Italy, Intrigue, and Poison

The Italy Edition!
 

I'm heading to Italy this month--not for an Italian book tour, although I'm open to that if my Italian publisher happens to be reading this--but to celebrate a very BIG birthday. You know, one of THOSE birthdays.

So I'm making this a more-or-less Italian-themed newsletter. If you'd like to follow along, I'll be posting sketches from my Italian adventures on Instagram all month.

So I've Been Working on My Italian....

If you've been reading this newsletter for a while, you know that I've been listening to Coffee Break Italian on and off for the last couple of years. It started as a pleasant distraction from current events, but over time I realized I was actually starting to learn some Italian, and now I've been listening intently every day with the hope of being able to order my prosecco in Italian when I get there.

I also made an art project out of it. Here are some vocabulary words I picked up along the way, complete with illustrations and my amateurish attempts at lettering.You can watch a video flip-through of these on YouTube.

And Of Course There's a Cocktail.

 I plan to subsist entirely on Aperol spritzes while I'm in Italy, but I'm guessing you all know how to make one of those. Instead I offer you this: the Bicicleta, a nice variation made with Campari. It's a little less sweet and fizzy--not that there's anything wrong with sweet and fizzy.

1.5 ounces Campari
2 ounces dry white wine
1.5 ounces soda water

Lemon or orange slice for garnish.

Add the Campari and dry white wine to a highball glass filled with ice. Top with soda water, and garnish with a lemon or orange slice.

Asked and Answered: Poisons!

Ask me a question and win the book of your choice! This month's winner is Marina from San Jose, CA.

Marina asks: What became of your Wicked Plants garden?

Oh, THAT garden! Yes, when I was writing Wicked Plants, I planted a garden of poisonous plants at my house in Eureka, CA. I thought it was strange to write about plants I'd never seen, much less grown myself. But a lot of those plants are hard to come by. You can't walk into a garden center and ask for a mandrake--they don't have it! So if someone offered me one of these dangerous plants, I always said yes! The result was a collection of plants in pots that needed somewhere to go. I planted a little poison garden just off my kitchen, with tombstones for plant markers, a skeleton, and even creepy books buried in the dirt. You can read about it here and see a slide show.

After the book was published, it became a little impractical to manage a poison garden. I was by then working on Drunken Botanist, and I decided that a cocktail garden would be much more practical. (read more here and here)

But now I live in Portland, and someone else owns that garden. 

However--this gives me an excuse to tell you about something else amazing! Last week, I was in Delaware to give a talk at the Wicked Plants traveling exhibit, and I met Hattie Weselyk. Unbeknownst to me, she's been working for a year on a collection of jewelry themed around the plants in Wicked Plants. 

Please visit her Instagram to see all of them.

It just amazes me to think that I made something--a book--and then artist Briony Morrow-Cribbs made something in response to that--the copperplate etchings that illustrate the book--and then the North Carolina Arboretum, with the help of many local artists and craftspeople, made something--a traveling exhibit--and then Hattie took all of that and made this collection of jewelry.

You never know where your ideas are going to go.

Wait...what's the Italy connection? Uh, how about this? There's a poison garden in Padua! I'm not going there this month, but you could!

Ask a Question &
Win a Book!

 Please go here to ask me a question and pick your prize. Even if you've entered before, please feel free to enter again and ask the same question or a different one. I love all of your questions and I hope to get to all of them eventually!

And here's a movie...and a playlist.

Have you seen Pane e Tulipani? It's a charming Italian film about a woman whose husband leaves her behind at a rest stop on vacation...so she goes on an adventure of her own. You can stream it online in Italian with English subtitles and get in a little language practice while you're at it.

Also...here's a super-fun Spotify playlist of goofy, charming old Italian songs I've been listening to lately.

Events Start Up Again in September!

Lots more dates are getting firmed up now, so stay tuned! And if you're part of a literary series, a library event, or some other bookish gathering, please feel free to reach out to publicity@amystewart.com to see about setting up an event.

Mission Viejo, CA Sep 11: Literary Orange
Pittsburgh, PA Sept 19: Mt. Lebanon Public Library
St. Paul, MN: Sept 26: Bell Musuem (Wicked Plants)
Tulsa, OK: Sept 28 Tulsa Botanic Garden (Wicked Plants)
Orland Park, IL: Oct 10 Palos Reads

Some of these are ticketed events. More tour dates are on my website. Please confirm details with the venue.

Giveaways!
All summer long! 

It's here, people! We are giving away copies of Kopp Sisters on the March all summer long on Goodreads! There will be a new giveaway every month, so please enter early and often! 

Psssst are you a bookseller, librarian, or book reviewer?
Maybe you want to request an e-galley of Kopp Sisters on the March through NetGalley.

What Are You Reading?

I don't have one book to suggest this month, but a list. I made a list of Italy-themed books on Goodreads, and I'm combing through it right now to decide what to read on vacation. Some of my selections are light-hearted, some are more literary...I'm not sure yet what I'll send up taking.

What are you reading? Tell me about it on Goodreads or Litsy.