Waxman, Abbi
WORK TITLE: The Garden of Small Beginnings
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1970
WEBSITE: http://abbiwaxman.com/
CITY: Los Angeles
STATE: CA
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
RESEARCHER NOTES:
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| HEADING: | Waxman, Abbi |
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| 100 | 1_ |a Waxman, Abbi |
| 670 | __ |a The garden of small beginnings, 2017: |b CIP t.p. (Abbi Waxman) |
PERSONAL
Born 1970, in England; married; children: three.
ADDRESS
- Home - Los Angeles, CA.
- Agent - lburnstein@penguinrandomhouse.com.
CAREER
Author and TV show and screenplay writer. Worked previously as a copywriter and creative director at various advertising agencies in London and New York, including AT&T, Chase Manhattan Bank, IBM, American Express, Unilever, Mercedes-Benz, and Enron.
WRITINGS
- The Garden of Small Beginnings (novel), Berkley (New York, NY), 2017
Author of TV shows and screenplays.
SIDELIGHTS
Abbi Waxman is a writer of novels, show scripts, and screenplays. Born in England in 1970, Waxman was encouraged at a young age to read by her mother, a successful crime fiction writer. Waxman’s career began in advertising. She worked as a copywriter and creative director at various advertising agencies in London and New York.
Waxman quit advertising and turned to writing when she had children. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, three kids, and a handful of pets.
Waxman’s debut novel, The Garden of Small Beginnings, focuses on protagonist Lilian Girvan, a thirty-four year old widow and single mother of two. Lilian is recovering from the traumatic experience of having witnessed her husband’s death in a car crash fifty feet from their home. The event occurred three years prior to the opening of the book, but Lilian is only now beginning to feel whole again. Tracy Babiasz in Booklist wrote: “Waxman takes readers from tears to laughter in this depiction of one woman’s attempt to hold it all together.”
When Lilian had a breakdown following her husband’s death, her sister Rachel stepped in to help with Lilian’s two daughters while she recovered in a treatment facility. Though Lilian was released after a few months, Rachel continued to help out with the girls. Now, Lilian is back to raising her daughters and providing for the family through illustration work, but she is saddened by the fact that her daughters have little memory of their father.
When Lilian finds out that the company she works for is closing her department, she must figure out her next steps. The company has left her with one final assignment; to illustrate a series of vegetable gardening books for Bloem Company. The assignment requires that she attend a a six-week Saturday morning gardening class, taught by Edward Bloem. Although initially resistant, Lilian finds that the class brings out a sense of joy in her that she has not experienced in years. Further, she begins to feel an attraction to Edward, something she has not known since the death of her husband.
While Lilian is grappling with these foreign feelings, the readers are introduced to subplots, such as the tense relationship between Lilian and Rachel and their mother, and the growths and developments of the other participants in the gardening class. A contributor to Kirkus Reviews described the book as “full of wry humor and a clear-eyed view of how life keeps offering good things.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, March 1, 2017, Tracy Babiasz, review of The Garden of Small Beginnings, p. 52.
Kirkus Reviews, March 1, 2017, review of The Garden of Small Beginnings.
ONLINE
Flavorwire, http://flavorwire.com (May 11, 2017), Sarah Seltzer, author interview.
Harlequin Junkie, http://harlequinjunkie.com, (May 11, 2017), author interview.
Star Telegram, http://www.star-telegram.com (May 11, 2017), Jean Marie Brown, review of Garden of Small Beginnings.*
- Abbi Waxman - http://abbiwaxman.com/about/
So, tell me more about this Waxman bird.
Abbi Waxman was born in England in 1970, the oldest child of two copywriters who never should have been together in the first place. Once her father ran off to buy cigarettes and never came back, her mother began a highly successful career writing crime fiction. She encouraged Abbi and her sister Emily to read anything and everything they could pull down from the shelves, and they did. Naturally lazy and disinclined to dress up, Abbi went into advertising, working as a copywriter and then a creative director at various advertising agencies in London and New York. Clients ranged from big and traditional, (AT&T, Chase Manhattan Bank, IBM, American Express, Unilever, Mercedes-Benz) to big and morally corrupt (R. J. Reynolds) to big and larcenous (Enron). Eventually she quit advertising, had three kids and started writing books, TV shows and screenplays, largely in order to get a moment’s peace.
Abbi lives in Los Angeles with her husband, three kids, three dogs, three cats, a gecko, two mice and six chickens. Every one of these additions made sense at the time, it’s only in retrospect that it seems foolhardy.
Feel free to drop her a line, she readily welcomes any excuse to stop working and do something else.
Waxman, Abbi: THE GARDEN OF SMALL BEGINNINGS
Kirkus Reviews.
(Mar. 1, 2017): From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Waxman, Abbi THE GARDEN OF SMALL BEGINNINGS Berkley (Adult Fiction) $16.00 5, 2 ISBN: 978-0-399-58358-2
Thirty-something Lilian Girvan, mother of two young girls, is a widow who saw her husband die in a car crash 50 feet from their home. But Waxman's debut novel, far from sad and depressing, is full of wry humor and a cleareyed view of how life keeps offering good things.After Lilian lost her husband three years ago, she had a breakdown, ending up in a treatment facility for several months while her devoted sister, Rachel, stepped in to help with the girls. But all this is in the past, and she's back to making her living as an illustrator and picking her way carefully past the pitfalls of fresh widowhood and piles of toys in the living room. Her company is closing Lilian's department, leaving her with one final assignment: to illustrate a series of vegetable gardening books for Bloem Company, obliging her to attend a six-week Saturday morning gardening class taught by Edward Bloem. The diverse group quickly bonds over the pleasure of planting seeds and the hope this inspires. And a tingle of interest begins between Lilian and Edward. For readers who see where this is headed, of course! But anticipating a happy ending is like waiting for dessert. There is much soul-searching on Lilian's part and a number of side stories involving the other members of the group. Many life lessons are learned in the garden, and not just by Lilian. The plot is straightforward, but it is Waxman's skill at characterization that lifts this novel far above being just another "widow finds love" story. Clearly an observer, Waxman has mastered the fine art of dialogue as well. Characters ring true right down to Lilian's two daughters, who often steal the show. This debut begs for an encore from Waxman.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Waxman, Abbi: THE GARDEN OF SMALL BEGINNINGS." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Mar. 2017.
PowerSearch, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A482911858/GPS?u=schlager& sid=GPS&xid=ba7d4a21. Accessed 15 Jan. 2018.
1 of 3 1/15/18, 10:28 PM
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MA...
Gale Document Number: GALE|A482911858
2 of 3 1/15/18, 10:28 PM
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MA...
The Garden of Small Beginnings
Tracy Babiasz
Booklist.
113.13 (Mar. 1, 2017): p52. From Book Review Index Plus.
COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
The Garden of Small Beginnings.
By Abbi Waxman.
May 2017. 368p. Berkley, paper, $16 (97803995835821.
Lillian Girvan didn't plan to be a widow at 34, and three years later, she still sometimes wishes she had died alongside Dan. Her young daughters are delightfully imaginative (one has decided to marry the family dog), but it devastates her that they hardly remember their father. Her self- sacrificing, if slightly batty, sister has been a huge help but is pressuring her to get out and live again. Her job as a textbook illustrator seems to be coming to an end. When Lili is offered an opportunity to illustrate an encyclopedia of vegetables if she'll attend a gardening class, she never imagines it to be the beginning of the moving-on process, but move on she does. A band of unique gardeners and a hot Dutch gardening instructor show Lili that she may still have life in her yet. Debut author Waxman takes readers from tears to laughter in this depiction of one woman's attempt to hold it all together for everyone else only to learn it's OK to put herself first. Perfect for fans of Melissa Senate or Liza Palmer. --Tracy Babiasz
Babiasz, Tracy
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Babiasz, Tracy. "The Garden of Small Beginnings." Booklist, 1 Mar. 2017, p. 52. PowerSearch,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A488689545/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=23813993. Accessed 15 Jan. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A488689545
3 of 3 1/15/18, 10:28 PM
- Harlequin Junkie
http://harlequinjunkie.com/spotlight-giveaway-the-garden-of-small-beginnings-by-abbi-waxman/
Word count: 676Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Abbi Waxman to HJ!
Spotlight&Giveaway
Hi Abbi and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, The Garden of Small Beginnings!Please summarize the book for the readers here:
GOSB is about a young widow with two small children who thinks she’s got her shit together, but doesn’t. With the help of her sister, a handsome gardening instructor and a motley assortment of classmates, Lilian Girvan is able to see herself more clearly, and move forward.
Please share the opening lines of this book:
“It’s been over three years since my husband died, yet in many ways he’s more useful than ever. True, he’s not around to take out the trash, but he’s great to bitch at while I’m doing it myself, and he’s generally excellent company, invisibility notwithstanding. And as someone to blame he’s unparalleled, because he isn’t there to contradict me, on account of being cremated.”
Please share a few Fun facts about this book…
Fun Fact Number One: I started the book after a fight with my husband as a way to kill him off without actually going to jail.
Fun Fact Number Two: When I started the book I had two daughters, like my heroine, but by the time the book was finished, I had three.
Fun Fact Number Three: It took me 7 years to write it, see above reference to three small children.
Bonus Fun Fact: I am the world’s worst gardener.Please tell us a little about the characters in your book. As you wrote your protagonist was there anything about them that surprised you?
My main characters are a pair of sisters, Lilian and Rachel. Lili is a widow, and Rachel is incredibly supportive but also very keen to get Lili to move on with her life. I was surprised by how messed up Lili was, I thought she was pretty together at the beginning of the book, but she turned out to need a lot more help than I thought. Just as well I was writing it, really, as I was able to help her out of her predicament. There are a lot of characters in the book, it’s definitely a group effort.
If your book was optioned for a movie, what scene would you use for the audition of the main characters and why?
I think I’d probably have them do the scene in the strip club, if for no other reason than it would be fun. Here’s how it starts:
“It turns out they don’t serve food at strip clubs. I guess they worry about slippery floors. After all, when a guy’s leaping around your table dressed as Native American, or at least a muscular person wearing a feather headdress with a small quiver for his arrow, the last thing you want is for him to slip on a potato skin. It would ruin the mood, for starters. And just think of the liability.”
What do you want people to take away from reading this book?
That it was fun to read, and that it’s now the perfect size to rest a coffee cup on.
What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have planned for 2017?
I just delivered the next book to the publisher. It’s called Other People’s Houses, and comes out next May. Lili and her crew are in the book, but they’re not the main focus. We will find out a bit more about what happened with Edward, though. And I’m just starting the next one, which is about a mother and daughter and their large, rambling extended family.
Thanks for blogging at HJ!
- Flavorwire
http://flavorwire.com/605325/the-sweetest-debut-abbi-waxman-on-music-pictures-and-the-abiding-horror-of-goodnight-moon
Word count: 812The Sweetest Debut: Abbi Waxman on Music, Pictures, and the Abiding Horror of ‘Goodnight Moon’
Books | By Sarah Seltzer | May 11, 2017Welcome to The Sweetest Debut, a new and regular installment in which we reach out to debut (or near-debut, we’re flexible!) fiction, poetry and nonfiction authors working with presses of all sizes and find out about their pop culture diets, their writing habits, and how they explain their books to different people in their lives. This time: Abbi Waxman on her debut novel The Garden of Small Beginnings, which is out now via Berkley.
What is your elevator pitch to folks in the industry describing your book?
The Garden of Small Beginnings is a book about a young widow getting her shit back together. Plus, it has pictures.
What you tell your relatives it’s about?
I tell them it’s got pictures. My relatives are simple folk.
How long was this project marinating in a draft or in your head before it became a book deal?
For over seven years. No shit. It took a really long time because my kids kept insisting I raise them instead, which is utterly typical.
Name a canonical book you think is totally overrated.
No. Firstly because I never bad-mouth other writers, even if they’re dead, and secondly because I haven’t read enough of the Good Books to have an opinion. If I don’t like a book very much I’ll stop reading it.
Name a book you’ve read more than two times.
Fucking Goodnight Moon. Wait, actually, THERE’S a canonical book that’s over rated. It doesn’t even rhyme properly! It’s creepy! There’s an old woman watching over a terrified bunny while a bowl of mush cools on the bedside table. There are mice in the room and tiny socks! It’s like a movie by Guillermo Del Toro. Except, you know, less well art-directed. I hated reading that book, and yet I probably read it… [does math on her fingers, three kids, let’s say three times a week for five years each] 2,340 times. Shiver.
Name a book or other piece of art that influenced your writing for this particular project.
It’s always music. I waste hours of time farting about on iTunes putting together play lists before I start, and then remaking them whenever I get stuck.
What’s the last movie you saw in theaters?
Get Out. I thought it was great.
Do you listen to music while you’re writing? If so, what kind?
Like I said, the music is totally key. I like pretty much all kinds except thrash metal or gospel music.
Who is your fashion icon?
The buyer at Target.
If you could buy a house anywhere in the world just to write in, where would it be?
I like the house I have. But if we could just move it to a cliff top on the Amalfi coast, that would be cool. Or a valley in Wales. Or Manhattan. Shit, can we just put in on legs?
What did you initially want to be when you grew up?
Older.
Did you have a New Year’s resolution for 2017? If so, what?
No. I’ve resolved to give up resolving. It’s efficient, effective, and the only resolution I’ve never broken.
Do you prefer a buzzing coffee shop or silent library?
Usually the former, but sometimes the latter. As long as there’s coffee.
Is morning writing or late-night writing your go-to-time?
First thing in the morning.
Do you tend towards writing it all out in one big messy draft and then editing, or perfecting as you go (or something in between)?
In between. It’s a giant clusterfuck of stop-and-go, long stretches of panic followed by days of solid productivity, and then back to the panic.
If you could write fanfiction about any pop culture character, real or imagined, who would it be?
I’ll be honest, I don’t like messing around with other people’s characters. It’s like screwing someone else’s husband. Bad karma.
Care to give us a few sentences of micro-fiction about that character?
Nope, see above. Not to be a bitch or anything, it just doesn’t appeal to me. I like making up my own people. And dogs. I love writing about dogs.
Abbi Waxman The Garden of Small Beginnings The Sweetest Debut - Star Telegram
http://www.star-telegram.com/entertainment/article150016252.html
Word count: 692‘Garden of Small Beginnings’ a tale of finding the good in grief
By Jean Marie Brown
Special to the Star-Telegram
May 11, 2017 03:37 PM
Death and grief are an irrefutable part of life. There are stages of grief that are supposed to lead the bereaved to a new normal. But sometimes, people get caught in a cocoon of sorrow that holds them in place.
This is the world Lilian Girvan inhabits in “The Garden of Small Beginnings.”
But don’t be put off by the topic — this isn’t a maudlin tear-jerker. Instead, Abbi Waxman’s debut novel is a story of rebirth as Lili begins to find her footing nearly four years after her husband, Dan, died steps away from their home in a car wreck.
Waxman is a former copywriter and creative director at London- and New York-based ad agencies. Her writing is clever and the storytelling is engaging. The characters are authentic and quirky. This book should definitely make the cut for summer reading lists.
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According to Waxman’s publicist, several years ago, the author began to think about how a spouse’s death leaves a tangle of heartbreak.
While society tends to focus on the person closest to the deceased, this is a testament to layers of life and the intersections that bring people together. Dan wasn’t just Lili’s husband, he was a father, son, brother and brother-in-law. Lili’s grief is most acute, but it isn’t hers exclusively.
The story is told in first person by Lili — over a six-week period that’s tied to a gardening class. She has a wry sense of humor and is fairly honest and open. The 30-something illustrator is raising daughters Annabel, who was 3 when her father died, and Clare, who was an infant. Lili’s younger sister, Rachel, has been her anchor since Dan’s death.
Lili is commissioned to illustrate a book on gardening. Part of the assignment involves taking a Saturday morning gardening class. She plans to go by herself, leaving the children with Rachel. But they all decide to tag along. Her entourage only grows as she connects with others in the class.
The class is taught by Edward, the first man Lili has been attracted to since Dan’s death, and is filled with colorful characters who break down her barriers. Rachel, who’s been encouraging Lili to begin dating again, recognizes that her sister has become secure in her grief.
Of course this isn’t a revelation to Lili. At one point, her therapist suggests, “There is something comfortable for you in the life you’ve built, even though you’re deeply sad still, and lonely. It’s a rut, but it’s your rut; do you know what I mean?”
The narrative centers around Lili’s journey out of the rut.
The story reflects on the everyday issues of adult life — from infidelity and divorce, to layoffs and outsourcing of jobs. The relationships are authentic, down to the bickering between the pairs of sisters.
Gardeners get an added bonus with the tips that precede each chapter. The advice ranges from “The Chemistry of Soil” to “How To Grow Garlic” and “Making Peace With Insects.”
Waxman gently reminds readers that life continues even when death interrupts. Lili’s grief doesn’t stop her from making catty remarks to Rachel about her sexual history, nor does it stop their self-absorbed mother from belittling her daughters every chance she gets.
Waxman creates a world in which family dysfunction and the dynamics that come with it are merely part of life, and there are no easy fixes. Instead, the gardening metaphor suggests creating a world of nurturing and care.
The Garden of Small Beginnings
☆☆☆☆☆ (out of five)
By Abbi Waxman
Berkley, $16