Yes! It's raining book giveaways!

Hop on over to Writer Musings for Tabitha Olson's December Book Giveaway! Her YA novel Royal Rose is currently on submission with publishers. Celebrate the season with her, and enter to win!





Not only can you win two books by Barrie Summy, three great piles of books are up for grabs.


"Pile #1:
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins - ARC
The Demon's Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan
The Midnight Charter by David Whitley - ARC
Brisingr by Christopher Paolini
The Alchemist by Michael Scott
The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart

Pile #2:
Liar by Justine Larbalestier - ARC
The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams - ARC
Sold by Patricia McCormick
Ash by Malinda Lo - ARC
Flash Burnout by L.K. Madigan - ARC
How To Steal A Car by Pete Hautman - ARC
Escape Under the Forever Sky by Eve Yohalem

Pile #3:
Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl - ARC
Fallen by Lauren Kate - ARC
My Big Nose And Other Natural Disasters by Sydney Salter - ARC
Demon Princess: Reign or Shine by Michelle Rowan - ARC
Three Witches by Paula Jolin - ARC
How To Be Popular by Meg Cabot
Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer"

Good luck, everyone!

Great Book Giveaways! Who Loves You, Baby? ;)

Nothing I like better than book giveaways. Today I've got two to satisfy your contest cravings, YA Highway, and The Enchanted Inkpot. Let's start the weekend with a bang!

In honor of their blog reaching over 100 followers, YA Highway will be awarding books to TWO lucky (U.S.) followers:

How to enter: YOU MUST BE A FOLLOWER TO ENTER AND WIN! We're all about celebrating our followers this time around. And, we're only able to ship to our US followers right now (so, so, so, so sorry, but we're working on getting you a prize, too, our wonderful internationals).

You automatically get one point by commenting [on the YA HIGHWAY blog]. Here's the point structure to earn even more chances to win:

+3 if you are a DEVOTED follower (follower before this post)

+1 if you are a NEW follower (follower after this post)

+1 for tweeting about this contest

+2 for blogging about this contest on your own blog

Tally up your points and post them along with your comment below. Contest ends THURSDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2009, so get crackin'!

Stop by their blog to enter to win the books shown above and other great prizes.

<><><><><><><>

Then there's The Enchanted Inkpot.
If you're a U.S. or Canada resident, check out the livejournal group, The Enchanted Inkpot, to enter their amazing contest before December 9th. You could win one of three book gift baskets. There are two ways to win, just read the contest rules below--

There will be a grand prize winner and 2 runner ups. Winners will be based on the following criteria:

1. The Grand Prize winner will have first pick and choose one of the book gift baskets AND will also win a $25 gift card to Powell’s Books AND a copy of ICE by Sarah Beth Durst. The winner will be chosen based on who provides the most online promotion points for our contest, via blog, facebook, twitter, etc. One point is awarded for the type of promotion and the number of times such promotion is provided. For example, a person who tweets and blogs about it for all 14 days of the contest will earn 28 points. Honor system is in place so you will be required to tally up your points yourself and we’ll check’em. YOU MUST COMMENT ONLY ON THIS ORIGINAL CONTEST POST IN ORDER TO QUALIFY.

2. Second runner up will choose from the remaining 2 baskets. The winner will be the person who comes in second with the most online promotion points.

3. Third runner up will win the last remaining book gift basket and will be chosen from a lottery. Anyone can enter the third prize drawing. All you have to do is answer one of the following questions. What MG/YA fantasy would you like to read over the holiday break? What fantasy book most reminds you of the Holiday or New Year season?

Contest ends on December 9th, 2009. And our apologies, but due to the large size of the prizes, the contest is only open to US and Canadian residents. Don’t forget, all contest entries are accepted only in the comments section of this contest post. Comment as much as you like and help spread the word!

Check out their livejournal to enter to win the books shown above and other great prizes!

Good luck everyone! And happy reading this holiday season!

Honest Scrap-- Hey, That's Me!

Recently received the much coveted "Honest Scrap" award from Shannon Messenger at Ramblings of a Wannabe Scribe! Thanks so much, Shannon!

And in the time I dawdled, sweating over picking such worthy nominees, I was also given the award by the best cake decorator I know, Karen Denise at I'm Always Write. I really appreciate you thinking of me! Thanks you!

In order to truly earn my award, I must divulge ten things about myself. I'm going to do 11, since I received the award twice, so here we go--

1. At Thanksgiving I like to mix everything together on my plate and liberally drown it in cranberry sauce. Mmm. Thanksgiving mush. It's awesome, but I'm a food mixer to begin with. Always have been.

2. I'm not sure how much longer I'll be able to do it since I'm thirty, but I can touch my elbows together behind my back. Step right up, folks! The 9:30 show is completely different from the 7:30 show. Just a dollar a ticket!

3. Sometimes I wish I was born a century ago, and then I remember how much I like vaccines and showering. And elastic. And the internet.

4. I hate olives. All kinds. I even try them repeatedly because everyone loves olives and my husband will come home from work with a tray of them and tell me that I'll like these olives because they're real and expensive and didn't come out of a can. But I still can't eat a whole olive. Don't ask me to eat anything puttanesca, either, because I can't do it. It's my shameful secret and what keeps me from thinking of myself as a gourmand. I'm just a foodie.

5. I just watched "Up", and I didn't really like it as much as I thought I would. Too many talking dogs made it a bit too silly for me. I'll stick to "The Incredibles" for my Pixar fix.

6. I've read "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies", but not "Pride and Prejudice" without zombies.

7. I hate football and dislike most other team sports in general. I'd rather go to a game than watch one on television. Except curling, which I could watch on the t.v. for hours-- it's too cold to watch in real life.

8. My favorite junk food is Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and Zapp's Crawtators potato chips.

9. One movie I could watch a thousand times is "Spirited Away." When I was younger it was "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" and when I was really little it was "The Last Unicorn". Guess I like Miyazaki, huh?. Terry Gilliam's not too bad either-- though you can watch "Tideland" at your own risk.

10. I love to sing showtunes when no one is listening. And sometimes when people are listening.

11. Finally, I can no longer eat turtle soup. I have a pet musk turtle and I just can't do it. Somehow I couldn't care less about the politics of veal and foie gras, but I think it's horrible to eat turtle. Especially since two species of turtle were wiped out to make turtlesoup in the 19th and early 20th ceturies. Say no to turtle soup! Who wants to eat green meat, anyway?

Now for the moment you've all been waiting for--

For putting so much of themselves into their blogs, I decided to give this award to:

1. Renee at Midnight Meditations
2. Carrie at Things That Make Me Snarf
3. Tamika at The Write Worship
4. Annie "Paranormalchick" at YA Book Reviews
5. Weronika at Weronika Junczuk
6. Anissa at Off the Record
7. B.J. Anderson at Hope Springs Eternal
8. Delayne T. Buranek at An Aspiring Writer's Blog
9. Jade at Jade Hears Voices
10. Liana at Liana Brooks

You deserve it!

Tu Publishing-- YA and Children's Books in Today's Multicultural World

On Monday, Heather Zundel of The Secret Adventures of Writer Girl, posted about Tu Publishing. Heather has a contest going right now, so check it out, and spread goodwill.

The mission of Tu Publishing is simple and one that's close to my heart-- to broaden the scope of the genres of science fiction and fantasy, genres that have long ignored ethnic and cultural diversity even in imagined worlds. They even go so far as to recommend multicultural fantasy and sci-fi books on their site. I've copied their mission statement below:

"Fantasy and science fiction, mystery and historical fiction–these genres draw in readers like no other. Yet it is in these genres that readers of color might feel most like an outsider, given that such a large percentage features white characters (when they feature human characters). It is the goal of Tu Publishing to publish genre books for children and young adults that fills this gap in the market–and more importantly, this gap in serving our readers. By focusing on multicultural settings and characters in fantastic stories, we also open up worlds to all readers.

The word “tu” means “you” in many languages, and in Ainu (the language of Japan’s native people), it means “many.” Tu Publishing is dedicated to publishing fantasy, science fiction, mystery, and historical fiction for children and young adults inspired by many cultures from around the world, to reach the “you” in each reader.

Kids who love to read do better in school. One way to encourage that love of reading is to provide stories that readers can identify with. By increasing the number of books that feature multicultural characters and settings, we can influence the multicultural world of tomorrow.

Books can be both a mirror and a window to other worlds for readers. Tu Publishing hopes that by publishing books that feature multicultural characters and settings and books with worlds inspired by all the many non-Western cultures in the world, we might shine a mirror on you and open a window to many."

They hope to be open to submissions (unagented as well as agented? That's the way it sounds so far) in January, so you have only a month to spruce up that manuscript. The catch is, they are currently fund-raising in order to be able to do so. They hope to meet their goal of $10,000 by mid-month, so they need your help.

If you can contribute anything (I just donated $5), click over to this Tu Publishing post to find out how. It's safe and easy to donate, especially if you already have an amazon account, and who doesn't these days? I already had a card on file with amazon, so the whole experience was extremely painless. I wish I would have heard of this publishing house sooner-- I would have been plugging them this whole time.

On a personal note, I'm not sure who I would have grown up to be if not for my love of science fiction and fantasy. But I'm not sure if I would have liked fantasy and sci-fi if no one in the stories looked like me... I do know that I enjoyed reading about other cultures from a very young age, but I'm sure I would have been discouraged if all I had to read were books about some other culture, not my own. If I'd grown up being told that my race doesn't buy books, so why should publishers waste time and money catering to me? If I'd never had the pleasure of reading about a character who was like me. I can imagine I'd probably swear off reading for good, since I was a stubborn child.

But this was not the case for this little white girl who was a tad weird and friendless, luckily. I found in books all the friends I needed. If I hadn't had my books, and they hadn't been so very special to me, I'm not sure if I would be here today, blogging and writing for your reading pleasure. And I certainly wouldn't be the person that books have helped me metamorphose into. If I hadn't seen "myself" in books, I'm not sure that love would have had such a lasting affect on me.

I hope that this perspective might convince even one person to donate $5 to Tu Publishing this week. If we all donated $5, that would go a long way to help Tu Publishing meet their goal.
Thanks for listening, y'all! And have a safe and happy holiday season.

The Dreaded Synopsis-- The Most Underutilized Tool in the Box

So I've got the complete rewrite of EVANGELINE finished and I'm ready and raring to go on my second draft of Mara's story. First thing I'm going to do is write a synopsis.

I can hear the groans through cyberspace now. (And apparently time, too, since none of you have read this as I'm still writing it, but I'm just cool like dat.)

Why write a synopsis now, you say, before the final draft? Things might change, you say.

Bingo!

At this stage I use the synopsis to remind myself of the plot without actually having to read the story again. This helps keep me from packing extraneous information into the synopsis. There might be some details I've forgotten, but that's for the best. It's probably minor subplot, which has no place in my short synopsis. It also helps me keep the story a little fresher in my mind for once I actually start reading through and line editing.

As I write the synopsis, a scrawling, scribbled-out, longhand mess at first, the story slowly becomes clear in my mind. And, if I find I do want to change something, the synopsis is the best place to plan such revisions, especially if they lead to other major changes down the road.

Without actually making any changes to your manuscript, you can use the synopsis and save a lot of time in the long run if you are already thinking of making major changes to the plot. Usually once I have the plot the way I like it, my short synopsis is finished. Even after all my revisions to EVANGELINE, the synopsis I made after the first draft was finished still applies. I made changes in style and hopefully refined the narrative and dialogue, and I even added and deleted some minor subplots, but none of those changes affected the major plot arc.

Since wriitng a one page synopsis is the most difficult for me, that's the length I eventually strive for, but when I first start the process, it's more like three pages. Whatever length works for you is fine, but I think over five pages means you might be focusing a bit too much on subplots. In this case, you should ask yourself why that is. Should one of the minor subplots become a more major one?

The other great thing about crafting a synopsis before you read the story again is that you're still so excited about your novel. The story still feels alive and new and full of potential. The synopsis is all about potential, about seeking it out and playing around with possiblities.

Why not make your synopsis work for you instead of slaving over it? Especially when you are on the verge of querying, trying to craft a query letter at the same time and having the query sound too much like a synopsis.

I'm really looking forward to working on my second draft, but before I dive in head first, I want to be prepared, armed to the teeth and writing with a purpose.

The synopsis is an indispensible tool. Make it work for you!

Don't Take it Personally...

This morning, literary agent Rachelle Gardner posted a must-read article for those querying writers who are getting fed up with agent responses-- or lack thereof-- to their work. It basically boiled down to this:

"Vent about your frustrations, but please, please, please: Refrain from making every complaint a criticism of agents."

At the risk of branding myself a suck-up or worse, I believe Gardner when she explains just how busy the average literary agent is. Query letters alone must take up an inordinate amount of time for what amounts to a fairly thankless head-ache of a task-- something I think we can all agree on.

But if literary agents really didn't care, there wouldn't be so many of them blogging about their experiences, and about what makes them keep reading a query letter or a submission. Agent blogs are my lighthouse, the flame that guides me through the querying process. The operative word being "guide"-- I take their word as guidelines, not Gospel, and it has helped me to craft my queries to where I have about a 20% success rate. Can't argue with results. And I get most of my information about what's happening in the publishing industry from agent blogs, too.

Just in case you've missed a few, here's a short list of agents who blog, which is by no means exhaustive, but these are the ones I check the most regularly.

Kristen Nelson of Nelson Literary Agency
Nathan Bransford of Curtis Brown
Jessica Faust of BookEnds, LLC
Jennifer Jackson of Jennifer Jackson Literary Agency
Jenny Bent of The Bent Agency
Janet Reid of Fine Print Literary
Kate Shafer-Testerman of KT Literary
Jenny Rappaport
Jill Corcoran

There's also a Blog Roll here on the Agent Query website, which is another invaluable resource for learning about a particular agent's likes and dislikes. After all, if you send off your query and a writing sample, and things go well, you could be in a serious relationship with this person for some time. Isn't it worth getting to know them a little before hand?

But just remember-- if they choose not to begin that relationship with you, it's not personal.

So perhaps as a gift to them, we could be a little gentler on literary agents this holiday season. That means no querying NaNo novels in December, folks! ;) And even if you've had a bad experience with a particular agent, remember they're all individuals who deserve our respect.

Happy Holidays, Literary Agents!

Two Teaser Tuesday!

Hey, y'all! This morning I wanted to start with a recipe since so many people said they loved the food in New Orleans. We really are all about food here, which is the reason I know I can never move away. Also, when coworkers see you at a food festival with a beer in one hand and two cannoli in the other, they don't find anything strange about the situation. They just ask where you got the cannoli.

So in the spirit of Thanksgiving, and cooking for your loved ones, I'd like to share a recipe for callas. Leftover white rice from take-out? Don't throw it away, make calas!

What are calas, you ask? These hot, sugary fritters in the photo are from Elizabeth's, one of my favorite brunch places. I ALWAYS get the calas.

Diana Rattray, an avid home cook and recipe collector living in Mississippi, explains that calas are:

a breakfast fritter mixed with cooked rice, flour, sugar, and spices, and then deep-fried. According to "The Dictionary of American Food & Drink," the word Calas was first printed in 1880, and comes from one or more African languages, such as the Nupe word kárá, or "fried cake." African American street vendors sold the fresh hot calas in the city's French Quarter, with the familiar cry, "Calas, belles, calas tout chauds!"

Here's a recipe from Nola Cusine. Read the instructions carefully-- the dough needs to rest overnight.

1/2 Cup warm water
1 Tbsp Granulated Sugar
1 pkg Active Dry Yeast
3/4 Cup Cooked White Rice
2 Large Eggs, beaten slightly
3/4 Cup All Purpose Flour
1 pinch Kosher salt
1/4 tsp Vanilla Extract
1/8 tsp freshly grated Nutmeg
Peanut Oil for frying
Powdered Sugar for a heavy dusting

The day before you want to make your Calas, combine the water and sugar in a small bowl. Add the yeast and let stand until foamy, about 10 minutes. Add the rice and stir well. Cover with plastic wrap and leave at room temperature overnight. This step will really give your Calas a distinctive flavor; think sourdough.

The next day, stir the rice mixture and kind of mash the rice against the side of the bowl with a wooden spoon. Don’t go too crazy though, I like to have a bit of that rice texture in the finished product.

Add the remaining ingredients to the rice mixture, mix well with a wooden spoon. The mixture should be a fairly loose batter, a little thicker than pancake batter. Cover and let rise in a warm place for 1 hour. This step will make your Calas as light as air when fried!

Heat 3 inches of peanut oil in a large saucepan to 365 degrees. Drop spoonfuls of the Calas batter into the hot oil. Fry until golden brown, turning once. Serve with lots and lots of powdered sugar, like Beignets, or drizzle with Cane Syrup. Recipe makes about 6 good sized Calas.

Hope you enjoy the recipe, and keep reading for a teaser from EVANGELINE!