Month: April 2012

Pin the Phrase on the Author (Round 2)

Everyone has gotten a chance to read articles by the IU staff, but could you pick their writing out of a lineup?

Below, you will see lines excerpted from the books of five Indies Unlimited authors. Can you tell which author wrote which line? Bonus points if you also know the book from which the line comes!

Below and to the left are pictures of the IU authors and next to each, a line from a book. The authors are not next to the lines from their own books. Or are they? See if you can mix and match the author with the line. Put your guesses in the comment section below (1. author name, 2. author name, etc.). The winner gets bragging rights.

Answers will be posted at 2 PM Pacific Time on Sunday, April 22. Good luck!

  1. “The tiny park was nicely tended, with some venerable old umbrella pines that leaned away from the prevailing winds off the water.”
  2. “Here, there is a palpable frenzy of guilty consumption, and despite the bleak economy, a marathon of parties – and an undercurrent of sex for sale.”
  3. “I drove through layers of absence.”
  4. “The sense of loss I felt had faded into the back of my heart, tucked into the place where those things best left unexamined dwelt.”
 Yvonne Hertzberger 5. “The darkness deepened until I was on the precipice of a hideous void.”
 

A Matter of Perspective

Lonely?

Writer.

 

That word looks so lonely. Every author has heard the proverbial, “Writing is the loneliest profession.”

Really.

We spend countless hours in front of the keyboard, with our imaginary and sometimes not so imaginary friends.

Think about it, if you write 750 words per hour (a decent clip, about what I average when I’m rolling) that means in the best case scenario, that’s 133 hours for a 100,000 word novel. In other words if you wrote for a solid five hours per day, it would work out to roughly 27 days—month and a week if you believe in weekends. Continue reading “A Matter of Perspective”

Week 17 Flash Fiction Challenge: A Chance Meeting

Photo by K.S. Brooks

One summer day as your character walks along breathing in the fresh salty air, he sees her there. She sits alone on the beach, looking saddened by something. He is moved by her.

What happens next? Does he approach her? Do they speak? Does he realize as he draws nearer that he knows her?

In 250 words or less, tell me a story incorporating the elements in the picture. The 250 word limit will be strictly enforced.

Please keep language and subject matter to a PG-13 level.

Use the comment section below to submit your entry. Entries will be accepted until 5:00 PM Pacific Time on Tuesday, April 17th, 2012. Continue reading “Week 17 Flash Fiction Challenge: A Chance Meeting”

Spotlight on…Susanne O’Leary

 

Reviewer Cathy Speight

Susanne O’Leary is Swedish and married to an Irishman, whose job took them to many countries, so of course she is, enviably, widely travelled. She has used her experience and knowledge of the different countries she has visited to great advantage in her novels to diversify their settings and backdrop.

Her English is impeccable, and one would never know from her novels that English isn’t her first language. Of her many books, I have read A Woman’s Place and Sonja’s Place; these are accounts of the lives of her Great-aunt Julia and her daughter (Sonja), taken from diaries Susanne found in her grandmother’s belongings. The third of Susanne’s books I have read is a contemporary romance, Finding Margo. Continue reading “Spotlight on…Susanne O’Leary”