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HOW THE EVENT IS GOING TO WORK: Lit Crawl II is a good old-fashioned read off.  SLAKE Editors, Joe Donnelly and Laurie Ochoa will be MC the night. AUTHORS WILL EACH READ FOR 8 MINUTES– THEN A BUZZER WILL SOUND.  The “winner” of the read-off will be determined by audience applause after all authors have presented their pieces.  The evening will begin promptly at 6 PM.  This means all authors and the MC duo should plan on being at The Echo by 530 PM.  The read-off will be done by 8 PM, at which point, you can choose– To Crawl or Not to Crawl?  Crawl maps will be passed out to the audience after the reading is finished.  The crawl route is as follows:  El Prado, The Gold Room, Little Joy, The Shortstop.

I (Katie Arnoldi) will be reading a medley of “romantic moments” from all three novels: Chemical Pink, The Wentworths, and Point Dume.   I encourage everyone to jump on a plane and come on out for this historic event.

But here’s the thing: I have to be a little bit careful about what I read, hear and see when I’m in the early stages of writing a book.  The sponge phase, where you’re open and everything interesting or exciting or terrible or nasty or sad is a potential topic, can be a treacherous time.   I have to constantly remind myself that the novel is not a giant salad.  You can’t just throw in all the leftovers from the fridge and hope for a masterpiece.  Watermelon, fried olives and watercress may or may not be a gastronomical delight but just because you have the ingredients on hand, doesn’t mean they should be the mainstays of your book.

True, sometimes happy-accidents occur.  While I was writing my second book, The Wentworths, I happened to read Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer.  One of his best, it examines fundamentalist Mormons who still practice polygamy.  I finished reading and the next thing I knew I was in the car, driving out to Colorado City, located on the Utah-Arizona border, in search of the truth about this dark religion.   I was shocked and fascinated by what I saw, couldn’t get enough.  In the course of writing my novel, I visited that Mecca of dysfunction seven times and ended up with a lovely character named Honey Belmont.  Now in this case, I lucked out because the main theme of the book is the destructive and redemptive nature of family.  Polygamy fit right in.  But what if it hadn’t?  Would I still have come up with an excuse to go out there?  Would I have changed the novel to accommodate my curiosity?  Made some sort of justification for all those road trips?  Maybe.  Probably.  I have to be careful about what I look at when starting a book.

There was another happy accident during the writing of my most recent novel, Point Dume.  The book was initially about a blue-collar community in Malibu that is slowly destroyed by the obscenely rich.  I opened the book with a quote about native and invasive plant species and how invasive plants can choke out and kill off the natives.  About a third of the way into that novel I found out that the Mexican drug cartels are growing marijuana in the hills of Malibu California—for real.  Of course I stopped everything and threw myself into research mode.   I made some contacts and spent a summer in Sequoia National Forest working on Operation LOCCUST, infiltrating cartel grow-sites, working with law enforcement to locate and destroy watering systems and breaking down the infrastructure of the camps.  I had to know everything there was to know about pot farms.  I flew in Black Hawk helicopters and slept in the barracks with the other guys on the mission.  It was dangerous and unbelievably fun.  Then I came home and smoked eight kinds of marijuana—all in the name of research.  Finally I sat back down and worked the cartel activity into my novel.  Would I have gone out on the marijuana mission if it did not directly fit into the theme of my novel?  Absolutely.  It was way too much fun to pass up.   I was lucky that the subject complemented the themes of my existing work but if it hadn’t, would I have rewritten to justify my need for adventure?

And so here I am at the dawning of my next novel.  I have my main themes: Migrant issues, US/Mexico border, drugs, racists.  It’s going to be a gentle, light-hearted little book.  I’ve got a lot of my characters up and running.  We’ve cast off—Helm alee!

But here’s the problem: there’s the oil spill in the gulf.  I’ve already jumped on a plane and spent a week down there checking things from Florida to Mississippi.  I justified the trip by saying that perhaps my new book needs an oil spill.  (It does not).  The shark population of the world is being decimated and our oceans are in terrible trouble.  I’ve been to Rwanda!  Can’t stop thinking about Haiti.  The state of education.  Poverty.  North Korea.  The war.  The President.  Environmental devastation.  Dangerous chicken products.  Mean people. You can find a story in every topic.

I need to be forcibly restrained.  There is a state of isolation where only my characters and their stories exist.  The outside world doesn’t interfere; there are no distractions.  I’ve been to this place before and it’s wonderful.  But they keep changing the entrance and the trick is finding that secret door.

Katie Arnoldi looking for that entry

No but see, the difference is he’s got the “Chuck Norris Karate Commando Action Figure: Karate Chop” and it comes with accessories.  I would love to be an action figure.  I would have little tiny copies of my books that I could carry in my action backpack and pass them out to people in need.

People in need?

A small village in an isolated jungle.  Rice paddies.  The constant threat of malaria, poisonous snakes.  I would pass out copies of Chemical Pink, The Wentworths and my new novel Point Dume.  Can you imagine the joy?  My books would change those people’s lives.

They don’t speak English.

Right, but I speak their language.  I sit on a rock in the shade of a tree.  The whole village gathers around, young and old alike.  I read to them in my full, throaty writer’s voice and they weep, tears of joy and profound understanding.  Then we all slaughter a water buffalo and cook it over an open fire, a magnificent feast that lasts for a full seven days.

Have you ever bought your own book on Amazon just to make the number go down?

That’s a stupid question.  Don’t ask me that.

You’ve done some pretty extreme research for all of your novels.  You injected steroids into the buttocks of bodybuilders for Chemical Pink.  Spent long afternoons in Beverly Hills shopping for cosmetics and high heels in order to build your character Norman who is the youngest son in The Wentworths.  And you smoked eight different kinds of marijuana for Point Dume.  All I can ask is why?  Why, Katie, why?

All my books have dealt with subcultures, people whose lives revolve around a different set of criteria from the mainstream.  The bodybuilders in Chemical Pink live in their own world.  They eat, drink and breathe the gym. The pursuit of physical perfection—a perfection that most of us find repellent—is all consuming.  I could never have written about that world had I not spent some time living inside it.  Authenticity of voice and experience is important to me.  I need to be able to inhabit my characters and to do that I have to be completely familiar with the world in which they live.  The Wentworths are an extremely wealthy family living on the Westside of Los Angeles—talk about a subculture.  I didn’t really have to do much research on them because I grew up around Wentworths but there is another character, Honey, who invades their lives and she comes from a polygamist family in Colorado City, Arizona.  I had to spend time in the place where she was born in order to understand the woman she became.  I went out there seven times, armed with a taser.  And in Point Dume I write about the pot farms.  Well, how can you write about a place and phenomena if you haven’t been there and lived it?  I was able to worm my way onto the Growsite Reclamation Team and work with law enforcement to eradicate these HUGE grows up in Sequoia National Forrest and the surrounding areas.  The mission was called “Operation Loccust” and it was awesome.

So pot is a character in your new novel?

No, smarty pants.  It’s not.  But I couldn’t write about marijuana and the pot culture without being fully acquainted with the drug itself, now could I?  For the record, I’m not a pot smoker.  I don’t like it.  But I am dedicated to my work and will do what it takes to inform my writing.  I had many dark cannabis moments in preparing for Point Dume.  The first time I sampled the weed, I spend several hours on my couch, curled in the fetal position, waiting for the effects to wear off.  Pot is MUCH stronger than it was in the olden days.  I lit my hair on fire one afternoon preparing an emergency quesadilla and spent countless hours watching the shadows on the wall.  I heard phantom noises and had paranoid thoughts.  It was tough but I needed the information to move forward on my book.  That’s the kind of writer I am.

What is your signature strength?

Definitely kindness and generosity.  I love animals.  I used to be able to handle eighteen forty-five pound plates on the leg press but I blew out my back and had to have surgery so those days are gone.

Talk about your writing history.

I was extremely dyslexic growing up–really bad.  Reading was a huge challenge for me; I was always in the slow group and no one recognized my problem as a learning disorder.  Back then, you were considered dumb if you couldn’t keep up.  But somewhere in my late teens I developed a kind of coping mechanism and reading changed from a torturous necessity to a passion.  I read everything and quietly started writing short stories.  I had no confidence; that dumb thing stuck with me for many, many years.  I wrote short stories all through my twenties and early thirties.  They were horrible, boring tales about young women trying to figure out their complicated lives.  I wrote a whiny novel and it sucked. Then I had a couple of kids and everything changed.  I finally got over myself.  Chemical Pink was my first piece of fiction that had nothing to do with ME.  I try to stay out of the way now and things are much better.

Any advice for young writers?

Keep your head down.  Write everyday.  And remember: Chuck Norris counted to infinity—twice.

Everything was going along just fine in my chaotic mind and the novel was vaguely coming together.  I had my main character Delilah blossoming into her neurotic self.  I had embryos incubating of a few really nasty men and one saint.  I’d brought back Felix Duarte’s girlfriend Violeta (Point Dume) whom I’ve decided is going to be even more prone to violence.   She still likes little men. She likes to get them in headlocks, holding them close into her enormous left breast, and pummel their skulls with the knuckles on her beefy right hand.  She still smells like molasses.   I was getting excited about my people and the places they were going to go.

And then BAM!  The Deepwater Horizon catastrophe exploded.  Like a lot of people, I sat in front of the TV, night after night, watching this unbelievable disaster.  Our oceans are already in trouble; this just seems like the end of the world.  I followed the story for about three weeks and then announced that I was going down there.  I had to see things first hand.  The world needed me and I needed to be the judge.  I would have jumped on an airplane that night—I am nothing if not impulsive—but I had about two more weeks of book touring for Point Dume.  So I made my reservation and finished my obligations.

I read the articles in various papers stating that BP was running the whole clean-up thing like a police state.  Journalists were being denied access to airspace above the spill site.  They were not allowed to ride in the boats and were even being turned away from oiled beaches where clean-up efforts were underway.  But that didn’t deter me!  I was sure that if I just got myself down there, I would be able to figure a way in.  Nothing would stop me.  (Sometimes the arrogance of my fantasies is off the charts.)

I thought I had a connection in Alabama, who could get me behind the lines, so I chose Mobile as my destination.   But my connection didn’t pan out.  I envisioned myself at the center of crisis after crisis.  Perhaps I would be the one to rescue that pelican in need, clean and save that endangered turtle.  No dice.  BP is very careful about who sees what and I didn’t see a single drop of oil—or much wildlife.  I drove from Pensacola, Florida through Bayou La Batre, to Gulfport, Mississippi.  I know for a fact that there were oiled beaches on the tip of Dauphne Island and at Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge.  I know that because there were roadblocks with armed sentries standing nearby to make sure that nosy people like me didn’t sneak in and take a bunch of pictures.  (Okay, I’m not positive the sentries were armed but the attitudes at the roadblocks felt militarized!)

Clean-up workers in Alabama

In other areas where there was no oil at all, I saw hundreds of people combing the sand for tar balls.  They work in 15-minute shifts.  Because there was no oil, there was no security and I walked out amongst these people.  I didn’t see any tar, no oil.  Nevertheless, these workers patrolled this beach for hours, dragging their ultra sturdy plastic bags.  At the end of the day those mostly empty plastic bags are stuffed into other plastic bags then consolidated in bigger plastic bags.  What happens to the plastic bags?  Couldn’t get an answer on that one.  I did hear a rumor that BP is very concerned about the bags of tar falling into enemy hands and appearing for sale on eBay.  But again, no confirmation on that.

There were ATVs zooming up and down the sand, speeding around, creating a real sense of emergency.  I have no idea what they were doing but I did wonder about the environmental impact of all those motorized vehicles on the dunes and grasslands.

15-minute break

I talked to a lot of people down there.  Everybody is angry.  Everyone mentions hurricane season.    Alabama is beautiful.  So is Mississippi.  The area is so obviously alive and important.  It is a place that should have been protected and preserved but instead we have something like 3,858 oil and gas rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.

View from one of the many beautiful beaches in Alabama

I’m home now, trying to get back to work on the new book.  I’m so glad I got to see the beauty of the South but I didn’t learn or see anything we don’t already know.  I left with the same question I had when I arrived:  How could we have done this to ourselves?

*

“United States Marijuana production in 2009 exceeded Mexico’s”

“More Marijuana was Eradicated in California than was Seized at the US-Mexico Border: There were 1,489,643 kilograms of cannabis seized during 2009 at the U.S. – Mexico border.  This amounts to 1,486 Metric Tons of cannabis, about 1/3^rd of what was eradicated in California (5,140 MT).”

“California’s law enforcement eradicated more marijuana than was produced in Canada”

“California may supply 3/4^th of all the marijuana for US consumers”

*

Where do you think they’re growing all that pot?  On our public lands.  And trust me, Cartel grow-sites are not organic.  They are using the most toxic pesticides, rodenticides and fertilizers to grow the plants.  They are killing everything in the area and permanently polluting waterways.  I’ve been in these sites—there’s no wildlife.  No snakes or bunnies or deer.  Everything is dead except the weed and the surrounding canopy of plants.  There’s often a sharp chemical smell in these sites.  No bugs, no nothing.  Cartel activity is destroying our wilderness.  The environmental impact of these grow-sites should be the central point of all legalization debates!

Here’s the full report:

Marijuana Production in California

In San Francisco, I got to do a radio interview with one of my favorite new novelists Tony DuShane (Confessions of a Teenage Jesus Jerk).  He’s so smart and funny.  I had a fantastic turnout at Booksmith—lots of tequila so the discussion was lively.  I got to do a radio interview in Pescadero where we talked about migrant issues relating to my book and the surrounding area. At M is for Mystery I got to know owner Ed Kaufman and found that we had many things and people in common.

Portland was fantastic.  I started the day at KBOO radio where I got to do an interview with Lisa Loving.  I had a great afternoon in conversation with Jeff Baker from the Oregonian.  He wrote an amazing article.  Then I got to read at Powell’s on Hawthorne.  I love Portland.  I love the people who turned up at Powell’s.  If you guys are reading this—I love you.  You were all so supportive and I enjoyed the conversation so much.  Some of the people who came brought me gifts.  Can I just tell you—writers LOVE to get gifts.  It makes us feel so important.  Thank you Portland.

Finally I came back and got to do a reading at Diesel Malibu.  Diesel is my home base.  Owners John Evans and Alison Reid have been my support team and provided my reference library.  They are so smart.  It’s an honor to call them friends.  We had a wonderful turnout and I got to talk about “Old Malibu”.  Yesterday I did the fabulous “Connie Martinson Talks Books” show.  It’s the second time I’ve been on Connie’s show and I loved it.  And then I ended the day with the news that I’ve made the L.A. Times Bestseller list—debuting at #9.  Talk about a gift from the gods.

I have a reading this weekend in Joshua Tree at the Red Arrow Gallery with my friend Rob Roberge and then on June 10^th I’ll be in NYC reading at the Happy Ending Bar with Arthur Nersessian.

How did I get so lucky?  Why did all this happen for me?  Aside from the fact that I have the best publisher in the world—Overlook Press—I can offer you two words: Tyson Cornell.  Tyson Cornell and Rare Bird Lit are responsible for all this success.  He is smart and talented and I am so fortunate that he agreed to handle the publicity for Point Dume.  He has changed my life.  I’ll never be able to thank you enough, Tyson.  But this is a start.

(NO, I will not talk about Charles Worthington’s sex life in Chemical Pink.  I have nothing in common with that man.  I’ll tell you that as an adult, I have never worn a diaper nor wiggled around in a silkworm costume.  And while my grandmother did have vegetable dolls, I have never used them in an erotic context.  Sometimes the writer just makes it up.  Fieldwork is not always a pre-requisite to a compelling scene, especially in sexual situations.  Know that!)

As anyone who’s ever had it in excess knows, tequila has a very specific and unique affect on brain function and behavior.  Nudity is often a side effect.  Why is it so funny to take off your clothes after a few shots of Herradura?  Women tend to remove their blouses and brassieres, climb atop tables, and enthusiastically display themselves in all their feminine glory.  But it isn’t just women.  I once had a forth of July party that featured a “blind taste test” of several different types of Tequila.  The contestant would step up to the counter where I would blindfold them then ask them to sample four shots and vote on which one they liked best. There was a lot of debate, especially amongst the men, and I encouraged my guests to go back two and three times to recheck their selection.  Soon everyone was swimming around in the tequila fog.  There was wrestling amongst the men and then suddenly they were all whipping it out and comparing the size of their manhood in an effort to prove superiority.  I noted that several of the men snuck off to a private corner and “primed the pump” before joining their brothers in that manly display.  Who won?  I don’t remember.

I think we can all agree that nothing says party like a shot of tequila.  And it is for that reason alone that I will once again be featuring shots of that delicious drink at my first book launch event on the 15^th of May, 4:00, at the William Turner Gallery (Bergamot Station).  I invite you all to come and celebrate the publication of Point Dume.

Cheers!

I got up early Wednesday morning and went to the market.  Lemon rosemary chicken, two kinds of pasta, Caesar salad with the secret special dressing, olives, bread, cheese, salami. (Note: men love salami.)  And most importantly, lots of really good wine.  (I’m a red wine drinker and so is Vollmann!  I was delighted that we had that in common.)  I had enough food for twenty and there were just five of us.  That’s okay, I thought, sometimes men get really, really hungry.

Joe picked up Bill (I love calling him Bill) at the airport and brought him straight to my place.  I hadn’t met Joe (I love calling him Joe) but I did read his novel Empty The Sun and had listened to the excellent soundtrack that accompanies, and perfectly complements, the very tight and compelling book.  I was anxious to meet him too.

Yes, maybe I had a couple of glasses of wine while waiting for the arrival.  Wouldn’t you?  Have you ever had Vollmann over to your house?  You need to drink wine.  Trust me.  It’s a nervous-making experience.  I don’t know what I was expecting but I was completely surprised.  They walked in smiling.  Both men were open and generous and just plain nice.  And it was incredibly easy to talk to them. Sometimes I feel like I belong at the kids table and I notice that I slip into California surf lingo—a dialect that even my children wouldn’t use—but on that day I maintained my writer’s voice and the three of us had a really interesting discussion.  We talked about the research we’d done for our various books and I found we actually had a lot in common.  Life and death experiences—all three of us have been there.  I don’t want to spoil the interview by describing it.  It should be up soon and I hope you’ll listen to it.

Bill had another appointment that afternoon and so he left around 2:00.  I cleaned up the kitchen and spent the rest of the day trying to decide what to wear to the book signing that evening.  Dress up?  Dress down?  I worked it out and arrived at Book Soup early but not early enough to snag one of the seats.  No problem, I got a good spot in the back.  Bill gave a GREAT reading and his discussion of Kissing the Mask was brilliant. It was a perfect ending to a perfect day.  I went home and fell asleep, happy as can be.

And then I woke up.  It was 12:15.  I noticed the time when I ran by the clock on my way to emptying the contents of my stomach.  I knew immediately that I had food poisoning.  It’s just something you know when you’re vomiting every 15 to 20 minutes over the course of four to five hours.  I’m not sure I’ve ever been quite that sick in my entire life and all I could think, the entire time, was that I’d poisoned Vollmann. What?  What had I done wrong?  Was it the chicken?  The salad?  Every time I posed the question, I dry-heaved.  Through my careless culinary habits, I had brought down my great hero in midst of his book tour.  He would never forgive me—nor should he.

The sun finally rose and I dragged my wretched self to the computer.  I know Tyson is an early riser and so I wrote to him: “How are you feeling?”  I held my breath and I didn’t move from my chair except for one quick trip to the bathroom, which turned out to be a false alarm.  Finally the reply: Tyson was fine.  Joe was fine.  Devin was fine.  That meant Vollmann had to be fine.  And then I remembered that before the lunch there had been breakfast, a suspiciously sour tasting egg white and feta wrap from some coffee place.  I alone had been poisoned.  Hallelujah.

I am convinced that we will eventually get this movie made but there’s really nothing to report at this moment.  I will certainly keep you posted!

Jonas and I were meant to go to the Arnold Classic this weekend but unfortunately I’ve got the world’s worse ear infection from diving on Palau and so I’m not allowed to fly.  I’m very disappointed to miss the show as we hope to start the casting process soon and I know that we would have met some great talent in Ohio.

Jonas has been meeting with actors to play the male lead, Charles Worthington.  I can’t mention names at this point but I’m dying to.  It’s all so exciting.  I will update this page with news as it develops but hopefully we’ll begin the actual casting of Aurora, and other bodybuilder rolls, soon.

Stay tuned.