Book of the Week: The Freshman Survival Guide, Nora Bradbury-Haehl and Bill McGarvey
The only guide to focus not just on academics, but also on the emotional, psychological and spiritual issues facing freshman as they make the transition from high school to college, from the editors of the popular website, Busted Halo.This is one college guidebook that freshman won’t be ashamed to read and keep in their […]
Read of the Week: TRAIL OF THE DEAD, Melissa F. Olson
As a null, Scarlett Bernard possesses a rare ability to counteract the supernatural by instantly neutralizing spells and magical forces. For years she has used her gift to scrub crime scenes of any magical traces, helping the powerful paranormal communities of Los Angeles stay hidden. But after LAPD detective Jesse Cruz discovered Scarlett’s secret, he […]
Story Telling vs. Story Trapping, by Jennifer Lynn Alvarez
The process of writing the first draft of book one of The Guardian Herd Series was magical for me. The story leapt from my head, fully formed, like Venus. There is something sacred about that, right? You don’t mess with a story straight from the muse, do you? I thought you didn’t. I thought a […]
Chef Holly Herrick’s Latest: The French Cook–Sauces
Charleston-based Holly Herrick is a Cordon Blue-trained chef. Here she discusses how cookbooks are her “children” (although she does have a dog). Her latest, first in a series of French cookbooks from Gibbs Smith, takes her back to her days in France where she learned to be a chef. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NvoNKUTfFns Holly is hard at work […]
Read of the Week: COUNTDOWN CITY, Ben H. Winters
The Last Policeman received the 2013 Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original–along with plenty of glowing reviews. Now Detective Hank Palace returns in Countdown City, the second volume of the Last Policeman trilogy. There are just 77 days before a deadly asteroid collides with Earth, and Detective Palace is out of a job. With the Concord police force operating under […]
Do Your Homework to Land a Literary Agent
It never ceases to amaze me by 99% of the unsolicited queries we receive at the agency are doomed. Why? Because in so many cases, the writer clearly did not check our agency website and submission guidelines. And I’m assuming that if they are querying multiple literary agents (which, by the way, is OK), this […]
Read of the Week: SUMMER SHIFT, Lynn Bonasia
Beach read pick for Woman’s Day and the New York Post Forty-four-year-old Cape Cod clam bar owner Mary Hopkins is stuck in the cycle of her seasonal business; overwhelmed by the relentless influx of new names and fresh young faces, she feels as if life is passing her by. In the first days of the […]
Guest Post from Debut YA Novelist L. Tam Holland
We invited Lindsay Tam Holland, author of The Counterfeit Family Tree of Vee Crawford-Wong, (July 2013 publication, Simon & Schuster)to share what inspired her first novel. Please also check out her website, www.lindsaytamholland.com. “I grew up in Hawaii, a white kid in a predominantly Asian community. Most of my friends through high school were of mixed […]
Sequel to Ashley Rhodes-Courter’s THREE LITTLE WORDS sold!
I first met Ashley Rhodes-Courter when she was 16. I represented her adoptive mother, Gay Courter, a wonderful commercial novelist, and nonfiction writer. Ashley had just won a contest sponsored by Scholastic for an essay on “What Harry Potter Means to Me.” As a child, Ashley had been in and out of foster homes from […]
A DIFFERENT SUN Book Club
Debut novelist Elaine Neil Orr has been very busy promoting her gorgeous novel about a missionary in the pre-Civil War South who goes to Africa. Inspired by the diary of an actual missionary, A DIFFERENT SUN has been getting rave reviews. Elaine, who teaches literature at North Carolina State University, sent in this wonderful photo […]