatic belt and the country call of a yodel. Witnessing her natural display, the range and fluidity of her swoons and croons, is spiritual. Her presence will be in no shortage this year as her sophomore LP Burn Your Fire For No Witness is out February 18th.
Why she's Made: The second Brit on our list occupies the space between AlunaGeorge and Amy Winehouse. Her cadence is playful and her sound is jazzy ala Winehouse on her freshman effort Frank; but Ingram additionally introduces buoyant elements of early 90's R&B. Last year after covering Kendrick Lamar's "Poetic Justice" and releasing a take-notice EP, Sober, Ingram signed to Island Records (also home to the late, great Ms. Winehouse). In 2014 the sky's the limit for this import.
1995 was a special year in Hip-Hop and R&B. Tupac dropped his classic "Me Against the World" from his New York prison. Biggie released both "Big Poppa" and "One More Chance" and had the radio on lock. D'Angelo blazed the charts with "Brown Sugar," and TLC showed us how "CrazySexyCool" R&B could be.
That fall, a humble new group named Groove Theory released its debut self-titled album and its adorable hit, "Tell Me," which became a staple in every DJ's crate. The combination of Amel Larrieux's salty and sweet vocals and Bryce Wilson's production were the perfect match, and the two forever solidified their place among Hip-Hop's golden era.
But in 1999, Larrieux went out on her own, created the independent label, Blisslife, and released her debut solo album, "Infinite Possibilities." After three more revered albums and six years to tour, live life, and perfect her next album, Larrieux dropped the 16-track LP "Ice Cream Everyday".
Like what you're reading? Join Made Woman Mag's mailing list for updates, special promotions and more. Click here!
After last week's shows at Yoshi's Jazz Club in San Francisco, I got the chance to sit down with the Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter and chat with her about being independent, staying creative and relevant in today's competitive landscape, and pursuing her next big dream.
Amel Larrieux: Well, there's never really any big thought-out plan. Things happen, songs are written, and if they sound good together in a group and they're viable to be an album, then that album is done. And that's how we've always worked it. It's about each individual song being an experience sitting next to another experience, and it becomes an amalgamation of experiences and feelings and emotions...and then you have an album!
AL: "See Where You Are" is just about being present. I have my own meditation practice that affords me exactly that. Just to stop and be still for minute and sometimes not even think about what's going on. "Moment to Reflect" is inspired by the idea that in society -- and not just western society -- there are so many platforms for everyone to constantly be throwing out their opinions, and it's easy for some people to just become…just nasty. And people get so wrapped up in opinions... I write a song and have a point of view, but I really like it when a listener takes what they want from it. So I don't often want to get too in-depth about what I aimed for because that doesn't really matter. It's about what the listener gets from it.
AL: For me and (my husband) Laru, we just always try to be authentic as possible. We listen to what's happening mainstream-wise as well as underground, but we always keep a certain distance when we're in super creative mode because we don't really want to get too much into something that might sound trendy...I think we've found that when we do it our way, for lack of a better term, it ends up fitting into my discography more gracefully and seamlessly, and it all becomes like this seamless sound. But also, following trends in the music is not very interesting and also probably not very profitable for me. And I don't think people want that from me.
AL:I've never been the mastermind behind the business moves that I appear to be making. It's really been Laru, and I got really lucky that the person I fell in love with and married also happens to be the person who produces the music I make and had the idea to go independent and spearhead all this. I'm an independent spirit. I don't want to have my fate in the hands of someone, or a conglomerate, that I don't think really understands what I want to do.
AL: We've always had a space to create. We've always had our own studio, a home studio, or something that's 10 minutes from home. That enabled a kind of (creative) normalcy. We've been writing together, even just in the house together, for so long, so we've always been totally natural and we almost take it for granted because it's just what we do. At home, you can just be writing songs and working on some music and one of us hears the other one and chimes in and says "well, what about this?" or "what if you did this to it?" It's just beautiful that we get to make something that's universally felt on a spiritual level. That's how music is. It's also work. Sometimes I wish I had a timecard I could clock in and out with, but I know it's a luxury that at 8:00 at night I can get a song idea and go remove myself and go write for a while. Or I can do that at noon and go for a walk outside. It's just always been a natural part of our life.
AL: Anytime I hear people say, "Oh, you can do it all!" I'm always baffled because it's hard. Personally, when I hear them say that, I think to myself, "Well, it's not easy for me!" Traveling from one climate to the next in one day. Or the time (zone) changes. Or getting jet-lagged and then having to do two shows in one night. I often don't want to be in front of the cameras, and don't necessarily always want to be photographed. Some days I'm just interested in just singing, and some days I don't want to sing at all. Some days I don't want to have to do mom stuff. Some days I don't want to cook. I'm just like anyone else in that sense. But we all have to kinda "make the donuts (laughs)." Someone has to do it. I would say that's really the common denominator. From Amel Larrieux the artist to anyone out there; it's about the struggling. I'm sure I could do a little better with my scheduling. I'm sure that would make things easier. You do have to be good to yourself, though, and allow yourself the room and space to have a tantrum here and there, and learn and grow, and then decide where you need to make changes and where you need to adjust.
AL: Well, I think there might be something to me deciding to determine my own image and my sound and having a hand in it. It's taken years of just being me and not trying on other people's identity. Instead, it's been me messing around with the organic way that my own identity ebbs and flows, musically and visually.
The other thing, and I wish it didn't sound so businesslike, is that there are so many of us out there that do what we do and there's so few that get to make a mark, be heard, and be able to continue to do this decade after decade and not be struggling as a starving artist. Talent has something to do with it, but it's all relative. What really matters is who you have behind you, working what you're doing. A mainstream label has this machine of hundreds of people doing all this stuff. This is the machine that I have: Laru and a small crew of people that we hire to pull all this stuff together for me. That's really important. Whether you're a visual artist or a writer, a musician, a performer, dancer, or any type of creative, it's really important to have a manager that has an incredible work ethic or a booking agent that's a tireless presence behind you that keeps going when everything else seems to be saying no.
AL: My biggest dream is to segue into a life of work in the service of children from one to six years old in urban low income communities with the use of art, artistic healing modalities and yogic healing modalities. I would like to teach meditation, yoga, and art and music therapy, and be involved in these communities where kids are "at risk" or don't have the resources they need. I want to give them these tools – these spiritual internal tools to be well adapted and healed adults one day. That's my dream. It may not have anything to do with music, but that's really what my heart desires at this point.
Want to read the full interview with Amel? Read it here.
Follow Amel Larrieux: @amellarrieux
The veteran songstress and songwriter was well into her 90-minute set at Yoshi's Jazz Club last night when she unexpectedly announced to the crowd that she was considering a career change. "I've been reading about music as a healing modality and I'm hoping that that is the next step that I can take a foray into and make part of my profession."
The announcement was quite appropriate. Last October, Amel Larrieux released "Ice Cream Everyday," the long-awaited and oft-delayed studio LP. It had been six years since her last studio album, Lovely Standards (jazz), and seven years since she'd released an album comprised of her own original material. Her fans were long overdue for some of her "music therapy" and rushed to the iTunes store on the release day to download Larrieux's latest installment. So far, the album's first single, "Afraid," reached number 16 on the Adult R&B Songs chart.
Throughout her set on Sunday night, Larrieux seamlessly weaved through material from all six of her albums. She eased into the performance with one of her new songs from Ice Cream, "A Million Sapphires," establishing a deep and focused tone, followed by "Magic" and "We Can Be New."
Like what you're reading? Join Made Woman Mag's mailing list for updates, special promotions and more. Click here!
But the energy of the show ascended to new heights with the song "You Don't See Me," as the music seemed to transform Larrieux from R&B crooner into a Hip-Hop lyricist. While even throwing in a couple freestyle lyrics about her 'drink and her two-step,' Larrieux prowled and sashayed across the stage with a swag that would've made Biggie pass her the mic.
And in classic Larrieux fashion, she showed her range and repertoire by performing a cover of Madonna's "What it Feels Like For a Girl." With only her daughter, Sky Larrieux, accompanying her on keyboards, the deconstructed version of "Girl" became exceedingly thoughtful and introspective.
She followed with two favorites from the Morning album, "Unanswered Questions," and "Gills and Tails." But the show elevated once again as she performed the hypnotic new song, "Danger," a lesson in unlearning the culturally-driven ideas that create fear, hate, and devaluing of self. Larrieux fans have always enjoyed Larrieux's ability to infuse refreshing social commentary in her disarming music. "Danger" is the latest of such works and does not disappoint.
For the final stretch, Amel brought back a couple of her classics, "Infinite Possibilities" and "INI." But the crowd came alive with the ballad, "I Do Take," which will undoubtedly become the new wedding song for 2014.
She followed that with the cherished "For Real," and the show was rounded out with the iconic Groove Theory hit "Tell Me," with the entire audience singing and dancing along.
The show was perfectly imperfect, with minor hiccups here and there. But members of the Amel faithful who have been patiently waiting for her return to the stage felt like it was well worth the wait. One concert-goer told me, "It's amazing and I don't know what it is about her, but now I feel totally inspired and ready to tackle my own challenges and goals. I have a big interview this week and this is just what I needed."
We also got a chance to catch up with the singer after the show for an exclusive Made Woman Mag interview, so make sure to check out Part Two of this article later this week. But in the meantime, to get your own dose of music therapy, pick up Ice Cream Everyday. And if you're in the Seattle or Washington D.C. area, make sure to check out one of her upcoming shows this month.
DJ Lady Sha isn't afraid to throw off the yoke of tradition in favor of the road less traveled. She is a genre-defying trailblazer in the male-dominated world of DJ-ing. Originally set on a course to study medicine at UC Berkely, Sha bucked medical school for a life of turntables and dance floors -- and she hasn't looked back. She is an award-winning, globe-trotting entrepreneur whose diligently cultivated and eclectic sets helped her to become the first female to win the Winter Music Conference DJ Spin-off (2008). Although based in Los Angeles, Sha's drive and spinning prowess has taken her the world wide to New York, Miami, Jamaica, and South Africa, where in 2004 she was the first woman to spin live on South African air waves. I got the chance to chat with Lady Sha after she DJ'ed the Made Woman 2 Year event:
Lady Sha: Always, thanks to my Mom and Dad! Whether waking us up with music on weekend mornings or playing it in the car, we were always listening to something. Back then it was a mix of my mom's favorites from Persian music to Elton John, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, etc... or my Dad's choice – anything on KCRW.
Lady Sha: I love such a huge range of music from pop to underground, hip hop to dance music, and even country jams that I don't consider anything a guilty pleasure. Most days I'm digging through hundreds of new and old mp3's to see what I want to include in my sets, so when I have time to listen to music for pleasure, I just go with whatever I'm in the mood for at that time. On my runs, I like to listen to hip hop and dance music for example. In the car after a long night, I like to listen to KCRW late-night or a country station, something completely different than what I was just playing at an event for four hours.
Lady Sha: I didn't even know I WAS interested in DJ-ing a little over a decade ago. While I was at UC Berkeley as an undergrad studying Pre-Med & Anthropology, my neighbor happened to be DJ Phatrick. He asked me to sit in on one of his DJ courses on campus. At first I told him I was too busy – not only with school, but with my hobbies as a guitarist, singer, and member of the UC Berkeley Poetry Slam team. With his convincing though, I sat in on his class and fell in love from that moment on. Two weeks after the course ended I bought my own turntables.
Lady Sha: I think the most valuable advice I can give is to have clear focus on where you'd like to go, make sure your entrepreneurial signature is creative and original -- or improving upon what already exists -- and have a phenomenal work ethic to achieve your vision.
Lady Sha: DJ-ing more frequently and working around the clock to showcase my style and abilities at gigs and with mix CDs, my mark slowly became increasingly noticeable and present in Los Angeles. Now to expand that to the world...
Like what you're reading? Join Made Woman Mag's mailing list for updates, special promotions and more. Click here!
Lady Sha: The pioneers of hip hop and dj-ing were male and to quote the film Miss Representation, "you can't be what you can't see", so I think it took some time for females to break into dj-ing. I hear about so many more females DJ-ing now than 10 years ago. There's a snowball effect of more and more females entering the industry and finally evening out the playing field!
Lady Sha: I've had a ton of fun at DJ gigs in New York, Miami, Rome, Vegas, and San Francisco as well as in countries such as South Africa and Jamaica. However, nothing is as amazing as a popping dance floor in LA filled with the intense energy of my friends and people that have danced to my sets over the years.
Lady Sha: Not only do musical tastes differ in club scenes around the world, but also from club to club here in LA and from night to night in each venue. One night you may have a hip hop crowd, another night a dance music crowd, and on another night, a crowd that wants to go on a genre-hopping journey with the DJ of the night.
Lady Sha: My absolute favorite thing to do when I DJ is to play for a crowd that will let me take them on a ride through different genres from hip hop to trap, dubstep, dance music, indie-rock, and hip hop and R&B jams from the 80s and 90s. I'm not happy having to stick to any one genre.
Lady Sha: Show Me Love – Robin S. The only variable is what I pair before and after the song that affect the impact the song has on the crowd.
Since her new and improved website launches in early November, it's easy to stay up to date on all of DJ Lady Sha's happenings including daily updates on her performance schedule and new videos and mixes. But in the meantime to get your fix, you can check out Sha on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
Rachel Garcia and Thu Tran are The Singer & The Songwriter. The duo's California-folk whimsy updates the swinging sounds of the gypsy jazz of the 1930s and '40s; a style that even in its heyday marched to its own beat, so to speak. Garcia's sultry and booming jazz vocals are the anchor of the duo. A choir singer from a young age, it's no wonder where Garcia learned to develop her standout voice. I first stumbled upon the duo at the modest 2nd Annual Make Music LA event in Silverlake earlier this summer. The acoustic event was little more than a rug to stand on for the would-be troubadours of the day. It was difficult to hear the day's acts above the careening shopping carts and murmurs of the Friday afternoon weekend seekers; but Rachel Garcia was not only heard -- she put an exclamation point on the day with her richly textured voice.
As independent musicians in this niche genre, it's fitting then that The Singer and The Songwriter display a special kind of moxie and are charting their own course without the backing of a major label. "There are a lot of unknowns and fear in being an independent artist, but the other side of the coin is the creative freedom [...] I get to choose who I want to be, what I want to sing and how I want to present myself. The effect that this freedom has is you learn to trust and rely on yourself and your band mate." Garcia and her partner in crime,"Songwriter" and guitarist, Thu Tran began playing together in 2009 in San Francisco. After, a move to Los Angeles the duo hit their stride and have spent the last two years writing and recording. The Singer and The Songwriter are now primed to release their first full-length album, What A Difference A Melody Makes. Just recently the outfit launched their Kickstarter campaign in an effort to put the finishing touches on their LP. The ingenuity and creativity of The Singer and The Songwriter are what enable the duo to carve out a path distinctly and charmingly their own.
Like what you're reading? Join Made Woman Mag's mailing list for updates, special promotions and more. Click here!
The wildcard that also makes The Singer and The Songwriter one to watch in the folk scene is the album's producer, Charlie Stavish. Stavish has worked on albums for bands such as Imagine Dragons, Foster The People, and The Joy Formidable. With a delicate hand to polish off the album, The Singer and The Songwriter could be ready to breathe new life into LA's folk scene.
1999 seems like just yesterday -- until I'm reminded that it was, in fact, fourteen years ago. Fourteen! The Thong Song was a whole high schooler ago. Remember how huge Sisqo was and how he was going to be the biggest R&B star, well, probably forever (obvi)? I vividly remember watching his MTV "Making the Video"...yes, fourteen years ago. Sigh. Well, things didn't quite turn out like either of us planned it, did it Sisqo, old buddy? So that got me thinking -- what black hole do all our favorite artists of yesteryear get sucked into when they violently tumble from the Billboard charts? And what on earth are they up to these days? Let us explore the goings on of five of the biggest names from different genres -- that you haven't heard of since middle school graduation.
Hootie & the Blowfish were ubiquitous in the 1990s. They were nearly synonymous with adult contemporary rock at the time. There were those guys that did the theme song for "Friends" -- and there was Hootie and the Blowfish. That was it. But what happened to Hootie and all his Blowfish -- or should I say Darius Rucker and his bandmates? Well the band's drummer, Jim Sonefeld battled his demons with alcohol and is now a Christian artist. Rucker himself also did an about face, though not as a Christian artist. Rucker has been releasing country albums for the last handful of years. He cautiously promises that Hootie and the Blowfish will be back though one day. A new album is something, he's certain, the future will hold -- though reunion dates have yet to be set.
I was obsessed with Gangsta's Paradise in sixth grade when it came out. Coolio was, in fact, the coolest. But then Coolio and his Medusa-like braids vanished faster than the Greek lady-monster could turn onlookers to stone. More recently, Coolio has been using '90s nostalgia to stage a career comeback for himself in reality television. With appearances in Ultimate Big Brother, Wife Swap, and the UK game show Tipping Point: Lucky Stars (how did you not DVR this one?), Coolio has quickly become the Ryan Seacrest of bad reality TV.
Like what you're reading? Join Made Woman Mag's mailing list for updates, special promotions and more. Click here!
Remember them? You know, that band made up of initials from the 1990s? They talked about liking girls who wore Abercrombie & Fitch. LFO were the poor girl's 98 Degrees, who were really the poor girl's 'NSYNC so....yeah. Okay, let's try this to jog your memory: lead singer Rich Cronin at one point dated Jennifer Love Hewitt and penned their song Girl on TV for her. Well, not surprisingly, LFO ran its short-lived course and the band went its separate ways. The band did reunite for a '90s nostalgia tour featuring other pop bands of the day, in 2009. These days, "Lyte Funky One" Brad Fischetti is a vocal pro-life advocate in Florida. Lead singer Cronin was unfortunately diagnosed with Leukemia and succumbed to his illness in 2010.
We mentioned a few weeks back how much we'd enjoy seeing a Dru Hill resurgence, but do you ever wonder what happened to its shooting star, Sisqo? Sisqo shot to fame faster than you can snap a thong with the summer anthem of 1999 that was every mother's favorite song to hear their 9 year-old sing, Thong Song. His initial album, Unleash the Dragon was such a success that Sisqo decided to make a Dragon trilogy. Sadly, he was actually the only one who wanted more. To temper the sting of being out of the spotlight, Sisqo took part in Celebrity Big Brother in 2010. His purported third album of the trilogy, the ironically titled, Last Dragon, was slated for release in 2012, but has yet to see the light of day. As of the beginning of this year the album was again rumored to be coming out this summer...but now here we are now almost in September and the only Dragons I've seen this summer belong to Khalessi.
Lisa Loeb was the adorkable manic pixie dream girl for slightly awkward, mostly nerdy guys everywhere, before "manic pixie dream girl" was even a term. With her black framed glasses, petite stature, and coquettish affect, Loeb made weepy sentimentalists of teens and twenty-somethings everywhere with her acoustic guitar. If you saw Reality Bites, or listened to the radio in the '90s you probably remember her smash hit, Stay (I Missed You). Loeb fell off the map as the '90s progressed despite her continued stream of album releases. In 2006 she resurfaced -- looking unchanged from 1994 with her signature eyewear -- to take part in her own reality show, Number 1 Single, wherein she searched for love in the big city. Loeb has since married, had two children, released children's music, and earlier this year put out her first adult album since 2004, entitled No Fairy Tale.
Soul artist Raquel Rodriguez is a Los Angeles native with a penchant for emotional vocal runs, a bright, driving style that will get your blood pumping, and for just being one of the 'guys'. Rodriguez's influences are a collection of both old and new school soul - from Sarah Vaughan to Adele -- and you can hear elements spanning the decades in all of her music. She blends the best of decades past with a modern surge. And with a seldom-seen-these-days six-piece ensemble, The Big Guys, backing her, Raquel has moved swiftly from self-titled EP in 2012 to debut LP release. An entrepreneur in her own right taking command of her career, Raquel is spirited woman with a mission to get her music out to the world. After recently releasing her first LP, Miss Me, on June 21, Raquel can take a moment to relish in her accomplishment. But just a moment, because there is no doubt that Raquel has plans to check a lot more off her to do list.
Soul music has always been a huge part of my life. My mom would only play good music while my brothers and I were growing up. In my teen years I definitely gravitated to the pop/hip-hop stuff, but as I got older I found myself going back to my roots. I started to mimic the sounds I used to love and wrote about things that were important to me.
Destiny. [Laughs] Seriously though, I met all of the (Big) guys pretty much through school. Whether it was because we had a class together or just a mutual friend, I met all of them through USC. It took me awhile to find "my band," but now that I have, I'm so grateful. These guys are what make the music what it is and they're all like family to me.
Like what you're reading? Join Made Woman Mag's mailing list for updates, special promotions and more. Click here!
Tough question, but if I have to choose one, definitely Sarah Vaughan. I love Billie Holiday's vibe and soul, but Sarah Vaughan has got the voice! Man, I remember when my voice teacher at USC had me transcribe one of Sarah's solos for homework, and after that I just went on a SV craze. She's dope! I definitely learned a lot from her just listening to different albums.
Change is inevitable, and whether it's good or bad, it's going to happen. I think a lot of things contributed to what mainstream music is now. Technology, politics, location, life, whatever it may be, it's all taken part in what music is today. I love that Soul music is coming back because I honestly believe that it's healthy for people. It's called Soul music for a reason.
It's awesome! Most of the time it's so easy because I grew up with two older brothers, so I'm used to having boys around. I'm definitely a little bit of a tomboy sometimes. The only thing that's tough about it is that I find myself starting to act like them a little too much. I'm pretty sure I burp louder than any of them.
The album is called "Miss Me," and it has that old school vibe. A lot of music today is so produced, which can also be cool, but we didn't want that for this album. Sam, who plays drums on the album, produced the whole thing and wrote a lot of the music, so he wanted to make sure that we recorded it right. We spent A LOT of time making sure things sounded exactly the way we wanted them to, all while keeping in mind that this record is being pressed to vinyl.
The [Raquel Rodriguez] EP was a lot more "calm" in a way, and the recording/production process was MUCH different than what I expected. The EP was made up of songs that I had written when I was younger and I wanted evidence of that. I've grown as a singer, songwriter, musician, performer, basically just as an artist all around, and I think "Miss Me" is definitely a good example of that.
Andrew Scheps was AWESOME! We learned so much from him in the one day we spent recording with him. He gave us so much advice and he was so knowledgeable and passionate about what he was doing. Definitely a huge inspiration. If you don't know what he looks like, just imagine a tall, powerful wizard with a long beard and that's him.
I dream more about playing in places that I've never been before. I want to travel all over the world in whatever venue that'll have me.
Listen to Raquel's latest album and check out her site here.
Sharon and Ozzy. Chris Brown and Rihanna. Katy Perry and John Mayer. Something is in the air but it certainly isn't love. The music world is uncoupling at a staggering rate. With these couples heading for the door, we couldn't help but put together a comforting list of the Top 5 Best Breakup Songs. Whether breakups make you want to seek isolation in a dark room for a good cry over a carton of Ben & Jerry's, or they make you so angry you could throw some sh*%, we have the best of both worlds right here.
Money. Success. Both are notorious relationship-killers. You can kiss your sponge of an ex goodbye with this Fitz and the Tantrums tune playing as your own personal soundtrack. With a sound that masterfully marries Motown and new wave, lead singer, Michael Fitzpatrick, warns, "Don't come back anytime / I've already had your kind / this is your pay back, moneygrabber. Don't come back anytime / you've already run me dry / this is your pay back, moneygrabber." Oozing with soul and an unforgettable melody, the heat from this track is palpable. Let Fitz and the Tantrums show your ex the door the way you had always wanted.
Fleetwood Mac's album Rumors is a veritable vinyl pu pu platter of break-up songs. The 1977 album was the soundtrack for the divorce of members John and Christine McVie, for the breakups of Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, and for one succession from the band. All of this added up to a lot of broken hearts and one of the most critically lauded records of the latter half of the century. From "Dreams" to "Songbird," the album is rife with breakup songs to choose from. Buckingham penned the track "Go Your Own Way" about the dissolution of his relationship with Nicks. While thoughtful and honest, the song comes up just short of sentimental, and is his final emotional and driving release of Nicks. Quality time with this seventies classic rock anthem will get you through some tough times.
When you're really angry, you may as well just come out and say it. Radio edits aside, there is no way to hide from the title of this Cee Lo summer groove. "F**K You" might just be the most uplifting song about a breakup you will ever find. If any song can help you dance your way out of your post-breakup funk, it's this one. If your ex is too caught up in the superficial to see what a catch you really are, then maybe it's time to make like Cee Lo and say...uh, "goodbye."
Before Kelly Clarkson, P!nk, and Fiona Apple, came Alanis Morissette, serving as the creator of the "woman with a bone to pick" genre. Jagged Little Pill was 1995's open letter to double-crossing men from Morissette. Power, anger, and biting language was - in the music scene - foreign coming from a woman at that time. The brash Morissette burst onto the scene with more than just irony. I still remember the day I found out Jagged Little Pill's most potent track, "You Oughta Know", was about Morissette's soured romance with everyone's favorite Uncle Joey - Dave Collier. I never watched Full House the same way again.
Regardless of mood, music is the soundtrack to our lives. Few singers or songwriters have the emotional vulnerability or resonance of Amy Winehouse. In her songs, much like in her life, she was not afraid to paint an honest, and sometimes unpleasant, portrait. "Love is a Losing Game" is a beautiful, heart-wrenching love song drenched in melancholia. Its arching string arrangements are breathtaking. At only 2:49 in length, this brutally honest look at love and loss is epic. This track comes off her Black to Black album, which chronicles her turbulent relationship with not-quite-then-husband Blake Fielder-Civil, and is thus stacked with breakup songs. If you're looking for a good cry, however, look no further than this timeless song from a timeless voice. No one understands your pain quite like Amy Winehouse did.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Let enthusiasm compensate the victims (3)
Fireworks are a work of art and of great skill. It is a great pity when they are reduced to nothing but a dangerous pastime. This is mostly due to greed, lack of discipline and the most basic need of loving thy neighbour. As has been said many times before, having laws is not enough: laws are made to be abided by, and if they are not, then the authorities have the powers to enforce them and enforce them they must.
People must be safeguarded at all times and the police must be given full powers and full backing by the courts. Safe premises where fireworks are manufactured must be identified, with adequate space for people to work in to minimise danger to life and limb and property. Heavy punishment must be meted out if laws are breached.
Lovers of this most attractive art must have self discipline. Above all, it must be driven home that fireworks are safe until it is forgotten that they are dangerous.
See our Comments Policy Comments are submitted under the express understanding and condition that the editor may, and is authorised to, disclose any/all of the above personal information to any person or entity requesting the information for the purposes of legal action on grounds that such person or entity is aggrieved by any comment so submitted. Please allow some time for your comment to be moderated.


text:
Walgreens on Wednesday announced that it has been named the Best Integrated Mobile Experience for its Paperless Coupons offering in the 18th Annual Webby Awards.
This year the 18th Annual Webby Awards, an international award honoring excellence on the Internet, featured applications for health and wellness mobile health apps, including CVS/pharmacy, Walgreens and GlaxoSmithKline.
The Consumer Healthcare Products Association's Stop Medicine Abuse campaign was selected as an official honoree in the 17th Annual Webby Awards in the Family/Parenting category, the over-the-counter association announced.


text:
/// Tone-Deaf NRA Ad Asks Why the Secret Service Protects the President's Kids
The National Rifle Association has, perhaps unsurprisingly, really gone for broke with its latest spot, its first after the horrifying Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting spree in December. Many peripheral culprits have been blamed beyond gunman Adam Lanza, who killed himself at the scene, including violent video games and violent movies , but the most prominent scapegoat has been the firearms industry. Many in the news media compared the shooting to the 1993 Dunblane massacre in Scotland, which resulted in the United Kingdom's prohibition on handguns. The NRA has not exactly been a model of restraint in the weeks following the shooting. A week after the murders, association spokesman Wayne LaPierre said that his solution to the problem of gun violence was more armed guards at schools, prompting even harsher criticism of the NRA.
Original post:
Tone-Deaf NRA Ad Asks Why the Secret Service Protects the President's Kids
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.


text:
Tim Howard was the only American to earn a win in Monday's slate of English Premier League games when Everton beat Burnley, 2-0 for its first victory at home in nine games.
Everton won with two goals in the last seven minutes to climb to 11th place in the EPL.
Clint Dempsey, Marcus Hahnemann and Jonathan Spector played in losing efforts.
Dempsey's Fulham led West London rival Chelsea
after four minutes, but the Blues rallied for a 2-1 win thanks to a Didier Drogba header and Chris Smalling own
Hahnemann's Wolves lost, 3-0, at home to Manchester City, which won its second straight game under new manager Roberto Mancini.
Jonathan Spector came on as a sub for West Ham in the 19th minute of its game at Tottenham. The Hammers' 2-0 loss left them on the edge of the relegation zone
with more games played than the three teams below them.
In the League Championship, Jay DeMerit played the entire game for Watford in its 2-2 tie
at Bristol City.


text:
Betsey Johnson Women's Glitterati Strapless Dress with Pink Bow
this might just be the most adorable LBD party dress ever. love the bow and love the sweetheart neckline.
As chic and simple as this dress is, it still manages to carry off pockets without losing a single ounce of style. Brilliant.Tags: black, spring, mini dresses, polyester, strapless, bloomingdales, prom, Prom Dresses, spring feverAdded 7 Years Ago from Bloomingdales
i am mad for this magenta pink color. this would make a fab prom dress.Added 9 Years Ago from Bloomingdales
this dress looks exactly like a shiny gum ball!Added 9 Years Ago from Bloomingdales


text:
Welcome to Rotherham NHS Walk-in Centre
Here at the Rotherham NHS Walk-in Centre, we're passionate about giving you the best possible care and helping you to feel better, faster. We're open seven days a week, as well as bank holidays (except Christmas Day), providing treatment and advice for a range of minor illnesses. Come and see us in the Rotherham Community Health Centre in Greasbrough Road.
Find out more about our services.
Why choose the Rotherham Walk-in Centre?
We're open 8am - 9pm every day (except Christmas Day)
Our walk-in service treats minor injuries and illnesses during the weekend from 8am to 9pm. Just turn up and we will see you as soon as we can.
Find out more about our walk-in service.
Discreet and confidential
You can choose to see a male or female doctor or health professional – giving you complete confidence.
Treatment you can trust
The Rotherham NHS Walk-in Centre is operated by Care UK the UK's largest independent provider of health and social care. Care UK works with local authorities and NHS commissioners to deliver a wide range of services including urgent care services and GP practices to out-of-hours and 111 services, care homes and homecare services. We are motivated by the importance of delivering efficient, accessible, quality healthcare. We aim to cut waiting times plus the number of visits to A&E departments that could be handled by other services. Visit our website to find out more about our work.
Our website is for the walk-in service only. Other services operated within community health centre are run by different providers.


text:
Orange Bicycle Ride: Dutch King's Day Celebrations
San Francisco Bicycle Coalition
Saturday, April 26, 2014 from 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM (PDT)
Who's Going
San Francisco, California
London, United Kingdom
Florence, Italy
Event Details
Celebrate the great Dutch King's Day (in honor of the King's birthday) by wearing orange and joining this free group bike ride.
10AM: Ride starts at Queen Wilhelmina Windmill (Dutch Windmill) - Route
12PM: Ride ends at the Murphy Windmill
12-5PM: Day-long celebrations for the century's first Dutch King's Day at Murphy Windmill
Bring your own bike, and be ready for a lovely group ride. The ride is free to all and appropriate for ages 12 and up. Sponsored by the Consulate General of the Netherlands and supported by the SF Bicycle Coalition.
Bicycle activities supported by Login VSI and complimentary valet bicycle parking and provided by the SF Bicycle Coalition.
When & Where
Golden Gate Park, Queen Wilhelmina Windmill (Dutch Windmill)
1690 John F Kennedy Dr San Francisco, CA 94121
San Francisco,
Saturday, April 26, 2014 from 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM (PDT)
Add to my calendar
San Francisco Bicycle Coalition
Through day-to-day advocacy, education, and working partnerships with government and community agencies, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition is dedicated to creating safer streets and more livable communities for all San Franciscans.
Our active members represent San Franciscans of all ages, from all neighborhoods, who are working towards more safe, efficient, and green ways to move around our city. The SF Bicycle Coalition is the largest city-based bicycle advocacy group in the nation and one of the largest membership-based groups in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition promotes the bicycle for everyday transportation.