October Events

First up is an online event on Facebook:

"Embrace the Darkness" Paranormal Nights (2 Night Event)

Sponsored by the Wordsmithe Book Blog

(who interviewed me back in July)

Looking for some new paranormal reads? Over 40 authors have banded together to hold a two-night event on Facebook, and it's going to be full of chills and thrills! I'll be working the 8:45-9:00 PM (EST) slot on Saturday, October 24--stop by and check it out!

The party is happening on Facebook at

https://www.facebook.com/events/1640573729542675/

 On October 30, at 6 pm, I'll be joining up with some other authors at Face in a Book:

PARANORMAL PAGES: A FOUR-AUTHOR EVENT

October 30, 2015 in El Dorado Hills

El Dorado Hills, CA—In celebration of the spooky season, four accomplished authors of paranormal novels for teens are gathering at the indie bookstore Face in a Book for a night of haunting tales. The free, themed event goes from 6 to 8 p.m. on October 30. Each author will share an eerie excerpt from her book, followed by a group Q&A session. Costumes are encouraged for attendees, but not required. Seasonal, themed refreshments will be served.

The movie industry has spawned a growing demand for supernatural stories, spurring book sales and increasing the number of paranormal titles on store and library shelves.  Halloween is the perfect excuse for buffs of the genre to celebrate their favorite creepy book characters, and this event is one way for them to gather with fellow fans.

About the authors and their novels:

Angelica R. Jackson’s darkly funny, young adult urban fantasy novel, Crow’s Rest, is set in a fictional town in the Sierra foothills, and was partly inspired by a nearby haunted landmark, Preston Castle. She sometimes haunts the Castle’s hallways herself, as she photographs the arrested decay, and will be sharing a real-life ghostly encounter that made it into the pages of her novel. She was featured on Sacramento Access’s Story Connection in April, and the video is at https://youtu.be/JwRtQ3i06Ow. In Crow’s Rest, sixteen-year-old Avery Flynn is determined to reclaim her almost-boyfriend from the Fae, with the help of the creature who stole his body in the first place.

Linda Covella will be reading from the first book in her Ghost Whisperer series, The Castle Blues Quake. This tale of ghosts and friendship for teens and tweens received the Literary Classics Seal of approval and is “highly recommended for home and school libraries.” It’s also a finalist in the Literary Classics Book Award (winners will be announced soon), along with her other published book, Yakimali’s Gift, which  won an honorable mention in the RONE awards, young adult-general category. Recently published, The Ghosts of Pebble Brook Lodge, is the second book in the Ghost Whisperer series; both Ghost Whisperer books take place in Santa Cruz.

Linda Joy Singleton is the author of over 40 books for kids, including  the YALSA honored The Seer series, the Dead Girl Walking trilogy, and The Curious Cat Spy Club. Her latest book, Never Been Texted, is a sweet romance with a touch of magic: When Ashlee’s stepdad completely forgets her birthday she takes matters into her own hands to get the one thing she really wants: her own cell phone. But text messages start rolling in from a broken-hearted boy, and though Ashlee knows not all stories end happily, she’s determined to make hers the best it can be.

Tracy Clark formerly served as the Regional Advisor for the Nevada chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and is currently a contributing writer on the YA Series Insiders group blog. The first book (Scintillate) in her young adult paranormal romance series, The Light Key Trilogy, won the YA category of the 2015 Golden Quill Contest. Kirkus Review said of Deviate, the second book in the trilogy, “Passion and power are the driving forces behind this series that continues to deliver.” The trilogy was completed with the publication of Illuminate in September, and her next offering, Mirage, a young adult thriller, is due in the summer of 2016.

Face in a Book is located in the El Dorado Hills Town Center, at 4359 Town Center Blvd., #113, El Dorado Hills, CA 95762. 916-941-9401.

All authors are available for phone or email interviews.

Learn more:
Face in a Book: http://www.getyourfaceinabook.com/

Angelica R. Jackson: http://www.angelicarjackson.com/

Linda Covella: http://lindacovella.com/

Linda Joy Singleton: http://www.lindajoysingleton.com/

Tracy Clark: http://www.tracyclark.org/

I'll be costuming for this one--will you?

A Sneak Peek at Crow's Rest for Teaser Tuesday!

I've created a handful of teaser images for Crow's Rest, and will be posting them every other week through to the book launch! Here's the first one (click to see it bigger):

I can't believe that Crow's Rest comes out in three months! Things are about to get even crazier around here as I celebrate, and try to finish the sequel. I think I'll need to go sit out under that tree occasionally and take a break!

Explore Behind the Bookcase: Author Interview & A Giveaway!

In the spirit of Halloween, today on Angelic Muse we venture into the spooky world created by author Mark Steensland, in his debut middle-grade novel, Behind the Bookcase.

To start us off, here's the short review I posted on Amazon.com:
"I received an advance reader's copy of this book from the author for my birthday, and what a great surprise! This is exactly the kind of book I loved as a kid: secret passages into other worlds, mysterious characters (who are the good guys and who are the bad guys?), a sinister setting, and a talking cat. And since I was a scaredy-cat (still am, truth be told), I love that this book is creepy without being nightmare-worthy for kids. A great read-aloud choice, at Halloween or any time!"

And Mark graciously agreed to be interviewed, and to give away a signed copy of his book to one lucky winner (see the end of this interview for how to win a copy for yourself)! But first, a little background:

Author Mark Steensland was born and raised in California. He self-published his first book while in fourth grade, and has been telling stories ever since -- some of them true. He has also written, directed, and produced numerous award-winning films that have played in festivals around the world. He currently lives in Erie, Pennsylvania, with his wife, their three children, a dog, and a cat he is fairly certain is not Balthazat.

You may also want to go check out Mark's radio interview that aired on NPR-affiliate WQLN, hosted by Kim Young. It's especially recommended for writers aspiring to publication, since his manuscript ultimately found a happy home at Random House!

Onward to our interview!  

ARJ: I listened to your radio interview and I laughed when I heard you talk about overuse of the word "just" in your manuscript. That's one of my tics as well. What other kinds of things did you discover about yourself and your writing quirks?


I have a whole list of repeated words. My guess is that it stems mostly from my struggling to emphasize things and choosing the first word that comes to mind. The truth is that I probably don’t need to emphasize so much within the sentence as within the story itself. There are far better ways of making things important than word choice. Pacing and placement come to mind, for instance. But those things take time to develop.


ARJ: So true that it's easy to get caught up in small details like word choice, and lose sight of the overall picture.

What are some of your favorite kids' books, both as a kid and to read to your own children?

I was absolutely hooked on the “Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators” series when I was younger. I’ve been re-reading them since early this past summer and that’s been quite an experience. They are very clearly from a different time, but I still enjoyed them a lot, much more than “The Hardy Boys.” I loved the “Narnia” chronicles when I was young. I also adored “The Hobbit” and I’ve been having great fun re-reading that with my boys. Last October, we read “Something Wicked This Way Comes” together, which never ceases to amaze me.

But I’ve also really enjoyed having them tell me about good books to read. My kids read “Hatchet” and raved about it, so I read it. They were right. It is a great book. My daughter is a sophomore in high school now and she just read “To Kill A Mockingbird.” So I re-read that to be able to help her with all of her assignments around that book. It’s so much fun to think about how all these great books are available to us whenever we want and that they can still speak so clearly across so many generations.

ARJ: I love The Hatchet, and all Gary Paulsen's books. And even though I was a scaredy-kid, I also loved ghost story collections like "Alfred Hitchcock's Ghostly Gallery".

Can you tell us anything about your next book?

Yes, I can. I’m very excited about it. Many people assume that I’m writing a sequel or follow-up to “Behind the Bookcase,” but that’s not planned at this stage. I suppose we’ll have to see what sort of reaction the book gets, first. But my next book, which I have already sold to my editor at Random House, is a middle-grade called “The Redemption Game.” It’s told by a man to his son about when he was a child and an adventure he had with his father. His father was once the world’s greatest magician and ran a traveling carnival of magicians. An evil magician turned the whole carnival into a deck of cards and the father went into hiding after this because he was accused of their disappearance. But then he told his son that he needed his help to find this evil magician and free his friends from the deck. So they go on a sort of road-trip.

The other element of the book that is very important is that I wanted to do something different with magic. So I’ve envisioned magic as a gift with a limited lifespan.That is, if you have the gift of magic, once you use it, it’s gone. Small or simple tricks use only a little bit of magic, but big tricks use lots of magic. And one of the things this man has been hiding from is the idea that he might not have enough magic to save his friends from this deck of cards. So they must find other magicians to help them. The book itself is designed like a deck of cards. It has 52 chapters and each chapter is another card in the deck--another part of the carnival that has been transformed.

ARJ: That sounds really cool--especially since you've spent time figuring out the visual aspect of the story. Just curious: did you reserve film rights for Behind the Bookcase, or are you content with your role as an author in this case?

I did reserve the performance rights. We went out early with the manuscript and got some interest from a few companies, but nothing firm. We’re going out again with it soon and we’ll see what happens. I think there are lots of ways to make a film out of it that could be really interesting.

ARJ: Good luck with that! In the book, you did a great job with character-building and world-building--does one come easier to you than the other?


I don’t think anything worthwhile is easy. That’s part of what makes it valuable. When I started writing “Behind the Bookcase,” I had been writing mostly screenplays for a very long time. So the early draft was very thin in terms of internal characterization. This was one of the first things the editor pointed out to me. The characters did a lot on the page, but there wasn’t much description of their internal state. That’s because you never write internal states in screenplays.

This also means that the world building part was easier in the sense that I was thinking very visually and so composing those parts of the novel were closer to what I had been doing. I had two editors on the book and both of them were very patient with me as I worked to get back in the groove of getting inside the heads of the characters. The editor with whom I am working on “The Redemption Game” really got me in the right place to approach that story so that the character elements were in the foreground from the very beginning. I’m anxious to see how she thinks I did.


ARJ: I'll be anxious to check out The Redemption Game as well! Thanks so much for giving us some insights into your book and writing process, Mark.

Now you probably all want to know how to enter to win a signed copy of Behind the Bookcase!

No hoops to jump through, no math required to tally your entries--just leave a comment below.

You must leave an email address (feel free to disguise it from bots, like emailaddy (at) gmail (dot) com), and only one entry per person please. Winner will be randomly chosen with a random-number generator. Email will be used to contact the winner only; you will not be added to any kind of list.

Entries close at midnight Pacific Standard Time on October 29th (I'll use the time stamp to determine the cutoff) and the winner will be announced on Angelic Muse on October 31, Halloween!

And yes--this giveaway is open internationally!

Good luck! And don't forget to go here for another entry!

Crows at Rest--a Teaser from Crow's Rest

Since today is once again devoted to revisions on Spirits from the Vasty Deep, I wanted to do a tiny teaser from Crow's Rest here. This scene is fairly close to the beginning, and Avery has already had some weirdness that day from Bobbin, the neighbor's Corgi.

Outside, the stars unfolded without the interference of streetlights, and a chorus of insects buzzed in the summer night. I grabbed my bag from the car and went around to the back of the cottage, since the bathroom was right next to the sleeping porch and I could avoid going through the kitchen and talking to Mom and Uncle Tam again.

I turned my gaze to Daniel's house without meaning to, and I saw Bobbin standing with his paws on the fence, watching me silently. Above him, the leaves of the sycamore shifted and rustled without the wind's help. A sound like muffled croaks and squeaks—or whispers—joined the rustling.

I stowed the bag inside the screen door, and grabbed the high-powered flashlight that Uncle Tam kept for emergencies. The beam played across the leaves and branches, glinting off of countless eyes and ruffled feathers. What the hell? I caught myself clutching my chest like a B-movie star.

Taking a few steps forward, I squinted to get a better look at whatever was watching me from the tree. A barrage of caws and croaks rang out from the flock of crows. As the light shone on them again, they snaked their heads in my direction and made a rattling sound in their throats—like I was a red-tailed hawk after their nestlings.

"All right, hush," I called to them. "If you'll be good neighbors, then I'll be a good neighbor."

The birds quieted instantly, making the hairs rise on my neck and arms. Glinting eyes focused on me with an air of anticipation. This was just beyond weird. I turned and ran back to the house with my arms covering my head, half-expecting to feel sharp beaks bloodying my scalp at any moment.

But I made it to the screen porch safely, and hastily drew closed the old sheets that served as drapes. I'd probably stifle in the heat and need to open them again later, but for now I didn't want all those dark eyes trained on me.