Write From the Soul

          I Heart Indies Blog Tour

I'm sorry I've missed a post or two but I've been busy, busy revising a manuscript that needed to be sent last week. I'll blog about that later this week. 

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        For now, welcome to the I Heart (love) Indies Tour! I'm one of the stops on today's celebration of independent book stores. Sure, we've all been seen browsing in the big chain stores. And maybe you even have those discount programs they offer, thinking you're saving money on books.


        But people, let's not forget our local indie store!! These are the folks who connect to books; these are the ones who sell books because they love to get them into the hands of readers, not just because it's a way to make a living.

       Let me tell you about my local indie. It's called Little Shop of Stories in Decatur, GA. Don't you just love their logo! 

 LS of S is co-owned by Diane and Dave. She prefers to be known as "a feisty little bookstore babe" and he claims to be a childhood "anti-reader" now turned into an avid reader.

LS of S is a wonderful store just off the town square in Decatur. Not only do they sell children's books, but they also support the children's writer community. LS of S loves to have authors speak and sign books. They also host Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) gatherings and currently they are hosting an illustrators gallery exhibition of published artwork. In addition to their weekly story time, they sponsor book-related summer camp weeks, ongoing book clubs. 

Can you say way-too-much-going-on-in-this-shop?

So next time you're in the Atlanta area, please drop by my favorite Indie bookstore. You're sure to make some new friends and definitely won't leave empty handed!


To read more about the I Heart Indies Blog Tour, go to Lisa and Laura Roecker's blog. They started it all!

Write From the Soul

Welcome today children's author, Doraine Bennett!     
          *applause, applause*

Thanks for including me in your "Global Explorer" tour!

Thanks for hosting me, Gail :-)

I've got lots of questions for you so let's begin.
    
Please tell us a little about yourself, including how you came to write for the educational market.

I sort of stumbled into the educational market. I homeschooled my four children for thirteen years. During that time, I spent hours every year searching through publisher catalogs for the best resources. When my youngest child started public high school, I went back to college and completed a degree in professional writing. The focus here was always nonfiction, and my professor was a stickler about keeping records and learning to write for a target audience. I did take creative writing classes, as well.

One day out of the blue, an acquaintance who has since become a good friend, called and asked me if I'd like to take over her job as a sales rep for a book jobber. I said yes. So for four years, I've been selling books into schools to both library and curriculum buyers. I sell from over a hundred publishers, and though I don't know all their catalogs by heart, I have a better understanding of what's out there than most writers. I asked my friend why she was giving up her job. The reply was that shehad stumbled on a hole in the market. National publishers don't publish books for state history standards because they can't sell them in more than one state, in most cases. So she started her own publishing house, State Standards Publishing, and I write for her.

 How extensive was your research for this reader's theater?

Massive. I had no idea what I was biting off when I started. The book covers 45 explorers, and I couldn't write a script that included one without researching them. There's an extensive bibliography in the back.

Did you have any input about which explorers to cover?

 I chose them based on continents. I wanted at least a few explorers from each area. I also tried to space them out over time. Sometimes it was a difficult decision to know who to include and who to leave out. Sometimes availability of primary source materials was a factor.

What age range or grade levels is your reader's theater for?

It's designed for students in fourth through eighth grade. These are the grades students in most states study the explorers. But it could go higher if someone in high school wanted to use it.

 You have great extension activities (I think I actually did some similar ones when I was teaching)! Were you responsible for creating these activities?

I did create them myself. As I said earlier, I was a homeschool mom, so I have lots of experience coming up with meaningful projects to accompany a lesson.

Okay, the big question...where can I buy a copy of this book? The snippets I got to read have left me wanting to read all about these explorers!

You can purchase it straight from the publisher at
http://lu.com/showbook.cfm?isbn=9781598845150.http://lu.com/showbook.cfm?isbn=9781598845150.

There's also a Kindle edition available on Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/Readers-Theatre-Global-Explorers-ebook/dp/B004H1TD7O/ref=dp_olp_1

Are you writing exclusively for the educational market and if not, are you currently working on any fiction?

I just finished a set of books on the Virginia geographic regions for my editor at State Standards. They should be out in late spring. I'm working on a nonfiction picture book that would fit into both the educational and the trade markets. I'm in revisions and it's being a bugaboo at the moment. I also am working on revisions for a middle grade novel set in 1970 when the Supreme Court made enforced busing a tool for desegregating schools. I also have a devotional book for middle grade readers coming out with Christian Focus Publishing. I'm
not sure when the release date is yet, but I just saw the cover last week and I love it.

Last question, what's your absolute, most favorite part about being a writer?

One of my favorite things is that I'm always learning something new. I love research and libraries. It's not always easy to know when to stop. And then there is the hope that you are creating something that will instill a love of the subject in a new reader.

Wow, thank you Doraine, for the interview. Enjoy the rest of your blog tour! Please check back in, if you have time, to catch questions in the comment section.

Write From the Soul

Exciting news!!!!!!

This Tuesday I will be hosting Doraine Bennett, published children's author, on her blog tour. Doraine has a new book out called Reader's Theater for Global Explorers. There's awesome information on world explorers from ancient times to the 20th century. Great scripts and fabulous activities.

So, if you're a teacher, a media specialist, a parent, a grandparent, a write, or just curious, please stop by my blog on Tuesday, Feb. 7th to meet Doraine. She's promised to stop by and answer any questions you post to comments as well.

I am so jazzed about this book......and my friend Doraine too!

Write From The Soul 6

I've been writing down ideas for books as they pop into my gray matter, but I haven't really had a block of time to sit down and actually write in about two weeks. And I've made a discovery.....I've missed writing! Now to those of you who are published authors, long time authors, or individuals who knew from a young age that you always wanted to be a writer the previous statement sounds absurd and you're saying: yeah, so? What's your point? My point is I'm surprised  and  thrilled  that I have made such a connection to writing. I'm the one who hated to write papers in school. I'd read anything just don't make me write about it. Then I turned into the person who wrote the best consumer letters to store managers or complaint letters to companies and airline customer service departments. And I still didn't like writing. Then I wanted to get back to my dream of writing children's books (of course when that dream started, I naively thought picture books would be a breeze to write-HA!). Now I discover that I enjoy writing, especially fiction. Oh, and now I know that writing children's books is definitely N-O-T a breeze!

I've noticed in the many blogs I've been reading, that other authors like to talk about enjoying writing too. In many "blog tours" (for the uninitiated that's cyberspeak for a printed interview with Q and A on someone's web site or blog), authors often share that they always were a writer, or that they came to writing later in life. Then of course, there's a shameless plug for their latest book! It looks like fun to me but as I haven't published yet, I guess I'm not ready to do a blog tour. So I decided to start off with an occasional interview of my own. In reading Jon Skovron's blog, http://jonnyskov.com/blog  I noticed he asks authors the same 3 questions, but nowhere had he answered those questions himself. A great way to begin my interviews, so I cajoled him into giving me the "exclusive" on his three answers  with the promise of inclusion in today's blog post. Thanks Jon! Here they are:

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

My favorite part of writing is working on the first few chapters, when it's all fresh and new and I'm totally making it up as I go along, as well as the last few chapters when I know exactly what I'm doing and how it's all going to happen.
My least favorite part is writing that squishy middle bit where I actually have to figure out what the heck I'm doing.

What writing “gear” do you like (could be anything from your favorite tool to your favorite tchotchke).

I work on a Macbook Pro, usually on the couch with a little IKEA laptop tray and a coonhound curled up next to me. My favorite tchotchke on my desk (when I work at it) is a little plastic Riddler figurine in the pose of Rodin's The Thinker. I've had it since I was 18. It reminds me both to keep working hard and to not take myself so seriously.

Preference: Zombie, Pirate, Robot, or Ninja…you must chose one.

This is really is the question of the age:
Zombie = Culture
Pirate = Individualism
Robot = Progress
Ninja = Discipline

Each has strengths and weaknesses. The zombie offers community and solidarity (albeit stinky and gross). The Pirate offers freedom, although sometimes at the expense of others. Robot offers expanding possibilities and technological advancement, though offers no morality to contain it. Ninja offers skill and loyalty, but is stuck in traditionalism.
So which would I choose? Why, a zombie-infected ninja pirate cyborg, of course!

And now for the shameless plug of his latest YA book:
STRUTS & FRETS by Jon Skovron, published by Amulet Books
http://strutsandfretsbook.com