Some good advice for traveling during the holidays from Wendy Perrin
Metro
Buy a carnet of tickets (10), not individual ones. You’ll go through them quickly. Your rail ticket from the airport to the Metro works on the Metro, but not vice versa.
Negotiating with the French
Advice from Hip Paris
Twitter
Follow your airline’s board, travel sites, etc. Loads of info!
Cell Phones
Insidr Paris—A relatively new service, Insidr is a digital concierge that provides visitors with a 4G smartphone (see website for costs), has international and local calling, texting capabilities, and acts as a Wi-Fi hot spot for a traveler’s devices. It features curated Google Maps for areas around Paris and features 50 or more “Angel Insidrs” listed as contacts in the WhatsApp application. The phone comes with preloaded apps to make your visit super easy!
For your own phone service, check their website for what they offer and the cost.
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FOR BOOK LOVERS
On Jan Moran’s website, she’s compiled a list of books set in France (pdf format for download): “Say Oui to Paris: 35 Best Books Set in France” Download It Here
One of my favorite sites, Le French Book, with Anne Trager offers access to “French books you’ll love in English.” She has an informative free download titled “Dummies Guide to French Mysteries and Thrillers.”
Cara Black writes one of my favorite mystery series set in Paris, the Aimée Leduc series. Check out Cara Black’s Website for great photos and a list of her novels and where to buy them.
VIEW MY
PARIS NOIR TRAVEL PINTEREST BOARD
Acknowledgments
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For this noir series, born this year, 2016, my love, gratitude and thanks go to:
Best pal and co-conspirator, Jan Eliot, creator of the internationally syndicated cartoon strip “Stone Soup.” Jan is one of only eight syndicated women cartoonists. For over twenty-five years we’ve met every Thursday for creative support lunches to keep us afloat and humming, to problem solve, to celebrate our successes, and to remind each other how lucky we are!
LitChix, my stellar writing group Chris Scofield and Patsy Hand. Lit from within and talented beyond belief, you own my heart and sprinkle my writing with stardust.
Kirsten Steen and Ed Gressett. You know why.
The MGs—Tom Titus, Patsy Hand, Lois Jean Bousquet, Mike Sobol, Kirsten Steen, Olivia Klassen, and Barbara Sullivan. Brilliant ideas, marketing know how, support and camaraderie. What more could we ask for?
Jessica Maxwell for once asking me to do a travel article that turned into a noir that turned into. … Thank you always for love and inspiration on all planes—earthly, creatively and spiritually.
Randy Sue Coburn for your love, long phone chats about our projects, and help with negotiating the tough times in our lives that sometimes tried to derail us.
Cindy Casey & the crew at Vero Café for taking such good care of me.
Barnes & Noble for your café and the time to write.
Tap & Growler for supporting our MG group.
Grace Elting Castle for your friendship, expertise and exemplary editing skills. Anne Delon for info about Paris. Lori Lake for your vast knowledge of and experience with indie publishing. Susan Glassow, Terry Brix, Mary Jo Comins, Linda Leslie, Marlene Howard, Valerie Ihsan, Tsunami Books, Willamette Writers, and the many writing groups on Facebook that for countless ways have given me support and encouragement.
Oregon Writers Colony for providing a second home and writing retreat at Colonyhouse in Rockaway Beach, Oregon.
Elizabeth George Foundation for a grant that started with a novel and morphed into this series.
My family. You lift me up and carry me along, always.
My one and only, my heart and soul mate, Dan Connors, the best traveling companion and scout ever.
Citizens of Paris. Your bravery and humaneness shines forth! Adoration and love for your City of Light. Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, forever.
About the Author
Valerie J Brooks is an award-winning author who has published in Scent of Cedars: Thirty-two Promising Writers from the Pacific Northwest and France, a Love Story: Women Write About the French Experience.
Growing up, she lived on Nancy Drew stories and later, as an adult, graduated to and studied film noir. The movie “Body Heat” is one of her favorites. While writing and trying to publish literary novels, she reads many of the international crime writers and recommends Akashic Books and its noir anthology series set in cities around the world.
She was a recipient of a grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation and was awarded the Monticello Award for Creative Writing. She’s received writer residencies from Hedgebrook, Vermont Studio Center, Villa Montalvo for the Arts, Soapstone, and Playa. As a literary activist, she served as Associate Fiction Editor at Northwest Review for four years, was a Board of Directors member of Oregon Writers Colony, was an advisor for the Lane Arts Council Artists in Schools program, and co-founded Willamette Writers Speakers Series. Currently she is a member of the University of Oregon’s Women’s Writing Symposium Advisory Board.
She recently finished a novel Stealing Paris and was awarded a month-long residency at Playa to work on her memoir Vida Flats about her early tumultuous years as an East Coast transplant and single mom after being abandoned by her troubled Vietnam vet husband in the wild west of 1970s rural Oregon.
She’s blessed with family—her mom, a brother and a sister who live in the steamy, noir-ish state of Florida; her son Jason who gave her three granddaughters and two great-grandsons who are only twenty minutes down the road.
When she says, “See you in the funny pages,” she’s not kidding. She’s famous for being the main character in the syndicated cartoon “Stone Soup” created by her best pal Jan Eliot.
Valerie enjoys life on the McKenzie River in Oregon with husband Daniel Connors and their spirited Havanese pooch Stevie.
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Follow Valerie at
@ValinParis
noirtravelstories
www.valeriejbrooks.com
[email protected]
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