'Lilian's Last Dance' spins off its own blog

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PAPERBACK 'LILIAN' OUT SOON;

BOOK TOURS, SIGNINGS IN THE WORKS

NOW THAT 'Lilian's Last Dance'' is a successful eBook on Amazon, we've had many requests for a paperback edition.  A Wyoming publishing house, WordsWorth, of Cody, Wyo., has taken this on. The paperback will be available in book stores and through Amazon.  Readings are planned on the West Coast and Northern Rockies, an Atlantic crossing and more.

WE'RE EXCITED about that, and about this new "Lilian" website debuting today. Look here for "Lilian" press releases, interviews, tours, reviews, signings, and "all things Lilian."

We're altering the focus of our other blog, whereiscookie.com to focus on travel and adventure (our most popular postings) while  Lilian'slastdance.com will feature theater, books, the literary world and "Lilian." Here's the beginning of the "Lilian" blog and website. We hope you'll follow.

JOSH LOGAN'S TIPS

A poster for "Annie Get Your Gun'' helped
inspire the title character in "Lilian's Last Dance."

ON CREATING BELIEVABLE CHARACTERS

STORY BY CHRISTENE MEYERS

CROSSING the Atlantic on the Queen Elizabeth II, the summer of 1986, famed Broadway producer and director Josh Logan lectured.

He was one of my idols, for I'd grown up with "Annie Get Your Gun," and "South Pacific," both of which he directed. My late husband, Bruce Meyers, accomplished actor and writing professor, encouraged me to approach Logan and express my interest in writing my own musical.

Writers Bill Jones and Cookie
were characters in a seafaring
"drama," crossing on the famed
Queen Elizabeth II, where earlier
Christene and Bruce Meyers
met, dined with and interviewed
brilliant Broadway director,
Josh Logan.

Famed Broadway director Josh Logan took time with
Christene Meyers years ago on an Atlantic crossing.

LOGAN  WAS GRACIOUS -- delighted to visit. Although he was elderly, and used a walker and wheelchair, he was animated when talking about theater. I took notes at his lively lectures and our private conversations..  He died two years later, in 1988, leaving a legacy to the world -- and invaluable advice for me.

The iconic Eiffel Tower
plays a small part in "Lilian...." too.

LOGAN TOLD me that research and "reinvention" are critical to making invented characters come alive. "Know their history, then make them your own," he said. Before "South Pacific" he studied James Michener's "Tales of the South Pacific," which inspired the musical's imaginary people. He visited the islands many times.

The Paris cabaret scene inspired us to envision
what a show might have been like in Paris 100 years ago.

Paris and the Moulin Rouge attracted a return visit to Paris.
The shows and people there inspired Paris detail in the book.

TAKING a cue from that Broadway genius, the creation of "Lilian's Last Dance" took me on many journeys. Bruce and I, then Bill Jones and I, and later Bruce Keller and I, traveled to Hawaii, England, France, Australia, Peru and many North American states. The work survived the deaths of Bruce and of Bill, my second husband and "Lilian" collaborator. Before he passed, in 2005, we filled notebooks with detail and had a draft of the novel. I'd written a half-dozen songs for the musical version.

WE COLLECTED maps, visited museums and read books about silent movies, vintage travel and World War I.  The emerging modern art movement plays a part in "Lilian...." so we located Gertrude Stein's salon in Paris, 27 rue de Fleures, where she, Alice Toklas and brother Leo hung their cutting edge acquisitions. We watched people and studied paintings at the Musee d'Orsay, where several of Steins' purchases now hang.

COMING SOON: Fine acting and sensitive direction enhance
"Sons of the Prophet" at San Diego's Cygnet Theatre.
 Next up at www.lilianslastdance 

We booked shows in the Moulin Rouge, which "Lilian..." characters frequent.  This enriched our writing and made them and their settings believable.

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