Head over to Maria’s website to learn more about the book, and check her tour schedule to see if she will be tangoing at a bookstore near you!

After her event at Village Books in Bellingham, WA, Maria joined the local tango community at a Valentine's weekend "milonga" (social dance) that went well into the night.

At Idlewild Books in Manhattan, Zoe and Musa (of the band ZUM) performed a tango demonstration, then hopped on stage to play some amazing tunes.

The Meat Hook in Brooklyn celebrated both meat and tango – you can't get much more Argentinian than that!

And of course, being Brooklyn, everything was local and organic.

“After she discovered that her husband had been unfaithful, Maria Finn threw out his possessions, divorced him, and began considering the next phase of her life. The two had been planning a trip to South America—during their time in Argentina, they were going to take tango lessons—but now Finn, living in New York City, decided to learn tango on her own, fly to Buenos Aires solo, and, in the process, regain her strength.”

“Finn is hosting a heartbreak competition—through this Sunday, February 28th, readers can share, in two hundred words or fewer, the grand tragedy of their lives. The contest is judged by Margo Howard, Dean Olsher, and David Nadelberg; the winner will have his or her story arranged as a tango song by Marlan Barry.”

Enjoy!

Hold Me Tight and Tango Me Home

These stories made me feel better, not so much as misery loving company, but all these people had moved on and rebuilt their lives. This is what gave me the idea for the “Heartbreak Competition.”  While not everyone has braved their way to the tango floor, it’s safe to say, everyone has had their heart broken. We’ve all been dumped and betrayed. We’ve lost a beloved parent or grandparent, tried to conceive a child, lost a child, or thought someone was a close friend and found out otherwise.

Heartbreak comes in many different forms, and we all have to learn how to deal with the sadness. And for some reason, sad songs make us feel better, much in the same way telling each other our stories does—it taps into our humanity and reminds how we are all in this together. So everyone is encouraged to send in a short story of heartbreak, about 100-200 words. The judges choose a winning story, and this tale will be made into a tango song. The competition is running through Valentine’s Day, as this holiday is a torment for the lovelorn. I remember my first one during my divorce. Men holding armloads of flowers walked down the streets; I made my way to a French Bakery, bought myself a chocolate mousse, and ate it while I watched “Mad, Hot Ballroom” by myself. I cried during the movie because the kids were so cute, then cried myself to sleep because it was Valentine’s Day and my heart was broken.

Tango did not just help me get over heartbreak. I learned from it that I could transform my life in many other regards. Every milonga or social dance was a new adventure. I met new people all over the world who shared my passion, I gained confidence to start my own business, and I developed a truce with the opposite gender and learned to approach relationships in an entirely new way. This process of transformation is the goal of the Heartbreak Competition. We will share our stories of sadness, turn them into a work of art, and then we will dance to it.

About Maria Finn

Maria Finn has written for Audubon Magazine, Saveur, Metropolis, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times, among many other publications. She has an MFA in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence College, and her essays have been anthologized in Best Food Writing and The Best Women’s Travel Writing.  Learn more about Maria’s new book Hold me Tight & Tango Me Home at her website www.tangomehome.com.

If you’re interested in dance, literature, or love (all hands should be in the air), you can check out her blog here.

Personally, I’m excited about Finn’s Heartbreak Competition. In 100-200 words, she asks you to tell your tale of love and loss, and submit it for the chance to win a copy of the book (and be featured on her blog!). 200 words isn’t a whole lot, but then, who needs more space than that to describe searing rejection? Were I to submit my own, it would go something like:

“I met Scooter in woodshop in the 7th grade, he always let me use the better power-sander. He was really popular and I wasn’t, so it suprised me when he asked me to the winter dance. We danced to Emotions by Destiny’s Child. I swooned. On Valentine’s Day he bought me a chocolate-covered marshmallow heart from the Kwik-E-Mart. I swooned. Then I got the flu and was out for a week. When I came back to school he was dating Talia Fesser. I did NOT swoon.”

Hopefully you can all do better than that.

-Susannah

Maria Finn’s new memoir Hold Me Tight and Tango Me Home will be in stores on February 9. Watch this wonderful video for her book, and find out more at her new website! Listen to the playlist that Maria put together to accompany her book, and share your story in Heartbreak: A Competition.