Julie Ann Shapiro
1) What is the flower on your website? Tulips?
Yes
2) Is Julie Ann Shapiro your real name?
Yes
A few questions about your novel: Jen-Zen and the One Shoe Diaries
3) Fictionwise.com suggests that it will take 226-317 minutes to read Jen-Zen and the One Shoe Diaries, do you agree? Are you a fast or slow reader?
I'm a fast reader. But if I love a book I may savor it and read favorite passages over a couple of times. I'd say it's a weekend trip kind of book or more of a leisurely mind vacation thing spread out over a week.
4) Most book covers just put the author's name, on your novel you add "Written by". What reason do you think a psychoanalyst would give for this?
"It's by....or shall I say bye bye reality...I'm in the world of the book now." No, just kidding. Oh, this is a really fun question. The ebook cover has "by" in it as the "shoe" photographer added that on there. I think of it in the ethereal sense of the book.
The trade paper back doesn't have the word on the cover. That's because it's in sync with the more traditional book climate. Here's the link to the review that NewMyths.com did which has the paperback cover.
5) Is there a reason you haven't used Amazon's "search inside feature"?
I want to have that feature activated. My publisher, Synergebooks contacted them about adding the feature. My guess is that with the holidays and all it got put on the back burner at Amazon.
6) When Scott Barnes wrote: "Although they say that if you leave a million monkeys in a room full of typewriters long enough they will eventually write the entire works of Shakespeare, I can't imagine that they would come up with Jen-Zen and the One Shoe Diaries. This is a singular book, original in voice, thoughtful in tone." Was he saying you were better than Shakespeare, or just more original? :)
That's Scott's sense of humor.and his take on the whimsical, wacky lyrical world of my novel and style of writing. I mean who thinks up a novel about shoes left on the beach, adds a love struck photographer named, Brad who can't stop taking shots of the singular shoes he sees everywhere. It's his grief coping mechanism. And if that's not wacky enough...there's his love interest, Jen-Zen. She is a poet who is dead and still haunting Brad. He family thinks he's nut. A shaman tells him to look in the shadows and all the while Brad's listening to his heart which is saying..."I know why it's happening...there's a message in the shoes themselves."
I think my style in this novel is magic realism with Shakespeare and a barrel of monkeys along for the ride. It's a fun novel, give it a read.
Warmly,
Julie
1 comment:
Hey there, as the real life "Brad" in Julie's novel I thought I would say hello. I am a photographer that has befriended Julie through the One Shoe Diaries. I guess you could say the book is somewhat based on my life although Julie had no knowledge of my existence when she was writing her novel. Kinda a "Twilight zone" happening going on. I have been photographing solo and lost shoes for the last three years and exhibiting them as The one Shoe Diaries Photo Collection have a coffee table book displaying the photos and along with stories from traveling the U.S. fulltime in a motorhome after losing our home to Hurricane Ivan in 2004. Julie's book is a lot of fun to read for me, and I believe others will find themselves sucked into the world of lost shoes. And will even begin spotting them all over the place.
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