Guest Post: Shifting Gears by Judith Fertig (plus a giveaway)

It’s been a while since I’ve welcomed a guest blogger to My Novel Opinion, but boy have I got a good one for you today. And with a two-book giveaway to boot!

Let me introduce you to Judith Fertig:

And her debut novel:

Shifting Gears
By Judith Fertig, Author of The Cake Therapist

One of the questions that The Cake Therapist asks is “Can we reinvent ourselves?” When a door closes, when a chapter ends, when we’re stuck, can we find a way forward?

That happened for my Ohio hometown, which is the model for Millcreek Valley in the book. This little burg north of Cincinnati had been a bedroom community for the factories that had built up along the old Miami-Erie Canal that became I-75. There were mom-and-pop businesses and a convent on a hilltop. And then things changed. The convent was torn down in the 1960s. By the 1970s, the asphalt shingle, paper mill, and cotton batting factories were starting to close.

But someone had a wacky idea. Why not turn the downtown into a destination place for brides? Why not convert the old dime store into a bridal boutique for Vera Wang and Monique L’Huillier gowns? The old library into a wedding cake bakery?

This vision has transformed the area and given my hometown another reason to be.

What can happen outside can also happen inside.

It happened to me.

I am a food writer and award-winning cookbook author who now has a debut novel, The Cake Therapist. Saveur Magazine dubbed me a “Heartland cookbook icon.”

After two decades of writing about food in magazines (Saveur, Food & Wine, Bon Appetit, Find Cooking, and Better Homes & Gardens), I was wondering what was next for me. Like many mid-career people, I was searching for that topic, that angle to keep me interested. I wanted something, well, more.

More, as in what does all of this mean? What is there beyond the next big thing? What is that something right there in front of us that we just aren’t really seeing? Where is the magic? And how best could I tell that story?

About ten years ago, the answer came to me somewhere along I-70. My barbecue cookbook co-author Karen Adler and I were traveling to teach cooking classes. To pass the time, we talked about five-year plans and shared funny stories,

And it came to me: I wanted to write a novel about flavor. I wanted a pastry chef character who could see a bakery smell refracted into rainbow bands of flavor, who could “read” people that way. Using her unusual gift would create all kinds of opportunities and problems for her, but help other people. (Isn’t that always the way?)

I wanted to develop a secret language of flavor—sweet cinnamon to hold your metaphoric hand as you crossed the street to another life experience, fresh orange to wake you up, vanilla-scented Italian meringue as a sweet pillow in which you could sink your sharp-edged self.

I read Nikki Segnit’s wonderful The Flavor Thesaurus and everything else about how flavor evokes feelings. And when I wasn’t sure, I went in my kitchen to taste test how a flavor made me feel. (And ended up with a new cookbook, Bake Happy.)

I participated in Pitchapalooza, a sometime event hosted by independent bookstores and The Book Doctors, Arielle Eckstut and Henry David Sterry. I had to verbally “pitch” the novel in 2 minutes, and I won a very key consultation with them. Later, when I was pitching literary agents, I attached a photo of a wonderful cake with my novel pitch, and the added visual element worked—I got an agent right away. It’s whatever you can do to distinguish yourself and make your work memorable.

Working on a novel as opposed to a cookbook is a totally different experience, but yet another way to enter that “happy place.” Writing a novel and immersing myself in a scene can take me to that happy place right at my dining room table. With a cookbook, I visit that happy place from my kitchen, when I transform flour, sugar, and eggs into something wonderful.

What I’ve learned is that your writing and your career constantly evolves. And each of us has that inkling, that twinge, that feeling that is trying to move us forward to the next adventure.

And yes, there’s a flavor for that.

Connect with Judith Fertig online:

Website   Facebook   Twitter   Pinterest

Buy The Cake Therapist

Giveaway

Thanks to Tandem Literary, 1 lucky subscriber to My Novel Opinion will win a copy of  Judith’s debut novel, The Cake Therapist, and her latest cookbook, Bake Happy!. The giveaway is open to U.S. residents only (sorry!) and the winner will be contacted via email on August 1st.

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