4.14.15 Book Club Special Edition with Lorna Landvik at Park Grove Library

Lorna Landvik gave the Park Grove Library Book Club a special treat, so we shared treats with others that came to visit and hear her speak.  It was fun, it was entertaining and we learned a secret which we vowed not to share.  We laughed, we were entertained, we reminisced about characters in the book Patty Jane's House of  Curl and we asked questions we were wondering about when we had discussed the book last month.

Two things we have learned from our recent Book Club Special Editions (this one and one late last year with William Kent Krueger):  you have to have perseverance.  Lorna said she had 30 rejections of her first book, this one, and took her three years to get published.

She shared her life journey with us, including going to California to be a stand-up comic which is in her book "BEST TO LAUGH."

She shared with us that when she was in 1st grade--yes, 1st grade, she knew what she wanted to do.  She read Dick & Jane & Spot "I do see spot jump" and knew she wanted to write.  She had an influential 6th grade teacher who would play the piano everyday (inspirational and creative).  She wrote a poem about snow in 6th grade and shared that with us.  It was wonderful.

 Here is the article written in Goodreads:  "How can you compensate those who excite, inspire, build confidence and open doors you didn’t know existed? If it were up to me, the base salary of public school teachers would start at $100,000, with frequent opportunities for advancement. (And cappuccino machines in every teachers’ lounge, on-site masseuses . . . or at the very least a full stock of supplies they didn't have to pay for). 
I have often spoken of Mr. Spaeth, my sixth grade teacher/renaissance man who taught us everything from fractions to presidential history to pirate songs (in a lovely tenor voice). At recess, he was not a teacher to stand back, but a full participant in our games of Bombardment and Kick Ball and catching one of his powerfully-thrown fly balls or tagging him out was a giddy triumph. 
He read to us daily and his encouragement and belief in my own writing, made me believe in it. His inscription, ‘Best of luck for a fine literary career’ was not just written in my autograph book, but in my heart. 
In his class, we listened to a radio program called, ‘Let’s Write’ to which teachers submitted their students’ work. Twice my poems were read over the air and hearing my words coming over the crackly P.A. system absolutely thrilled me (even as my built-in Norwegian-Lutheran modesty propelled me to lean over my desk, cradling my head in my arms). 
Here’s the poem:

I love the feeling of icy snow,
The tingling coldness, the peppermint glow
The skies are dull with a hint of blue
Then down come the snowflakes crisp and new
They drift and float and come a’dancing
I almost hear Rudolph’s swift legs a’ prancing!
But the feel of the flakes is the best of all
Touch me, touch me, they seem to call."

She shared her life journey with us, including going to California to be a stand-up comic which is in her book "BEST TO LAUGH."

Sharing her process of writing "Patty Jane's House of Curl" was so interesting.  She had Patty Jane and Harriet in her head before she had started the story-line.  We asked questions and received many fun answers about her writing and the book.

When introduced, one of book club members shared that Lorna Landvik was the most read author during our almost 100 books read at Park Grove Library Book Club.  We have read Tall Pines Polka, Angry Housewives eating BonBons and this last one, Patty Jane's House of Curl.  We have enjoyed her fun style of writing and that she is a local author.

It was a treat to have her join us for our Book Club Special Edition and thanks are to be given to the Park Grove Branch Library for allowing us to have this event and to the Washington County Library System.