Tag: Books (Page 4 of 7)

Meet Sarah Albee Author of Chapter 11 of The Great Connecticut Caper

May 25, 2015 / Katie L. Carroll

Chapter 11 of The Great Connecticut Caper is here! That means only one more to go! It’s been a wild ride. In honor of the mystery (almost) being solved, the Connecticut Humanities is hosting an event at Gillette Castle on Sunday, June 7 from 2-4 pm. It’ll be a great opportunity to meet some of the authors and illustrators and to participate in some fun events (I heard there will be bookish type prizes!). In the meantime, today you can get know Sarah Albee, author of chapter 11, a little better. Welcome, Sarah!

What was your approach to writing chapter 11 of The Great CT Caper? Given that it was the second-to-last chapter, how much did you feel you had to wrap up in order to set up the ending for the author of the final chapter?

I actually worked pretty closely with Stacy DeKeyser, my fellow Caper author who was slated to write the final episode. Together we hatched a plan to wrap up the various plot threads and resolve the story in our two remaining installments. There was quite a bit of back-and-forth and she had some great ideas that I incorporated into my chapter. I think the combination of brain power was a great way to work!

What were your expectations coming into writing a collaborative, serialized story for young readers? Had you written anything like this before?

I have written books that include lots of chapter cliffhangers and that have very controlled word counts, but never in collaboration with other writers. It was fun, but challenging, because my predecessors have wonderfully wild imaginations and took the story onto some wild tangents. I was in the role of “batting cleanup,” and I enjoyed the challenge.

What kind of research did you do for the project?

I visited the Castle and took a whole lot of pictures, so I felt I had a good grounding with the setting.

The Great CT Caper’s target audience is children in grades four through seven. What were some of your favorite books when you were that age?

I loved books with magic in them, like the Narnia chronicles and Edward Eager’s books (Half Magic, Magic by the Lake, etc.). I also loved detective stories, and devoured Sherlock Holmes stories and Agatha Christie mysteries.

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received? What one piece of advice that you didn’t get but wished you had gotten?

I love Stephen King’s admonition in his book On Writing, where he says, “The road to hell is paved with adverbs.” In other words, write with simplicity and clarity.

The advice I wish I’d gotten? Ignore people who say “Write what you know.” I love finding stuff out. I love not knowing about something and learning about it. It’s the best part of being a nonfiction writer!

If you were stranded on a desert island and could only bring two books and one movie, what would you bring?

I’d bring the collected works of P.G. Wodehouse, the collected works of Shakespeare (is that cheating??), and a Pixar movie. Every one of them is ingenious, but I guess I’d say Monsters Inc. No, Toy Story. No, The Incredibles. Ok. Monsters Inc.

Where else can readers find your writings? What’s up next for your writing career?

My latest book, which came out in February with National Geographic, is called Why’d They Wear That? Fashion as the Mirror of History. My next book, slated for 2017, is about poison in human history.

And finally, what is something funny/weird/exceptional about yourself that you don’t normally share with others in an interview?

After college, I lived for a year in Cairo, Egypt, where I played on a semi-professional women’s basketball team!

About the Author:

Sarah Albee is the New York Times bestselling author of more than 100 books for kids, ranging from preschool through middle grade. Her latest nonfiction middle grade title Why’d They Wear That? is about crazy fashions in history (National Geographic, 2015). She enjoys writing about topics where history and science connect, including Bugged: How Insects Changed History (2014) and Poop Happened: A History of the World from the Bottom Up (2010). When she isn’t writing books or visiting schools in person or via Skype, Sarah blogs about offbeat history at http://sarahalbeebooks.com.

Poop Happened coverBugged

Books Are Not Precious

April 6, 2015 / Katie L. Carroll

I never highlight, make notes, or otherwise intentionally mark the pages of my books. Even when I was in college and purchased text books, I never like to take notes in the pages. Books are sacred, precious, not to be marred.

The Boy at about 9 months old, enjoying his favorite book/chew toy DOLLY DUCK.

The Boy at 9 months old, enjoying his favorite book/chew toy DOLLY DUCK.

Then I had kids. And if I’ve learned anything from my boys, it’s that my world view is often flawed and certainly not absolute. To kids and babies, books are more than the words and pictures in their pages. They are teethers, drums, they can be stacked to make a tower or stairs.

The Prince at 9 months old, chewing on his favorite book about Pinky the pig.

Not that I don’t discourage them from doing all these things; we try to teach the boys to take care of their belongings. But that doesn’t mean they revere books in the way I do. To them, books are not sacred or precious. They are for reading, of course. And we love reading them. But they are fun in other ways, too. And if that gives them a life-long love affair with books, then I’m all for it!

Elixir Bound Blog Tour Giveaway Sneak Peek

September 25, 2013 / Katie L. Carroll

The Elixir Bound in paperback blog tour is in the home stretch! Thanks to everyone who’s been following. As I announced last week, Elixir Bound in paperback is up for pre-order on my publisher’s website. You get a free ecopy of the book when you order it through MuseItUp!

Today, I’m at Behind a Million and One Pages talking about strong females in YA (those of you who have been following my Females in YA series might be intersted in this post). There’s also a small giveaway going on at Tina’s Book Reviews for an ecopy of Elixir Bound. And, of course, there’s the big giveaway that’s been going on throughout the whole blog tour!

Now for your sneak peek at some of the items that might be included (disclaimer: the items in the picture may only be representative of the actual items!). We’re close to having 200 entries…if we get to 200, I might even throw in a bonus signed copy to a lucky winner! So please feel free to spread the word about the giveaway. So without further ado (do people still say that?), here’s the sneak peek!

In addition to the above items (the signed book, bookmarks, your very own Elixir bottle, a map of the Great Peninsula, and a sticker for my picture book app The Bedtime Knight), I’ll probably throw in some Elixir inspired recipes, some bonus bookmarks for books by some of my favorite authors, and a few more surprises! Here’s how to enter:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Meet Susan Royal Author of Not Long Ago

September 18, 2013 / Katie L. Carroll

Today Susan Royal, author of the time travel romance Not Long Ago, and I swap blogs. Hop on over to her blog to find out what movie I always watch when it’s on. Now let’s find out more about Susan.

What inspired you to write Not Long Ago?

History has always been one of my favorite subjects. I always wondered what happened during those times. How did people live in medieval society? What was it like during the Civil War? What was William Wallace really like? I cannot think of a better way to get up close and personal with something happening hundreds of years ago than to be a time traveler.

I had the first page of Not Long Ago written for at least a year. It could have gone a hundred different ways from there. A young woman passing by a coffee shop window happens to make eye contact with one of the customers. Someone she feels a strong connection with the man even he’s a stranger. Of course, the romantic in me wanted their chance meeting to develop further. Mixing in elements of time travel made it even more intriguing to me.

What book(s) had the most influence on you while growing up?

Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked this Way Comes and Dandelion Wine were favorites of mine. I loved the way he could paint a scene with words. Poul Anderson’s Three Hearts and Three Lions and The Glory Road by Robert Heinlein were my first time travel books. A Wrinkle In Time, Catseye, The Diary of Anne Frank—I read a lot.

If you were stranded on a desert island and could only bring two books and one movie, what would you bring?

Oh my, this is a hard question.

Movie—Australia, Out of Africa, The Postman, something like that

Books—any of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander Series.

What is your favorite part of the writing process? What is your least favorite part?

My favorite part is when everything comes together and the words flow. I love to get a scene in my head that begs to be written. No matter where I am in the writing process, I open up a new document, write until the scene is done and worry about fitting it in with the rest of the story later.

My least favorite part is the part where I look for typos, echo words, overused words, grammar mistakes.

What is the single best piece of advice you have for aspiring authors?

Keep writing, join a critique group, edit-edit-edit, never stop learning and never ever give up

If you could have one superpower, what would it be?

I’d be a time traveler.

What is something funny/weird/exceptional about yourself that you don’t normally share with others in an interview?

I’ll pretty much share anything. I don’t mind laughing at myself, because I do a lot of laughable things. I guess the latest is my daughter taking new Bio pictures of me this weekend in 100+ degree Texas weather. I was wearing winter clothes, because they look the best and trying NOT to sweat or pass out from the heat. We got tickled and one thing led to another. I’m sure the people driving by thought we were crazy. (Probably not. Everyone knows how I am, or they should by now.)

Not Long Ago blurb:

Erin has met the man of her dreams, but as usual there are complications. It’s one of those long distance relationships, and Griffin is a little behind the times– somewhere around 600 years.

Erin and her employer, March, are transported to a time where chivalry and religion exist alongside brutality and superstition. Something is not quite right at the castle, and Erin and March feel sure mysterious Lady Isobeil is involved. But Erin must cope with crop circles, ghosts, a kidnapping and death before the truth of her journey is revealed.

Forced to pose as March’s nephew, Erin finds employment as handsome Sir Griffin’s squire. She’s immediately attracted to him and grows to admire his courage, quiet nobility and devotion to duty. Yet, she must deny her feelings. Her world is centuries away, and she wants to go home. But Erin can’t stop thinking about her knight in shining armor.

About the Author:

Born in west Texas and raised in south Texas, Susan makes her home in a 100-year-old farmhouse in a small east Texas town that comes complete with a female ghost who has been known to harmonize with her son when he plays guitar.

Susan is married, with three children and four grandchildren. Her family is rich with characters, both past and present. She spent her childhood listening to her grandmother’s stories of living on a farm in OklahomaTerritory with three sisters and three brothers and working as a telephone operator in the early 20^th century. Her father shared stories of growing up in San Antonio in the depression, and through her mother’s eyes she experienced how it felt to be a teenager during WWII

Her newest book, In My Own Shadow, is a Fantasy adventure/romance. Other published works are, Not Long Ago, a time travel adventure/romance. Both ebooks are available through MuseItUp/Amazon/B&N. Odin’s Spear, one of her short stories is featured in a Quests, Curses, and Vengeance anthology, Martinus Publishing. She has finished the sequel to Not Long Ago, because her daughter insists there is still more of Erin and Griffin’s story to tell, and she was right.

In My Own Shadow (fantasy, adventure, romance)
http://tinyurl.com/bqbxm41

Book Trailer: http://youtu.be/Wbg8Z-12ojY
Not Long Ago (time travel, adventure, romance)
http://tinyurl.com/85vgye3

Book Trailer: http://youtu.be/vOIQVdWUigU/

Both books available at MuseItUp, Amazon, B&N, Goodreads
http://susanroyal.moonfruit.com
http://susanaroyal.wordpress.com

Females in YA: Part 2 My Writing

July 22, 2013 / Katie L. Carroll

The discussion about females in YA continues. If you missed Part 1 Growing Up Female, be sure to check the comments section as well as the blog post because there is some great stuff there.

So in Part 1 I asserted that though boys were an important part of my teenage life, they weren’t everything. I had goals and dreams that had nothing to do with boys, and I think this is similar to how many teen girls feel today. This lead to the question of whether or not YA books reflect this. Before I think about other people’s YA books, I’d like take a moment to look at my own writing, specifically my YA book Elixir Bound and what my goals were with the female characters.

I originally conceived Elixir Bound as a there-and-back-again quest, a sort of tribute to my sister Kylene, who died at the age of 16. I had hoped to give her a fantasy tale of her own. When it proved too hard to write the story from the POV of a character inspired by her, I decided to try from a different charcater’s POV: her sister’s Katora.

This really changed the direction of the story. Where Kylene was sweet, sensitive, and wore her feelings on her sleeve, Katora was stubborn, independent, and also sensitive but would never want to show it. Elixir Bound then became a story about a young woman (Katora) who must go on a quest to find out whether or not she will become guardian to a secret healing Elixir and bind herself to it.

The binding part was key because it wouldn’t allow to just use the Elixir as she wanted to; the binding would force her to use it in a way that also served the Great Mother (who is also called Mother Nature, and is basically the highest form of being in Katora’s world). Now I had a story where a very independent character was forced to make a decision that would seriously hinder her independence and impact the path the rest of her life would take.

This whole story line was a personal journey that was paralleled by a physical journey in which Katora and her companions had to find the secret ingredient for the Elixir. Notice the total lack of mention of a love interest. It was really important to me that Katora’s motives for the quest had nothing to do with a boy.

It was also important that Katora be chosen for this quest, not either of her two older sisters or her younger brother. I’ve always wondered why in so many real and fictional worlds the oldest son is the one who is entitled to the inheritance, so I wanted Katora to be neither the oldest nor a boy. The reason Katora was chosen as the next guardian of the Elixir, taking over for her father, was she was person who was best suited for the job.

As I started writing Elixir Bound, I realized I wanted these themes to be reflected in Katora’s world as well. I think a lot of these themes spilled out of me unconsciously and only in revision did I become consciously aware of the feminism in them. Suddenly Katora’s world had turned very pagan with the people following a female deity (the Great Mother) closely tied to nature. From there I sort of ran with the idea that females would, in a sense, rule this world. Though I kept it that Katora would take over for her father because I wanted some balance in the world. Women didn’t need to rule everything.

And Kylene was still there on the quest and plays an important role (though not the starring one). I wanted her there to contrast Katora’s personality because there are other strong female characters besides the bulldozer type, which is kind of how I think of Katora. I even wrote a guest blog post about this different type of female character, strong in character but not in your face about it. Also, Zelenka, a member of the miniature demick species, was an interesting female character. In many ways very much like Katora, but also a bit of an adversary to Katora. They never quite get along, mostly because they are so alike.

There does end up being a love interest on the quest. One I had to emphasize and play up more as I went through revisions of the story because several of my early readers didn’t think it played a big enough role in the story. Katora initially resists forming a relationship with Hirsten, the handsome son of a famous mapmaker. She doesn’t want anything to distract her while on her mission and while she has such an important decision to make. Though the quest part of the story is not driven by romance, Katora’s ability to realize her capacity for love (and in turn why she has resisted her feelings for Hirsten) does play into her decision on whether or not to become guardian of the Elixir.

As you can see, I thought a lot about the role of females in the made-up world of Elixir Bound as I was writing it. I’d like to think my story offers a feministic look at females and hopefully speaks to teenage girls in a positive way. Although, I didn’t want to force any certain didactic message about feminism in the story…more an offering of female characters and how they take control of their lives and futures. Themes I certainly plan on considering while writing future works as well.

Thanks for letting me wax philosophical about my own book! Next up I’ll take a look at some of the YA books I’ve read recently and what messages about females in YA I took away from them. Any requests on what books you’d like me talk about (can’t guarantee I’ve read them, but I’m open to suggestions)?