--- title: Author Crystal King's Blog - Tasting Life Twice | grub street description: grub street | Author Crystal King muses on life, history, writing and food. --- # Tasting Life Twice Author Crystal King muses on life, history, writing and food. Browse by All Blog Books italy ancient rome Italian History Recipe Writing When in Rome food Feast of Sorrow fun historical fiction Bartolomeo Scappi Viva Italia! The Chef's Secret reading history Apicius Italian Language Renaissance 52 books Boston Cinquecento Publishing italian recipes grub street renaissance recipe roman video Ancient Roman Food Colosseum Culinary Delights books set in italy renaissance italy Ancient history YouTube authors cooking fiction music 52 books in a year Author Book Christmas Language Learning Maine Poetry Pope Roman Forum Scappi The Renaissance Venice Writer Writers Resources fantasy learning Italian travel writers Anne Rice Art Book Clubs Christmas carol Christopher Castellani Circus Maximus Florence Gillian Flynn Greek Harry Potter Honey Italiano Italo Calvino Latin Literary agent Marcus Aurelius Marcus Gavius Apicius Muse and the Marketplace Pantheon Papal conclave Pope Benedict XVI Research Roman Empire Sardinia Sistine Chapel Turkey Ursula K- Le Guin Vestal Virgin Wine ancient recipes architecture baking beauty blogging book recommendation book review christmas gift cibo cookies crystal king gelato giveaway holiday ice cream interview italian cooking literary literature middle ages new year's resolution rejection renaissance Italian food recipe roma rome sci-fi shopping social media special event summer television xmas 100 favorite books 1950s 1960s 1970s 2016 2017 320 AD 3D Achilles Aelia Agostino Chigi Alice Alina Reyes All This Talk of Love Amanda Palmer Amaryah Orenstein Anais Nin Ancient Greece Ancient Roman architecture Andrea Bocelli Anita Shreve Anjali Mitter Duva Anne Carson Anne Rampling Antonio Latini Arch of Constantine Arts Artusi Astrology Augustus Author Life BBC BDSM Baldassare Peruzzi Baroque Bell-ringer Bells Benvenuto Cellini Black tea BlogHer Bloggers Bologna Boodles Byki Cake Catholic Church Cellini Charles Dicken Chuck Palahniuk Clark Frasier Colleen McCullough Cologne Colum McCann Concord Cook Cookbook Corsica Cosimo de Medici Critical & Creative Thinking Dante Dante Alighieri David Bowie David Wishart De Re Coquinaria Doge's Palace Dormouse Durham Cathedral E-L- James Earth Egypt Eleonora Galasso Emily Browning England English language Ernest Hemingway Erotic literature Etsy Faint Promise of Rain Fifty Shades of Grey Fight Club Flamingo tongue snail Forum Forvo France Francesa Michielin GO Literary George Orwell Germany Gone Girl Gone Girl (novel) Google Translate Got Milk Grasso Grub Grub Street Muse Gunter Grass Hairstyle Harvard Harvard University Henry David Thoreau Henry VII of England Hunger Games Independence Day International Space Station Isabella Dalla Ragione Italian American Italian food J-R-R- Tolkien James Wood Jane Austen Janet Fitch Julius III July Justin Rowe Karl Lagerfeld Katie Caldesi Kennebunkport Maine Kessler Twins Keurig Kindle Deal Kit Harington Kurt Vonnegut L'Amore Esiste La Cucina Leicester Leonardo Da Vinci Linguistics Livia Lucca ## Posts about grub street: ![52 in 52: Books Read in March](https://blog.crystalking.com/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/zoli.jpg) [Books](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/books) [jonathan grimwood](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/jonathan-grimwood) [new yorker](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/new-yorker) [v.e. schwab](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/ve-schwab) [Colum McCann](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/colum-mccann) [grub street](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/grub-street) [michelle hoover](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/michelle-hoover) [Muse and the Marketplace](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/muse-and-the-marketplace) [oyeyemi](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/oyeyemi) ![It's Time for a Summer Writing Retreat!](https://blog.crystalking.com/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/IMG_0170.jpg) [Writing](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/writing) [Arts](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/arts) [Mameve Medwed](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/mameve-medwed) [writers](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/writers) [authors](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/authors) [Blog](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/blog) [fun](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/fun) [grub street](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/grub-street) [Maine](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/maine) [Steven Bauer](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/steven-bauer) [Writers Resources](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/writers-resources) [writing retreat](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/writing-retreat) It seems like [the last retreat](https://blog.crystalking.com/crystal-king/blog/2013/06/24/a-writers-retreat) has just come and gone and here we are again, leaving husbands and children behind, off to [Maine](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maine) and a kickass writing schedule with good good friends and inspiring fellow writers. Many people I talk to think my retreat is a boondoggle of sorts, as though I'm only saying that I'm going to Maine to write but I'll really just be sitting on the beach getting tan. So to prove that idea wrong, here's our schedule. ![The Muse and the Marketplace - Two M's that Writers Rely on For Their Craft](https://blog.crystalking.com/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/muse2.jpg) [Writing](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/writing) [Author](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/author) [social media](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/social-media) [The Muse](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/the-muse) [Writer](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/writer) [writers](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/writers) [Blog](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/blog) [Boston](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/boston) [Grub](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/grub) [grub street](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/grub-street) [Grub Street Muse](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/grub-street-muse) [Muse and the Marketplace](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/muse-and-the-marketplace) [Steve Almond](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/steve-almond) I've been a bit sparse in my posts lately because my time has not been my own! But it's all good and the world of writing, of ancient Rome, of Renaissance Italy and all that goodness has been swirling around in my head in grand incubation mode. It's the Muse at work, I think. ![Chuck Palahniuk at the Muse and the Marketplace 2011](https://blog.crystalking.com/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/chuck.jpg) [Writing](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/writing) [Books](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/books) [Amanda Palmer](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/amanda-palmer) [James Wood](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/james-wood) [keynote](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/keynote) [Manuscript Marts](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/manuscript-marts) [Muse](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/muse) [social media](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/social-media) [Blog](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/blog) [Boston](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/boston) [Chuck Palahniuk](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/chuck-palahniuk) [Fight Club](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/fight-club) [grub street](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/grub-street) [reading](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/reading) We're coming up on the next [Grub Street](http://www.grubstreet.org) [Muse and the Marketplace ](http://www.grubstreet.org/index.php?id=2910)and I couldn't be more excited! I have a session on social media at the conference, but I will also be there as a writer, participating in the Manuscript Marts (I'm meeting with two agents this year, more on that in a future blog post), and attending classes. This year's keynotes include [James Wood](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Wood_%28critic%29) and [Amanda Palmer](http://amandapalmer.net).  It's the first year that the Muse has had two keynotes (one on the Muse, one on the Marketplace) so that should be interesting! James and Amanda will have their work cut out for them though, to top this amazing keynote by [Chuck Palahniuk](http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/)  (author of [Fight Club](http://www.amazon.com/Fight-Club-Novel-Chuck-Palahniuk/dp/0393039765%3FSubscriptionId%3D0G81C5DAZ03ZR9WH9X82%26tag%3Dcreatofcircu-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0393039765)) two years ago. Absolutely brilliant. And while it's long, it's definitely worth watching in its entirety. I still have chills thinking about it. He's an absolutely masterful storyteller. ![Book Review: All This Talk of Love by Christopher Castellani](https://blog.crystalking.com/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/allthistalkof.jpg) [Books](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/books) [italian](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/italian) [italy](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/italy) [literary](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/literary) [literature](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/literature) [Maddelena](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/maddelena) [All This Talk of Love](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/all-this-talk-of-love) [Blog](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/blog) [Christopher Castellani](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/christopher-castellani) [family](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/family) [Grasso](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/grasso) [grub street](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/grub-street) [Italian American](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/italian-american) With all this talk of love, I have to begin by saying that in one's life there are always certain people who you feel proud to know, who you want all your other friends to meet, and who you wish could always come to every party. One of those people is [Christopher Castellani](http://www.christophercastellani.com/), who I still thank the stars that I met many years past. Christopher is a rare soul, and the hundreds upon hundreds of people in the book industry that know him (he's a key driving force at the magnificent [Grub Street](http://www.grubstreet.org) writing center) are likely to tell you that. I have grown to know Christopher more and more over the years but after our initial meeting, my first foray into understanding a little about him was by reading his first book, which still ranks among my most memorable reads in my life, "[A Kiss From Maddelena](http://amzn.to/YXlMlB)." In it we meet the protagonist of all three of his books, Maddelena Grasso, a sweet, shy and beautiful woman who is swept away by the circumstances around her-- the ending of WWII and a father who wants to arrange her marriage, but not to the boy she loves. I can still picture Maddelena as a girl, flying through the town on her bicycle. I can feel the emotion of the clandestine moments with Vito, the boy who steals her heart. I can still remember the roller coaster of emotions that first book put me through. ![Creativity Begets Creativity: The Writing Group](https://blog.crystalking.com/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/nautchphoto1.jpg) [Writing](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/writing) [Writer](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/writer) [Writer Resources](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/writer-resources) [Writing circle](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/writing-circle) [Blog](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/blog) [Boston](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/boston) [grub street](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/grub-street) [Publishing](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/publishing) [Ursula K- Le Guin](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/ursula-k-le-guin) [writing group](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/writing-group) For the last four (nearly five?) years or so I've been meeting with my writing group, not quite like clockwork, but about every two weeks. The three of us have hacked and slashed and encouraged each other's novels from start to finish, and gone through query letters, agent pitches and publishing challenges during that time. And of course, best of all, we have become close and dear friends as part of the process, bolstering spirits as we deal with family, illness, relationships, weddings, work woes and the ilk. I will know [Anjali](http://www.anjalimitterduva.com) and Jen until I'm quite old and wizened, I am convinced. Awhile back I thought I read that [Ursula K. LeGuin](http://www.ursulakleguin.com) has been in a writing group for many many years (if I'm remembering right she talks about this in [Steering the Craft](http://amzn.to/OXlND9)). At the time I remembering thinking, wow, someone as accomplished as she is still meets with others to go over her work?! I was impressed, but at the time, I didn't really understand the power of having ongoing encouragement that comes from being part of a small group that truly cares about your work. It's invaluable. Because of my writing group I don't get lazy. I moved immediately from finished to researching my next book. I feel compelled to move on the next chapter. I get excited to turn in work for feedback. I get lost in the worlds of their books. In short, because of this group I am on the continuous hamster wheel of writing creativity and as those of you know, if you fall off, it's a massive PITA to jump back on. ![](https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=1481231558851356&ev=PageView&noscript=1)