Greetings from An Alien Parisienne. My main personal blog is here on Wordpress. To access all of the bloggy and social media things I juggle, see my About Me page here.
Blog organization has been a problem for me ever since I started writing on a blog back in 2004. I find it really hard to neatly compartmentalize my life, and what I tend to write about becomes a giant mish-mash of right brain disorganization. The other problem is this: I have been getting invited to or been attending a lot of interesting events here in Paris, but I don't always feel like writing a post about this stuff on Wordpress, the place I want to be about my own thoughts and day-to-day experiences in Paris and elsewhere. One complaint/response I have been getting of late on that blog is that there is not enough about me and stories about my life there anymore as in the past. It's true -- in the past few months, that blog has morphed into my giving "Special Reports" on everybody and everything except me. To try to address this, starting now and moving into the coming fall, post-vacances, I am going to try to use the other sites I have for posting on the events, tours, readings, etc. I've attended. I'm going to use Flickr, Tumblr, Posterous (this space you're on now), and perhaps also Google+, depending on what happens once the API is released and how much it becomes a hub for sharing information for me (so far, so good on the G+ experience!).
There were two things I got to do this past week here in Paris. The first was I participated in a tour of "When Paris Was a Woman" presented by Monique Y. Wells and Tom Reeves of Discover Paris Tours. They offered a special blogger promotional rate for us bloggers to get a taste of what is normally two tours offered in this interesting and informative series. The second thing I did was attend a reading at Shakespeare and Company book shop in the center of Paris to hear writer Sion Dayson read an excerpt of a short story of hers that was published in an anthology called Strangers in Paris: New Writing Inspired by the City of Light by Tightrope Books (edited by David Barnes and Megan Fernandes).
On Saturday, July 23, 2011, I met with Monique Wells and Tom Reeves of Discover Paris Tours at the Place Josephine Baker in the Montparnasse neighborhood in Paris' 14th arrondissement. Several bloggers came along for the tour, including Yetunde Oshodi of Feels Like Home in Paris (her post on the tour is here at the Like Home in Paris Blog), Eric Fredeau of the Montmartre cooking school Cook 'n with Class, and jewelry designer Shandi Levy of Shantilly Jewels.
Monique describes the tour as follows:
Paris Was a Woman – Montparnasse, Luxembourg, and Saint Germain des Prés
During this walk, we explore the lives and environment of a number of remarkable 20th century women. Participants will learn of American, British, and French women who lived, loved, worked, and dreamed in Paris from the 1900s through "Les Années Folles" (The Crazy Years) of the 1920s and the German occupation of World War II to recent times. Most of the women described in this tour reached the peak of their intellectual efforts before World War II; one in particular achieved renown after this war. Several of them have been all but forgotten.
There is also a short description (and a picture of me, too) about the day I joined the tour on the Paris Insights/Discover Paris Facebook page here.
We were on a specially-combined tour of what is usually two separate tours in Montparnasse and through the Luxembourg Gardens and into Saint Germain des Prés on Paris' Left Bank.
Some of the authors, both expatriate and native French, we learned about were Natalie Barney, Gertrude Stein, Janet Flanner, and Simone de Beauvoir. We passed by the restaurants, cafés, parks, and residences where these women lived, loved, worked, and played during Paris' version of the Roaring 20's.
We learned not only about their professional lives as writers, but also about the juicy and scandalous details concerning these women, who eschewed the roles and mores of more ordinary women of the times. Monique's in-depth information captivated me and helped bring to life what life was like for these mavericks, who came to Paris in part because they could live their lives with more freedom during that era in the City of Light.
If you are going to be visiting Paris, or if you are like me and live in the city and want to know more about her past inhabitants, this is an excellent tour in which to discover more about the literary women who spent time and wrote here. To find out more, contact Monique Y. Wells or her husband Tom Reeves via their website Discover Paris. To learn more about Tom and Monique and the various projects on which they both work, please see my post on my main blog An Alien Parisienne from November 2, 2010, Special Report: Discover Paris!
Sion Dayson is an up-and-coming American writer who lives in Paris. Her work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Girls’ Guide to Paris, and Travel by the Books amongst other writerly places, including a short story published in Smokelong Quarterly. She recently recieved a Masters of Fine Arts in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She’s working on her first novel and blogs about the City of Light’s quirkier side at Paris (Im)perfect.
On Monday, July 25, 2011, Sion appeared at Paris' famous book shop Shakespeare and Company along with Tightrope Books founder and publisher Halli Villegas to read an excerpt from her short story entitled "The Idiopath" which appears with several other works of poetry and short fiction in the anthology Strangers in Paris: New Writing Inspired by the City of Light, edited by David Barnes and Megan Fernandes. It's a story Sion describes as follows:
When Ben’s girlfriend Lisa suddenly starts having inexplicable seizures, he freaks out, then flees. It’s a story that illustrates that no matter how far you run, you can never really escape what haunts you.
Out of the thirty-six total contributors in the anthology, several were able to make it to Paris to share excerpts of their work, including Suzanne Allen, David Barnes, Marie Davis, Antonia Klimenko, Colin Joseph Wolfgang Mahar, Danielle McShine, Helen Cusack O'Keeffe and Sarah Riggs.
Paris Paul (who is my other half, and who posts at Paris By Cell Phone and Paris Inspired) and I had to make an decision about whether we could buy the book or not. Unfortunately, we were having a food and toilet paper crisis in our home this past week, and we had to pass for now. In addition, Shakespeare and Company actually sold out of their copies of the book that evening, helping make the decision for us! But, I really hope to get my hands on this anthology soon. I very much enjoyed what I heard read by the authors/poets pariticipating in the reading.
If you want to read it, too (which I recommend that you do if you are interested in current literature and poetry and/or a Paris perspective or connection), and if you are in Paris, the book is being carried at Shakespeare and Company, but you can also order the book online from Tightrope Books here at this link: Strangers in Paris. If you are from Canada, Amazon.ca is selling the book online as well here at this link.
Later on in the evening, the participants headed over to Paris' The Spoken Word, a bilingual (English and French) open mic/scène ouvert literary performance meet-up held at the bar Culture Rapide in the eastern area of the city called Belleville. A couple of times a month, writers are invited to give interpretive readings of their work. It's run by the one of the editors of the Strangers in Paris anthology, David Barnes, who is also active with The Other Writers' Group, a drop-in feedback writers' workshop held at Shakespeare and Company since 2005.
For More Information
Discover Paris!
Monique Y. Wells and Tom Reeves
Paris Walking Tours / Self-guided Walking Tours / Black Paris Tours / Paris Travel Tips
"... a unique resource for the independent traveler who wants to explore Paris in his or her own individual way. Whether your interests lie in architecture, popular culture, haute cuisine, fashion or something a little more specific, our goal is to provide you unrivaled access to the best that Paris has to offer."
Sion Dayson, Writer and Blogger
http://parisimperfect.wordpress.com
Check out her post, Strangers in Paris (Book + Launch Party!)
Shakespeare and Company
37 rue de la Bûcherie, 75005 Paris
Métro: St Michel
http://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/
The Spoken Word Paris and The Other Writers' Group
David Barnes
The Spoken Word is held at:
Culture Rapide
103 rue Julien Lacroix
Métro: Belleville (Line 2) or Pyrénées (Line 11)
http://spokenwordparis.blogspot.com
