Tag: YA

News From The Front

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Okay, so next up on my agenda is a reading at “{pages}, a bookstore,” in Manhattan Beach on June 19th at 7 pm. This has to be one cool bookstore, what with the name listed in small letters along with those fancy brackets, right? I’ll be joined by fellow She Writes Press authors, Dawn Blume Hawkes and Jessica Levine, along with our publisher, Brooke Warner.

In case you haven’t noticed I’m workin’ all the angles to get a little love for Loveyoubye: a skywriter endlessly puffing out the name of my book across the heavens; my two little granddaughters trudging around Davis, day after day, lugging sandwich board ads; a full page ad in the Los Angeles Times (where Donald Sterling’s ad used to be). Oh, and announcements on Facebook and Twitter.  Never thought I’d be this “forward,” if you know what I mean.

I’m also about to create an audiobook for Loveyoubye, with me reading. Memoirs need to be read by the author.  Hopefully, my friends will have their sound booth set up in time so I can use that. Meanwhile, I’m reading Loveyoubye out loud to Fergie and Jake, getting a feel for the words, figuring out where to take a breath, where to pause, and where to change the wording so that it flows when I record.  And then while I’m at it, I think I’ll do the same for my Young Adult novel, Monkey’s Wedding, only the first chapter though. If all goes well, I should have the recordings done by the end of July.

Meanwhile, it’s off to the cool bookstore in Manhattan Beach I go, along with dinner beforehand at Little Sister in Manhattan Beach with my fellow authors. Make a plan and join us at the bookstore.

 

Latest News on Monkey’s Wedding

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About a week ago I posted the first chapter of my Young Adult novel, Monkey’s Wedding on Jukepopserials. It’s a site where you, the reader, can read for free books, stories and serials, every genre possible. For authors, it’s where they can upload their chapters and ask readers to vote on them, with a cash prize going to the most popular works in fiction and nonfiction categories.

The reason I’m doing this is to test the waters, see what kind of response I get. No matter what though, I will get this bloody book published before I die. I already announced I was going to self-publish not too long ago. But then the events that prompted my memoir, Loveyoubye, interfered and I shelved the idea. I’ve had some heart-breaking near misses with getting Monkey’s Wedding published by a traditional publisher, agent and all; you can read about my travails here. I also want to get the sequel, Mine Dances out into the world, a coming-of-age for the sixteen-year-old white protagonist (there’s also a black protagonist).

These two books were my first tribute to Africa and the African boys and men who worked for us. So. Here I am trotting it out for your perusal. Whatever the reaction, I shall be publishing both books within the next year. Hopefully, my memoir, Loveyoubye, will give both books a leg-up in getting a little bit of notice.

Celebrating My Book Cover

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It’s Celebrate The Small Things Day. Something I’ve achieved each week, no matter how small. If you’re interested in doing the same thing sign up here at Vicki’s blog. But before I tell you what I’m celebrating today, I have a little catching up to do since I’ve been missing from this spot for an entire month. And I’ve got to thank Kate Larkindale over at Fiction and Film for commenting on my last blog and inspiring me to get back in the game. Thanks Kate!

I’m blaming my absence on summer. I just gave into it. I put off all my writing projects, including finishing the proofs for Loveyoubye and choosing the final cover for the book. Instead, I danced my ass off at Laguna’s “Music In The Park” every Sunday, sometimes after which me and my girlfriend Laural would stop at this or that little rooftop or beachside bar and have a nightcap before heading home. Then there were those sunset dinners with friends and that wonderful spur of the moment day spent in Studio City with my five brilliant writer girlfriends, the trip up to Sierra Buttes in northern California (woods and lakes and cooler than here) with my son and two granddaughters—damn those little girls are fun!

But then I got an email from She Writes Press; my decision on Loveyoubye’s cover was due on Friday. Time to call it. Now, I’m not that hot on making decisions anyway, but this one has been agonizing. What if it’s crap? But time was up. That’s where the celebrating comes in. Yesterday, I took a deep breath and in the early morning chill of approaching fall, I submitted my book cover proofs!

 

Illustrating Monkey’s Wedding

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I got the idea from YA author and illustrator Catherine Stine’s October 11th blog where she posted an illustration that she’s in the process of refining for the YA futuristic novel she’s written.  Seems the illustrated YA is coming of age, what with the popularity of graphic novels.  There are so many classic African scenes in Monkey’s Wedding that makes this an exciting proposition, from the old witch doctor’ Anashe’s hut, to the jackal dragging a dead body from a shallow grave to this scene: Three hundred yards to the left of Elizabeth and Tururu, five eland buck appeared out of nowhere and floated on a heat wave past the jagged outline of his people’s ruins. 

The process continues.