Quantcast

Mailbox Monday #482

June 4, 2018 by

Mailbox Monday has become a tradition in the blogging world, and many of us thank Marcia of The Printed Page for creating it.

It now has it’s own blog where book bloggers can link up their own mailbox posts and share which books they bought or which they received for review from publishers, authors, and more.

Leslie, Martha, and I also will share our picks from everyone’s links in the new feature Books that Caught Our Eye. We hope you’ll join us.

Here’s what I received this week:

Elizabeth by Christie Capps, which I won from Diary of an Eccentric.

He could have anything he wanted…except her.

Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy finds himself in the unusual position of chasing a woman rather than being chased.
Miss Elizabeth Bennet is exasperated as Mr. Darcy, the rudest man of her acquaintance, is being nice—to her! How can she continue to despise a man who apologizes so well?

Based on Jane Austen’s classic novel, Pride & Prejudice, Mr. Darcy’s arrogance and pride are equally matched by Miss Elizabeth’s prejudice. In this fast-paced novella set in Regency England, can they both overcome strongly entrenched personalities to discover peace and happiness? Of course, they can. This is Mr. Darcy and his Elizabeth, he hopes.

Lost & Found by Christie Capps, which was a bonus win from Diary of an Eccentric.

Miss Elizabeth Bennet is missing—vanishing without a trace from the library at Rosings Park.

Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy feels duty-bound to find the most frustrating young lady of his acquaintance. He is Elizabeth’s sworn enemy. Yet, when he comes to her rescue, she is forced to rethink her opinion.

Trapped together for hours, each layer of their character is revealed until their masks are gone, and their worst fears are shared. Will Mr. Darcy’s arrogant pride keep him from finding tender affection and happiness? Will her prejudice withstand trials so a man worthy of her affection will not be lost?

In this sweet, angst-filled Regency variation of Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice, our dear couple overcome all odds to find a love for the ages…or do they?

What did you receive?

Filed Under: mailbox monday, meme Tagged With: , ,

PR for Poets: A Guidebook to Publicity and Marketing by Jeannine Hall Gailey

May 31, 2018 by

Source: Purchased
Paperback, 228 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

PR for Poets: A Guidebook to Publicity and Marketing by Jeannine Hall Gailey is a comprehensive resource for poets who want to gain a wider audience for their work. For novice marketers, Gailey includes in each chapter an overview of marketing terms and set of action items that poets can tackle within an hour to get themselves started.  What’s beautiful about this book is how well various aspects of marketing are explained from the platform to website to social media interaction.

It’s clear that she’s taken her experience marketing her five poetry collections to create this guide, which poets who have a website or don’t can use to market their art. Overall, much of poetry marketing begins with community. Creating a community online, creating a community in your neighborhood or city, and giving back to those communities through helping other poets with reviews, sharing their books, and even smaller things.

I cannot wait to start putting PR for Poets: A Guidebook to Publicity and Marketing by Jeannine Hall Gailey into action when my manuscript is done and publishable. There are some really challenging parts for me in this book, particularly reaching out to libraries and others to promote my future book.

RATING: Cinquain

About the Author:

Jeannine Hall Gailey served as the second Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington. She is the author of five books of poetry: Becoming the Villainess, She Returns to the Floating World, Unexplained Fevers, The Robot Scientist’s Daughter and, Field Guide to the End of the World, the winner of the Moon City Press Book Award and the SFPA’s Elgin Award. She also wrote a non-fiction book called PR for Poets to help poets trying to promote their books. Her poems have been featured on NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac and on Verse Daily; two were included in 2007’s The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. She was awarded a 2007 and 2011 Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Prize for Poetry and a 2007 Washington State Artist Trust GAP grant. Her poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, The Iowa Review, and Prairie Schooner.

Filed Under: challenges, nonfiction, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, Read in 2018, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Curious Iguana Event Recap: Sweta Vikram, author of Louisiana Catch

May 30, 2018 by

Over the Memorial Day weekend, Sweta Vikram came to Frederick, Md., to the Curious Iguana bookstore to have a conversation about not only women’s rights and her book, Louisiana Catch, but also about the dangers of social media and human rights.

And, yes, before you ask: I did bring every Sweta Vikram book I own to get signed, since I haven’t seen her in person in so long! She had to sign my books.  I hope I didn’t give her hand a cramp.

Also, since I help establish her blog tour through Poetic Book Tours for her debut U.S. novel, I was happy to provide a Live Facebook Feed for part of the event. Please click and watch the beginning of the event. She’ll make you laugh.

Please also view these two videos from the Q&A and reading portions of the event.

It was a small room and full of people that Sweta, also the owner of NimmiLife, knew and some that those people had brought along with them, including my daughter who did not want to miss the “Poet lady.” Yes, that’s how she refers to Sweta. I never saw her put on her shoes so fast to go to a reading before; it was quite a sight.

The event had it all: discussions of marital rape, surviving sexual assault, women’s rights, the differences between writing poems and writing fiction, and of course the question everyone wants to know — was Rohan Brady based on Bradley Cooper?

Sweta Vikram will be back in the D.C. area in September, and I hope those who couldn’t make it up to Maryland, will see her when she’s in town again.

Filed Under: announcements, Events Tagged With: , , , , ,

Punishment by Nancy Miller Gomez

May 29, 2018 by

Source: Purchased
Paperback, 28 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Punishment by Nancy Miller Gomez is an eye-opening chapbook of poems and essays about what punishment actually is — beyond the concrete walls and bars on the windows and doors. This is a chapbook that packs a serious punch in the gut from the title poem, “Punishment” to the essays on how poetry not only taught the prisoners how to see beyond their four walls but the poet how to see things and people differently.

From "Punishment" (pg. 7)

The men tossed entire libraries. A rage of books.
Lobbed in high arcs like footballs,
or pitched overhand like grenades.

When caged like an animal and treated inhumanely how would you react if you did not have a blanket and the prison was unbearably cold? Would you have an ability to make a reasonable argument with the prison staff, or would you resort to the basest of reactions? Would you give up that which is most precious to you, like a family bible with calming words or a photo album that comforts you in darkness when your family cannot be near? Readers are asked to think about these questions and to see beyond the crimes and the violence of these men to see the humans broken here.

Gomez deftly places readers inside the prison with her students who still tentatively work on poems and show small kindnesses to one another even as they know once outside the classroom they must return to their “hard” selves — no longer showing emotion or kindness. Even though she is given permission to teach poetry to the prisoners, the staff make not effort to welcome her, but in fact remind her in the least subtle of ways that she is under their control and direction and that her freedoms are left outside.

From "Echo" (pg. 15)

by rain and wind. Absence
expands inside him like smoke.

Punishment by Nancy Miller Gomez is an exploration of how poetry and words can provide hope and satisfaction to those who have none. It can help them explore what is good without compromising their prison personas. Gomez is asking the reader to see these men as human beings — men with hopes, deep losses, and so much more.

RATING: Quatrain

About the Poet:

Nancy Miller Gomez grew up in Kansas but currently lives in Santa Cruz, California. Her work has appeared in River Styx, Rattle, Bellingham Review, Nimrod, and elsewhere. She has a Masters in Fine Arts in Writing from Pacific University. She has worked as a stable hand, an attorney, and a TV producer, and volunteers as the director of the Santa Cruz Poetry Project, an organization that provides poetry and writing workshops to incarcerated men and women. For more information on the Santa Cruz Poetry Project, visit their website.

Filed Under: challenges, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, purchased, Read in 2018, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Mailbox Monday #481

May 28, 2018 by

Mailbox Monday has become a tradition in the blogging world, and many of us thank Marcia of The Printed Page for creating it.

It now has it’s own blog where book bloggers can link up their own mailbox posts and share which books they bought or which they received for review from publishers, authors, and more.

Leslie, Martha, and I also will share our picks from everyone’s links in the new feature Books that Caught Our Eye. We hope you’ll join us.

Here’s what I received this week:

What Should Be Wild by Julia Fine, who I heard speak about the book at Gaithersburg Book Festival.

Cursed. Maisie Cothay has never known the feel of human flesh: born with the power to kill or resurrect at her slightest touch, she has spent her childhood sequestered in her family’s manor at the edge of a mysterious forest. Maisie’s father, an anthropologist who sees her as more experiment than daughter, has warned Maisie not to venture into the wood. Locals talk of men disappearing within, emerging with addled minds and strange stories. What he does not tell Maisie is that for over a millennium her female ancestors have also vanished into the wood, never to emerge—for she is descended from a long line of cursed women.

But one day Maisie’s father disappears, and Maisie must venture beyond the walls of her carefully constructed life to find him. Away from her home and the wood for the very first time, she encounters a strange world filled with wonder and deception. Yet the farther she strays, the more the wood calls her home. For only there can Maisie finally reckon with her power and come to understand the wildest parts of herself.

Poe: Stories and Poems: A Graphic Novel by Gareth Hind, who was at the same book festival.

It is true that I am nervous. But why will you say that I am mad?

In “The Cask of Amontillado,” a man exacts revenge on a disloyal friend at carnival, luring him into catacombs below the city. In “The Masque of the Red Death,” a prince shielding himself from plague hosts a doomed party inside his abbey stronghold. A prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition, faced with a swinging blade and swarming rats, can’t see his tormentors in “The Pit and the Pendulum,” and in “The Tell-Tale Heart,” a milky eye and a deafening heartbeat reveal the effects of conscience and creeping madness. Alongside these tales are visual interpretations of three poems — “The Raven,” “The Bells,” and Poe’s poignant elegy to lost love, “Annabel Lee.” The seven concise graphic narratives, keyed to thematic icons, amplify and honor the timeless legacy of a master of gothic horror.

Punishment by Nancy Miller Gomez, which I received from Rattle magazine.

Nancy Miller Gomez entered Salinas Valley State Prison with a backpack of poems and a fear of being caught in a lockdown. What she discovered was compassion and human connection. The poems and essays in this collection, Gomez’s first, were inspired by her experience teaching writing workshops in jails and prisons. Punishment explores the stories of people serving time in the criminal justice system. It demonstrates the ways creative expression can mend emotional wounds, bridge differences, and reconnect us to our humanity. Punishment is a moving tribute to the redemptive power of poetry.

Freedom City by Philip Becnel, which my dad who never reads bought at the book festival.

After President Trump unceremoniously dies from natural causes, four misfits from Washington, D.C. who call themselves the Fearless Vampire Killers sever the heads of Confederate statues and wage a comedic guerrilla war on post-Trump America. When President Pence enlists droves of fascist volunteers to crush the “alt-left” uprising, the rebels must risk their lives to run the fascists out of D.C.

What follows is not only a battle for survival—but a desperate search for remnants of what once made America great.

Chrysalis: Collected Poems of Joe LoBell by Joe Lobell, which was free on lulu.com.

A collection of thirty-nine poems spanning 1986 through 2016. PRAISE FOR THE POETRY AND PERFORMANCE OF JOE LOBELL: “Lobell is a true original and turns a mean phrase…. His work casts a spell like Lou Reed’s early work or the early readings of Jim Carroll or Patti Smith.” — THE HERALD “With a hipster’s cool detachment Joe Lobell prowls through the mean streets underbelly of New York City speaking words as vivid as a flashing neon light.” —DOWNTOWN EXPRESS “This stuff is excellent.” —ERIC BOGOSIAN “Lobell’s readings contain some of the elements present in the celebrated Beat Generation jazz renderings…. His recitations lock into the rhythms of free-flow rock music and fasten on gritty situations from storytellers loom.” —DAILY FREEMAN

What did you receive?

Filed Under: mailbox monday, meme Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Chrysalis: Collected Poems of Joe Lobell by Joe Lobell

May 24, 2018 by

Source: Free on Lulu.com
Ebook, 139 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Chrysalis: Collected Poems of Joe Lobell by Joe Lobell is a collection of poems that span about 20 years, beginning in 1986. Through careful, detached observance, the narrator of each poem takes an unfettered look at humanity — it’s fruitless hopes and desires and the inevitability of death.

From "City Opus" (pg. 47)

The buildings are like dead gods, and where a
god lies dead, no one speaks, but shadows of
shadows, dreams of dreams commiserate.

Many of these poems read like stories, dark tales of harm and sadness. The beautiful daughter, the well-liked cop, the mountain climber, the lunberjack — no one is immune to the darkness of life. There is a distinct New York city atmosphere to many of the grittier poems, like “Vision of God” about the struggle with addiction and the need for the next fix.

Chrysalis: Collected Poems of Joe Lobell by Joe Lobell is not a collection for those looking to escape the dark city streets. It’s a reflection of reality amped up on its drug of choice — cold hard reality.

RATING: Quatrain

About the Poet:

Poet, Playwright, Performer; multiple appearances at the Nuyorican Café including the Proofrock Festival, Knitting Factory and numerous other venues. As a performer combines Urban Poetry with rock jazz and performance. Collaborated with Jazz Musician, Conductor Composer, Butch Morris on Musical Theatre Play “Fire” produced by the Medicine Show Theatre.  Composed Poetry Radio Play “Times Square” in Collaboration with Jazz Composer and Band Leader Joe Gallant which was performed live on WBAI.  Also appeared in numerous venues with Joe Gallant and Illuminati and the Body Electric Fusion Jazz Band.  Collaborated with Blues Musician Popa Chubby on Poetry Play “City Opus” produced at Medicine Show as well as producing “City Opus” Blues Rock Poetry CD Popa Chubby. Numerous individual readings in NYC, Woodstock, and NY State venues.

Filed Under: challenges, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, purchased, Read in 2018, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Prada & Prejudice by Mandy Hubbard

May 23, 2018 by

Source: Purchased
Paperback, 286 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Prada & Prejudice by Mandy Hubbard mixes a modern day teenage story of geeky Callie Montgomery with a loosely based historical fiction of Pride & Prejudice involving England’s peerage. In the time travel piece of the story, readers will have to suspend disbelief, forego an explanation, and go with the flow. But for summer reading, this book as the romance, comedy, and social angst readers look for.

“Sometimes I feel more alone when I’m surrounded by my classmates than I do when I’m actually by myself.” (pg. 3)

Callie finds herself in England on a school trip, but in her efforts to impress the popular girls in her class so they invite her out and she doesn’t have to spend another day and night alone in her room — chaperones say they must travel in pairs — her clumsiness pegs her as an outsider. But an epiphany strikes and she heads out to the shops where she buys red Prada heels to fit in. She’s sure the heels will have her invited to the club with the popular girls. Only trouble is she trips and knocks her head on the sidewalk before waking up in 1815.

“I have to pull it together. I can’t just lose it like that, throwing my shoes like I’m in a shot-put competition.” (pg. 53)

Hubbard’s teen protagonist is a believable girl who has issues fitting in, but placing her in 1815 makes her stand out even more, especially when she has little control over her responses to social norms of the time. This makes for some hilarious scenes, but it also could make readers notice the things out of place in 1815 a little bit more. If you’re a stickler for historic detail, this book will drive you crazy. However, if you’re just looking for a fun read, this is definitely that.

There are scenes when Callie commits several faux pas and she would be in hot water for sure, but it’s a good thing the duke she’s falling for is sweet on her. The end also wraps up quickly and in a very predictable and cinematic way. Prada & Prejudice by Mandy Hubbard is a fun and quick read for those looking for a cute fish out of water story.

RATING: Tercet

About the Author:

Mandy Hubbard is the author of PRADA & PREJUDICE, YOU WISH, and FOOL ME TWICE, as well as BUT I LOVE HIM (written under the psuedonym Amanda Grace). She lives in Enumclaw Washington, with her husband and daughter.

Filed Under: challenges, fiction, historical fiction, New Authors Challenge, purchased, Read in 2018, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Gaithersburg Book Festival 2018

May 22, 2018 by

Like every year, I plan out my time at the Gaithersburg Book Festival. I try to get in a good mix of poets, fiction writers, and children’s authors, as well as some time blocked out for eating and the children’s village of activities.

Unlike previous years, I was not moderating or volunteering, which was disappointing to me but with how hectic my daughter’s schedule has been I just had to cut something out this year. That will change for 2019.

Even as I made plans, life has a way of running us off track, which is exactly what happened this year. I missed all of the poetry and children’s authors I planned to introduce my daughter to. As my daughter was the one in rare form on Saturday, making everything difficult, including getting dressed and eating breakfast. Kids are a struggle.

It was a battle for the ages, and I set the plans aside and just let her be for more than half the day. I was in no mood for battles; I wanted fun and books.

Thankfully, as the rain burned off and the sun emerged, my daughter was in a better mood, and I didn’t have to miss Alma Katsu, author of The Hunger. Her Thrills and Chills panel with Julia Fine, author of What Should Be Wild, was all it was billed to be with a how-to on cutting up bodies, talk of Stephen King endorsements, female desire and myth rewriting and, of course, cannibalism.

Both books incorporate elements of horror and the supernatural, and both deal with some dark issues. I was thrilled to see a debut author paired with an author of four books because it often helps an audience see different perspectives on the writing and publishing processes. Fine says her book defies traditional genre descriptions, which Katsu saw as familiar given her Taker series was also a mesh of various genres. I’m looking forward to finishing The Hunger and reading What Should Be Wild.

Here’s a bit of a sidenote, my daughter was with me when I first met Alma Katsu, here’s a side by side look at the difference seven years makes:

 

 

 

 

Books and Stories by Alma Katsu:

I’d love to hear about what books and authors you discovered at the festival or a festival near you! Please share in the comments.

Filed Under: announcements Tagged With: , , , ,

Mailbox Monday #480

May 21, 2018 by

Mailbox Monday has become a tradition in the blogging world, and many of us thank Marcia of The Printed Page for creating it.

It now has it’s own blog where book bloggers can link up their own mailbox posts and share which books they bought or which they received for review from publishers, authors, and more.

Leslie, Martha, and I also will share our picks from everyone’s links in the new feature Books that Caught Our Eye. We hope you’ll join us.

Here’s what I received this week:

Pemberley: Fitzwilliam Stays at Rosings by Margaret Lynette Sharp, Kindle freebie.

His stay at Rosings has brought Fitzwilliam Darcy, Jr, a measure of both delight and anguish as he realises that not only has he become even more attached to the charming daughter of Mr Collins – Miss Emily – but also that his rival, John King, is planning a serious step in order to secure his own future with the beautiful maiden. Where do Emily’s affections really lie?

This is yet another absorbing tale in the ‘Longbourn’ series of Jane Austen fan fiction pieces by prolific Australian author Margaret Lynette Sharp

Lies That Bind Us by Andrew Hart, Kindle freebie.

Jan needs this. She’s flying to Crete to reunite with friends she met there five years ago and relive an idyllic vacation. Basking in the warmth of the sun, the azure sea, and the aura of antiquity, she can once again pretend—for a little while—that she belongs. Her ex-boyfriend Marcus will be among them, but even he doesn’t know the secrets she keeps hidden behind a veil of lies. None of them really know her, and that’s only part of the problem.

Then again, how well does she know them?

When Jan awakens in utter darkness, chained to a wall, a manacle around her wrist, her echoing screams only give her a sense of how small her cell is. As she desperately tries to reconstruct what happened and determine who is holding her prisoner, dread covers despair like a hand clamped over her mouth. Because, like the Minotaur in the labyrinth in Greek myth, her captor will be coming back for her, and all the lies will catch up to her…

Incandescent by Georgina Young-Ellis, 99 cent deal.

The Elliots are Hollywood Royalty – a family of actors going back three generations. Annie Elliot has been cast to play Elizabeth Bennet in a new movie adaptation of Pride and Prejudice that takes place during the Belle Epoque, circa 1910, with a multi-racial cast. But who will her Mr. Darcy be?

Prada & Prejudice by Mandy Hubbard, a library sale find.

To impress the popular girls on a high school trip to London, klutzy Callie buys real Prada heels. But trying them on, she trips, conks her head, and wakes up in the year 1815!

There Callie meets Emily, who takes her in, mistaking her for a long-lost friend. As she spends time with Emily’s family, Callie warms to them, particularly to Emily’s cousin Alex, a hottie and a duke, if a tad arrogant.

But can Callie save Emily from a dire engagement, and win Alex’s heart, before her time in the past is up?

More Cabot than Ibbotson, Prada and Prejudice is a high-concept romantic comedy about finding friendship and love in the past in order to have happiness in the present.

What did you receive?

*** The Gaithersburg Book Festival was over the weekend, so you’ll have to wait until next week to see what goodies I picked up. ***

Filed Under: mailbox monday, meme Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

The Minor Territories by Danielle Sellers

May 15, 2018 by

Source: Purchased
Paperback, 85 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

The Minor Territories by Danielle Sellers explores the uninhabited emotional landscapes scarred by loss and trauma. Many of us live our lives as best we can even if the past haunts us, but those memory ghosts are not the places where we live in the now and they are not the places we choose to remember. These are the places that shape us into who we are, determine our strength, and force us to reassess our own outlooks and life paths.

From "A Photo of the Euphrates" (pg. 16)

Since then, his tongue has changed
the river's story. He's killed strangers
on its shore. I imagine him lying
on the dusty floor of a marble palace
at sundown, breathing red air,
waiting for the comfort night gives.
"When Asked to Say Something Nice About My Ex-Husband" (pg. 59)

I recall his chest, how sometimes he tolerated
my head on it, strong as a door
skimming the surface of a dark ocean.

In a deeply personal collection in which she shares words from her own daughter about her absent father, Sellers explores the pain deeply, attentively until a hope emerges, whether in the comfort of the night air in a war zone or the smell of yeast while baking bread and waiting. Her images are vivid and juxtapose the emotional ups and downs of being in love with a soldier and finding them changed after war. Mourning the loss of the person they used to be and yet loving them still. Moving forward in life without them because you must to emotionally survive. Sellers’ poems are love letters filled with heartbreak, love, and so much more — forgiveness.

The Minor Territories by Danielle Sellers is a story told through poems and like all stories leaves a powerful impression in the sand, but it is one that cannot be erased by the tides of time, only partially worn down.

RATING: Cinquain

Other Reviews:

About the Poet:

Danielle Sellers is from Key West, FL. She has an MA from The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University and an MFA from the University of Mississippi where she held the John Grisham Poetry Fellowship. Her poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Subtropics, Smartish Pace, The Cimarron Review, Poet Lore, and elsewhere. Her first book, Bone Key Elegies, was published by Main Street Rag. She teaches Literature and Creative Writing at Trinity Valley School in Fort Worth, Texas.

Filed Under: challenges, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, purchased, Read in 2018, reviews Tagged With: , , ,