Author, Water Music: A Cape Cod Story
This week, Ira spoke with award-winning writer and accomplished musician Marcia Peck, author of Water Music:A Cape Cod Story. In this cello episode of “Ira’s Everything Bagel,” Marcia talks about starting to play the cello at age five; why classical music moves her; the great composers “get inside us”; why the book was set in a certain place and time; her coming-of-age story which follows eleven-going-on-twelve Lily as she navigates parental and familial conflict at the family’s summer retreat on Cape Cod in 1956; her technique for writing; why the title of the book was important to her; music as magic; and what she wanted to explore in the novel.
Marcia Peck is an award-winning writer and accomplished musician, celebrating over 50 years as a cellist with the Minnesota Orchestra.
Inspired by the rhythms and sounds of music echoed in language, her debut novel, Water Music: A Cape Cod Story, combines all of her passions – music, writing, and Cape Cod. The book has received critical acclaim and has received many book awards, including Literary Titan Gold, National Indie Excellence Award, New England Book Festival Regional Lit Winner, and Feathered Quill Reviewers Choice Award Winner. Additionally, she was a finalist for American Writing Awards, Eric Hoffer Award Grand Prize, Firebird Book Awards, and Wishing Shelf Book Awards. Pacifica book Awards designated it as a “Notable Book” and her book was long-listed by both Historical Fiction Company Book-of-the-Year Award and Somerset Book Awards.
Marcia’s writing has received awards from New Millenium Writings (First prize for "Memento Mori"), Tamarack Awards (honorable mention for "An Unexpected Cadence"), Lake Superior Writers' Conference (First Prize for "Pride and Humility"), Glimmer Train (finalist for Very Short Fiction Award for "The Flavor of Borscht"), Flashquake (nomination for Pushcart Prize for "Long Distance"), and MnArtists MiniStories (Winner for "Little Vladimir's Father").
She is the grateful recipient of Artist Fellowships from the Minnesota State Arts Board, Loft-McKnight, and the Jerome Foundation as well as residencies at Hambidge Center in Georgia and Ragdale in Illinois. A cellist with the Minnesota Orchestra for her entire musical career, she is inspired by the rhythms and sounds of music echoed in language. Marcia graduated from the legendary Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. She studied with famed Italian cellist Antonio Janigro in Germany for two years.
Her articles have appeared in Musical America, Strad Magazine, Strings Magazine, Senza Sordino, the magazine of the Minnesota Orchestra and the op-ed pages of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Her fiction has appeared in Chautauqua Journal, New Millenium Writings, Gemini Magazine, Glimmer Train, 26 Minnesota Writers (Nodine Press), Tribute to Orpheus 2 (Kearney Books), and three volumes of Open to Interpretation: Fading Light (Taylor and O'Neill).
Marcia’s work has been supported by the Minnesota State Arts Board, The Loft Literary Center, and the Jerome Foundation, Ragdale Foundation and Hambidge Center.
Marcia grew up in New Jersey and summered in Cape Cod. Her love for Cape Cod has been a strong and deep current throughout her life. She and her sisters still return to the house their father built in Orleans. She lives in Minnetonka, Minnesota with her husband and two very naughty dogs.
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