News & Blog

HELLOOOOO…

Dearest Everyone —

My family holidays in Australia have drawn to a close (I saw sharks! Photos to follow!) and now I sit in an airport hotel in Sydney, about to fly home (with an abscessed tooth, and a root canal waiting for me when I arrive — hooray!)

But before I fly off, I just wanted, once more, to put in a praiseful word on the wonders and marvels of travel. People, it is a glorious planet out there, full of fascinating humans (and even more fascinating animals — thank you, Queensland!)

I will arrive home jetlagged and weary, behind on all my work, missing my pets and garden and friends, and with a dental emergency on my hands…but yes: RICHER.

So, so, so much richer…

Onward!
Liz

via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall

Dear Ones;

Hey! I'm in distant Northern Australia on vacation suddenly! Visiting my husband's beautiful kids! This means several things:

1) Tim-Tams!
2) A delirium of jetlag!
3) Sporadic Facebooking over the next week or so — sorry!

But before I slip away into the hinterlands, I wanted to share this. I stopped in Sydney two days ago to visit the great State Library, and the nice librarians there let me hold in my very own (gloved) hands this treasure: The expedition diary of Sir Joseph Banks, from Captain Cook's first voyage.

After you guys read "The Signature of All Things" you'll understand why this was a holy and magnificent moment for me. I got a little weepy.

I love Australia!

OK, disappearing again now,

Cheers,
Liz

via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall

ANN PATCHETT!

Hello my dearests —

So my book tour for "The Signature of All Things" begins on Oct. 1, and my travels over the following year or so will take me all over the USA, and onward into Canada, the UK, Germany, France, Norway, Italy, Australia, Brazil…and I know I'm forgetting some places. (For a full list of my stops, as far as I know them so far, visit the events page of my website: www.elizabethgilbert.com.)

But I can say without reservation that the event I'm most excited about is this one:

https://www.nypl.org/events/programs/2013/12/10/ann-patchett-elizabeth-gilbert

On December 10, I'll be appearing onstage at the New York Public Library with my dear friend, the novelist Ann Patchett (author of "Bel Canto", "State of Wonder", "Truth and Beauty" and a bunch of other powerhouse works.)

Ann and I have a friendship that is quite unlike any other in my life. In this age of cell phones, email, texting and cheap airline tickets, we are simply pen pals. For about eight years now, we have written each other long, searching letters every month, exploring in slow revelation (on old-fashioned paper) our feelings about our lives, our writing, our marriages, our friendships. It has been a beautiful exchange, and deeply intimate, in the way that only letter-writing can be. This event in December will be among the few times that we are actually together, in the flesh, and it promises to be very special, indeed.

Hope you can make it!

(And just out of curiosity, do any of you still write letters? If so, to whom? It's such a beautiful and dying art…I'd love to know that it's still in play.)

To friendship!

Love,
Liz

via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall

Dear Everyone —

A friend of this page named Asha sent me this link, thinking I would love it, and thus proving that she knows me all too well.

Please enjoy — that is, if you are as unrelentlngly juvenile in your sense of hunor as I am. (The book called "Cooking with Pooh", for instance, made me laugh just as hard today as it would have done when I was 10 years old. Because apparently I am still 10 years old.)

Thanks, Asha!

🙂
Liz

Top Ten Horrible Book Covers
ramp.ie
Books are brilliant, there is no doubt about this, but when it comes to book covers, publishers can get it hilariously wrong. Here are the Ramp.ie Top Ten Horrible Book Covers. Try not to buy them all, you naughty scamp, you.

via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall

And the winner is….GAIA KOWALIK!!!!

Dear Everyone!

So, as some of you know, I have this subscription-only email newsletter called LizNews (check out the sign-up box on the top of this page), and that's where I always announce all the coolest and grooviest stuff first. It's also where I do book giveaway contests! And lately I've been giving a way one signed copy of "The Signature of All Things" every month — which is a particularly cool and groovy notion, because the book won't be officially published till October!

Each month, then, I choose a winner based on one simple question. This month's question was, "What travel experience most changed YOUR life?" (I think you all know which travel experience most changed mine…)

There were thousands of responses, but I had to give the prize to Gaia Kowalik, because I loved the spirit of her answer. She talked about being stuck in Amsterdam after a bad divorce (is there any other kind?), and how night after night she found herself going to the same Irish pub, because the only thing that brought her any joy in the midst of her depression was hearing live Irish music. After a while, she put it together that it would probably make more sense to just go directly to Ireland, and cut out the middleman (fake Irish pub in Holland) so off she went to County Donegal, following the music that made her happy.

That was 8 years ago, and she has never left Ireland since! And she has never been happier, surrounded by the music she loves (and by the rain, too, but she doesn't let that get to her!)

I love this story for two reasons — 1) because I've always dreamed of spontaneously going somewhere far away and never leaving, and 2) what a simple pathway Gaia found to joy…listen for the music, and follow the song where it leads you. And then STAY there, in the center of that joy.

Well done, Gaia! A toast to a great adventure and a life well lived, and THANK YOU to the thousands of you who also shared your incredible journeys of transformation-through-travels, be it near or far! You are all so inspiring!

Gaia, I have just mailed out your signed copy of "The Signature of All Things" (with the lovely Australian cover, as you requested!) in the mail. I hope you come to love my heroine Alma Whittaker — also a great adventurer. You are my first overseas winner, and I hope there will be more in the future!

And for anyone who would like to get in on the next giveaway contest, be sure to sign up for my LizNews Newsletter! There is a signup tab at the top of the page here, or you can sign up on the home page of my website, right here:

https://www.elizabethgilbert.com/

Next contest coming in about two weeks…don't miss it!

Happy Reading, Gaia! (And happy dancing, too!)

In fact…happy reading and happy dancing to us all,

Xo
Liz

Elizabeth Gilbert | Elizabeth Gilbert – The Official Website | ElizabethGilbert.com
www.elizabethgilbert.com
Home to the writer Elizabeth Gilbert. Her new book, The Signature of All Things, coming soon!

via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall