Month: February 2013

Flash Fiction Challenge: Déjà View

Photo by K.S. Brooks

Everything is the same. The flag is even blowing in the same direction.There stands the tower, just as it appeared in his dreams.

No girl plunging to her death, though. At least, she wasn’t there yet.

The dreams had haunted him for months, summoning him from his farm in Kansas to this spot. Why?

Is he here to prevent the girl from dying, or merely to witness it?

He sets his jaw in grim determination and heads toward the tower.

In 250 words or less, tell us 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, February 19th, 2013.

On Wednesday morning, we will open voting to the public with an online poll for the best writing entry accompanying the photo. Voting will be open until 5:00 PM Thursday.

On Friday morning, the winner will be recognized as we post the winning entry along with the picture as a feature. Best of luck to you all in your writing!

Entries only in the comment section. Other comments will be deleted. See HERE for additional information and terms.

Book Brief: Here We Are and There We Go

Here We Are & There We Go: Teaching and Traveling With Kids in Tow
by Jill Dobbe
Genre: Travel Memoir
Word count: 60,000

Who says you can’t travel with kids? Dan and I find out we can do just that as we set off with our two very young kids, first to live and work on an island far out in the Pacific, then on to the continent of Africa with a few stops in between. Armed with strollers, diapers, and too much luggage, we travel to over twenty-five countries throughout a ten year span, while working together as international overseas educators.

After surviving typhoon Yuri, almost being mauled by lions, and, nearly being shot by a presidential guard, we happily endure all of the good times and bad, while living life to the fullest. A decade’s worth of experiences and lifelong memories remain with us, as we return to the U.S., now with two teenagers in tow, and begin to experience our very own version of reverse culture shock.

Here We Are & There We Go chronicles our family’s ten years of living and teaching in overseas schools in four different countries (Ghana, Singapore, Guam, Mexico) and the crazy, hilarious, and sometimes scary situations we found ourselves in. It is a travel memoir about what our family of four experienced while living with other cultures, learning new languages, and literally traveling around the world. It is a book that everyone can relate to even armchair travelers and others who are or aren’t considering traveling or living abroad with or without kids.

This book is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Continue reading “Book Brief: Here We Are and There We Go”

Video Trailer: Occupation

These are the vampires that filled many nightmares of old. Meet the Romanov and Boirarsky clans. They have waged a war amongst themselves for centuries over feeding rights and inconsequential issues. All of that changes when Adolf Hitler invades Poland in 1939. The Germans start shipping off their food supply to distant lands. The clans are forced to decide if they are going to continue with their fruitless battle, or combine their collective forces and take on an opponent worthy of their sharpened fangs: The Third Reich!

Vampires versus the Third Reich. Evil never tasted so good.

Occupation, the alternative history novel by Jeff Dawson, is available through Amazon.com and Amazon UK.

Don’t forget, you can cast your vote for trailer of the month on February 23, 2013 at 5 p.m. Pacific time.

My Take-Away on Tardif

When I picked up this book (on a KDP Select free day), I was sure I was going to hate it. I figured it would be another rehash of all the information that’s available on the web for free to any indie author with the brains to parse a Google search.

But then I read the first couple of chapters, and realized that maybe Tardif knew what she was talking about. Like many of us, she got burned by a vanity publisher; she got burned again by a badly-managed small press; she spent years schlepping her paperbacks from one personal appearance to another; and then she found KDP Select. Lucky for her, she hit Select in January 2012, when it was in its glory days; the $42,000 month she refers to in her title is March 2012, before Amazon instituted the big algorithm change that made KDP Select much less of a cash cow for indies. Continue reading “My Take-Away on Tardif”