Blog Archives

Ring in the New

12/31/2016

Holiday greetings and warm wishes for the New Year! As 2016 slips away (and good riddance), I’d like to update you on developments in store for the coming year.

My new thriller Tell On You will be published on May 1st, 2017 by Micro Publishing Media. But you don’t have to wait until next spring for a sneak preview. Visit the Tell On You page on my revamped website (see the drop down menu under Novels) and watch a video trailer that’s guaranteed to whet your appetite for the book. You will also find links to pre-order your copy now. Check out the Upcoming Events page on my website to see a front and back cover reveal.

I’ll keep you posted about future pre-publication activities. Meanwhile, I’m working on the next thriller.

Wish you all the best in 2017.

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Book Spotlight: Still Beautiful: The Color of Beauty

12/27/2016

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Still Beautiful: The Color of Beauty
By Kevin Bates
Genre: Poetry
Paperback price $13.99

"Still Beautiful" takes readers on a path of nostalgia; a time where "Black is beautiful" wasn't just a phrase, it was a way of life. Kevin's words paint memorable portraits of social injustices, marches, afros, and grandmas's cooking. His poems show us how unity is important in getting through tough times, and no matter the issue Black is the color of Beauty.

About the Author

I am a devoted reader and writer. Each day is spent wandering in the world of words. Never lost just going to different places. My frequent reader miles are piled up with many words. Gaining many thoughts then sharing with friends and family. I’ve learned words shared correctly through speech or in print can be very powerful. I hope to share them with you so we come to an understanding not to be powerful but to be your brother under God.

As a kid my mother brought me into the world of words. She would read with her sweet angelic voice taking me so far away doing things I never did before. Living the adventures of the people she read about. She teaching me the words she thought I do not know. Soon afterward when I asked her to read another she would tell me to pick a book off the shelf & to read it myself.

https://twitter.com/Kevin_W_Bates
http://www.kevinwbates.com/
On Amazon: http://amzn.to/2h25ozQ
On Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/34854694-kevin-bates

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Book Spotlight: Sunset Reads: Damian & Layla

12/27/2016

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Sunset Reads: Damian & Layla (A Sunset Reads Novel 2)
By D.C. Triana
Genre: Romance Suspense

Book Description

One year.

It’s been one year since Agent Damian Trent left for Washington without a word.

One year since he’s seen her beautiful face.

One year since he’s heard his name on her lips.

He's been recently called back to New York City on assignment, to catch a criminal who’s trying to infiltrate Sunset Reads. The last thing he expects is to work side by side with the woman he turned his back on.

Having her close is an unwanted distraction that he’s more than willing to ignore, if only she wasn’t so damn tempting.

Everything seems under control, until a night of feverish passion has him abandoning all thoughts of reason. Now, he will do everything in his power to get her back, and even more so to protect her.

Layla Reece wants nothing to do with the man who left her a year ago.

The man who took her heart with him, leaving her broken.

After a year of trying to forget Damian Trent, she is finally ready to move on.

But trying to forget him becomes a tedious task when he suddenly reappears in her life.

Although she fights to stay away, his magnetism is too strong and she finds herself giving into the deep timbre of his voice, and the strength and safety of his arms.

Staying away from Damian turns out to be futile, especially when his kisses consume her and his heart shatters the walls she spent so much time building.

Finding herself in danger, she now has to turn to the only man she trusts to keep her safe, but can she trust him enough to give him her heart once again?

About the Author

D.C. Triana is a new romance author and novelist. She was born in raised in New York and is currently residing in Florida. Last March, Her dream of publishing a romance novel came true with, Sunset Reads: William & Cristina. The novel is currently holding a 4.5 star rating on Amazon as well as GoodReads. She is excited to announce her second novel in the series, Sunset Reads: Damian & Layla, releasing on December 26, 2016.

When she is not delving into her hopeless romantic thoughts, she is expanding her experiences and travelling around the world. She also will not miss an episode of the Walking Dead, has an obsession with Superman, and has watched Pride and Prejudice at least ten times. An avid fan of all types of music and dancing; she enjoys cuddling up with her puppy Obi, and helping new authors like herself. You can visit her at http://www.dctriana/com, or be part of her newsletter where you can take part in giveaways, receive updates on upcoming storylines, and get reviews on hot new titles. Sign up for her Newsletter here: http://eepurl.com/bXH-P9

@DCTriana1
https://www.facebook.com/D.C.Triana82/
https://www.goodreads.com/DCTriana
https://www.instagram.com/dctriana82/
http://www.dctriana.com/

Pre-order link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01NBB4QYD

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Interview with author Alexander Boldizar

12/23/2016

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Tell us about your genre. How did you come to choose it? Why does it appeal to you?

I’m still not sure what my genre is. I leave that up to the reviewers, and they seem undecided between calling The Ugly literary fiction, dark humor and contemporary fiction—though dark humor and satire are definitely winning the race. Until The Ugly was published, I thought I was writing literary fiction but struggling to sell a Central European absurdist/existentialist sensibility in a North American market that equates literary fiction with psychological realism. But it’s probably easier to just pick a different genre label.

At any rate, I don’t expect to stay in one genre. The Ugly is literary satire because that’s what made sense for this particular story, but my next book is science fiction.

That said, I do really enjoy existentialist dark comedy. My favorite authors are Kafka, Heller, Vonnegut, Musil, Borges, Joseph Roth, Hrabal, Bowles, Dostoevsky, Camus, Rilke, Conrad, DN Stuefloten, Jodorowsky, PK Dick, Frank Herbert and the movie “Berlin Alexanderplatz” by Rainer Werner Fassbinder—as Einstein said, “If at first an idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it”—writers who were thinkers, but knew that storytelling is the most sophisticated form of thinking, that an idea stops being interesting the minute you can put it in a box. And who knew that in order to tell a good story, you have to keep the thinking below the surface.

The Ugly had to be satire because it’s set at Harvard Law School. When I was a student there, people saw me as a bit of an odd mountain man, so I thought it would be fun to bring a real mountain man—not my half North Americanized version, but one distilled and fortified in the most remote mountain range in Siberia—to Harvard Law and see what happened. This is a natural setting for humor, which grows out of incongruity. The clash of Muzhduk the Ugli the Fourth and Harvard has instant comedic potential, and stiff rule-bound places already lend themselves to funny situations. But at the same time, the juxtaposition allowed me to ask the question of “What is thinking?” which is what the book is about for me (though I don’t necessarily expect that to be the case for the reader.) There is the rational discourse of law school, with its various categories, but there are also forms of thinking that happen with the fists or the penis or the heart or the ear, poetry and visual art and math and bullets and sand, and I wanted to clash all these various ways of processing information into each other and see what happened. I didn’t approach the book with answers, just open-ended questions that I wanted to smash into each other as hard as I could. Those collisions are often inherently funny, and the fact that this is the place that creates the people who make the rules that govern all our lives—take a look at a list of alumni: my roommate my last year, for example, was Samantha Power (though she was great; I’d never have made it through our Chinese Law class without her)—makes it inherently dark. That became The Ugly.

What do you find most challenging about the writing process, and how do you deal with it?

Number one is finding time. As for the writing itself, at first what I struggled with most was the subjectivity of it. There’s no objective standard, no puzzle to decode—you have to write for your readers, who are human beings with a million different preferences and backgrounds. And yet if you want to write anything interesting, your writing isn’t going to appeal to everyone. Lots of people never made it through Ulysses and never even picked up The Man Without Qualities. There’s no universal reader and there’s no one proper way to write a novel. Going against the grain may slow you down, but if that’s what your book needs, then that’s what it needs.

At the same time, however, I do think writers need to read their work with a truly critical eye and ask themselves whether some limitation in their own personality is holding back their writing. Over and over, I found that the limits to my writing ability were actually the flaws in my personality, something that was blocking me from being able to see a way out that was true both to the story and to the reader whom I’m asking to invest eight or more hours of his or her life in the world I created. The advantage of editing a book for 16 years was that I really had a chance to learn from my mistakes, and trace them back to their source. I’m a big believer in protecting a small part of my brain that is convinced everything I think I know is wrong. If you can unify that self-doubt with enough confidence to never quit, your book will eventually make it.

You can see why I don’t write How to write guides: “Spend 16 years editing a single book” isn’t going to be popular advice. But that was my solution.

When and where do you do your writing?

Whenever I can. I spent years as a full-time single dad, which meant I had to work from home. Now I work out of a tiny home office, with a 200-year old Balinese teak door for a table top, mounted on an Uplift adjustable-height desk, with a Lifespan treadmill underneath. I can’t write while walking, but use the treadmill while reading. Around the treadmill and desk is a nearly chthonic chaos of paper and books buried under other books and paper. Fortunately, the office has high ceilings and I can keep adjusting my desk higher as the papers rise up to drown me. As I’m typing this, I’m realizing that I’m actually quite high up in the air, on a sort of precarious throne, with my feet roughly at the level of the window sill. Which isn’t bad, because I can see into the back yard.

I have a little mantra that I like to recite as a way of starting my writing sessions. It’s dedicated with love towards my son and girlfriend, and goes something along the lines of “Just because I work from home doesn’t mean I’m not working! Please stop walking in and out of my office and yelling up at me from downstairs and asking me whether we have mustard!” (Swap socks or playdate for mustard, as appropriate.) After loudly clearing my throat in this way, I’m in the zone and can write.

What have you learned about promoting your books?

I have a great publisher, Brooklyn Arts Press. They won this year’s National Book Award in poetry. But they’re a small press, which means a lot of the marketing and promotion has been up to me. When it comes to promotion, I’ve tried to learn from both traditional and self-published authors, and I’m capable of putting on the “used car salesman” hat, but I really don’t enjoy it. I’m a hermit at heart, and much prefer sitting at my ever-climbing desk over clicking “refresh” obsessively on my Amazon page. I’ve published over a hundred nonfiction articles, lots of short stories, art criticism, ghostwritten pieces for Wall Street, etc., but had never heard of this Amazon-refresh-clicking disease until I started promoting The Ugly. It seems incurable. I only know of one writer friend who’s beat it. He says the disease goes into remission once a major Hollywood studio purchases the film rights and makes a movie, since at that point everyone stops caring what readers think.

More seriously, I was surprised at how much publishing with a small press, even one that won an NBA, is similar to self publishing in terms of the legwork you have to do to actually sell books. I’ve had fantastic reviews, but translating those into sales is tough. One example: I’m a Harvard alumus, former chief editorial columnist at the Harvard Law Record, my book is set at Harvard, but when I asked the Harvard Book Store to come in and do a reading, their reaction was “Debut author with a small press, no thank you.” That surprised me.

The flip side, of course, is that these days it seems only small presses are willing to experiment and discover new authors and try unorthodox approaches. Basically, small presses seem to be doing all the heavy lifting within the publishing industry. That’s more than a fair trade for putting on the ugly salesman hat once in a while.

What are you most proud of as a writer?

It was a tremendous honor to be included in the Best Books of 2016: Best Fiction, by Entropy Magazine, called “the eternal champion of small press literary books” by Small Press Distribution. I was very happy to be #1 on Goodreads’ New Releases list and I loved seeing The Ugly at spot #2 on Amazon’s “most wished for” list in the dark humor category, nestled between Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 and Kurt Vonnegut’s Mother Night. After a few days, Chuck Palahniuk knocked out Kurt, but The Ugly stayed where it was at #2.

But my proudest moment may have been when I received a blurb from Professor Alan Stone, the former president of the American Psychiatric Society, where he wrote that “The author moves from the surreal to the real without ever losing his way.” That had been my goal, to not fall either into realism or surrealism but try to balance between the two, and having someone I respected very much pick up on that meant a lot. The irony is, because of space constraints, that portion of the blurb was edited out and never made it onto the book jacket.

Actually, no, scratch that. My proudest moment was seeing the book in real life, holding it, hugging it, caressing it. But that’s probably what every author says, so let’s go with the wise psychiatrist.

If you could have dinner with any writer, living or dead, who would it be and what would you talk about?

I’d rather have a poker game with the writers I mentioned above— Kafka, Heller, Vonnegut, Musil, Borges, Joseph Roth, Hrabal, Bowles, Dostoevsky, Camus, Rilke, Conrad, DN Stuefloten, Jodorowsky, PK Dick, Frank Herbert, Fassbinder and, sure, Einstein for variety, why not—and just listen to them trying to bluff each other. But if I have to choose one, it would be Franz Kafka. We’d talk about the weather and aliens and slow people who drive in the passing lane. I’d love to see how his mind worked on daily things, whether his ability to open up that weird existential sideways shift was just who he was, or whether it was a conscious intellectual move within the story.

Author Bio

Alexander Boldizar was the first post-independence Slovak citizen to graduate with a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School. Since then, he has been an art gallery director in Bali, an attorney in San Francisco and Prague, a pseudo-geisha in Japan, a hermit in Tennessee, a paleontologist in the Sahara, a porter in the High Arctic, a police-abuse watchdog in New York City, an editor and art critic in Jakarta and Singapore, and a consultant on Wall Street. His writing has won the PEN/Nob Hill prize and was the Breadloaf nominee for Best New American Voices. Boldizar currently lives in Vancouver, BC, Canada, where his hobbies include throwing boulders and choking people while wearing pajamas, for which he won a gold medal at the Pan American Championships and a bronze at the World Masters Championships of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. For several years, an online Korean dictionary had him listed as its entry for “ugly.”

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theuglynovel
On Twitter: @Boldizar
http://www.theuglynovel.com/
Amazon.com: http://amzn.to/2hNtMcl
Goodreads: http://bit.ly/2hNhL6O
B&N: http://bit.ly/2hMLCcT

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Interview with author Sarah K. Stephens

12/21/2016

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Tell us about your genre. How did you come to choose it? Why does it appeal to you?

My genre is best described as literary psychological thriller. It’s interesting--I don’t feel as though I chose the genre ahead of time, but the story of Anna, Sean, and Bard evolved with my writing into a thriller as I moved further into the narrative. I knew I wanted to focus on the devastating emotional stakes that play into any long-term romantic relationship, and when Bard’s character emerged in my mind, I knew that the story was going to take on an element of menace.

As a reader, I love thrillers, especially those that play more with the mental landscape of their characters and how perceived threats can emerge in what, at least at first, appear to be very ordinary lives. The mundane aspects of life are great contexts to introduce animus, because the assumption so often is that they are benign. But our most intimate relationships—those with our spouses, our children, our friends—also offer excellent, and sometimes unexpected, breeding grounds for conflict and contempt, and I try to capture that undercurrent in my writing.

What do you find most challenging about the writing process, and how do you deal with it?

Having to sit still and get the words out—that is one of the biggest challenges I encounter. I would much rather be in motion, moving through the world. Thank goodness I at least have a standing desk now!

When and where do you do your writing?

Although I have a desk in the basement of our family’s home, I typically write at our communal desk in our family’s living room, preferably in the morning when I’m not teaching and the children are already off to school. I brew a big carafe of French press coffee, boot up the computer, and get to work. Our pit bull, Jasper, keeps me company while I write. After a few hours, he also offers a great reminder to take a break by nuzzling my legs with his (very cute) nose—time for his walk!

What have you learned about promoting your books?

I’ve found the best way to promote yourself as a writer is to promote other writers you admire. In the online realm of social media and blogs, ‘paying it forward’ by bringing attention to fellow writers you admire often comes back to you in dividends when they reciprocate with the same courtesy. Readers are often turned off by self-promotion, but respond with enthusiasm when they see writers supporting each other.

What are you most proud of as a writer?

I’d say my book deal with Pandamoon Publishing was a definite high point in my writing career, but I want to emphasize to all the writers out there that simply getting words on the page every day (or when you can) is an achievement. It’s an act of bravery to offer up your imagination, your memories, and your emotions for scrutiny, which is essentially what all writers do, regardless of genre or format. So although we want recognition and acceptance for our work as writers, we need to remember that trusting in ourselves to devote time and energy to our words is an achievement in and of itself.

If you could have dinner with any writer, living or dead, who would it be and what would you talk about?

Jessica Francis Kane, author of The Report and the short story collection, This Close. I would love to sit down with her and talk through a few of her short stories (or, in an ideal and timeless world, all of them!). American Lawn, for one, really embedded itself into my mind--I’d love to get her perspective on the piece and how she came to write it.

About the Author

Sarah K. Stephens earned her doctorate in Developmental Psychology and teaches a variety of human development courses as a lecturer at Penn State University. Although Fall and Spring find her in the classroom, she remains a writer year-round. Her short stories have appeared in Five on the Fifth, The Voices Project, The Indianola Review, and the Manawaker Studio’s Flash Fiction Podcast. Her debut novel, A Flash of Red, will be released in December 2016 by Pandamoon Publishing.

https://twitter.com/skstephenswrite
https://www.facebook.com/sarahkstephensauthor/
https://sarahkstephens.com/

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Book Spotlight: STEAM AHEAD! DIY FOR KIDS

12/16/2016

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STEAM AHEAD! DIY FOR KIDS
By Sumita Mukherjee
Genre: Educational Projects for Kids

STEAM AHEAD! DIY FOR KIDS is an easy-to-follow, step-by-step instruction book for parents and children. It introduces kids between the ages of four and ten to the magic of electronics, game and toy designing, printing, understanding basic scientific principles and most importantly, they’ll have a blast making them. Inside this book you will find projects on LED cards, dance pads, handmade soaps, bubble blowers, Play-Doh circuits, cloud lanterns, scribbling bots and more!

Created by NASA STEM certified leader, Sumita Mukherjee, this book is jam packed with projects that will engage any bored child. The hands-on projects are broken into areas of practical implementation: Party, Build, Toys and Art. They have also been sorted according to levels of difficultly and STEAM relevance. Adding one or two experiments per week can get your child excited about science, inventions, science fair projects and overall classroom performance.

There is also a BONUS material list for STEAM DIY KIDS, to make it easier for parents to plan and prepare in advance.

What’s particularly exciting is that STEAM AHEAD! DIY FOR KIDS is available for only $1.99 through December. Perfect for keeping children busy during the holiday season. And that’s not all! For those who purchase the book this week, a freebie downloadable brain doodle book is also available by entering your purchase information at http://wizkids.club/freegift. Don’t miss out. Visit Amazon today to grab this special deal! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MRIRG69

About the Author

Sumita Mukherjee is a NASA STEM certified leader and children’s book author. She has been fortunate enough to travel around the globe, explore many countries and meet different people. Mysteries and adventures have been captured from there in the form of Keiko and Kenzo’s travel adventure series. These books are to inspire young readers to know and appreciate various countries, develop a love for discovery and learn about the world around them. Her series of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math) books encourages kids to invent and explore, to empower themselves and see themselves as world leaders and problem solvers. Her books celebrate diversity, spark curiosity and capture children's imaginations! Sumita currently lives in Toronto with her family.

Her website, WizKids.Club was created with a vision to raise the next generation of creative leaders. WizKids.Club offers highly engaging kids activities, educational books, experiments, hands-on projects, DIYs, travel stories and engineering books perfect for children 4-12 years to spark creativity and scientific learning.

https://twitter.com/wizkidsdotclub
https://www.facebook.com/wizkidsdotclub/
http://wizkids.club/

On Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MRIRG69

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Interview with author Elizabeth Sinclair

12/15/2016

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Tell us about your genre. How did you come to choose it? Why does it appeal to you?

I love a happily-ever-after ending, so it was quite natural for me to be drawn to romance. When my kids were all in school, I found keeping the house clean took up very little of my time, so I became a voracious reader. While in school, I had always loved creating stories and after reading The Flame and the Flower, the writing bug bit and hasn’t let go since. Watching my characters go from conflicted, unhappy people, to deeply in love is a wonderful experience and one I truly enjoy. I’ve written paranormal romance, category romance, historical romance and romantic suspense. The last of which has been my focus for the last couple of books, which all have an arson theme.

What do you find most challenging about the writing process, and how do you deal with it?

The most challenging parts of writing for me are outside influences: family, friends, house chores, etc. To overcome them, I’ve had to learn to say “no.” My biggest distraction is my five-year-old grandson, whom I cannot say no to. Whenever he’s around nothing else takes precedence.

When and where do you do your writing?

I write in my home office, a room my husband has made especially for me, complete with bookshelves, cabinets and a cool countertop for my computer, printer and other things I need at my fingertips. Oh, and there’s also a special bed for my writing buddy, Eddie, my 7 pound Yorkie.

What have you learned about promoting your books?

That friends and other writers are indispensable for spreading the word on Facebook, Twitter and their personal websites. You can’t beat word of mouth advertising.

Elizabeth with Sharon Sala, Ancient City Romance Authors 2013 conference

What are you most proud of as a writer?

I do writing workshops and critiquing and nothing gives me greater pleasure than seeing one of the authors I’ve worked with publish their first book.

If you could have dinner with any writer, living or dead, who would it be and what would you talk about?

Sharon Sala. Hands down. I’ve told her that I want to be just like her when I grow up. LOL Not only is she a dynamic writer, she’s also a good person with a big heart. I’m sure we’d talk about Native Americans. It’s a subject dear to both of us.

About the Author

ELIZABETH SINCLAIR admits she loved composition assignments back in grade school. While other kids glared at the teacher, she was always excited at the prospect of creating a new story in a new world. However, it wasn’t until her own children were all in school—and the house remained clean for more than a few minutes at a time—that she found the time to really write.

Throughout Elizabeth's lengthy career, her romance writing has evolved into romantic suspense involving complex characters, intricate plots, and heart-racing stories that fellow author Sharon Drane once stated, "Cannot be read alone, at night."

Elizabeth's books have won The National Reader's Choice Award, The Anne Bonney Reader's Choice Award, Romantic Times Reviewer's Choice Award, Maggie Award of Excellence, and placed in the Heart of Excellence. She has also won a Gold Medal Top Pick from the Romantic Times Book Club.

Elizabeth is a co-founder and member of the Ancient City Romance Authors of St. Augustine, FL, a member of Romance Writers of America, and served as RWA's Region 3 Director and chaired the 2001 RWA Annual Conference in New Orleans.

Elizabeth shares her Florida home with her husband and their furry children. Her human family has expanded to include five grandchildren and one great-granddaughter.

http://elizabethsinclair.com
On Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Bound-Fire-Elizabeth-Sinclair-ebook/dp/B01N8UN5JO/

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Interview with author Desraye L. Halon

12/14/2016

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Tell us about your genre.

Spiritual / Self Help

How did you come to choose it?

I had gone through a fast and rough spiritual awakening to what everything is at the core of it. Meeting my spirit guides, they wanted me to put myself out there to help others, it just feels right.

Why does it appeal to you?

I have done a 180 in terms of my life and how I live, I really want to help people in all areas. To let them know, they are not alone, and you never have to take your own life or resort to the end game. There is ALWAYS a way out of the pain, darkness to a better life, no matter what the issue is. I want to give people the facts, the straight answers

What do you find most challenging about the writing process, and how do you deal with it?

Well for me it it just seems to flow. I write about what I have experienced and bring it to written word. The hardest part so far has been facing myself, putting myself out there, the good, bad and ugly. It’s a risk, but I know it will help others. People will be able to relate and be able to pull themselves up. I never run out of things to write about, so so far it has been a true blessing. The hardest part was finding a publisher. That’s for any writer is tough, so I’m grateful and thankful for that.

When and where do you do your writing?

I normally start in the morning, and sometimes I can write for 12 hours, it just flows. Then other days, a just try and get a chapter done a day. I know getting The Soul Knows out and the Emergency Guide to an Awakening / Ascension ( will be out soon) Those I worked seven days a week for at least 8 hours a day the last month. It can be tough, but doing what you love, its never work. I do like to write sitting on my couch in silence but I sometimes will sit outside and write, all at my home in Phoenix AZ. But when it hits me, I always carry my table to write on when I am on the move.

What have you learned about promoting your books?

That it is tough and a lot of hard work. You don’t just write a book and kick your feet up. You have to be out there all the time, meeting people and getting it out there. You have to be tough and not let no’s get in your way. Be yourself, because your not just promoting a book, your promoting yourself, so just always being me.
What are you most proud of as a writer? This book, The Soul knows. I have written a couple other books, but for me this is my joy. Because I put things in it, that really not a lot of people knew, or only close family and friends’. It made me come to accept myself even more in just writing it. To work through things, things I didn’t want to even go back too. So it shows, if you work on you, love yourself truly at the core of who you are, anything is possible.

If you could have dinner with any writer, living or dead, who would it be and what would you talk about?

There is a lot of people, but I guess where I am now, Wayne Dyer for sure. What wouldn’t we talk about. The true meaning of joy and how it can change lives, the act of forgiveness and how it can not only help you feel better, but can actually make you healthier. Those a couple of things, but I really love his work and what he was telling everyone. I would also ask him about some tips on public speaking for sure.

About the Author

Desraye has written five books, published three books and still writing. My latest work is The Soul Knows and coming out soon is The Emergency Guide to an Awakening/Activation- Ascension Rising. Published by Light Matters Publishing an imprint of Flint Hills Publishing.

She only writes spiritual works to help others along their path. As she has gone through two deaths and was saved to come back and gone through an intense spiritual awakening.

Desraye was born with psychic intuition and have learned how to use my gifts to help others. Of course she is always learning and growing too. She posts on her website about energies, healing, helping, spirits and more to help others. She is an energy healer.

She is an artist and had some of her paintings in the downtown Phoenix area and in a high-rise building. Soon to be in a gallery in Phoenix.

Desraye is from the mid-west area of the U.S. but call Phoenix, AZ home for the last nine years. If she is not writing or painting you can find me outdoors. Hiking, walking or just being out in it. Inner joy is the key to everything. Just know you are much more than you think you are.

https://twitter.com/DesrayeHalon
http://desrayehalon.weebly.com/
Kindle: http://amzn.to/2eM1KgD
Paperback: http://amzn.to/2f9Q6uk

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Interview with author Vickie King

12/13/2016

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Tell us about your genre.

The historical western romance, like all romances, are character driven, and the story centers on the development of that romance. The hero is a compassionate man, although he may not show that up front. He has a strong sense of justice and what is good, and he is fiercely loyal. The heroine is a strong-willed woman, but she also a product of the time period and must learn to survive in an era that is clearly a man's world.

How did you come to choose it?

Why does it appeal to you? For me, these two questions are connected. I've always loved reading about that time period and how people lived and survived back then. I love finding out those details of history that can enrich a story in some way. I also watched reruns of Gunsmoke, The Rifleman, and other old shows and movies with my husband who loved westerns.

What do you find most challenging about the writing process, and how do you deal with it?

Getting too absorbed in research. I love reading about history, and I have to limit my research time, or I won't get any writing done. LOL.

When and where do you do your writing?

I used to have a home office, but when my grandkids came along, we turned it into a playroom. I have a desk in my bedroom, and it works well for me. I like writing in the early morning or late evening.

What have you learned about promoting your books?

I'm still learning. Book Blitz is a great idea. I love it when an author can sum up your stories in a tag line. I have an author friend, Dolores Wilson, whose line for her books is Southern Stories with Heart. Mine is Heart-fluttering Romance, and I have a butterfly logo. There is a story behind the butterfly, and it's on my blog if anyone would like to read it. Vickielking.blogspot.com

What are you most proud of as a writer?

That my family has always been so supportive of my writing endeavors.

If you could have dinner with any writer, living or dead, who would it be and what would you talk about?

Jean Stratton Porter. My favorite book is A Girl of the Limberlost by Jean Stratton Porter that I read when I was about fifteen years old. I think we would talk about all aspects of writing. Even though she wrote the book in the 1920's, I still found it easy to identify with the main character who was a young girl.

About the Author

Vickie King’s new book takes her writing back to her first love: historical Western. She’s happy to present ETHAN'S HEART, the book of her own heart and the first in her new Historical Western Series, The Blackwood Brothers. She is also author of the contemporary romance series, The Braddocks. Book One, Carly’s Rule, and Book Two, Dusty’s Fate, are available in paperback and ebook.

Vickie is from a small town in West Virginia. She transplanted to Florida in 1994, and while she loves living in the sunshine state, now and then she misses watching the seasons go through their changes. If she closes her eyes, she can still imagine herself standing on the deck of her family home, staring out over the hills and valleys that will always be a part of her.

Vickie is previously published in short fiction with both romance and mystery for Woman’s World Magazine. She is a member of Romance Writers of America (RWA) and a local chapter, Ancient City Romance Authors (ACRA), where she is a past president.

Vickie has four grown children, five grandchildren, and a Chihuahua named Bentley. She has the best family and friends anyone could have. Her blog, Heartstrings, features interviews with authors as well as other publishing industry professionals.

On Facebook: http://bit.ly/2e08Nk6

http://vickielking.blogspot.com/

On Amazon: http://amzn.to/2giOxM

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Author

Freda Hansburg is a psychologist and co-author of two
self-help books, PeopleSmart - which has sold more than 75,000 copies and has been translated into ten languages - and
Working PeopleSmart,
as well as numerous professional publications. Her first novel Shrink Rapt,
is a psychological thriller with a dash of romance. She lives in the South Carolina Low Country.

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