Tag: storytelling

Win a Free book! Macneal’s The Prime Minister’s Secret Agent

Susan.MacNeal.(c)_Andrea_VaszkoTo promote not only Susan Elia Macneal’s new book but also my Blog, the folks at Random House have invited me to do a BOOK GIVE-AWAY!   Easy to enter but remember it is for a signed, paperback of ‘The Prime Minister’s Secret Agent’ only and you must have a US mailing address.

Like my page (writeratplay) on Facebook, like Susan’s page  https://www.facebook.com/susaneliamacneal?fref=ts, and follow us on Twitter.  Return to the post  and comment on my page, ‘Book Give-away – Done’.    WINNERS will be announced later this week!  Hurry to enter!!!
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DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with  best-selling AUTHORS!

In addition to my twice weekly blog I also feature an interview with another author once a month. So come along with me; we shall sneak into these writers’ special places, be a fly on the wall and watch them create!    Dean Koontz dean2photo_9was interviewed by me June 28th and July 1 in a two part sensational visit with this suspense-thriller mega-star.

To receive my posts sign up for my blog, blogs, blogger, writer, author, playwright, books, plays,fiction  On the home page, enter your email address.  Thanks!

My Interview with Dean Koontz! (part 2)

dean2photo_9Q: When did you begin to write seriously?

A: While I was in college. I sold my first short story when I was a senior, and the same piece won a prize in the college-writing contest Atlantic Monthly conducted at that time. I wasn’t very good for a number of years, but I kept selling. Later, I recovered the rights to all that early stuff and deep-sixed it, mostly science fiction and Gothic novels.

Q: What makes a writer great?

A: Writing truth, I think. By which I don’t necessarily mean entirely realistic settings and story lines. Any genre allows for the writing of truth. To do it means to write stories that are more than plot, to write characters that feel like real people, and to avoid writing ideologically. These days, a great deal of fiction is ideological, and that approach virtually ensures a limited lifespan for the work. Resist the temptation to be swept away by current
“issues” in your work and write instead about timeless human values and hopes. Ideologies sooner or later collapse due to the tendency of ideologues to ignore all manner of realities in the fashioning of their ideologies.

Q: What does the process of going from “no book” to “finished book,” look like? Continue reading “My Interview with Dean Koontz! (part 2)”

CREATIVE WRITER’S Journal and Handbook Now Available!

1.Creative.Write.BookCoverImage  Actor, director, playwright, author, Trisha Sugarek has created 305 pages of ‘How To’, Tips, Quotes, and  275 blank, lined pages for your writing.  ‘I have created this journal for writers of all genres.  Taken from my personal experience in the writing process, I hope it kick starts new writers to begin and more experience writers to continue.’

~~This spirited journal is designed to help writers open their hearts and minds. Much more than a journal for your creative writing, this handbook provides the writer with the ‘how to’s’ of writing. Tips, instructions and prompts to help you to hone your writing skill. Each blank, lined page has writing tips and quotes from other famous authors.~~

Available at www.amazon.com    

A writer is only a writer when he or she is writing. Thinking isn’t writing, research isn’t writing, doing anything other than writing isn’t writing. 

Neon.RMWO_cover_spine_REV84_copy

MacNeal’s release of new book Sparks Give-away!

Never one to break with tradition…..there’s a side story with regard to my enthusiasm for Susan Macneal’s writing. 

The first of the Maggie Hope spy mysteries, Mr. Churchill’s Secretary, (which I highly recommend) is fiction but based in fact.  The author was fortunate enough to have had several interviews with Churchill’s private secretary before her death.  The book is about a ‘typist’ who was relegated to a menial job because of her gender.  She was actually educated in mathematics and cryptology and could easily have fitted in with MI-Five (British CIA) but for her being a woman.

I was so taken by Winston Churchill’s pets having the run of the war offices….and how Susan wove this little fact (with many others) into her story so deftly.  At the time I was looking for lighter material to round out my collectionchurchill.CATBookCover.do of short plays for the classroom.  An idea came to me  of Mr. Churchill noodling away in front of his easel and Nelson, his cat talking to the audience; telling them something about the times that they lived in, an anecdote or two about the Prime Minister and of course, listening patiently to Mr. Churchill’s comments about the world at large.

July 1st,  the fourth and newest book in the Maggie Hope series will go on sale.
Continue reading “MacNeal’s release of new book Sparks Give-away!”

Interview with the Master of Suspense, Dean Koontz (part 1)

Dean.Koontz.TrixieScanMy love of Golden Retrievers and Dean Koontz’s brilliant writing began decades ago when I read Koontz’s book, ‘Watchers‘.  One of the heroes of the story was Einstein, a super smart golden retriever.  I promised myself that when I retired and could dedicate time to a larger dog,  I would own my first Golden.   I remember back to getting my first; Sadie.  I was so excited that  I sent Dean photos of her, (nine weeks old) romping in gold and red fall leaves.  I enclosed a note from Sadie to Trixie and  darned if she didn’t write back.

Dean and Trixie, circa 2000

 

THE INTERVIEW!

Q: Where do you write? Do you have a special room, shed, barn, special space for your writing?

A: I have a home office. I work at a horseshoe-shaped desk, the long arms of which are fifteen feet. The desk is made of (and the office is paneled with) honey-toned quarter-cut anigre, and the desk top is of black marble with gold veining. There are bookshelves with books but also a collection of Bakelite radios from the Art Deco period. Most of the radios still work, though you have  to wait for the vacuum tubes to heat up.

Continue reading “Interview with the Master of Suspense, Dean Koontz (part 1)”

Author, Trisha Sugarek Featured on Fiction ‘5’ Friday

Tara Ford, Author**Fiction,Five,Fridays
Tara Ford, Author**Fiction,Five,Fridays

There’s a very clever blog out there offered by author, Tara Ford of the UK. To help support her fellow-authors, she has developed Fiction Five Fridays.

The page features excerpts from various author’s books. The rules are simple – 5 sentences from a page with the digit 5 in the number. Short and sweet and readers get a little taste of what their favorite (or a new one) author is writing.

One of Tara's books
One of Tara’s books

TODAY!  I have been chosen by Tara with my 5,5,5 contribution  (fifth day of the week, a five in the page no. and a five sentence excerpt from one of my novels).  WHAT FUN!!

http://taraford.weebly.com/fiction-five-friday

This has been a very busy month here at my Writer’s Blog.  Tomorrow begins my Interview with author, Dean Koontz.  Then announcing a free book give-away of Susan Elia Macneal’s new release, The Prime Minister’s Secret Agent, and of course more storytelling by yours truly.  Hope you’ll come back often to visit and enjoy my blog!

 

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DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with  best-selling AUTHORS!

In addition to my twice weekly blog I also feature an interview with another author once a month. So come along with me; we shall sneak into these writers’ special places, be a fly on the wall and watch them create!    Dean Koontz dean2photo_9will be interviewed by me June 28th in a two part sensational visit with this suspense-thriller mega-star.

To receive my posts sign up for my blog, blogs, blogger, writer, author, playwright, books, plays,fiction  On the home page, enter your email address.  Thanks!

 

 

Saturday is the BIG Day….an Interview with Dean Koontz!

dean_photo_1FANS will not want to miss this exciting, in-depth interview with Dean Koontz, master of the suspense thriller for three decades!  Just in time to also announce the release of his latest book,  “The City”  July 1st.

‘Here is the riveting, soul-stirring story of Jonah Kirk, son of an exceptional singer, grandson of a formidable “piano man,” a musical prodigy beginning to explore his own gifts when he crosses a group of extremely dangerous people, with shattering consequences. Set in a more innocent time not so long ago, The City encompasses a lifetime but unfolds over three extraordinary, heart-racing years of tribulation and triumph, in which Jonah first grasps the electrifying power of music and art, of enduring friendship, of everyday heroes.

The unforgettable saga of a young man coming of age within a remarkable family, and a shimmering portrait of the world that shaped him, The City is a novel that speaks to everyone, a dazzling realization of the evergreen dreams we all share.

Brilliantly illumined by magic dark and light, it’s a place where enchantment and malice entwine, courage and honor are found in the most unexpected quarters, and the way forward lies buried deep inside the heart.’  (courtesy of amazon.com)

The New York Times has called his writing “psychologically complex, masterly and satisfying.” The New Orleans Times-Picayune said Koontz is, “at times lyrical without ever being naive or romantic. [He creates] a grotesque world, much like that of Flannery O’Conner or Walker Percy … scary, worthwhile reading.” Rolling Stone has hailed him as “America’s most popular suspense novelist.”

A two part Interview June 28th and July 1st.  Don’t Miss It!!

“The Prime Minister’s Secret Agent” Book Giveaway, July 1st

Susan.MacNeal.(c)_Andrea_VaszkoHistoric fiction writer, Susan Elia MacNeal has written another fab book!

About a year ago I was looking around amazon for a new author as all my favorite ones (I have dozens as I am certain you do) were writing their new books and my shelf was getting depleted.  I stumbled upon Susan Elia MacNeal and her WWII historic mysteries.   Her heroine, Maggie, works in London’s war office as a decryption specialist. Her craft at story telling is such that I could smell the cigarette smoke, hear the clack of the typewriters, and found myself checking to see if the seams in my nylons were straight.  I’ve been a fan ever since.

Random House has asked me to promote the release of her new book by giving away two books and that contest will appear at the end of this month.  The entry rules will be announced this Sunday.   Only paperback and mailing address must be in USA.

If you missed my interview with Susan, please click here.
 Continue reading ““The Prime Minister’s Secret Agent” Book Giveaway, July 1st”

My Narrator got Trapped in a Hotel Closet….

kids books, audio books, fairy talesThe weirdest, best, weirdest, most awesome, weirdest, and most fun thing is happening right now, and Cheets and my kids book, The Exciting Exploits of an Effervescent Elf are indirectly involved.  My wonderful narrator for the audio books got trapped in the closet at a hotel while narrating the EEElf?

It was a crazy hilarious saga, and because she was in the middle of narrating, and she had a sound recording of the whole ordeal. A few months ago, Carin pitched the story of her “trapped in the closet” saga to the NPR radio show This American Life, and they LOVED it! They were going to use it as a segment on one of their shows a few weeks ago, but Ira Glass (CEO) decided he wanted to do something totally different… by turning the story of me trapped in the closet into a mini opera.  Continue reading “My Narrator got Trapped in a Hotel Closet….”

Interview with Mega-star Author, Dean Koontz

After interviewing best-selling authors now for two years, I have the great privilege of sharing with you, an interview with Dean Koontz  beginning June 28th.

Dean and Trixie, circa 2000
Dean and Trixie, circa 2000

I first met Dean in the pages of ‘Watchers’ starring (in my opinion) the brainy and magnificent Golden Retriever, Einstein.  From that day forward I lived for the day that I would have my first ‘golden’.  My interview begins with the story of my Sadie and Dean’s Trixie (a retired golden retriever service dog) and the letter.  It’s just too rich  not to share.

Since Trixie, Dean has always had a golden retriever in his family as have I.

Hope you will stop back by on June 28th and July 1st  for this fascinating and in depth visit (2 parts)  with this mega-star author, Dean Koontz!

Sadie, 2012
Sadie, 2012