Month: February 2010

By Donna Russo Morin

Like so much of life, the inspiration for my second book came to me when I was least looking for it.

I had always been a fan of Katie Couric through the many years she worked on the Today Show. So when she was appointed as the anchor of the CBS Evening News, I tuned in despite my typical aversion to television news programs, feeling a sense of camaraderie and sisterhood for a woman trying to break boundaries. How could I know that just a few weeks into her tenure, a two minute story would provide me incredible fodder for my second book?

It was a feature story about the glassmakers of Murano. While other countries were vainly attempting to imitate the artistry of the centuries old craft, few had come close to revealing the secret of the glass—the particular formula that made Murano glass so exceptional. Laced throughout the story were snippets of Murano glassmaking history. One point in particular caught and captured my imagination: for hundreds of years the glassmakers of Venice were virtual prisoners in their own land, captives of their government, a powerful republic determined to keep the prestige and the profit produced by the glass for themselves.

The percussion of inspiration in my mind was as loud as a foghorn blast in the middle of starkly still night. Within a half hour of viewing the story, I had a two page synopsis written, a complete plot mapped out about a young Murano woman who must somehow save herself while protecting the ‘secret of the glass,’ a phrase that would become the title of my second book.

Other than what I had gleaned from the news, I knew little of Venetian history and that of the glassmakers, though I was enthusiastic to begin my research. Always a favorite part of the process for me, the subject matter would also take me to the land of my ancestors (of full Italian descent, I am but a second generation American as proud of the land of my antecedents as I am of my homeland). Having spent the previous year researching France for work on my first book (The Courtier’s Secret, Kensington, Feb. 09), I couldn’t wait for my time in Venice.

And there, between the pages that brought the old world to life, I found Galileo. I was unaware of how much time he had spent in the magical city, unaware how prominently the land figured into his story and he in Venice’s. I was astounded when I learned that, like myself, the professor suffered from a chronic illness. The more I read, the more sure I became that, had the astronomer been privy to modern day medicine, his diagnosis would have been auto-immune, like my own. I found kinship in his tale of determination, one echoed in the story of the land itself and the people that had made it so unique.

It became a daily thrill to tell their story, to give breath to these marvelous characters. On every page are the words their inspiration gave to me.

Tell me who inspires you and why and enter to win a copy of my latest release, THE SECRET OF THE GLASS.

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Leave a comment or question for Donna to enter to win THE SECRET OF THE GLASS. If you’re reading this post through a feed on Facebook, Goodreads, or another social network, please visit the comment trail at Muse Interrupted to be eligible for the draw.

To read Donna’s bio and the back cover blurb for THE SECRET OF THE GLASS, see yesterday’s post. To learn more about Donna and her books, check out her website.

Tomorrow I’ll welcome repeat guest blogger Donna Russo Morin back to the blog. Donna’s blogging about what inspires her and is giving away a copy of her latest historical romance, THE SECRET OF THE GLASS.

About THE SECRET OF THE GLASS:

At the dawn of the 17^th Century, Murano glass-makers are celebrated, revered, and imprisoned by the Venetian government. Sophia Fiolario, the daughter of a glass making maestro, has no desire for marriage, finding her serenity in the love of her family and the beauty of the glass. She learns of its secrets at her father’s side, where a woman has no right to be. But the life Sophia loves is threatened and she’s thrust into the opulent world of the Venice court, becoming embroiled in the scheming machinations of the courtiers’ lives. The beauty of Venice, the magnificence of the Doge’s Palace, can only be rivaled by the intrigue and danger that festers behind their splendid facades. As she searches for an escape, she finds the arms of another, a man whose own desperate situation is yet another obstacle in their path.

Amidst political and religious intrigue, the scientific furor ignited by Galileo, and even murder, Sophia must do anything to protect herself, her family…and the secret of the glass.

About Donna:

Donna Russo Morin began writing in elementary school, when talking animals and numbers who were in love, filled her imagination. She is a graduate of the University of Rhode Island where she obtained two degrees.

Her short fiction has appeared in critically acclaimed anthologies and she has published more than twenty-five non-fiction articles and more than sixty book reviews in newspapers and magazines nationwide. Since she was seventeen, Donna has also worked as a model and actress and has appeared in everything from an automobile supply commercial where she changed her own oil, to Martin Scorsese’s film, The Departed.

For most of her life, her writing took a back seat to her responsibilities, and Donna would fit it in between working a day job and caring for a home and her two children. In 2004, after being diagnosed with chronic Lyme Disease and losing her father to cancer, she asked herself…if not now, when?

Donna’s first historical novel, The Courtier’s Secret was released in February of 2009, when she was fifty years old. Her second book, The Secret of the Glass, goes on sale next week, and she is currently hard at work on her third novel. Her goal is a book a year until she turns 70, when she’ll cut back to one book every two years.

Donna lives close to the south coast of Rhode Island with her two sons, Devon and Dylan, her greatest works in progress. You can visit her website at www.donnarussomorin.com.