Day: February 12, 2013

Sneak Peek: Don’t Tell Anyone

Today we have a sneak peek from the new novel by author Laurie Boris: Don’t Tell Anyone.

When pneumonia lands Estelle Trager unconscious in the emergency room, it ruins everything for the stubborn 65-year-old woman. She’d been keeping a secret—a deadly secret—that she’d planned on taking to the grave. But now her son Adam and his wife, Liza, know about her tumors. Adam is outraged, but Estelle, who watched her mother and grandmother suffer from breast cancer in the days when no one dared speak its name, has no intention of putting her family or herself through the horrors of cancer treatment. Estelle decides there is only one solution: ask Liza, the 33-year-old daughter-in-law she once called a godless hippie raised by wolves, to kill her.

A horrified Liza refuses and keeps the request—among other things—a secret from her furious husband. But she tells his younger brother, Charlie, a close friend from college with whom she shares her own confidences, despite Adam’s serious case of sibling rivalry. Armed with nutrition textbooks and her neighbor, a savvy nurse, can Liza win over her mother-in-law and convince her to consider other options before the cancer, the secrets, and Estelle’s determination to end her life win out?

Don’t Tell Anyone is available in print and ebook format from Amazon.com, Amazon UK, and Smashwords.

Here is an excerpt from Don’t Tell Anyone… Continue reading “Sneak Peek: Don’t Tell Anyone”

Meet the Author: Lara Reznik

Lara Reznik, a native New Yorker, attended college at the University of New Mexico where she studied under esteemed authors Rudolfo Anaya and Tony Hillerman. She later attended a summer program through the Iowa’s Writer’s Workshop. Besides her recently published novel, The Girl From Long Guyland, which has garnered rave editorial reviews from such established institutions as Kirkus, Lara has written and optioned three screenplays, The M&M Boys, Bagels & Salsa, and Dance of Deception, which have received semifinalist and finalist wins in the Austin Heart of Film, Southwest Writers, TV Writer, Chesterfield and Writer’s Digest contests. She’s currently completing her new novel based on her screenplay, THE M&M BOYS, due out in September 2013.

Lara says her favorite part of the writing process is the first draft of the book, “… when the creative process is magical as the characters come alive for the author, and the plot takes on unimagined twists and turns.” She believes in good outlining, and she uses and recommends Scrivener. Continue reading “Meet the Author: Lara Reznik”

Indie News Beat: Is there a publishing industry or isn’t there?

We’ve lots of places to visit in this edition of Indie News Beat, beginning with a neat article headlined There Is No Publishing Industry, in which John Cavnar-Johnson suggests that what we generally understand as the publishing industry can now be broken down into four distinct “information delivery” industries, which are each advancing towards digitalisation at their own speeds. Continue reading “Indie News Beat: Is there a publishing industry or isn’t there?”

Tutorial: Resizing Pictures

Why in the world could I possibly need to know how to resize a picture? you ask. Well, Skippy, it goes like this. A reporter or blogger or some other nice person who wants to feature your book asks you for a jpg image of your book cover – or a head shot – no larger than 500kb. But the only image you have of yourself looking all sexy and authory is 4 megabytes. So you send it anyway. BAD AUTHOR!!!! That’s a really good way to annoy someone who’s trying to help you. But…how do I make the image smaller? you say. Well, I’ll show you.  Aren’t you glad you asked?

See the cover above? The size of the original file is 606 kb. That’s over half a megabyte and still doesn’t meet the criteria of the 500kb requested by whomever. Making it smaller is very fast and easy. Go to the folder where your picture is stored. If you mouse over it, that should tell you how large the file is. (I knew you were going to ask that next. Ha!) See the photo below. Continue reading “Tutorial: Resizing Pictures”