Jodi Picoult, best-selling author of “My Sister’s Keeper,” came to Sixth and I Historic Synagogue on Tuesday, March 22 to discuss her new book, “Sing You Home” with The Washington Post book reviewer Ron Charles.
Her new book follows the struggle of a female, same-sex couple trying to conceive. This is the first of her books to come with an accompanying CD that features songs performed by Picoult’s close friend Ellen Wilber.
This multimedia experience is not Picoult’s only venture into the digital age of writing. She was also one of the first authors to have her own website, and she is even active on Twitter. She e-mails and tweets back to every fan that reaches out to her. Picoult said new media has enriched her author-to-fan experience, something few authors have at all.
Her writing technique is just as unique as her interactions with fans. She starts with an issue that is meaningful to her, and waits to see if her thoughts constantly return to it.
Picoult said that if an issues starts to keep her up at night, she has the right topic for a book. She said the characters begin to pop up like mushrooms in her head, and she begins months of research to best represent the groups depicted in her book.
Picoult proclaimed that her books encourage readers to think critically.
Her advice to fellow writers was relatively simple. She encouraged aspiring authors to write everyday, to finish what they start and to send out their manuscripts as many times as it takes.
Looking at her success, it is difficult to believe that she sent out her manuscript over 100 times before someone was willing to work with her. Just two years ago, one of her books, “My Sister’s Keeper,” was made into a movie starring big names in Hollywood like Alec Baldwin and Cameron Diaz.
One of her fans at Sixth and I asked about the ending to the movie, which was changed drastically from the book. She told her fans the reason for the change is still unknown and the director refused to explain why he altered the ending. Not surprisingly, the movie did poorly, presumably because the radical change did not sit well with Picoult’s fans.
Luckily for those fans, Picoult announced something exciting at her Sixth and I event — Ellen DeGeneres now owns the rights to the “Sing You Home” film. Jodi Picoult’s fans can rest assured that Ellen will do the book justice and that they can confidently look forward to this new movie.
thescene@theeagleonline.com
