Juggling

Hey everyone,
Here's a link to a guest blog I did back in May on my agent Nathan Bransford's site.  If you're trying to juggle family life with the writing life, here's my two cents worth!
Just cut and paste:
www.nathanbransford.blogspot.com/2007/05/guest-blogger-rebecca-ramsey-on.html

Good luck juggling!
Rebecca

3:20 PM - 3 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

What The New York Times is saying about French By Heart...

Hey y'all!  The New York Times reviewed my book...and they liked it!  Whew!
Here's what they said...

Unlike the flotilla of expatriates who publish memoirs of their sojourns in France, Ramsey is neither a professional writer nor an epicurean, neither an aspiring artist nor a trust-fund loafer. She's a teacher who shops at J. C. Penney and lives with her husband, a tire designer, in Kensington Farm, "a good subdivision, full of perfectly fine vinyl-sided two-story houses, with a swim team, close to the soccer fields and good schools" in Greer, S.C.

But when Michelin offers her husband a job in Clermont-Ferrand, an unremarkable industrial hub, she's game to relocate her three children for a four-year stint. "I wanted to understand it all, the Frenchness of this place," she writes. "Could we be French too, just for a little while?" Could a family of Baptists, whose children attend Vacation Bible School, survive in a land of lapsed Catholics where none of the neighbors "put wreathes on their doors or fake snow on their windows or light-up Santas or manger scenes in their yards the way people did back home"? The answer, conveyed through a series of vignette-like chapters, each wrapped up neatly like a display in the Container Store, is "Not really." A momentous tumble in a bookstore whose tall shelves are "arranged like a maze for skinny people," where Ramsey, dressed in a "big red field jacket and clunky black clogs," falls spectacularly over her rampaging toddler, comically encapsulates the reasons why.

In Ramsey's eyes, her provincial counterparts are neither categorically adorable nor absurd, despite their indecipherable mutterings and behavior. Her accounts of their prosaic routines are unexpectedly engrossing. Although she can occasionally be sentimental, the mostly genial Ramsey can also be satisfyingly snippy and droll.

So now Todd has started calling me satisfyingly snippy everytime I turn around.  This could get old.

Also, here's a miniature review from The Philadelphia Inquirer...

Ramsey, along with her husband, two kids, one baby, and one very old cat, moved to France for four years, and their adventures are recounted in this delightful memoir, as Ramsey takes the mundane - such as the old woman across the street and her aged cat's health problems - and turns it into nuggets of delight.

Short and sweet.  Thank you, Philly!

2:26 PM - 3 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

Life in France is a oui bit different--the article

Hey everyone!  Here's an article that came out recently in The Greenville News, my local paper, about French By Heart.  Hope you enjoy it!

Life in France is a oui bit different
Greenville family's adventures chronicled in new book

Published: Monday, April 23, 2007 - 2:00 am

 By Lillia Callum-Penso
STAFF WRITER
lpenso@greenvillenews.com


..>..>

Stepping into Rebecca Ramsey's home is like stepping into Provence. The yellow walls make the sunlight golden. In the kitchen, there's a photograph of a man in a beret, riding a bicycle with a baguette attached to the back. And in true French fashion, on this spring day when many have already turned on their air conditioning, the window in the entryway of Chez Ramsey is open.

"I love having the windows open," Ramsey says. "It feels so peaceful."

Now, after three years back in the States, Ramsey has yet another reminder of her time in Clermont-Ferrand, France, and the rest of the country does, too. Her book, "French By Heart: An American Family's Adventures in La Belle France," which documents her family's experiences in that country, hits bookstores around the country tomorrow.

"I thought, how many people get the chance to live in France?" Ramsey says. "I mean, this is a great opportunity that I could take and do something with."..>..> ..>..>

"French By Heart" began on a day in December 1998 when Michelin, her husband Todd's employer, asked if he'd be interested in a transfer to the company's headquarters in Clermont-Ferrand. Ramsey recalls the mixed feeling of excitement and apprehension. She had long dreamed about living in France, but now, they had three kids, including a 3-month-old.

They decided to go.

Ramsey quit her job as a science teacher at Eastside High, and that summer, the family packed all its "worldly possessions" into a storage crate bound for France. And then, the five Ramseys, with their nine bags and cat Katie, left for a new life across the ocean.

With three kids (Sarah was 9, Ben was 6 and Sam was just 8 months), Ramsey knew the move would be an adventure. Now, sitting on the couch in her home in Greer, with the advantage of retrospect, she says that word barely describes the experience.

"It's just like a tornado happening around you," Ramsey says. "We sold our house, and we sold our cars. You're trying to sell your possessions, you're trying to learn French."

But even through the madness, from the first moment the family set foot in France, Ramsey knew she had a unique opportunity to nurture the side of her she'd put on the back burner.

And then, when the Ramseys arrived in their new home, everything - the language, the food, the school day, the clothes, the small talk, the grocery shopping - was a new experience.

Ramsey recalls the time she and Todd went to buy a car. Just as they were ready to purchase it and began the paperwork, the salesman stopped them. It was closing time.

"They said, 'I'm sorry, you'll have to come back tomorrow,'" she remembers. "We're like, 'We're buying a car!' They said, 'Sorry, we close at this time.'"

That's just France, Ramsey says with a laugh.

Over time, the Ramsey clan settled into French life, learning that for two hours during the day everything closes, no matter if you're buying a car or a pair of shoes; how to ask when the trash man comes; and developing a refined taste for "pain au chocolat."

Ramsey diligently recorded it all, fulfilling her love of writing and keeping a record for friends and family.

Then, she met Madame Mallet. The eccentric 75-year-old was the Ramseys' across-the-street neighbor, and she became part friend, part foe and part muse for Ramsey.

Ramsey remembers one of her first encounters with the woman who almost made her want to move to a new house.

"She was a very proud French woman," Ramsey says. "She would fuss at me when my kids went barefoot, saying, 'Well, they may do that in America, but in France, only the 'sauvages' go without shoes.'"

Meeting Mallet was a turning point for Ramsey. It was then that she realized "everybody really has a story," and she wanted to get these stories out.

So, Ramsey looked into magazines and newspapers, eventually getting a story published in "Romantic Homes." But eventually, as she continued to accumulate experiences and write stories, Ramsey saw a chance for something more.

"I thought, well, these stories go together," she says. "And you have to see it all together to really appreciate things."

By the time the family returned to the States four years later, Ramsey was determined not to let her work on the book fall through.

"I decided I'm either going to go back to teaching or I've got to make this work," she says. "And I liked teaching. But I had spent four years writing and I just loved it."

She gave herself a year to get her book published. In that time, Ramsey scoured bookstore shelves, looking for names of agents and publishers of her favorite authors.

After numerous queries and numerous rejections, Ramsey found Broadway Books. She decided to overlook the fact that the arm of Random House did not accept un-agented queries. She sent her letter anyway.

Five days later she received an e-mail, and the rest, she says, has been like a dream.

In September 2005, two weeks later, Broadway offered her a book deal.

Even now, holding the book in her hand, Ramsey can hardly believe it. She has already finished her second book about the family's re-acclimation to American life and is at work on her first novel.

One day, she says, she'd like to live in France again, or perhaps another country. There are just so many stories to tell, Ramsey says.

"If I hadn't lived there, I don't know that I would have written a book," she says. "I don't have the background, but I have the love of it. I hope I can do this for the rest of my life."

1:06 PM - 3 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

I Like Mikey--A Cool New Way to See Free Chapters!

Hi y'all!
I'm so excited about a new website that my editor at Random House set up to read excerpts.  French By Heart is the very first book to use it!  Whoo hoo!

Just go to www.mikeynyc.com and click on Free Chapters.  You'll see my name and click on it.  (If you dont' see my name, then they've added other books in the meantime.  Just search my name.)

You can read the prologue, as well as the first chapter.  Happy reading.  I hope you enjoy it!
Becky

7:22 AM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Publishers Weekly Review

..>..>..>..>

..>..>..> ..>   French by Heart: An American Family's Adventures in La Belle France Ramsey, Rebecca S. (Author) ISBN: 076792522X Broadway Books Published 2007-04 Paperback, $12.95 (320p) Travel | Europe | France; Travel | Essays & Travelogues Reviewed 2007-01-29 PW

First-time author Ramsey adopts a sweet but never cloying tone to tell the charming story of her family's four-year stint in Clermont-Ferrand, France. Ramsey, a young mother of three whose husband's company relocates them to France, recounts what it feels like to sell the family home in South Carolina, say good-bye to everyone you know and move overseas. Rather than tell the story chronologically, Ramsey links the narrative to everyday events recalling the pitfalls and petite triumphs inherent in each encounter. Moreover, because the family's command of French is minimal, routine tasks often become embarrassing lessons. Ultimately, Ramsey and her family embrace their adopted country's language and customs. Entering a bookstore, she finds herself surrounded by graceful young women in high heels, short skirts and stylish leather blazers, while she is "standing there in my big red field jacket and clunky black clogs- like a frumpy giant." Ramsey acknowledges telling "the whole truth, even when it makes me look ridiculous"-and this results in an endearing memoir.(Apr.) Copyright © 1997-2005 Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

4:46 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Let me introduce you to French By Heart

Hi everyone!
Since I'm brand new to the blog thing and feeling a little shy, I thought I'd start by sharing what my new book, French By Heart, is all about.  And what better way to explain it than by letting you see the back cover copy.  So here it is...

"I loved reading Rebecca Ramsey's account of her family's sojourn in France.  French By Heart is that winning (and rare) combination of a down-to-earth, witty voice with a sense of the mysterious and eternal.  The minute I finished the last page I started looking forward to her next book."  -Josephine Humphreys, author of Nowhere Else on Earth

 "Engaging, witty, and touching.  This book is a delight." – Bailey White

 Can a family of five from deep in the heart of Dixie find happiness smack dab in the middle of France?

 French By Heart is the story of an all-American family pulling up stakes and finding a new home in Clermont-Ferrand, a city four hours south of Paris known more for its smoke-spitting factories and car dealerships than for its location in the Auvergne, the lush heartland of France dotted with crumbling castles and sunflower fields. The Ramseys are not jet-setters; they're a regular family with big-hearted and rambunctious kids. Quickly their lives go from covered-dish suppers to smoky dinner parties with heated polemics, from being surrounded by Southern hospitality to receiving funny looks if the children play in the yard without shoes.

A charming tale with world-class characters, French By Heart reads like letters from your funniest friend.  More than just a slice of life in France, it's a heartwarming account of a family coming of age and learning what "home sweet home" really means.

There you go.  I hope you like it.  Everytime I read it I think of what Alison Presley, my amazing first editor said to me in an early email during the process.  She said that so often travel memoirs were written by the wealthy, lucky, and very young, and so that's why my story was so great--that it brought something new and more relatable to the table.   I had to laugh--  I guess that made us poor, unlucky, and old!  But she was right!  (Well, we weren't that old.)

Anyway, that's my book, my very first one.  Thanks for checking it out!

--Becky

10:16 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment