Month: January 2013

Ioana Visan Announces New Title

Author Ioana Visan is pleased to announce the release of her collection of paranormal stories, Where Shifters Meet for Drinks.

Life is never easy when two major clans reside in the same city. Politics become more complicated especially since said citizens possess fangs and claws, beaks and talons as the werewolves and were-eagles do.

They also happen to be at war.

The one person responsible to keep them all in check is the Mayor, and even he is at loss when the threats come from the outside. But sometimes, just sometimes, miracles do happen.

Seven stories meant to make you laugh, sigh, sit on the edge of your seat, cringe, and think. Shapeshifter stories for non-shapeshifter fans.

Where Shifters Meet for Drinks was released on December 14, 2012 and is available from Amazon.com, Amazon UK, Smashwords, and other online booksellers.

Answers to Our Fill In The Blank Challenge

On Tuesday, we offered some lines from well-known literary works, missing but a word or two. How well did you do in filling in the blanks?

We’ve placed the answers below the fold.

You shouldn’t peek unless you really want to know.

All right then. Here are the answers:

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Featured Author, Jerrye Sumrall and Her Latest Book

Jerrye Sumrall lives on the Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay with her husband. Formerly an elementary school teacher and counselor, she is now a full-time writer, homemaker, amateur photographer and office manager for she and her husband’s business. She and her husband have traveled to many places in the United States and abroad. She has given you a glimpse into that part of her life through her personal website where she has combined her love of writing, traveling and photography. The new profile picture shows Jerrye at the Anne of Green Gables Farm in Cavendish, Prince Edward Island, Canada.

She has three books in her middle-grade mystery series, The Bayshore Mysteries. All three books, Intruders on Battleship Island, The Secret Graveyard and The Mystery of Wragg Swamp are available at Createspace and Amazon.com.

Jerrye says she never thought about writing mysteries as a child but knew she had a driving spirit of adventure and a fascination with the unknown. Whether it was watching horror flicks on television, reading Nancy Drew books or exploring her surroundings, the quest to solve a mystery was always there.

The Eastern Shore region of Mobile Bay, an area rich in Civil War history and small town culture, serves as a springboard for Jerrye’s first book, Intruders on Battleship Island. The Beatrice and Monroeville, AL, setting, found in The Secret Graveyard, brings to life new mysteries and secrets from the past. Mobile, Al, with its festive Mardi Gras celebration and spooky swamp setting serve as the backdrop for The Mystery of Wragg Swamp.

Jerrye feels her choice of unusual settings, her years of teaching and working with kids, her use of historical fact, age appropriate mystery, and teaching lessons in friendship and courage has made The Bayshore Mysteries a unique mystery series.

*Learn more about Jerrye on her Amazon author page, her WordPress website http://jerrye35.wordpress.com/ and on her Facebook author page.

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Just Wow

Following K.S. Brooks’ latest Tutorial Tuesday column, addressing Reddit, the Reddit welcome wagon came out. Apparently, at least some members of that community do not relish the thought of having indie writers among their ranks. Not content to vent their spleens there, a few members of their community decided to come here and make some comments ranging from condescending to vulgar.

In fairness, a few Reddit members came over and tried to offer some helpful advice. I wouldn’t paint all the members of their community with the same broad brush. I would hope people wouldn’t do that with ours either. Life is full of disappointments, though.

I’m not going to pretend I wasn’t offended by the ad hominem nature of the comments. It doesn’t require a surfeit of intellectual firepower to make fun of someone who is struggling in attempting to do something for the first time when you yourself have mastered it. It’s also easy to forget all people are newbies at some point.

I thank the few members of the Reddit community who came to offer some helpful insight. As for the attempted commenters whose inelegant bon mots did not make it past our spam wall, I will abstain from responding in kind.

Everyone makes their own decisions about which social media platforms to use. I’ve made mine, and I am sure Reddit will be none the poorer for it. If you decide to use Reddit, I wish you the best. There do seem to be some reasonable folks over there. Don’t be surprised if some of the others look at you like you’re a possum in the punchbowl, though.

There is an opportunity masked in every difficulty. From this, let us remind ourselves once more that the newbies in our own community need our help, not our condescension. We were all there once. I would hope our community would be more helpful and welcoming than some others.