Archive for February, 2009

Debut 2009 Blog Tour: Saundra Mitchell

28
February
2009

Today I’m happy to welcome Saundra Mitchell to my blog, to tell answer a few questions about her recently released debut novel Shadowed Summer.

I was lucky enough to read an advanced copy of this book a few months ago. Here’s what I said over on Goodreads:

There are books that I love for the intricate plots and books that I love for the beautiful prose. And then there are the books that have both. Shadowed Summer is one of these. I wanted to race through the book to find out why the ghost of a boy named Elijah is haunting 14-year-old Iris, and to find out the truth about what happened to him. But I also wanted to linger over the little vivid details, beautiful and funny and precise and real.

This is a ghost story that will be haunting me for a while yet.

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Food and Fiction

24
February
2009

Those of you who are fellow fans of food in fiction may be interested in my posting over on Authors Now! today. I am undertaking a quest to create a new fictional food every month. First up was the Bird’s Nest Pudding from Farmer Boy.

Now I just need to learn to use my camera better!

Debut 2009 Blog Tour: Erin Dionne

22
February
2009

Today I’m happy to welcome Erin Dionne to my blog, to tell answer a few questions about her recently released debut novel Models Don’t Eat Chocolate Cookies.

I was lucky enough to read an advanced copy of this book a few months ago. Here’s what I said over on Goodreads:

This was a very fun and fast-paced book. Celeste is a main character I can most definitely sympathize with, as she deals with her own self-image and how the world sees her. I really felt that this book captured the goofiness, the heartaches, and the fun of being a middle-school girl.

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A bog-witch by any other name…

21
February
2009

As is often the way of such things in publishing land, those wiser in the ways of such things than I have decreed that the book formerly known as The Mirable Chalice shall have a new title. And the winner is, The Magical Misadventures of Prunella Bogthistle! Hooray!

After we decided on the new name I kept thinking that there was some other reason I liked it that I couldn’t identify. I finally realized it’s because one of my favorite authors, Lloyd Alexander, wrote a book titled The Marvelous Misadventures of Sebastian. Hopefully that will be a good omen for Prunella! The realization was particularly interesting to me because back in March or so I was struggling horribly with a very confidence-battering rewrite of MMPB. At one point, in a particularly dire mood, I picked up The Wand and the Word, a series of interviews with authors of children’s fantasy, and was reading the interview with Alexander. I got to the part where he talked about the difficulties he had writing a certain book, and how he ended up rewriting it twice. I instantly felt better about my situation, and soldiered on, and now MMPB is going off to copy-edits! Anyways, that book that needed the two rewrites was The Marvelous Misadventures of Sebastian, a fact I only remembered when I just went back to look up the reference.

Now I just need to train my brain to think of it with the new name. It might also help if I had a shorter way to refer to it, since typing that all out every time is going to be a lot of keystrokes.

On a not particularly related note, here’s something about Fortune’s Folly (which I always thought might end up retitled, but didn’t). I don’t plan to be hunting up reviews and posting them here constantly, especially since I’ve determined that I will probably go insane if I do, but I had to make note of what I think is my first book blog review for Fortune’s Folly over here at kidliterate. She liked it, yay!

State of the Books

16
February
2009

A status report on the books:

Fortune’s Folly: I’m mostly just trying to stay calm and not freak out over the fact that it will be actually out, for real, in less than 2 months. Eeeeeeeee! (As you can see, not entirely succeeding with the calmness). I got a very nice email from my local library, and it sounds like I may be doing some sort of event there after the book is out, which would be a big thrill for me. I love libraries!

Mirable Chalice: My editor has my most recent revision now. I’m not sure if we will do another line-edit level revision before copy-edits or not.

Circus Galacticus: This is where all the action is right now. I just hit 25K on the first draft and I am really enjoying the characters and the world. Not that there aren’t days when I have to drag myself to the keyboard and spend an hour trying to write one sentence, but they are balanced by days when the words just flow out. My mind is currently chock-full of a very odd combination of stuff: the Dr Who soundtrack, random tidbits from Astronomy Cast about magnetars and strong and weak nuclear forces, ideas for alien desserts (the Chocolate Supernova! Eat it before it explodes!), and Cirque du Soleil videos (I just got Midnight Sun from Netflix and it is fabulous).

So that’s where things are at!

Debut 2009 Blog Tour: Jenny Moss

12
February
2009

Today I’m happy to welcome Jenny Moss to my blog, to tell answer a few questions about her recently released debut novel Winnie’s War.

About Winnie’s War
A debut novel set against the backdrop of the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918.

Life in Winnie’s sleepy town of Coward Creek, Texas, is just fine for her. Although her troubled mother’s distant behavior has always worried Winnie, she’s plenty busy caring for her younger sisters, going to school, playing chess with Mr. Levy, and avoiding her testy grandmother. Plus, her sweetheart Nolan is always there to make her smile when she’s feeling low. But when the Spanish Influenza claims its first victim, lives are suddenly at stake, and Winnie has never felt so helpless. She must find a way to save the people she loves most, even if doing so means putting her own life at risk.

About Jenny Moss
JENNY MOSS is a former NASA engineer. She earned a master’s degree in literature and taught writing as an adjunct at University of Houston-Clear Lake. Winnie’s War is her first novel. She lives with her two teenagers in Houston, Texas.

Jenny was kind enough to answer a few questions for me:

Q: Tell us about a scene or character from your novel that was especially easy (or especially difficult) to write.

A: Great question! I put off writing Chapter 23 (but I can’t reveal why). I thought about it, researched it, thought some more, but didn’t want to write it. When I finally did, the words just flowed.

Q: What is your favorite (or one of your favorite) myths or fairy-tales, and why?

A: The Twelve Dancing Princesses: sisters, worn-out shoes, sneaking out, dancing, romance — Yes!

Q What has been the most exciting part of selling your book(s) and getting published so far?

A: Each step is amazing. My favorites so far: my agent telling me we’d received an offer, talking to a potential reader who was excited to meet me(!), and holding the hardcover of Winnie’s War in my hands.

Thanks Jenny! And best of luck!

Check out Jenny’s website for more info on her and her books! Winnie’s War is available for purchase at your local independant bookseller, on Amazon and in bookstores now!

Inspirations

08
February
2009

My current project involves a circus, so this morning I was looking for inspiration and discovered this clip of the Cirque du Soleil’s 25th Anniversary performance. And now I can’t stop watching it!

Do the silvery-gold man and woman remind you guys of the same movie characters they remind me of?

I also really enjoyed this one:

Words, Glorious Words

07
February
2009

I love words (I know, what a surprise, right?). One of my favorite books as a kid was The Insomniac’s Dictionary, by Paul Hellweg. It lists all sorts of cool lists of words. Like words for collections of animals (a clowder of cats, a parliament of owls, a knot of toads) or lists of the longest words in the dictionary. I must have spent hours reading that book.

I particularly love discovering that a word exists for something I didn’t know had its own word. I’ve always loved the smell that rises up from the damp soil after a summer rain, but it was only a few years ago (courtesy of the fabulous A.Word.A.Day) that I found out there was a word for it: Petrichor.

And then there are the words that are just plain fun to say. Perambulate. Pulchritude. Jackanapes. Banana. Hornswaggle.

And finally there are the beautiful words. I’ve been reading through and loving this list of what are purportedly The 100 Most Beautiful Words in the English Language, which I heard about from writer Alexandra Bracken (her debut fantasy Brightly Woven is due out in Spring 2010 and sounds very cool).

Some of my favorites from the list:

  • dulcet
  • ethereal
  • glamour (but only if spelled with the u!)
  • mellifluous
  • penumbra
  • serendipity

Some I would have cut (they are interesting, but not beautiful, in my opinion):

  • encomium
  • eschew
  • fescue
  • fugacioius (then again, I can’t even figure out how to pronounce it — maybe it does sound beautiful if you know the trick!)
  • pastiche

I also found a name for a character in my circus book from among the 110 words on that site. Anyone care to guess which it is?

And which words do you folks like best? Are there any particularly cool words you’ve found recently?

Debut 2009 Blog Tour: Stacey Jay

02
February
2009

This year I’m excited to have a whole pack of talented debut writers stopping by to visit and talk about their novels. To start if off I’m happy to welcome Stacey Jay, author of You Are So Undead To Me. I particularly wanted to point this book out to those of my friends (you know who you are!) with an unnatural interest in zombies.

About You Are So Undead to Me

Megan Berry’s social life is so dead. Literally. Fifteen-year-old Megan Berry is a Zombie Settler by birth, which means she’s part-time shrink to a bunch of dead people. All Megan wants is to be normal–and go to homecoming. But someone in school is using black magic to turn average, angsty Undead into flesh-eating Zombies, and it’s looking like homecoming will turn out to be a very different kind of party–the bloody kind.

About Stacey Jay

Stacey Jay is a workaholic with three pen names, four kids, and a decidedly macabre sense of humor. She loves zombies, creepies, crawlies, blood, guts, gore, and of course, romance. “You are So Undead to Me”, Stacey’s debut paranormal Young Adult Romance featuring Zombie Settler, Megan Berry is a January 22nd 2009 release from Razorbill books.

I got to ask Stacey a few questions about herself and her writing. Here’s what she had to say:

Q: Tell us about a scene or character from your novel that was especially difficult to write.

A: The intro was so so hard. I wanted it to be scary, but still have a humorous overtone and for it to represent my character as a teen even though she was having a flashback to a younger age. So…yeah, it was hard. I rewrote it at least six times. But hopefully, in my final draft, I managed to juggle all those balls fairly well.

Q: What fairy-tale or myth do you particularly like (or dislike) and why?

A: I loathe Snow White. I mean, I write about zombies, but the idea of a prince making out with a girl who is in a poison apple coma is just gross. And then she has to marry this guy? Blechk.

Q: What has been the most exciting part (so far) of selling your book and getting published?

A: Knowing I’m going to go to the store on the 22nd of January and see my book on a shelf in the bookstore. I think I’ll probably have some sort of attack. I’m going to bring my inhaler and a fan just in case.

Thanks Stacey, and best of luck!

Check out Stacey’s website for more info on her and her books! You Are So Undead To Me is available for purchase at your local independant bookseller, on Amazon and in bookstores now!