|
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Book signing!!Thanks to everyone who was able to attend
the
book signing on the 22nd. We came,
we read, we ate cake.
Oh what a night!
I'll be posting a few photos to this site soon,
but if you'd like to get
a look at the festivities
pronto, please go to my Facebook page (it's
a public page, so everyone is welcome).
Click here for a link to Facebook.
Enjoy!
5:14 pm cdt
Monday, June 22, 2009
Live TV!!!
I made my live TV debut this morning on a
local St. Louis
program called Great Day
St. Louis. The hosts, Virginia Kerr (on camera)
and Carol Daniel, were
wonderful! Click here
to watch the interview.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Here's an essay that accompanies my author bio
on the Hachette Book Group website
(click here
to go directly to the HBG website). MAN! I FEEL LIKE A WOMAN
When I was a boy, I wanted to be a pro football quarterback.
As a teen, my obsession was basketball and the Boston Celtics.
In college (when I realized I’d stopped
growing and wouldn’t be
6’9”), my interests turned to hockey. So naturally, now that I’m
getting a novel published, my chosen genre is…chick lit.
Pardon?
Actually,
chick lit and I go back a long way. I read my first chick
lit novel when I was in college. I was taking
an English Lit survey
class, and we were reading Dickens and Joyce and Orwell, among
others. Then the professor,
a rather staid gentleman, assigned the
chick lit novel, unabashedly praising it as one of the best books ever
written.
Of course, he didn’t use the term “chick lit”; he called it
by another name.
Pride and Prejudice.
Yes, that one.
Maybe you’ve read it. Or seen the movie with Keira Knightley
(my
wife could watch it daily). Or the miniseries with Colin Firth.
Or read Helen Fielding’s modern take:
Bridget Jones’s Diary.
The connection between chick lit and Austen is inescapable.
Google
the two: 130,000 results.
It seems
that Ms. Austen tapped into something both universal
and timeless in her delightful novel: romance, fashion, and Love,
and the silly things it makes us say and do and feel. In a nutshell,
that’s what P and P
is about. And, as far as I can tell, that’s
what chick lit is about.
Now, I’ve only written one book in the genre, so I’m no expert.
There are many other far more talented and insightful (and attractive)
practitioners—I won’t name
names, but you know these good
ladies’ names—and they would be far more qualified to tell you
what
it is and isn’t.
As for me,
I just wanted to write a story about a guy who starts off
with his own pride and prejudice about the genre, about the
people
who read it, and about life itself. He’s not a bad guy; he just has
a blind spot. Okay,
blind spots. And huge ones.
But
in the end, he just wants what every single woman in every
single chick lit novel wants: To love, and be loved.
Come to think of it, that’s what we all want, isn’t it?
I know I
do. And thanks to my wife Robin, I have it.
I’m not sure how women who enjoy chick lit (or women in
general) will take to my
novel. They may think that it’s making
fun of them. If you stop reading after page forty, I can see
how
you’d think that. But if you hang in there, I think you’ll find that
the book is saying
something else, entirely.
After
all, that’s my name on the cover of a chick lit novel.
And I couldn’t be more proud.
2:36 pm cdt
Monday, June 15, 2009
Please join me for the official release
of
Ms. Taken Identity
When: Monday,
June 22, 7:00 PM
Where: Left Bank Books
399 North Euclid Avenue
St. Louis, Missouri
63108
(314) 367-6731
What: Reading/Q&A/Signing
(P.S. Cake, too)
Hope to see you there!
6:17 pm cdt
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Check out the press release that's circulating for Ms. Taken Identity!
"Clever
and funny."
—Brenda Janowitz, author of Scot on the Rocks and Jack with a Twist
His mind is from Mars,
but his pen is from Venus.
Ms.
Taken
IDENTITY
a novel
DAN BEGLEY
In his debut novel Ms. Taken Identity (5 Spot, June 2009),
Dan Begley takes a walk on the wild side into women’s fiction, or chick-lit, if you will. Art imitates
life in this semi-autobiographical story about a man intent on unlocking the inner workings of the fairer sex by researching
and writing a book from a woman’s point of view.
Meet Mitch Samuel, just your average,
everyday-sort-of guy. He teaches intro to comp lit at the university while working on his dissertation,
has aspirations to become a critically acclaimed author of serious literature, and lives with a perfectly suitable girlfriend
who he can’t seem to commit to. Ah, but his “normal” world is about to change.
A know-it-all vixen enrolled in his class takes every opportunity to make him look ignorant in front of the other students,
his manuscript gets rejected by EVERY publishing house in existence, and his girlfriend breaks up with him because of his
commitment issues.
Bent, but not broken, Mitch is determined to turn things
around. His chance meeting with Katharine Longwell, a beautiful and flirtatious best-selling women’s
fiction author, prompts him to create an alter ego—a female cousin named Bradley—who is working on a book and
would love to receive feedback from a pro. He creates yet another identity, Jason, a pharmaceutical sales
rep who signs up for a dance class to research how women think and what they really talk about. Both aliases
venture into areas where Mitch as himself would never go: dancing, hair products, Oprah. His plan
of attack is perfect! Except nothing goes according to plan. Confusion and mayhem ensue as Mitch
makes new friends (women!), falls in love (with his best friend’s sister), writes a best-seller (with the help of Ms.
Longwell), and loses it all, only to end up where he was at the beginning of his journey: confused about his life and a woman’s
place in it.
Dan Begley brings an unexpected and fresh new voice to women’s
fiction. Ms. Taken Identity is a hilarious and exciting romp into
the age-old battle of the sexes and will surely shed light on both sides of the battlefield.
A note from the author: I didn’t want to write this book. I was working on another
project, not having much luck with agents, but I wanted to keep my head there. In literature.
My wife said I should change gears and write something fun and upbeat, like chick-lit. Nope.
Sorry. Not my genre. Chick-lit is written by … chicks.
But we writers are always looking for plot ideas (warning: be careful what you say around a writer; it could turn into
a book), and my wife’s comments got the wheels churning. How about a guy who has no business writing
a chick-lit novel deciding to write a chick-lit novel? Hmm. Why doesn’t he want
to write it? What would drive him to do it? And what would the outcome be?
I couldn’t believe my luck (and my wife’s brilliance) and decided to give the novel a shot.
Boy, am I glad.
I’m a big fan of pop culture and sports and literature
and love, and writing a book like this let me bring all those elements together. (My first story, written
in the fifth grade, had none: just a monster whose weakness was salt (!), and lots of dead bodies.)
I had a great time spending the past few months with Marie and Rosie and Katharine and Molly, getting to know their
worlds, paging through glam magazines, watching movies like The Devil Wears Prada and Notting Hill
(after which I, uh, watched every movie with Al Pacino to, you know, balance things out in the end). In
fact, I’m envious: Mitch got to meet Regis Philbin, and spends all day on a golf course. We should
all be so lucky.
About the Author: Dan Begley
is an award-winning writer who has been a member of the English faculty at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, and Cor
Jesu Academy. A summa cum laude graduate of the University of Missouri, St. Louis, he lives in St. Louis
with his wife, Robin. This is his first novel.
4:20 pm cdt
|
