Author: mel

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Indie Author Spotlight…Jessica Roberts

Indie Authors Spotlight is a weekly meme that will be held on every SATURDAY in the month. It is hosted by Beckie @Bittersweet Enchantment & CYP @A Bookalicious Story.
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This week’s spotlighted author is Jessica Roberts…
About the Author – JESSICA ROBERTS grew up in the San Francisco, California Bay Area where she spent most of her time playing sports alongside her six siblings.  She was crowned Miss Teen California her senior year of high school, and went on to Brigham Young University where she graduated in Human Development.  Her love of family, church, writing, athletics, and singing and dancing keeps her life busy and fulfilled.  She currently resides in Utah with her husband and three children.
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Synopsis

Was six perfect months with the guy of my dreams, only a dream?

Bright, spunky Heather Robbins has escaped her small hometown and is anxiously beginning her freshman year of college.  Rising above her rocky childhood, she’s found a place where good things are finally starting to happen: her own private apartment, refreshing college classes, and an intense attachment to a mysterious and rugged classmate, Nick Richards.

But when her dreamy college life turns out to be nothing more than a wonderful dream while resting in a coma, questions threaten. Now, Heather must press forward to unlock the real past, and find the answers buried deep in her mind.  What she unlocks instead is a roller coaster ride through flashbacks, embellished memories, and a whirlwind romance…

And when it’s all over and she comes face to face with the truth, will she lose everything she’s fallen in love with?

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Want to know more? Check out the links!

Buy the Book! Amazon   Barnes and Noble   Smashwords
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Guest Post…Best Buddies International

To compliment Frank’s guest post today, we’re featuring news about a charitable endeavour he’s taking part in. 

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Frank Nappi, the author of “The Legend of Mickey Tussler” and “Sophomore Campaign,” is donating part of the proceeds from the books to Best Buddies International.
In a blog, Nappi said, “In an effort to support greater autism advocacy and awareness, I am pleased to announce that with the sale of each paperback copy of The Legend of Mickey Tussler or Sophomore Campaign between Friday, July 6 and Friday, July 27 on Amazon.com, I will donate a portion of the proceeds to Best Buddies International – a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating opportunities for one-to-one friendships, integrated employment and leadership development for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.”
The Mickey Tussler series chronicles the coming of age of a young pitching phenom with autism on a minor league baseball team during the 1940s.
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website:  www.franknappi.com
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Guest Post…50 Shades of Censorship

Author Frank Nappi joins us again at Aside from Writing  as we re-post another piece from his own Goodreads blog. 

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So public libraries in several states across the country have made the decision to pull the “50 Shades of Grey trilogy” from their shelves – and other libraries have decided not to order it at all. Not too long ago the Hunger Games trilogy experienced a similar fate – violence was the prevalent issue with this series. Some libraries have suggested the 50 Shades trilogy is too steamy and better yet others have suggested it is poorly written – paying no mind that “50 Shades” has become a best-selling worldwide phenomenon that has catapulted author E.L. James from relative unknown to superstardom. Shouldn’t libraries stock what people want to read? And these libraries are clearly saying they have the power to decide what people read. As library use dwindles with the continued growth of E-readers, Ipads, and online retailers like Amazon, the American Library Association should be encouraging libraries to appeal to a greater audience. While I myself have not read the books, and have heard from friends that the writing would not meet my standard for eloquent prose, there is no escaping the fact that EVERYONE is talking about this series….a trilogy that was borne of Twilight fanfiction originally. While I myself was not a fan of the equally popular Twilight series nor the vampire genre as a whole, as an English teacher I would be lying if I didn’t say that the fact that so many students were walking around the building with one of the books in hand didn’t make me smile. It made kids (ok…mostly girls) excited about reading and that was endorsement enough for me.

But of even greater importance is that this is censorship and censorship is dangerous. When do we stop? Where do we draw the line? And who makes that decision? There are many books that currently sit on library shelves with “questionable” content and even more books that are taught in high schools across the country that someone somewhere would find questionable. The same libraries that refuse to shelve “50 Shades” offer their patrons Lolita by Nabokov – one of the most controversial examples of 20th century literature; however that book also made the World Library’s list of 100 best books of all time. So what standard is being followed? Should we remove Macbeth from our curriculum because of the violence and witchcraft? Who decides what is appropriate?

Sanitized stories rarely have anything to offer – it is the more complex and controversial themes that stir us – it is often the evocative that challenges our thinking and our perceptions and makes us question ourselves. These are the books worth reading – these are the experiences worth having. It is why ironically the list of the most popular banned books in schools contains some of the greatest in the literary cannon – Of Mice and Men, Lord of the Flies, Catcher in the Rye, The Giver, To Kill a Mockingbird, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

I am by no means comparing “50 Shades” or Twilight, or the Hunger Games to any of the aforementioned – but as a teacher and as an author I can’t agree with the banning or censoring of books in either schools or libraries. Even the American Library Association in its Freedom to Read statement focuses on the freedom to read as guaranteed by the Constitution and affirms that it is in the public interest for librarians to make available the widest diversity of views and expressions, including those that are unorthodox, unpopular, or considered dangerous by the majority (so there seems to be some hypocrisy or at least contradiction in this latest library ban).

The Freedom to Read statement from the ALA goes on to say:

The power of a democratic system to adapt to change is vastly strengthened by the freedom of its citizens to choose widely from among conflicting opinions offered freely to them…Publishers, librarians, and booksellers do not need to endorse every idea or presentation they make available. It would conflict with the public interest for them to establish their own political, moral, or aesthetic views as a standard for determining what should be published or circulated……The people should have the freedom to read and consider a broader range of ideas than those that may be held by any single librarian or publisher or government or church. It is wrong that what one can read should be confined to what another thinks proper.

I recently had the “how much do I sanitize issue” with my own book, Sophomore Campaign. Much like the controversy surrounding the book Ernest Hemingway pronounced as the source of all modern American literature – Huckleberry Finn (and led to the recent rerelease where all uses of the “N” word was replaced with the word slave) – I had used the “N” word to showcase the rampant racism that was typical for my novel’s setting. Not everyone who worked with me to publish the book felt that its use was necessary or even appropriate. I had to decide what made sense for my audience. This of course was more an issue of political correctness rather than censorship, but still stirred up in me some of the same emotions connected to the issues I raise here.

And in the end, the romance between a college student and a manipulative billionaire may or may not be your thing – and perhaps you would prefer to read the newly released version of “Huck” or you would defend the original to the end – but nevertheless the library ban of this popular trilogy should offend you as an author, a reader, and as a lover of the written word – I can think of “50” reasons why.

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About the Author

Author – Frank Nappi

Frank Nappi has taught high school English and Creative Writing for over twenty years. His debut novel, Echoes From The Infantry, received national attention, including MWSA’s silver medal for outstanding fiction for 2006. His follow-up novel, The Legend of Mickey Tussler, garnered rave reviews as well, including a screenplay adaptation of the touching story which aired nationwide in the fall of 2011 (A Mile in His Shoes starring Dean Cain and Luke Schroder). Frank continues to produce quality work, including The Legend of Mickey Tussler: Sophomore Campaign, the intriguing sequel to the much heralded original story, and is presently at work on a third installment of the unique series. Frank lives on Long Island with his wife Julia and their two sons, Nicholas and Anthony.

(This was originally published 10th May, 2012).

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Want to know more? Check out the links!

Links for both of Frank’s Tussler books as well as the amazon link for the movie that was adapted from the first book:
The Legend of Mickey Tussler
Sophomore Campaign
A Mile in His Shoes
website:  www.franknappi.com
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Interview…with Nicholas from Blue Sky Days

 

Today we’re interviewing the lovely Nicholas from Marie Landry’s novel Blue Sky Days. Definitely our most interesting character interview so far – take a look and you’ll see why.

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Hi Nicholas – thanks for joining Aside from Writing today, we’re really pleased to be in Riverview to meet you. For people who are not aware of your situation, would you mind giving us some background?

Thanks, it’s great to talk to you today. I was diagnosed with leukemia around the beginning of September. I work in construction, so I’m used to long hours of hard work. It can be tiring, but I’m a pretty energetic guy, and I like to stay busy. When I started waking up tired, and then staying tired and listless during the day, I knew something was wrong. I hoped it was the flu, but I didn’t have any other flu-like symptoms. My mom died of leukemia when I was a kid, so that was always in the back of my mind. I went to the doctor almost right away, and within two weeks, they’d diagnosed me, and shortly after that I started treatments.

And so – you’ve just spent the last few days in hospital and had your first chemo sessions this week. How’s that been?

Not as bad as I expected, to be honest. I know it’s going to get worse as time goes on, but this week was more…strange than anything, I guess – having to leave home, check into the hospital, be away from my normal life. It was easy to pretend that the doctors were wrong and I didn’t really have cancer, but when they stuck that IV in me and I started my first treatment, it was impossible to deny.

This is obviously a really tough thing for anyone to go through – what helps you to cope with the difficulties you’re facing?

Love and support from friends and family. I don’t think I could get through this without my dad, my girlfriend Emma, my two best friends, and Emma’s aunt Daisy. They’ve been incredibly supportive, and they don’t treat me like a cancer patient who needs to be protected or coddled.

We met Emma outside 🙂 you guys are obviously very close – how have things been for her since you found out about your illness?

Well…it hasn’t been easy, but she’s been…god, I can’t even tell you how amazing she’s been. When I first found out I was sick, I wanted to keep it from her, to protect her. We’d had this incredible summer that was the stuff of daydreams, and dumping all of this on her just seemed like such a huge burden to put on someone so young. She might kill me for saying this, but she’s got this sweet innocence about her, and I didn’t want to ruin that. I know how stupid I was now, though. She’s been so strong, and she’s been there every step of the way, from doctor’s appointments, to walks to help me keep my strength up, to spending time with me in the hospital and sitting with me during my chemo treatments.

So – you’ve not been together a huge amount of time then? OK – then let’s talk romance if that’s alright…? How did you and Emma first meet?

I met Emma when she first moved to town to live with Daisy. I was walking in the park one day and I sat down to read, and she was sitting at the top of the hill. The minute I saw her, I knew I had to go talk to her.

And – can we ask – was it love at first sight or do you not believe in that?

As cheesy as it sounds, yeah, it was definitely love at first sight – for me, anyway. I saw her sitting there at the top of that hill, looking like an angel with the sun streaming down on her, and that was it. My whole life changed in that one instant.

Well – I’m sure she’ll be pleased to hear that if she’s listening outside right now 🙂 So – tell us what else are you doing while you’re home this weekend?

This weekend is all about normalcy, or at least as close to normal as you can get when you’re exhausted and weak. For months, it’s been the six of us – Dad, Daisy, Vince, Maggie, Emma, and me. We’re going to spend as much time together as possible before I have to go back to the hospital on Monday.

Nicholas – thank you so much for joining us today – we hope you have a great weekend at home and wish you all the best for your ongoing treatment.

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A year after graduating from high school, nineteen-year-old Emma Ward feels lost. She has spent most of her life trying to please her frigid, miserable mother – studying hard, getting good grades, avoiding the whole teenage rebellion thing – and now she feels she has no identity beyond that. Because she spent so many years working hard and planning every moment of her life, she doesn’t have any friends, has never had a boyfriend, and basically doesn’t know who she is or what she really wants from life. Working two part-time jobs to save money for college hasn’t helped her make decisions about her future, so she decides it’s time for a change. She leaves home to live with her free-spirited, slightly eccentric Aunt Daisy in a small town that makes Emma feel like she’s stepped back in time.

When Emma meets Nicholas Shaw, everything changes – he’s unlike anyone she’s ever met before, the kind of man she didn’t even know existed in the 21st century. Carefree and spirited like Daisy, Nicholas teaches Emma to appreciate life, the beauty around her, and to just let go and live. Between Daisy and Nicholas, Emma feels like she belongs somewhere for the first time in her life, and realizes that you don’t always need a plan – sometimes life steers you where you’re meant to be.

Life is wonderful, an endless string of blue sky days, until Nicholas is diagnosed with cancer, and life changes once again for Emma in ways she never thought possible. Now it’s time for her to help Nicholas the way he’s helped her. Emma will have to use her new-found strength, and discover along the way if love really is enough to get you through.

(Read the Aside from Writing review of Blue Sky Days)

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About the Author

Marie Landry has always been a daydreamer. She has created imaginary worlds for as long as she can remember, so it only seemed natural that she would become a writer. With a passion for words that started in early childhood, Marie has written a varied range of works, and has been freelance writing since 2009. She resides in Ontario, Canada, and most days you can find her writing, reading, blogging about writing and reading, listening to U2, or having grand adventures with her two precious nephews.

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Want to know more? Check out the links!

Facebook – Author Page

Facebook – Blue Sky Days – Book Page 

Twitter – http://twitter.com/SweetMarie83

Book blog – http://sweetmarie-83.blogspot.com

Author blog – http://marielandry.blogspot.com

Buy Blue Sky Days…

Amazon.com – http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Sky-Days-ebook/dp/B006U97B20/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1325915568&sr=8-1

Amazon.uk – http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blue-Sky-Days-ebook/dp/B006U97B20/ref=pd_rhf_gw_p_t_1

Smashwords – http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/120238

Barnes & Noble – http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/blue-sky-days-marie-landry/1108336817

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Guest Post…Diversity in the YA World

Today’s guest post comes from Ebony who blogs at The Hundred Book Project. It was originally featured on her blog on April 30th 2012 and she’s kindly allowed us to re-blog it here for you to see. Hope you find it as interesting as we did – if you’d like to hear more from Ebony, you can check out The Hundred Book Project here. Now – on to the post!
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Last month I reviewed a young adult contemporary fiction novel called Gone, Gone, Gone by Hannah Moskowitz.
I had a bit of a moment whilst reading that book, and it prompted me to write this post.
Inconspicuously slipped in, as one main character recalled another, was this line:

“His hair might not be golden blond – he’s black, so that would be a little weird – but his eyes kind of are.”

I did a double take.
It is honestly that rare to find a black protagonist in young adult literature that I had to make sure I had read correctly.
The book goes on to detail the tribulations of the budding relationship between the two characters. Did I mention that they are both guys?
That’s right; a gay, interracial teen romance.
And more amazing still, the issues that they struggle with don’t depend on their race, or even necessarily their sexuality. Those things are just a part of who they are, and beyond that they have the same problems ‘traditional’ couples experience: emotional vulnerability, family trauma, social/political issues, etc.
So, why don’t we have that kind of awesome diversity across the board in YA lit?
Teen readers are at a time when they start to form strong values and ideas. When better to acquaint them with the ideas of acceptance and moral courage – not to mention introduce them to other cultures and lifestyles? And that better way than to write life-like, relatable characters who just happen to be of assorted cultural heritage and orientation? Why do so many authors shy away from presenting the world as it is – and in a positive way, for once?
I can only guess.
Perhaps authors rush to create characters that their supposed audience will relate to. If the audience is considered to be made up of white, upper-middle class fifteen year old girls, then the prevalence of characters mirroring that stereotype is understandable.
I understand it, but I don’t accept it.
In a majority of the YA books I’ve read, there are pitifully few ethnic or gay characters, let alone protagonists. It has got to stop.
Just like glorifying abuse is bad for real-world victims, when readers are shown Black or Asian characters who are mere bit players in the lives of the white protagonists (or my pet peeve, the ‘gay best-friend’ stereotype), it only serves to bolster the ridiculous idea that those societal groups are of less value. That their hopes and dreams and desires are inferior to their white counterparts’.
Why, why, why are authors not concerned with including a cast of characters which accurately represent racial and sexual diversity in the world?

I’ve thought about this question and decided it is not a conscious effort to cut certain social groups out of literature (that would be too horrible to comprehend), but rather a kind of laziness.

For white authors, I suppose it seems more difficult to write from the frame of mind of someone of a different culture, religion or orientation than oneself. But it is a worthy effort to include at least some diversity in your novel.
I don’t think there is any valid excuse for arbitrarily excluding diversity in novels, particularly those aimed at a vulnerable audience.
I can only imagine how it must feel to be a lover of young adult fiction, yet open an otherwise enjoyable book and find no central character whose ethnicity of orientation you can identify with.
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Guest Post…Everyone Wants to Be a Writer

After taking over our blog this week, lovely author Patricia Lynne leaves us with her final thoughts on ‘being a writer.’

Thanks for spending the week with us – we’ve had lots of fun and loved reading Being Human 🙂

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Everyone wants to be a writer

It’s something I’ve heard a lot. Everyone says they want to be a writer. Everyone! Of course, not everyone actually does it, but 99% of people have probably expressed it at one point in their lives. Want to know a secret?

I didn’t.

I never had any intention of becoming a writer. When I was in third grade, I had tried to write a story, but a passing classmate read what I had written and laughed. I scrapped the story and never tried again. What got me writing was a dream. In it, a girl was being kept from by her vampire love by the cast of True Blood. I woke up and thought it’d be fun to write, minus the True Blood cast. Even then I wasn’t calling myself a writer or had any plans to publish the story. It was just for fun

When I finished the story, I got another. And another! So I kept writing them. It was fun, but I still didn’t consider myself a writer. It wasn’t until I started looking into publishing while writing Being Human that I thought about it. Even then I was hesitant. My college papers in English weren’t As. One I got a D on one and struggled to bring it up to a B (if I knew what I did now, I wouldn’t have gotten any Ds.) But I was confident in Being Human. It was interesting and different and I was so tired of all vampires being the same: whiny wussies. Maybe I could do this. If I could find people to help me edit it, then maybe it would be worth publishing.

Sometimes, I am still wary of saying I’m a writer. I have one book published and a short. But I never intended it to happen! Do I really deserve to say I’m a writer when all this was a giant accident inspired by a dream? I don’t know, but now that I’ve started, it’s really hard to stop writing.

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Indie Author Spotlight…Patricia Lynne

Indie Authors Spotlight is a weekly meme that will be held on every SATURDAY in the month. It is hosted by Beckie @Bittersweet Enchantment & CYP @A Bookalicious Story.
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This week’s spotlighted author is Patricia Lynne…

Author – Patricia Lynne

About the Author: Patricia Lynne never set out to become a writer, and in fact, was more of an art and band nerd in high school and college. But some stories are meant to be told and now she can’t stop. Patricia lives with her husband in Michigan, hopes one day to have what will resemble a small petting zoo and has a fondness for dying her hair the colors of the rainbow.
You can find out even more in our interview with Patricia from earlier this week! CLICK HERE!
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Hmmmm…yummy yummy for this cover model 😉

Synopsis

For Tommy, there is only one thing he needs to do: survive.

Only surviving isn’t that easy. The hunt for blood can be tricky when humans know to fear the night. Desire sits on the edge of his mind, urging him to become the monster humans think he is. Vampire Forces, a special branch of police, is determined to turn every vampire to ash. Tommy included.

The only human Tommy can trust is his twin brother. A bond connects them, and with Danny’s help, Tommy starts to understand the human world he struggles to survive in. He’ll learn what friendships means and feel the sting of betrayal, find that sometimes the worst monsters are very human, and come to understand that family means more than blood.

Tommy just wants to survive and he knows what he needs to do. But with the number of humans that mean more to him than a meal growing, he’ll learn there’s more to life than simple survival. He’ll discover being human doesn’t mean being a human.

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Want to know more? Check out the links!

My website   Goodreads   Twitter   Facebook

Amazon   Smashwords   Barnes and Noble


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Interview with…Patricia Lynne

This week we’re welcoming author Patricia Lynne to the blog for a short series of features. Today we’ll be finding out more about her with an interview, on Saturday her book Being Human will be under the spotlight and finally on Sunday, she’ll be sharing some of her thoughts and experiences of writing in a guest post. Phew! With all that to get through, let’s get started with the interview! 

Author – Patricia Lynne

Hi Patricia, welcome to Aside from Writing, we hope you’ll enjoy your time on the blog. Let’s get started with your interview!
If you could invite any 5 people to dinner who would you choose?

Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, Heather Brewer, Mike Rowe, my mom (because otherwise she’d be miffed I didn’t invite her!)

If you could have any superpower, what would you choose?

Hmmm, I’d say it’s a toss up between super speed because I hate car rides and being able to fly because Rogue of the X-men was my favorite and she could fly.

What is your favorite flavor of ice cream?

Mackinaw Island Fudge. It’s vanilla ice cream and fudge and oh so good and is a Michigan specialty.

Wow – that sounds amazingly good – how far is Michigan from Manchester?! 🙂 OK – still thinking of food – what is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast?

I never wake up in time to eat breakfast, because let’s face it, mornings are evil, so let’s count lunch as my breakfast so grilled cheese and tomato soup.

Lastly…a drink to go with your meal…Coke or Pepsi?

Neither. Mountain Dew. I love my elixir of life.

OK – now back to books! Please tell us in one sentence only, why we should read your book.

Because if you don’t I’ll send Tommy after you and he has no qualms about getting flesh stuck in his fangs. 😉 Oh, sorry, did you want a serious answer? Being Human is a new take on a myth that’s been done a million times over, but with no sparkling.

You know – that might not be a bad thing for me – on the basis that the cover image is a very gorgeous guy, who is saying ‘please bump me to the top of the tbr pile’ with his sexy stare – I think it is enough to keep refusing. And let’s face it – we like vamps because of the danger 😉 

What are you working on at the moment? Any new books in the works? 

I have a few books that are in various stages of editing and I’m hoping to have at least one ready to get published soon. The one I’m most hopeful to have finished soon(ish) is called Snapshots and it’s about a boy who can see the future in others eyes so he keeps one eye covered earning him the nickname Cyclop.

What’s been your best experience from being published? 

This may seem mean but I highly enjoy hearing my story has made someone cry. Writers all strive to create stories that resonate with readers and make them feel, so hearing my book made someone happy or sad enough to cry is very rewarding. I did a good job.

What was your favorite book to read when you were a child?

I loved all the Clifford the Big Red Dog books. I had them all and I’m pretty sure my mom still has them stashed somewhere.

When you were little, what did you want to be when you “grew up”?

At one point I wanted to be a ballerina, but mostly I wanted to be an artist like my grandpa. I even when to college at Grand Valley State for a year in art.

How do you feel when you get a bad review? And how do you deal with it? 

I’ve only had one really bad review so far and I whined to my husband and a few friends privately, and then I got away from my laptop and got slightly (no, really) drunk. Then I didn’t really care about the review. Plus, the people I was with reminded me that every movie, book, TV show get bad reviews.

Take us through a typical day in your life…

Well, I lay in bed thinking about how I need to get up for way longer than I should. Then I finally force myself to jump up and go through the usual things (brush teeth, deodorant, get dressed) I check twitter and my email, comment on blogs or reply to emails. For some reason, I can never motivate myself to write until after I eat lunch. I can spend all afternoon writer/editing while checking twitter too much while having Mythbusters, Criminal Minds or Dirty Jobs playing in the background. I can’t write to music, but the TV is fine. I don’t have a real job (I have a small online handmade jewelry store and deliver a paper on the weekend) so I never have to worry about squeezing writing in between work. I make dinner when my husband gets home. If it’s nice out, we go for a walk and I try not to bore him with writing talk and he tries not to bore me with computer related jabber. Shower and then it’s back to writing, but usually I’m a bit worn out on writing and waste time on twitter talking about how I need to be writing. Around midnight, I trudge to bed and glower at my husband for being able to fall asleep in two seconds while it takes me a half hour.

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Patricia will be going under our author spotlight on Saturday – so come back and find out more about her and Being Human then!

And don’t forget the giveaway to win your own copy of Being Human – just comment in any of the features from Patricia posted this week and you’ll be entered to win an e-copy supplied via Smashwords!

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Just Finished…Being Human

So…a YA book about vampires – sounds familiar? Well, you’d be wrong! 🙂

Being Human takes the interesting perspective of Tommy, the recently turned vampire. The novel is written from his first-person POV, with only five chapters (incredibly long and semi-interior monologue in style); the chapters cover five distinct stages of his vampire life and experience.

In the world of Patricia Lynne’s vampires, when a human is turned they remember nothing of their former human life – nothing really of their human selves or values – which is why they often return and kill their own families it seems. When Tommy does exactly this, it is only some inante recognition of the special bond he shares with his twin brother Danny that stops him from killing him as he does their parents.

In the early stages of the book, I struggled to like Tommy – he’s heartless, unhuman and is quite blunt. Oh yes – I forgot, that’s because he’s supposed to be that way! He is a vampire after all. Once I got into this, he actually was quite cute and funny – certainly when he was trying to get his head around the intricacies of human/teenage life as his twin experiences it. As you see the new relationship develop with Tommy and Danny, you really see what the novel is about: the examination of what it is to ‘be human’. Tommy asks and examines the questions throughout the book, that we often overlook in everyday life, but that are absolutely necessary in making us what and who we are. I’ve seen this done quite similarly in sci-fi, with books like Human Is?, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and more recently Cinder – it was well done in Being Human.

The examination of various types of love – twins, family, children, romantic – is also very nicely done: the relationships feel authentic and give a greater depth than some other vampire books I’ve read. The main focus of Being Human isn’t a romance, but a family bond which trumps survival, human nature and vampire instinct.

Overall Thoughts: A well-considered vampire book, with interesting elements and world-building for a ‘post-knowledge setting’ where humans are aware of the existence of vampires. The examination of humanity as Tommy actually goes through the process is interesting and well-thought out: many novels I’ve read with human-esque vamps begin way after they’ve already embraced their human side. Enough action and blood for a vampire book, but not actually the main draw in this case. Good stuff!

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Author Patricia Lynne will be featuring with us in a spotlight and interview later this week and you also have the chance of winning your own copy of Being Human here!

 

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Guest Post…Audio Books – Modern Oral Storytelling

For today’s guest post we’re welcoming back author Clinton D Harding to the blog – Clinton’s novel Our Monsters was one of our featured books during Indie Author Month, click here to see the post – now let’s see what he has to say about storytelling today…

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Ever had a grandparent tell you a tale from the “ol’ country”? I think everyone has. Do you remember sitting on the magic rug for story time during kindergarten and listening to a teacher read a story aloud to you?

There is magic in that type of story delivery.

Reader and listener feed off each other. They pass emotions back and forth like a hot potato. The reader (or storyteller) brings to life each character’s hopes, their secret dreams, their rage, and their deepest fears. The listener feels each of the characters’ breathes on their ears, in return whispering awes and ohs to quench the parched throat of the storyteller.

That is the magic of oral storytelling, the communion and sharing. Long ago, this is how humans passed on their legends and myths, before writing and before reading. When the high lords and ladies prohibited the commoners from learning to read, elders would pass down a community’s histories and stories by campfire. Later bards would roam the land and pass along the oral tradition through song and poem. Either way, these oral traditions served not just as entertainment but also as connections to the past. Today modern society has television, film and video games. Stimulating, yes. Most people can read, sure, but hardly anyone willingly picks up a book (fiction or nonfiction) for fun.

Fret not! Oral storytelling is not dead. It lives on in audio books.

When I was in fourth grade you would find it easier to pull out my teeth than get me to read. Shocker for those who know me today and know me to always have a book at hand. Around that same time movie theaters were playing the Shadow starring Alex Baldwin. I was excited because the Shadow is one of the characters Bob Kane used as inspiration to create Batman and I was/am nutty for anything related to the Dark Knight. Because I was excited for the “Shadow” film, that Christmas my grandparents bought me a set of re-mastered recordings of the Shadow radio show (on cassette tapes). I listened to those adventures repeatedly until the ribbon wore away.

The old Shadow radio show recordings from the 1930s to the 1950s were not audio books. A cast of actors read from a script similar to the scripts used for television shows and movies. Separate crews would also add sounds effects to make the action pop. Audio books are different in that there are no sound effects and there is usually only one performer. However, the old radio dramas and audio books are not unalike.

There is a great deal of imagination needed to enjoy a radio drama and an audio book. What’s important is the emotional connection the performers in the dramas and the narrator of an audio book need to make with the listeners. For instance, when a character is engaged in a fight or running a mile, a good actor has to convey the strenuousness of that activity with his or her voice. On screen an actor can physically show the fatigue, the strain the activity puts on the body and mind. Good material is essential for this of course, the actor can only read and perform what is on the page. With good material from an author, a talented actor, and an active imagination, a story can come alive for the listener without having the visual media as an aid.

Think about it for a second. Sound activates primal feelings in us. A loud noise like a shout can startle a person. The right words spoken tenderly with love can melt a heart. A man with a good accent—take your pick from Europe—can read the phonebook and make a room full of women swoon.

The power of the voice. Intertwine a magnificent reader with a fantastic book and you have a recipe for something special, something to stir the heart.

My father has asked if hearing the same voice for all the characters detracts from the experience of the story. If hearing a male reader do the female character voices or vice versa is odd and takes you out of the story. I don’t believe so. There are some readers who do the voices so well, who take great effort to increase or decrease their tone and pitch so you can hardly notice. Actually, some of the best readers do different voices for all the characters. They tweak their voice so subtly that nearly all the voices are different, nearly, no one is perfect and the reader has only his or her own voice to manipulate (the range only goes so far). Jim Dale is crazy good on the American Harry Potter audio books. James Marsters has done a great job with the Dresden File book readings. Michael Kramer has read most of Brandon Sanderson’s novels and the Wheel of Time series and he’s fantastic.

If an audio book reader does his or her job well, has a mastery of their voice, can put every drop of emotion into each word, speaks clearly and keeps a fluid pace, then they will suck the listener in. The listener will feel that same campfire intimacy from ol’. Unfortunately these days that intimacy only extends one way, listeners get more out of the reader because the listeners cannot be there for the recording. Regardless, I don’t believe the experience is lost, it has only been modernized and made available to a wider audience.

Best of all… audio books today are more accessible. A person used to lug around twenty-plus cassette tapes or a few less CDs in order to have an entire audio book available for listening. Today’s mp3 players have created convenience much the same way eReaders have. It is so easy to carry around books, audio and other. As far as I’m concerned we’re living in a book utopia.

By no means am I trying to advocate switching over from reading a novel to listening to the audio book version as each provides a different experience. Audio books merely remind us of how storytelling was once communal, containing a closeness that connects listeners and the storyteller. And of course the reading is that much more special when the author of the novel is actually the reader. Neil Gaiman, the stud and rockstar of the literary world, is an excellent reader.

Go to audiable.com or iTunes.com and try an audio book. Personally, I enjoy listening to stories I’ve read previously, there is an added something and I often I pick up details I missed when reading.

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About the Author

Clinton grew up in Southern California, where the sun shines all day and where most kids spend their days outdoors skinning knees and browning their flesh. He spent those same days inside, reading comics, books, and dreaming of fantasy worlds. These days he not only dreams but he creates and writes about those same worlds. In college Clinton found himself in the dregs of a business school, studying accounting. Sneaking English and philosophy courses into his schedule were the only things that kept him sane! As a result, he spent way more than four years getting a well-rounded degree. Adult books and books for kids, Clinton reads it all these days. He still enjoys traditional American comics and manga/anime from Asia, but when not writing he can also be found immersing himself in video games.

            Clinton today still resides in Southern California with his wife, Kathy and their two Scottish terriers, Mac and Bonni (wheaten and black).

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Want to know more? Check out the links!

http://clintondharding.com (official site)

https://twitter.com/#!/ClintonDHarding (twitter)

Email: cd.harding83@gmail.com

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Clinton-D-Harding/76506701006 (facebook)

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5381520.Clinton_D_Harding (goodreads)