Thursday, March 29, 2012

Larry Peterson - The Priest and the Peaches - Author Interview

My thanks to Larry Peterson for stopping by City Girl Who Loves to Read for an author interview during the blog tour for his book, The Priest and the Peaches.

Author Interview

1. Why did you choose this setting?
I was born and raised in NYC (the Bronx) so the setting was ingrained in me: the people, the sights and sounds, the places, the smells, style of living, etc.

2. How is it a fundamental part of your overall theme?
The setting is in a blue-collar neighborhood of God fearing, family oriented, hard working men and women, husbands and wives and their children, who were more or less all on the same socio-economic level and for the most part were mostly Catholic (of varied ethnicities) sharing a similar value system. This value system is part of the Peach kids and the people in the neighborhood understand it.

3. How challenging was it to write about?
The challenge was in creating a sense of place. For example, in NYC there are many ethnic groups that are always interacting and fifty years ago there was a lot more of the old-world customs that were still very pronounced within these different groups. So, sometimes the interaction among the folks was strained because of "differences". Amazingly, most folks learned to get along. But some never did and that would lead to prejudices.

4. How did you develop your setting as you wrote your book?
The setting was more or less established early on in the book. It was a neighborhood in the Bronx back in the mid 1960s and the people there were more or less living comparable lives. Once that was established the setting was in place for the rest of the book.

5. How do you transport them there through your writing?
I try not to be overly descriptive because the action and dialogue and emotions might be shut down. So I think the answer to this might be through dialogue and inner emotion which I try to show using omniscience.

6. How do you introduce them to an area they may not be familiar with?
This is where description comes in. I do try to introduce the impending description through dialogue or a visual by a character. For example, Teddy and Scratch arrive at the funeral parlor and talk a bit before going in. Once inside, Scratch leaves Teddy alone and then Teddy begins looking around. Now I can describe what he is seeing which is the lobby of the funeral home.

7. How do you go about making the setting come alive for the reader?
I guess you have to try to make sure that the setting and the characters and the various scenes all come together. I mean, don't write a descriptive scene if you don't need it. It has to be part of the emotion of the moment. Who cares about "beautiful flowers up on the hill" if they have nothing to do with the story. If someone is hiding behind the flowers with a high-powered rifle, then there is a point to writing about it.

Thank you for the challenging questions. I appreciated having to answer them.


About the Book
The Priest and the Peaches

Book Details:
Price: $2.99-$4.99
Format: ebook
Published: January 1, 2012
Pages: 285
ISBN: 9780983741848
Genre: Young Adult, Historical Fiction
Buy Links: Kindle, Nook, iPad, Smashwords, Google, PDF

Blurb:
Historical fiction novel set in the Bronx in the mid-1960s

Take a seven day journey with the five, newly orphaned Peach kids, as they begin their struggle to remain a family while planning their dad's funeral.

They find an ally in the local parish priest, Father Tim Sullivan, who tries his best to guide them through the strange, unchartered and turbulent waters of "grown-up world." A story that is sad, funny, and inspiring as it shows how the power of family love and faith can overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

About the Author
Larry Peterson


Larry Peterson was born and raised in the Bronx, New York. A former Metal Lather/Reinforcing Iron-worker, he left that business after coming down with MS. He, his wife and three kids moved to Florida 30 years ago. Larry began doing freelance newspaper commentary after graduating from Tampa College in 1984.

His first children's picture book, Slippery Willie's Stupid, Ugly Shoes was published in 2011. In 2012, his full length novel, The Priest and the Peaches was released and he is presently working on the sequel.

He also has a blog (http://www.slipperywillie.com) where he posts weekly commentary. He lives in Pinellas Park, Florida and his kids and six grandchildren all live within three miles of each other.


Connect with Larry:
Website/Blog
Facebook
Twitter

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Kick-Butt Characters Giveaway Hop

Congratulations to our winner!
Memoriesovertakingme
memoriesovertakingme [at] gmail [dot] com

Enter to win the latest young adult ebook release from Tribute Books.


1) Add Jolene Perry's upcoming May 2012 release, Knee Deep, to your Goodreads to-read list. Click here for the direct link.

2) Leave a comment with your email address.


***


Night Sky
by Jolene Perry


After losing Sarah, the friend he’s loved, to some other guy, Jameson meets Sky. Her Native American roots, fluid movements, and need for brutal honesty become addictive fast. This is good. Jameson needs distraction – his dad leaves for another woman, his mom’s walking around like a zombie, and Sarah’s new boyfriend can’t keep his hands off of her.

As he spends time with Sky and learns about her village, her totems, and her friends with drums - she's way more than distraction. Jameson's falling for her fast.

But Sky’s need for honesty somehow doesn’t extend to her life story – and Jameson just may need more than his new girl to keep him distracted from the disaster of his senior year.

http://night-sky-book.com/



Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Mark Saunders - Nobody Knows the Spanish I Speak - Guest Post

My thanks to Mark Saunders for stopping by City Girl Who Loves to Read for a guest post during the blog tour for his book, Nobody Knows the Spanish I Speak.

Guest Post
It doesn’t matter if it’s about a fish out of water, a stranger in a strange land, or landing a strange fish, all such stories are largely about setting. Shortly after the story opens, if not at its very beginning, the central character is thrown into an unfamiliar milieu and events—good and bad—take place. The story is off and running.

In my case, my wife, Arlene, and I, facing the loss of both of our high-tech jobs in Portland, Oregon, while in our late 50s, elected to drop out, sell almost everything, and move to the middle of Mexico, where we didn’t know a soul and could barely speak the language. In other words, we dramatically changed our setting and by doing so dramatically changed our lives. I wrote about our two-year experience in the humorous memoir Nobody Knows the Spanish I Speak.

After a six-day road trip we landed in San Miguel de Allende and discovered we were living in a cash-based society where nobody ever had change. In a culture where mañana did not always mean tomorrow but could mean anything from later to not now to fat chance you’ll ever see me again. In a country where the most common unit of measurement was not the kilo or the kilometer, as guidebooks would have you believe, but something known as más o menos, simply translated as “more or less.”

We lived in La Lejona, a mostly Mexican middle class neighborhood with wide, cobbled or unpaved streets, dust everywhere except during the rainy season, and an impressive backdrop of cacti and mountains. La Lejona is the kind of Mexican neighborhood where foreigners pat themselves on the back for living among the locals while Mexicans pat themselves on the back for living among foreigners.

La Lejona is Spanish for “far away” and, as I understand it, was the name of the original hacienda in the area, which still exists tucked up against the hillside along a ravine. But far away is a relative term, and our neighborhood was less than a thirty-minute, mostly flat trip, into the popular historic Centro on foot, a fifteen-minute bus ride, ten minutes by car or taxi.

Setting is key in my memoir. For instance, one chapter (“Yes, We Have No Chihuahuas”) covers the many different classes of dogs in town, from rooftop dogs to unseen dogs behind locked garage doors to tiny dogs carried in beaded handbags. In another chapter (“How Are Things in Doctor Mora?”) I talk about why the town is called The City of Fallen Women, which has nothing to do with the male-to-female ratio or seduction and everything to do with the simple yet painful act of falling down and twisting an ankle and the embarrassment of doing it in public. Still another chapter, one I refer to as my Moby Dick chapter (“How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Firecracker”), includes a detailed litany of the on-going fiestas that take place in San Miguel.

In short, because we lived in a Spanish-speaking country but could only speak “muy poco” Spanish, almost every chapter stated or implied the impact of this setting in our lives. We were, after all, clueless expats.

About the Book
Nobody Knows the Spanish I Speak

Book Details:
Price: $14.95 paperback, $9.99 ebook
Format: Paperback, ebook
Publisher: Fuze Publishing
Published: November 2011
Pages: 298
ISBN: 9780984141289
Genre: Memoir, Humor
Buy Links: Amazon, Fuze Publishing, Kindle, Nook

Blurb:
Ay, chihuahua! Ay, caramba! Oy vey!

In early December 2005, Mark Saunders and his wife, along with their dog and cat, packed up their 21st century jalopy, a black Audi Quattro with a luggage carrier on top, and left Portland, Oregon, for San Miguel de Allende, three thousand miles away in the middle of Mexico, where they knew no one and could barely speak the language.

Things fell apart almost from the beginning. The house they rented was as cold as a restaurant’s freezer. Their furniture took longer than expected to arrive. They couldn’t even get copies of their house keys made. They unintentionally filled their house with smoke and just as unintentionally knocked out the power to their entire neighborhood. In other words, they were clueless. This is their story.

About the Author
Mark Saunders


An award-winning playwright, screenwriter, and cartoonist, Mark Saunders tried standup comedy to get over shyness and failed spectacularly at it — the standup part, not the shyness. He once owned a Yugo and still can’t remember why. Nearly 30 of his plays have been staged, from California to New York - with several stops in-between - and two plays have been published.

With three scripts optioned, his screenplays, all comedies, have attracted awards but seem to be allergic to money. Back in his drawing days, more than 500 of his cartoons appeared nationally in publications as diverse as Writer’s Digest, The Twilight Zone Magazine, and The Saturday Evening Post.

As a freelancer, he also wrote gags for the popular comic strip “Frank and Ernest,” as well as jokes for professional comedians, including Jay Leno. Nobody Knows the Spanish I Speak is his first book.


Connect with Mark:
Web Site

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Lucky Leprechaun Giveaway Hop

Congratulations to our winner!
desitheblonde

desitheblonde [at] msn [dot] com

Enter to win the latest young adult ebook release from Tribute Books.


1) Add Jolene Perry's upcoming May 2012 release, Knee Deep, to your Goodreads to-read list. Click here for the direct link.

2) Leave a comment with your email address.


***


Night Sky
by Jolene Perry


After losing Sarah, the friend he’s loved, to some other guy, Jameson meets Sky. Her Native American roots, fluid movements, and need for brutal honesty become addictive fast. This is good. Jameson needs distraction – his dad leaves for another woman, his mom’s walking around like a zombie, and Sarah’s new boyfriend can’t keep his hands off of her.

As he spends time with Sky and learns about her village, her totems, and her friends with drums - she's way more than distraction. Jameson's falling for her fast.

But Sky’s need for honesty somehow doesn’t extend to her life story – and Jameson just may need more than his new girl to keep him distracted from the disaster of his senior year.

http://night-sky-book.com/



Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Lunar Love Giveaway Hop

Congratulations to our winner!
Lolawid
widsfam7 [at] digis [dot] net

Enter to win the latest young adult ebook release from Tribute Books.


1) Become a Google Follower of this blog.

2) Leave a comment with your email address.


***


Night Sky
by Jolene Perry


After losing Sarah, the friend he’s loved, to some other guy, Jameson meets Sky. Her Native American roots, fluid movements, and need for brutal honesty become addictive fast. This is good. Jameson needs distraction – his dad leaves for another woman, his mom’s walking around like a zombie, and Sarah’s new boyfriend can’t keep his hands off of her.

As he spends time with Sky and learns about her village, her totems, and her friends with drums - she's way more than distraction. Jameson's falling for her fast.

But Sky’s need for honesty somehow doesn’t extend to her life story – and Jameson just may need more than his new girl to keep him distracted from the disaster of his senior year.

http://night-sky-book.com/



Timothy B. Sagges - Best Seller - Author Interview

My thanks to Timothy B. Sagges for stopping by City Girl Who Loves to Read for an author interview during the blog tour for his book, Best Seller.

1. Why did you choose this setting?
New York City is the center of the publishing industry.

2. How is it a fundamental part of your overall theme?
When our story opens, our lead character finds himself on the outside of it, looking in.

3. How challenging was it to write about?
It was not challenging to write about this setting. I have lived and worked in New York.

4. How did you develop your setting as you wrote your book?
As the story progresses, we visit cities throughout America. While only minor sub-settings, I spent a lot of time Googling places I had never been.

5. How do you transport them there through your writing?
I don't understand the question, assuming you're still on the topic of 'setting.' If you're asking how I transported the reader, I simply tried to describe these settings from a 'boots on the ground' point of view.

6. How do you introduce them to an area they may not be familiar with?
Subtly. I try to let the reader figure some things out on their own.

7. How do you go about making the setting come alive for the reader?
I simply tried to describe these settings from a 'boots on the ground' point of view, as if the reader was standing next to me with a camera. And I try not to be too flowery in my detail. Life can be a sepia toned wall of bricks, and it sometimes needs to be described in terse, unattractive terms.


About the Book
Best Seller

Book Details:
Price: $14.99
Format: paperback
Publisher: self-published
Published: February 2011
Pages: 326
ISBN: 9781456478193
Genre: Suspense, Thriller
Buy Links: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Author Web Site

Blurb:
Thirty-five year old fiction writer, Richard Rossi would do just about anything to get his manuscript published. However, months of rejection and unanswered prayers have strained his capacity to hope. Alone in New York City, he teeters on the brink of alcoholism, as his hope erodes into desperation.

His prayers are finally answered when a simple misdirected piece of mail spawns a chance encounter with an extraordinary man, Seth Volos, Publisher. And while their unholy alliance thrusts Richard to the top of every Best Seller list in America, the horrifying outcome for the book's legions of fans is anything but a happy ending.

About the Author
Timothy B. Sagges


Fifty-year-old actor, director and playwright, Tim Sagges has been tormented by a series of recurring night terrors since 1967, long before there was a name for such a curse. It is only recently that he has found the courage to formulate some of these visions into works of literature. In an effort to purge himself of the unrelenting horror of his dreams, he has created Best Seller, the first in a series of nightmares exorcised from his mind and onto the page.

He is currently the owner of Eye Candy Vision in Philadelphia.


Connect with Timothy:
Web Site
Facebook
Twitter

About the Tour

Tribute Books Blog Tours

Best Seller Blog Tour Site

Tour Participants:

March 1 (interview)
Just a Girl - Heidi Ruby Miller

March 2 (interview)
I Am A Reader, Not A Writer

March 3 (guest post)
Literary R&R

March 5 (interview or guest post)
The Character Connection

March 5 (interview)
You Gotta Read

March 6 (interview or guest post)
The Plot Thickens

March 7 (interview or guest post)
City Girl Who Loves to Read

March 8 (interview)
Fighter Writer

March 8 (review)
Kritters Ramblings

March 9 (review)
Must Read Faster

March 11 (review)
TicToc

March 13 (review)
My Reading Room

March 15 (guest post)
Bibliophilic Book Blog

March 15 (review)
The Book Review

March 19 (review)
The Book Addict

March 20 (interview)
The Book Addict

March 22 (interview)
The Book Connection

March 23 (guest post)
Books-n-Kisses

March 26 (review)
The Book Connection

March 27 (review)
My Tower of Books

March 28 (review)
Telly Says

March 30 (review)
From the TBR Pile