Ask the Author: Craig A. Monson
Answered Questions (6)
Craig A. Monson
Hi Rita, I'm only allowed 200 characters to answer your question: the quick answer is no easily accessible book that I know of. Let me try to write a longer post on my blog, which should allow more space. So check there: we'll see if that works!
Craig A. Monson
For me, it's less inspiration than obsession. Though I retired in 2015, I'm in my university office-in-retirement (formerly the music department choir robe closet) seven days a week, arriving before anybody but the janitor. To introduce a little more "balance" in my life, I'm trying to leave after lunch to do other things, chiefly restoring vintage trailers, from the 1930s to early 1960s. (I guess I'm a bit obsessive about that too, though I've winnowed my collection down to only half-a-dozen. . . . )
Craig A. Monson
Before escaping the heat and HUMIDITY of St Louis for the dry heat of Santa Fe, I always stop at Goodwill to stock up on books for a dollar apiece. After author and title, my next stop is the back of the title-page to discover if there have been multiple printings: often a better guide to reader satisfaction than claims on the cover. Books with multiple printings are likely to go into my sack, whoever the author and whatever the subject (within certain limits...). It's a great way to broaden my horizons. That's how I first discovered such memorable and worthwhile reads as Ann Patchet's Bel Canto and Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna. This summer's sack includes Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants, Matthew Pearl's The Dante Club, Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns, Carol Goodman's The Lake of Dead Languages, Frank McCourt's 'Tis, Kim Edwards' The Memory Keeper's Daughter, and several volumes from what must have been someone's collected works of Scott Turow. Very eclectic and a bit behind the times, but promising to keep me busy until August.
Craig A. Monson
Thanks, Marie, for your kind words (which I only just discovered in my inbox. . . . ) It's hard for folks to recognize that in the 1600s some of the best choral singing could be heard, not in the local cathedral, but in the convents. I think Nuns Behaving Badly is gone for good from Kindle (maybe because Amazon now has lots of cheap used copies on offer). The press did such a nice job that I find the physical object much more satisfying, particularly in the case of NBB. Thanks for you interest, and apologies for the delay in responding. Craig
Craig A. Monson
I'm well into a true story of rightly disgruntled wives in Italy, caught murdering their husbands. As the investigation unfolds, more than two dozen would-be widows are implicated: "Goodbye Earl," transferred from the twentieth-century American South to seventeenth-century Rome.
Craig A. Monson
Back in the 1980s I stumbled upon a brief archival reference to the two prostitutes-turned-nuns' flight from the convent and subsequent murder. Thirty years later, while surfing the Web, I ran across a reference to an investigation of the case, ordered by Pope Innocent X in 1645. I flew to Rome, tracked down the transcript (2000+ pages), and decided it was too interesting not to write about.
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