Posts filed under ‘Interviews’
Wordclay Author Reviewed in ‘The Gay & Lesbian Review’
We’re excited to announce that Wordclay author A.J. Walkley was featured in the November/December 2009 issue of ‘The Gay & Lesbian Review / Worldwide’ for her book, Queer Greer.
The review by Sheela Lambert entitled “The Young and the Bi”, highlighted three books each portraying a teenage girl struggling and accepting her bisexuality. Lambert praised Walkley’s realistic portrayal of Greer’s struggle with her torn feelings for both a boy and a girl. Lambert also stated, “All three authors have a good ear and create an authentic teen voice in their narration and dialogue. All three successfully capture the angst of adolescence: the pressure on teenage girls to be thin and feminine and to have a boyfriend; the loneliness, isolation and confusion experienced by teens who are different; and so on.”
Published in early 2009, Queer Greer chronicles the life of Greer MacManus, a teenage girl trying to navigate high school while having feelings for a boy and a girl. As she begins to experiment with drugs, self-mutilation and her own sexuality, she finds herself alone. Throughout the entire book she learns how to be comfortable with her bisexuality and embrace who she truly is.
A.J. Walkley is a reporter, freelance writer and novelist from Fairfield County, Connecticut. She graduated from Dickinson College in May 2007 with a degree in English and minors in creative writing and film. After spending three months in Malawi with the Peace Corps, Walkley returned to the U.S. and now works as a media correspondent in the United Nations.
Has your book been featured in a publication? Let us know! We would love to feature you here on our blog. To submit press about your book, please visit the Press Breaks section on our Bookstore home page.
Happy writing,
Kate
Writers: Creatures of Habit
As a writer, you have a way of working. You have developed this style over time, and you have found the best ways to work within the means and conditions available to you. Historically, the nature of writing as a craft has allowed writers to develop strange behaviors and unusual work settings in search of that ultimate environment in which their own productivity thrives and creativity grows.
I’m certain you’ve seen the locals in your area typing in cafes or texting on a cell phone. There are pensive young people with the well-worn notebooks that (they are convinced) best characterize them and their individuality. There are people with pencils and pens and people with handheld voice recorders capturing their ideas all over the place.
Famous writers and professional writers have long been topics of whispers and rumors of their idiosyncratic approach to the physical craft of writing: Kerouac, Faulkner, Wolfe, and Twain, standing-sitting-scribbling-ranting-obsessing.
There is no shame in feeding the creature inside you that allows you to succeed creatively. In interviews with novelists there tends to be a heavy focus on questions about how they write. What time do they start? How many words a day do they write? What is their approach to editing? What is their office like? These questions are good barometers for the public to attempt to discern what it is about the artist that makes them so different and so much more successful than others. Many writers have written books about how they write their fiction and how they would answer these questions.
I would say that one could potentially try to develop strange habits just in anticipation of making that big-time interview more interesting when it happens.
Dan Brown wakes up at 4 a.m. every day to write and turns to gravity boots when considering plot development.
What do you do?
What Makes Great Authors and Artists Tick: 20 Questions by PopMatters.com
Thing is, great authors are people, too! Oftentimes, while immersed in their intoxicating prose and seductive poetry, we forget these people visit the grocery store, wash clothes at the laundry mat, listen to the same music we do, among numerous other things that make a person a living, breathing human being.
Luckily, Popmatters is wise to this fact about writers and artists. To help reveal the person behind the literary (or musical) magic, the editors have devised their “20 Questions” column, where bestselling authors are interviewed and asked only 20 questions about their favorite books, their favorite albums, whether they prefer Star Trek or Star Wars, whether they prefer wearing Armani or Levis, whether their essentials are strict diets of coffee, cigarettes and chocolate, or perhaps vodka and frequent visits to the spa.
Read just a few of the authors profiled, and gain some insight into the similarities between your life and theirs as great writers.
Aleksandar Hemon
[23.Jun.09] : “Hell,” Hemon tells PopMatters 20 Questions, “is being stuck at an airport without a book, starving for thought, forced to watch CNN.” Heaven might be a bathtub full of Turkish coffee … Read more>>
Lynn Freed
[6.Apr.09] : Award-winning writer Lynn Freed’s delicious replies to PopMatters 20 Questions may have you wishing, like us, that she could be your dinner guest. Her new novel, The Servants’ Quarters, was published in April 2009. Read more>>
Laura Miller
[1.Dec.08] : Cofounder of Salon.com, ravenous reader Laura Miller talks with PopMatters 20 Questions about C.S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia) and other influences that led to The Magician’s Book. Read more>>
.
Visit PopMatter.com, and learn about the muscians, writers and activists who have made a significant impact on our culture. So too, learn how their habits and preference resemble yours. Remember, they put their pants on one leg at a time after all, even if their pants might sell for a small fortune on eBay.
Authors Who Market: Offering Author Solutions to Promoting and Publishing Books
Recently, Tribune-Review ran a piece in their publication called “Market Savvy Authors Can Take a Nontraditional Way to Audience,” in which Rege Behe explores the emerging benefits of self-publishing (and self-promoting) a book as opposed to blindly submitting your manuscript to publishers who may not even read your potential bestseller.
Essentially, your potential to spread the word about your book (and earn higher royalties per copy sold) with self-publishing is only limited by your enthusiasm to personally market your book and tap into any valuable connections you may already have.
For example, Ray Goss could use his experience in radio to market his self-published book, while others such as Lisa Genova (author of Still Alice, originally through iUniverse) or Barbara Burstin (author of Steel City Jews: A History of Pittsburgh and its Jewish Community, 1840-1915) have self-published only to receive rave review from some of the best magazines in the world, leading to traditional publishers scrammbling to sign them for another book.
Reporter Behe does mention the stigma of self-publishing, too, as its method is shunned by the hyper-literary-minded and even some bookstores; but given the lack of editorial and design control imposed by traditional publishers, not to mention the significant cut in royalites you earn with traditional publishing houses, may overwhelmingly overturn this negative sentiment toward companies like Author Solutions, Inc. (and Wordclay) in the very near future.
Because bookstores are perhaps slower to adapt to the changing publishing industry, self-published books may have a harder time reaching their shelves. That said, Behe also offers some tricks of the trade when marketing your book online. For example, creating an author Web site with your book details and order information will not only act as a base of operations for the writer, but also allow Internet surfers to stumble upon their book naturally when searching on different keywords. Combine your Web site with social networking and perhaps some book giveaway promotions, and BOOM! your chances for success just skyrocketed in the publishing industry!
The Point: Self-publishing with companies like Wordclay, iUniverse or AuthorHouse (all Author Solutions brands) can indeed be more beneficial to authors, especially emerging authors, than endlessly (and sometimes fruitlessly) seeking a traditional publisher to back you, even if your book has great potential!
Larger text
Smaller text
Print
E-mail
Market savvy authors can take a nontraditional way to audience
Michael J. Fox Memoir Always Looking Up: Writing with Purpose
Everyone knows Michael J. Fox, and you’ve probably heard about the recent release of his newest memoir Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist. Actor turned activist turned author, Fox has stolen the hearts of television, movie and literature fans around the world, in no small part because of his passion and optimism to share his experiences as well as his positive spin on his illness.
That said, writers must always have passion! Without the ambition and drive to capture your stories and interpretation of life, you’ll never be able to instill your message or stir emotions in your readers.
Consider Fox’s devotion to revealing his message. While balancing his family life and his activism at The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, he managed to dictate and help edit a book that had inspired (and continues to inspire) optimism in millions of people, whether they agree with his political views concerning stem cell research or not.
Writers are constantly faced with challenges; some deal with writer’s block; others map out crucial scenes over and over again until perfect; and still others pace the length of their office just like Fox, physically fighting to communicate his idealism and hope for the future. Watch the below Borders video in which Fox talks about his writing method and the challenges he faced writing Always Looking Up.
Whether the obstacles in the path of your writing career are large or small, remember that your passion for writing and your interesting experiences will fuel the completion of your manuscript. Though you may waver on occasion and neglect your writing schedule, never forget that you started writing for a reason, maybe personal, political or creative. Seeing your sentences move from chapters to a full manuscript to a publication that’s read by your target audience will definitely be a rewarding testament to your artistic achievement.
The Point: Like Fox, writers have unique insights and inspiring stories, and though you may struggle distilling your thoughts and experiences into a manuscript, ultimately the reward of sharing your story will be measured in the hope and revelation it instills in readers.
Meet Words of Belief Holiday Writing Contest Winners: Interviews with Grand Prize Winner and Editor’s Selection
Now, you can meet the winners of the Words of Belief Holiday Story Writing Contest. Attracting such a diversity of voices and range of topics submitted to their first annual writing contest, their publishing team wanted to share the thoughts and emotions of the writers behind the two selected winners. Read about their experience submitting, their unbiased opinions of Words of Belief, their different writing methods and even their jumps for joy at discovering their selection by the judges.
Grand Prize Winner: Tyler Powell for “Churchmas Eve”
WOB Question: How did you feel entering the contest?
Powell’s Answer: I felt great entering the contest, not out of any thought of winning, but because it was a step for me in pursuing what I’d like to do as a career. The experience of having a prompt, developing a story, executing it and then submitting it for review was the first (and truest) reward. If I hadn’t won or been a finalist, I would still have spent time working on my craft, and I would still be a story richer for it.
Q: How did you react when you found out that you won?
A: When I learned that I had won the contest, my first reaction was pure disbelief. I had no expectation that I was going to win, though I did hold some hope that I would be selected as a finalist. I read the congratulatory e-mail two or 18 times and then double-checked what it said against the website. Then, I danced a little dance.
Q: What did you know about Words of Belief before you entered the contest?
A: I wasn’t familiar with Words of Belief prior to hearing about the contest. So far, I’m impressed with what it has to offer. I am a big fan of the possibilities of new media — as a writer, it’s wonderful to be able to have such convenient access to potential readers.
Q: How did you learn about the contest?
A: I learned about the Words of Belief contest by spending a night doing endless searches for any information regarding writing contests, or short story markets, and following link to link, looking for more. Whenever I found something that looked promising or interesting, I would keep that window open. The idea of writing a holiday-themed story really appealed to me, and the simple entry process for the Words of Belief contest kept that window open, and ultimately led to my writing my submission.
Q: Is this your first time entering a writing contest? What can you tell us about your experience?
A: Yes — this was my first time entering a writing contest. It was wonderful. I’ve held several jobs over the course of my youngish life, but so far none have engaged me so much as writing. And really, the contest for me was not much more than a good excuse to write something specific. I wanted an idea, or a theme, or a prompt to write against — I find it difficult to start with a completely blank page. (more…)
Wordclay Interviews Poet Brenda Mirsky, Grand Prize Winner of the Book of Poetry Contest
Cue the music. Dim the lights.
And now, the starting wordsmith on your poetry crusade into the grueling literary scene, please join me in welcoming the poet who won the Wordclay Book of Poetry Contest, the sultan of stanza, the tycoon of modern transcendentalism, the mender of myth, the one, the only, Brenda Mirsky.
The crowd cheers.
She’s kept you in suspense for the last month. But now, finally, she reveals some telltale details of her artistic and turbulent past to Blogger Justin Dimos.
Justin: How did you feel entering the contest?
Brenda: I never dreamed I would win so I didn’t really have any feelings about entering. I thought there was nothing to lose by trying.
Justin: How did you react when you found out that you had won? (more…)
Wordclay Interviews Poet Jamie Crawford, Grand Prize Winner of the Single Poem Contest
Calling all writers… Calling all writers…
Come in writers!
Jenn’s blog has been interrupted this afternoon to bring you some breaking news.
For the first time in history, Jamie Crawford, Grand Prize winner of Wordclay’s Single Poem Contest, has agreed to answer our Interview questions.
Blogger Justin Dimos is on the literary scene and reports:
Justin: How did you feel entering the contest?
Jamie: I felt a bit apprehensive because I’d never participated in a national writing competition before and realized this would mean a higher caliber of writing would be considered.
Justin: How did you react when you found out that you had won?
Jamie: I didn’t process it. I thought maybe a mistake had been made. Finally, though, I realized that I had legitimately won the single poem contest. It was an exhilarating and uplifting feeling to be recognized in this way.
Justin: What did you know about Wordclay before you entered the contest?
(more…)
