Friday, January 31, 2014

A Giveaway & A Blog Tour!



Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Sound of Letting Go by Stasia Ward Kehoe

The Sound of Letting Go

by Stasia Ward Kehoe

Giveaway ends February 01, 2014.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.
Enter to win

Tomorrow is the last day to enter the giveaway for the very first signed copy of TSoLG. Next week, my second novel will find its way onto actual bookshelves. Here's the scoop on my blog tour during which I'll be sharing character secrets, writing tips and musical inspirations for THE SOUND OF LETTING GO. Plus there'll be prizes. I hope you'll hop along!


Sunday, February 2, 2014 at Candace's Book Blog
Tuesday, February 4, 2014 at Rather Be Reading
Thursday, February 6, 2014 (PUB DAY!) at G Reads Books
Sunday, February 9, 2014 - PINTEREST PARTY #1: Decorating Daisy's Music Room
Monday, February 10, 2014 at Good Books & Good Wine
Wednesday, February 12, 2014 at Katie's Book Blog
Friday, February 14, 2014 (Valentine's Day!) at Addicted 2 Novels
Sunday, February 16, 2014 at The Hiding Spot
Monday, February 17, 2014 - PINTEREST PARTY #2: Fantasy Casting for TSoLG
Tuesday, February 18, 2014 at Diznee's World of Books
Thursday, February 20, 2014 at Bloggers [Heart] Books
Monday, February 24, 2014 at A Backwards Story





Thursday, January 30, 2014

The awesome that is my eldest son

Woke up this morning in what has become a chronic leading-up-to-pub-date funk to see the following post on my eldest's FB page (giving him full credit here as a Guest Blogger):


Second semester of my Freshman year of college has begun and as I stated on my first day of college, I already feel more edjumicated. I felt like posting a list of things I learned.
1. Dorm living sucks. Sharing a bathroom with 50 other guys (especially on the weekend) and how sickness travels and the general odor of BO, excrement and what I will politely call hand sanitizer and skunk.
2. Use bathrooms in the public buildings. They're cleaner.
3. You have friends, work and sl
eep and you can only choose two.
4. Coffee isn't an addiction. It's a lifestyle.
5. Go to the gym at irregular hours. Otherwise you get stuck using the elliptical rather than the treadmill.
6. If you don't have a class before noon you won't get up.
7. Disposable coffee cups are nice but refill them at the dining hall.
8. College food sucks. They lie, whatever they give you when you tour is so much better than the daily food.
9. 3am coffee. Enough said.
10. Eat breakfast in the morning.
11. The professor is more important than the class.
12. Study religiously. You're here to get a degree.
13. Sleep and decaf is for the weak.
14. Coffee=sunshine+rainbows+unicorns


Thomas, you are SO AWESOME!!!! And possibly the next Dave Barry. Now I am smiling...despite myself.





Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Sound of Letting Go by Stasia Ward Kehoe

The Sound of Letting Go

by Stasia Ward Kehoe

Giveaway ends February 01, 2014.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.
Enter to win

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Happy Book Birthday to MANOR OF SECRETS

Pip pip cheerio to my very talented friend
and agent buddy, Katherine Longshore!
 

From Amazon...

The year is 1911. And at The Manor, nothing is as it seems . . .

Lady Charlotte Edmonds: Beautiful, wealthy, and sheltered, Charlotte feels suffocated by the strictures of upper-crust society. She longs to see the world beyond The Manor, to seek out high adventure. And most of all, romance.
 
You KNOW you want to read this!

Monday, January 27, 2014

WHY I'M INSPIRED BY… @susanecolasanti


 
 

I'd rather be weird and happy than normal and miserable.

Life would be so much easier if fictional boys were real.

Love is never guaranteed. Love is a risk we take because we hope it will make us happy.

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Win the first signed hardcover of THE SOUND OF LETTING GO!

In celebration of Two-Weeks-Until-Pub-Day (because THAT's a holiday?!), I'm feeling gifty...


Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Sound of Letting Go by Stasia Ward Kehoe

The Sound of Letting Go

by Stasia Ward Kehoe

Giveaway ends February 01, 2014.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.
Enter to win

Monday, January 20, 2014

WHY I'M INSPIRED BY… @courtney_s


I woke up and the last piece of my heart disappeared. I opened my eyes and I felt it go.

The thing no one tells you about surviving, about the mere act of holding out, is how many hours are nothing because nothing happens. They also don’t tell you about how you can share your deepest secrets with someone, kiss them, and the next hour it’s like there’s nothing between you because not everything can mean something all the time or you’d be crushed under the weight of it.

Friday, January 17, 2014

Pinteresting People and Friday Follows

Wherein I begin my Friday with a few virtual shout-outs to those who inspire, amuse and amaze me...

I #FOLLOW @TimFederle   @jandersoncoats   @maureenjohnson  BECAUSE  they are cool and funny and authentically themselves.

PINTERESTING PEOPLE (Middle Grade Edition)…

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

About Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Sometimes, when I realize I have been clicking around the cyberverse for too long, I glance to the right of the computer monitor where I keep this quote from OWH:


"Most people go to their graves
with their music still inside them."


There are many variations of this quote and I'm not sure which is most correct. Here's a longer version: "Many people die with their music still in them. Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live. Before they know it time runs out.”  Length aside, Holmes's comment has held pride of place on my writing desk for ages. Reading it reminds me to take a deep breath, disable my internet connection, and go back to trying to put music on the page--to MAKE something instead of just reading, researching, linking to or commenting on it.

Monday, January 13, 2014

WHY I'M INSPIRED BY… @jandynelson


 

It's such a colossal effort not to be haunted by what's lost, but to be enchanted by what was.
...there's not a truth ever, just a whole bunch of stories, all going on at once, in our heads, in our hearts, all getting in the way of each other. It's all a beautiful calamitous mess.

Friday, January 10, 2014

Pinteresting People & Friday Follows

Wherein I begin my Friday with a few virtual shout-outs to those who inspire, amuse and amaze me...

Tweet-tasticals...

I #FOLLOW @CStarrRose @sarazarr @novaren and

 because they are intelligent, inclusive and helpful

And PINTERESTING PEOPLE (Surreal and Surprising Edition)...
http://www.pinterest.com/bethrevis/
http://www.pinterest.com/lainitaylor/
http://www.pinterest.com/soniagensler/
http://www.pinterest.com/lisamantchev/
http://www.pinterest.com/alysonnoel/
http://www.pinterest.com/teralynnchilds/

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

My Holiday Break Reading Adventures

First, please note that I SKIED DOWN MY FIRST BLACK DIAMOND RUN on January 2nd.  Staring down a snowy cliff side was an amazing rush. I hope to put some of that feeling into fiction work this year. When I wasn't on the ski hill, recovering from skiing, or playing board games with my family, I made my way through three novels. Not all that impressive but, well, two of them were LONG!

I will comment on the short novel, Kate DiCamillo's enchanting FLORA & ULYSES, in another post. Today, some thoughts on the two YA "biggies" (and yes, I'm late to the table with these)...


While one is set in a dystopian future Chicago, and the other in a paranormal 1920s New York, both novels explored a factionalized society. In DIVERGENT, individuals have a choice of belonging to one of five groups, each of which values a different human attribute. In THE DIVINERS, money and ethnicity force people to live in different sorts of homes, live different sorts of lives.

The novels align in the way they depict the rebel-thinker: the person who has qualities that make fitting into one of the boxes defined by his or her society an impossibility. In DIVERGENT, Tris realizes that her nonconformist thought patterns make her both vulnerable and powerful. In THE DIVINERS, Evie struggles to come to terms with her psychic ability (won't tell what it is here), using it both as a social-climbing parlor trick and in a quest for fight true evil. How these evolutions of self-understanding play out counterpoint what is happening in the worlds around Tris and Evie.

Structurally, the novels differ greatly. DIVERGENT is an intense, present narrative presented by the protagonist, Tris. THE DIVINERS is a sprawling, multi-perspective, epic-style tale lightly anchored by Evie but, perhaps more importantly, showing the places and times of many characters, from Diviners to scholars to victims. Both authors are sure-handed in their style focus, adding to the pleasure of reading their work.

Each novel is also faithful to its genre. In the back matter of the DIVERGENT paperback, author Veronica Roth muses that people who like dystopian fiction like to consider "what-if" scenarios in a world populated by people like themselves whereas readers of fantasy/paranormal fiction such as THE DIVINERS prefer exploring challenges in a world where people have different abilities from we "non-fiction humans." I think this is a well-reasoned distinction. However, in the end what I most appreciated about both novels seems to be found in the crossover space between the genres. What I loved most about Roth's book was the edges of utopianism she sketched in the creation of her divided society--her portagonist's struggle to look outside the lines of their factions to see the limits of each.  Meanwhile, I was fascinated by Bray's evil-ridden, dark 1920s America--its own kind of dystopia within which her characters strive to quell evil as her protagonist comes to recognize darkness both within her own soul and outside, in the city.

Fantastic back-to-back reads!
Did you come back from holiday break with any new reading recs?




Monday, January 6, 2014

WHY I'M INSPIRED BY… @loversdiction & @realjohngreen


 
I want to tell her that's what the voices in your head are for, to get you through all the silent parts.

Shouldn't letting go be painless if you've never learned how to hold on?

...maybe there's something you're afraid to say, or someone you're afraid to love, or somewhere you're afraid to go. it's gonna hurt. it's gonna hurt because it matters.