Writing, as any writer will tell you, is hard work. Writing books that other people actually publish is even harder. So the odds that a mother and daughter might both wind up making lives for themselves as writers are pretty long.

But that’s how life has turned out for Barbara Shoup and Kate Shoup. Both women work as writers, albeit in different parts of the ink-stained vineyard.

Barbara Shoup is an award-winning novelist whose books include Vermeer’s Daughter, Stranded in Harmony and Wish You Were Here. Her latest, out this month, is Everything You Want.

Daughter Kate works full-time as a freelance editor and author. Among her books are The Agassi Story, Not Your Mama’s Beading and Webster’s New World English Grammar Handbook. Kate also has a book out in May: Rubbish!: Reuse Your Refuse.

The Shoups talked with NUVO about their respective careers at the Broad Ripple home where Barbara lives — and where Kate grew up.

Barbara: I always say Kate is the writer who actually makes a living writing — and I think that’s just amazing. I’ve never been able to do that. I also think it’s amusing because if you’d asked Kate what she wanted to do in high school, she would have said, “I don’t want to be like my mom.”

Kate: What’s interesting is that I do a very different kind of writing from my mom. That’s why I’m able to earn a living at it, because I don’t think Mom really wants to write about Windows Vista. As much as I enjoy writing about some of the things I write about, like the book coming out, Rubbish, I don’t enjoy everything. Sometimes I feel like a real hack. But what I really like is the life it affords me. It’s not that I think I’m a consummate writer. I don’t consider myself an artist. Writing’s my job.

Barbara: The kind of writing I do is very much, in a way, like reading. You get into the story and you don’t really know where you’re going. You’re following the thread and trying to figure out what the story is. It just takes years instead of hours.

Kate: I’m so proud of my mom. I think it’s the coolest thing when her stuff comes out. When she won the PEN award a few years ago, my sister and I went to New York to watch her accept it — and there she was on stage with Philip Roth! I’ve always felt privileged because Mom’s let me look at her drafts. It’s been fascinating and instructive. I learned a lot from all that. I love what she’s done.

Barbara: I think it takes a terrific amount of discipline to do what Kate does. I have a lot of respect for the clarity of her writing. It’s clean and readable in the best sense. She has a strong voice and a great sense of humor.

Kate (on Rubbish): It’s a craft book and it’s about making beautiful things out of things that would normally be thrown away — found objects. Often publishers come to me with ideas for books, but I had the idea for this one, proposed it and they bought it. I’m also trying to tie in to the idea of being green in a way that doesn’t force people to think in terms of all or nothing. I wanted to explore a way of being green without having to buy a new car and never shaving your armpits again.

Barbara (on Everything You Want): This is a book about a family that is very much like my own family that wins $50 million playing lotto cash and things turn wacky. The funny thing is that the voice the story’s told in is Kate’s voice.

City of reading

Books read and recommended

NUVO asked some local book lovers to tell us about what they’re reading, and to turn us on to some good books. Here’s what they told us.

Mari Evans, poet and author

Of all the incredible material I’ve read in the last three or four months, the one that absolutely refuses to leave me is John Perkins’ Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. Some of us, unashamedly, accept the label “conspiracy theorist” — wear it, in fact, as a hairshirt. And this is the reason Perkins gets two thumbs up: He validates us. Hit Man is a jaw-dropping experience. One almost forgets to breathe. The sub-conscious keeps arguing, “This can’t be true.” We know our country is capable of the unconscionable — waterboarding, defoliation, etcetera — but you must kidding, not this! It’s there in black and white. Read it yourself. Then call a friend.

Then there is Zdena Berger’s Tell Me Another Morning, an autobiographical account of the ways young girls experienced “life” in several concentration camps in Germany during the 1940s. One is in an emotional vise during the time it takes to finish Morning. Don’t start it until you are ready to commit, because, however clichéd, you won’t be able to put it down.

A captivating segue: Arundhati Roy’s God of Small Things. Exquisitely crafted, tantalizingly layered, the imagery wild, almost feverish — one can hardly keep one’s fingers from Roy’s elbow: “Come on, now — let us in! We’re trying to contain ourselves, but this level of suspense is unfair. After all, these are kids.” Small Things forces us through beautiful, painful, mysterious, confusing doors into facets of the human condition we’d just as soon not discover, nor rethink. It is tender, as well as brutal. Having walked its pages, however, we find ourselves almost obsequious for having had the privilege.

Finally, there is the absurdity of exporting democracy by force, which, of itself, is an oxymoron. Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s Imperial Life in the Emerald City is a troublesome read. It raises more questions than it answers, as it provides access to the Washington mindset that presumes to send Americans, often without the requisite expertise, into occupied territory charged with the task of restructuring and reshaping indigenous ways of doing and being into a replication of American modes and practices. The assignment, which would seem doomed from the outset, leaves one naively wondering how so much can so thoughtlessly go wrong when American intellectual competence is far from being as limited and insensitive as our performance in Iraq suggests.

Ken Honeywell, partner, Well Done Marketing

I’ve read a pile of great books recently, including Dave Eggers’ What Is the What and Claire Messud’s The Emperor’s Children and Marisha Pessl’s amazing first novel Special Topics in Calamity Physics. I just finished David N. Meyer’s excellent new biography of Gram Parsons, Twenty Thousand Roads. Now I’m in the middle of Jeffery Eugenides’ Middlesex. I have Tree of Smoke, the new Denis Johnson novel, on my nightstand, but my wife Becky just read Middlesex, and she needs to talk about it. I’m only too happy to oblige.

But I’m most excited about having finished Winter’s Tale by Mark Helprin, an urban fantasy set in an alternate New York. It’s the story of Peter Lake, a time-traveling, Christ-like figure obsessed with justice; his nemesis Pearly Soames, leader of the Short Tails, the most notorious gang in turn-of-the-century Manhattan; the beautiful, consumptive Beverly Penn, love of Peter Lake’s life, whom he meets while burgling her house; and Athansor, the flying white horse … I’d never been able to get through it, but, this time, the magic took. Winter’s Tale is a handful — two hands full, actually — but it’s a magnificent, crazily inventive, deeply moving piece of magic realism. My advice is to begin now: it may take you a decade or more to finish, but it’s worth every false start.

David Hamilton, federal judge

Just finished FDR, a new biography of Roosevelt by Jean Edward Smith. It’s a detailed and fair portrait of the greatest president of the 20th century. We were lucky to have the right person in the right place at the right time.

I’m in the midst of Making Sense of Normandy by E. Carver McGriff, the retired minister of St. Luke’s United Methodist Church of Indianapolis. Dr. McGriff served as a young infantryman in Normandy. He has written the most frank and compassionate account of combat that I’ve ever read. He has wrestled candidly with the meaning and lack of meaning of these experiences for him and his fellow soldiers — how they have affected his Christian faith and have given him more appreciation for our human strengths and compassion for our flaws. Not enough veterans have written books like this, and I don’t expect to find a better one.

I’m also making my way slowly through the last Harry Potter book, but more out of a sense of duty than anything else. It’s not as much fun as the previous books, but I feel the need for closure!

Next up will be What Hath God Wrought by Daniel Walker Howe, the newest volume in the Oxford History of the United States. It’s a history of the U.S. in the formative years from 1815 to 1848, and I’ll read it primarily on the strength of the prior volumes in the series, which also included James McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom and David Kennedy’s Freedom from Fear.

On the fiction side, I have to mention The Flanders Panel by Arturo Perez-Reverte, a fun mystery-thriller about a Spanish art dealer and an early Renaissance painting that provides a clue to a mysterious death centuries ago. I’ve also loved Ian MacEwan’s powerful novel Saturday, which has the added attraction of providing a literary treatment of a squash match!

Katie Zarich, public relations manager, Indianapolis Museum of Art

Lately, I’ve been consumed by my law school textbooks. I’m taking election law this semester, which seems fitting since it’s a presidential election year. Between work and my classes, I have very little time to read for fun. But I don’t have the discipline to put down a good book when I should be reading for class.

Since being green is quite popular these days, and since I’ve been interested in the permanence of the stuff left over by humanity, the last book I read for pleasure was The World Without Us by Alan Weisman. I’ll never look at plastic grocery bags the same way again.

Next up in the queue, I plan to read Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace … One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. My friend George Srour has been building schools in Africa after founding Building Tomorrow, and I’d love it if he’d write his own book about his experiences sometime soon.

I soon hope to read Ask the Pilot by Patrick Smith because I don’t particularly like to fly, and I’ve heard the book is reassuring. Plus, I’ve heard Smith’s writing is outstanding. I was visiting my college roommate once, and her dad, who is an amateur pilot, was shocked that I didn’t want to take a tour of Tulsa in his little airplane. Flying for me is tolerable, not fun.

Rhet Lickliter, artist

I just finished A Witch’s Dictionary by Sarah Kennedy, Elixir Press 2007. This is a staggering collection of poems focused on the historical theme of witches, witch hunts, trials, torture and death.

Comparisons are made with deftness and accuracy to our current war on terror. Kennedy has it all working for her — accurate history, well developed form, masterful control of language. These poems are powerful and arresting as Kennedy wisely avoids opinions and generalizations. Her ability to join beautiful language with horrific history and imagery reminds me of watching a mushroom cloud in slow motion set to a pastoral sound track and realizing suddenly I’m observing total destruction. Maybe that’s not a very good analogy. Anyway, read these poems.

Shauta Marsh, Big Car Gallery

I grew up cutting my wisdom teeth on Stephen King, poetry by Charles Bukowski and graphic novels put out by Fantagraphics like Black Hole by Charles Burns. Let’s just say I have a love for the awkward. For those reasons I always have a graphic novel, a poetry book and a novel going.

Currently, the graphic novel is the dark and violent Chance In Hell by Gilbert Hernandez, about an orphan girl who grows up at a Mexican city dump.

I found out about the novel I’m reading in The Believer — a magazine that always has good book suggestions. It reviewed Mike Segretto’s The Bride of Trash, a dark comedy about an old man named Wizzer who runs a junk shop. After discovering the decapitated body of a beautiful woman in his front yard, he takes the body inside, puts a mannequin head on her and, well, starts a relationship. Don’t worry: They become friends first. It’s all consensual. I swear, it’s not as bad as it sounds. A hilarious book.

I carry poetry in my purse for any kind of waiting I might have to do. Now it’s Pain Fantasy by Chicago poet and Martinsville native Jason Bredle. I’ll leave you with an excerpt from his poem “The Idiot’s Guide to Faking Your Own Death and Moving to Mexico”:

Every few seconds I check the Bible / to see what Jesus is saying about me. The answer / is always nothing. Sometimes / he’s condemning me to eternal damnation, / but usually nothing. Tonight I’m alone, / wearing my sex shorts …

Tim Harmon, neighborhood activist

I love books! I love to see, feel, smell and, of course, read books. I even went so far as to publish a few myself. My love started over 40 years ago with Vonnegut and Brautigan. I then found Bukowski, simply amazing. I was hooked forever. As the years went on I read more and more, expanding my world beyond my wildest dreams. It’s hard to say, but I suppose John Steinbeck’s East Of Eden is my all time favorite book. I love Indiana’s own Haven Kimmel and her memories of Zippy. Last book I read was Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovski, a wonderful story of the German occupation of Paris during World War II. I believe the author died in Auschwitz, and that the manuscript was only recently found and translated. I hope I’m not wrong about that. I’m currently reading Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls. I bought it at Menard’s Home Improvement Center on the Southside of town. Honestly, I can’t imagine a better home improvement than books. More and more books!

Juana Watson, senior advisor for Latino and immigrant affairs, Office of Gov. Mitch Daniels

I was born in a village situated high in the Sierra Madre Mountains in Central Mexico. My parents never learned how to read or write. Most people in the village never read stories to their children, and it has never been part of the culture in the village to read books.

I started reading books when I was in junior high school, and I began to realize that the books were opening a new world to me.

When I arrived in Indiana in 1978, I didn’t speak English well enough to read a book. It took me several years before I could read and comprehend a novel in the English language.

The first book I read in English was For Whom the Bell Tolls. I remember how excited I was because I understood what the book was all about. From then on, I began to read many different books, and it made me want to continue reading and wanting to learn more and more.

Nowadays, most of the books that I read are related to diversity and cross-cultural management. I am reading a book that I really like called Building on the Promise of Diversity: How We Can Move to the Next Level in Our Workplace, Our Communities and Our Society by R. Roosevelt Thomas Jr. This book really challenges people to move to the next level. It challenges companies and communities to look at diversity management in a different light, and not just as a matter of representation, but true diversity. Thomas talks about the ties that bind our communities and companies. He describes “diversity as being inherently neither good nor bad. It simply is. Its potential for positive change, innovation or stagnation depends on the situation, the nature of the diversity and the ability of individuals to make quality decisions amid differences, similarities and tension.”

Indylit.com launched

Readers are social animals. Now there’s a “one-stop shopping” Web site to help readers get out and find book signings, author appearances and other literary events. Indylit.com is the brainchild of The Mystery Company’s Jim Huang. “This is a free service designed to encourage the development of the Indianapolis literary community,” Huang said. “There has never been a single resource that pulls together the many opportunities in the area to meet and greet prominent authors and take advantage of other events and promotions related to books and those who love to read.”

The site will include listings from all major bookstores in the area, as well as universities, libraries, literary groups and local authors. To submit an upcoming event for inclusion at Indylit.com, contact email@indylit.com or fax 317-705-1402.

Independent voices

Independent bookstores, once considered a vanishing breed, seem to be making a comeback in Indianapolis, as creative, enterprising book lovers have found niches not necessarily filled by such standby retailers as Borders and Barnes & Noble — not to mention Amazon.com’s seemingly infinite inventory.

Indeed, it seems that a really good bookstore does more than just sell books. It’s also a gathering place, a kind of clubhouse for the life of the mind.

We asked a trio of independent booksellers to tell us what they’re recommending to their customers.

Jim Huang, The Mystery Company

Lately, I’ve been especially interested in books that take me somewhere. Dan Fesperman’s The Amateur Spy is set largely in Jordan, offering a gripping portrayal of a society at a crossroads, and of characters who face tough choices. The aptly named Freeman Lockhart is an aid worker who’s pressured into spying on an old colleague who may be raising money for terrorists. There’s some predictability to the plot, but Fesperman’s characters are original and striking. Matt Beynon Rees’ first novel, The Collaborator of Bethlehem, is also set in the Middle East, on the West Bank among Palestinian factions who hate each other as much as they hate the Israelis. Schoolteacher George Saba learns that a former pupil is implicated in a murder. Saba believes in his student’s innocence, and pursues an investigation over everyone’s objections. Saba’s search for the truth in the midst of so much heartbreaking chaos is heroic and inspiring. The setting of Mary Saums’ Thistle and Twigg is closer to home but no less exotic. Set in rural Alabama, Saums introduces a charming pair of widowed women who forge a friendship over ghosts, guns and an odd real estate deal. The Southern flavor is strong, strange and wonderful. In Dissolution, C.J. Sansom takes us on a different kind of journey, back to 1537 and a monastery on the south coast of England where an emissary of Thomas Cromwell has been murdered. Matthew Shardlake represents the crown in this fascinating front in Henry VIII’s battle against the church.

Shirley Mullin, Kids Ink

If you have suffered through a kid’s book that is more toy than story or more cartoon than art lately, this is the list for you — four new books fun enough to entertain the kids, but rich enough to hold your interest too. Garmann’s Summer, written and illustrated by Stian Hole, explores a young Norwegian boy’s fear of starting school. Garmann’s old aunts arrive as they do every summer “by boat from another time.” The poignant dialogue deftly bridges the gap between youth and wisdom. Hole’s quirky artistic sensibility will delight the eyes of young readers but keep wiser minds occupied as well. Sharon Creech’s newest book, The Castle Corona, brings art to the chapter book. David Diaz has created intricate illuminations throughout, giving the book an ancient feel. While the story is aimed at ages 8-12, it feature castles, orphans, intrigue and wit enough make it a joy as a family read-along. Cecilia Galante’s new book, The Patron Saint of Butterflies, provides a timely summer read for adolescents in light of recent news from the commune in Texas. Told in alternating voices, Honey and Agnes are responding to their lives in a religious commune in opposite ways. Honey rebels against the rigid rules and punishments while Agnes struggles to live a saintly life. A tragic accident forces them to leave the strict environment and learn about shopping malls, Big Macs and to trust themselves. Finally, if you can get past the sexist title, consider The Curious Boy’s Book of Exploration: 100 Challenges, Puzzles and Experiments by Sam Martin. What red-blooded American girl wouldn’t want to learn to make a kaleidoscope, a hand helicopter or how to levitate a tea bag? Martin produced a lovely book of fun projects for the whole family; here’s hoping some misguided editor provided the title as yet another sacrifice on the altar of commercialism that dominates the publishing industry today.

Kathleen Angelone, Bookmamas

During the summer, I read for fun, excitement and information. I love page turners — particularly those that start with a realistic situation and lead me step by logical step to an improbable extreme. First, I will read The Cuban Connection by local author Kevin L. Surface. This political thriller starts by describing the privileged life of a boy in Cuba immediately preceding Castro's revolution. Then it explores how the revolution informs the boy's life. I must admit that I often read books before I give them away. I only had time to read the beginning of this book before I gave it to my brother for Christmas and can't wait for a couple of leisurely summer evenings to finish it. As a lawyer, I also relish good legal thrillers. This genre's master, John Grisham's The Appeal, is also on my list. I love reading Hoosier authors from earlier times such as Lew Wallace, Theodore Dreiser, Gene Stratton Porter and Booth Tarkington. These authors provide me a view into the historical Hoosier mindset. They also reinforce my understanding of the constancy of human personalities and behavior. So this summer I'll read the early 1900s best-selling author Meredith Nicholson's The House of a Thousand Candles. Finally, I'll also read Plenty by Alisa Smith and J.B. Mackinnon. Hopefully, this story of a family's adventure in trying to eat only locally grown food for a year will entertain me along with providing some ideas on how I can live a more healthy lifestyle.

More recommendations

Sarah Stierch, gallery director, Domont Studio Gallery

Being that I am in school, I don't have a lot of time for leisure reading; however, I do find time! I am dabbling in three books right now, the first being Halfbreed: The Remarkable True Story of George Bent by David Fridtjof Halaas. This is a great book about the life of a half white/half Cheyenne man and his experience in the evolution of native life in America and his influence. Next, Do What Thou Wilt, a biography about legendary occult leader and visionary Aleister Crowley by Lawrence Sutin. My final project is Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States, which covers historical truth and the concept of the American/European rewriting of history. All three are providing me a unique and special read. Bent’s life between the white and native world is fascinating and sad. Crowley was a bizarre and unique individual who never ceases to amaze me. And Zinn’s witty, honest and powerful breakdown of American history keeps me in shock and awe.

Charlotte Templin, professor of English emerita, University of Indianapolis

Why did Warren Buffet get a $100 million gift from the taxpayers? How did George W. Bush get rich off a tax increase after failing in all his previous business ventures? Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist David Cay Johnson explains all these mysteries and many more in a new book that will have the reader’s eyes glued to the page — while her gorge rises.

With riveting examples, Johnson explains that since 1980 it has been official government policy to enrich the already wealthy by taxing the rest of us. Reagan sold American society on the idea that less government is better government. Now we find out that the wealthy don’t see it that way. They want more government — as long as it makes them richer. Johnson points out that while proponents of the New Economy claim to revere Adam Smith, recent economic decisions fly in the face of Smith’s concern about the moral hazard involved in rewarding people beyond the value of their contributions.

Some of the actors in this sordid drama are familiar: Wal-Mart, Cabela’s, Microsoft, WellPoint. All taxpayers contribute to the Walton family’s riches even if they never set foot in their friendly neighborhood Wal-Mart. Cabela’s “has made its reliance on handouts a core part of its expansion strategy” and actually “boasts about its solicitation of welfare.”

Johnson is deeply concerned about the social costs of such a policy, including threats to food safety and highway bridge maintenance. Funding cuts for education, parks and libraries weaken the social fabric and point to greater dangers ahead: A society that is built on vast disparities in wealth and opportunity is unstable.

Billie Breaux, Marion County auditor

The book that has had the greatest impact on me recently is It’s Your Ship. In January ’07, after my election as auditor, I did research on management styles. It’s Your Ship was given to me by a friend and needless to say the title did not excite me as my preconceived ideas on military leadership were of command and control, dictatorial and authoritarian. Was I in for a surprise! It’s Your Ship emphasized that real leadership is about understanding yourself first, then using that to create your style. It emphasizes leading by example, listening aggressively, creating a climate of trust, looking for results, taking risks and the extra step. This book has helped me to strive for excellence.

Two other books that I strongly recommend are Simple Justice, a history of the Civil Rights movement and the Board of Education decision in 1954, and Testament of Hope, a compilation of writings by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. On my desk to read are The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell; Kurt Vonnegut’s Man Without a Country; Colored People, by Louis Gates.