Some writer friends and I have a fabulous new giveaway for readers in the USA who are on Facebook.
The winner gets twelve autographed novels by twelve authors. All you need to do to enter is LIKE the authors’ Facebook Pages. There are ten author Pages that must be liked in order to be entered. And we have two authors giving away books who don’t have author Pages but are using their Facebook profiles. So if you would be so kind as to visit and “friend” Deborah Raney and Cara Putman, it would be deeply appreciated. Just click on the names to see their profiles and send a friend request.
What’s the big deal with having to LIKE all of our pages? We want you, our readers, to feel like a part of our writing and reading community. These other writers and I use our Pages wisely and for your encouragement and benefit. You’ll be glad you LIKED us all. I promise. If you are unsure how the Rafflecopter form works, please look at the graphic at the bottom of this blog post. The instructions in red and screenshots will help make sure you enter correctly. If you don’t complete all ten, you will not be eligible to win. You must see “10/10 Entries Earned” to qualify to win the 12 books (see graphic at left).
What if you have already LIKED some of these pages? Can you still enter? YES!!! Just hit the I’M A FAN in the contest box for the authors you have already LIKED at an earlier time.
The contest ends at 12:01 am on May 1, 2013 and the winner will be announced later that day. Good luck to everyone! (Note: If you are having trouble seeing the Rafflecopter form, you might need to update the Java program on your computer. It’s free, just like the Adobe PDF reader.)
When I saw this awesome classic typewriter and iPad combo on Etsy this week, I bypassed simple desire and went straight to frantic yearning. So cool, so chic, so I-want-it! (Does the carriage send your iPad back and forth? someone asked me, when I made my craving known? I don’t know I said, but it was fun to picture. Ding!). I don’t have an iPad (darn) and I can’t really see dropping $800 to make my $500 iPad look like it’s a $150 typewriter, but hey, a girl can dream.
But then I saw this video, not even 24 hours after coveting the iTypewriter and I just had to laugh. Paper is still king…
I came across this TED talk while looking for something else, and because it had “Books” in the title, I had to stop and watch it, even though it’s over a year old. So very entertaining, my dear reading friends. As an author who needs to make a living selling her books not giving them away for free, I’m not terribly keen on Google digitizing every book I’ve written and offering it for the nice price of, ahem, nothing, but I do like the idea of Google internalizing the billions of words we have authors have offered the world and building, for lack of a better word, a brain for them to be accessed. In other words, don’t put out the whole book if the author is still living, but do show us the impact those authors have had on culture. If you don’t know what an n-gram, I think you will find this TED talk interesting. And if you need a laugh today, these guys have a lot of great lines. I love to learn something while being entertained. Don’t you? Watch and tell me what YOU think of n-grams.
I have said on this blog in times past that I am only an artist of the written word. I can’t draw, paint, sculpt, or manufacture anything meaningful from these hands of mine. I admire writers who are also artists for this reason so naturally I was drawn to this blog post detailing the self-portraits of twenty famous authors.
I picked a few favorites to highlight here but you will want to check out the full gallery yourself. And of course I did attempt one of my own. Seems only right that I should.
Got a favorite? Do tell…
Charles Bukowski. I’m afraid I had to look this one up. I didn’t know his name on sight (although I do love his sketch and those cute little dogs at his feet). Prof. Google told me Henry Charles Bukowski was a German-born American poet, novelist and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural and economic ambience of his home city of Los Angeles.
Who doesn’t love Flannery O’Connor? And to paint her self-portrait with an American Gothic-esque vibe (love the pheasant – that IS a pheasant, isn’t it?) is so creative. When I read her stuff I want to be a better writer.
Edgar Allen Poe excelled in all things troubled, creepy and macabre. Pretty good self-portrait, eh?
dear e.e. cummings, whose work I love, was obviously very much at home with paintbrushes and a canvas. well done, o talented one.
l
I spent all of five seconds on this. If I had spent five days on it, it would be far worse, I assure you. I think I will stick to the day job…
My dear friend Mary DeMuth, writer, friend and cook extraordinaire, has put together a cookbook in her where-does-she-find it spare time and it just went on sale. I’ve been a guest at the DeMuth table and I can tell you, Mary knows how to wrangle awesome edibles out of her kitchen. I just got the book in the mail and I already can’t wait to make her Nutella crepes (after Lent, of course!)
Says Mary: “This is actually my second cookbook. My first cookbook was the first book I ever published. It was called The Giving Home Journal cookbook and no longer exists. I created it in the mid 1990s. The reason I published this was my dear friends who bought the first cookbook kept bugging me about making another one.
“You may not know this about me, but I love to cook and have been cooking since I was a young teen. My parents worked late shifts, leaving me as an only child to fend for my own meals. I grew tired of ramen, so I started cooking my way through The Better Homes and Garden cookbook. I’m solely self-taught and I’ve made plenty of mistakes.”
Mary has had her recipes featured in Bon Appetit, The Dallas Morning News and Women’s Day.
Her cookbook is 150 pages and includes appetizers, drinks, breakfast, bread, veggies, dessert, meat, pastas, soups, salads and much, much more.
“These are exclusively my recipes, developed and adapted by me,” Mary says. “Hundreds of people have eaten around my table.”
I count it a blessing to have been one of those hundreds.
And here’s an added bonus: You get three free novels if you buy between today and February 28th.
Simply send an email to Mary@MaryDeMuth.com with your electronic receipt for The Irresistible Table, and she will send you the PDFs to her first three novels: Mary’s novels are delicious, too by the way.
We are each of us only given one name and one name only. You can have a pseudonym of course, or a nickname, or an alias, but psuedo means it ain’t real, a nickname won’t get you far on your passport application, and an alias won’t allow you to win much trust among your clan. The people you love most and who love you will need to you know who you really are. There’s just one official name for me and one for you.
But wouldn’t it be fun to imagine what your name could be if you lived in a different part of the world or a different time period or even a different universe? And wouldn’t if be fun it someone already did all the hard work of figuring out what names would suit you best?
I happen to know that if I were a fairy my name would be Feather Saturnfly. And if I were a Hobbit I’d be Ranoic Harfoot of Baywater, and if I were an elf, I’d be Calebilinde Aranel.
If I were a blues singer, I’d be Wailin’ Estelle Beech and if I were a a hillbilly I’d be Lil’ Daisy Clementine.
If you have some free time today, check out this big list of Name Generators. Totally unscientific, I am sure, but lots of fun. They don’t all work the same way, and some maybe you ought not to click on, but they’re good for a little mental diversion and perhaps if you’ve a new puppy and need a name.
Have fun.
Do tell me what you come up with.
And perhaps you can let me know why oh why my Irish name would be Frank Kiley.
I’ve always been a believer that a good book is more than just a book that is good. A good book can relieve the stress of a particularly bad day. It can transport you to another time and another place when you need a break from your right-now time and place. A good book can stretch your imagination and shatter prejudice and ignite a passion and teach you something you might not have learned any other way.
A good book can speak to your soul, and help you see past your circumstances, think outside your limitations, and move beyond complacency. A good book can change you. A bad book is quite often nothing more than that.
So you can guess I was pretty jazzed to hear that in the UK, doctors are prescribing BOOKS to patients dealing with mental issues like . Here’s the link to a news article if you want to read the scoop.
According to The Reading Agency, a key player in this program, “[T]here is growing evidence showing that self help reading can help people with certain mental health conditions get better. Reading Well Books on Prescription will enable GPs and mental health professionals to prescribe patients cognitive behavioural therapy through a visit to the library.”
Cool, right? This means British libraries have teamed up with the UK Department of Health and The Reading Agency to compile a list of thirty books targeted to help those suffering from a range of issues from depression to anxiety to chronic pain. The books include A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon, Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson and an all time favorite of mine, The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett.
The fact that there are novels on this list makes me happy all over. Certainly, self-help books should and do enable you to (duh) help yourself, but this notion that novels (poetry is also included) can help you out of a dark spot of pain, is great news for us storytellers.
So if you had the power to add books to the list of prescribed medicine for the hurting and harried and hurried soul, what would be on your list? I list a couple here that I think should be staples on the medicine shelves:
I’m not usually one to spend a lot of time gazing backward but I think it’s a good idea to make some mental notes at the threshold of a new year so that I don’t forget the lovely things that came my way in the old year. So as 2012 comes to a close here’s a recap of my stand-out favorites, in no particular order.
Favorite book: This is always an impossibly hard choice to make. I read some wonderful books over the past twelve months. Of my top three for the year, which include The Secret Keeper, The Language of Flowers, and Age of Miracles, I have to say, Kate Morton’s The Secret Keeper wins the day. The funny thing is, this story took me a few hundred pages to get lost in, but once I was completely under the spell, I couldn’t wait to get back to those pages. The book I read the quickest because it was so compelling was the the dystopic and mesmerizing Age of Miracles. Made me fall in love with gravity and the perfect way our sun shines on our planet. No joke. And The Language of Flowers just made me glad I had parents who love me.
Favorite movie: Despite my earlier blog post on the same flick, I love Les Miserables. I did. I have made peace with the disappointments that made me wince in my theater seat the night I saw it. I still can’t quite forgive Hugh’s treatment of “Bring Him Home” and Russell’s unremarkable and distasteful plunge into the river of his self-loathing, but those nitnoid annoyances aside, I can’t wait to see it again. A close second is Life of Pi. Film adaptations of wholly original storylines don’t always come across well. This one, however, was the story I saw in my head when I read the book several years ago. Well done.
Favorite meal: Would you believe a pork loin dish at the Cafe Orleans in Disneyland made my list? Surprised the heck out of me, too. It was delish, served on a lovely bed of mascarpone polenta with grilled sweet potatoes and andouille sausage. The only thing missing was a buttery Chardonnay. And it wasn’t just the festive atmosphere, or that I was celebrating my wedding anniversary with my soulmate at the happiest place on earth. It was surprisingly amazing. Oh, and the pumpkin creme brulee was TDF.
Favorite song: Are you sick of Philip Phillips’ HOME? I hope not. 2012 is probably the last season of American Idol I will watch. My new fave singing show is The Voice. But I loved seeing this talented singer/songwriter win the title, the recording contract, and the fame. And I love the song he won with. Here it is:
Favorite TV show: You might think I am off my rocker, but my son Eric talked me into watching AMC’s The Walking Dead in 2012. “It’s really not about the zombies,” he told me when he suggested I watch it and I made a series of yucky faces. “It’s about the characters and the choices they have to make.” And hey, that’s story, folks. He was right. The setting for these characters is certainly beyond gruesome. I looked away a lot. But take away the gore, the sound effects, the chasing, the nightmarish setting, and the plot stands as the perfect framework for a study on what we value most and do we still value it when everything that made life beautiful seems to be gone? Not for the squeamish. Hope you still like me…
Favorite theater production: I saw some fabulous stagings this year. Anything produced by good friend Sean Murray at San Diego’s Cygnet is always great, and I can see Wicked every time it comes to San Diego and not get tired of it, but my favorite live stage production was A CHRISTMAS STORY on Broadway. I don’t even like the cult classic movie on which this musical is based. I always thought the TV movie kind of depressing. But the Broadway musical? It was completely fabulous, funny, and made me smile all over. I loved it. Perhaps the fact that I saw it in NYC has something to do with it, and it was a recent memory, too (obviously), but not as much as you might think. It was fab.
Favorite quote: Hard to pick just one; but this one inspired me when I read it this year, and it inspires me right now as I write it here for you:
“Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.” – Ernest Hemingway
Good one, isn’t it?
How about you, sweet reader? Have any favorite things from 2012 to share? Let’s hear them . . .
I was one of those people who, when they heard Cameron Mackintosh was in on an upcoming film production of Les Miserables, began counting the days until its release. I had the life-changing experience of seeing the original cast perform this magically engineered musical in London in 1990. That experience left me instantly smitten with this version of Victor Hugo’s masterpiece. Once you’ve heard it, the musical score alone will haunt and delight you ’til the day you die. I’ve seen other stage productions and of course the sad unCameron-Mackintosh attempt to adapt to film a few years back and nothing has been able to hold a candle to that shining night on the West End twenty-plus years ago.
I was an original cast Les Miz devotee. Junkie. Purist. Fanatic.
As the days neared to this new film adaptation with the original score, I was nearly convinced I would soon have my London stage production in my back pocket, to view it as much as I wanted, because movies go to DVD a year or less after they debut in theaters. The trailers (this one is my favorite) practically had me singing its praises before I’d even seen it.
So when we settled into our theater seats last night I was breathless with anticipation.
I was not disappointed. But I must confess I was not transported. I loved it. But it was not magical. I didn’t want to compare every musical note, every set, every costume, every nuance with the London stage production but I did. Every stage moment that was most precious to me, and I knew when they were coming because I can sing the score in my sleep, I was on the edge of my seat waiting for it. There were many grand moments but several standout disappointments. If you want to know what a few of them are, keep reading. If you don’t, stop right now.
Hugh Jackman was masterful as Jean Valjean, easily my most favorite character in literature. And he can sing. I was amazed at his ability to carry the staggering weight of the music. But he didn’t outshine Colm Wilkinson who originated the London role. Not by a long shot. Jackman’s “Bring Him Home,” a lullaby-like prayer that Colm sings in his buttery beautiful falsetto, was an achingly lost opportunity. Jackman scraped and screeched those incredibly high notes with no hint of the sweet falsetto Wilkinson mesmerized me with. Take a listen if you want to see what I mean:
I felt the same tender rush of disappointment when Russell Crowe launched into Javert’s tortured moments before he throws himself over the bridge. In the stage production, there is no river of course, but the masters of live stage have you believing there is one with an echoing drop into a swirling make-believe Seine that is breathtakingly amazing. Not like the skull-smashing leap that Crowe takes. And no echoing “There is no way to go on . . . !” which seems to go on and on as Javert escapes from the prison of his hated life.
Anne Hathaway gets the prize for eclipsing the Fantine I saw in London and listen to on my well-worn CDs. Her “I Dreamed a Dream” had me and everyone else in the theater in tears. She was fully believable as a young mother desperate to save her child and living in a cruel world that has nothing but sorrow to offer her. I was also undone by Eddie Redmayne’s “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables,” too. So well done.
And I have to say that the live takes, which allowed the actors to fully immerse themselves in the moment, was genius. The stage productions repeat themselves every day for weeks and months on end. I doubt many stage actors can pour the amount of emotion into their roles day after day after day like Jackman, Hathaway, and the others did. The pathos of the film version is raw and intense. Amazingly so.
There were other little things that left me somewhat wanting. The last scene with Jean Valjean – which contains the line that is my most favorite in all the world, “To love another person is to see the face of God,” – could’ve transcended the stage production easily since the film version had no limitations. But it seemed underdone. And the the very last scene was just kind of silly for me. Fantine singing at the Barricade? No.
If you’ve seen the West End or the Broadway production of Les Miz, I’d love to hear what you think. Is it just me? I loved the movie. But I didn’t LOVE!! it.
Some writer friends and I have a fabulous new giveaway for readers in the USA who are on Facebook.
t left).
