Peevish Pen

Ruminations on reading, writing, genealogy and family history, rural living, retirement, aging—and sometimes cats.

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Location: Rural Virginia, United States

I'm an elderly retired teacher who writes. Among my books are Ferradiddledumday (Appalachian version of the Rumpelstiltskin story), Stuck (middle grade paranormal novel), Patches on the Same Quilt (novel set in Franklin County, VA), Them That Go (an Appalachian novel), Miracle of the Concrete Jesus & Other Stories, and several Kindle ebooks.

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Bookish Stuff

The last few days have been spent doing bookish things—namely promoting and critiquing.

On Friday, I plugged my soon-to-be released Ferradiddledumday on the local cable's "Rise & Shine" show. My illustrator, Bruce Rae, accompanied me. We had a great time chatting with the host Dick Shoemaker and plugging the book's "world debut" at the Franklin County Library next Thursday. We've already gotten publicity from The Franklin News Post, The Smith Mountain Eagle, and The Laker Weekly, so we hope to have a good turn-out.

On Saturday, Amy Tate and I went to our SCBWI crit group in Roanoke. For two hours, five of us discussed manuscripts that we'd e-mailed each other earlier in the week, shared news, and socialized. The neat thing is that we write very different types children's lit from each other—middle grade paranormal, young adult fantasy/scifi, picture books, and middle grade historical fiction—so we're able to give different opinions and insights.


Angie, Marcie, Karen, & Amy
A recent blog post about crit groups is over at the Slushbusters Blog. It's worth a read if you're in a crit group. I especially like this part:

Every critique group needs a grammarNazi specialist. Nothing says amateur to an editor or agent like someone who cant put they're sentences together rite.

At most crit groups, I serve as the grammarNazi specialist.

After the meeting, Amy and I stopped by Ram's Head Bookstore, where I left some Ferradiddledumday bookmarks and we both bought books.

Tomorrow, I'm back to promoting. Monday morning a bit after eleven,  Bruce and I will be on Peggy Conklin's "Our View" show on local radio station, WYTI. Twelve years ago, when Peggy published Blue Ridge Traditions, she serialized an early version of Ferradiddledumday in a couple of issues. The story has changed a lot in the last decade, though. Anyhow, you can go to the station's website and listen to the show on your computer.

Speaking of promotion, a couple of weeks ago I blogged about being on the "Cover to Cover" show. My episode (#127) is now online.

Now, besides promoting Ferradiddledumday (which will be in my hand in less than a week!), I just finished another rewrite  of Stuck, my middle grade novel, which I will soon start to query. Meanwhile, I'm going to enter it in the Kidlit Contest  to see if I can win an evaluation by agent Mary Kole.

And maybe I'll work on my next book.
~

5 Comments:

Blogger Kas said...

Oh to be at the stage of writing and getting books published. I know I will get there, it a long road. Great insight into what you do.

3:04 PM  
Blogger Clementine said...

It was a great day. It's so much fun to see a vision come to fruition.

4:11 PM  
Blogger CountryDew said...

You're working hard! Way to go.

7:30 PM  
Blogger Greener Pastures--A City Girl Goes Country said...

Maybe one day when I retire, I'll write and promote and be as busy as you are!

9:21 PM  
Blogger Michelle said...

I love knowing I'm not the only grammar specialist out there! Thanks for the shout-out, and best of luck with your new book.

1:32 PM  

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