5 Facts about our 3 for 3 Authors

Our next event is super exciting because we are bringing together four local literary institutions, Seattle7Writers, The Bushwick Book Club Seattle, Hugo House and Town Hall Seattle to partner the event. “3 for 3: Music Inspired by Books; Books Inspired by Water” will feature Bushwick Book Club’s songwriters and musicians performing songs inspired by the books of three Seattle7Writers. Authors Daniel James Brown (The Boys in the Boat), Jennie Shortridge (Love Water Memory), and Jim Lynch (Before the Wind) are all new to me so I took to the Internet to find out more about them. Here are five facts about our authors and their work:

Jim Lynch is an admitted binge writer

In Writers on Writing, Lynch admits to being a binge writer, writing for 10 hours at time if he is on a roll and writing well. He also explains his erratic writing schedule and various forms of procrastination he uses including doing more research on his writing topic. In the short video, he offers some additional practical advice for aspiring writers including “write the book you want to read.”

Love Water Memory is already inspiring music.

In addition to the songs you’ll hear at the January 21 event, Love Water Memory has already inspired music. Author Shortridge has a playlist of music her band with other Seattle7 writers, The Rejections (and Trailing Spouses), played at the launch party for the book.

 

Boys in the Boat is now also a documentary

The American Experience team at PBS made a 52 minute documentary Boys of ‘36 based on Brown’s book. With footage from both the 1936 Olympics and of current University of Washington rowers, the film tells the story from author Daniel James Brown’s research.

A chance meeting with Joe Rantz lead Brown to write the book

Brown’s neighbor asked him to come over and meet her father, who had just read one of Brown’s earlier books. That man was Joe Rantz, the focus of Boys in the Boat. This meeting lead Brown on a six year project of researching and writing the book. Brown talked about his research with the St. Louis’ Home of Education, Arts, and Culture.

Jim Lynch is an experienced sailor

On his blog, Lynch explains how his history of sailing with his family led him to being an author and writing Before the Wind. Even with this experience, he still researched sailing extensively to get all the sailing details in the book right. He even bought a boat and turned it into his writing office so he could write the final draft on board.

I hope these facts get you warmed up for the 3 for 3: Music Inspired by Books; Books Inspired by Water. See you January 21 at Town Hall!