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Second Annual Miss Bookshelf USA

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I realize y’all have been waiting all year for this pageantry of books that follows Miss USA. I did better this time around, woke up from my celebratory Mother’s Day nap just in time to watch Miss District of Columbia straighten her wobbly tiara.

The books eligible for this prestigious award (yes, it’s fine, go ahead and snort at that)  are the twenty-two books I reviewed last year on Goodreads. You can find the complete list here.

In a book slump and need some recommedations on what to read next? Check out my spoofy Miss Bookshelf USA lieterary pagent to see some of my favorites, from middle grade to adult!

After much deliberation and only three hardbacks falling off my bookshelf onto me (they were immediately disqualified for unruly behavior), here are my Top Ten Delegates in no particular order:

Ronald Smith’s HOODOO

Karen Russell’s SWAMPLANDIA!

Marissa Meyer’s CRESS

Kristen Lippert-Martin’s TABULA RASA

Angela Quarles’ MUST LOVE CHAINMAIL

David Mitchell’s THE BONE CLOCKS

Melanie Benjamin’s THE SWANS OF FIFTH AVENUE

Sarah Glenn Marsh’s FEAR THE DROWNING DEEP

Shannon Hale’s THE GOOSE GIRL

Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett’s GOOD OMENS

Once again, a nice, eclectic mix. Be sure to check out my Goodreads reviews to see why they made it on such an awesome list.

Without further ado… Miss Amity goes to GOOSE GIRL

ggIsi is such an amazing and brave character for believing in herself and her aunt’s stories when others refused to.

Mr Photogenic goes to MUST LOVE CHAINMAIL

thThere are no mipples that Ms. Quarles is fond of, but the cover is electric all the same, and in my head, Robert is indeed photogenic *swoon*

And Miss Style was a no brainer one–this book positively oozed with style… THE SWANS OF FIFTH AVENUE!

I must say, we were quite stylish too at the 50’s Cocktail Party.

Second Runner-Up is THE BONE CLOCKS!

and it didn’t hurt its chances one bit when David Mitchell actually responded to me on twitter. Total fan-girl moment!

First Runner-Up goes to GOOD OMENS

go (which I cannot wait ’til it hits the screens. Loving what I’ve seen so far of American Gods)

And now… the moment you’ve all been waiting for…

Miss Bookshelf USA is FEAR THE DROWNING DEEP!

Nt5KvertThe Isle of Man and it’s folkloric inhabitants have always been fascinating to me.

So what do y’all think? I’d love to know who you would have crowned from your list of read books. And if you’d like to see which books made it into last year’s pageant, check out that blog post here.

The Magic of Mardi Gras

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Dinner is a rushed affair of sloppy joes and not enough vegetables. Shoes are sensible and closed-toed for the streets will get messy. Downtown is more packed than the kids have ever seen but we manage to squeeze into a parking spot not far from Royal Street. As soon as we get out of the truck, jazz music swells up in our toes and it’s impossible not to walk in rhythm to the horns.

We find a spot against a barricade and the crowd swells. Both kids gasp. My three year old grabs my hand in his.

Always try to see things a little differently--that's real magic. Check out this blog post to experience a tiny but of #mobilemardigras

The magic of Mardi Gras

A train, the Conde Express, massive, gloriously green, purple, and gold steams toward us.

“Hands in the air!” I instruct the kids as beads and stuffed animals and moonpies rain down.

“Hey Mister! Throw something to me!” My daughter, at six, is a pro at this now.

A mermaid, as tall as the oaks, swims by shortly. Then Darth Vader. Gorgon Medusa. By the end of Carnival season, the kids will see a smoke-billowing dragon slither down streets that look normal in the daytime. But at night, and on Fat Tuesday, something magical happens that allows one to see the world a little differently. The fantastical comes to life. mardigrase7fda6b782fc781940e46900ceca9174

Mobile, AL is the birthplace of Mardi Gras. New Orleans may do it louder, bigger, and raunchier, but the magical event that is Mardi Gras was born right here in 1703 when Mobile was the first capital of French Louisiana.

Even just being present, being part of a tradition that’s been around for centuries is magic unto itself though, for the most part, the two-tiered, gilded floats have come a long way from the very first parade: sixteen men of the Boeuf Gras Society pushing a cart with a papier-mâché cow head.

1923316_506931169223_353_n The secrecy of the masks and mystic societies make ordinary people seem larger than themselves. An anything-is-possible thrum in the air that connects us, that makes adults beg for plastic beads and cups, but then hand everything over once the parade passes to little children with wide-eyes and chocolate-smeared mouths.

15439702_10101325313189053_7928266597404588128_nAnd all that will remain once Lent arrives are beads draped like Spanish moss from the live oaks. A tiny reminder to see the world on different terms.

Have you had a chance to experience the magic of a Mardi Gras celebration? I’d love to know how it helped change your perspective of things.

 

Autograph Your Book

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As a writer, you’ve worked on a glorious assemblage of words that can tower up to 200,000 in the case of one of my critique partners (it’ll probably end up as a trilogy, don’t worry). The longest amount of words I’ve strung together so far is 70,000. Then, once you have every word exactly how you want it, deeply imbued with meaning, and loadbearing-ness, and imagery, you have to summarize it into a one page synopsis, then a paragraph in a query letter, then a two sentence hook, and maybe a 140 character tweet if you participate in twitter contests such as #pitmad.

I thought of something else while I was in the shower–too early for my right brain to be awake and tell my left brain and me how silly we are–what about the authors who summarize their grand literary conglomeration into an autograph?

A couple well-known author autographs in my collection, like Maggie Stiefvater and Rick Riordan, are just their names–and I feel honored to have them on my bookshelves. Many that I have say something along the lines of “good luck with your writing”, which is awesome because it means I had a chance to talk with them in person about the craft of writing.autograph

But some authors take their book itself and connect it to the readers.

I imagine JK Rowling’s is pretty easy. All she would need to write is “Always.”

Here are some of my favorites:2qdeqfyx

“Here’s to finding our edge but never going over it!” -Lena Roy, author of Edges.

This one is great because, as the title implies, there are so many edges in this book: the literal ones of the canyons in the Moab desert, and the figurative ones the main characters must find-Luke with grieving for his dead mom and alcoholic dad, and Ava with tiptoeing the edge of sobriety as she tries to regain control of her life.

autograph2“What’s the one thing you want most?” -Stephanie Lawton, author of Want.

The main theme centers around what the characters, Juli and Isaac, want whether it be a prestigious music career, or something off-limits, juxtaposed with society’s (especially Old Mobile) traditions and familial responsibilities.

autograph1

“Stay true to yourself” -Joyce Sterling Scarbrough, author of True Blue Forever.

This novel (and now a trilogy!) is about the ever-changing friendship and rivalry between Jeana, Mickey, Billy Joe, and Wade and staying true to each other.

autograph3“Never give up on your dreams.” -Robin Bridges, author of The Gathering Storm.

Her protagonist, Katiya, holds fast to her dream of becoming a doctor in 1888 Russian royal society which gets her through all the craziness that being a necromancer brings, namely, zombies and vampires.

What would mine be?

Yes, I know it’s way too early to be thinking about this though I thought it would be a fun exercise and maybe help me with query hooks. One of my manuscripts is a YA mystery about a girl who’s brother is missing. My main character, Bea Pearl, copes with memory loss, questioning reality and wondering if her dreams might actually be memories. So my autograph message for her book might be something along the lines of Mrs. Scarbrough’s and Mrs. Bridges’ with “believe in your dreams”.

Another manuscript I have out on submission is an upper middle grade fairytale retelling of Melusine, the two-tailed water spirit on your Starbucks cup. It’s about a girl, Mellie, who is banished and cursed by her mother. It has an ecological theme so I’d want to incorporate that, maybe something along the lines of “It’s not easy being green (-tailed!)” Haha, that’s horrible but I have time to come up with something better.

I’d love to know what your autograph message is (or will be), how you connect your story to your readers. You’re welcome to leave a link in comments if you have a book out, or share what you’ll write once your writing dreams come true.

Thanks for reading!

 

 

Faith, Trust, & Pollen Dust

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The kiddos and I are eating breakfast one morning when my daughter sighs deeply into her Cheerios. “Magic’s not real, is it, Mommy?”

I drop my biscuit. Gosh, that hope rests so tremulous in her little girl voice. I’ve worked hard at instilling wonder and believing in possibilities that I have no idea where this is stemming from; did someone in her preschool class tell her Santa didn’t exist? This innocence is so important to me that I don’t want to say the wrong thing. So I take a big swig of coffee. Choke a little bit. Realize I need more information (Something I recently discovered to do when I don’t know how to respond, like when they asked where babies come from. Never answer a kid’s question at face value, I’ve learned.)

“What do you mean?”

She shifts in her booster seat. “Well, princesses aren’t real.”

Nervous, I launch into a monologue about the differences between our democracy and a monarchy, and by the time her eyes glaze over, something catches my attention out the window behind her. A Gulf fritillary deposits eggs on the passionflower vines that climb up the posts on our back patio.

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I point it out to her. “That’s kind of magical, isn’t it? That butterfly is laying a teeny, tiny egg, and we’ll get to watch the caterpillars hatch and grow, then harden into chrysalises that look like dried leaves curled into question marks. And then a butterfly comes out!”

She looks doubtful, but nods. “What about pixie dust? There’s nothing like that in this world.”

DSC04147

By now, I know how to answer her, how to answer this question of faith, and believing, and growing up but holding onto possibility. “Look at the patio table outside. What’s on it?”

My son yells, “Pollen!” He’s happy to be able to contribute to such a serious discussion. And poor thing, he knows all about pollen because every time something new blooms he gets congested.

I nod. “And what does pollen do?”

“Turns your car yellow!”

“Gets in my nose and makes boogers!”

I laugh. “What do bees and butterflies do with pollen?”

“Takes it to all the flowers. Bees make honey, too.”

“And isn’t that what Tinker Bell and all her friends do with pixie dust? Use it to help things grow? It turns seeds into flowers, and acorns into oak trees?”

She nods, the smile on her face showing me she’s satisfied with my explanation. We’re both happy that she can see the magic now. Because really, it’s all at how you look at things. As Roald Dahl wrote:

thDahl magic meme

This breakfast exchange got me thinking of how nice it would be to have these little reminders of all the magic constantly around us, though maybe we’re too tired, or too busy, or too in ‘our world’ as my daughter called it, to see. So I’m going to start a hashtag on my author page and twitter called #everydaymagic.

And I’d really love it if you’d play along too. Seeing from someone else’s perspective is a magic unto itself.

Writing Contests & Tahiti Tours

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This past weekend forty-five finalists culled from over 400 entrants had their queries and first three pages of their manuscript presented to twenty-six agents. Much better odds than a slush pile, right?! So today I want to focus on writerly things and talk about contests and what they can do for authors.

FicFestlogo

In a nutshell: mentoring, networking, and getting your work in front of agents are the three most important things you can get out of participating. And that’s for everyone, not solely contest winners.

As a team mentor for the new writing contest, FicFest, I’ve now been on both sides. I first began entering writing contests in 2013. My manuscripts did well in them without winning (yes, that’s possible, haha) and the mentoring I received is what helped me connect with my agent. You can read that story here on QueryKombat co-founder and twitter contest-extraordinaire Michelle Hauck’s blog.

And so I wanted to pass my appreciation along to a writer I could help, deciding to mentor in the contest. It’s helped me too as I’ve met a lot of other writers, some of who in turn have beta read for me. The writing community truly is the best. My team leader, UK author Laura Noakes, feels the same way:

When I was querying, I entered a tonne of competitions similar to #FicFest. I met so many writer friends, learnt loads about publishing and writing, and had so much fun in those contests—querying is sometimes really hard, but contests made it fun. I suppose I wanted to be a mentor because I wanted to help someone else feel that way.

There are lots of writing contests and the best place to find them (and other writers) is on twitter. They mainly fall into two categories, merit and mentor. Merit contests are based on how well your entry already is, while a mentor-based contest focuses on an individual working with a chosen entrant to make their work the best it can be. It seems like a no-brainer to go for the mentor-based contests, but I was surprised at how polished some of the entries were–I didn’t know how I could help improve it. So they would be better suited for merit-based contests.

Maryland author Tiffany Hofmann, founder of FicFest, says she set out

to create a contest were all books were given equal opportunity, and equal representation. I believe we accomplished just that.

All genres are represented in #FicFest: Children’s Books, Middle Grade, Young Adult, New Adult, and Adult. Each genre has three teams and each team is made up of three mentors who choose a mentee each and an alternate to share. What’s not to love about a contest that could potentially have forty-five winners?!

Being a mentor on Middle Grade’s Team Tahiti is awesome! (This year’s theme for FicFest is World Tour so each team chose a country.) In my pick, I fell in love with the voice and world building immediately, and after emailing the contestant, was excited that we could work together so well.

TeamTahiti

Team Tahiti mentor Laura says:

I don’t think I realised how cool it would be to read revisions on a MS I already loved and think ‘WOW!’. The difference from the first time I read Devon’s MS to her revised MS is amazing, and shows how much hard work she put in. It was such an honour to see that journey!

Mentee Tennessee writer Erica Waters says:

I was surprised by how well [my mentor] understood my characters—sometimes it seemed like she knew them better than I did. She pointed out when they were acting out of character or speaking in inauthentic ways. None of my beta readers/CPs were quite able to do that.

The mentees had two months to work with their mentors. Hearing (and giving!)constructive criticism isn’t always easy (and sometimes overwhelming) when a manuscript has gone through so many revisions, especially in the all important first pages. But Erica has some comments she didn’t mind reading:

“Oooh, total Gollum-vibe. Excellent job setting this up since I felt the same horror as Vaya and Jada even though I eat fish lol.” I love this comment because it showed me how immersed she was in my story and let me know that I was accomplishing what I meant to in conveying an unfamiliar worldview. (The LOTR reference doesn’t hurt either!)

Curious to read Team Tahiti’s entries and see if they’ve gotten any agent-love? Check them out here! Only show your support by liking; commenting is reserved for agents.

I’d love to see your thoughts on writing contests! How have they worked for you? If you haven’t entered before, I hope this post inspires you to change that. It might be the push your manuscript needs.

Haiku & Magical Implantation

/ candicemarleyconner / 13 Comments

Have you seen the meme floating around facebook of how words are magic? How a few sounds we make with our mouths can create images in others’ minds?

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To me, nothing does this better than a haiku. So few words that make such a complete picture. I’m a purist when it comes to haiku (and pizza. Only pepperoni and cheese will do. If I get fancy with the sauces and the toppings, its good, but it just doesn’t satisfy that pizza craving. You feel me? But I digress…). Haiku are now accepted in all syllabic form, with greater flexibility of subject and style. And that’s fine. But for me, I like traditional. I like the restraint, the magic created from the rigidity. What does that say about me? Umm…

So what is a traditional haiku?

First, the structure. Three lines 5-7-5 The first line needs to have five syllables, and so on.

Second, the subject. A traditional haiku is usually about nature.

Third, the images. It includes a word or phrase called the kigo which symbolizes or implies a season (usually using nature themes). Then there’s also the kireji (which is my favorite, I have no idea why? Maybe because I adore juxtapositions?) which is a cutting word that resonates and causes the poem to end reflectively. Wikipedia calls it “a kind of verbal punctuation mark which signals the moment of separation and colours the manner in which the juxtaposed elements are related.” Isn’t that lovely? Here are more random fun facts about haiku.

And here’s my haiku that I’m excited to have published in this month’s issue of Haiku Journal.

13450233_1757387377816366_1432801627996517216_n

Blue filters through oak

leaves, catching the green on fire

like copper burning

 

My kigo is the oak leaves, green, implying spring or early summer, while my kireji is the juxtaposition between the images of new, fresh leaves and burning copper.

This one didn’t make it into the journal but it’s my absolute favorite so I want to share it with you guys:

The red snapdragon

growls at the chirping cricket:

No one can hear me!

There are many beautiful poems in the latest issue of Haiku Journal and they have them online for your viewing pleasure here. Mine is in Issue #44. They don’t charge reading fees so why don’t you submit one too?

So how do you feel about haiku? Are you a traditionalist or do you embrace the modern form? Tell me what you think about mine or comment with your own haiku. And then submit it to the journal and you could be as awesome as me and take bookshelfies with your copy, hahaha.

Eep! First blog post

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Look at me, carving out a tiny piece of the internet to call my own.

I’ve put off blogging for years, unsure that I would ever have anything to say that hadn’t been said before (and probably better–I tend to use run-on sentences and lots of parentheses). But then I thought, couldn’t I say the same about any sort of writing? Don’t we all have those uncertainties? And if I’ve pushed aside my doubts enough to write a novel (or three), then that excuse can’t hold true for me any longer.

So here I go. I’ve jumped off fallen trees into river water so muddy I can’t see what’s swimming around me with less trepidation.

418245_923426778683_2040150944_nAnd the risk to remain tight in my shell became more painful than the courage it took to flap my shells… to paraphrase Anais Nin.

I’ll post about being a mom and being a writer and being both at the same time which is often super hard. I’ll post about watery things, and magically things, and books which can sometimes be both of those things. (Basically things. See how I haven’t tied myself down?)

Say hi if you’re here! I look forward to your comments, so feel free to make yourself known.