Janet Fitch

Janet Fitch is an American author and teacher of fiction writing.

She is the author of the #1 national bestseller White Oleander, a novel translated into 24 languages, an Oprah Book Club book and the basis of a feature film, Paint It Black, also widely translated and made into a 2017 film, and an epic novel of the Russian Revolution, The Revolution of Marina M.

The journey that began with The Revolution of Marina M. concludes in Fitch's new novel, Chimes of a Lost Cathedral, in which passionate young poet, lover, and idealist Marina Makarova emerges as a woman in full during the transformative years of the Russian Revolution. Having undergone unimaginable hardship, she’s now at the height of her creative power and understanding, living the shared life of poetry--when the revolution finally reveals its true direction for the future.

From Fitch's Q&A with Rita Williams at Angels Flight • literary west:

Rita Williams: Was there a single event that planted the seed for The Revolution of Marina M. and Chimes of a Lost Cathedral?

Janet Fitch: No. Books evolve. You aren’t hit by lightning and say, “I’m going to write a book about that!” These books began, I’d say, in two places. In one reality, they began as a short story set in the 1920s, published in Black Clock—about a Russian émigré, Marina Makarova, working as a hotel maid at the Alexandria Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. I loved that story, and when I started exploring expanding it into a novel, I realized I didn’t know enough about her, about her experience during the Russian revolution, to write that book. Also, every time I inserted a backstory scene my writers’ group loved that and begged for more. When the backstory is better than the front story, I say–eject the front story and write the backstory.

But I’ve always loved Russian literature, Russian history … I took Russian in high school and college. The fact that I chose to write about this Russian woman, albeit in Los Angeles, wasn’t...[read on]

Visit Janet Fitch's website.

The Page 99 Test: Paint It Black.

The Page 69 Test: The Revolution of Marina M..

My Book, The Movie: Chimes of a Lost Cathedral.

The Page 69 Test: Chimes of a Lost Cathedral.

--Marshal Zeringue