Showing posts with label authors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label authors. Show all posts
Monday, April 27, 2009
Another Author Dinner
Dinner last night was with author Ann Aguirre and her lovely assistant, Yvette. We went to the Polynesian Resort at DisneyWorld and ate in 'Ohana's which is one of my favorite restaurants. Lots of good food (all you can eat), coconut races for the kids, and live Hawaiian music. I think everyone had a good time, and I got to hear some great stories from Ann's writing career. I hope she'll be able to visit again in the future and perhaps bring her family. The hubby and I would love to show her around Disney as she hasn't been in many years.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Book Review of the Day - Linnea Sinclair
On the plane out to WorldCon I finished reading Linnea Sinclair's novel, Shades of Dark. What can I say? In addition to being a kind and generous individual, the lady is also a fantastic author.
Shades of Dark is a rather different experience in reading Linnea's work. It's the first sequel she has done in her science fiction/romance. Therefore, it has quite a few more intimate encounters that begin early in the novel and continue throughout. This is different because normally, the two main characters spend the majority of the story building the romantic tension between them, which ultimately culminates in a really steamy scene somewhere in the latter third of the book. Since this is a sequel, that buildup has already taken place in the previous novel. Now the trick is to make each successive romantic encounter more intense than the prior one. Linnea delivers and exceeds expectations in this area. I look forward to her next book with great anticipation.
Shades of Dark is a rather different experience in reading Linnea's work. It's the first sequel she has done in her science fiction/romance. Therefore, it has quite a few more intimate encounters that begin early in the novel and continue throughout. This is different because normally, the two main characters spend the majority of the story building the romantic tension between them, which ultimately culminates in a really steamy scene somewhere in the latter third of the book. Since this is a sequel, that buildup has already taken place in the previous novel. Now the trick is to make each successive romantic encounter more intense than the prior one. Linnea delivers and exceeds expectations in this area. I look forward to her next book with great anticipation.
WorldCon
I have absolutely no idea where to start, so I think I'll try some logical format like a day-by-day analysis of all the really cool things that happened at WorldCon.
Wednesday (Day 1)-attended a panel on query letters hosted by one of my favorite author's agents. At the end of the panel, the hubby and I showed her our queries (just for advice) and she asked us each to send her partials of our manuscripts.
Thursday (Day 2) - The days are blurring together, but I think this is the night that one of my favorite authors, Ann Aguirre, took us out to dinner. She answered our writing/professional questions at length, and was all-around a joy to meet and chat with. Her eleven year old daughter was well-spoken and well-mannered. I enjoyed spending time with them both.
Friday (Day 3) - Pitched our book ideas to two other agents. Both requested partials from each of us. It was such a relief to be done with the agent side of the convention. Then we could relax and just be fans for awhile. All the agents we met, though, were extremely nice and easy to talk to, even though I stressed massively beforehand.
This was also the day we got to sit down for two different kaffeeklatsches, one with Elizabeth Moon and the other with Tanya Huff. Both were inspiring to hear talk about their work. Tanya was particularly helpful in giving agent advice, and Elizabeth shared humorous stories about swords and horses.
Saturday (Day 4) - received another request for a partial of my manuscript by email. And tonight was The Hugo Awards Ceremony. It was really a thrill being able to vote on and attend such a prestigious event. Of course, after assuring us that she would not do so, Elizabeth Bear won the short story category. Well, we tried to tell her that she would win when we met her at ReaderCon. The hubby and I both voted for her. It was a shame that she wasn't there to accept her award in person.
Sunday (Day 5) - attended a last panel with Tanya Huff on creating female soldiers. Then, it was back to the hotel to sleep for the next ten hours or so.
These are just the convention highlights. I met many other wonderful people and made new friends. I also got to spend time with several online acquaintances whom I hope will visit us in our area so we can show them around sometime. That's all I can remember for now. I got home at 1:45 A.M. from the airport and went to bed at 2:00 A.M. and had to be at work today at 7:30 A.M. so my memory isn't all there.
Wednesday (Day 1)-attended a panel on query letters hosted by one of my favorite author's agents. At the end of the panel, the hubby and I showed her our queries (just for advice) and she asked us each to send her partials of our manuscripts.
Thursday (Day 2) - The days are blurring together, but I think this is the night that one of my favorite authors, Ann Aguirre, took us out to dinner. She answered our writing/professional questions at length, and was all-around a joy to meet and chat with. Her eleven year old daughter was well-spoken and well-mannered. I enjoyed spending time with them both.
Friday (Day 3) - Pitched our book ideas to two other agents. Both requested partials from each of us. It was such a relief to be done with the agent side of the convention. Then we could relax and just be fans for awhile. All the agents we met, though, were extremely nice and easy to talk to, even though I stressed massively beforehand.
This was also the day we got to sit down for two different kaffeeklatsches, one with Elizabeth Moon and the other with Tanya Huff. Both were inspiring to hear talk about their work. Tanya was particularly helpful in giving agent advice, and Elizabeth shared humorous stories about swords and horses.
Saturday (Day 4) - received another request for a partial of my manuscript by email. And tonight was The Hugo Awards Ceremony. It was really a thrill being able to vote on and attend such a prestigious event. Of course, after assuring us that she would not do so, Elizabeth Bear won the short story category. Well, we tried to tell her that she would win when we met her at ReaderCon. The hubby and I both voted for her. It was a shame that she wasn't there to accept her award in person.
Sunday (Day 5) - attended a last panel with Tanya Huff on creating female soldiers. Then, it was back to the hotel to sleep for the next ten hours or so.
These are just the convention highlights. I met many other wonderful people and made new friends. I also got to spend time with several online acquaintances whom I hope will visit us in our area so we can show them around sometime. That's all I can remember for now. I got home at 1:45 A.M. from the airport and went to bed at 2:00 A.M. and had to be at work today at 7:30 A.M. so my memory isn't all there.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Awesome Author Assistance
So, today Joe and I went to a pre-release book signing for Linnea Sinclair's Shades of Dark, the sequel to one of her other books that I read and enjoyed. Linnea is a science fiction/romance author who has been instrumental in inspiring me to finish my current book. I contacted her by email about a year and a half ago to compliment her work and ask for writing advice. Since then, she has taught us a class on world building, helped Joe research private detectives (since she was one for many years and how cool is that?) and done much more that was beyond helpful. Every time I begin to get discouraged, she pushes me toward publication. Without her, things would have been a lot harder. I try to plug her work everywhere I go, like at ReaderCon, and we brought her smiley face cookies today, but I can't do enough to thank her for her help so far.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Author Disappointment
Well, I just posted for the first time on Laura Anne Gilman's blog. I am a big fan of her Retrievers series and was under the impression that she was attending Denvention in August. Unfortunately, she has just announced that she is not coming. And I was really looking forward to meeting her. Sigh.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
