The release party for Snow White with a Twist will be Saturday, May 3, 2pm, at Bound to Happen Books, downtown Stevens Point. The book will be available, beginning next week, but the party will be in May.
I plan to have some kid activities and free Mobius-strip bracelets to accompany the first books sold. It should be a fun time. I hope to see you there!
You can pre-order Snow White with a Twist from your favorite retailer. Both print and e-book are available and will ship on March 22 or 29, depending on where your order. Why the two dates? I guess I messed something up, but I’m too tired to figure it out. It doesn’t seem all that important. Hitting the NYT best seller list seems unlikely. Here are a few links:
Bookshop.org (and support your favorite local bookstore)
Barnes and Noble (so they don’t go out of business)
Smashwords (ebook only; a great independent publisher)
Amazon (If this is where you shop, click the link. If you input Snow White with a Twist in the search box, it isn’t coming up because ?!!??!?)
If you live locally, stayed tuned for information about the book release party. Bound to Happen Books will be the location with a date to be determined. April, yes, but which day??? Announcement to come! I want to make sure I have books in hand. A book release party with no books just wouldn’t be the same.
Get my e-books this week for $1.49 !!
I recommend buying them from Smashwords, a great small company that does its best to compete against the large, monopoly-ish e-book company you all know. But, if that is where you buy your e-books, I’ve also reduced their costs there (as, per their monopoly agreement I can’t sell my book for less anywhere else.)
Wilde Wagers: at Smashwords and at amazon
Syncopation: A Memoir of Adèle Hugo: at Smashwords and at amazon
Smashwords has a lot of other e-books available for free or reduced prices this week, so shop around and support us small-time writers.
Unfortunately, Snow White with a Twist isn’t yet available. Stay tuned!
Cover reveal! I’m excited to announce my next book and its beautiful cover, designed by the talented Thomas Hardy. This middle-grade fairy tale-retelling will release on March 29. Intended for children ages 7-12, this is the Snow White story you know–with a twist!
Stay tuned for information about a book release party!
I read so many excellent books in the first part of 2023, I made a blog post about it. The second half of the year was equally amazing. Below are my favorites of the books I read, July-December of 2023. Again, there are so many I’m going to attempt just one-sentence summaries with links to the authors’ pages for each.
Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr: Using the Greek myth of Aethon, creative and amazing characters, from the past, present, and future find meaning in the midst of great peril.
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro: In the not-so-distant future, Klara is an “artificial friend,” a robot with sentience and the goal of aiding her troubled teen “owner” into a happy and stable adulthood.
Artemis by Andy Weir: This fast-paced thriller, set in the future on the moon, features the fabulous Jasmine Bashara, a small-time criminal tempted to make a big-time heist that will get her into more trouble than she can imagine.
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabriella Zevin: The story of three friends who create a video game company. This well written description is stolen from the author’s website: this is a “novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, games as art form, technology and the human experience, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect.”
The Butterfly Collector by Tea Cooper: Australian historical fiction. I was lucky enough to get an ARC to read for a Historical Novels Society review.
A Wish in the Dark by Christina Soontornvat: (intended for ages 9-12) Set in a Thailand-like fantasy world, a child born in prison and a child born to a prison warden seek justice and truth. In part, the story mirrors Les Miserable with added excitement and great world-building.
Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell: I finally got around to reading this much-hyped book, and it deserves all the praise it got. This is the story of Shakespeare’s son, Hamnet. Exceptional writing and story-telling.
The Lies of Locke Lamorra by Scott Lynch: Another book I should have already read. Fantasy at its best. The story of Locke Lamorra, the renowned thief and rogue, from his orphaned childhood to his most dangerous exploits.
Poison for Breakfast by Lemony Snicket: If you enjoyed his Series of Unfortunate Events, you’ll love this Snicket mystery which involves diving into philosophy. I couldn’t find anything about this book on the Lemony Snicket website, but this one at his publisher’s is clever.
I was lucky to read two phenomenal books set before, during, and after the Japanese occupation of Malaysia:
The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng: This book is written so softly, so beautifully, so peacefully, you almost don’t think of it as a book about pain and loss and war and torture, which it is. Short-listed for the Booker Prize.
The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan: The story of the Alcantara’s family who are Chinese-Malaysian, told through the perspectives of Cecily (mother), Jujube (teen daughter) Abel (teen son) and Jasmin (young daughter). The decisions each makes will have devastating impacts on the rest of their lives.
Letters from Clara edited by Janet Newman: This is the only nonfiction book on my list. These are the edited letters of Clara Pagel of Wausau, Wisconsin. On her own, she traveled the world from 1936 to 1939 and wrote letters home to her friends and fellow YWCA members. Her curiosity, intrepid spirit and thoughtful insights about the world, just before it broke out in war, are fascinating.
One Came Home by Amy Timberlake: (for children ages 9-12 and adults) When the sheriff decides that the unrecognizable body in her sister’s dress is her sister, Georgie Burkhardt doesn’t believe it and sets off to find her sister. Set in 1871 Wisconsin, during the massive passenger pigeon roost, as well as the Peshtigo fire, this is fast-paced, historical thriller for kids.
The Final Revival of Opal and Nev by Dawnie Walton: Using interviews, articles, and letters this tells the story of fictional rock duo Opal and Nev’s rise and fall in music history. Walton is masterful in the changing voices of those interviewed and her descriptions. Everything feels so real. An amazing look at the music industry and its handling of gender and race.
The Eyes and the Impossible by David Eggers: (for ages 8-12 and up) I hope this wins the 2024 Newbery Award. Johannes is a wild dog that lives in a large park with other animals, including two buffalo who reside in a comfortably large pen. As the elders, the buffalo make decisions and solve disputes among the other animals. Clever and fast, Johannes is the eyes for the buffalo, running around the park and reporting on what is going on. I won’t give anything more away. This is an enchanting animal story with beautiful, full-page illustrations by Shawn Harris every 20 or so pages.
The Mermaid and the Bear by Ailish Sinclair: A magical love story set in late 1500s Scotland that encounters the devastation caused by hate, jealousy, and the abuse of power. This story made me cry.
Thanks for making it to the end of this long post! I read 96 books last year (almost 100!), and SO many of them were excellent. How lucky is that? I wish I could have recommended more, but this post has already gotten very long.
I’d love to hear your thoughts about these books, your own favorite books of the past year, or anything else you’d like to mention.
Happy 2024 and may it be a great year of reading!
This isn’t my favorite books of the year post (coming soon). Instead, this is a post talking about the Shepherd platform’s book promotion asking authors for their favorite three books of 2023. I’ve answered their question, and you can see my thoughts here.
If you are curious which books got the most votes (with about 2000 authors replying), you can follow that link too.
Shepherd is for both readers and writers as an alternative to Goodreads (owned and controlled by amazon). So, take a look and sign up if you are so inclined.
Sneak peak:
Sunday, 5 March – Saturday, 11 March 2023 is Smashword’s Buy an E-Book Week. Many of the books published on Smashword‘s platform will be discounted or free. Including…
My books at Smashwords:
Wilde Wagers and Syncopation: A Memoir of Adele Hugo which are available this week for $1.49 each. Smashwords is a great platform as it lets authors publish e-books for free and gives them a majority of the profits of their sales.
My books at amazon:
Per my contract with amazon, I’m not allowed to sell my books anywhere for less that one can buy them at amazon, so the books are also on sale at that store, if it is where you prefer to buy books: Wilde Wagers and Syncopation: A Memoir of Adele Hugo.
Happy Reading!
Over the years, I’ve done the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) in November to push myself to write more. I’m doing it this November to try to crank out the second half of the first draft of my work-in-progress Outlandish. As part of signing up for NaNo, I submitted my name and project for consideration in the 30 Covers in 30 Days, an “event” in which artists create covers for projects. And I was chosen! Thus, the title of this post.
Gorgeous, isn’t it? And perfect for the story. Thanks go to graphic designer Kelley Kempel at Hidden Path Creative.
Let me know what you think below.
Check out the Nano blog where they are posting all the covers and read more about my story and Kelley Kempel’s background.
(Am I writing a book?)
Am I writing a book? In Polish? Maybe…
Well, not in Polish but maybe in Poland!
My husband and I are moving to Gdansk, Poland for a year. On a Fulbright grant, he will teach math and computer science at the Gdansk University of Technology. I will teach composition (part time, online) for the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point on a laptop in our apartment.
I may also work on my writing. Or not. I’m keeping an open mind.
Ja nie mowie po Polsku bardo dobre. (I don’t speak Polish very well.) I am trying! I’ve been using Duolingo for almost a year. My vocabulary is small, and my accent probably atrocious, but I’ve always loved learning languages and being surrounded by people speaking in words I cannot understand. Am I crazy? Maybe. It is hard for me to express how totally excited I am about this adventure. I know it will be practically impossible for me to understand Polish at first, but I’ll give it my best shot. I can only improve, right?
We leave in early September and won’t return until July 2023. To be honest, I could use a break from the U.S. There’s nothing like living in a strange place to make you appreciate things you never even noticed about your home.
I’ll post updates about our adventure here. My husband Andy Felt is in the process of creating his own blog, Finding Myself in Poland, so check that out too.
More to come!
When I was young I was ambitious. I wanted to write books and modestly support myself with the success of those books. (No fame, please. I am/was incredibly shy.)
After I was married with children and only working part time, my ambition was to write books and have them published. Perhaps earn about what I made in my part-time job. As the years wore on, I decided that just finishing a book and self-publishing it would be enough.
Now that my children are grown and I’m nearing retirement, I’m rethinking even that modest ambition.
My mother was a writer. She wrote seven novels when I was growing up, though none of them got published. She and my sister published Finding the Way together when she was in her fifties, I think. When she retired, I talked to her about how lucky she was to have the time to work on her writing. And you know what? She no longer felt like writing. She did volunteer work. Took care of grandkids. And read more. No writing? I couldn’t understand.
Here I am, heading toward that same place in my life and feeling much the same way. I now understand. Writing is SO HARD with almost no value. Volunteering has great value. Spending time with friends and family has value. Reading more will be a constant goal in my life.
I have two half-finished novels, Outlandish and The Little MERmaid. The characters in these stories are so real to me. I hate the idea that their lives are paused…. I feel like their stories should be finished. But then I sit down to write and wonder why….
I have three revised and ready-to-publish novels that have never been picked up by an agent or publisher, though I tried for years to find one. I could self-publish them. It’s a lot of work. And what for? Money and fame were never my goals. It has become hard to remember why I wanted to be a writer. It now seems so self-indulgent.
What are your own ambitions and how have they changed over the years?
Elizabeth Caulfield Felt 