In this engaging creative writing workbook, Linda Lappin, novelist, poet, and travel writer, presents a series of insightful exercises to help writers of all genres -- (literary travel writing, memoir, poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction) discover imagery and inspiration in the places they love.Lappin departs from the classical concept of the Genius Loci, the indwelling spirit residing in every landscape, house, city, or forest, to argue that by entering into contact with the unique energy and identity of a place, writers can access an inexhaustible source of creative power. The Soul of Place provides instruction on how to evoke that power.The writing exercises are drawn from many fields such as architecture, painting, cuisine, literature and literary criticism, geography and deep maps, Jungian psychology, fairy tales, mythology,metaphysics,theater and performance art, all of which offer surprising perspectives on our writing and may help us uncover raw materials for fiction, essays, and poetry hidden in our environment.An essential resource book for the writer's library, this book is ideal for creative writing courses, with stimulating exercises adaptable to all genres. For writers or travelers about to set out on a trip abroad, The Soul of Place is the perfect road trip companion, attuning our senses to a deeper awareness of place. "Insightful exercises help creative writers of all levels attune themselves to the power of place." Amy Alippo, National Geographic Traveler

The Soul of Place: A Creative Writing Workbook: Ideas and Exercises for Conjuring the Genius Loci

Self-Help

Lappin, Linda

Creativity

Travelers' Tales

In this dramatic, fictional retelling of New Zealand writer Katherine Mansfield's final years, and of the events which led up to her meeting with P.D. Ouspensky and G. I Gurdjieff, novelist Linda Lappin transports the reader like a time traveler into Mansfield's intimate world. Scrupulously researched and richly evocative, the novel has been praised by Mansfield scholars as "creative scholarship." With vivid detail and beautiful language and style, Lappin has built on journals, letters, and diaries to fashion a true-to-life mosaic, using themes, motifs, and methods of Mansfield's own writing. Katherine's Wish celebrates Mansfield's deep love of life and its final message is a life-affirming one of joy and of wholeness achieved. Finalist, ForeWord Book of the Year Award in fiction, IPPY Gold medal in historical fiction, honorable mention Hoffer Awards, honorable mention Paris Book Festival, finalist Next Generation Indie Awards .

Katherine's Wish

Literature & Fiction

Contemporary

Wordcraft of Oregon

"Haunting...vivid...entrancing!" Kirkus. "Gorgeously detailed, wickedly fun," Prairie Schooner.In Lappin's prize-winning, literary gothic tale, the tantalizing love story between American heroine Harriet Sacket and the enigmatic Count Federigo, self-proclaimed Etruscan spirit, is played out in 1922 against the backdrop of eerie Etruscan tombs, boar-infested woods, and elegant Tuscan villas. The Etruscan recounts the adventures of Harriet Sackett, trouser-wearing American photographer who travels to Italy to photograph Etruscan tombs for the Theosophical Society.  Here she falls in love with the charismatic Federigo del Re, occultist , amateur archaeologist, and shape-shifter, but her increasing fascination with the man will leave her on the brink of collapse. The story is told from the viewpoint of Harriet's English cousins, Stephen and Sarah, whose own dark secrets are revealed as they read the diary Harriet has kept of her obsession, trying to understand what has transpired. As the unraveling of Harriet's mind is revealed, so too are the secrets of Harriet's family- secrets which are no less disturbing than those revealed in her diary. The mystery at the heart of Harriet's experience draws the reader on: who is Federigo del Re, the man she calls "her secret sun"? Noble lover, unscrupulous conman, Etruscan ghost, village shaman, or simply the product of Harriet's delusion? Lappin keeps the suspense pulled taut till the very last page. Readers traveling to Italy this summer or just lounging at home dreaming of Tuscany can lose themselves in the Etruscan woods of Lappin's lush landscapes.What Readers Are Saying:"Think Fifty Shades of... but fifty times better written," Margaret Bramley, Bookcrossing.com"Pan dances more deeply in The Etruscan than he does in Lawrence's Etruscan Places" Mel Ulm, The Reading Life."I was enthralled by Lappin's Italy... and by that god/demon/boar that flits through its landscape" Nina Auerbach, critic, author of Our Vampires, Ourselves"Reminiscent at times of John Fowles' The Magus" A.E. StallingsFrom the book  "The road to the tombs skirted a field of shriveled sunflowers, an army of nodding heads on stalks, bowed and blackened, awaiting harvest. There were no houses out this way, only wide expanses of tawny stubble, alternating with strips of freshly ploughed clay. Here and there on a hilltop, a dead oak or cypress punctuated the empty sky where hungry crows swooped low. Grazing in the quiet meadows were flocks of dirty sheep. Their bells tinkled as they turned their heads to stare at me. A solitary traveler on the road, an alien by local standards: a tallish woman, no longer young, wearing a pair of moleskin trousers and rubber boots; a rucksack swinging on my shoulders. The black felt hat pulled low over my forehead concealed my cropped blonde hair. When working or traveling, I always dress in men's clothes. To those placid sheep I probably looked like a walking scarecrow. ..

The Etruscan

Kiwai Media / Wynkin de Worde

WINNER 2014 DAPHNE DU MAURIER AWARD for Excellence in Mystery and Suspense Writing     "We are constantly immersed in a network of signs and symbols whose meaning eludes us, but which, if only we could read them, would reveal every detail of our past and even of our future. Little signs presaging an event, and persisting in their own way till long after it is over. A sort of anticipating echo. They are everywhere-- a casual word in a conversation overhead, an unusual design of seaweed and twigs washed up on the beach, a picture on a postcard slipped in between the pages of a borrowed book, a glove abandoned on a train. But to make them speak intelligibly ... that is another question"In this novel, we meet four unlikely misfits seeking inspiration in the timeless Italian landscape. Soon, however, they find their destinies entangled in the meanders of the mysterious sculpture garden of Bomarzo with its freaks and monsters. Daphne, a writer with a hashish habit; Clive, an American gigolo and aspiring artist; Nigel, an English aristocrat down at the heels; and Finestone, a fly-by-night art historian all come together in a decrepit villa looked after by two Italian servants who are not what they seem. To find what they're looking for, all the characters must descend into the depths of hell. But not everyone will make it out alive.

Signatures in Stone

Caravel Mystery Books

Amedeo Modigliani, embittered and unrecognized genius, dies of meningitis on a cold January day in Montparnasse in 1920, Jeanne Hébuterne, his young wife and muse, follows 24 hours later, falling backwards from a window. Now a ghost, Jeanne drifts about the studio she shared with Modigliani - for she was not only his favorite model, but also an artist whose works were later shut away from public view after her demise. Enraged, she watches as her belongings are removed from the studio and her identity as an artist seemingly effaced for posterity, carried off in a suitcase.Thus begins Linda Lappin's new novel LOVING MODIGLIANI, retelling the story of Jeanne Hébuterne's fate as a woman and artist through three timelines and three precious objects stolen from the studio: a diary, a bangle, and a self-portrait of Jeanne depicted together with Modi and her child.

Loving Modigliani: The Afterlife of Jeanne Hébuterne

Literary

Serving House Books