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Category: Guest Posts

Guest Post: Anita Hughes, author of Monarch Beach

[ 1 ] May 15, 2012

Please welcome Anita Hughes, author of the new novel, Monarch Beach!

Have I Always Been a Writer? by Anita Hughes

I grew up in a family of writers. My father was a journalist at the United Nations in Paris after World War II. My mother was a copy writer at a large advertising agency before her marriage. She went on to write a nonfiction book and regular newspaper columns after my brother and I went off to college.

The written word was close to God in our house, and so was the book. I read everything from an early age – some things like GO ASK ALICE and THE SUMMER of ‘42 under the covers when I was supposed to be asleep. I still remember discovering Herman Wouk’s THE CITY BOY and Jacqueline Susann’s VALLEY OF THE DOLLS. Literature was a way of entering countless worlds, studying emotions, feeling grief, joy and pain.

I banged out a couple of novels in high school and brashly sent them off to a New York editor. I received a handwritten note with suggestions for revisions but by that time my immediate world claimed my attention. The word was still holy – I was a columnist on the school newspaper and assistant editor of the literary magazine, but I was also a cheerleader and interested in normal teenage things like clothes and boys.

If I had only known what a coveted piece of paper I had! A New York editor had taken the time to give me notes on my novel. But youth is ignorance as well as bliss and I put the novel and note aside and immersed myself in high school.

During college I again became firmly attached to reading and writing. I studied British literature, took creative writing classes, collected rejection slips from Elle, The New Yorker and Vogue. I attended UC Berkeley’s Masters in English Program and made stabs at writing a new novel.

Then, like my parents before me, real life got in the way. My father gave up journalism in favor of starting a textile mill to support his family. My mother focused her attention on her children and her mother who came to live with us.

I too put writing aside when I got married. I became a mother and did the sales for my husband’s wedding film company. My days were busy and my nights mostly sleepless – spent changing and nursing a succession of babies.

Then one day, my children were old enough to take care of themselves. My husband hired a new sales person and I had hours in the day to fill. The first paragraph of a novel popped into my head while I was in the shower, and I couldn’t wait to get it down.

I wrote the whole novel without telling anyone, after all, my main job was being a wife and mother. So it was the greatest thrill when an agent responded to my query with the words: “You made me laugh, please send the full manuscript.” I had to read her reply twice, and then I eagerly attached and sent.

Since then I have been writing nonstop. I have a three book deal with St. Martin’s Press – two more books will be released next year. I can’t imagine life without my characters and love opening my laptop and immersing myself in their world.

Have I always been a writer? Yes, but this is the first time I will be a published author. Living can get in the way of your dreams, but if they burn within you bright enough eventually they will come to light.

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Guest Post: Edward Blaine Livingston, author of Pare My Heart

[ 1 ] May 10, 2012

Please welcome my friend Edward Blaine Livingston with his new book of poetry, Pare My Heart!

by Edward

I don’t usually go too deeply into why I write something or what it’s about personally for me, just as an artistic principle, but I will share a little.

Pare My Heart is a book of largely metered and entirely rhyming poems, some of them about love, romantic love, some about childhood, some about God/religion, some just about observing the world in a philosophic way. Some of them are referential to a girl I was in love with in childhood and adolescence and others are entirely separate from that. I feel that the whole thing forms a kind of narrative, though it may be deceptive and not grounded in the actual inspiration of the poems (at times).

I think I would like to say that my work stresses musicality and a kind of childlike enjoyment of the sound of words, the rhythm of phrases and rhyme. Certainly it is full of references to fairies, ghosts, selkies and all manner of imaginary stuff that is out of fashion for poems today. It lacks the gravitas of contemporary poetry, but this is delibrate.

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Guest Post & Giveaway: Kat Lieu, author of Maid for Me

[ 23 ] May 4, 2012

Please welcome author Kat Lieu, author of Maid for Me - and enter to win a copy of the book below (I have 1 paper and 5 eBooks to give away)!

by Kat Lieu

Thank you very much, Vera, for providing me with an opportunity to guest blog.

Back in 2009 when I had a break in between two jobs, I wrote my Amazon Kindle bestseller, Maid for Me, in two weeks. I wrote everyday from morning to night and took breaks only to eat and perform other necessary humanly functions. Inspiration had struck me and words just flowed from my brain to my typing fingertips. I didn’t think, plot, or plan. I just wrote.

I find that when I don’t spend too much time over-thinking about a writing project, I tend to reach my goals and self-set deadlines. I remember how I had sat down one night in 2006 to write a short story to enter into the Annual Seventeen Magazine Fiction Contest. I just thought about how I wanted to spend my summer vacation as a high school student and quickly penned “The Bike Ride” in less than two hours. I printed the ten pages I had just written and faxed them over to Seventeen Magazine. Months later, I had already forgotten about writing the short story when Whitney Joiner, a Senior Associate Editor of Seventeen Magazine at that time, called me to congratulate me on winning Third Place in the Fiction Contest.

Surprise hit me like a Mack truck. I cried tears of joy and screamed thank you’s happily into Whitney’s ear over the phone. I have to say, that moment was one of the happiest moments I had during my young life.

Nowadays, I believe I draw inspiration from everywhere. My evil characters are representations of my brilliant poodle, Musd. My chubby and plain-looking characters are representations of the high-school version of me. Sad events in my stories are often inspired by real life happenings. Lucky for us authors, inspiration is everywhere and free, especially in an amazing city such as New York.

To the aspiring writers out there, I wish you the best of luck. When you’re stuck or need some inspiration, just look around you. Use yourself as an inspiration. Happy writing and reading, everyone!

About Kat Lieu

Kat Lieu was born in Montreal, Canada many moons ago. At present, she is a busy New Yorker with a passion for writing young adult romantic comedies. Since 2009, her novella, Maid for Me, has been an Amazon Kindle category bestseller. Winning Third Place in Seventeen Magazine’s Annual Fiction contest in 2006 sparked her love for writing.

Kat received her doctorate in physical therapy in 2008 from SUNY Downstate. Currently, she educates physical therapy students across multiple New York universities and is also a national lecturer on the topic of lymphedema. During the daytime, she works as a healthcare recruiter. By night, she runs her popular teen/tween online empire, Nummyz Productions.

Kat is a triple-threat in the publishing world (she writes, self-publishes, self-markets), and a rising star. Stay tune for her upcoming publications, MAID FOR ME, TOO and a paranormal YA novella.
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Guest Post: Dora Levy Mossanen, author of The Last Romanov

[ 3 ] April 25, 2012

Please welcome Dora Levy Mossanen, author of The Last Romanov!

by Dora Levy Mossanen

I’m attracted to excess and decadence, to historical periods that transform our political landscapes, to all types of supernatural phenomena. What shall I say? I’m strange in that way. All these elements make their appearance in my latest novel, The Last Romanov, but since we are short of time, I’d like to share with you a special wonder I came across during my research. The magical ambergris! Darya, my protagonist, cherishes ambergris because it’s a conduit to her past and it possesses healing and calming properties. The Chinese call it “dragon spittle fragrance,” evoking images of perfumed dragons guarding jewel-filled caves.

Throughout history, all the way back to ancient Egypt, ambergris was used to cure all kinds of ailments, from a simple headache to hysteria and impotence. Nowadays, ambergris is used as a fixative in expensive perfumes to enhance and prolong the scent. But since it has become rare and costly, most perfumeries can’t afford it any longer. So, a chemical derivative that attempts to mimic the properties of ambergris is more commonly used today.

I was surprised to learn that this valuable substance is nothing more than the vomit or excrement of sperm whales. Yes, it’s true. It’s normal for the poor animals to suffer indigestion after they dine on hard-beaked squids that are abrasive to the intestines and can cause massive tummy aches. At such times, the thunderous belching of whales can be heard miles away. Since no one has had the fortune, or misfortune, of witnessing a sperm whale in the throes of pain and while ridding itself of the contents of its stomach, the verdict is still out as to which side of the animal ambergris expelled from. What’s certain is that this substance, which is found in gray rock-like lumps washed up on tropical seashores and which can weigh up to hundreds of pounds, stinks when first excreted. So why is it so valuable?

Ambergris ages well. In that way, it resembles fine wine, certain Isfahan carpets, and a rare breed of women such as my hundred-and-four-year-old, Darya Borisovna. Once a chunk of ambergris has had a chance to float in the seas and oceans, and be cured by air, sun and saltwater, its black color changes to a rich variegated gray and the foul smell to a tantalizing aroma that has encouraged many a myth. The longer ambergris has a chance to age during its long journey across the seas and oceans, the sweeter its aroma and the more valuable it becomes.

Although no longer consumed for medicinal purposes or as a spice as it once was in Ancient Egypt and the East, or carried around to ward off the plague and other contagious diseases as it was during the Black Death in Europe, ambergris has not lost its mystique or value in the modern marketplace.

The origin and history of ambergris and its complex scent—sweet and earthy, powdery, animalistic, with notes of musk and marine—has been a gift to my imagination and I hope it will stir yours, too.

Read our review of The Last Romanov

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Guest Post & Giveaway: Lia Fairchild, author of In Search of Lucy

[ 37 ] April 9, 2012

Please welcome author Lia Fairchild, author of In Search of Lucy - and enter to win a copy of the book below!

by Lia Fairchild

Why did I write a book? There are so many reasons that answer this question, but the big answer is because I wanted to. I’ve taught my children since they were very small that they can do anything if they truly want to accomplish it. These are the types of things good parents tell their children, right? Work hard, try your best, treat people how you want to be treated, reach for the stars. But I didn’t want to just say those things. I meant every word and what better way to show them. Why not take my own advice?

I’d been living for my kids since the day they were born. They were my whole world, and still are. Every choice to be made, every decision for our family, was based on what was best for them. And as time went on I began to wonder if it was enough. Not just for them, but for me. Yes, I wanted to model the behavior of a loving dedicated parent. But at the same time I wanted my kids to see what’s possible. To show them that you can do things some people only dream of. And what I’d dreamt of my whole life was creating something. Something big and lasting, and maybe even something to be remembered for. I really didn’t know what that would be and as life does from time to time, it got in the way. School, jobs and eventually marriage and family took me along for the ride until I found myself looking back asking, “Where’s my big thing?”

When I set my mind to writing a novel, deciding on the story came easily. I’d always had story ideas floating around in my brain but In Search of Lucy just sort of came to life one day asking to be told. I knew I wanted a strong female, caring, confused, living through and fight for a life that wasn’t easy. Lucy is someone that, like myself, wants happiness for those around her but often forgets how to create her own happiness. The story itself is a journey and throughout it Lucy must deal with the demons of her past and come to terms with her feelings. If she can do that, she just might have a chance at building new relationships and creating a new life.

So you may be wondering about other reasons that spur me to write. That’s easy. Writing is fun, exciting, liberating, but most of all, I hope that my stories can provide a little happiness for people. Whether it’s by helping a friend, giving someone a gift, making someone laugh or writing a story that inspires and entertains, making people happy inspires me. There’s nothing I want more in this world than to relieve someone’s pain, or give someone a little joy. And I’ve been that way since as far back as I can remember. So as long as my stories make people feel—happy, sad, silly or inspired—I’ll continue to write them.

About Lia Fairchild

Born and raised in Southern California, Lia Fairchild holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a multiple subject teaching credential. She is also the author of A Hint of Murder: The Writer, A Hint of Murder: The Doctor, and a short story entitled “Special Delivery.” Writing is something Fairchild has thought about all her life, and she found completing In Search of Lucy truly satisfying. Visit her website or follow her on Twitter.
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Guest Post & Giveaway: Rainbow Rowell, author of Attachments

[ 28 ] April 6, 2012

Please welcome Rainbow Rowell, author of Attachments - newly available in paperback!

by Rainbow Rowell

Much like the characters in Attachments (or exactly like the characters in Attachments) – I was working at a Midwestern newspaper in the late ‘90s. A newspaper that became very concerned about Internet security.

We were slow to get email, and when we did, it was monitored…by actual human beings: Guys who worked down in the IT office and could read anything we wrote, anytime they wanted.

Just like any other corporate office, we were not supposed to use our work email accounts for anything other than work. We couldn’t access Yahoo or Hotmail from our desks. If a personal email, a gossipy email, an email complaining about your boss was sent, the boss may receive a note the follwoing morning from the “guys” downstairs.

We were all completely paranoid about this. All of us. The entire newsroom.

But we all broke the rules anyway.

It was just too tempting! It was too easy. Before email, if you wanted to gossip with your friend across the room, you had to meet each other in the bathroom, or squat and whisper in one of your cubicles. (Which was like shouting, “Hey, everybody, we’re gossiping!”)

But, with email, you could gossip with a friend across the room, and still look like you were working. It was marvelous.

I was probably more careful than most of my coworkers (I’m a flagrant rule-follower) – until my best friend at work, a copy editor, had a health crisis.

She was terrified and angry and desperately sad – and she didn’t want anyone else in the office to know. We couldn’t talk about it at work because she didn’t want anyone to hear, and she didn’t want them to see that she was upset.

So we talked about it over email. Only over email. All the time over email.

Her messages were heartbreaking. I tried to make mine encouraging – and, whenever possible, funny. All I could do to help was try to make her laugh.

I used to think about that guy in the basement reading all of our emails. I was sure he was there and that he’d noticed us. Sometimes I would get mad at him. “Are you reading this, Big Brother? Are you going to turn us in? You’re such a jerk. You know what she’s going through right now. How could you turn us in?”

He (even though “he” was probably more like three “he’s and a computer filter) became a third person in our email conversations. A silent partner. I never forgot that he was watching . . .

I wondered if he got sucked into our drama. I wondered if he laughed at our jokes.

And then, because I’m a romantic comedy junkie, I started thinking about what would happen if he fell in love. Not with one of us — we were both married and totally resistible. But what if he fell in love with someone else just by reading her email? What would he do?

It’s not like he could tell her. He couldn’t just say, “Hi, my name is Lincoln, and I’m the guy who reads your email. And also, I love you.”

That situation — hypothetical and overly romantic and probably ridiculous — became the premise for my first book.

More on Attachments:

Rainbow Rowell’s Blog | Our review of Attachments


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Guest Post & Giveaway: Kate Quinn, author of Empress of the Seven Hills

[ 35 ] April 3, 2012

Please welcome Kate Quinn with her new novel, Empress of the Seven Hills, and don’t forget to enter to win a copy below!

by Kate Quinn

“What inspires you?” is a question authors get asked a lot. It’s a nebulous question with any number of difficult answers, so I tend to toss off flippant one-liners: “the land of Oz” or “Walmart, aisle seven!” But I’ve done some harder thinking on that question, and the result was last year’s blog post for Luxury Reading, shortly after the release of my second book Daughters of Rome. That was when I realized that inspiration is often a murky thing: a writer might just intend to tell a good story, but often the subconscious gets in there and starts working out some issues of its own.

When I wrote Daughters of Rome, I thought I was telling an entertaining yarn about four sisters during the Year of Four Emperors – but looking back I can see that Daughters of Rome was really about family; about the roles women play in their families and how those roles change under the pressures of deaths, births, marriages, and other upheavals. Was it a coincidence that I wrote that book during a year when I got engaged, lost my grandfather, got married, then lost my father-in-law? I think not.

I concluded that blog post for Luxury Reading last year by saying, “I’m writing a third book now [Empress of the Seven Hills]. What inspired it? I probably won’t know till the book is done . . . that’s usually when underlying patterns start jumping out at me. I will go out on a limb and guess that the book’s original seed wasn’t just Emperor Trajan and the Parthian wars!”

Well, Empress of the Seven Hills is finished now, and as usual my subconscious has been having fun with me. On the surface, ESH is merely the sequel to my first book Mistress of Rome, continuing the story of brash young Vix and adventurous Sabina when they grow up and begin having adventures of their own. Under the surface, there’s another story going on.

“Funny,” my husband commented when he read through my first draft. “Your hero Vix is a lot like me.”

Me: “No, he’s not!”

Husband: (raising an eyebrow) “So it’s a complete coincidence that both your husband and your fictional hero are left-handed and quick with a sword, have freckles and a short temper, snore like a chain-saw, can’t sit still without one foot jittering, get easily irritated with idiots, turn to putty when one particular muscle under the left shoulder blade is massaged, are in the military, and have a habit of pissing off superior officers?”

Busted. My husband and my hero do share all those qualities – the most important of which is their status as dedicated fighting men. Vix is a soldier in the Roman legions, and my husband is a sailor in the US Navy. And during the six months I was finishing this book up, both my fighting men were deployed, ironically to the same part of the world: Parthia in Vix’s day, now simply referred to as “the sandbox.” Strange how the same conflicts keep raging through two thousand years of history.

Empress of the Seven Hills was my way of spending time with my husband while he was deployed: he might be a hemisphere away in the flesh, but his fictional counterpart Vix had enough similarities to make me smile. It was also a chance to explore the military experience through a historical lens, because that experience has some very universal bottom lines. Fighting men of either the 1st century or the 21st still hunker down at night to trade dirty jokes, complain about superior officers, admit that they miss their families, and observe that the local alcoholic beverages suck. Newly appointed officers struggle to learn how to command their men, whether they’ve just been appointed Legionary Centurion or US Navy Chief. Military families, whether a legionary wife like Vix’s or the wives/husbands of today’s fighters, still keep a stiff upper lip while knowing that at any time, at any moment, they may get the dread news that somebody is only coming home in a box. The rare communications are just as precious whether they come in the form of battered letters (“Hi, our siege towers broke through the archers at Hatra today!”) or emails that arrive at 3am (“Hi, if you hear something on CNN about our position getting fired on, don’t worry, nobody got hurt!”) Both legionary wives and Navy wives deal with the upheaval of dragging their families around after the latest posting, and the food sucks whether it comes from a mess hall or a campfire kettle in the middle of the Parthian desert.

Empress of the Seven Hills was also my good-luck talisman. I couldn’t control anything that happened to my husband, but I could control what happened to my fictional hero. I could make damn sure that he came home to his family safe and sound. He did – and maybe my good-luck charm worked, because mine came home safe and sound too. Which is why my greatest luxury, these days, is kicking back in the evenings with a glass of wine and smiling as my husband whirls around the kitchen with a spatula in hand, whipping up his special fettuccine alfredo so delicious it puts a pound on your hips per bite. I’ll take the pounds. I’ve got him back, and that’s the real luxe right there.

Our review of Daughters of Rome | Kate Quinn’s 1st Guest Post


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Guest Post: Michel Stone, author of The Iguana Tree

[ 1 ] April 2, 2012

Please welcome Michel Stone, author of the debut novel, The Iguana Tree!

by Michel Stone

Three events happened relatively simultaneously in the broad spectrum of my life, and their nexus provided fertile ground for the kernel that grew to be The Iguana Tree.

The first event was the birth of my second child, a daughter, who weighed in almost three weeks ahead of schedule at 5 pounds, 11 ounces. She was perfect, but, even so, her early arrival coupled with ankles the girth of my finger reminded me of the fragility of life.

The second event was my developing a friendship with a young (twenty-something) couple of Mexican immigrants and their two-year old son who had confided to me that they did not possess the proper papers to be in this country.

The third event was my attending a writers’ workshop at which I received this writing prompt: “In a paragraph describe an object you know intimately.” I wrote about the rocking chair in my infant daughter’s nursery; I’d spent many late-night hours there nursing her, listening to the mysterious sounds of my sleeping household as I rocked in the soft glow of my daughter’ closet light, filtering through slats in the louvered door.

I remember feeling at the time that this writing assignment didn’t stimulate my writing juices. Any fourth grader could write such a paragraph, right?

But that instructor had bigger plans for us. When we finished writing our collective paragraphs, the instructor told us to remove our objects from their familiar settings and plop them somewhere completely unfamiliar to us. “Now,” he said, “Describe your object again in a new paragraph.”

I considered the young Mexican mother I’d recently met, and, not for the first time, imagined her mindset and the determination she must have had to smuggle her young son across the border into America. I loved my newborn with a ferocity that felt akin to heartbreak, and I suspected my Mexican friend felt the same way. Don’t all new mothers feel that way, regardless of their nationality, age, socio-economic situation, religious views, or political alignment?

So, I moved my rocker to a tin shanty in a third-world village. I envisioned a teen mother nursing her infant in the dark corner of a small room. How was her experience in that chair different than mine? What did she hear beyond her window? What did she smell? Where was her baby’s father? What did this mother fear? What would she do when the sun rose?

And with that prompt I was hooked. All the emotions I experienced having recently had a baby mixed with my intrigue and genuine interest in the young Mexican family with whom I’d recently become acquainted. I couldn’t leave the paragraph I’d written that day, and it grew into a short story. That story, “Dance of the Coyote,” won a couple of writing awards, one local and one statewide, but I didn’t want to abandon those characters, and over the next few years I continued writing, expanding the story to The Iguana Tree, my first novel.

People ask if the book is based on a true story. The answer is no, but in my research I did interview quite a few immigrants about their experiences. I also read nonfiction books about people-smuggling and our country’s border with Mexico. I visited Mexico twice during the writing of this book as well. All of these experiences added flavor and texture to what became The Iguana Tree, but none of them alone are the story that is this novel.

Read our review and enter to win a copy of The Iguana Tree!

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