I’ve only been interviewed on the radio once–so far–so I was interested to see these author radio interview tips on The Book Publicity Blog.
Have a great weekend, all. (And if you haven’t yet signed up to win one of the short story collections I’m offering to buy and send you, please do so! If you want to host a giveaway of your own as part of a Short Story Month celebration, even better!) See you back here on Monday.
UPDATE, 5/31: Congratulations to commenters #24 (John Vanderslice) and #2 (Cara Holman), who, with some help from Random.org, have triumphed and emerged as winners of our short story collection giveaway project offerings. John and Cara, please e-mail me and let me know which book you prefer (first e-mailer gets first choice). Please include your mailing address–I will order the books and have them shipped to you asap. And thanks to everyone for participating!
Remember last month, when I stumbled on the National Poetry Month Poetry Book Giveaway? Well, all of the wonderful energy and ideas behind that project made me think that a similar enterprise should be undertaken for May, which has lately become something of an unofficial Short Story Month (as Poets & Writers recently noted, crediting organizations such as the Emerging Writers Network for the development).
Because I have such huge respect for the work of Anne Stameshkin and the entire team over at Fiction Writers Review (FWR), I contacted Anne to see if FWR might want to take on the considerable work involved with hosting a multi-blog “Short Story Collection Giveaway” this month. Fortunately, Anne agreed, and FWR is the hub for the project, and that’s where you’ll be able to check the full list of participating bloggers (improve your chances for winning by entering multiple giveaways, and get to know some bloggers who love short story collections in the process!).
Now, following the rules that FWR has come up with, I am happy to recommend to you two story collections. On May 31, I’ll announce the names of two winners selected at random from the comments section for this post. And then I’ll purchase two books and mail one to each lucky winner.
To participate in Practicing Writing’s portion of Short Story Month 2010: The Giveaway Project, I’m asking you to add a comment here, telling us about (or at least the name of) a collection you love or one you’re looking forward to reading. Comments that don’t mention a specific collection will not be eligible for the giveaway. Comments should be submitted no later than noon (U.S. Eastern) on Monday, May 31 (Memorial Day here in the U.S.), and I’ll have the winners’ names posted before midnight.
And now (drum roll, please)…I am delighted to announce the two story collections that this practicing writer will be purchasing and sending to two lucky winners:
First, we have Who I Was Supposed to Be (published in 1999 by Simon & Schuster), written by Susan Perabo. One of the bright lights that sustained me through my MFA program was my friendship with Susan Perabo, a gifted teacher (her “large group” workshops and craft seminars were among my very favorites) and equally gifted writer. I read Susan’s debut collection, Who I Was Supposed to Be, very soon after meeting the author at my first residency in May 2001. And then I reread it, bought it for friends’ birthdays, etc. I even mentioned it right here on the blog three years ago. And now I’ll buy a copy for one of you.
Meantime, in preparing this post, I discovered a terrific interview with Susan that I hope you’ll all take a few moments to listen to. If you’re very time-pressed, skip ahead and read through some of the praise that the book received from The Los Angeles Times and The Baltimore Sun. Who I Was Supposed to Be was named a “Book of the Year” by the Los Angeles Times, The Miami Herald, and The St. Louis Post Dispatch.
Moving on to the second book I’ll be delighted to purchase and send to a lucky winner, allow me to present The Pale of Settlement (published in 2007 by the University of Georgia Press), written by Margot Singer. This is another book I have mentioned here before. (I’ve also written about it for Kenyon Review Online.) Winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, the Reform Judaism Prize for Jewish Fiction, and the Shenandoah/Glasgow Prize for Emerging Writers, The Pale of Settlement is also another book that I’ve been unable to stop recommending to others.
But don’t just take my word for it. Read excerpts from one of the stories on the National Endowment for the Arts website. Check out interviews with Margot Singer in The Southeast Review Online, Reform Judaism magazine, and the old Nextbook (now Tablet) site. And listen to Alan Cheuse discuss the collection for NPR.
Want to win one of these books? Remember, to be eligible, you need to submit a comment to this post, telling us about (or at least the name of) a short story collection you love or one you’re looking forward to reading. Comments that don’t mention a specific collection will not be eligible for the giveaway. If your comment doesn’t link to your personal site, please leave your e-mail address for me to use if I need to contact you about your prize. I look forward to reading all of your recommendations, and I thank you for participating in any way you are able: commenting, joining the giveaway project as a participating blogger, or even simply spreading the word.
Update on our National Poetry Month Poetry Book Giveaway: Congratulations to #14 and #25 (Kelly Luce and newzoopoet), who won the Random.org lottery! Please e-mail me with your mailing addresses and your title preference–whoever writes to me first will get “dibs.” Congrats to the giveaway winners, and thank you all for playing along!
UPDATE, MAY 2: Congratulations to #14 and #25 (Kelly Luce and newzoopoet), who won the Random.org lottery! Please e-mail me with your mailing addresses and your title preference–whoever writes to me first will get “dibs.” Congrats to the giveaway winners, and thank you all for playing along!
MANY thanks to Practicing Writer “Jublke” whose comment on a previous post prompted me to mosey on over to Kelli Russell Agodon’s blog, where I learned more about a Poetry Book Giveaway project for National Poetry Month 2010.
Briefly, Kelli is encouraging the reading and sharing of poetry by building a community of bloggers willing to give away two books of poetry to readers who comment on their blogs. One book can be the blogger’s own, and one must be by another poet. (Thankfully, I’m writing this post just in time: Kelli is only taking new blogger names and posts until midnight tonight [April 10], so if you’re interested in participating as a blogger-who-will-give-books-away, hurry on over to Kelli’s blog for instructions.)
Now, let’s get down to business: I don’t have a book of poetry to my credit (yet!), so the two books I’ll be giving away are:
Here, Bullet, the important, multiple award-winning book by Brian Turner which I finally had the opportunity to read earlier this year. To learn more about this collection, described by its publisher as “a harrowing, beautiful first-person account of the Iraq War by a soldier-poet,” click here.
and then, there’s
Poetry magazine’s April 2010 issue. Now, I know that this isn’t technically a book of poetry, but it is a sort of mini-anthology (in this particular case, complete with Q&As with the published poets), and anthologies are allowed. I just subscribed to Poetry for the first time this year, and I’m hoping that sharing this issue will encourage others to subscribe as well (if not to Poetry, then to another journal that publishes poems).
And, honestly, it may be only because Here, Bullet is my latest purchase that I’m able to give that one away. I’m simply too attached to all the other poetry books–it may be significant that I own considerably fewer books of poetry than of prose, and many the poetry books I received as gifts or bought at readings–to give any of them away.
So, if you’re interested in receiving either Here, Bullet or the April issue of Poetry, please simply leave a comment here. I’ll be selecting the winners (with the help of the ever-handy random number generator) on May 2, so leave a comment by 12:01 a.m. (U.S. Eastern) that day. Books will be mailed (anywhere in the world!), at my expense, after that.
One final note: Do check Kelli’s blog for a list of other participating bloggers–you may want to make some other blog visits and comment elsewhere, too.
Good luck to all!
P.S. Please remember to check back to see if you’ve won. Any prizes that aren’t claimed by Wednesday, May 5, will be forfeited. (I’ll be traveling the weekend of April 30-May 2, so if I don’t get to post until the end of the day on May 2, don’t worry! I will post!)
I love drafting posts with the express purpose of congratulating practicing writers on their publication successes. Today, we’re celebrating Lori Ann Bloomfield and Alison Ashley Formento.
Lori’s novel, The Last River Child, was recently published by Second Story Press. Lori was kind enough to send me an e-mail with this note: “Way back in July 2008 you posted that Second Story…was looking for fiction manuscripts. I had just finished writing my first novel, so sent it off to them. Well, they bought the manuscript! It came out in Canada last fall and is being released in the US this month. I’ve been wanting to share my happy story with you for a while and to thank you for your part in my success story. Please encourage your readers to keep writing and to keep submitting!” Lori, I think you’ve just encouraged them! (By the way, Lori is also the power behind a “First Line” blog, which provides fiction writers with some inspiration. And for those of you on Goodreads, Lori is hosting a book giveaway there this month. Now I may have to join yet another social networking site!)
Alison Formento‘s children’s picture book, This Tree Counts!, was published earlier this month by Albert Whitman & Company. Alison and illustrator Sarah Snow have done an outstanding job with this book. How do I know this? Alison apparently reads Practicing Writing attentively enough to know that I have a young niece and nephew, and she very graciously offered to send a copy to share with them. Some of you may know that my niece is developing into a very picky reader (you can’t begin to know how much this bothers me), but both she and her little brother were fully caught up in Alison’s story when Grandma read it to them for the first time the other day. I can’t come up with a better “review” than that.
I thank both Alison and Lori for sharing the news of their successes so generously with me. Let’s give them a big round of virtual applause, shall we?