Sara Reyes | What I learned at SXSW

Broken Lizzard and Gwen
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First off, SXSW to the uninitiated is South By Southwest, referred to as "SXSW" or "South By". It is a HUGE (with hundreds of thousands of people, maybe a million or two, who knows) festival in Austin. Texas over spring break. It started 23 years ago with music, expanded to film and then a few years ago added interactive. So, you've got the music geeks, the film geeks and the nerds all descending on a city for 13 days or so. I've been going since 2005 and it is something NOT-TO-MISS in your lifetime. In fact I'm sure it's in a few 100 or 1000 things to do before you die lists.

My interest is the interactive -- all about the Internet or the Web 2.0. They've been talking the Web 2.0 since 2005. I wonder if we'll ever get to the Web 3.0 or they'll just call it something else. I was there when Twitter first was introduced. Lots of chatter about "taking a shower," "I'm in the elevator," "meet you at the beer tent" and stuff like that. Fascinating, no? Also went on to MySpace and Facebook because of SXSW trips. It's amazing what I'd sign up for after being at SXSW. So this year, I joined the masses and did my part for #sxsw. (If you're on Twitter, you'll know what that is, if not, well, it's sorta a open chat on a specific topic. Check it out..

But what did I learn this year? To be passionate. Okay, so not so hard is it? Or, IS IT? If you're passionate about something then it will run your life and let it run your on-line experience as well. For me, it's easy. I've got this book reading fetish. I READ a book a day or I get cranky. Very cranky. I don't read to review, I don't read for conversation. I read to stay sane. I've been doing it since elementary school days and it's one of my endearing habits according to my loved ones (aka family and coworkers). In fact, they know when I need to go and read. They'll drop helpful hints: "get a book already", "want to go to the book store?" and my favorite, "did I interrupt your reading?" So, it wasn't hard for me to identify my passion. What was hard was how to share it with others.

My love of books has enabled me to be brave and meet authors at signings, to start up a book club (going strong since 1995), and to run a business based on books, Fresh Fiction. So I guess the speakers were correct: find your passion, and live it! So I hope you'll either pardon me or join me as I continue to be passionate about books and authors and all my friends who are as passionate about reading as I am!

Get out there and READ a book...

Sara Reyes

DFW Tea Readers Group

Join us at Readers 'n 'ritas in 2009!

BTW -- I did also attend movies when I was at SXSW including "The 2 Bobs" and Slammin Salmon. Also went to a couple of parties. A great combination: learning stuff and having fun!

Kate Collins | GRAB THE BAR AND HANG ON FOR THE RIDE

What I love about roller coasters is that rush of exhilaration that comes after a long climb up a hill and a breathtaking few seconds of hovering at the top of a towering peak. Then whoosh! It sweeps sharply downward, taking its passengers with it, completely at the mercy of forces beyond their control. As many before me have said, life is like that, except that the ride downhill is no fun at all. This hit home three years ago, when a nasty virus attacked the nerves in my neck and back, causing headaches, nausea, muscle spasms, numbness, lost of taste and tears, hypersensitive sense of smell, and even an inflamed scalp. Worst of all was that my deadline was coming up fast.

Having hit the bottom of that roller coaster ride, I had to come to terms with a sudden inability to do the simplest things -- smell the aroma of coffee first thing in the morning, read a book, or even sit at the computer to work on the next chapter in my mystery. Instead, all my energy went into not moving so I didn’t bring on more pain. My world narrowed to my house, then to my bedroom, then to what was immediately in front of my face, as the pain intensified.

Click to read the rest of Kate's blog and to comment.

Tara Taylor Quinn | A Ninth and a First

The first, first. Last week delivered to my door, in five boxes, were my copies of my first, first printing hardcover. It's not wholly mine. It's an anthology of work by five authors. But my name is on the cover. My story is inside. I've had two other books in hardcover. One was a foreign edition. The other was a subsidiary sale to Thorndike Press who prints mostly for libraries. Both were cool.

This is cooler.

The book, More Than Words Volume 5 is due out in April. Heather Graham, a woman I've known and admired for years, is the headliner. I'm honored to be in the volume with her.

Even more meaningful than being out in Hardcover, or being published with Heather, is having been a part of the work itself. More Than Words is a project that Harlequin started several years ago. Throughout the year, the company solicits applications from private women's charities. Five are chosen. Each of the five authors, who are hand chosen by the publisher, are given one of the charities. I was given Sandra Ramos, founder of Strengthen our Sisters. Sandra founded the very first battered women's shelter in the United States. She's an amazing amazing woman. I spent a couple of days reading about Sandra, speaking with her, getting to know her. And then I wrote a fictional story inspired by all that I had learned. Each of the other four authors in the anthology did the same with their charity founders.

All proceeds for the book go to the five charities.

Click to read to the rest of Tara's blog and to leave a comment.

Linda Thomas-Sundstrom | Loving the Supernatural... and Barbie.

Whether spooky, creepy, fangy, funny, or just plain whacked-out, I love the supernatural. And I'm a "paranormal" writer, through and through. No matter how hard I try to write a straight novel or romance, it turns south toward that big "P." It's just something in my blood, I guess. Thing is, though, I have both dark and light sides to my supernatural-loving personality.

So after writing a dark historical vampire tale for Kensington Brava's Immortal Bad Boys anthology, something odd happened one day as I sat in my little home office contemplating the plot line next dark tale. I stared at the shelf displaying my original Barbie doll, and a big question appeared to plague me, as those pesky questions sometimes do. The question was this:


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David Rollins | I, prescient.

Hi there,

What can I tell you about my latest book, A Knife Edge, that you won’t get from reading it?

When I was writing the book in 2004-05, the conflict in Afghanistan was well and truly on the back burner. The US military was heavily engaged in Iraq and the ‘gan had receded from the public consciousness. There were a few hot battles, like the one at Tora Bora, after which everyone seemed to pack up and go home. History told me the Taliban was too easily pacified and that, like a virus, they would come back stronger.


A Knife Edge was written with this view in mind. If the West had to go back into that country again, I wondered, would the gloves come off? Would we launch cross-border attacks into Pakistan territory? And if the political situation in Islamabad went pear-shaped, what sort of government could take power there?

Click to read the rest of David's blog and to comment.

Kimberly Frost | When In the World Would You Go?

I’d imagine that I’m like a lot of readers in that I love the way that fiction transports me to different times and places…to different worlds where the laws of physics and nature need not apply or where the laws of “good society” do. Regency England and the Scottish Highlands. Sunnydale and Salem. Hogwarts, Narnia, and Middle Earth…

When I began the Southern Witch series, I knew that I wanted a small town setting with eccentric, charming characters, but I also realized that since the series contains magic, I could incorporate other elements.

Here’s a brief exchange from Book 1 between Tammy Jo Trask, small-town girl and Would-Be Witch, with the family ghost, Edie:

* * *

Click here to read the rest of the blog and enter for a chance to win a copy of WOULD-BE WITCH.

Sandi Shilhanek | To Finish or Not Finish?

Last year I did something I haven’t done in about 20 years. I set aside a book unfinished. This week I have been attempting to read another book by a different author, and am not very far into it, and am finding myself looking for chores that need doing rather than be lazing the day away reading.

While I feel guilty if I don’t finish this book I also feel horrid about all the books waiting so patiently for me to finally read my way to them. This leads to the subject of whether or not to finish the book that is going slowly, or to continue to persevere.

What would you do? Would you continue on with the book that isn’t working for you or move on? If you stopped the book would you set it back on the shelf or would you give it to someone else to hopefully enjoy? As for me I’m going to move on to a new book, and will keep this book in my stack because it’s on my Kindle, so it’s not taking up any space. Hopefully it’s my mood and some day this book will be right for me.

Until next week happy page turning to all.