Gin Phillips
@GinPhillips17
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Author of FAMILY LAW, FIERCE KINGDOM, THE WELL AND THE MINE, and others. Hater of Socks. Donut Aficionado. @VikingBooks @tallpoppywriter
Birmingham, AL
Joined February 2017
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I am available for all manner of book clubs.
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Sometimes you get a bird nest on your porch fan, and sometimes you get a nest built by birds who apparently have a degree in design. They’ve woven dried hydrangea blooms through the whole thing--it’s got a great Victorian vibe.
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My great-aunt used one of these well into the ‘90s, and I thought it looked like something’s wizards or time travelers would use. Have you had the pleasure of spinning one? Or do you have no idea what it is?
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Alright--asking for a manuscript--who knows what a storm door is? When I was growing up, a storm door was considered crucial to safety--from storms? from burglars?--by everyone in my family. I can't remember the last time I saw one other than at elderly relatives' houses.
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A note to the publishing industry, from one reader: I do not need a clever concept. I do not need a killer elevator pitch. Just a good story. Compelling characters, lovely sentences, a need to know what happens next. Sometimes I look at the shelves and get so tired of cleverness.
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Someday I am going to create a line of T-shirts called Things Editors Say, and they will have slogans like "It's beautiful, but I can't sell it" and "So what category does this fall under, exactly?" and all my writers friends will buy them like hotcakes.
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Basic philosophy on other writers: this is a tough business. If I love someone's work, I want to make a lot of noise about it. If if it's not my cup of tea--why say anything at all? There is no joy for anyone in a bad review.
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I grew up in a family where you often got a half instead of a whole--a half stick of gum, a half napkin. (Depression-era grandmother.) I thought it would be luxurious to grow up and have a whole everything, and here I am, tearing the paper towels in half. 😏 Anybody with me?
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Saltines. Do they make you feel something? I grew up in the South, so I had plenty of fried delicious food, but nothing makes me think of childhood like Saltines. The automatic sick food. The staple of road trips, usually sandwiched with peanut butter.
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Psst. I’m going to Costa Rica in two days. And we are staying in a treehouse.
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This piece by
@JohnArchibald
should be required reading across the state...and across the country.
Archibald: He loves Alabama, but for his child he must leave
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Just proofed an author interview I did, and the interviewer references "bunny jumping." Which sounded fascinating. It took me way too long to realize it was just a typo--bungee jumping--but googling took me to down a fantastic road.
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A little flash of joy this morning: I've always assumed canaries in coal mines warned miners about poisonous fumes by dying. It turns out they had oxygen cylinders built into their cages to revive them. Sometimes people are kinder than I expect.
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Listen. I've recently had two writer friends say someone told them they'd never get a major publisher b/c they'd already been published by a small press. My first novel, The Well and the Mine, came out with a small press in 2008. In 2009, Penguin bought the rights and ... (1/2)
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My 12-year-old boy in the YA section of the bookstore: "Why is everything about being super unhappy or super in love?"
Preaching to the choir, man.
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@EmilyMandel
It's certainly the book I've thought about more than any other over these past few weeks. Glass-half-full takeaway: it IS lovely to think that no matter what happens, there will still be Shakespeare.
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Coconut cake!! I have some doubts about the structural integrity, but I feel pretty good about it’s deliciousness.
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Cover reveal! We're a month from the paperback release of FAMILY LAW, a CrimeReads’ notable selection for Best Historical Fiction and Best Crime Novels of 2021. Bitch Magazine called it "an engrossing, entertaining novel about Southern women seeking justice."
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Does everyone know what a meat-and-three is ...or is that just in the South? Is it only above a certain age in the South? Because I've just realized my 11-year-old does NOT know what it is. Which tells me we feed him very differently than the way I was fed as a child.
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The part of an author’s life we do not talk about enough is the staggering quantity of hideous photos taken while speaking. I get 20 of these for every semi-attractive one.
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Wish I could go back and tell my 20-something writer self to SLOW DOWN. Don't write the fastest manuscript. Write the best one. Don't send out the 2nd draft. Send the 5th one. Or 10th one. Put it down for a month and then see if it's still as brilliant as you think. It won't be.
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And another installment of Dogs As Book Covers. Now that I've started, I can't stop seeing them.
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Nice lady on the train from Dublin to Galway: Are you by any chance a writer?
Me (scanning entire self): Yes. But how did you know? Is it the Center for Fiction tote bag?
Nice lady: Well, no. It's that clipped-together stack of a few hundred pages.
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Sometimes it feels like this whole book business is 10 percent writing and 90 percent waiting.
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Today's 14 years married to this guy, who is the historical Scottish dude to my Scottish chick, Fred Weasley to my Ginny Weasley (I know, I know), Star Lord to my Drax...and okay this has gotten weird but let me finish strong with...Kenny to my Dolly.
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Currently lounging like a sloth—which I just saw!—in a Costa Rican treehouse.
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Not quite sure when this happened but I seem to have a bowl for pens, glasses, and potatoes.
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I pass this creepy abandoned staircase to nowhere almost every time I run, and every single time I want to write a story about it. (Bonus points: anyone in Birmingham have a guess about where it is?)
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What strikes me in this photo: I'm in 4th grade, and I'm skinny. In 5th grade,I went on my first diet. I felt so fat. I felt that way because the women in my family-who loved me-convinced me. They believed thinner equaled happier, and holy hell let's stop doing this to our girls.
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I know plenty of people think a lot of bad things about Alabama and a lot of them are true, but--devil's advocate--it is 62 degrees today in Birmingham and I'm writing on the porch in shorts. So.
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What tasks are you compelled to perform when you have overnight guests? I was taught to leave a towel and washcloth at the foot of the bed. Even if the person was definitely not showering, you still had to leave the towel and washcloth. Non-negotiable. I will never shake it.
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One day I will make a coffee table book featuring all the mutilated dog toys in our house, and I will call it Beloved Corpses.
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The stories I love most--Monogamy by Sue Miller, Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively, everything by Elizabeth Strout, Ann Patchett --GREAT STORIES. They can be summed up by "a woman talks to her mother" or "a woman's husband dies" and that makes them more powerful, not less.
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My grandmother at 103. She would've been 107 this month. I think of her every time I fluff a pillow or make cornbread or hear someone say "I swanee." (Does anyone still say that? Was it just her?)
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Making yourself sit down and write is like jumping into cold water. You stand there a while, psyching yourself up. You finally jump in,and it's rough. You sort of freak out. But you get used to the feel of it. You make the switch from land to water, from this world to that world.
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The older I get, the more I turn my kitchen into my grandmother's--her dishes, an identical set of cast iron skillets, recipe cards bulging out of the wooden box, the aloe vera on the window sill. I imagine soon I'll be replacing my Tupperware with Cool Whip containers.
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What happens at breakfast when I realize the dog’s colors exactly match peanut butter and marshmallow.
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I think I've had three tweets get over 1,500 likes--one about storm doors, one about Saltines, and one about a hand mixer. This is a weird place.
My great-aunt used one of these well into the ‘90s, and I thought it looked like something’s wizards or time travelers would use. Have you had the pleasure of spinning one? Or do you have no idea what it is?
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There's a particular pleasure to reading a great book way after everyone else did. Hey, entire world, you were right--
@rebeccamakkai
's THE GREAT BELIEVERS was fantastic. It's going to take me days to recover.
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Before my first book came out, I went on a date with a nice man who asked me to tell describe it. He listened attentively and then said, "So how do you make people BUY a book like that?"😏
All these years later I realize he was actually asking THE MAIN QUESTION in publishing.
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My sister-in-law doesn't eat desserts, so I made her this fruit cake for her birthday. A literal fruit cake. (Which is sort of a waste of a cake opportunity in my opinion, but it's pretty.)
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Oil in the grocery store parking lot. Or possibly a portal to another dimension. Hard to say.
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My favorite thing about Twitter is falling in love with a book and then being able to reach out to an author and tell them all the ways I fell in love with it. That is magic, people! Childhood me dreamed of such a thing! (Also I really like wombat videos.)
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Stayed up until 1:30 a.m. to finish
@rebeccamakkai
's I HAVE SOME QUESTIONS FOR YOU, and I do not even regret it. What a gift when a book is so smart and thoughtful and also makes it impossible to turn out the light.
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I once thought it'd be amazing when asked, "What do you do?" to say "I'm a writer." Now I know: it is not amazing. It is weird and fraught, and it's followed up by "what do you write?" and that's its own thing and it's just overwhelming over a plastic glass of wine/cheese plate.
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If you get a bad review, think of the most mindblowingly amazing book you've read this year. The one you really wish you'd written. Google reviews for it. Read until you find a bad one. There will absolutely be one. It does not mean a damn thing.
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...re-released it. I've been with Penguin ever since. This is a weird and twisting business. There is no one path. There are a thousand paths. Do your thing. Do it well. Keep hammering away. And don't listen to any morons who act like any of it is simple. (2/2)
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May we all have editors who--while on vacation--text us photos of our books in the wild! Thanks to
@verobooks
and Laura Tisdel. 😊 (And, hey,
@amypoeppel
I see The Sweet Spot here, too!)
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I'm thinking of writing a closed-room murder mystery set in the underground caverns near Ruby Falls in the 1930s. I mean, caves and murder. How can I go wrong?
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My child is pushing for Popeye's chicken sandwiches instead of turkey for Thanksgiving. As I look at my (long) list of things-still-to-be-cooked, I'm starting to see that there's something in that idea for all of us. They'd go well with cranberry sauce and dressing, yeah?😏
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I think publishing might be the only industry where you send an email with a question to a colleague--an agent or editor, say--hear nothing for a week, and then ask yourself if you're being too pushy by following up.
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If you’re writing a novel—or doing absolutely anything else—you need to go see a Janelle Monae’s concert and you will wake up the next morning READY TO DO IT. The woman is phenomenal.
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I like debut novels as much as the next person, but, honestly, I'd rather a second or third or fourth novel by someone whose work has already lodged in my chest. Give me a new story by a voice I love. That's more than a book. That is a RELATIONSHIP.
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My son keeps calling the attraction in Disney World "Smokey Robinson's Treehouse," and I hope no one ever corrects him.
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It's my birthday today, and I'm headed to the zoo with my kid! (If you've read my books that might be a surprising location, but, man, I still love the zoo.)
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I've re-imagined my desk. This doesn't work for heavy typing, but if I'm reading over a manuscript, this eye-level set up is SO MUCH BETTER ON MY NECK AND SHOULDERS. So thanks to David McCullough, Bruce Springsteen, Tina Fey, and Wayne Flynt for the help.
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Do you say "excuse me" when you need your dog to get out of the way? I usually add "sir."
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I will never not be giddy about baby birds on the front porch. I squeal quietly every time I leave the house.
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I know I’m in the minority, but nothing soothes me more than an hour or two at Chuck E Cheese.
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I would like adulthood to have fewer plumbing and roofing issues and more ballgowns and sexy montages, like Days of Our Lives always promised me.
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My grandmother on her birthday today, cheerful at 105. She was born before women had the right to vote, before cars or electricity came to town, and she still makes the cranberry sauce every Thanksgiving.
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I still find it thrilling when the power goes out (briefly.) Every room in the house turns into a scene from Jane Eyre.
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@teroterotero
@kthorjensen
@theerinmaher
It's hard to be mad. As a marketing ploy, it is not ultra sophisticated. And the responses get better and better.
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When I was writing my first book, I made myself sit down most nights at 10 p.m. and write for thirty minutes. Just 30 minutes. Usually my head filled up with story and I'd keep on for hours. Now--many years later- (1/2)
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Here's my rule: if an edible thing grows on a tree you're walking/running past, you can eat it without washing it. Sour cherries on my last run in Alexandria. Delicious.
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I have found the secret of Twitter. It turns out that what people really want to talk about is storm doors.
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Do you care if anyone puts flowers on your grave? Trekking to cemeteries with new flowers a couple of times a year was a thing in my family forever, and I can't imagine it continuing through the next generation. I don't need flowers. I don't even want a grave.
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It has come to my attention that some people do not watch a movie trying to predict the next plot point and then regularly whispering those predictions to the person sitting next to them.
#authors
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I have stuff to do today, but apparently I'm going to just watch Tracy Chapman over and over until the end of time.❤️
In case you didn’t get to see it, here is the full video of Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs singing “Fast Car” at the Grammys
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Alright alright alright—who wants to come to my house for dessert?
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We just came back from a lovely time in England and Ireland, which involved planes, trains, and buses, with almost no one—including us—wearing masks. Three days after our flight home, the child tested positive for Covid. (Hardly any symptoms.) Just a PSA—it’s still out there.
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A Costa Rican forest was the best possible place to finish up
@juliecardalt
's beautifully written and powerful The Last Beekeeper. This book should be read with the wind on your face and something humming past your ear--it's a world so real I can smell and taste it! LOVED it.
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I teach a writing class for teenagers, and every year I have them make me a vocab list of slang I should know. I got my list yesterday, and they’ll quiz me next week. Not sure how they think I don’t know G.O.A.T or slay,but I especially love with main character energy and cheugy.
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It's my birthday. Which I choose to think of as being one year closer to reaching the Jessica Fletcher/Murder, She Wrote state of being. (In celebration, I welcome GIFs of your favorite '80s and '90s shows.)
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Deciding on a book idea is like choosing who to marry. If you're bored by the conversation after a few weeks, you need to move on. This is a commitment. If you're not fascinated in the beginning, you've got no hope of staying interested in the years to come.
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I am proposing a new thing and it's called Dogs As Book Covers.
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A rainy Saturday morning. A cup of coffee. A kid sleeping in late so the house is so quiet I can hear the train whistles in the distance. I have no complaints.
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This was a good fix to my bday cake dilemma. We bought a bunch of little things so decision-making was minimal. I got a coconut cupcake and a cannoli, and I have no regrets.
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Just found my old laptop from 1997, when I was fresh out of college, living in Ireland, and trying to write my first novel. I had a sense of my voice as Thomas Pynchon-esque, so that manuscript had lots of original songs. Well, that was not, actually, my voice. At all. (1/2)
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I'm big on the
#writingcommunity
. But get you some real-life writing friends, too. When you're frustrated with your editor or sales aren't great or the last review sucked--things that happen to all of us--those friends can comfort you--or rage with you--with unlimited characters.
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Walking around Knoxvillle and I’ve found what I do NOT want on my tombstone: “the inspiration for his manhood.”
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One good thing about writing as a career is that there's every reason to believe you'll be better at it when you're 60 than when you're 30.
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Happy launch day to my friend
@joshilynjackson
and With My Little Eye! As a special launch day present to you, this is us playing our own game of Fishbowl. In which you see how our childhoods were almost identical in ways involving squirrels and Conan the Barbarian. (Pt.1)
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You know what this means, don’t you? Gingerbread sloths.
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Possibly the best end-of-the-year teacher gift I’ve ever purchased. If I do say so myself.
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How to speak an author's love language: 1) When you love a book, go leave a review. It can be a single sentence. Give it all the stars. 2) When you love an author, pre-order their next book.
Authors really feel it. Promise.
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Just opened a box with the first stunning copies of FAMILY LAW! I don't like calling books 'babies' because, well, they're not.But there's something similar about how you know what's coming--you KNOW it's going to be a book.But when you hold it the first time, still. What a jolt.
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I had a book event this weekend—all my novels lined up—and for the first time ever TWO people said, “I’ll take one of everything.”
I love those people forever.
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@pronounced_ing
My mother asked me to write a novel for her as a birthday present. She had a plot and a setting and everything. So I’d be happy to trade you.
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Does anything fill a parent with more dread than the sight of an unfinished trifold project board?
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