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Guest Posts

Guest Post with Matthew Thorburn, author of Dear Almost & Giveaway (US/Can)

November 3, 2016 by Darlene

almost

Please join me today in welcoming poet Matthew Thorburn, author of Dear Almost to the blog today.  I reviewed Matthew’s collection yesterday (my review) and was really touched by it.  Today Matthew is going to talk about his sideline in interviewing authors as part of his tour with Poetic Book Tours. Enjoy and please be sure to enter to win a copy of Matthew’s poetry collection for yourself.

Thanks so much to Peeking Between the Pages for inviting me to share a guest post as part of my Poetic Book Tour in support of my new book of poetry, Dear Almost. I’m excited to be here and to talk a bit about my sideline in interviewing authors, in response to your question:

In addition to being a poet and having a job in corporate communications, you also interview other writers for a monthly feature in Ploughshares. What’s it like being on the other side of the interview table and how does your experience as a poet and interviewee inform your question choices and preparation?

I started interviewing writers a few years ago—first on my own website, and now for the Ploughshares blog. (You can find all those interviews here and here.) I have to tell you, I love being on “the other side of the interviewing table,” as you put it, for several reasons.

Asking questions. When I really enjoy a book, I almost always have questions I’d love to ask the author. Why did she decide to write her novel from the daughter-in-law’s perspective? What kind of research did he do for those poems about 19th-century eye doctors? Her play makes me think of that story by Flannery O’Connor—did she have it in mind when she was writing? Not keep-you-up-all-night questions, it’s true, but things I’d wonder about and wish I could ask.

Having an excuse to reach out. Being an interviewer—even if only for my own personal website—is the perfect reason to reach out and talk to writers about their work. For instance, I loved reading John Gallaher’s book-length poem In A Landscape. Once I started it, I found it very hard to put down—and honestly, when was the last time I felt that way about a poetry book? Asking him some questions enriched my reading experience, giving me more insight into why I liked the book so much.

Helping books find readers—and vice versa. While personal curiosity was the initial spark, I also like having the chance to help good books reach a larger audience. And especially with poetry, I think books often need some word-of-mouth momentum to help them connect with readers. I occasionally write book reviews for much the same reason, but have found interviews are a more effective way for me to help shine some extra light on books I admire.

Getting in touch with other writers. I have to admit, wearing my interviewer’s hat is the perfect excuse to get in touch with writers I don’t know. Forging ties with these writers, even just via email, makes me feel like I’m part of the conversation, and makes the reading-writing world feel a little smaller to me.

After reading two knockout poems by Kerrin McCadden in American Poetry Review, I was thrilled to get in touch and have the chance to interview her about her debut collection, Landscape with Plywood Silhouettes. And one of my upcoming interviews for the Ploughshares blog is with Margaret Rhee. Her chapbook of poems, Radio Heart; or, How Robots Fall Out of Love, is surprising, strange, fascinating, beautiful, mysterious—really unlike anything else I’ve read lately. Talking about it with her was a real treat.

Being an active audience member. Writing is a solitary business. Whether we do our work at a computer or in a notebook, we usually do it alone. Once the writing is done, though, it’s a pleasure (for me, anyway) to share the work with other people, and sometimes even have the chance to talk with them about it. I like having the chance to start that conversation.

As a writer, I also enjoy answering questions about my own work. Earlier this year I was interviewed by Jessie Serfilipi for Pine Hills Review, for instance, and welcomed the chance to talk about my work and tell some of the stories behind my books. Especially when it comes to poems, which are often such brief, fleeting things, it can be helpful for readers to have some backstory and context in which to ground their reading experience.

Being an engaged reader. I hope that being a writer myself helps me ask better questions, or at least stay sensitive to the fact that time spent answering interview questions is time spent not writing. Most of all, though, I just try to approach my interviews as a thoughtful, engaged reader—someone who’s spent time with this particular writer’s work, who has gained something from it, and wants to give something back to it. I try to be the kind of reader I hope to find for my own writing.

About the Book

Dear Almost is a book-length poem addressed to an unborn child lost in miscarriage. Beginning with the hope and promise of springtime, the poet traces the course of a year with sections set in each of the four seasons. Part book of days, part meditative prayer, part travelogue, the poem details a would-be father’s wanderings through the figurative landscapes of memory and imagination as well as the literal landscapes of the Bronx, Shanghai, suburban New Jersey, and the Japanese island of Miyajima.

As the speaker navigates his days, he attempts to show his unborn daughter “what life is like / here where you ought to be / with us, but aren’t.” His experiences recall other deaths and uncover the different ways we remember and forget. Grief forces him to consider a question he never imagined asking: how do you mourn for someone you loved but never truly knew, never met or saw? In candid, meditative verse, Dear Almost seeks to resolve this painful question, honoring the memory of a child who both was and wasn’t there.

Praise for Dear Almost

“Like a modern-day Basho, Matthew Thorburn travels on a year-long journey through grief over the ‘almost girl’ he and his wife lose to miscarriage. Here, in artful, haibun-like free verse, the timely and timeless merge: geese are sucked into an Airbus engine, forcing an emergency landing; the poet contemplates the moon as he carries out a bag of garbage in the Bronx. The result is clear, mysterious, original, and ultimately hope-filled. Dear Almost might be the truest poem about miscarriage I’ve ever read.” —Katrina Vandenberg, author of The Alphabet Not Unlike the World

“Matthew Thorburn’s Dear Almost is a meditation on our lives and their impermanence, the miracle that we exist at all. The ghost of an unborn child hovers like a breath over these supple lines, but Thorburn finds room for food and prayer, for work and love, for keen observation of the twin worlds we inhabit, the one inside us and the one where our daily lives take place. I am glad to have Dear Almost in both of these worlds.” —Al Maginnes, author of Music from Small Towns

“One poem written across seasons, Matthew Thorburn’s Dear Almost is an elegy for an unborn child written out of love, kindness, and ultimately hope. There is sadness everywhere here that lives among the dailiness of our lives at home, around the world, and at work. What a capacious gift this poet has for perception, keen observation, and the written word, but even more so, a great gift for understanding all of the tangled cross-stitching of the human heart.” —Victoria Chang, author of The Boss

About the Author

almost1Matthew Thorburn is the author of six collections of poetry, including the book-length poem Dear Almost (Louisiana State University Press, 2016) and the chapbook A Green River in Spring(Autumn House Press, 2015), winner of the Coal Hill Review chapbook competition. His previous collections include This Time Tomorrow (Waywiser Press, 2013), Every Possible Blue (CW Books, 2012), Subject to Change, and an earlier chapbook, the long poem Disappears in the Rain (Parlor City Press, 2009). His work has been recognized with a Witter Bynner Fellowship from the Library of Congress, as well as fellowships from the Bronx Council on the Arts and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. His interviews with writers appear on the Ploughshares blog as a monthly feature. He lives in New York City, where he works in corporate communications.

Other tour stops with Poetic Book Tours
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GIVEAWAY – OPEN TO US & CANADIAN RESIDENTS
1 copy up for giveaway
*CLICK HERE* and fill out the form to enter
Draw Date November 19/16

 

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Source: All post information received from the author and tour company. Giveaway sponsored by the author. No compensation was received.
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Filed Under: Guest Posts, Poetic Book Tours

Composing Temple Sunrise by Hassan El-Tayyab – Guest Post

October 26, 2016 by Darlene

I’ve got a guest post for you today by Hassan El-Tayyab, author of Composing Temple Sunrise: Overcoming Writer’s Block at Burning Man.  He’s touring with Poetic Book Tours and today he’s talking about the differences and similarities in writing songs and writing a memoir. Enjoy…

I think my goal is the same for both my prose and songwriting. I want to hold my audience’s attention and communicate my message with clarity, passion, and emotion. Something I do with songwriting and prose writing is constantly asking why to every line during my editing process. Why is this line important? How does that advance the story? Could I phrase that in a more direct way? I think that is a universal goal for all writers. How am I impacting my audience? I believe you never want to give someone the opportunity to put down the book or stop listening to your song. A songwriter friend once told me, “If they turn off the song within the first 30 seconds, that’s the listener’s fault. If they turn it off after 30 seconds, then you’re at fault.” I interpret that to mean that you can’t help if someone does not like your particular genre. But if you don’t have your craft down, you can easily miss a chance to connect with the listener.

In both prose and songwriting, it’s all about the main idea and supporting details. What is it that you are trying to communicate and how do you support it? Using clear actions, images, and descriptions is something I always attempt to do when writing. I want people to feel like a movie is playing in their head or that they are in the scene I’m describing.

A major way these two mediums are different is that prose is way more tedious. It took me seven years to complete my book. That was from beginning to end, including research and the editing process. In that time, I had to learn how to write long-form narrative and learn about what makes a compelling memoir. Luckily, I had tremendous support from editors all through the process. I think there are usually more cooks in the kitchen with writing a book, be it your publisher, first readers, or editors. I worked with three different editors over the seven years it took to write Composing Temple Sunrise. And while I do get feedback on my tunes, songwriting is more of an isolated process for me. I have never really been into co-writing as I know many songwriters are. For me, writing a tune is very personal and private.

Another difference stems from the mediums being so different. You don’t have to be as concise in a memoir as you do in a song. I feel freer writing prose because there is plenty of space to keep going as long as the content is relevant to the story. You can take each chapter a hundred different directions and they could all work. When writing a song, you have three or so minutes to get your point across musically and lyrically. And those two elements have to blend together seamlessly. I see each of my tunes as a little puzzle that I’m trying to solve. On a good day, walking out my door is like a big treasure hunt for lyric and hook ideas.

What I think really helped me write the book is that I identify more as a songwriter than a memoirist. I learned to write through this book because I had a story to tell. Not the other way around. I think whenever you put a lot of pressure on yourself and tie your self-worth and identity into your art, it’s easy to get blocked. The process becomes very tied to your emotional state, which can fluctuate from day to day. I’m a lot harder on myself when writing songs.

While writing Composing Temple Sunrise, believe it or not, I had fun the whole time. There was rarely a moment during the seven-year writing process that left me in doubt about what to do next. The book in a way wrote itself. I had a very clear sense of my purpose. I actually loved the process of working with skilled editors that pushed me to do better as well. If only my songwriting process was like that! Often times, I used the book as an escape from the songwriting. I think the hardest part was the final edit to get the book ready for publishing. That to me was very stressful. And even though I labored over every word for such a long time, I still find mistakes. At a certain point, you just have to let go and let it be what it is.

temple1

About the Book

Composing Temple Sunrise is a coming-of-age memoir about a 26-year-old songwriter’s journey across America to find his lost muse.

Triggered by the Great Recession of 2008, Hassan El-Tayyab loses his special education teaching job in Boston and sets out on a cross-country adventure with a woman named Hope Rideout, determined to find his lost muse. His journey brings him to Berkeley, CA, where he befriends a female metal art collective constructing a 37-foot Burning Man art sculpture named “Fishbug.” What follows is a life-changing odyssey through Burning Man that helps Hassan harness his creative spirit, overcome his self-critic, confront his childhood trauma, and realize the healing power of musical expression.

In this candid, inspiring memoir, singer-songwriter Hassan El-Tayyab of the Bay Area’s American Nomad takes us deep into the heart of what it means to chase a creative dream.

After experiencing multiple losses (family, home, love, job, self-confidence) , El-Tayyab sets out on a transcontinental quest that eventually lands him in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert. His vivid descriptions capture both the vast, surreal landscapes of the Burning Man festival and the hard practice of making art.

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Advance Praise

“Going to Burning Man for the first time can be a powerful, life-changing experience. That’s particularly true when someone is involved with building a major art installation, and even more
so when that person is wrestling with personal demons and searching for a new life path…” –Steven T. Jones, How an Experimental City in the Desert is Shaping Author of The Tribes of Burning Man: the New American Counterculture

“Composing Temple Sunrise is both a page turning adventure and a road map for anyone struggling to forge their way.” –Faith Adiele, Author of Meeting Faith: An Inward Odyssey

Literary Nonfiction. Music. Arab American Studies. California Interest. “In this candid, inspiring memoir, singer-songwriter Hassan El-Tayyab of American Nomad takes us deep into the heart of what it means to chase a creative dream. After experiencing multiple losses (family, home, love, job, self- confidence), El-Tayyab sets out on a transcontinental quest that eventually lands him in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert. His vivid descriptions, paired with artist’s renderings, capture both the vast, surreal landscapes of the Burning Man festival and the hard practice of art-making. Composing Temple Sunrise is both a page- turning adventure and a road map for anyone struggling to forge their way.”—Faith Adiele

About the Author

templeHassan El-Tayyab is an award-winning singer/songwriter, author, teacher, and cultural activist currently residing in the San Francisco Bay Area. His critically acclaimed Americana act American Nomad performs regularly at festivals and venues up and down the West Coast and beyond and he teaches music in the Bay Area.

 

 

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Source: Post information provided by the author and Poetic Book Tours. No compensation was received.
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Filed Under: Guest Posts, Poetic Book Tours

Guest Post with Janel Gradowski, author of Doughnuts & Deadly Schemes & Summer Drinks Prize Pack Giveaway (Open Int’l)

June 29, 2015 by Darlene

Good day folks.  We’re back to yet another Monday.  Time stands still for no one.  We’re still roasting away here in our summer heat wave.  Looking at the wonderful guest post Janel Gradowski, author of Doughnuts and Deadly Schemes (my review – I loved it!), has written for us I have to say that coffee is by far my favorite beverage but right now I’m seriously considering making it iced instead of hot!  I hope you enjoy the guest post from Janel and be sure to enter the giveaway for some summer beverages and sweet chocolate!

Essential Beverages for Writing by Janel Gradowski

When I am working on a writing project I stay well hydrated. Not because I make a conscious effort to drink a lot of fluids. No, part of my creative process involves incessantly sipping whatever beverage is near my computer. I guess it’s a sort of drinking meditation for mulling over plot problems. I’ve seen other writers talk about red licorice, chocolate and various other snacks as essentials for their writing.  Me…I’m an obsessive sipper instead of snacker. So here is my list of favorites:

Coffee – Judging from the amount of coffee shops now, I’m sure I’m not alone in my undying love for this caffeinated brew. I’m lost without my programmable coffee maker, which has hot coffee ready and waiting when I get up every morning. That jolt of caffeine is a great way to jumpstart a sluggish writing muse who just wants to go back to sleep.

Tea – I’m not as obsessed with tea, like I am with coffee, but I still love it. I adore the aroma of Earl Gray so much I once bought perfume in that scent. Celestial Seasonings Tension Tamer blend is my favorite herbal variety. While I’ll drink it hot or cold, I don’t use sweetener or cream/milk. Straight up, please. The one exception is an Arnold Palmer, half tea, half lemonade – a perfect drink for summer.

CitrusAde – I make single servings with whatever citrus I have on hand, usually limes. Squeeze the juice of one lime or half of a lemon into the bottom of a glass. Add liquid sweetener – stevia, agave nectar or simple sugar syrup (equal parts sugar and water heated until the sugar dissolves). Add cold still or sparkling water. Gently stir and check to see if it needs any more sweetener. Tip: I buy cans of LaCroix flavored sparkling water. They’re the perfect size to make these drinks and there is no excess to go flat. Plus you can add another layer of flavor to your drink. Lime juice with coconut LaCroix is my favorite.

Water + Mint ­ Every summer I plant a big pot of mint that lives near my back door. An area herb farm always has a variety of flavored mints, so I try a new one every year. There is chocolate, pineapple, apple and orange mint to name a few. It’s a great way to make water a bit more appealing. Just pick a small sprig with 3 or 4 leaves. Rinse, put in a glass, bruise leaves a bit with a spoon to release the flavor, then fill the glass with water. The longer it sits the stronger it will taste.

Water Kefir – This is a probiotic (similar to the live and active cultures in yogurt that makes it good for your digestive system) beverage made out of sugar water. It’s sort of like kombucha – if you are familiar with that, but without the tea. I have just been making water kefir for about a month, but I love it. It’s sort of like weak lemonade on its own, but when juice is added and it’s allowed to ferment a second time the kefir turns fizzy. A kind of natural soda pop that’s good for you.

Rum – I rarely imbibe in alcohol when I’m writing, but I do love a good rum cocktail sometimes when I’ve finished my work for the day. My favorite spirit is rum, especially the dark or spiced varieties. Excellent in a Dark & Stormy – rum, ginger beer (like gingerale, but with a stronger ginger flavor) and a squeeze of lime. If you replace the rum with vodka, then you have a basic Moscow Mule.

So that’s the list of beverages that I usually cycle through while I’m writing. I do have soda pop once in a while, I love Faygo Rock & Rye or Cream Soda, but I try to stay away from so much sugar.

Is there anything you think I should add to my list of drinks? What is your favorite beverage?
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About Doughnuts and Deadly Schemes

Pageflex Persona [document: PRS0000031_00001]

Amy Ridley’s best friend, Carla, is getting married, and Amy is delighted to be recruited as the head wedding planner—even if Carla’s demands are less than conventional. Case in point: Carla insists on a tower of doughnuts in place of a wedding cake. But navigating the world of nuptials becomes the least of Amy’s problems when the owner of a menswear shop is found dead, and Carla’s fiancé is assigned to the case. With the honeymoon in jeopardy, Amy and Carla vow to help track down the killer…but they soon discover there are even more sinister happenings affecting the businesses in downtown Kellerton, Michigan. If Amy doesn’t figure out who is behind the deadly schemes, the nearly newlywed detective may just be solving another murder—hers!

Other tour stops for Doughnuts & Deadly Schemes
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About the Author

JanelGThere are hundreds of fictional characters living in my mind. I love to let them out to play in my stories. I have written about everything from an insane ghost to a jealous wife with an explosive personality. Over the past few years many of my flash fiction and short stories have been published both online and in print. I have also been designing and publishing beadwork patterns for over 10 years. In 2012 I began publishing ebooks in my 6:1 Series. Each volume has six stories based on one theme. In 2013 I will begin publishing a culinary fiction series based in my home state of Michigan. While I love writing flash fiction, this new series will include novellas, novelettes and longer short stories as well as flash fiction pieces.

My favorite place to write is in my recliner, nestled into the corner of the living room. I can glance over my laptop screen and watch the wildlife perusing the field across the road. Everything from deer to turkeys and pheasants pass by as I wrestle the characters out of my head and onto the page. My almost constant companion and writing buddy is my beloved Golden Retriever, Cooper. He’s a great listener and always reminds to get up a stretch once in awhile, on the way to his treat jar. Besides my fur baby my family consists of two wonderful children and a fantastic husband.

Author links: Website, Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads
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GIVEAWAY – OPEN INTERNATIONALLY
1 Summer Drinks Prize Pack up for giveaway! (includes a bag of Donut Store Blend ground coffee, lemon & ginseng green tea, liquid stevia and a package of milk chocolate bars)

Janelgive(click on the photo for a closeup view)
*CLICK HERE* and fill out the form to enter
Draw Date July 15/15

 

doughnuts banner

Source: Post information received from the author and obtained from the author’s website with permission. Giveaway sponsored by the author. No compensation was received.
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Filed Under: Guest Posts

The Someday File by Jean Heller – Guest Post & Giveaway (US/Canada)

April 15, 2015 by Darlene

someday
 

Well it’s the middle of the week already and it sure flew by.  Today I’ve got a guest post for you all from Jean Heller, author of The Someday File.  The Someday File is a thriller and it’s the first in the Deuce Mora Thriller series and it sounds great.  Jean has taken the time and is joining us today with a guest post entitled MEET DEUCE MORA so please enjoy…

She’s a bit neurotic, plagued by guilt, disdainful of authority, and worried about losing her job.

She is also funny, tenacious, dedicated to finding truth and demanding justice, and very, very good at what she does.

Deuce Mora is a columnist for the Chicago Journal, a newspaper facing an uncertain financial future in a professional world rapidly transitioning from print to digital. As with so many print publications in the United States, the question for the Journal is not so much adapting to change as surviving it.

It is in this atmosphere, where no advertising dollar or subscription is expendable, that Deuce uncovers a story that will put her at odds with the Chicago mob, the police and prosecutors, and even with her own editor.

Deuce, 36, isn’t a woman who can walk into a room unnoticed. She is six feet tall and slim with auburn hair and deep green eyes. Yet for all her good looks, she is terrible at relationships. Her best friend is the Journal’s political editor and her former lover, who wound up marrying someone else. He is the man Deuce cannot quite get over.

As a former journalist myself, I wanted Deuce to be a realistic personification of the real thing. And like the real thing, Deuce is not perfect.

Most journalists – and other creative people – are a little neurotic, battling occasional self-doubts. And they are disdainful of authority when that authority threatens their work. Many of my colleagues over the years were what I call “juggernaut journalists,” full speed ahead and heaven help anyone who gets in the way.

At the same time, Deuce has a great sense of humor, as do most of my journalist friends. Sometimes it’s black humor, the kind you hear from first responders. It develops as a way to shield the psyche from the horrors they see every day.

Deuce finds plenty of horror in THE SOMEDAY FILE, an unsolved 50-year-old crime that involved the mass murder of twenty-seven innocent men, women, and children. There are reasons that very powerful men connected to what’s left of Chicago’s organized-crime syndicate want to keep Deuce from finding the truth, and they will go to great lengths to stop her. When two assaults fail to dissuade her, the order is given to kill her.

What one reviewer called “killer tension” builds to a shocking conclusion that vindicates Deuce but leaves her future very much in doubt.

I set THE SOMEDAY FILE in Chicago because it fits so well. The city has a long, storied, and colorful history with organized crime. The city itself is incredibly colorful, and therefore becomes a key character in the book. One cannot write a book set in Chicago in which Chicago itself is not a major and formidable element.

As a side note, this is the first book in the Deuce Mora series. The second, also set in Chicago, will be published next year.

 

About the Book

What happens when the profession you’ve known all your adult life threatens to kill you, yet suffocating guilt and insatiable curiosity won’t let you walk away.

That’s pretty much what happens to Deuce Mora, a columnist for the Chicago Journal, a big-city newspaper struggling to stay solvent in a world that seems to have outgrown newspapers and left them in ruin.

What Deuce digs out of her “ideas” file is something that should be, at best, a human-interest story. The tale of an aging, low-level Chicago mobster living on beer, bourbon, and regret for the one mistake in his life that cost him everything. Deuce finds him in a Cicero bar late one afternoon, already drunk and resolute in his determination not to talk to her.

Afraid for his safety in the boozy world he inhabits, Deuce gives him a ride home and thus seals his brutal fate. She is left with more guilt than she can shoulder, more curiosity than she can ignore, and in more danger than she can imagine.

The mobster’s final words to her shove her into a world of political and criminal intrigue and confront her with a horrific crime more than 50 years old that she will either solve or die in the trying.

This is a story that could only be set in Chicago, a city that rises as the principal character in any book it inhabits.

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About the Author

jeanJean Heller’s career included serving as an investigative and projects reporter and editor for The Associated Press in New York City and Washington, D.C., The Cox Newspapers and Newsday in Washington, D.C. and the St. Petersburg Times in Washington, D.C. and Florida.

Jean has won multiple awards, including the Worth Bingham Prize, the Polk Award, and is an eight-time Pulitzer Prize nominee.

Jean’s Website, Facebook, Twitter

 

GIVEAWAY – OPEN TO US & CANADIAN RESIDENTS

2 copies up for giveaway

*CLICK HERE* and fill out the form to enter

Draw Date May 2/15

 

 

Source: Guest post received from the author.  All other information obtained from the publicist and author’s website (with permission from the publicist).  Giveaway copies sponsored by the publisher.  No compensation was received.
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Filed Under: Book Spotlights, Guest Posts

Guest Post with Janel Gradowski, author of Chicken Soup & Homicide & Giveaway (US/Canada)

March 31, 2015 by Darlene

Please join me in welcoming Janel Gradowski, author of Chicken Soup & Homicide to the blog today.  I’m really enjoying her Culinary Competition Mysteries series which includes Pies & Peril (my review) and Chicken Soup & Homicide which I just reviewed yesterday (my review).  It’s a great series and a lot of fun to read – perfect for summer reading when you’re looking for something a bit lighter.  Today Janel was nice enough to write up a guest post for us so grab your favorite drink, relax, and enjoy…

 

Pageflex Persona [document: PRS0000031_00001]
 

I write culinary mysteries. I have been a fan of foodie fiction for many years, but as I writer this genre has a bit of a challenge for me. Not only do I have to write stories that readers like, I also need to develop recipes for some of the dishes mentioned in the book. The challenge comes from the fact that when I am in serious writing mode, concentrating on adding thousands of words every day to a manuscript, cooking is pretty low on my priority list.

Yes, I know very well that chopping vegetables or stirring risotto can be calming, stress relieving tasks. Maybe I should make cooking more of a priority while I’m writing, just because I know it makes me feel better. Still, even though I am writing about food for hours, Amy’s meals or culinary contest entries, meals for myself and my family are much more difficult for me to come up with. I have collected many cookbooks about making meals ahead of time then freezing them so they just need to be thawed and heated, homemade convenience meals. But I haven’t gotten into the habit of freezer cooking yet. (It’s on my “must try” list.) So frenzied meal searches often ensue.

The more engrossed I become in my writing the simpler and easier meals get in my house. Tried and true recipes along with convenience foods dominate my meals plans. Although I can’t say there is much meal planning involved. Often I’ll finish up my writing tasks for the day a few minutes before I have to leave to pick my kids up from school and stop at the grocery store on the way. Those shopping trips are a treasure expedition with me starring as a confused pirate. If I’ve had a rough day with my writing, heat and eat meals could end up in my cart. Even though I know very well that they aren’t very good. They ALL have a mystery meat quality to them. If you too have to take the super easy route for dinner, I suggest a good quality brand of mac and cheese, like Stouffer’s, to avoid possibly unpleasant memories of unidentifiable school cafeteria meals.

In the end, I have to write my books in two parts. Because developing original, creative recipes while I am also creating a mystery novel is almost impossible for me. Once the manuscript is turned into my publisher THEN I start working on recipes that will be included with the book. I’m not sure how other authors work, but this is what I do. It isn’t a perfect strategy, but nobody is perfect so I try to do the best that I can. Do you have any quick and easy meals for when you don’t feel like cooking but still need to get dinner on the table?

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About Janel

JanelGThere are hundreds of fictional characters living in my mind. I love to let them out to play in my stories. I have written about everything from an insane ghost to a jealous wife with an explosive personality. Over the past few years many of my flash fiction and short stories have been published both online and in print. I have also been designing and publishing beadwork patterns for over 10 years. In 2012 I began publishing ebooks in my 6:1 Series. Each volume has six stories based on one theme. In 2013 I will begin publishing a culinary fiction series based in my home state of Michigan. While I love writing flash fiction, this new series will include novellas, novelettes and longer short stories as well as flash fiction pieces.

My favorite place to write is in my recliner, nestled into the corner of the living room. I cacoopern glance over my laptop screen and watch the wildlife perusing the field across the road. Everything from deer to turkeys and pheasants pass by as I wrestle the characters out of my head and onto the page. My almost constant companion and writing buddy is my beloved Golden Retriever, Cooper. He’s a great listener and always reminds to get up a stretch once in awhile, on the way to his treat jar. Besides my fur baby my family consists of two wonderful children and a fantastic husband.

Janel’s Website, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest
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GIVEAWAY – OPEN TO US & CANADIAN RESIDENTS (paperback)/International (eBook)

1 signed paperback copy to US/Canada & ebook Internationally

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Filed Under: Guest Posts

Guest Post with Luanne Castle, author of Doll God

February 19, 2015 by Darlene

doll god2
 

Please join me in welcoming Luanne Castle, author of Doll God to the blog today.  Luanne is touring with Serena’s new venture Poetic Book Tours from February 8-March 7/15.  I’ll be posting a review of Luanne’s poetry collection tomorrow so I don’t want to give too much away other than to say I really enjoyed it.  I can see now from reading her guest post where the beauty and sadness in her poetry comes from so thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with us Luanne.  So please enjoy Luanne’s post on what inspires her to write poetry…

 

Thank you so much, Darlene, for inviting me to write about my poetry muse. Asking what inspires me to write a poem forces me to look at the subject head on, so it’s a learning experience for me.

The other day I sat at the bank, waiting for the banker to notarize a document for me. I was bored and it was my fourth errand, so I hadn’t checked my emails in hours. Glancing at my iPhone, I saw a recent email from a friend. I dipped into it and found a link to an article about the death of a young actor. Within a manner of seconds, my mind zipped from thinking of the ways a young person might suddenly die to my actor daughter and her actor friends to the genre” of online obituaries. Each thought was accompanied with a sputtering steam of emotions. I realized that the juxtaposition of my relaxed and professional demeanor at the bank with the lid-rocking cauldron of emotions I felt inside meant that a poem was in the making.

Maybe a lot of poems come into being from bouncing against a boundary or the comparison/contrast of disparate images or thoughts.

Following Emily Dickinson’s advice to “tell it slant,” sometimes I set up the juxtaposition on purpose as a way to look at something common in a new light. I wrote a series of poems a few years ago that purposefully took a scientific image or theory and paired it with a folk or fairy tale just to see what would happen.

The old tales are also inspirational for me. I am struck by certain stories from my childhood. Their resonance seems to have permanent residence in my thought patterns and in my life. They grow and change with my world. In my new book Doll God the Snow White story and a Japanese tale called “The Stonecutter” inspired several poems.

Water–lake, ocean, river–is one of my inspirations. That might be because I grew up in Michigan, which is bounded by four of the five great lakes and contains 11,000 lakes within those shores. We lived on the lake in the summer. Sometimes I can still feel the seaweed under my feet on lake bottom.

For many of the poems in Doll God, dolls have been inspirational. As a child, I loved dolls and used to transform our living room and hallway into an imaginary town for my dolls. My grandmother, who was the Head Fitter at the 28 Shop at Marshall Fields in Chicago, designed and sewed beautiful outfits for my imitation Barbie and for my walking doll. Because I grew up with the imaginary world of dolls, I can’t see a doll that doesn’t inspire me for a poem. Often my imagination will transform the doll into a magical portal through which to see more of the human heart.

 

About Doll God

Luanne Castle’s debut poetry collection, Doll God, studies traces of the spirit world in human-made and natural objects–a Japanese doll, a Palo Verde tree, a hummingbird. Her exploration leads the reader between the twin poles of nature and creations of the imagination in dolls, myth, and art.

From the first poem, which reveals the child’s wish to be godlike, to the final poem, an elegy for female childhood, this collection echoes with the voices of the many in the one: a walking doll, a murderer, Snow White. Marriage, divorce, motherhood, and family losses set many of the poems in motion. The reader is transported from the lakes of Michigan to the Pacific Ocean to the Sonoran Desert.

These gripping poems take the reader on a journey through what is found, lost, or destroyed. The speaker in one poem insists, “I am still looking for angels.” She has failed to find them yet keeps searching on. She knows that what is lost can be found.

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About the Author

Doll3Luanne Castle has been a Fellow at the Center for Ideas and Society at the University of California, Riverside. She studied English and Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside; Western Michigan University; and Stanford University. Her poetry and creative nonfiction have appeared in Barnstorm Journal, Grist, The Antigonish Review, Ducts, TAB, River Teeth, Lunch Ticket, Wisconsin Review, The MacGuffin, and other journals. She contributed to Twice-Told Children’s Tales: The Influence of Childhood Reading on Writers for Adults, edited by Betty Greenway. Luanne divides her time between California and Arizona, where she shares land with a herd of javelina.

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Poetic Book Tours

Source: Post information received from the author and the tour company.  No compensation was received.
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Filed Under: Guest Posts, Poetic Book Tours, Poetry

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