The Paperback!

Hello friends,
I am finally coming out of the hardcover cloud that I was in (and the moving across the country cloud, too) and just in time...

The Bird Sisters is arriving in paperback on November 22nd, with a lovely new cover! It's been chosen at a Target Emerging Authors pick, too! Here is a preview for all of you:

As always, thank you so much for your support! XOXO, Rebecca

Keep Writing, Even When It Hurts by Kathryn A. Brackett

Keep Writing, Even When It Hurts by Kathryn A. Brackett

When I was born, I was small enough to fit into an adult’s palm. My father was afraid to hold me as he peered at my premature shell, hooked to machines. I’d made my entrance into the world a month earlier than I should have. My brother, ten years old at the time, kept saying my face looked like a crumpled, red dishcloth.

My debut left quite a physical and emotional impression on my mother. She lay in a room somewhere, struggling through toxemia, a condition that caused blood pressure spikes and hazy vision that made it hard to see the baby she’d tried to hold inside her womb to full term. Doctors predicted we wouldn’t leave the hospital alive, but my mother and I did, eleven days later. She took me home, along with a long scar embedded in her skin. Her Cesarean mark carries a story to this day, a story she conveniently rebirths in her mind each time I THINK I’m too grown to listen to her, or one she shares with me when I feel like crawling into the ground after a large disappointment has beaten me nearly unconscious. As the baby of the family, you can imagine how many times I’ve heard the Caesarian story against my will. As a writer, you can imagine how many times I’ve needed to hear it to keep going in this profession.

It took eight years to publish a short story from my collection. Before then, I’d sent stories out to more publishers than I care to remember. The form letter rejections became snakes in my mailbox, waiting to bite me as soon as I pulled open the lid. The electronic ones waited boldly in my email inbox, while the notes of encouragement from editors were bitter-sweet gifts. Some of my work received recognition in fiction contests but all of them were rejected for publication over and over again in literary magazines. For a long time, I walked around with a hunchback of disappointment poking out from the back of my neck. Yet, despite the frustrations, I kept reworking the stories. I kept putting my work out there until my first acceptance came from an editor who wanted to publish the piece in an anthology. Another story was picked up in a print literary magazine a year later. This year I’ve placed work in my second national writing contest, published in an online journal, and received an honorable mention in an international magazine.

A woman in my writing group shared a quote with me from Winston Churchill that summed up my journey to publication: “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

Despite the physical and mental beating my characters have given me over the years, I couldn’t, and still can’t, let go of them until they are ready to sustain themselves. They have driven me to several degrees of insanity since I first ‘met’ them. I’ve worked entire days without moving from my desk, I’ve wrestled in bed with visions of their faces bubbling up in my head, I’ve soothed Ganglion cysts near my wrists from all the typing. Like any writer, I’ve loved my characters, I’ve hated them, I’ve even been afraid of them, not of who they are but of who they want to become and what it will take of my life, my soul, to fulfill their needs that have become my own.

Family members or friends who aren’t writers will often say, “I don’t get it. I thought writing was just putting ideas on paper. How hard is that?”

I tell them what Red Smith believed, “Writing is easy. You just sit down at the typewriter and open a vein.”

And then they stare at me as if I’ve spouted out a mathematical equation in a foreign language. See, non-writers don’t understand that writing is an endless fight of passion, sometimes painful, sometimes completely enrapturing. They don’t comprehend why we cry when a character dies. They don’t get why we have post-it-notes all over the house or little notebooks in our purses/back pockets.

“You’re weird,” they say. “Why care about someone who isn’t real?”

“But they are,” I declare. “They are!”

And still, I get that confused look. Maybe some things should remain a mystery, like how I can’t figure out why anyone would eat beef that’s still bleeding on the inside, or interpret half the slang in my teenage cousin’s text messages when I have a master’s degree in writing. Her messages are an enigma, just as a writer’s way of thinking puzzles people who don’t compose stories on paper from their imaginations.

Writers are a special breed. We love our characters as much as we love people we can touch. We think it’s “normal” to talk to ourselves a little more than we should, and when people say we’re eccentric, we think of ways to put them stories without their permission. Writers embrace the oddities, the celebrations and the disappointments of their craft.

I can’t help but ponder what Dorothy Parker said about writing: “If you're going to write, don't pretend to write down. It's going to be the best you can do, and it's the fact that it's the best you can do that kills you."

Or Norman Mailerv: "Being a real writer means being able to do the work on a bad day."

And Jessamyn West: "Talent is helpful in writing, but guts are absolutely essential."

As a writer, you have to accept the pain as much as you accept the pleasure. You have to listen to your characters as you listen to your mother’s stories of your birth. Being a writer is hard work, and if you’re fully embracing your talent, then you know how easy it is to think about giving up when nothing in the future looks promising, but you also know how hard it is to turn your back on a dream that’s kept you company from the moment you opened your eyes in the world. Though the process of writing can be a struggle at times, you keep fighting, you carry on, because you can’t imagine doing anything else that makes you this crazy while giving you such pleasure at the same time.

Kathryn A. Brackett earned her MFA in Fiction from the University of Pittsburgh. Her work is published in or forthcoming from Waccamaw Journal, Mythium: The Journal of Contemporary Literature, and Expecting Goodness & Other Stories, an anthology of fiction chosen by C. Michael Curtis, senior editor of The Atlantic magazine, and runner-up in the Independent Publisher IPPY Awards for the top collection of short fiction in North America in 2009. Her stories have received national and international recognition in WordHustler’s Page to Screen Short Story Contest, judged by Sara Gruen; the Carrie McCray Memorial Literary Awards, the Stony Brook Short Fiction Prize, and the Carpe Articulum Literary Review, among others. You can find her and her blog at www.kathrynbrackett.com.

Introducing Paul Elwork and Michelle Reale

SSM 2011: Conversation between Paul Elwork and Michelle Reale, 5.20.11

In honor of Short Story Month 2011, I thought it would be fun to chat a bit with a short-story writer I know, Michelle Reale, about her work. Michelle has published many short pieces, largely flash fiction, in a variety of journals. She has also published a chapbook of her work entitled Natural Habitat (Burning River Press); her second story collection, Like Lungfish Getting through the Dry Season, is forthcoming from Thunderclap Press in 2011, as well as another short fiction collection, If All They Had Were Their Bodies, from Burning River. Michelle’s fiction has a compressed power and clarity of language that is both arresting and often deeply unsettling. She gives us engaging characters that suggest haunted pasts and troubled futures, all with warmth that never gets sentimental and a brutal honesty that avoids cynicism.

I asked Michelle to send me several links to her work and she replied with the following stories: “What Passes for Normal,” “Shells,” “Current,” “Frantic City,” “We, the Women,” and “Three Stories": Honeymoon, Local Custom, and Bone in the Throat.” Sample through them and see for yourself the qualities I’ve listed above. And now, let’s pick Michelle’s brain a bit…

Paul Elwork: These stories are so well-rendered, reading them is a bit like paging through a book of illustrations full of shadows and striking details. Dysfunctional family dynamics run through these selections. The mother in “What Passes for Normal” is absolutely frightening in her sociopathology and ability to put a good face on things for people outside her family. Can you put your finger on what draws you to this subject matter?

Michelle Reale: I will say that if there is a flaw, I will see it before most people will. I am very shy and I have been all my life. Being shy often means that you “participate” from the sidelines. In school, people thought I was mute! But I watched very closely, always. And I listened, and still do listen, very carefully when people talk. Even in conversation there is a “text” and a “subtext,” if you will. We are all schizophrenic in so many ways. Living in polite society often means sublimating what we are really thinking and feeling. We compartmentalize our feelings, what we will say and to whom and in what context. But I can see the underside of nearly everything. And I also know that people are not always what they seem: the good aren’t always so good, and the bad aren’t always so bad. Some of my fiction will really exploit that dark side of human nature. “What Passes for Normal” was hard to write in some respects. Our society does not like flaws. We abhor what isn’t “pretty” and we shun those who fall out of the strict parameters of “normal.” I don’t even really know what normal is!

Families, too, fascinate me. What an absolutely complex relationship system. I like to explore what happens there. We can live with people our whole lives and not really know them—we are all unknowable in that way, so when I write about people and families and relationships, I am really trying to figure things out. I realize that this is not very original—I think most writers are after the same exact thing—we are writing to make sense of things. My characters are flawed, indeed. They suffer. They are not pretty. They hurt inside and then they hurt others. My job is to make them live on the page to regret it. And if I get a reaction from a reader, I suppose I have done my job!

PE: Nobody really knows what normal is. It’s one of those myths of polite society. And I like the notion of discovery you proceed with. Does anyone write really good fiction if he or she goes in with it all figured out and ends with absolutely unchanged notions?

I agree that family dynamics are an endless resource for inspiration. What informs your fiction more: Your own family dynamics, past and present, or your outside observations? Or is that too difficult to tease apart?

MR: I have to say that I am not a person who sits down and outlines or any such thing. For myself, I simply don’t see the value, most especially because for me writing is an exercise not only in creativity, but in discovery. Often, I may have an idea in my head, the way I think a piece may go, but then it goes in the opposite direction. I don’t think the writing mind is rigid—at least not for fiction. I have written an academic book in my field—now that book I most definitely had a game plan for—and I laid the groundwork very carefully. Fiction, however, is a whole different ball game, requiring more heart than mind. I don’t want to think when I write fiction—does that sound strange? But I really don’t. I want to hit bedrock of truth somehow and I can’t do that with my brain. Brain turns fiction into formula. As a reader I am turned off by that right away. As I writer, it frightens me.

My fiction is informed not so much by real incidents either in my life or the lives of others, but from impressions of incidents. How something made me feel, how it might have made others feel. I think about the fallout from messy emotional situations. Things like that. I was recently buying coffee in a Dunkin Donuts where they also have Baskin Robbins ice cream. I watched in horror as a mother practically bullied her daughter who looked to be about 10 or 11 to me into getting two scoops (“might as well,” she kept saying) instead of just one on her cone. When she relented (she had her arms crossed over her chest—a very defensive position) the mother proceeded to make fun of the fact that she’d never get a boyfriend with all of that belly fat she had around. I stood there with my mouth open. I felt an instant stab in a vulnerable place inside of me. How awful.

PE: Such a staggering, loaded moment. It’s definitely one where your guts kind of clench from the emotional impact, even as part of your mind recognizes something that applies straight to fiction. It also sounds like a moment right out of one of your stories.

MR: I went home and wrote about it. It hasn’t made its way into a story—yet, but it will surely surface somewhere. Think of all the strange (and sad) dynamics going on there. There is a truth there somewhere. And my fictional truth may not be that family’s truth, of course, but it is fiction, after all.

PE: What are your thoughts on writing in longer forms? I find it fascinating how writers are drawn to different forms, like visual artists using certain materials, or singers working in different keys. Do you have any plans for longer works or any in progress?

MR: I hear this debate a lot with writers: whether to write in longer form or not, especially if they’ve been writing short, short prose. No one ever asks a poet that question! I have long considered myself a miniaturist—even when I was writing (awful) stories that were 10–12 pages long. What I was trying, all that time (I now realize) was to get to the shorter form.

PE: Sure, that makes sense—and it isn’t a matter of right or wrong, but one of personal inclination. I remember Joyce Carol Oates writing somewhere that any literary idea can be expressed in a poem, a short story, or a novel—it’s just a question of how you want to feature it stylistically, what kind of effect you’re going for, etc. I completely agree. You’ve got to go where your interest takes you and trust that.

MR: I am more and more interested in distillation, how to use fewer words. I use Virginia Woolf as my guide and concentrate on those “moments of being”—when I can see and feel an entire world in a gesture, or the look on a face. I also work in themes. Right now I am pursuing a certificate in Peace Studies because I am interested in all of the conflicts and revolutions in the world. As a result, I am writing prose poems about my experiences abroad and my encounters with immigrant populations, fleeing turmoil in inhospitable places. I was in Sicily twice in April and witnessed the not-so-ambivalent feelings the Italian government has toward those fleeing their countries (especially North Africa) to its shores. I am Italian-American and this moved me profoundly. I had the opportunity to speak with men from various countries that have been stripped of dignity, trying to make a new life there. I saw with my own eyes the confiscated boats where they seize these people (mostly men) and detain them or make their lives miserable enough until they leave for somewhere else, other places that also don’t want them. I cannot, for instance, write a novel about something like this, because I do not have the interest in a sustained narrative about a certain number of characters. What I do have is an interest in writing many, many prose poems that I feel will be more powerful for their “staccato” succinctness and that represent a wide variety of encounters, impressions, and especially strong images. I could change some day and decide to challenge myself and write a novel, but I am not sure that I even have the capability, to tell you the truth. The intersection of prose and poetry is where I really like to be right now. In fact, I have felt more comfortable in this form than in any other. I plant my feet firmly in this place, write, and get better and better. I still have so much to learn, but I am nothing if not a very patient person!

Michelle Reale is an academic librarian on faculty at Arcadia University in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Her work has been published in a wide variety of venues, including Eyeshot, elimae, Pank, JMWW, Gargoyle, Word Riot, Monkeybicycle, Moon Milk Review, and many others. Her work was included in Dzanc’s Best of the Web 2010. She has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Paul Elwork lives on the outskirts of Philadelphia and is the father of two sons. His work has appeared in a variety of journals, including Philadelphia Stories, Short Story America, SmokeLong Quarterly, and Word Riot. His novel The Girl Who Would Speak for the Dead (Amy Einhorn Books/Penguin Group) is available online and in bookstores everywhere. For more information and links to short fiction and other content, please visit www.paulelwork.com.

Love Lift Us Up Where We Belong By Jolina Petersheim

Jolina Petersheim's blog, The Happy Book Blog, at a year old has been featured twice on Southern author River Jordan’s Clearstory Radio. Currently it is syndicated with The Tennessean's "On Nashville" Blogroll, featured under author Jessica McCann’s “Stuff for Writers,” award-winning freelance writer Melissa Crytzer-Fry’s Blogroll and numerous other creative writing sites. Jolina lives in the mountains of Tennessee with her Mohican-man husband, their 40 acres of untamed territory, and one unruly but lovable Southern novel-in-progress set on a tobacco plantation in northwest Tennessee. Love Lift Us Up Where We Belong It almost felt like we were Peeping Toms as my husband and I clustered around the computer screen, avidly watching the most intimate details of this young family’s life for the twentieth time in less than ten days. We laughed when the couple picked on each other, fretted when their offspring didn’t seem to be thriving the way we thought they should, wondered if all of them would be able to stand the harsh elements pervading their setting, and secretly questioned the parents’ abilities to keep their three offspring alive. No, we weren’t watching the latest “reality” TV show churned out by Hollywood, but a family of bald eagles my husband had discovered through an online live cam. I had caught him watching them last Sunday, and although at first I couldn’t understand the draw, I soon became as addicted to their interactions as he. The mother and father shared the responsibility of their brood: the one sat on the hatchlings while the other flew over the dense Iowan woods--scouring it for rabbits, ravens, and even a fish whose scales reflected like tiny mirrors angled toward the sun. It actually took my breath as the mother/father (I still cannot tell them apart) ripped hunks of meat from their partner’s latest catch and carefully depositing it into their offspring's uplifted, chirping mouths. Last evening, before I went for a walk in the graveyard, I watched one of the hatchlings teeter toward the edge of the nest on unsteady claws and flapping, downy wings. Less than five minutes later, when I was tying my tennis shoes, my husband called from the office, “Honey! C’mere! Quick!” When I came into the office and looked at the screen, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Both of the parents were in the six foot, one and a half ton nest, and they were balancing a tree branch between their yellow beaks. One of them then took it from the other and put it at the edge of the nest where the hatchling had just been. “They’re doing that to keep the babies from falling out,” my husband explained. I told him to call if they did anything else exciting, and I’d come tearing back. Sometimes when I walk to the graveyard beside our apartment, I completely forget why it is there. Encamped by rolling hills, swaying saplings covered with pink cotton ball blossoms, and soaring mountains, it seems no more a place for the dead as Mars is for the living. But last evening, it was different. I guess it was because I was tired, and that bald eagle family had gotten me thinking about family life in general. I guess part of it had to do with the past month and a half, and though I don't want to go into much detail to protect those it is more greatly affecting, I will say that it has been one of the toughest experiences of my life. So, instead of trucking up and down that paved pathway, I walked onto the grass and swatted down before the gravestones. I looked at the cameoed photograph of a woman who’d died when she was years younger than I, yet born a decade before the birth of my own mother. I traced my fingers over the dates of the departed, and my heart ached for the couple who’d been severed by death because the other half of their whole had kept on living. In their photo, although neither of them were really smiling, I could see the love they’d shared in the way she put an arm around his shoulders, and the way he gently clasped it with one of his callused hands. The sun was setting behind the distant hills, so I decided to head back toward our apartment. After spending a day wearing long sleeves in eighty degree weather, I’d also decided it was time to switch out my winter and summer clothes. This is a task I despise more than any other; I would rather alphabetize the contents of my refrigerator than sort and refold all of my clothing. Despite this, I lugged all of my summer totes into our bedroom, started shucking sweaters from hangers, then paused and walked into the living room. I needed some music to get me going. Feeling slightly sentimental, I scrolled down through the playlists on my laptop until I found the one I sought: Wedding Mix. Singing off-key to Frank Sinatra, Billy Joel, Air Supply, and Dan Folgelberg, I suddenly got a second wind and soon had two totes completely emptied into drawers and refilled with sweaters. Then a new song began to play: “Love Life Us Up Where We Belong.” Because of what has transpired over the past month and a half, the lyrics resonated with me in a way they never have before. It spoke of living in a world where few hearts survive, how long the road is, how there are mountains in our way, but that love would lift us up to a place where -- and here I even got goose bumps -- eagles cry on a mountain high. Needless to say, I was knocked into an emotional abyss before the second verse. Recalling that husband and wife gravestone when she’s not even dead, I began getting teary-eyed. Then I recalled how it said at the very bottom, “To know him was to love him,” and those tears, they started rolling. Darting into the office, I stretched my arms out toward my husband and blubbered, “To know you is to love you!” My husband, still watching the bald eagle family in between listing eBay items, looked back at me standing there with tears streaming down my face and said, “What? What happened?” I pointed toward our bedroom and half-laughed/half-sobbed, “That song! Regardless of what we face, love will lift us up to a mountain high!” I then pointed to the computer screen where the father/mother eagle was tenderly feeding his/her young. “Just like them! Just like that bald eagle family!” My husband pushed his rolling chair out from beneath the desk and stood. “Oh my, honey,” he said, “you’re really tore up.” Wiping my face on my long shirtsleeve, I laughed, “I know! I don’t even know what happened!” He walked with me back to our bedroom, which was strewn with chunky knit sweaters and sleeveless tanks. Reaching out his finger, he tapped down the volume on my laptop. “Don’t!” I hollered. “I like it loud!” “I know, but the song’s making you cry,” he said. I wrapped my arms around him and looked up, “Yes, but these are happy tears, Randy. Happy tears. I’m just so, so blessed.” Now, as I write this out on our land, my husband is strengthening our future home -- our love nest, if you will -- and I am sitting in the sun after having helped him pick up pieces of siding and fascia. And I know, regardless of how long our journey together is, how many mountains present themselves as we travel it, that love will continually lift us up to a place where we belong...just like those eagles. (Live cam for bald eagles can be found here.)

Launch Day!

I am about ready to get on another plane to start this tour off, but I was thinking about all of you on my first plane ride and for the first time I was crying not out of fear but out of joy. You all have made this journey so wonderful for me. You've picked me up. You've offered your arms. You've wiped my (many) tears. And I will never be able to tell you how that saved me and my little book over the last year and a half. I love you all and I mean it. You have my heart.


With Love from the Detroit Airport,
Rebecca

1 Day Before The Bird Sisters Launch!

I can't believe we are almost there! I want to wish everyone a great day -- I am trying to enjoy this day before I hop on a plane to Pennsylvania and officially get things rolling with The Bird Sisters. Thank you to all of you for being such wonderful supporters of me and the book. And of course friends!


Love,
Rebecca

BOOK CLUB IN A BOX--4 days until Launch Day!

Hi everyone -- I wanted to let you know about a GREAT giveaway happening c/o the amazing Dawn from Too Fond of Books. She is generously giving away up to ten hardcover copies of The Bird Sisters and a skype call with me for a book club. If you are part of a book club and are interested, here is the link: TOO FOND OF BOOKS

The Nervous Breakdown

Hi everyone-- I wanted to share with you a lovely feature on the Bird Sisters at The Nervous Breakdown, which includes a self-interview, an excerpt, and some other pretty wonderful things. Thank you so much for all of your support! I can't wait to go on the road and meet so many of you! http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/category/fiction/


XOX Rebecca

Thank you!

Thank you to everyone for putting up with my Facebook accounts recently -- they have been compromised and I am working on getting them restored. This has been a bit of a nightmare, and it's all of my friends who have been getting me through. Visit me on Twitter or at my website if you need anything.


Thank you again for your support and your love and patience.


It's now only 10 days until the Bird Sisters launch! If you pre-order the book and would like me to send you a signed bookplate, simply email me at thebirdsisters {at] gmail {dot} com


Also, GREAT NEWS! The Bird Sisters is a Fiction Pick for Barnes and Noble for April! What an honor!


XOXOX,
Rebecca

Launch Day for Jessica McCann

Hold On for the Ride (or How to Write a Novel)

by Jessica McCann

Writing your first novel is like a walk in the park. Really, you say, it’s that easy? Before you rush to judgment, allow me to share a story about one particular walk in the park with my dogs.

My rescue pup, a super-loveable German Sheppard mix, has some “issues” around other dogs when she’s on leash. Maybe she's protective of me. Maybe it's a doggy dominance thing. But a few years ago, during a hike in one of our many Phoenix desert preserves, we happened to cross paths with a rambunctious golden retriever and its owner. Both dogs pulled at their leashes, lunging toward one another with noisy growls and flying saliva. It was unclear if they wanted to play or fight, but we weren’t about to risk finding out.

As I struggled to gain control of my unruly pup, I stumbled over a large rock in the trail and went sprawling into the dirt. She continued to pull at her leash, and I continued to hold on. She dragged me about four or five feet, my legs flailing behind me, through the rocks and desert grit. The retriever finally passed us, its owner shouting horrified apologies back over his shoulder, and my dog finally eased up. I took a deep breath and pulled myself to my feet. My knees were shaking. My shins were bloodied. My husband came rushing to me, apologizing that he had been unable to assist, since he had our other large dog on a leash and needed to stay out of the fray.

“Well, that was embarrassing,” I finally managed to say, looking around for witnesses, my voice breaking, tears welling in my eyes.

“No,” my husband said with a huge grin. “That was awesome! I’m so proud of you. You held on.”

Had I let go, we might have had a dog fight on our hands. Had I let go, our girl might have run away into the desert. Rattle snakes, dehydration and the busy highway were just a few of the dangers she would have faced. I had no choice but to hold on.

Writing a novel is like THAT walk in the park. Or, at least, it was for me. I had to risk a little embarrassment, risk getting a little bloodied, to get the job done. I had a story I desperately wanted to share, and so I had to hold on.

We’ve been through a lot of dog training classes since that fateful day on the desert trail. But my girl can still be unruly at times. Sure, we could have taken her to back to the rescue shelter, given up on her in favor of an “easier” dog, one more manageable. But she’s part of the family. When she drops her tattered sock-toy in my lap and patiently waits for me to throw it -- her helicopter tail whirling, her big brown eyes dancing -- I can’t imagine the heartache I’d feel if we had given up on her.

I’ve been through a lot "training" myself since I started writing my first novel, despite my previous experience and success writing nonfiction. Multiples drafts, critiques, revisions, queries and rejections were part of the long process leading to a polished manuscript and a publishing contract.

My debut novel, ALL DIFFERENT KINDS OF FREE, was inspired by actual events. It tells the story of Margaret Morgan, a free woman of color in 1830s America whose perfect life was shattered when she was kidnapped and forced into slavery. It was a challenging, emotional, sometimes painful story to research and write. Sure, I could have put it in a drawer, given it up in favor of something easier to write. But the gratification of telling Margaret's story in a way that might touch or inspire those who read the book has made all the hard work worthwhile. When the UPS truck pulls up to my house with a box full of books -- fresh from the printer, with crisp pages and ALL DIFFERENT KINDS OF FREE emblazoned on the glossy cover -- I can’t imagine the heartache I’d feel if I had given up my quest to tell Margaret’s story.

Whether you dream of writing a novel or of some other goal, my advice is to go for a walk in the park and hold on for the ride. Life is only half-lived if you haven’t bloodied your knees at least a couple times.

***

Happy Launch Day, Jessica! 

If you're interested in purchasing Jessica's beautiful novel here are some helpful links: 

Amazon 

http://www.amazon.com/Different-Kinds-Free-Jessica-McCann/dp/1611940052/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1301580562&sr=1-1

Barnes & Noble 

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/All-Different-Kinds-Of-Free/Jessica-McCann/e/9781611940053/?itm=1&USRI=jessica+mccann

NOOKbook

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/All-Different-Kinds-of-Free/Jessica-McCann/e/9781611940268/?itm=2&USRI=jessica+mccann

Getting Back to Business by Nancy Hinchliff

Nancy Hinchliff owns and operates a bed and breakfast in Louisville, Kentucky where she also blogs and writes on line at Examiner.com, Eye on Life Magazine, Pink magazine and Hub pages. You can find her blogging at Business and Creative Women’s Forum, Inn Notes, Inn business  A Memorable Time of My Life, and Louisville Bed and Breakfast Association  In 2008, she co-authored Room at the Table, for The Bed and Breakfast Association of Kentucky for which she won their president’s award for outstanding work. She is currently working on a memoir titled Operatic Divas and Naked Irishmen: An Innkeeper’s Tale, a humorous and poignant account of how an admittedly asocial retired school teacher reinvents herself as an Innkeeper. This intimate tale recounts 16 challenging years of self-discovery.

Getting Back To Business

...the business of writing, that is. For the past two or three months, my memoir has been sitting on an obscure corner of my desk upstairs in my office...out of sight...out of reach...out of mind. I haven't gone near it. What I have been doing is trying to figure out what in the world is wrong with it. Why do I only like Chapter 8 and Chapter 12?

I have three fourths of the book complete. And now I see that I have to do a major re-write on it. Why? Well, I finally figured it out. I can't hear my voice...at least I can't hear it all the time. It comes through in different places, like in Chapter 8 and Chapter 12, but it does not infuse the entire book. And that really bothers me.

So, what to do about it? Well, I finally retrieved my manuscript from my desk on the third floor...that's a start. Then I divided it into four sections. Each section has around four chapters. Now, what I am doing is re-writing every day for a set amount of time. I am going chapter by chapter, sticking with it until I have it the way I want it...looking for my authentic voice and planting it on the pages one sentence at a time.

Just what is writer's voice anyhow and how do you find your own? According to Wikipedia,“Writer’s voice is a literary term used to describe the individual writing style of an author. Voice is a combination of a writer’s use of syntax, diction, punctuation, character development, dialogue, etc., within a given body of text (or across several works). Voice can also be referred to as the specific fingerprint of an author, as every author has a different writing style.In creative writing, students are often encouraged to experiment with different literary styles and techniques in order to help them better develop their “voice.” Voice varies with the individual author, but, particularly in American culture, having a strong voice is considered positive and beneficial to both the writer and his or her audience.”

Finding your writer’s voice may be compared to expressing your personality in real life. It's that authentic way of thinking, speaking and telling that each one of us has. “Confident writers have the courage to speak plainly; to let their thoughts shine rather than their vocabulary.” says Ralph Keyes, author of The Courage to Write: How Writers Transcend Fear I strongly believe that one way one can find their true voice is through blogging on a regular basis. When I first started blogging a few years ago, I focused mainly on the content of what I was writing and was not too concerned about the way in which it was presented, as long as the grammar and punctuation was correct. I was not really writing to connect with my readers.

In the Elements of Style, Strunk tells us that "style is an expression of self, and [writers] should turn resolutely away from all devices that are popularly believed to indicate style – all mannerisms, tricks, and adornments." I believe that if one continues to blog, their voice will eventually be freed. “As you become proficient in the use of language, your style will emerge,” writes Strunk “because you yourself will emerge…” so the more comfortable you are with the rules for good writing, the more your writer’s voice will shine.

I have found this to be so true. And, it wasn't until I felt my true voice starting to come out that I even entertained the idea of writing a memoir. I wanted that memoir to be an expression of "me". But somewhere along the line, in trying to complete my work, I lapsed into my old ways of focusing on the content, not on my reader. And that's what I'm trying to get back.

Now, I am working that out, chapter by chapter. I am reading my writing aloud to see if it really sounds like me. This is very helpful, by the way. I had already stopped comparing my writing to other writers. Comparing how you write or your writer’s voice to other writers is destructive and suffocating. So, my motto is: admire other writers’ styles but nurture your own. And focus on ways to improve your confidence as a writer.

*A final tip: try picturing one specific reader — one that you're not trying to impress – and just communicate with her.

Bird Sisters, oh my!

You can now read a nice, long excerpt of The Bird Sisters c/o my lovely publisher!
http://scr.bi/gEH4dm

Literary Citizenship By Cathy Day

 Cathy Day is the author of two books: Comeback Season, a non-fiction novel (Free Press 2008) and The Circus in Winter, a short-story cycle (Harcourt 2004). Her stories and essays have appeared most recently in The Millions, Fiction Writer’s Review, and Ninth Letter. She lives in Indiana and teaches at Ball State University. She blogs about novel writing and teaching novel writing at The Big Thing.

Literary Citizenship

I’ve been teaching creative writing for almost twenty years now, and here’s something I’ve observed: what brings most people to the creative writing classroom or the writing conference isn’t simply the desire to “be a writer,” but rather (or also) the desire to be a part of a literary community.

Deep down, we know that not everyone who signs up for the class or the conference will become a traditionally published writer. Well, so what? What if they become agents, editors, publishers, book reviewers, book club members, teachers, librarians, readers, or parents of all of the above?

My students attend MFA programs, yes, and they publish, yes, but they aren’t my only “success stories.” Some are literary agents; in fact, Rebecca’s agent, Michelle Brower, is a former student of mine. They subscribe to lots of literary magazines. They have founded and edit magazines, too. They’re editors. They write for newspapers and work in arts administration. They maintain blogs. They review books. They volunteer at literary festivals. They participate in community theatre. They become teachers who teach creative writing. Most importantly, they are lifelong readers.

How do I know all this? Well, there’s this thing called Facebook…

Lately, I’ve started thinking that maybe the reason I teach creative writing isn’t just to create writers, but also to create a populace that cares about reading. There are many ways to lead a literary life, and I try to show my students simple ways that they can practice what I call “literary citizenship.” I wish more aspiring writers would contribute to, not just expect things from, that world they want so much to be a part of.

Here are a few of my working principles of Literary Citizenship:

1.)   Write “charming notes” to writers. (I got this phrase from Carolyn See.) Anytime you read something you like, tell the author. Send them an email. Friend them on Facebook or follow them on Twitter. Not all writers are reachable, so you might have to write an old fashioned letter and send it to the publisher or, if they teach somewhere, to their university address. You don’t have to gush or say something super smart. Just tell them you read something, you liked it. They may not respond, but believe me, they will read it.

2.)   Interview writers. Take charming notes a step farther and ask the writer if you can do an interview. These days, they’re usually done via email. Approach this professionally, even if you are a fan. Write up questions (I prefer getting one question at a time, but some prefer getting them all at once). Let the writer talk. Writers love to talk. Submit the interview to an appropriate print or online magazine. Spread the word. There are many, many outlets, some paying. I really like the interviews published by Fiction Writer’s Review, like this one.

3.)   Talk up (informally) or review (formally) books you like. Start with your personal network. Then say something on Goodreads. Then Amazon.com or B&N. Then try starting a book review blog. Or a book review radio show, like a former student of mine, Sarah Blake. Submit your reviews to newspapers and magazines, print or online. God knows, the world needs more book reviewers. Robin Becker at Penn State and Irina Reyn at Pitt are just two writer/teacher/reviewers I know of who actively teach their students how to write and publish book reviews. Remember: no matter what happens to traditional publishing, readers will always need trusted filters to help them know what is worth paying attention to and what’s not. Become that trusted filter.

4.)   If you want to be published in journals, you must read and support them. Period. If it’s a print journal, subscribe. If it’s an online journal, talk them up, maybe even volunteer to read. One of my favorite writers, Dan Chaon, had this to say about journals: The writing community is full of lame-o people who want to be published in journals even though they don’t read the magazines that they want to be published in. These people deserve the rejections that they will undoubtedly receive, and no one should feel sorry for them when they cry about how they can’t get anyone to accept their stories. You can read his incredibly practical advice here.     

5.)   If you want to publish books, buy books. I don’t want to fight about big-box stores (evil!) vs. indie bookstores (good!) or about libraries (great!) or how truly broke you are (I know! I’ve been there, too!) or which e-reader is “better” for the writer or the independent book seller (argh!). I just want you to buy books. Period. It makes me angry to see the lengths relatively well-off people will go to avoid buying a book. Especially considering how much they are willing to spend on entertainment, education, or business-related expenses. If you’re a writer, you can file a Schedule C: Profit or Loss from a Business, and books and magazine subscriptions are tax deductible.

6.)   Be passionate about books and writing, because passion is infectious. When I moved back home again to Indiana this past summer, my husband and I set out to buy bookshelves. The first furniture store we entered didn’t even carry bookshelves, the second carried only a single type, and the third (which we bought, because they were on sale) were really intended to be decorative shelves, not book shelves. Mind you, I wasn’t really surprised by this. I grew up here, after all. If you find yourself in a literary desert, rather than fuss and complain about it, create an oasis. Maintain a library in your home. Share books with your friends, co-workers, children, and community. Start a book club. Start a writing group. Volunteer to run a reading series at your local library. Take a picture of your bookshelves and put them on Facebook. Commit to buying 20 books a year for the rest of your life.

Question: What is the secret to getting published?

Answer: Learn your craft, yes. But also, work to create a world in which literature can thrive and is valued. 

Bird Sisters Pre-Order Special!

Signed Bookplates, Donations to the Audubon Society, check out The Bird Sisters Pre-Order Special! From February 28th--March 7th! Thank you, as always, for your lovely support.
http://www.thebirdsisters.com/purchase-book/

Navel Gazing by Lisa Cihlar

Navel Gazing
By Lisa Cihlar

"Most poets write and publish far too much. They forget the agricultural good sense of the fallow period. . . " Irish poet Michael Longley

April is National Poetry Month and like many poets I write a poem a day.  In June a friend of mine suggests another 30/30 (30 poems in 30 days) and I jump on board.  I am a prolific poet even when not writing to challenges.  That noted, there comes a day in mid-summer when I begin to feel as if everything has been said.  My brain echoes empty.  It is time to step back and begin observing.

Close focus becomes the thing.  How does a bumble bee climb into a pink and white hollyhock and become covered with pollen? How do green beans manage to hide on the plants through five pickings and mature into full-size dry pods?  And the yellow and black garden spiders that come out in August to build their webs with the zigzag down the center making them look so much bigger than they really are; is that lemon yellow, or smiley face yellow on their abdomens?  These are things I need to see firsthand, year after year.  As a poet of images, my brain needs to re-catalog so that I can get things right on the page.   Think too of other poets you know who are masters of observation.  Elizabeth Bishop’s “Big Fish”:  his brown skin hung in strips/like ancient wallpaper or Mark Doty’s “A Display of Mackerel”:  like seams of lead/in a Tiffany window./ Iridescent, watery.  James Wright, Deborah Digges, Robert Frost.  I do not know if these poets took breaks from writing to just observe, but I know from the poems that they were indeed studying their worlds intensely.

It takes time to study things closely.  Not only the natural world, but the world of human relationships too.  You probably lived with your parents for at least 18 years as a child and young adult.  You are the best expert in the world on how that relationship worked and how it formed you and is still forming you.  That is your PhD in human behavior.  Call your current relationships continuing education.  Take time to study things and consider the past, maybe take notes, this will all inform your poetry.

I also need to saturate myself in other writers’ poems.  I read poems all the time.  To be a good poet I believe the writer needs to read a lot of poems, ones they like and ones they do not.  When I take time away from the writing I read even more, poems that are new to me, and poems that are not.  I memorize lines that I love.  I feel a need to say Do I dare to eat a peach? over and over to myself and to anyone within hearing range to make that rhythm part of my soul.  I need to find out for myself if the chickens and the rain glazed wheel barrow are really all that important (they are!)

Recently, I found myself taking an unintentional break from writing.  A medication that I was on was squashing my creativity.  The anxiety this caused was horrible.  I felt sick to my stomach every time I sat down to write and nothing came.  Taking an intentional break is a different thing all together.  You can even schedule it so that you have an appointment with the paper in exactly the number of days you choose.   Never call it writer’s block because you are not blocked, you are opening yourself to the world.

Not working on a poem every day is freeing and it builds up a kind of pressure that makes pens and blank paper look so inviting.  My hand fondles ball-points, clicking them over and over.  When I begin to get so annoying in my habits that I make other people crazy, it is time to begin again.  September feels right—back to school, the end of summer, leaves starting to color up, and birds flying frantic, practicing for the trip south.  Now I will write.  


**Lisa J. Cihlar's poems appear, or soon will in numerous journals including: The Pedestal Magazine, Green Mountains Review, Qarrtsiluni, elimae, and Pirene's Fountain. In 2008 she was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She lives in rural southern Wisconsin.  She raises more tomatoes than she can possibly use, yet she always runs out of the ones she freezes sometime in March.

Starred Library Journal Review!!!!

Hello everyone! Lovely news from the wonderful Library Journal Review:

 Rasmussen, Rebecca. The Bird Sisters. Crown. Apr. 2011. c.304p. ISBN 9780307717962. $24. F

What a pleasure to become acquainted with Milly and Twiss of Spring Green, WI, as these aging sisters invite us to accompany them back to a summer in the mid-1940s when they were both at the threshold of adolescence. As their falling-apart family is in desperate need of repair, the girls try to patch up their estranged parents' relationship. Milly is as sweet as Twiss is contrary; the two have decidedly different approaches to the challenge. And both are quite taken with their older teenage cousin Bettie, who comes to spend the summer with them. Ripe with surprises, this visit will mold and shape the sisters' lives for years to come. Rasmussen's debut novel is full of grace and humanity. Her heroines are fearless and romantic, endearing and engaging, and her poetic prose creates an almost magical, wholly satisfying world. VERDICT While readers may desire to know more about the sisters' interest in "bird repair" (in their later years they tend to the needs of injured birds), this wistful but wise story is enchanting and timeless. A splendid choice for those searching for literary coming-of-age novels.—Andrea Tarr, Corona P.L., CA

Semper Fi (In Other Words: Have Some Heart, Rebecca)

** This is a blog post I did for the lovely Amanda Hoving and wanted to share it here, too.


Semper Fi (In Other Words: Have Some Heart, Rebecca)

By Rebecca Rasmussen

The first time I walked off the course and back to the starting line I felt justified in my choice to quit. I was in terrible pain. I had lost my breath. I had cramps in my legs, in my heart. Girls were passing me on all sides. Their ponytails were swishing right out of my view. So here’s what I did: I simply walked back to the place I’d started.

            The year was 1992, and I was a freshman in high school, thirteen years old. I had a shaky relationship with just about everyone in my family, though I remember my mother coming to this cross-country meet, my first. I remember she wore my dad’s boxy old yellow windbreaker, which I took from his closet the last time I visited him and my stepmom in Spring Green, Wisconsin, though I don’t remember why.

            “You’ll do better next time,” my mother said, when she saw me near the starting line.

            I’ll tell you this: a part of me wanted to get in the car with her. To stop and pick up pizza at Malnati’s on the way home. To rent a funny movie and eat sour cherry candies. To forget about cross-country and move on to field hockey or dance. Or chess even.

             But I’ll also tell you this: an even bigger part of me wanted something else entirely, something I couldn’t put a name to, but knew as a secret deep in my heart. And that’s what I got—exactly what I wanted—that early Saturday morning in September, while girls sprinted into the chute and parents cheered and brightly colored ribbons flapped in the breeze.

            “Come here right now,” my coach, Mr. Baker, said to me, in a voice I thought only parents were allowed to use.

            “I think I’ll take her home,” my mother interrupted.

            “Not yet,” Mr. Baker said and pulled me away from my mother, which I remember thinking was impressive. People didn’t say no to her.

            When we were alone behind a grand old Illinois oak tree, Mr. Baker asked me why I’d stopped running, why I came walking back, why I gave up.

I told him what I told you. Cramps. Pain. Breath.

            “I don’t care if you’re the last girl out there and you crawl in on your hands and knees,” Mr. Baker said. “You don’t ever give up like that, do you understand me?”

            “I couldn’t go on,” I said, looking at the electric leaves up in the tree.

            Mr. Baker put his hands squarely on my shoulders and looked me directly in the eyes, which nobody had ever done before. (I come from a long line of side-glancers.)

“You can always go on,” he said very seriously.

            I don’t know why, but I wanted to wrap my arms around this man. His strength and strange, unwarranted belief in me was what I’d been looking for in members of my family and what members of my family couldn’t give me just then, and here Mr. Baker was, a man I barely knew, a man with the bluest eyes I’d ever seen.            

“I wasn’t going to win,” I said, knowing then that that was the real reason I’d quit.

Mr. Baker smiled. “This is the first brave thing I’ve seen you do.”

            “What?” I said, beginning to smile, too, though I didn’t know why.

            “Tell the truth,” he said, and hugged me so securely I thought I’d turn blue. “You’re a good kid, you know. I think you’re going to be all right.”

            (Words that were so wonderful I started to cry.)

***

            I don’t know if you can teach someone to have heart or not, but that’s what Mr. Baker did for me that day and that strength of heart is what I’ve carried with me all these years. If a door closes, I find another one to try to open. If ponytails are passing me, I go after them instead of giving myself over to negativity and turning away.

Crossing the finish line, having guts and grit, is what’s important to me. Knowing that I didn’t quit—that I don’t quit—makes me proud, confident, happy.

            These days, I’m a writer more than I’m a runner, though I still try to hit the pavement four or five times a week. Writing, I’ve learned, takes the same tenacity, the same hard work and hard-won belief in one’s self. I’ve seen so many talented writers give up, and I want to grab them by the shoulders and look directly in their eyes and tell them what Mr. Baker told me. Keep writing even if you have to crawl on your hands and knees.

            My first novel is coming out with a large New York press in April. From the outside, my story looks so easy and breezy and, well, full of beauty. The truth is that I fought for my book every single step of the way. I fought for it when people kept saying no for months and months and months. I fought when they said, “we need to think about sales figures.”

I am fighting for it even now.

            And you know what: it probably won’t sell a million copies, I probably won’t be able to quit my job and shop at Whole Foods for herbs and nuts and fish, and I probably won’t wake up and see my name in The New York Times any time soon.

            But on April 12^th, I’ll be smiling. I promise you that.

Writing a book, finding an agent and an editor, finding my way through all of the no, you can’ts! has been the longest race of my life and I’ll have finally made it to the chute—without fanfare, maybe—but on my own two feet.

(A thought so wonderful I know I will cry.)

***

            I haven’t seen Mr. Baker since I was a senior in high school. Is he alive? Is he still coaching running? I don’t know.

That warm September day at the cross-country meet was the beginning of a relationship that changed my life. He taught me about being brave, about being bold, about fighting for what you want and deserve in life. He taught me about nourishing myself in every sense of the word.

He told me about his time in Vietnam, about never giving up even when people around him were dying in muddy rice paddies.

I’ll never forget what he said.

            Right before the next cross-country race, Mr. Baker and I exchanged presents, if you can call them that. I gave him my father’s old yellow windbreaker, which he wore to most every meet for the next four years, and he gave me a Semper Fi flag he’d had since the war and which I still keep in my treasure box in the closet.

Whenever I find myself alone on the course now, in the middle of a race that’s even less defined than when I was a teenager, I think of Mr. Baker—those blue eyes and that flag—and I keep going.

I keep hearing him say, have some heart, Rebecca.