My deepest thanks and gratitude to everyone for all their kind prayers and good wishes. The surgery (for a family member this week) looks to have been very successful, and we’re all completely exhausted, but doing well!
Live Chat With USA Today on Thursday, April 7
As one of the Season Two festivities (I suppose you can call it a festivity… maybe I’ll have a dram of whisky while doing it, to insure being adequately festive), I’ll be doing a live Q&A chat sponsored by USAToday, on Thursday, April 7th, at 7 p.m., Eastern Time, which is 4 p.m., Pacific Time. The link to the chat is here:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2016/03/25/chat-live-author-diana-gabaldon/81959474/
The chat may only be viewed using a desktop browser. You may submit questions for me (for the Live Chat) in advance at the USA Today link above.
(Webmistress’s Note: You can watch a replay of the Live Chat if you click on the link above.)
Season 2 Red Carpet Premiere In New York City
HUGE congratulations to the cast, crew, and production of OUTLANDER! I hear the advance Red Carpet premiere in New York City was wonderful, and I totally believe it. <g>
So… if you were there, what did you think? Did you have a good evening? And most importantly—did you enjoy the show? Add your comment to this blog post!
Note that I read and review all blog comments before they are posted. So it may take a day or two before your comment can be seen, depending on my schedule.
Remember that the U.S.A. broadcast premiere of Season 2 of the Outlander TV series is this Saturday, April 9, on Starz!
Click on any of the Red Carpet images to see a full-sized version…
List of Season 2 NYC Festivities
Here is a list of some Season 2 Premiere festivities in New York City this week:
http://www.dianagabaldon.com/other-projects/outlander-tv-series/s2-premiere-fests/
If you’re not in New York, some can be viewed live (via web streaming) from anywhere, or you can participate using Twitter or Facebook!
Cast and crew image above, left to right: Tobias Menzies, Caitriona Balfe, Terry Dresbach, Ron D. Moore, Maril Davis, Sam Heughan. Image at lower right: Bear McCreary.
These announcements were also posted on my official Facebook page.
Dear Diana,
I would first like to thank you for being you. From the moment I read your postings on your website, it was evident that you are not the typical author. There is an openness about you that invites fans into your space and I hope never changes. You are sincere yet direct with your responses and I enjoy that. I have watched many of your interviews on YouTube and I love the cadence of your speech which parallels your thought process when formulating responses. It must be your background as a professor that makes you both credible and approachable, yet I can tell you are highly intelligent and know your s**t. Like you, I have a degree in science and have been blessed with a long and fruitful career in the medical and pharmaceutical fields. So, you know well how all-consuming those fields can be. Until now, the extent of my writing has been limited to the technical and corporate/communication type. My dream career would have been to be a writer and, like you, I had to choose a different path. I am now ready to close that very long chapter in my life and move on to making my dream come true.
I am a big fan of your books and read all 8 in a week – yes, I did not get much sleep, but that isn’t anything new. I am also a fan of the Outlander series and really appreciate the talent of all the creative staff supporting the show. Books and show aside, what I am most interested in is the story of how you became a full-time writer, specifically, how you wrote your first novel. From what I can tell, you still use the same process to write to this day. Can you elaborate on that process? I read (or heard) that you have the final scene of the Jaime/Claire story written. I’m interested in how you develop everything in between.
I would also love to hear about your experience writing one of the episodes in S2. From what I have read, screenplays are short: 1 page=1 minute on film. For an author with so many (great) words, was that difficult to do? How closely do you have to work with the director in that situation? How did you plot the scenes? Do the writers have the book broken down into segments? I know there are 13 episodes this season (wish there were 16 like S1), so I have tried to envision the storyline breaks using my book.
Finally, I don’t want to waste precious time learning to navigate the writing business since I am not 25 anymore. I recently completed my first online writing workshop with The Writers Studio. I LOVED it! So that I have more validation that I have a little skill, I enrolled into UCLA’s Online Fiction Writing Certificate Program. What additional advise would you give a novice writer like myself? Are there any workshops you would recommend I look into? Would you ever consider selecting a few aspiring writers and holding a workshop?
All my best,
Maria
Immensely impressed. Got my husband hooked first season. He was just as excited for season two and that’s saying something. Characters nailed. Acting top notch. Incredible sets/costumes. Superb direction. All of this would be nothing without the story. Put it all together….magic. Thank goodness. Congrats for doing the impossible bringing this story to life in the best possible way.
just finished watching ep.1 of seas.2 amazing… don’t know why but after watching, book 8 popped in my head and I thought when roger meets jenny for the first time she’s not married yet….then he’s most likely gonna see her on the ridge when he and Brianna and the kids show up again; what’s jenny’s reaction gonna be… him still looking much like when he first met her but she’s now a granny….oh all the thoughts in my head… cant wait to see the rest of the season for some reason the books and the show meld nicely in my mind…. you must be proud Diana to have inspired such an amazing tv series, with your great stories.
Hi,
I’m pretty sure the third person from the left on the “Cast and crew image” on internet page http://www.dianagabaldon.com/2016/04/live-chat-on-thursday-premiere/ is not Anne Kenney (as stated at bottom of page) but Terry Dresbach…
kind regards,
Akke Dijkstra
Netherlands
OK, this feels a bit weird but here goes. I’m a guy who at first thought this series was basically for the female race, and so I never even thought about it much when I first heard of the Outlander saga. Flash forward to last year when, along with my wife and some friends we watched “Sassenach” on demand from Starz and I actually felt the hook engage itself in my soul. I love time travel stuff and science fiction in general, but the premise upon which Outlander is based is so perfect in so many ways. A WWII combat nurse traveling back in time to 1743 Scotland prior to the second Jacobite uprising? And the choice of Claire’s own time being the 1940s was brilliant as well, since it is “modern” but not so modern that she cannot adapt to 18th century life.
So then, we binged watched that and bought the deluxe boxed BluRay set, which is a cherished posessionI might add. And of course, not wanting to wait while Starz (the cast and crew are unmatched and as I’ve said, it’s the Best. Television. Show. Ever.) to finish their filming and post production work I started to read the books. Well, today I am halfway through “The Fiery Cross”, having devoured books 1-4 in the space of a few weeks really. It’s cost me a bunch of sleep, and I mind not one bit. My wife is also in the same book having accomplished roughly the same feat (with the same cost). Your stories have given my wife and I a common love, which is fabulous and truly has enriched our own relationship. Also, I have learned all about the Jacobites, Scottish clan life, French society in the 18th century, colonial American life and the pre-Revolutionary War period it occupies and more than I can possibly detail here — not to mention dozens of new English words. I swear, your books send me to the dictionary at least once a chapter, and I am considered well spoken with a vast vocabulary!
So like I said, I am a just a guy. A guy who loves ice hockey and football, and I’ve watched my share of action movies like Rambo and the like and these things are still great to watch. But these books and this wonderful adaptation done by Ron Moore and company on Starz just make everything else seem so hollow by comparison. I have to say, the epic(!) love story of Claire and Jamie Fraser is just head and shoulders above any other writing I have ever read and I feel like I actually KNOW these people. This includes my beloved Tom Clancy novels which rival yours in terms of length only I’m afraid. Tom’s books are magnificent in their own way, but where I have to often drag myself through the minutia of the details that probably blow past many of his readers to get to the story line (I was a 21 year Air Force NCO so I know what he’s talking about, mostly), your long books breeze by in a page turning frenzy. Even when the story is simply about 18th century life in North Carolina — I have never once been bored or felt like I was wasting my time. Not once.
So thanks Diana. Thanks for a wonderful story with something (literally) for everyone inside that makes it’s fans alternate emotionally between war, peace, sheer joy, miserable pain, welling tears, triumphs, losses, restoration of family, families in turmoil and a fascinating ongoing history lesson that simply will not let go. Amazing stuff. Your research and level of detail are the stuff of legend. I feel lucky having come late to the party because I can read all 8 books (and maybe #9?) without having to wait years while you write the next book!
Thus ends my first gushing fan letter to an author. All the best going forward!
My congratulations to the cast, crew and production of OUTLANDER!!!!
They, again, did a splendid work!
The first episode of the second season was fantastic. It actually exceeded my expectations.
The show depicted the high drama and the emotional turmoil of the main characters brilliantly!
Bravo to all the actors shown in the episode!
I hope the rest of the season two is as good, and does the book justice.
Best Wishes,
Ivona
Dear Diana,
I read Outlander when it was originally published, and have devoured every novel since. They were living changing as I read them- and I remember mourning them as I completedcreading them. I wanted to express my sincere thanks to you for allowing the story to be retold visually with the Starz series. Thank you for waiting so long- because you have surely given it into safe keeping. The quality of the production is amazing! The casting, the sets and costumes, the writing, the promotion – is all superlative. I love how it embodies the class and elegance of a public television historical production with all the lushness and sensuality that a pay per view service has the creative freedom to provide. The format of a many episode series with no commercials does justice to the breadth and depth of the tale. I had held off watching the series, as I was concerned that it would marr my memory of your beloved characters. It has been a wonderful re-immersion into the rich literary world that you created- and I have been thrilled to experience it visually. Thank you and the entire team of creative talent that has embellished your masterpiece in such a beautiful way! I eagerly await each episode, have subscribed to Starz because of it, and am rereading the books in a mix of digital and paper formats. Bravo!
i am not very knowledgeable on history and historical events. Do you have any blogs or information on these timeframes from the 1700′s and even 1945?. Who were allies who were enemies. The wars. Etc. thank you in advance for your feedback! Best, Chris
Dear Diana,
(This comment is posted in a fairly unfitting place, but since I don’t have Facebook or Twitter, it was the best I could do.)
I preordered Written In My Own Heart’s Blood exactly 2 years ago on Amazon, and, when it was released and shipped, I met the UPS truck in my driveway with much anticipation. It has taken me 23 months now to finally finish it. I had previously read all of your other books and very much enjoyed them. I’m not a slow reader, having been known to cloister myself for a few days to begin and finish novels of great size, only emerging for the necessaries. But this was not so with your latest Outlander novel.
In the case of Written In My Own Heart’s Blood, I savored. Instead of consuming the written pages with the ferocity of a freshman frat boy determined to try All The Drinks at his first party, I sipped the words letting them roll slowly through me like a fine whisky (whisky being one of the things I’ve learned to appreciate because of your books). I savored the final words just last night, and I wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed it.
As I know you have read or heard countless times, your books have entertained me through much life. I am thankful for the time and research you put into them. And I look forward to sipping through the next novel, Lord willing.
Thank you again,
Rachel
Love the show adaptation of the books, very smart modifications to try to fit into a show format. I would love to help stitch on the costumes as I know there has to be a season 3. Looking forward to Book #9, cannot image what a process it is to write such comprehensive historical fiction. Love your characters and settings. As a person who has never had a sense of smell, I love the way you describe the scents in such distinct ways. It really helps me understand the scene.