PLEASE SEE MY NEW WEBSITE!
Please note: I have decided to create a new website and it has moved to www.mariewritesandedits.com
Excerpt from LET THE SHADOWS COME published!
An excerpt from my new memoir LET THE SHADOWS COME was published in Hanging Loose #100! Available at www.hangingloosepress.com or www.spdbooks.org
New Piece in VOICES OF MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS
An excerpt from The Trapeze Diaries has been published in the anthology Voices of Multiple Sclerosis published by La Chance. Here's a review of the book from Library Journal:
Voices of Multiple Sclerosis: The Healing Companion; Stories for Courage, Comfort and Strength. LaChance, dist. by IPG. Dec. 2009. c.275p. ed. by Richard Day Gore. ISBN 978-1-934184-08-0. pap. $16.95. HEALTH
This collection of essays from the Healing Project (Voices of Autism; Voices of Caregiving) contains inspiring true stories by those affected by multiple sclerosis (MS). Beginning with a medical overview, the book features short essays from patients and patients’ loved ones. A wife writes about her husband’s diagnosis of MS two months after the birth of their daughter, describing how their love helps get them through the bad days. A patient who lost most of her vision to MS explains how the disease has inspired her to become content with her life. The book concludes with a helpful list of MS organizations and resources. VERDICT Those diagnosed with MS or who have a loved one with MS will find support in this collection of stories, which provides a nice supplement to medical information about the disease as patients can read about others dealing with how MS has impacted their lives.—Dana Ladd, Community Health Education Ctr., Virginia Commonwealth Univ. Libs. & Virginia Commonwealth Univ. Health Syst., Richmond
**This just in from publisher Victor Stasia, 12/17/09, "I think you will all be pleased to know that our first printing of Voices Of MS has sold out. I think this is the fastest this has happened for any of the books, due in no small part to your efforts." AND "The National Multiple Sclerosis Society have told us they are making an announcement about the book in its national newsletter."**
Review in bookslut.com
http://www.bookslut.com/features/2008_05_012929.php
Excerpt:
"...I picked up The Trapeze Diaries, Marie Carter's latest almost-fiction endeavor from Hanging Loose Press, and found a brilliant reminder that it's never too late to join the circus. A collection of juxtaposed micro-moments from Carter's childhood in working-class Edinburgh to her path of self discovery as a young woman in New York, this slim, no-frills narrative tells how Carter's grown-up love affair with the trapeze taught her the true tricks of bravery and courage in the face of loss and fear."
Excerpt:
"...I picked up The Trapeze Diaries, Marie Carter's latest almost-fiction endeavor from Hanging Loose Press, and found a brilliant reminder that it's never too late to join the circus. A collection of juxtaposed micro-moments from Carter's childhood in working-class Edinburgh to her path of self discovery as a young woman in New York, this slim, no-frills narrative tells how Carter's grown-up love affair with the trapeze taught her the true tricks of bravery and courage in the face of loss and fear."
Trapeze Diaries Chosen for April Book Club on Foreword Magazine
The Trapeze Diaries has been chosen for the April Book Club on Foreword Magazine. To write comments and view more information go to:
http://forewordmagazine.com/blogs/bookclub/
http://forewordmagazine.com/blogs/bookclub/
Review of THE TRAPEZE DIARIES on Amazon.com
DON'T JUST HANG THERE, LIVE!
"What should a girl do when the dreams of an exciting life in a new country start to fade, when the ambition bites back, when violence muscles in, and when her father dies, too young? Marie Carter's answer was to take up the trapeze, to fight fear with fear and overcome it. This is a beautiful, at times surreal, account of the author's move from Scotland to Brooklyn, of her ongoing relationships with the people she left behind and of the people who shared their skills, principally "the aerialist" who is both mentor and a symbol of how pain can be overcome.
Read this book and be empowered by both its gentleness and honesty. It is a new kind of memoir imbued with the creativity of a writer like Jeanette Winterson."
by Tea Dragon, AKA Linda Henderson
"What should a girl do when the dreams of an exciting life in a new country start to fade, when the ambition bites back, when violence muscles in, and when her father dies, too young? Marie Carter's answer was to take up the trapeze, to fight fear with fear and overcome it. This is a beautiful, at times surreal, account of the author's move from Scotland to Brooklyn, of her ongoing relationships with the people she left behind and of the people who shared their skills, principally "the aerialist" who is both mentor and a symbol of how pain can be overcome.
Read this book and be empowered by both its gentleness and honesty. It is a new kind of memoir imbued with the creativity of a writer like Jeanette Winterson."
by Tea Dragon, AKA Linda Henderson
Reviews!
“Marie Carter…has real talent…I think we all need to keep our eyes on this imaginative, bold woman’s writing. I predict she may well have a bright literary future.”
www.curledup.com
For the full review go to:
http://curledup.com/trapezed.htm
“A young woman, quiet and overly cautious, with a literary bent, who finds herself newly transplanted from Scotland to the Naked City of New York, comes to terms with herself and the recent death of her father….Her fears and doubts have been and are very much my own, and may I dare say, perhaps yours?…A wonderful read. Highly recommended.”
—Doug Holder
For full review go to:
http://dougholder.blogspot.com/search/label/Holder%20on%20Trapeze
Mel Waggoner from First Choice Books:
"I just finished Marie Carter's The Trapeze Diaries and it was tremendous. In less than 90 pages, Marie's fascinating memoir touched my heart and soothed my soul many times over. Buy it, devour it and be amazed at this outstanding debut."
www.curledup.com
For the full review go to:
http://curledup.com/trapezed.htm
“A young woman, quiet and overly cautious, with a literary bent, who finds herself newly transplanted from Scotland to the Naked City of New York, comes to terms with herself and the recent death of her father….Her fears and doubts have been and are very much my own, and may I dare say, perhaps yours?…A wonderful read. Highly recommended.”
—Doug Holder
For full review go to:
http://dougholder.blogspot.com/search/label/Holder%20on%20Trapeze
Mel Waggoner from First Choice Books:
"I just finished Marie Carter's The Trapeze Diaries and it was tremendous. In less than 90 pages, Marie's fascinating memoir touched my heart and soothed my soul many times over. Buy it, devour it and be amazed at this outstanding debut."
Review in Spectacle
"The same redemptive power is obviously the motivating force behind Marie Carter's The Trapeze Diaries, which is told far more simply and ironically far more movingly than the Cristiani book. For Carter, finding the courage to conquer the trapeze becomes a metaphor for her battle against so many of the fears she carried into her adult life from her childhood. Having conquered the trapeze, she finally comes to peace with her father's death, establishes a new relationship with her mother and although she never reestablishes a relationship with her older brother she is at peace with that failure as well.
Although The Trapeze Diaries is a very slim text, it is filled with honesty on every page. The author's lessons on the trapeze, provided by "the aerialist," do not occupy a great deal of the text, but they and her admiration and respect for circus artists provide an essential backdrop for her journey of self-discovery and reinvention, and ultimately are the keys to her new found freedom and jooy.
Born and raised in Scotland, Carter, we discover, has come to New York City to find a new life and manages to overcome the fears and introversion instilled at home. Her mother also becomes a new person thanks to her visits with her daughter.
Obviously the blacksheep of her family, Carter ultimately seems to become the most well adjusted, and most fulfilled, and perhaps she owes it all to the trapeze."
Sample Page from "The Trapeze Diaries"
The Aerialist caught the hoop beautifully every time, sometimes with her feet, sometimes with her arms, sometimes with her ankles, once with her head. She projected long shadows against the wall of the tent. Many times I thought she might fall and break her neck, but she didn’t. It was the first time I’d seen anything like it. From a distance, she looked perfect. She did not seem to sweat. She did not seem to breathe. Her body appeared weightless. She was so far above me she could have been God.
Later, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I was so touched by the way she defied everything human in herself: unafraid of heights, flexible and strong.
That night, I dreamt shadows were dancing above me. I thought I was falling from a trapeze and I woke to my own shuddering.
