Claire
Cook
Best
Known For "Must Love Dogs," Which Was Turned Into
A Popular 2005 Film Starring Diane Lane and John Cusack, Cook
(who conducts Reinvention Workshops Around the U.S.) Is Basking
In The Sunshine of "Beach Read Shout Outs" for "Seven
Year Switch" From People, USA Today, The New York Times
And The New York Post
Bestselling authors are all about drawing their readers into
vivid scenes. So let's return the favor for Claire
Cook, currently riding a cresting wave with her seventh
novel Seven
Year Switch, winner of the Fiction Category as well
as the Grand Prize in this year's annual Beach
Book Festival.
Far from the sandy shores and swimming pools of America, where
thousands of readers will take to heart the "Beach Read
Shout Outs" by People Magazine, USA Today, The New York
Times and The New York Post and crack open Cook's latest charmer
this summer, Claire remembers a cold, wintry New England day
ten years ago when the lifelong dream she is now living took
wing.
The
wife and mother of two was in her mid-40s, sitting in her minivan
outside her daughter Garet's swim practice at 5 am, heater running
full blast, when it hit her that she might live her whole life
without ever once going after her dream of writing a novel.
For the next six months, she sat there day after day, writing
a rough draft in the pool parking lot on a yellow legal pad;
she thought the idea of getting a laptop might jinx her, like
an aspiring business person printing cards before they'd worked
out a business plan.
Featuring
a ditsy protagonist, "a woman drowning in a sea of swim
moms, perhaps the person I was afraid becoming," Ready
To Fall sold to the first publisher who asked to
read it. Her second novel went to auction, earning her sixteen
times her annual teaching salary. At 50, the minivan far behind
her, she walked the red carpet at the Hollywood premiere of
the feature film adaptation of her second novel, Must
Love Dogs. Adapted and directed by "Family Ties"
creator Gary David Goldberg, the movie starred Diane Lane and
John Cusack.
While she still shivers in the chilly winters of her adopted
hometown of Scituate, Massachusetts, Claire has become a "beach
read" icon to millions of women of all ages with her subsequent
novels including Life's A Beach, Summer
Blowout and The
Wildwater Walking Club. Beyond that, however, the
author's incredible success story in midlife has inspired thousands
of her fans to look to her as an inspiration for their own long-deferred
dreams.
Reflective of her personal journey, many of Claire's lead characters
are on searches for their own next chapters, often with an entrepreneurial
twist -- travel and cultural coaching and cooking in Seven Year
Switch, buyouts and lavender and clotheslines in The Wildwater
Walking Club, makeup in Summer Blowout and sea glass jewelry
in Life's a Beach. The author's fans are invited to tell personal
stories of their own gear-shifting lives in the "Reinvention"
page of her website, as well as on Facebook and Twitter. As
part of her book tours, Claire also conducts free "Reinvention
Workshops" across the country, which developed out of free
writing seminars she conducted as a way of giving thanks to
her readers. In 2009, The Today Show did a segment on these
events.
"Reinvention
is the story of my life, so I think it just naturally found
its way into my books," she says. "I love sharing
my story, because I think it gives hope to so many women out
there with buried dreams of their own. My advice: Dust them
off and go for it! I have met so many other women coming into
their own at midlife, that now I know I'm not alone. One of
the truest things one of my characters ever said was, 'karma
is a boomerang.' These workshops are my way to thank my readers,
to give back, because without their book-buying support, as
well as their encouragement and inspiration, I wouldn't have
the best midlife career ever. I spend half my life in my PJs
writing at the computer, then I get to shake off that solitude
and meet actual as opposed to fictional people. That rhythm
really helps my writing, and it also reminds me that being an
author isn't all about me, it's just as much about my readers."
In
a world that is increasingly full of gloomy and depressing news,
short attention spans and way too many multi-media distractions,
Claire's success with novels like Must Love Dogs and Seven Year
Switch proves that people still seek lighthearted escapism (as
long as it makes them think) and, perhaps even more surprisingly,
have time to read a several hundred page novel.
"It's
easy to be dismissive of this genre I've tapped into, the so-called
'beach reads,' because the things I write about are not earthshaking,"
she says. "But there's plenty of pain and suffering in
the world without me adding to it. If my readers have two weeks
off per year, I want to give them stories that will inspire
them in their own lives, and make them feel better, not worse.
"What
I love most is hearing from readers who tell me that I'm writing
their lives," Claire adds. "I'm proud that my work
celebrates real people with real life issues that are personal
yet universal. In our celebrity-crazed culture, we start to
think regular people don't matter anymore. But we do. Our lives
deserve to be chronicled and celebrated. And while I have a
large midlife audience, my books are multi-generational and
my readership is, too. In this crazy economy, college students
concerned about their career prospects tell me they're inspired
by the entrepreneurial spirit of my characters. I'm constantly
amazed and humbled by the way these stories I tell touch people's
lives."
Had
Claire never put pen to legal pad inside the minivan, her life
would still have been interesting enough to...let's say, become
the story of one of her cherished characters. At the time she
started writing, she was a teacher at an artsy private school
and a consultant at two others, introducing "fun and funky"
activities like open ocean rowing and rollerblading for middle-schoolers,
and literacy through movement activities for younger students.
Her efforts won her school the Massachusetts Governor's Fitness
Award for innovative programming. Even with all that, she felt
she was hiding from what she really wanted to do with her life.
It's
likely entertaining others in a big way was just in Claire's
blood; after all, she is a direct descendent of P.T. Barnum
of Barnum & Bailey circus fame. When she was three, her
mother entered her in a contest to name the Fizzies whale, and
she won in her age group (of course, she admits it's possible
that hers was the only entry in this age group!). At six, she
published her first story on the Little People's Page in the
Sunday paper (about "Hot Dog," the family dachshund,
even though they had a beagle at the time!), and at sixteen
she had her first front page feature in the local weekly. She
majored in film and creative writing in college and, like all
college grads bursting at the seams with ambition untempered
by the reality yet to come, thought she would quickly "go
into labor and a brilliant novel would emerge, fully formed,
like giving birth."
"It
didn't happen," Claire says. "I guess I knew how to
write, but not what to write. Looking back, I can see that I
had to live my life so I'd have something to write about, and
if I could give my younger self some good advice, it would be
not to beat myself up for the next couple of decades. But I
did. At the same time, I pretended I wasn't feeling terrible
about not writing a novel and did a lot of other creative things.
I wrote shoe ads for an in house advertising agency for five
weeks, became continuity director of a local radio station for
a couple of years, taught aerobics and did some choreography,
helped a friend with landscape design, wrote a few freelance
magazine pieces, took some more detours. Eventually, I had two
children and followed them to school as a teacher, where I taught
everything from multicultural games and dance to open ocean
rowing to creative writing.
"Sometimes
in the midst of this wonderful craziness, trying to juggle all
the things that are happening with my latest book and the next
book I'm writing," she adds, "I take a deep breath
and remind myself: this is the career I almost didn't have.
It's easy to get caught up in reviews and sales, but at the
end of the day, it's not all about chasing that superficial
stuff. What's important is becoming a better writer with every
novel and touching the lives of my readers."