Stacey Cochran, CLAWS, my guest author

Stacey Cochran is my guest blogger this week. He's the author of CLAWS, his latest novel, as well as the Colorado Sequence. Stacey teaches writing at NCSU and is the organizer of ever-growing Write 2 Publish Meetup group, which promotes authors, publishing and writing in the Raleigh area. To find out more info about Stacey, please visit his website here.

How to Publish a Book Blog by Stacey Cochran


Sunday, May 17, 2009

How to Publish a Book: CLAWS Book Tour Day 3
Day 3 of my 45-day blog tour sees me visiting my good friend Alice Osborn's blog. At her place today, I discuss the background and motivation driving the writing of CLAWS. Yesterday, I was able to line up another interview. This one will be a Skype interview to air at podioracket.com. For those who haven't tried Skype yet (yesterday I made my first Skype call), it's essentially a way to make phone calls using your computer. Basically, you just talk into the internal mike on your computer to the person on the other end and they speak back through your computer's speakers (note: this is the non-technical definition). It's really pretty neat. So what the gals at podioracket.com are doing is an audio-interview call-in show with authors who publish their books at Podiobooks.comIt's an inspiring programming model. 10:30 am est

How the Recession Has Affected Me

They say it’s not as bad as the Great Depression, but this repression may mean that we’ve lost our jobs, we can’t afford our mortgages, or that we can’t afford that tune up for our car or that dry cleaning this week. I believe I started preparing for the downturn September 29th 2008 when the bailout plan was rejected, the Dow fell 777.68 points, and Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy. I knew then that I had to step up my game and become more aware.

Last year I had a well-paying freelancing gig, and well, that’s gone now due to decreased ad revenues. But thankfully, with my hustling and networking, I’m managing to have one new editing client a week without the steady freelancing income – yay! How did I do this, you may ask? I found a business coach who was offering a 100-day special for one dollar a day. He clarified my goals, made sure I had a business plan, and suggested that I re-set my fees to reflect my value. And, boy, did it work! I redesigned my brochures and social media strategy, and I started to keep track of referrals and I how many people I presented to each week. I’m gaining ground and my 90-day plan includes learning more about video and video editing so that I can help authors with their video needs (I’ve got a long way to go here, but stayed tuned!).

In other ways the recession has affected my volunteer focus. I’m not volunteering as much for Daniel’s school as I did last year because my volunteer commitments are now tied up with my networking, which helps my business. I’m now the organizer of North Raleigh Coffee and Contacts, a women’s referral and business networking group and I’m the Raleigh Regional Representative for the NC Writers’ Network, where I plan open mics and writers’ networking opportunities. I treat my time as my most precious commodity and I calendar block to make sure I’m not spinning my wheels not knowing what to start first.

As for individual cost-cutting, I no longer buy department store makeup, I’ve stopped buying books from Amazon (I go to Falls River Books, a used bookstore instead), and I do my own hair touchups and my mother-in-law Barbara cuts my hair and does my brow waxing. I reworked my cell phone plan and I now use my landline to save minutes on weekdays. I order my prescriptions online. I’ve also learned how to negotiate everything and ask for the special deal. Generally, I’m shy about asking for the better deal, but I know if I don’t ask, Hubby will make me feel very guilty! The gas crunch last year made me really think about my driving routes and if an errand is out of my way, I save it for the day when I’m passing by that location.

Another way of saving money is keeping to my grocery list and buying items that have a coupon and are on sale, which is not the easiest thing to do. I’m excited that the Falls River Town Center Farmer’s Market is almost open since this will be the place to buy fresh veggies and fruit, which my kids and Hubby love. We’re about two minutes from Falls River Town Center and I’ve patronized as many of the merchants there as possible so I can keep my dollars local.

This recession won’t last forever and I think that those of us who are mindful and who are acting lean will be the winners. We’ll be able to emerge from this downturn with strength and we many even be too busy with our businesses, which in my mind is a good problem to have.

The Stone Diaries Book Review

The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
I stayed up all night to finish this book and I can't say that I've done this successfully with many books. The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields is well-written, compelling and very sad. In a nutshell, this is a fictional autobiography of one woman's life from birth to death and it is told through witnesses and the subject herself.


I was frustrated that Daisy Stone Goodwill Hoad Flett didn't clearly express herself, that she didn't have a passionate sex life and that didn't like to take too many risks. Daisy didn't know how like so mnay women of her generation (born in the early 1900s -- the same age as my grandmother). She also didn't question her circumstances, although to be fair she did take charge of her life once, which led to her marriage to Barker (who helped raise her). Besides her 9-year run as a freelance gardening writer, her life wasn't very fulfilling. She did have two wonderful female friendships and she was close to her grand-niece at the end, but I never quite felt connected to Daisy as I did to Aunt Clarentine, the neighbor who raised her after her mother died in childbirth and the mother of her future husband, Barker. Unfortunately, Daisy is stuck in her role for society as a wife and mother. She never breaks out of this pattern and I wonder if she ever really wanted to. She has a habit of subsuming herself and pretending she is not as smart as she is, which bothered me. As a result, her family and friends never gave her the credit and respect she deserved and they blamed her birth story for her depression and unhappiness. This book asks, was Daisy a good mother? What was missing from her life? What did she really feel? I think she did the best she could we what she had and she never knew what was missing in her life until after she died and then had access to all of this other information that's in the book. And finally, this book doesn't address her feelings, which she never felt she had the permission to express to anyone.


Shields is a master wordsmith and craftsman. She even adds a fantastic family tree in the book, as well as real photographs (some from her own family). I loved how well she managed the point of view shifts when lesser writers would have bungled it and all of her dialogue was real and even ironic/funny in some instances. I loved how she let her reader read between the lines and how poetic and symbolic she was. This book lends itself so well to book club discussions and my group could clearly say that The Stone Diaries was one of the best books we discussed in the year that we've been meeting.


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Facebook Etiquette

Most of us are on Facebook (FB) these days and I bet there’s a good chance we weren’t even using it last year. A friend invited you and now you’re engrossed. Or maybe you’re on FB, but you’re not sure if you’re using it right. Somehow I amassed 350 friends and I’m still learning as I go.
We’ve entered this huge technological sphere and no one has told us the proper rules of the road because everything moves so fast in cyberspace. It still is the Wild West out there! Most of us are going to make social media mistakes, but wouldn’t it be better if had more information and knew about what not to do?
In the interest of community service, I’ve developed…
Eight Facebook Netiquette Rules of the Road
1. Do fill out your profile to the best of your ability. Many women list their maiden name as their middle name so their school friends can find them. Under “Favorite Books” and “Favorite Movies,” go ahead and list what you like. Don’t just say you like everything. And do post a good picture that shows your face and is an actual picture of you. Try not to use a picture with you and your significant since this is YOUR Facebook page and don’t substitute a photo of your cat or dog for yourself. Folks will wonder what you’re hiding.
2. Once you have a few friends, see what they’re posting and how they are using Facebook. Ask yourself if you want to use FB as a social or a business tool or both. Listen! Observe! See what status updates make you want to read more and see what you don’t like (i.e. goofy applications running wild all over your page).
3. Now jump in and comment on other friends’ posts. Comment on their photos. Post photos of your own. Don’t be ghost; stay involved and you’ll get more out FB. Be sure to read your Inbox and respond to your messages. People hate it when they send you a FB message and there’s no response.
4. Don’t write how sick your children are on your friends’ walls because EVERYONE gets your wall post*.Save that for a private message. Walls are for quick comments, not for telling everyone where you’re going to grab that drink after work. *There’s a tool to hide your friends’ posts. I find this particular useful for friends who like to post political invectives.
5. Once you get the hang of FB, see what you can do to be an information broker. Suggest friends for other friends. Don’t know what to post in your status update? Send a useful link, a video, give a tip, tell your friends what you’re reading, what you’re watching, where you’re drinking your coffee, etc. I post where I’m speaking or presenting workshops and usually I get a lot of cool feedback. I also post a lot of photo albums. I add captions as well as tag my friends. I try not to post unflattering pics but if a friend doesn’t like a particular shot, I delete it since I’m praying they’d do the same for me.
6. If you have a side business or a main business that requires a lot of outside sales, DON’T push market, OK? That’s not adding value or helping people. It’s fine that you list your website on your Info page, but don’t solicit.
7. Don’t put anything out there you may regret. That includes bad taste jokes (my hubby has veered in this direction, oops!), curse words, sexually motivated posts…you get the idea. I’ve seen some status updates that have been downright rude…what’s up with that?
8. That being said, you don’t have to connect with everyone who wants to be your friend. If you know a particular person is prone to doing crazy things, you don’t want to be tarred with the same brush. I hate that this is how the world works, but it’s true.
And there you have it. I wish you the best in your Facebook adventures and feel free to friend me!
Social Media Sites I Recommend
Del.icio.us – social bookmarking web service
Facebook – great tool to combine friends and business
Flickr – for posting your photos
FriendFeed – great for linking social media sites
LinkedIn – very business-oriented site
SlideShare – presentation sharing website
StumbleUpon – rates and discovers websites, videos and photos
Twitter– much more current than Facebook
Inside 919 – Great for local businesses in the 919 area code. Very active group that encourages face-to-face meetings, too
Technorati (“claim” your blog at minimum)
YouTube (along with other video distribution platforms: Vimeo, Viddler, Revver, Yahoo video, etc.)
DocStoc – find free legal and business documents
Scribd – embed documents into a web page

For Free and For Fun by Christopher Morrissette

For Free and For Fun: How To Ask For the Appointment and Get It by Christopher Morrissette

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Chris Morrissette's For Free and For Fun: How to Ask for the Appointment and Get It articulates how to stand apart from your competititors and how to thrive in any economy, tough or not. Chris successfully breaks down what everyone should do in business: help other people and provide value. He provides useful scripts for when you're making that cold call to get that necessary appointment, while keeping an upbeat and humorous tone. I also loved the fact that Chris added specifics on how to manage your time with social media and technology.And throughout the book, Chris includes pages from his workbook, so you can jot ideas and notes and retool your "Helping" script. Chris the author is just like Chris the person and I can attest that Chris is just as smart and goofy as he portrays himself in his book! I carry this book in my purse so I can recommend it everyone I come into contact with.


View all my reviews.

Parking Lot Feng Shui

I have a thing with parking lots: some are great spaces and others stress me out. Perhaps my issue goes back to when I first started driving and hit a few cars in parking lots and in parking garages. I hate tight spaces in any form! Now give me a tight parking garage space with a parallel-parked car behind me and I’m done for. I have sweaty palms when I cruise down the slope that is the Corcoran Street parking garage in Durham and most Harris Teeter lots give me the chills. And now that I have a newish car (less than two years old), I’m hyper-concerned about where I park. My husband’s the same way. A year ago my husband’s company moved to a new location and Hubby didn’t like this parking lot. “It’s too hilly and the spaces are too tight.” He solved the issue by parking in the back and by parking in the last possible row.

I do the same thing and I really parked far away when I first owned my first new car – a 1996 red Mustang. I used to park it on the side, but then the other employees (and I knew it was them since we hosted very few visitors), but slightly ding my car. I remember taking it to the body shop almost every day. I stopped doing this when the body shop manager thought I had OCD, and instead parked my car in the back next to a Dodge Intrepid. My parking friend also didn’t want his car hit by reckless co-workers who had too many bags and papers to close doors properly.

So what makes a good or bad lot? A good lot has plenty of wide spaces and it’s flat. A bad lot has hills with tight spaces and multiple entrances. In other words, it has bad feng shui.

I think that where you park in a parking lot says a lot about you. You already know that I park far away from everyone else, but here’s a parking lot etiquette nugget I learned from a veteran saleslady when I just entered the job market after college. I was on this extended ad exec interview for a local paper in Charleston (I didn’t get the job) and she told me that we couldn’t park in the front by the store. “Why?” I asked. She said, “Because those spaces are for customers and we’re not buying anything. We don’t want to make the owner angry right off the bat by taking up his spaces.” And she was right. When I later interviewed at Belk for an assistant store manager position, I impressed the security guy who later told the store manager, “She knows something about customer service: she didn’t want to take up your customer spots. You should hire her.” And they did.

I’ve trained my son Daniel to look for spaces at the Y and have told him not to help me find the handicapped spaces. Unlike some kids, he never complains that we have to walk a certain distance to get to the front door since he knows that our car won’t get dinged the further we park and the more hemmed in we are by a median.

Networking for Moms

Pictured Judy Homer and Christina Hagan
It’s a scary world out there if you’re considering going back in the work force after you’ve been a stay-at-home mom for a while. It’s probably scarier after you’ve given birth to your first child since your identity has changed: you’re a mom now and that’s what some people will only see you as. Some women embrace being called “Kyle’s mom” instead of their given name, but others want to be known for themselves and to carve out a work identity. Of course, this can be very difficult if you’re a mom who has switched careers after the child, or who has taken a long break while staying at home with the kids.

So let’s say you’re a stay-at-home mom who wants to return to the working world as an entrepreneur or as a consultant. Or maybe you want to return to a job like your old one, but without the crazy hours. How do you get back into the swing of the working world before you’re even there? Morning and lunchtime networking groups, that’s how. They are all over the Triangle and some meetings correspond to preschool hours, so you won’t need to have someone watch your child. In these groups there are women who are solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, artists, therapists, and those that are employed with a small business. I’m a member of several that meet on Wednesday mornings. They all run on a tight schedule, and they include introductions and a speaker. Maybe you don’t a job lined up and are looking, don’t know what’s out there, but you want your name to get out in circulation. In this case, networking groups can help. With a women-centered networking group, you can find supportive women you will get to know and trust, which will be especially important down the line, when you need someone in your corner when you’re looking at job possibilities.

But, you say, you don’t know the first thing about networking? No problem. Here are a few tips to get you prepared for your first networking group meeting.

• Go with a friend or know that you’ll meet your friend at that particular networking group. With a friend by your side, you can introduce her to other people and take some of the pressure off of yourself
• Have a goal before you enter the meeting room. Ask yourself, who do I want to meet today? It’s OK to say that you only want to meet one person or have one good conversation. Quality trumps quantity at these meetings since you’re there to build relationships and not to find a job when you walk out.
• Print up business cards and have plenty to give out. Make them simple with your name, number, address and hopefully the name of your blog – You do have a blog, right?
• Once at the networking meeting, be useful. Offer to help someone if they are looking for a name or product that’s within your area of expertise. And then make sure you follow up with that person that same day if possible.
• Work on how you’ll introduce yourself. If you’re not working say, “I’m a graphic artist looking for opportunities.” No one wants to hear that you have no money and you’ve been pounding the pavement for eight months without success.

I’m so grateful for my networking groups because they’ve provided me multiple chances to work on my introductions, to work on my presentation skills (I’m now a sought-after speaker), and to work on my people skills. If you go into these groups knowing that friendships and business relationships take time to develop, you’ll be joining for the right reasons, and you’ll have a net when you start your own business or make a career move.

What Gets Measured Gets Done

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of being a guest at the last seminar of Rick Grandinetti’s Succeed Inside the Box five-week series. I learned a great deal about perception, goal-mastering and customers, and I also met some great business leaders at the event.


If you crossed a preacher with a business coach, you’d get Rick Grandinetti. Sharp, dynamic, always moving and always entertaining, Grandinetti, the founder and CEO of Morrisville-based VisionPlanning, Inc. uses the Socratic Method of rhetorical questioning to hone his points and persuade his audience to make changes in their life and in their business.

For 2009, Grandinetti is on a new mission to make individuals and, therefore, their businesses succeed even in this weak economy. For fifteen years, this former broker, sales expert, speaker and trainer, has focused on changing corporate paradigms and culture. His talent has solved problems for GlaxoSmithKline, Roche Laboratories, Qwest Communications, Andersen Windows, Public Broadcasting Service, and Ericsson, just to name a few. Besides corporate consulting, he’s presented thousands of keynote speeches and seminars. Now he’s using his expertise to fashion a series of public workshops called Succeed Inside the Box and will have a book by this same name out shortly.

Cary, North Carolina, was the first market for his Succeed Inside the Box seminar, which could be described as the most productive fifteen hours of MBA school squeezed into five weeks. The intensive series ran once a week for five weeks at three hours a piece. Twenty-three business owners and sales executives gathered at round tables to share information, success stories, and challenges. In order to meet and discuss with new people each time, participants rotated tables at the beginning of each session.

Grandinetti often reminded his participants to not blame the weak economy, to set oneself apart from the competition, dream big and to measure everything. Grandinetti stated, “I have the antidote for companies in either a good or a bad economy…because of this economy we’re forced to be business people. You need to distinguish yourself from the competition and do the opposite of what people don’t like about your competition.”

He continued, “I believe in making vision statements a reality. What gets measured gets done. Most people aim too low and hit it. If you don’t have a vision you’re going nowhere. Our vision statement is to make your vision statement a reality.” He then asked the participants what their BHAG (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal) was to drive his point home about measuring everything. He emphasized, “This slow economy simply exposes a company’s many weaknesses that they should have corrected years ago.”

He also wanted the participants to recapture that “First Day Feeling.” He stated that many times entrepreneurs forget that first day feeling after they start their new venture since they get so bogged down in the daily minutiae of running a company. Sometimes they forget their passion and why they got into business for themselves in the first place. He challenged business owners to recall that initial motivation “and remember how good it felt” and carry it through to their next challenge. Morrisville Mayor Jan Faulkner remembered that first day of being mayor. She said, “When I won the election, I was thrilled, excited, and vowed to increase regional partnerships…I need to go back to Day One…that’s where I need to focus.”

Of course the conversation drifted back to the economy. Rick Grandinetti doesn’t blame the weak economy; rather he blames lame excuses from companies who aren’t examining their sales strategies. The same can be said for business owners who aren’t focused.

He shouted at the group, “It’s not like the Great Depression. We’re not even close. As soon as we seen negativity, we let go. Don’t subscribe to the recession; you’re just hurting your family. You’d protect your family at all costs, right?”

Then he focused on what companies can do to retain and gain customers with three points: solving their problems, retooling the selling process, and feedback. “You need to make your customers’ business better and ask yourself if you have the capabilities to solve customers’ problems. Don’t sell the way you like to sell. Sell to people the way they want to buy. Usually they don’t see how what you offer will make their life better. In addition, you have to get feedback from your customers. Really listen to your customers to find out what they want.”

Judging from the excitement and talkativeness of Rick Grandinetti’s Cary participants, his message of accountability and intention was a breakthrough for many. Grandinetii often stated, “I consult with companies who want to go from ordinary to extraordinary.” The same could be said of how his students, or followers, felt after capping their pens and pushing back their chairs. As they exchanged business cards, the I saw the particpants jump up to form their own Rick Grandinetti-inspired groups to get their weekly or monthly dose of motivation and focus. And even though I just attended one class, I already made three strong connections with my fellow participants.

On Chesil Beach Book Review

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
I was drawn to this novel from the opening line, "They were young, educated, and both virgins on this, their wedding night, and they lived in a time when a conversation about sexual difficulties was plainly impossible." Now if that doesn't pique your interest and/or set up the story's conflict, I don't know what will. I'm a fan of Ian McEwan, having read Saturday and Atonement, and I knew that I would be in for a ride with his latest book. It's much more compact and taut than the other books of his I read since it only focus on one night and two main characters, Florence and Edward. Like his other works, he focuses on a single moment and how that moment can have lifelong consequences for all of the parties involved. I gave this book a five out of five because in only 200 pages, I felt I knew these two characters, their social situations and what brought them to this moment in time on Chesil Beach in June 1962. If Florence had been more sexually aware, would the night have gone better. Or what if Edward had been more communicative? We can only guess. Or were these two young people even compatible with each other? They seemed so different and only met because they were both didn't want to be where they currently were.



On Chesil Beach is a short, fast read, yet McEwan's prose and the rich details he employs will linger with you long after you set the book back on the shelf. My book club really enjoyed it and we all felt deep sympathy for these two characters who were lost in their time.


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Howling on Red Dirt Roads by Sara Claytor

In Howling on Red Dirt Roads, poet Sara Claytor takes her readers on a Hermes-like journey from the land of the living to hell and back. It’s a journey on red dirt country roads crowded with bone and fire images, vibrant colors and memories, some tender and some still raw. Race relations, the Wizard of Oz, sex, snakes and the Bible are all explored either through tight, imagistic poetry or mini-prose narratives that sing with humor and sass. Claytor could be called a "Southern" poet because she's from the south and immerses her words in the land and people of the South, but she's more than that. She ponders cannibalism in "The Last Taboo," a murder that takes place in her former apartment in New York in "New York in the Those Days," and witches in "Salem Pyres."

Claytor uses her memories from childhood to create her "Miss Lottie Jenkins" and her "Miss Ginny May" linked poems — these are tales of eccentric small town women, one the Sunday School teacher and the other the town lesbian — who carved out their own lives amidst piety and sin, and faith and deception. A natural storyteller, she has the gift to inhabit other lives and treat the reader to the drama of a human life told in under forty lines.

In “Flesh from Bone,” we learn there might be a reason why Lottie’s favorite Bible story is Jezebel. Once Claytor paints the scene in the opening stanza, you know the poem will shift into darker territory:

Miss Lottie Jenkins
Lived alone with four cats,
taught Sunday school 39 years to 8-year-olds,
Her fervent Bible tale, Jezebel, wicked queen, thrown
from her balcony for wild street dogs to rip flesh from bone.
Blue eyes glazed when she described screams and growls,
Jezebel’s tiny white hand left intact.

***

Few happenings in a small town, occasional Saturday night brawl.
Murder seldom graces the scene. Only secrets of the past
Or family gossip rattle a placid surface. Miss Lottie’s father
Died at the kitchen table, slumped in his underwear,
Face buried in a bowl of potato soup. Some said heart attack;
Others said he drowned. His left hand was missing.

***

When he died, Richmond cousins found her daddy’s clothes
still hanging in an upstairs bedroom, the pants’ leg slashed.
Perhaps Miss Lottie’s soul dried up, too, grass into pale straw?
We mused & mulled, finally decided Jezebel’s evil a minor sin.
Who ever knows what’s being weighed on the scales of the night?


Another place Claytor shines is in her "Julia" poems, fragrant with Clorox and starch. The titular red dirt roads and bone images emerge in all eight poems to symbolize the enduring love between Claytor's and her "black mother.” In “Julia’s Invisible Fences,” Claytor writes, “You didn’t know pain from your belly from me or a stretching/of the thighs; no one told me about invisible fences/separating mother loves”.

Claytor often steps out of her mini-narratives into more abstract territory that creates a certain distance between the speaker and the reader. These darker poems celebrate our human frailties and limitations, yet they also invite a simple acknowledgment that not everything is within our control. In “Contained,” Claytor ponders the concrete and theoretical world of boxes.

Boxes define life’s parameters
Box of cigars at birth; box of candy for love;
box of memorabilia for old age; box of ashes
for death — chose a casket or a urn.

***
We crowd into small-minded boxes,
elbows banging walls, fingernails scraping,
breaking on the edges. We are lonely in boxes,
Our cells, our punishments, our purgatory.
No matter what red dirt road we travel:
We are boxed in or boxed out.


Claytor is talented poet not afraid to show her vulnerability on the page and takes risks with her verse when she could play it safe. Even though many of her poems deal with her journeys through life, Claytor’s hometown in Warren County, North Carolina is never too far away. Be on the lookout for more Sara Claytor poetry books packed with haints, harlots and photographic memories.

Devil in the White City Book Review

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
This book is the story of how the 1893 Chicago World's Fair (aka The White City) came to be and how a serial killer (best guess is that Holmes killed at least 200 people) used the fair as a replenishing resource of young women new to Chicago and its dangers. Erik Larson relies on the facts to carry out his ambitious project, for not only does he focus on the chief architect of the fair, Daniel Burnham, he also spends time with Dr. H.H.Holmes the serial killer, as well as the forces and culture of late nineteenth century America. What I found fascinating about this book was all of the "Forrest Gump" moments, meaning all of these great people (Buffalo Bill, Frank Lloyd Wright, Susan B. Anthony, Archduke Francis Ferdinand) converged on the fair at the same time and new innovations (spray paint, the Ferris wheel, AC/DC current, Shredded Wheat) were introduced at the fair. What was also neat was learning that Walt Disney and L. Frank Baum used the White City as inspiration for for their creative worlds.

"Devil in the White City" was my book club's first book of the year and although we mostly gave it 3 out of 5 stars, we felt that Larson adopted too much of a newspaperly tone, rather than a narrative one. We were expecting this book to read more like a Jon Krakauer book, but instead we got more of a history textbook. Now it wasn't dry in all places and Larson definitely has a sense of humor, but this book should have provided more invented dialogue and less direct quotes to give it more of a flow.


View all my reviews.

Book Review: Going Back to Work

Going Back to Work: A Survival Guide for Comeback Moms by Mary W. Quigley

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
This excellent resource is for women who have been stay-at-home moms for one year to fifteen years and want to go back to work. The co-authors, Mary Quigley and Loretta Kaufman constructed the book through 100 interviews and 1000 survey responses. They cover issues about balancing work and family, finding the right career (or job) for you and starting your own business. They even cover not getting lost on the information superhighway and managing guilt. My only problem with the book was that it could have be formatted with more white space in between topics and could have included less personal stories -- 100 people is a bit much to keep track of. However, I plan to use this book as a resource for my "Working Mom, Happy Mom" seminar series this fall. This book is used by Garla Smith and Michele Yanik in their Smart Moms business, which helps employ moms in part time admin jobs.


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Club Dead by Charlaine Harris

Club Dead by Charlaine Harris

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars
Of the Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris, Club Dead (Book 3) was definitely better than Living Dead in Dallas (Book 2), but lacked the believable (or semi-believable) plot of Dead Until Dark (Book 1). Instead of action sequence after action sequence, Harris slows down the pace and lets Sookie think about her surroundings and what she wants: Does she want Bill or Eric or Alcide? Sometimes Harris has her thinking about people and consequences way after I thought was appropriate, but Harris usually never left anything out -- which was good. However, she failed to let us readers know WHY Bill left Sookie for Lorena in the first place and if he was even upset that Sookie staked her (a pitfall of 1st person point of view). But this is explained within the first pages of Book 4. I can tell that Harris doesn't like Bill much -- she's making him more and more flat and gives Alcide and Eric all of the juicy lines. (Eric: "You are speaking of my future lover. Be more respectful.") Alcide comes across as a real person, through Harris's very clear details, but Sookie forgets about him as soon as he's out of sight.

Sookie was less annoying, but she is so stubborn that she doesn't want anyone to give her anything, yet she's hoping Bill will give her a present or money (yet she doesn't want to be a kept woman). Talk about sending mixed messages. Sookie is coming from a lower class background and is very insecure financially. I'd like to see more of her insecurity explored in the next book. I also couldn't buy into all of the book's violence, which is getting too much for me. How many beatings (and a rape) can this girl take? I hope this trend ends soon. But at least the violence broke up the boring setting of the bar and the situation of the girl getting ready to go out on the town. Sookie's outfits are dated and Harris seems to think that Sarah McLaughlin's "Good Enough" has a beat -- no, it doesn't. It's weird -- some parts of the book are very authentic, such as the food (biscuits, gravy, furniture), but the clothing descriptions seem off to me. Women usually don't wear formal cocktail dresses to a night club -- that's the domain of beaded tanks and leather skirts.But Harris is funny -- even more funny than in Book 1. I especially liked Sookie mentioning her "vampire cleaning crew" which made me think of Sandra Boynton's "Birthday Monsters" (I guess you have to have kids to get this one).

The ludricrous plot of the computer vampire directory that's in Bill's possession felt forced and contrived, but it made it possible for the reader to know more about Weres. I'm so tired of Bubba and so relieved that Alan Ball never considered using him in the HBO Series. I also wished Harris would trust her reader's intelligence and stop repeating facts that we should know about Sookie (i.e. her telepathy, her not going to college, her Word-of-the-Day obsession). I suppose the author must balance repeating old information vs. valuing the memories of loyal readers, but Harris could have done a better job.

On the plus side, Club Dead was a fast read and I didn't get bored like I did with Living Dead in Dallas. Harris is a strong writer when she wants to be and I hope that the rest of the series will be worth my time. At least it'll tide me over till "True Blood" returns in June.




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Storyteller's Open Mic Night

Storyteller's, an independent bookstore owned by Dr. Drew Bridges in Wake Forest, NC had its first Open Mic night tonight (Fri. 12/12). I organized it along with Drew's and Megan Cutter's help. It was a brilliant success! We had 14 readers who read memoir, flash fiction and poetry. Everyone had a great time. Stay tuned for more Storyteller's Open Mics.

Here are a few photos of Tim, Dave, Megan and Barton.

Pedestal Magazine Poetry Reading Event

Last Sunday, December 7th, John Amen, founder and editor of The Pedestal Magazine, organized a poetry workshop with the NC Poetry Society and a reading that included 10 NC poets. My son Daniel and I attended and I read with the group. Here are a few pictures Daniel took of John Amen, me and Jaki Shelton Green, our new Piedmont Poet Laureate. This event was held at Market St. Books in Chapel Hill's Southern Village - it was all about poetry, selling our books, networking, food, drink and fellowship! What fun on a Sunday afternoon!

Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars
I was glad to start "Living Dead in Dallas" as I was in the middle of "True Blood" on HBO since the series introduced many characters in Book 2 who will also become regulars in True Blood's Season 2. Creator Alan Ball has also mentioned that Season 2 will take a lot of inspiration from "Dead in Dallas," but I hope he improves on the novel.

The novel opens with Sookie finding the dead Lafayette in Andy Bellfleur's patrol car. She then has an encounter with the maenad (Marianne Forrester in the show) and then she and Bill head to Dallas to help Stan the Dallas vampire chief find his missing nestmate. Here in Dallas we meet the Fellowship of the Sun -- which I believe will be an important antagonist in Season 2. Sookie gets beat up a lot from beginning to end and after she and Bill survive two lovers' fights she helps Andy find who killed Lafayette. She kisses Eric the vampire and likes it and Bill doesn't seem to be all that jealous. This novel is full of plotholes (now, really, Bill doesn't know how he's related to the Bellefleurs and he hasn't looked at the family Bible since he's been living in Bon Temps?)and swift summaries -- like Harris knew she was going to go back and elaborate on her scenes, but never did. Perhaps she was bored with them and needed filler. Most of the cat and mouse scenes in Dallas reminded me of a Nancy Drew mystery and I couldn't finish this book long after I started it. But after Sookie and Bill leave Dallas the action picks up. In fact whenever Eric, Sookie and Bill are in a scene together (pick Eric/Sookie or Bill/Sookie) the writing is full of energy and is extremely enjoyable to read. Why can't all of the book be this way?

As some of the other reviewers have stated, I found Sookie very annoying in this book because she's written like a selfish bimbo. She is looking to pick a fight with Bill and seems to totally forget he's a vampire - Hello?!

I prefer everything about the show to the books, so far, but I like the books for the background information since the show throw's so much information at you to digest right away. All I can say, is Harris is a good writer, not a great writer, and she gave Alan Ball plenty to work with.


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Dorianne Laux

This fall semester I took Dorianne Laux's MFA (Master of Fine Arts) poetry class at NC State. Yesterday was our final class and we met at Dorianne's home to recite memorized poetry. I think the only way you can really know a poem is through recitation. I recited Yusef Komunyakaa's poem, "Facing It." We also heard Walt Whitman, Mary Oliver, Pablo Neruda, Wallace Stevens and more. Throughout the semester I learned so much from Dorianne about other poets and styles, as well as from my very smart classmates.

I Did It!: I wrote a novel in 30 days through NaNoWriMo

Last month I took on the challenge of writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. My friend Beth has done 5 of them! She was my inspiration to sign up for this NaNoWriMo this year. The 10th annual National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo for short, starts every Nov 1st and ends midnight Nov 30th. You're supposed to not have done too much research before starting your book and you need to keep up a good pace of 1,667 words a day (that's 50,000 into 30). I was very inconsistent in my daily word count, but did write almost every day. I believe I skipped 4 days out of the entire month. I was most productive this last week since I have my in-laws with us so they could occupy my kids and I had an entire Wednesday to work on my novel. In fact, I started this week with a mere 27,000 words, knowing that I had to have 50,000 by Nov 30th.

Whew! All I can say is that keeping the daily word count, no matter how small, is the key to success. I also loved all of Chris Baty's (the NaNoWriMo's) emails and the supportive emails coming from my Raleigh-Durham WriMo Region. I never attended an official write-in because of the lack of time, but I still read everyone's email and advice. It was all good.

Now I just have to revise my raw (very raw) book. But at least I have something to work with! If you've ever wanted or dreamed of writing a novel, please consider doing NaNoWriMo next year!

Meet the New Piedmont Poet Laureate: Jaki Shelton Green

On Saturday November 15th at the NC Writers' Conference in RTP, the Raleigh Arts Commission, the Durham Arts Council and the Orange County Arts Commission revealed the 2009-2010 Piedmont Poet Laureate, Jaki Shelton Green. Jaki is famous for her personal poems, most recently compiled in Breath of a Song. Jaki teaches creative writing to marginalized populations such as the homeless, the newly literate, the incarcerated, and the writer-as-survivor. In 2003 she received the North Carolina Award in Literature. Here's the link to a story about Jaki's new role.

I got to know Jaki when I served on the board of Carolina Wren Press. I sold many of Jaki's books at her Breath of a Song launch in 2005. If you don't her, she's warm, funny and dedicated to her craft. I can't think of a better poet to represent Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill.

After he read this blog posting, Thomas Pearce, reporter for the Daily Tar Heel, wrote this piece on Jaki's new position this week.

The Glass Castle Review

The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
The Glass Castle is a book whose images and characters you'll have trouble getting out of your head. Jeannette Walls's has said in her interviews that she had to face the demon, which was telling people about her poverty-stricken childhood. Her parents moved her family around a lot when she was under 10 to avoid the landlord and the bill collectors. Sometimes the children went without food and these kids were never supervised. She feared that once her New York friends found out about where she came from they'd leave her at worst, or laugh at her at best. Neither fear materialized. The Glass Castle stayed on the New York Times Bestseller List for a year and her book encouraged her readers to tell her about their difficult childhoods. There'll soon be a Glass Castle movie.



To me, the "Glass Castle" represented her parents, Rex and Rose Mary's, lost potential. Rex was brilliant in math and science, but was an alcoholic and Rose Mary could have made a living as a artist, but she lacked discipline. Rose Mary told the kids that they'll learn from their mistakes, but they never did. At one point, they even owned a house outright, but still moved anyway to face more poverty.



Jeannette had to survive being tossed out of a car, a dark, bumpy ride in the back of a U-Haul, bullies, explosions, child molesters and cockroach attacks. And there's more. I can't imagine having to live without running water for seven years or hearing your mother saying it's OK to eat maggotty-ham.



The amazing thing is that Jeannette's early experiences made her stronger and she still loved her parents despite everything they put her through. One of the sweetest moments of the book was her dad giving her $950 to finish school.



Please read this book even if you don't normally read memoirs. You'll find a true example of unconditional love and forgiveness.




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