france

5 years. 4 Goodreads Giveaways.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Bonjour 40 by Karen A. Chase

Bonjour 40

by Karen A. Chase

Giveaway ends March 04, 2016.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

Mon dieu! How has it been 5 years since my BONJOUR 40 trip to Paris? Five years since I met Dorothée and Bandit. Sixty months since I wandered those streets delighting in the joy of getting lost… Since then, the book has reached thousands, resulting in some amazing new relationships, and some lovely comments from readers both complimentary and inspiring.

As a thanks, I’m running a Goodreads Giveaway now through March 4th. Sign up for a chance to win one of 4 copies of BONJOUR 40: A PARIS TRAVEL LOG. It’s a world-wide giveaway (so share far and wide). And to Worth, Greg, Brenda, Jackie, and all my sweet readers and supporters… You have inspired me, too. The pen is still in my hand, and travel still moves my feet. Hugs and merci to all of you have come along on this delightful journey.

“This reads with the same pleasing, conversational, witty, engaging lope of Bill Bryson and Paul Theroux.”

“I literally cried while I wandered, with you, through Shakespeare and Company and sat, just behind you at the Mad Hatter’s Party. It is without a doubt, and I’ve many years on you lass, one of the finest pieces of travel writing I’ve enjoyed.”

“For my 60th, 8 women and I rented a chateau in Provence… Met so many people who are now lifelong friends. The magic of travel is awesome. Keep writing you owe it to your soul……”

“You helped me through a very lonely Christmas Eve. I have the flu and pneuma and could not be at my family’s Christmas Eve dinner. I fixed a pot of tea and read your book Bonjour 40. I felt like I was on vacation with you. Thank you for getting me through a difficult holiday experience.”

 

 

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Lafayette’s Hermoine Close Up

Every now and then a little bit of history sails right into our lives. This last week, the Hermione landed in Yorktown, VA. The Hermione (pronounced Her-me-own) is a full-scale replica of a ship Lafayette sailed from France to America to fight with us during the Revolution.

While I’ll have more about my tour of the ship later this month in my Will Travel With Words Column on ShelfPleasure.com, for now enjoy this gallery of images: The Hermione Up Close.

The Hermione is currently sailing up the east coast to land in New York July 4th. To find out where the Hermoine will be, visit the Hermione2015 Website or for amazing photos visit their awesome Facebook page.

 

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Traveling to Sit Still

When at home, I sit. Sit to write. Sit to read. Sit until my legs go numb. While on holiday, as we are now, I like to move. But since we left Richmond Wednesday, I’ve been sitting. Waiting for planes. In the plane (sleeping was even done while sitting). In a car with friends going for lunch and coming to their place. Then dinner. Then breakfast. True, we took a short walk in between. True, we also sat and had some of the best bread I’ve eaten in two years for lunch, and today the nicest tart with coconut and lavender. (Ted thought it tasted like soap, I thought it tasted like heaven.)

However, one cannot complain about all the sitting required to wander around France. It is a luxury. And for a writer, a necessity. Why? Details. When one rushes through life, the world is a blur. When I sit at home in front of my computer writing, the world is out of focus. So I must stop and gather data for the future.

So today I sat with dear friends sharing stories and wine at one of only four restaurant tables among the little cobblestone streets of Simiane la Rotonde-a charming little village where the cars park above or below the town and you wak in. I sketched.  I saw the streets. I saw a man who wandered the town looking for his lost girlfriend, and three minutes later I saw the girlfriend looking for the boyfriend she believed to be lost. I saw friendly people serving lunch amid geraniums waving hello, as an old wooden door up the curving walk tugs at my curiosity.

By sitting, by sketching, I actively slowed down time, and relished in the details that will add to my memory, add to my ability to see. I will save all of it for another story.

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Bonjour 40 – Le livre est arrivé!

Bonjour 40: A Paris Travel Log, the print version, is now available on Amazon!! Oh la la!

So many readers asked for it and it’s finally here. After the success of the eBook and receiving an eLit award, I went out to find an agent and a traditional publisher. But then I got to wondering what kind of book they would make. What would it look like? What would the design feel like compared to my trip? I’m a professional designer, and we like things just so. After some searching and a lot of encouragement, I eventually gave in… no, stepped up, and said, “Karen, you can do this.”

So I combed through the thousands of photos from the trip, and added in some new text. Then I went at it. Now it is 132 full-color pages, 8.5×8.5, with over 100 images. It feels more like a photo journal and a pictorial journey through Paris, but it still has my stories about a strange pillow and Bandit the dog.

If you loved the eBook, I hope the print version will be on your gift list–for yourself and others. Joyeux Noël.

For those who want to know how I produced the book, my process included:

~ InDesign for the page layout of the interior and cover.
~ Photoshop to crop, resize and color correct all 109 images.
~ Worked with April Michelle Davis to edit the copy in the new layout.
~ Opened an account through Createspace (Amazon’s print self-publishing).
~ Submitted a PDF of my files and they sent me a physical proof.
~ Based on the size and page numbers, Createspace helped me set pricing.
~ Approve it all, and wait 5-7 days for it to hit Amazon.

A few of the inside pages are below. To see more, you can “Look inside” on Amazon.

Bonjour Paris Maintenant (Now)

The restaurant in Montmarte where Amélie was filmed. I had dinner here.

Wouldn’t you love to dine in this Paris café right now? Yes, but… I understand. You have work, family and other commitments. I have them, too. So in place of encouraging you to make a trip as I did last year, instead I’ll share with you a few things Parisienne that are more affordable (both in time and money) to help transport us there maintenant (now).

Music:
• Pandora – I have a station called “Pink Martini Radio” (here’s a little video of one of my favorite Pink Martini songs)
• Soundtracks from French Kiss and Amélie
• Soundtrack from La Vie En Rose, about Édith Piaf

Language:
• For just a coupe hundred dollars you can learn French on your own with the Fluenz DVDs. The owner, Sonia Gil,  also has a fun series of travel videos online, some of which are set in Paris.

Movies:
French Kiss (see above under music)
Midnight in Paris
Amélie

Online:
GirlsGuidetoParis.com
BonjourParis.com
LonelyPlanet.com

Words:
A Moveable Feast – Hemingway’s last book about living in Paris in his 20s
The Sweet Life in Paris – David Lebovitz’ book about food and the city
Markets of Paris – a small, well-designed book filled with a list of all the best markets (food, antique, books & more) in Paris
• (Shamelessly) Bonjour 40, my own book. Now just 99¢.

Please share your favorite travel books, music, movies and more. Bon voyage!

Bonjour Bread Festival

Bread. In Paris. Mais oui! Especially the baguette. Yummy, crunchy-exterior, and soft air-filled morsels of yeasty goodness made by artisans using only four ingredients–flour, yeast, salt, and water. Now, imagine a whole pile of artisans together, under one giant tent filled with ovens, surrounded by flour, linens, rising dough and free samples of bread (and cheese).

Each year in Paris, beginning the Monday before May 16th and lasting for a full week, they celebrate Fête du Pain. May 16th is the day of Saint-Honoré, the patron saint of bakers. I just happened upon the celebration while I was there last year. My nose found the massive tent near Notre Dame before my eyes did. Drifting from it was the rich smell of fresh baked bread like my mother baked until I was sixteen. That same delicious scent would greet me coming up the walk from school, so my nose knows what it’s doing when it comes to eeking out fresh baked bread.

The festival, however is more than just a collection of officially designated artisans. It’s in part, a competition. So in addition to baguettes you see them forming the most remarkable feats with dough. Faces. Brie baked inside. Flowers formed with it. And you can witness the whole process. Oh la la. It’s so decadent.

There were so many great pictures from the festival last year, I’ve put in the gallery below – just click to enlarge. There’s also this little YouTube video so you can feel like you are there. Sans smells, of course.

First Fridays: Bonjour “Paris in Color”

This month’s First Friday artist sticks with the Bonjour Paris theme: Nichole Robertson is another writer, photographer and Parisian-lover. She has a delightful book out called Paris in Color. Yes, Paris is definitely photograph-able. But Nichole takes it to a lovely work of art level by gathering her images together by color.

Before she moved to Paris for a year, she began a site called Little Brown Pen. The name and the site are adorable and it links you to the book, a bit of info about Nichole and the photography collection she dubbed “The Paris Color Project.” After moving to Paris, she would head out with her camera, and when a colorful item grabbed her attention, she’d take photos of that color for the day. As she says in the book, “Nothing sharpens your senses like a new address.”

Upon returning home each night, she’d post the colorful images. Now those images can be found in her book. They can also be found in The Paris Print Shop. It’s a site Nichole and her husband set up to sell the images, postcards and more. And her work has gone on to be featured by Martha Stewart, Real Simple, and The New York Times among others.

Are you green with envy for that little Vespa you saw near the market? Now you can own a collection dedicated to the color. Are your skies gray because you miss Paris terribly. Or perhaps yellow is how you are feeling today. This yellow image is downloadable for your desktop wallpaper from her publisher’s facebook page at Chronicle Books.

That’s So Peter Mayle

Part of my research for my trip to France involved reading Peter Mayle’s A Year in Provence. It’s delightful and filled with all kinds of hilarious anecdotes about French people, food, weather, and feeling like a foreigner in your chosen home. I love Peter’s writing. He was a copywriter, and so for that reason I also have an affinity for his passionate embrace of life when he moved to France with his wife after fifteen years in the ad business. Now, after reading his book, and being there myself, I can understand the draw.

However, I recently discovered Peter Mayle wrote another widely known book I read in elementary school called Where Did I Come From?  It’s a book written to help explain the “facts of life” to kids whose parents are afraid to even spell s-e-x around them. Millions of copies have been sold, but I am shocked to discover that Peter wrote it. I wonder, did writing that book help Peter to realize that he was from France? If it did, then I really need to go read it again. It would have given me a reason to tell my parents I was suffering through Canadian winters because I was Parisian and we needed to move.

Though the two books could not be more different, I guess it shows me an author can have a wide range. But I don’t know what I’ll think if I find out Agatha Christie helped write Are You There God It’s Me Margaret.

Has a favorite writer of yours ever changed genre, and did you still follow them?

Where Did I Come From? is also available as an African-American edition. Really?! We come from different places? Maan, my parents didn’t tell me anything!

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