Stella Leventoyannis Harvey, the author of two novels from Signature Editions, is letting us in on a special author experience in today’s Under the Cover: what’s it like to go inside a book club and discuss your own work. Stella has gone to dozens of book club meetings and schools over the last few years but one thing is always the same: the pre-meeting nerves. Read on to learn more about Stella’s experiences with book clubs and don’t forget to check out our very own summer book club.
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O day of days when we can read! The reader and the book, either without the other is naught. — Ralph Waldo EmersonEvery time I enter a room of book aficionados at a book club I wonder if I will have anything of value to say. After all, these participants are not discussing just any book. They’ve chosen my novel this month. I’m grateful and excited. But I’m also terrified. I am as eager to please as I am to facilitate the thoughtful discourse I hope will happen. Will they feel good about the discussion? In these new situations, I simply revert to my high school persona and wonder, “will they like me?”At most book club meetings, I know someone in the group, typically the person who has invited me. But I’ve also been to book club meetings where I didn’t know a soul. In these situations, the club has found me through a friend of a friend of a friend. Or as my husband says, “It’s easy to find you. You’re all over the internet.” Don’t ask. It’s a long story.I accept all invitations for presentations to book clubs or schools or festivals or anywhere really. You want me to come, I’m happy to oblige. I’m honoured by the interest people show in my work. And besides I have the gift of the gab (born with it) so any occasion to engage in conversation is good.Despite this, I’m nervous. Yes, believe it. I hate to disappoint, and each event is a performance. I prepare for hours: read and reread the piece I will deliver, think and rethink possible questions, imagine and reimagine the discussion. Still there is no amount of planning (this coming from an obsessive compulsive planner) that can anticipate where these sessions will go.None of these feelings of insecurity stop me, though. Fool that I am, I love walking into the unknown, love whatever it is I’m about to discover about these folks. I love people. Period. And besides, who wouldn’t like the opportunity to talk about books?With few exceptions, the questions that are raised in book club meetings have to do with either my characters or the novel’s storyline, or the political and economic situation that provides the backdrop to the novel. Other questions that come have to do with my writing process. When do I write? How often do I write? What research is involved? The discussion is engaging. Most can see the references to Greek mythology throughout my work and the archetypes I’ve built. They appreciate and understand my characters, warts and all.Readers tell me my fiction gives them an appreciation of issues the headlines could never provide. It buoys me to have readers read my work so carefully.With both my novels, Nicolai’s Daughters and The Brink of Freedom, I have explored dark subjects, but more to the point, I’ve investigated the shadowy side of our humanness. My particular obsession being: what makes people do what they do? In my mind, there’s always a reason. If I dig far enough, I’ll find it.By far, most of the questions asked have to do with my characters: “Did he have to do that?” There are also comments such as, “you broke my heart when …”Yes, I know. I’d love it if my characters stopped screwing up, but they have a mind of their own. They do what they do and I simply write it down. Believe me, I shake my head too when I see what they get themselves into.It’s usually in the middle of a discussion or shortly after I leave a book club meeting that I begin to relax and wonder why I got myself so worked up in the first place. Everyone was so kind and generous.I can’t tell you exactly how many book clubs I’ve been to in the course of the release of my two novels, but I would think it would be about 25 or so. I can tell you that I’ve been to clubs where participants were 30 something, 40 something, and well beyond something. The thirty somethings each held a hard copy of my book in hand, and in contrast, the sixty somethings held my book on their ereaders or Ipads. And I’ve been to book clubs where there was a combination of both media. It’s difficult to sign an ebook, though. I’m just saying.And then there is the question of men. Yes, most book clubs are made up of females, but I have attended two meetings where males were present.In the first case, a man invited himself to the discussion because he’d read my novel and wanted to talk about it. That particular book club said he could come back anytime. He had asked great questions. In another case, husbands had been invited because many of them had also read my novel. At first, a bit shy, the men eventually found their voice and asked as many questions as their wives.I’m honoured and feel incredibly fortunate to meet the people who have read my novels. Readers and authors go hand in hand, as do readers and books. For me, readers enrich my world view and give me reason to explore, write, and tell stories.Next month, I’ll be attending a few book clubs in high schools. As I pen the dates into my calendar I’m already getting nervous… But I know it will all work out. Eventually. Still, I again ponder, worry, and prepare.* * *If you love reading behind-the-scenes stories about books on the way to publication, read more of our Under the Cover posts here.
