I recently had two really fun book events. I met with the Shalimar Book Review group, and had a book signing at the Phoenix Metro Center Barnes and Noble. Sadly we took no photos of the Shalimar group; all photos at B&N. The Shalimar Book Review is made up of a group of ladies from the Shalimar Ward. They select a book to be read by the group each month, and then meet in the home of a different member to discuss the selected book of the month, and have refreshments. This was the second time I had the opportunity to meet with them to discuss my books, writing, and related topics. This is an event I to which I really look forward, since they are all friends; I don’t have to worry about appearing clumsy or stupid, because they already know how clumsy and stupid I can be, yet they still accept me. Some of the ladies have written books themselves, are currently working on a book, or are thinking about writing. This provides some interesting questions about my experiences, successes and failures. We had some serious discussion and some sharing of funny incidents and some talk about what they like or would change in some of my stories. Some of them mentioned that they would like to see some of my more interesting oddball characters reappear occasionally in my stories. I think that is a good idea, because I quite enjoyed writing about Lily and Baxter Thomas, Apache sister & brother; Richard of Beautiful Land; Cliff Nolan, repentant cattle thief; Larry Sotelo, drug suspect; Alf Hesse, mystery hermit; and a few others. They are all examples of good people who are a little twisted, a term that could describe a lot of real-life rural characters I’ve known. In a word the evening was fun. Several of them had a book with them for me to sign, and a few bought a book, which I was also pleased to sign. Then we had ice cream for refreshments; I love ice cream. The signing at Metro Center Barnes & Noble was also very enjoyable. My brother Bill came to assist me with setting up and taking down my display, and more importantly, he visited with people who stopped at my table while I was occupied with signing books; he also to the photo’s displayed here. It took me a little over 45 minutes to travel to the store from my house, and I was delayed in leaving by a service technician who needed to be paid, so just made it before the 1:00 PM start time. To my surprise there was a group of people waiting for me when I arrived and Adrianna, the very nice Community Relations Manager at B&N, was beginning to worry a bit. So we instantly sold four copies of Saints & Sinners, and visited with customers as I signed them. Adrianna said four books was a great start and added that they consider five or more books a successful signing. Among the group was Lois’ dear childhood friend, and mutual friend of our youth, Sarah Tizzard Wilson, with her daughter and granddaughter. I think Sarah was a bit disappointed that Lois was unable to come due to a summer cold, so we now need to arrange a get together. I announced to the waiting audience that Sarah and I got arrested together once, which drew the interest of her girls. Unfortunately, I was distracted by signing before I could finish the story; I wonder if Sarah was forced to recount the episode to the girls. Poor Sarah and Lois were only guilty by association as a large group of friends cruised in Sarah’s dad’s new Chrysler Imperial. Upon spotting a stop sign where we decided one shouldn’t be all the boys jumped out and took the sign, which proved too big to get in the car, so we threw it down. A witness got the license plate number, and the next day we were all called to the sheriff’s office. I’m not sure if Sarah got to drive the Imperial again. Her dad was later my boss, but he never mentioned the incident, and you can be sure I didn’t either. Another couple in the group that assembled before I arrived were the Weech’s, cousins to Lance Weech whom I knew in Globe (he operated the San Carlos Tribal Store at San Carlos, which I think was called Weech’s Trading Post. His younger sister Linda is now a Facebook friend). They had driven across the city from Mesa to purchase my book. I really enjoyed the short visit we had, but failed to understand how they were related to my friends until corrected on Facebook. The best Bill and I could calculate we sold six books to people that came specifically to my signing, and six more to people who stopped by my table without having ever heard of me or my books. One of Bill’s friends who had planned to come did not make it back from girl’s camp in time, so called to say she would by the book on Monday. I signed the remaining books the store had ordered before we left. I enjoyed meeting several new friends. One was an Army Sergeant in uniform who bought Saints & Sinners, he and Bill both being military men, hit it off and visited. He had served in the Middle East in the regular army and is now in the Arizona National Guard. I was proud to have a veteran buy my book. A young man stopped by and looked at the book, visiting with me for a while as he waited for his mother. It turned out she had a connection with Globe-Miami, she is Barbara Barnett a member of the Rayes family, very important merchants and civic leaders in the history of the area. It was nice making her acquaintance. Next Up: Signing at Henderson, Nevada, Barnes & Noble, Wednesday, July 9 – If you know anyone in the area of Las Vegas, let them know! |
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Saints & Sinners was published on April 27 and officially released on May 1. I have received my initial personal stock of books to use at book signings, other events, and to directly sell to bookstores or readers. The book is now in four bookstores in Arizona and available online in print at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Oak Tree Press, and as an e-book through Amazon Kindle. For readers who do not have a Kindle, they offer a free app that will allow you to read Kindle books on any device; I’ve included a link to the download page on my “Buy Saints & Sinners” tab on this page. It will allow you to read Kindle books on such devices as your laptop, tablet, smart phone, etc. Last week I held my first book signings, one at the Tempe Public Library, and one at the Latter Day Cottage in Mesa. The first was a speaking event as part of the library’s “Totally Tempe” summer reading series. I had a good audience (approximately 25), many of whom had read The Wham Curse. I gave a twenty minute presentation on my books, writing, and publishing which was accompanied by a slideshow, then spent a half-hour with questions and answers. Afterward I visited with guests while signing books. I sold and signed ten books and signed several more that had been purchased earlier online. It was nice to note that three quarters of those attending had previously read The Wham Curse, and were back for more. It was also nice that others were there due to the library event, and had not heard of my writing before- so new readers. Both of my books are now included in the Adult Summer Reading Program and one of the prizes for the winner rewards will be a signed copy of Saints & Sinners. There may have been some miscommunication about the signing at Latter Day Cottage – some readers told me the e-mail from the store had the wrong date. At any rate, I was one of two authors there; the other was an award winning fantasy author, which normally draws rather well. It turned out to be a slower than usual day; only five customers even came in. We did manage to each sell one book. I quite enjoyed visiting with the other author, Donna Cook, and was rewarded by her explaining the benefits of the exclusive e-book agreement my publisher has with Kindle. I now feel more comfortable with that arrangement. I’m planning a book tour in Eastern Arizona, have a discussion with the Shalimar Book Review Club on June 25, and a signing at the Phoenix Metro Center Barnes & Noble on June 28. I expect a review of Saints & Sinners in the Arizona Silver Belt newspaper this week or next, and an interview to be published in the Eastern Arizona Courier in two weeks. In July I will be attending the Public Service Writers Association in Las Vegas, and will be a panelist four other authors discussing writing a series. I REALLY enjoy writing and interfacing with readers. Unfortunately in order to get rewarded for that effort, I have to market my book and build readership, which takes a huge amount of time and effort, and takes me away from the two things I enjoy the most (re: the first sentence in this paragraph). If you read my story and like it please do two things: Go to Amazon and/or Barnes & Noble and write a review, and share your review with your Facebook friends. Those two things would help a lot, and I thank you in advance for doing it. If I could get up in the range of 10,000 readers I could afford to hire an expert to do the promotion and I could spend time writing and discussing with readers; what a dream… Thanks for visiting my page, and happy reading! Lois and I just completed a wonderful combination pleasure and business trip to Roswell, New Mexico where we attended my grandson Christopher’s baptism. As we travelled we stopped at bookstores where I pitched The Wham Curse and handed out a publicity sheet on Saints & Sinners; I now have three bookstores in New Mexico carrying The Wham Curse. So we got to visit with the family that we see the least frequently, as well as with Keith’s family (except for Michael who had to work), we had some business success, we saw a lot of beautiful scenery and historic places, and it was the first road trip Lois has been up to taking since she became critically ill about three years ago. We stayed overnight in each direction in Deming, so we averaged about five hours of travel each day, giving us plenty of time to rest and recuperate between legs of the trip. We travelled with only one slight mishap; in the confusion of construction in Las Cruces we went about forty miles in the wrong direction before realizing our mistake. We pulled off in Arrey (near Derry) and got directions and some home-made fudge, then, rather than retrace our route we continued to San Antonio, Carrizozo, Lincoln, and on to Roswell. I was excited to see Lincoln, the beautifully preserved historic town that was the scene of the Lincoln County War which brought Billy the Kid to outlaw prominence. Other favorite places we passed through were Ruidoso (really a slight jog off route rather than passing through), Mescalero on the Mescalero Apache Reservation, and White Sands. Roswell is a pleasant mid-sized city (about 50,000) with all the necessities and a fair share of niceties; of course their claim to fame is close encounters of the alien kind and it is evidenced by little green men and flying saucers everywhere you look. (We bought a bag full of little green men for our left-behind grandkids.) We celebrated our son, Chris’ birthday with him and Katherine with lunch at Chili’s as we headed for home. The Wham Curse is now stocked in Reader’s Cove, Deming; COAS Bookstore, Las Cruces; and Books Etcetera, Ruidoso. I enjoyed the Mesa Public Library Local Author Fair last Saturday. There were around forty authors there so it was particularly interesting to hear the similarities and differences in writing and publishing experiences. I gave a ten minute presentation on writing my books, sold and signed some books, and was asked by the Barnes & Noble representative to call her to schedule a book signing at the Metrocenter store in Phoenix, as well as their other stores in the Valley. Lois, Kristil, and Alex dropped by to support me, attended my presentation, and took a few photos. I was really pleased that Lois was able to come, since this was the first of my events in which she was healthy enough to participate. I was asked by a visitor, “Now that you have two books, which is your favorite?” I don’t know; I love them both. I guess it’s sort of like your children, they are different but they are both dear to me in their own unique way. I really like the historical and western connection in The Wham Curse, but I also really like the Mexican cultural element, and the maturing of Manny Sanchez both as a deputy as well as in his relationship with Jenny Mondragon in Saints & Sinners. I appreciate the Library, its personnel and volunteers, and B&N personnel who helped with the event. In my last blog entry I pointed out that life often turns out differently than we had planned; even differently than we would have imagined, but often even when bad things happen, it turns out for the better in the long run. As I started my second career, a writer, I ran into rejection from publishers. This included rejection of business articles, travel stories, history pieces, and fiction. My first attempt at a book was a proposal for a book on successful team management, submitted with grand hopes to the second largest publisher of business books and text books. The submissions editor was actually very nice to me, thanking me for my query, but rejecting on the basis that they were soon to release a book on that subject. He included a few pointers on what I could do to improve my query letter and named a couple of other publishers I might want to try. Interpreting the Many Kinds of Publishers When I submitted a pitch (which included a synopsis of the story and the first twenty pages) of The Wham Curse, to Poisoned Pen Press, the submittal editor was Mr. Monty Montee. He responded that he liked my story line and my story telling, and that he would like me to edit the manuscript for a list of problems he had spotted in my first twenty pages. I took a couple of weeks correcting some grammar and punctuation errors, shortening sentences and paragraphs, and making some changes to page and paragraph formatting. (If I remember correctly, this was the first time I had ever heard of using only a single space after a sentence; which most if not all publishers require.) When that edit was completed I submitted the full manuscript. Mr. Montee thanked me and said he had a backlog of manuscripts, but thought he could get to mine in about a month. He then explained their process for accepting a manuscript would take months, sometimes up to 18 months before they would accept or reject. When he completed his reading and evaluation, he would either reject it himself, or submit it to three independent professional readers, each of whom would read it and provide him with a critique and a grade based on several standardized criteria. If the average of the three grades were above some point it would be published. In short he was happy with it, and gave it to the readers, one gave me a high grade, one gave me a poor grade, and one gave it about an average grade; but the total was too low for publishing. It took eleven months to get that bad news. I asked him if there was any way I could get the critiques, so I could rewrite the story to eliminate the problems. He said that they don’t do that, but that he liked the story enough he would remove anything that would reveal the source of the critiques and send them to me. When I had rewritten it, he said to call him and I could resubmit it. The rewrite took almost a year, and it was very difficult; in fact some of the identified “problems” were listed as a problem by one reader, but a strength by another. An example was that originally the reader knew from the beginning of the story who the murderer was, one reader absolutely hated this and another thought it was fun to know more than the investigators and to see the mistakes they were making. So, on that point I compromised and moved the identity of the murderer to about the middle of the book; now at the halfway point, the cops still didn’t know but the reader does. Finally I felt that I had taken care of every objection, and attempted to contact Mr. Montee with no response. I finally found out he had died. I didn’t have the heart to go through that long process with a new and possibly unsympathetic editor, so I decided to self-publish. In the publishing world the general spectrum of publishers goes something like this: 1. Printers, who will print whatever you want and give the finished product to you for their fee, they claim no publication rights and give no services other the printing what you have provided to them. Think of something like a Kinkos or Staples. 2. Vanity press, which is really a printer who will help for a fee with some editing and cover work, but are paid for the book with no claim to royalties and who do little or no marketing of the book. The largest vanity press until it was put out of business by a class action filed on behalf of authors was Vantage. The promised printing and promotion, but took the money and printed; the large fraud judgment in favor of the plaintiffs put Vantage out of business in 2012. Things like this give the industry a bad image, but there are many honest businesses that make it clear what their product and service is. Two things mama told you: “If it’s too good to be true, it’s probably not true”; and, “Make sure it’s worthwhile before you pay any money.” 3. Self-publishers, who can provide the full services of designing, editing, marketing, and delivery for additional fees, but who charge you up front for printing, and still make something off the sale of each book. It’s important that the publisher makes money from the sales, so they have an incentive to promote and market. My self-publisher was Outskirts Press. 4. Small independent traditional publishers who actually contract with you for the publishing rights of the book, and publish it at their expense. To some extent they provide all the services of the big publishing houses also at their expense, including editing, design, marketing, distribution, advertising, and promoting. They pay the author a royalty on each book sold, and generally partner with them to promote the book. They usually do not pay cash for publishing rights or make an advance to the author based on future royalties. Oak Tree Press is in this category. 5. The large publishing houses have in-house staff who handles every aspect of publishing and releasing your book. They provide all the same services as the small presses; usually to a greater degree. They often pay their authors cash for rights or advances on royalties, royalties on books sold, and possibly all three. They also are more closely connected to the large scale distributors and retailers and offer an extreme advantage in sales promotion and national and international advertising. Of these, many people have worked with printers or vanity presses to publish such things as baby books, wedding books, family histories, company histories, hand-books, instruction manuals, or repair manuals. They will print whatever you want printed, sometimes with a little advice to make it better, as long as you pay for it. My experience with self-publishing through Outskirts Press with The Wham Curse was actually very good. The people were proficient at their jobs and were pleasant to work with. You can publish for very little if you reject most of the services offered or you could pay several thousand dollars if you decide to go for the premium services, promotion, and extras that they offer. I opted for the premium package and a few of the extra services, such as getting Kindle and Nook additions in addition to the standard Print and PDF e-books, and some additional advertising. I spent about 3000 dollars and feel like I got my money’s worth. It went to press very quickly with high quality printing, cover, paper, and binding. And at that time, I really could not have gone through another six months to get approval for a traditional press. The one thing I wish I had done is spend more with them for additional editing; but I was very happy with the finished product. In the three or so months since I first queried Oak Tree Press with Saints & Sinners, they have been a joy to work with. Again the personnel are knowledgeable, friendly, and helpful. They are also patient, putting up with my lack of understanding the jargon of the business, and providing detailed explanations and encouragement. Of course the fact that I don’t have to come up with money to print the book is a huge plus. They pay an industry standard royalty, so I will make about the same per book as I do with Wham. They directly approach distributors and sellers to stock your book, and they will sell the books at a good discount to an author who wants to directly sell books themselves. They have a promotions department that works to get your book out in front of buyers; this is a must for a traditional publisher, since they must sell books to even get back the cost of printing. I won’t see my finished product until around May, so do not have first-hand knowledge of the quality, but I have examined other books they publish, and they were a very good product. While Oak Tree warns that going to press can take a long time, from the time we signed a contract to publication is only going to take about three months. One last item on quirks of publishing: I submitted to multiple publishers the same week I did to Oak Tree. Two of them never acknowledge my query. Jolly Fish, publisher of Jennifer Griffith’s Big in Japan politely declined to review my manuscript with the explanation that it didn’t fit well in their type of book. Disappointing, yes, but one out of four was excellent considering that my record had been about one out of one-hundred-fifty. And I couldn’t be happier than I am with Oak Tree. Life is generally good, but sometimes it gives us a mixed bag. Our industry collapsed forcing me into early retirement six years ago, having worked for the same company for over 42 years. It was about six years earlier than I had planned to retire, so the prospect was frightening, since we still had more debt and less savings that we expected to have when we retired. I was afraid we would live on rice and beans for the rest of our life. Fortunately a few years earlier I had engaged the services of a very good financial manager. It turned out between our retirement and investments we had enough to get almost the same income we had when I was working. I was happy to be able to be assured I wouldn’t starve, and to have the time to devote to my historical research and writing. So what seemed really bad turned out to be good. I have made a lot of progress on my never-ending story of ranching in Gila County, published my mystery The Wham Curse, the second book Saints & Sinners is being published, and I am about one-third of the way into writing my third novel. This is very good. For quite some time Lois, and consequently I, have faced some difficult medical and emotional challenges. She was diagnosed about six years ago with polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR), which is characterized by widespread pain in the muscles and joints and extreme fatigue. It has been treated with some success by very high doses of steroids and weekly injections of methotrexate, a drug commonly used as chemotherapy for breast cancer patients. Especially since February 2013 her PMR has been steadily improving. Again my not having to go to work meant I was able to be with Lois when she needed me. We have always enjoyed each other’s company so being together has been a blessing to both of us. The really bad news is that the side effects of the medication have been very difficult, particularly for the past year. During that time the steroids have caused: muscle weakness, weight gain, diabetes, skin problems, cataracts, and a compression fracture in her lower back. The methotrexate caused, water retention, kidney problems, hair loss, dry skin, and extreme nausea for two or three days after each injection. She had disabling pain from the compression fracture, for which her only relief was powerful narcotic pain relievers. They caused extreme constipation even with a regimen of high fiber diet, stool softeners, and laxatives. That in turn resulted in a ruptured diverticula. She was finally released after three months of hospitalization on February 7, after having a section of colon removed, a hernia repaired, and prolapsed rectum reattached. Oh and during the hospitalization she got a blood infection in her PICC line that resulted in systemic sepsis with stroke-like symptoms, for which she is in physical and occupational therapy. During the hardest part of Lois illness, Oak Tree Press, a small independent publisher acquired publishing rights for Saints & Sinners, a really happy event for me, but one that was overshadowed by our personal difficulties. Now that Lois is finally home and steadily improving (with a bump caused by a bad cold right now) I have finally been able to seriously start working on finalizing the text for publishing, will soon me working on a cover, and am developing a Marketing Plan, and preparing for the release of the book on May 1. I will write more on this in my next blog; there are some interesting differences in working with a self-publisher and working with a traditional publisher. So final word on this bag of mixed blessings is that I’m so grateful for all that I’ve been blessed with. I grateful for the success my writing is meeting with. I’m most grateful that my dearest friend, the love of my life, is now healthier than she has been in a long time, and that I get to be with her every day. Life is good. This is Old Main where I worked nights as a custodian while attending EAC. I got an e-mail from the executive director of the Eastern Arizona College Foundation asking if I would donate a copy of The Wham Curse to the Alumni Authors Collection in the college library. I responded that I would be honored to have my book included with my fellow “Gila Monster” writers. I mailed the copy to him today. This got me to thinking about my time and experiences with EAC. I truly loved going to school there and I received so much from my two semesters as a full time student. My folks could not afford to send me to college, so I worked and saved through high school, and pretty much for the rest of my life. I worked for Inspiration Copper the summer I graduated from high school saving enough money to go to school, but not enough to do so “in style”. I had no car, no bike, but I did buy a small portable typewriter for $70. Thankfully many of the social activities at both the college and the Institute were free so I had an enjoyable social life, but I could not afford an activity ticket or tickets to sporting events, so I never actually witnessed the Gila Monsters play in any sport. My first semester (fall of 64) I worked as a dorm proctor in the brand new Mark Allen Hall, as I recall this gave me and my roommate, close friend Grant Wilbur, free rent on our dorm room. We worked for local farmers cleaning ditches and “chopping” cotton (which means hoeing the weeds out of the cotton fields without actually damaging the cotton plants) and any other labor that someone would pay us to do. We couldn’t afford a full meal ticket for the cafeteria so we bought one that let us eat a few times a week. We also collected as much in the way of crackers, catsup, fruit, and such as we could to have in our dorm room, since there was no cooking allowed there. Catsup tastes pretty good on crackers when you're hungry. For breakfast each morning I went over to the Thatcher Drug Store soda fountain and for ten cents had a coke float (we called it “the breakfast of chumps”). We had a rather bad experience one night when a few of our friends from Miami got to drinking and raising a ruckus in their room, so in our role as proctors we asked them to quiet down. They said OK, but almost immediately fired it back up. This time when we went to talk with them they pulled knives on us, and it was obvious they were drinking, so we called the Dean of Students and told him. The security and Thatcher police came and took care of the situation. We decided a free room wasn’t worth that kind of trouble, so we moved out of the dorm and rented a room in the old motel that was at the corner of Main Street and Stadium Avenue. It meant that we now could cook, and we could still use our meal ticket five times per week. So we bought eggs, bread, and milk, and had a bit more robust diet than we had before. I enjoyed the classes, particularly my chemistry and engineering drawing classes. I fondly remember several of my instructors, but the one that saved my bacon was Lorenzo Flake, who taught calculus. I was doing just fine in the class and then one day I realized I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. I studied hard, read the book, took copious notes, but was soon failing the class. I finally told him I was having trouble and he had me come in during his office time, we did this for the rest of the semester, and because of his patience and willingness to help me, he pulled me back up to a passing grade. My second full-time semester began when I returned from a church mission in Canada, in the spring semester of 1967. I applied for work study and was given a job as a custodian working for a fine man, I think his name was Orbie Starks, who taught me the proper way to clean bathrooms, mop, wash windows, empty trash, clean blackboards, and operate a floor polishing machine. This time I went in with three friends from Globe-Miami, Dale Billingsley, Chester Beadle, and Dan Smiley in renting an apartment in an old dairy barn from the Smith family in Thatcher. This semester was different in that Lois and I were engaged, Chester was dating Lois’ cousin Judy, and Dale was engaged to Kay Langley, so my social life that semester was centered in Miami, as was Chester’s since Judy was still living there. Kay was a student at EAC. Another friend, Wayne Blake was dating a student, Phyllis DeCloss, whom he would also marry. By the end of the semester we were all married. I was again hired at Inspiration for the summer, but at the end of June after working just three weeks, the copper unions all declared a strike which lasted for eight months. This ended my career as a full-time student. I would spend the next seventeen years taking night classes, travelling to Thatcher, taking classes at Gila Pueblo, serving a four your apprenticeship, and travelling to ASU, and eventually University of Phoenix, before finally getting my BAS in Management. But even that did not end my association with Eastern Arizona College; I worked evenings as a part-time associate instructor for Eastern Arizona at the Gila Pueblo Campus, the Miami Learning Center, the San Carlos Learning Center, and at the State Prison in Globe. I taught both academic and vocational classes in Instrumentation, Robotics, Business Management, and Public Speaking. So in addition to the education from the programs of EAC, I benefitted from the willingness of instructors to actually teach me, from learning important work and life skills, from developing coping and negotiating skills. When I was thrown out of work by the strike, jobs in Arizona were at a premium, because there were tens of thousands of copper workers who would take any job they could get. I was hired to work for Arizona Cleaning Contractors because of my custodial training, and was shortly promoted to floor polisher. I was later hired by the Arizona Highway Department because I scored higher than all other applicants on the drafting test (Engineering Drawing). They moved me into their Engineering Lab School, then promoted me to grade inspector because of my chemistry and lab skills. And so it continued through my entire career, EAC gave me the start, the advantage I needed to succeed. Now my readers know a bit more about EAC, which has significance in The Wham Curse (and in my life). By the way, the land on which EAC was built and some of the early structures were provided by Christopher Layton, my wife's great-grandfather. The past week has been an exciting one for me. The Wham Curse was selected as the January book for the Shalimar Book Club, and on Wednesday, January 30, I was invited to spend the evening discussing the book as well as my experiences with writing and publishing. It was a most enjoyable evening for me, and the ladies graciously said it was for them as well. Then on Thursday I heard from Sandra, my editor, that Saints & Sinners will have the substantive edit completed and ready for my review/rewrite early this week. I hope to turn it around and send it back for the copy edit within two weeks (of course that will be determined by the AMOUNT of rework required. At any rate, the publishing date is now probably only weeks away rather than months. I'm pleased and excited about that. Also on Thursday I was contacted by Australian Author Rebecca Byfield who writes both under her actual name and with the pen name Riley Banks. As Riley Banks, she does book reviews and author interviews on her Riley Banks The Writer's Shack web page (pictured in this blog). She asked if she could post an interview with me. I was very happy to do that since she has a large international following. The interview was published tonight and can be read by following the link: http://www.rileybanks.net/2/post/2013/02/virgil-alexander-talks-about-his-book-the-wham-curse.html So it was a week of pleasant discussion, progress on my next book, and potentially reaching some new readers; all of which is very nice. Oh, and my third mystery, as yet unnamed, is now 115 pages long; that's about one third of the story now in text. I hope the following weeks continue to be so productive, and I hope they are equally good for you. Discussion of Writing at Connolly Jr. High SchoolWith grandson Jared following the session in his class. On Thursday, December 13, I had the privilege of making a presentation on writing and publishing at the Connolly Junior High in Tempe, AZ. I spoke to two different seventh grade writing classes using a presentation on the setting, cultural background, and story line of The Wham Curse to demonstrate how a story is developed. Following the presentation I answered questions from the students. It was a rewarding experience for me being able to interact with these bright young people and express to them my own love for the written word. I told them that if they want to be writers they should become dedicated readers, that they will benefit from experiencing the style and craft of great writers from all ages and many different genres. I paraphrased the quote by Mark Twain that every person has a story to tell, and that they should each plan to write the story of themselves; that it will have value to them and to their posterity I was also happy to be able to acquaint many of the children, who have not experienced Arizona outside of the Phoenix Metro area, with some of the amazing history, geography, ecology, and culture of the state they live in. Many have never experienced living in a small town or visiting rural and wild areas of the Southwest. I was surprised and pleased that in both classes there were some Apache children who immediately identified the Apache Ga'an or Crown Dancers. Ms. Karen DeMarco, Seventh Grade Language Arts Teacher/Year Book Advisor, is an energetic and dedicated teacher who obviously has great respect and fondness for her students. It was nice to meet and visit with her. She invited me to speak to her classes after Jared had told her about my book and provided his mother's copy for her to read. I truly appreciated having this experience and have provided some copies of the book to the Connolly Library for use by the students. I had a great time at the Cottonwood book signing. All three of my siblings were there and a large percentage of nieces, nephews, great- and grand-nephews. A long-time Miami friend, Jim Bywater, drove his bike down from Chino Valley to visit and get a book. Jeanne Oldfather came and helped co-host for owner Larry Wolfe. And I was able to make some new friends as well. Thanks to Larry, Jeanne, and Ginger for their help with the event and advertising it, and to Bill Alexander for again traveling with me and helping me at the event. I took my camera; but forgot to take it out of my computer case, so have no photos to post of the event. I received an order from the Bookworms bookstore in Thatcher/Safford, and they are now selling The Wham Curse. This is the second outlet for the book in the Gila Valley; the Eastern Arizona Museum in Pima has been selling the book for about two months. I provided the Poisoned Pen Bookstore in Scottsdale with a review copy of the book and today they agreed to stock it for sale in their store. This is particularly exciting to me because Poisoned Pen is not only one of the premier independent bookstores in the country, but they are also a highly respected publisher of mysteries. They are known for selling quality stories. So eventhough we are in August, when Arizona makes devils long for the coolness of hell (116 today), and we have had a steady parade of book-related and family events, several health related crisis, and more to do than time can accomodate, it has been a great time for our family and for my new career in writing. |
AuthorMystery writer, Southwestern Historian, researcher, husband, father, grandpa, with an opinion on everything. Archives
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