Guest Blog

Origins of The Bible Salesman

By Clyde Edgerton

William Gay and Tom Franklin got in touch with me and asked me to contribute a short story for an anthology they were putting together. The anthology would be a tribute to Flannery O’Connor. I immediately thought of two of my favorite characters in O’Connor’s fiction—the Bible salesman from “Good Country People,” and The Misfit from “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” I didn’t want to use those same characters in my story of course but I knew I wanted a Bible salesman and a criminal in my narrative--and I wanted the time to be around 1950. I can remember the year 1950 (I turned six that year) and it seemed like an appropriate and relatively simple time to use. I’d let my criminal meet O’Connor’s Misfit and I’d let the Bible salesman meet her Bible salesman.

I made my criminal a car thief pretending to belong to the FBI, and my Bible salesman—a young man just out on the road away from home for the first time. Before I started the story I thought up something I figured would be fun and interesting: The Bible salesman would order free Bibles and razor out the page that showed their origin, and then he’d sell them. That decision immediately colored his character. He’d be naughty. But my criminal would be evil. This arrangement worked okay in the short story.

Because I liked the characters I decided to make a book with them playing the leads. But before long, I realized that to create suspense and tension I’d need the Bible salesman to be more innocent that he’d been in the short story, so I made him into somebody quite different from the short story Bible salesman. I also realized that I could indulge myself in a kind of study of the Bible—why not let this young Bible salesman start reading the Bible on his own (like Wesley Benfield in Killer Diller) and see how he might handle his belief that every word was written down by God. Might he have problems? His ruminations, etc., could be a subplot. And he could meet an interesting young woman out in the country at a fruit stand. Also, my uncle had been killed in a freak accident in 1927. I had an old yellow newspaper clipping detailing that event. I could use some details of that accident in the story. I could put in a tale I’d heard about bumper stickers, and there was that movie screen set up in a beach surf showing silent movies. I could figure out a way to use that. I could put in talking cats, and a new Chrysler. I was off.

A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO GETTING PUBLISHED

By Jackie Lee Miles

My agent is shopping my latest manuscript and let me tell you the waiting is killing me. As a matter of fact, just this morning I noticed my hair is definitely grayer than it was last week.

When she first sent it out, we got an immediate response from a major publisher and boy was I excited. They raved about the author voice and the premise. They asked if the author had another book that could be packaged with it. Then they took it to committee, whatever that means, and the next thing you know they were saying things like, “It’s not for our list after all.”

Bummer. I felt like dumping my head in the washing machine while it was on the spin cycle. That got me thinking about all the authors out there that now have N.Y. Times bestsellers. Did they ever want to stick their head in the washer? I’d call them up, but I don’t have there numbers. Plus they’d think I was crazy so I’d probably just tell them how much I enjoyed their book and not mention their washing machine.

Maybe placing a project is so frustrating because of the way I first got published. I went to this book conference. At the reception I literally bumped into Ron Pitkin, the president of Cumberland House Publishing. He was kind enough not to notice I spilled his drink and asked what I was working on. When I told him fiction, he promptly replied, “That’s a crap shoot.” Definitely not what I wanted to hear. I mean, I’d paid good money to come to this conference and he’s raining on my party, big time. “Well,” I said, “that’s too bad, because I have a dynamite opening line.” I was prepared to walk away, when he gently took hold of my elbow and said, “So what’s your opening line?”

“The morning I died, it rained.” Keep in mind this was long before The Lovely Bones.

“God! I want to see that book,” he said, doing an about face.

“Ah, I don’t have a book,” I said. “I have a great opening line and a hundred pages.”

He asked if I had it with me. “Of course. I’m getting it evaluated in the morning. It costs forty-five dollars.”

He told me to give it to him, he wouldn’t charge a thing. I immediately went to my room and brought back the pages. I had a prologue, and the last chapter and the epilogue along with the rest of it. It wasn’t finished, but I knew where it was going.

Mr. Pitkin thanked me and went on his way. Come Sunday morning with the conference over, everyone was checking out. I spotted Mr. Pitkin making his way toward me and thought, oh-oh, this is where he’s going to pull the rug out from under me and tell me to get a real job. To my surprise he handed me the manuscript and said, “I want this and I want it yesterday. Go home and finish it!”


I figured if I took forever to finish it he’d never even remember that he liked it. I stayed up and wrote around the clock for the next five days, took the weekend off, stayed up again and wrote around the clock for the next five days and sent it off to Mr. Pitkin. I marked my calendar for three months, thinking it might take that long for him to get back to me. I started in on my second book. Just like all the books on writing said to do. The following Friday evening my phone rang. I answered. A voice said, “This is Ron Pitkin at Cumberland House and we’re going to bring your book out in hardback.” I said, “Ya? And I’m the tooth fairy.” And I hung up on him. The reason I did this is that the only person other than my husband who knew I’d sent off the manuscript was a good friend of mine who can mimic any voice he’s ever heard. He’d been going to this conference where I’d met Mr. Pitkin for years and has heard him speak many times. It had to be this friend playing a joke on me. Not a very funny one either. I wasn’t amused.

I went upstairs to comb my hair and put some lipstick on. My husband was starving and wanted to go and get something to eat. Poor thing, he probably was starving. I stopped cooking when the kids left home and I took up writing. No sooner did I get to the bedroom when the phone rang. This one has caller ID, the others don’t. I leaned over and saw CUMBERLAND HOUSE flashing on the screen. I’d hung up on Mr. Pitkin for real!
I picked up the handset, leaned into it and barely whispered “Hello?”

“What’d you hang up on me for?” he said. “Ah, it’s a long story, a very boring story,” I said.

“Well, we’re bringing out your book in hard back and bumping back our memoir piece on Dale Earnhardt (he’d been tragically killed), to make Roseflower Creek the lead book. What do you think of that?”

I was hyperventilating and finding it impossible to speak. I did my best. “Didn’t you say fiction was a crap shoot?” I asked

“Yes—and it is,” he said.

“Then I think your crazy or my protagonist got herself a miracle. What do you think of that?”

Mr. Pitkin laughed and said he’d be seeing me. This is a true story and a pretty amazing way to get published. I should have known there’d be rocky roads ahead. It brings to mind the old adage if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. Oh well, maybe after the storms pass, I’ll find a rainbow. One can always hope. In the interim I’ve got everything crossed, including the hair on my husband’s head—all three strands.

Jackie Lee Miles is the author of Roseflower Creek, Cold Rock River and the newly released Divorcing Dwayne. Dear Dwayne debuts April 1st, 2009. Visit the website at http://www.jlmiles.com/. Write to Jackie at http://www.blogger.com/Jackie@jlmiles.com





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Guest Blog

A PLACE TO BEGIN

Jayne Pupek, author of "Tomato Girl" (Algonquin Books, 2008)

People sometimes ask where I got the idea for my novel, "Tomato Girl." Most people want to know if the events in the story are based on actual events. They aren't. I did what writers do best: I lied. (Given the way folks sometimes gossip in small towns, I think my mother wants a disclaimer printed on the book's cover, making it clear that she is NOT the crazy mother I have written about and my father was NEVER infatuated with a teenage "tomato girl." But that’s a topic for another day.)

Regardless of whether a story is true or not, all stories begin with an idea. The idea for my novel, "Tomato Girl," came from a poem I'd written years earlier. It seemed like a good plan. And I certainly needed one. On a whim, I'd signed up for several online critique groups. One of those groups focused on writing The Novel. The basic premise was to submit your novel, one or two chapters at a time, for critique by other group members. In return for their feedback on your masterpiece, you gave feedback on theirs. It was a "you-scratch-my-back-and-I’ll scratch-yours" system that seemed to work like a charm.

I had misgivings. I didn’t feel qualified to critique work by people who’d been at this for awhile and seemed to know what they were doing. I was a poet, not a novelist. I knew very little about things like end of chapter hooks, back story, and pacing. Did I dare suggest that somebody cut lines or worked on making dialogue sound more natural? I reminded myself that I was a therapist by trade and had grown up in the South. Surely I could offer feedback to a few aspiring novelists without bruising any egos or ruffling any feathers. Well, maybe.

My second problem was more daunting. I didn’t actually have a novel to submit for critique. I didn’t even have the first chapter of a novel. In fact, I'd written very little fiction except for "flash fiction" pieces that resembled prose poems more than short stories. Writing a novel seemed a lot like an arranged marriage. What if the characters and I didn’t get along? I almost withdrew from the workshop before writing my first sentence.

I talked myself into staying. So what if I hadn’t written a novel? I’d read a lot of novels, and I'd written a good bit of poetry, so maybe I could do this. It might actually be fun. I had nothing to lose.

Still, I needed a place to begin. Where could I go for an idea? I may have found one in any number of places, but I turned to something I did know how to write---poetry. I searched through my notebooks and folders, looking for an idea. That’s where I found “Tomato Girl,” a short unpublished narrative poem I had written a year or so earlier, and then abandoned. I’d written the poem from a one word prompt: “RED.” The poem told the story of a girl whose mother quarreled with a vendor over his tomatoes in the days following her husband leaving to be with a teenage girl. The poem was merely the result of a practice exercise. I never intended to do anything with it.

But as I read the poem again, I saw something new. I saw the skeleton of a story. I found the characters that would become central to that story, and most importantly, I found the voice of Ellie, who would narrate the story. I thought maybe I could write it down. So I did. Months later, I had the first draft of a novel.

I tell this story when people ask me where I got the idea for “Tomato Girl.” I tell it not only to satisfy curiosity, but in hopes that aspiring writers---as well as established writers who suffer writer’s block or hit a dry spell-- will be reminded that ideas for stories are all around us, even as close as the color “RED.” Sometimes, we just have to take a second look. An idea is little more than a place to begin. The beauty lies in the discovery of where the idea will lead. That's the essence of adventure. It's what I love most about writing.

Jayne Pupek, who lives near Richmond, is a Virginia native and a former social worker. Though Tomato Girl (Algonquin Books, 2008) is her first novel, her writing has appeared in many literary journals. She is the author of a book of poetry titled Forms of Intercession (Mayapple Press, 2008).

Blog and Website:

http://www.jaynepupek.com/

http://jaynepupek.blogspot.com/

Knoxville to Ningbo - "CITY OF NEW VIGOR" by Kerry Madden

(The picture is from Ningbo University taken in 1987. I am standing with the class of teachers of English who were also my students. Ms. Xing and Mr. Fang, mentioned in this story, are the two teachers standing to the right of me.)

With the Olympics gearing up in Beijing, I am reminded of China where I lived for eight months in 1987, newly married. The Chinese didn’t approve of unmarried American couples living and teaching together, so we were married at the Courthouse in Knoxville prior to leaving for Ningbo University to accept teaching jobs. The day we got married, my friend, Annie, threw a party for us at the Budget Inns of America where we stayed for one night. In magic marker, she scribbled on a piece of cardboard: “Just Married: Because ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find!’”

We celebrated late into the night. Our dachshund, Rudy, was even part of the festivities and appears in nearly all the wedding pictures. He was the frolicking theatre house dog. The whole thing plus rings plus motel cost around $103.00 dollars. I was very happy to have a Flannery O’Connor-themed wedding, because we were going to China. Good-bye Knoxville, Tennessee!

But in China, I was the classic dumb American teaching English at Ningbo University on the East China Sea. It makes me squirm to relive one particular memory that I have kept to myself for two decades now, but enough of this “saving face” – a term I learned quickly during our eight months of teaching in China.

Prior to China, we were college graduates from the University of Tennessee with no job prospects whatsoever. I had an MFA in Playwriting, and Kiffen had a BA in Psychology. Why not escape Big Orange Country and see the world? The International Department at UT was willing to send us, and we wanted adventure before we had to settle down and get serious about our lives. But it took six months for our travel visas from China to clear, and the waiting was agony, living with my parents, working temp jobs at Gulf Oil, SAAB, and Architectural Design Concepts. My father would say, “China? Why China? It’s a black hole! They can’t even send your visas. The Chinese clearly don’t have their act together. Get a new game plan, kids!”

It only made me more determined than ever to go – I didn’t want to be the newly married couple that had once planned to go to China. But during the long wait on our visas, it would have made sense for me to read about China. Maybe even learn that the Cultural Revolution wasn’t some kind of artistic movement? But why bother? I was too busy submitting terrible plays to contests across the country, announcing our impending jobs in the Far East.

I had this kind of bizarre Isak Dineson vision that I would somehow parallel her “Out of Africa” experience with my own “Out of China.” The previous ten years had all been Knoxville, but no longer would I be stuck at a job at Apple Tree, a bookstore filled with potpourri, Windham Hill music, and designer teddy bears like “Chef Bernais,” “Scarlet O’Beara,” and “Rhett Beartler.” I would not be performing Jean Kerr’s LUNCH HOUR at the Knoxville Dinner Theatre for old people eating soggy green beans with fat back and warmed-over roast beef.

I was going to make something of my life even though I didn’t know a single fact about China except that Nixon went there in 1972, and we would be paid in Chinese money. These were dual currency days which meant every bit of “renmenbi” (“people’s yuan”) that we earned had to be spent in China.

We arrived in Ningbo in January of 1987 by way of Hong Kong. Walking the streets of Hong Kong where everything was in English and Chinese, I felt reassured, but the day we arrived in Hangzhou on our way to Ningbo, we drove in a taxi through a sea of bicyclers in Mao suits, and every single shop sign was all CHINESE. I had a sinking feeling that I had carried this plan too far. The taxi driver honked nonstop, but nobody paid any attention. I tried to imagine Isak Dineson arriving in Africa in 1914 and how terrified she must have been. Surely I could summon up courage in 1987. I had her book of letters with me for strength and good luck.

At this brand new university, there were only freshman because it had just opened in the fall of 1986, funded by a Hong Kong shipper who wanted to be in good graces when Hong Kong became part of China. Kiffen taught the engineering students and gave them names like Picasso, Shakespeare, and Tolstoy. Lincoln and Washington were best friends who loved to play basketball.

Most of the students called us “Mr. and Mrs. Kiffen,” and although I tried to get them to call me “Ms. Kerry,” the majority would not, and our surname “Madden-Lunsford” was impossibly long for them to pronounce, so I was mostly “Mrs. Kiffen.”

I had the good fortune to have the English majors, and my students chose their own names from literature. A shy girl said, “I am Helen after the brave girl in Jane Eyre,” and her best friend said, “And I am Jenny after the courageous girl in ‘Love Story.’” I loved these students immediately, and together we put on plays, created an English Language newspaper, started English corner – all of that was fine and the teaching helped me forget I was surrounded by rice fields cut off from the world.

But my downfall came with the Chinese teachers of English, who were also my students. My class was held during their naptime. Everyone naps after lunch in China, but that was taken away from the teachers when I arrived to teach them “Conversational English” three days a week. I was given a book with “conversational” chapter headings and ordered to teach from it. The chapters were all about subjects designed to spark “heated debates” and “very interesting discussions.”

One chapter was about Emily Dickinson and whether it was better to be a “nobody” or a “somebody” in China. The overall consensus was that it was better to be a “nobody” because “a somebody perhaps can attract too much attention,” but it was the chapter called “Revolution” that became my defining oeuvre in stupidity.

“Revolution” was the title of chapter one, so I began with that on my first day. I had been teaching the freshman for several weeks, but now I had to face the teachers. I made Kiffen come with me because I was terrified. The lyrics to the Beatles’ song, “Revolution,” were included in the chapter, and so we discussed revolutions, and they wanted to know about “hippies.” I played the Beatles for them and tried to think of what to say about revolutions. The teachers looked sleepy and yawned a lot.

Tense and worried over failure, I talked fast trying to sum up the 1960s and the meaning of revolution. I could see them trying to follow me, but I just kept going faster and faster talking about Vietnam, flower power, and who knows what else? But I ended with a crowning glory by saying, “Actually, revolutions are passé. They don’t happen anymore.”

The look that crossed my new husband’s face was one of horror, incredulity, and amusement, and I knew I had quite possibly said the dumbest thing ever to a class of Chinese teachers who’d lived through something called “The Cultural Revolution.” (I made a mental note to look it up.)

It was a British teacher, Patrick Tilbury, who was also teaching at Ningbo, who gave me a crash course on the history of the Cultural Revolution that night, and I apologized during the next class meeting – my own kind of “self-criticism” that so many Chinese intellectuals and artists had to endure during the Cultural Revolution when the young teenaged Red Guards terrorized cities, and professors were sent to the countryside to be “re-educated” by doing manual labor.

A book called LIFE AND DEATH IN SHANGHAI by Nien Cheng was excerpted in TIME or NEWSWEEK later that year, and as I read her story, the shame of that day just intensified, but I loved the book.

The class got a bit better or at least we had “heated debates” and “very interesting discussions.” I showed them the only two English movies available: “Kramer Vs. Kramer” and “Amadeus.” I fell in love with these movies in an irrational way – maybe because they were the only English movies around. I wanted the Chinese teachers to be deeply moved and changed by them. But Ms. Xing, after viewing “Kramer Vs. Kramer,” said matter-of-factly, “All Americans get the divorce. Perhaps you will too, Mrs. Kiffen. It is most likely, do you not think? You are young now, but perhaps in five or ten years? American women like their boyfriends too much.”

I defended my new marriage, but she just smiled and would not be dissuaded. Later, though, Ms. Xing told me that when she was in labor at a bus stop about to have her daughter, her husband proceeded to read her verses from Chairman Mao’s Red Book to give her courage and stamina. Her laughter told me she thought he was a very silly man.

When I showed the teachers “Amadeus,” Mr. Fang slipped out before the movie was over but announced upon leaving, “I prefer murder mysteries so perhaps Mrs. Kiffen, you could introduce us to the great murder mysteries of literature.”

I used to tell people that we spent our first year of marriage in China, but it was actually eight months. Professor Qiu Ke’an, a frail and serene Shakespearian scholar and translator, who survived the Cultural Revolution, actually liked our teaching and wanted us to stay longer.

Kiffen loved China and picked up the local Ningbo dialect easily. He was more than happy to stay in a country where it was like being famous and crowds gathered to hear us talk or strangers fell in step with the unwavering question: “May I practice my English with you?”

But I wanted to get home so our lives could begin in New York or LA or Chicago. (We hadn’t decided where yet, but they were waiting for us somewhere.) I missed overhearing conversations and bread and yogurt and cheese. I missed my privacy and autonomy, because no matter what we did – a late night walk in the rice fields or a trip by bike into town or teaching theatre drew comment: “Perhaps you walked very late last night, Mr. and Mrs. Kiffen” or “Perhaps you are too tired from your bike ride, Mr. and Mrs. Kiffen” or “Perhaps, it is not your job to teach ‘play acting’ but rather ‘Intensive English.’”

The night we were invited to stay another year, we all got drunk on rice wine at a teacher banquet (Professor Qiu did not) and sang “Auld Lang Syne,” the hit song of every gathering during those eight months. I agreed to stay, flattered, but then, later and sober, it dawned on me that staying would mean a whole year more. At the age of 25, that seemed like eternity. I stared out the classroom windows at the rice fields surrounding Ningbo University, a water buffalo frolicking in the fields like some giant Labrador retriever, and I started to cry.

We used the money we’d made and bought tickets on the Trans-Siberian Railroad. We traveled from Beijing to Berlin and during those ten days on the train, I wondered if I had failed China. Should we have stayed? Isak Dineson didn’t pack up after eight months. I thought of Ms. Lee, a lovely woman, whose piano was stolen during the Cultural Revolution and finally given back only in 1987.

I thought of Professor Qiu asking us to please stay and teaching us about Moon doorways and of his translations of Shakespeare. I thought of the intense crowds and how they’d stick babies through bus windows, fighting to get a seat. I thought of the time we’d brought home a live chicken from the street market that Kiffen killed in the bathroom so he could make baked chicken. I thought of my freshman English students performing plays on the stage of the chemistry lab platform, giant insects flying in from the rice fields. I thought of the two bottles of creamy milk and two bottles of thick Ningbo beer delivered every day by the foreign guest-house workers. I thought of the Bourgeois Liberalism Campaign while we were there and the forced Saturday classes in Marxism for the students and army training.

Before we left, I was invited to do a voice-over for an infomercial called: “Ningbo – City of New Vigor” to invite foreign investment. It took five hours to record, stopping and starting all over again. Mr. Fang, the one who loved mysteries, was my director. “Perhaps you can try to sound very enthusiastic. You have a beautiful and very clear speaking voice.” I did my best, and I actually enjoyed my day with Mr. Fang, who said, as we parted, “Please invite your friends to invest in Ningbo: City of new vigor.” I said I would try.

Now China has become a country of “new vigor,” and probably one I wouldn’t recognize. But mostly, I think of standing before a class of Chinese teachers, who had lived and suffered during the Cultural Revolution. The day I apologized, they only said, “It was a very difficult time in China.” From the looks on their faces, I knew not to ask more. I had learned at least that much.

Kerry Madden is the author of the Maggie Valley Trilogy: GENTLE'S HOLLER, LOUISIANA'S SONG, and JESSIE'S MOUNTAIN. Her website is: www.kerrymadden.com

A note for help

Russ Marshalek, Marketing Director for Wordsmiths Books in Decatur, GA, is barging in here.

Please note: Karin has been kind, sweet and wonderful enough to let me barge in here and interrupt the flow with an urgent message, a call for assistance, a cry for help. I'm interrupting your regular programming schedule because we at Wordsmiths are in financial strain, stress, and need, and for the southern author community, heaps upon heaps of which (a lot of y'all count in this list!) have actually graced our store and our stage, this is, obviously, the quickest way to get the message out.

Basically, today we launched the Save Our Bookstore campaign with a blog from Zach, our owner/operator. You can read the entirety of it here. I'll summarize:

Today, the word has gone out that we are beginning a hard, tooth-and-nail effort to keep from closing. We’ve gone to the public, to everyone, to the readers and book lovers and authors and musicians and members of our now-massive extended, crazy, book-loving family, with the fact that, as a result of the massive black hole that was our previous location (some of you, many of you, in fact, remember that location, a block off the Decatur square but so far away from foot traffic...when we moved the store in March, we went from being isolated to being THE center of town, and also now pay about 1/2 the rent we used to) and the impossibility of catch-up, combined with a massive author event that required a large up-front payment to the publisher for books that didn't sell, the store can’t catch itself fast enough, despite the now-profitability of our new location.

I am in the process of trying to piece together a massive weekend of everything that's worked, everything that's made Wordsmiths what we are-authors, music, food, maybe even a dancing zebra-for the weekend of August 15-17. If anyone, anyone at all, is interested in helping or participating, or has ideas, please don't hesitate to email me.

And if anyone is interested in reading the entire missive from us on our Save The Bookstore campaign, or in (bless your lovely, lovely hearts) donating to help keep us around, all that information, including a Paypal button, is on our homepage.

Here we go. Thank you.

Guest Blogger:Christine Son

What in the World Have I Done?

Writing is wonderful. Magical, even. With words, one can create imaginary worlds. Can delve deep into a character’s head. Can render a fictional scene from a true event that had gone horribly awry in real life. Writing can result in delicious, popcorn entertainment. And it can move a reader so that she recognizes that what she’s experiencing is art in its purest form. I love writing. I obsess over it. And in hindsight, I love even the difficult bits of the process, the word glut-filled nights when I think that my novel-in-process will never go anywhere. I love how writing makes me feel, how it opens up my perspective and makes me more empathetic. As isolating as the exercise of writing can be, it’s also a strangely humanizing activity, one that makes me feel more connected to the rest of the world.

Publishing, on the other hand, is another bag altogether. It’s a business that’s hideously generous with rejections. Hideous, as in having something like a 99% rejection rate for fiction writers. With those kinds of odds, I’m much better off at a craps table in Vegas. Still, I was foolhardy enough — and, like most writers, unreasonably optimistic — to think that I might creep into that glorious one percent. And after years of work, no sleep, a two-foot stack of rejection letters and a divine miracle, I did. My first novel, OFF THE MENU, sold to Penguin, and I celebrated as if I had just won Powerball. I celebrated as if I had achieved something better than winning Powerball because I had. My husband jumped up and down for joy. Literally. My friends congratulated me and told me that I was awesome. My coworkers (unfortunately, I have an arduous day job) gawked at me enviously. Life was good. It was better than good.

Fast-forward thirteen months to eight weeks before publication. My publicist told me that my first book signing was going to be August 15th, and suddenly, I felt exactly the way I’d made my characters in OFF THE MENU, which is to say that I was gripped by paralyzing fear. After all, it’s one thing to hide away at home and write, to have my baby safely within my grasp. It’s a different thing entirely to have that work out in the public where everyone can see it. I kept thinking, what in the world have I done? What had possessed me to push so hard to get my book before an audience that might judge? What if my friends laughed at me? Or worse, thought I was a hack? A fraud? The self doubt that was plaguing me was made worse by the fact that everyone was telling me to laud myself, a characteristic that my Korean parents — who had adopted genteel Texas sensibilities — had spent their entire lives telling me not to do. It’s unseemly, they said. Terribly uncouth. And yet, as an author, I have to sell myself. I know that. I knew it even when I was praying that a publisher would notice me. And still I went for it. And still I was terrified when everyone was telling me that I should be nothing but thrilled.

Of course, I am thrilled that OFF THE MENU’s out on bookshelves now. But I’m still anxious and nervous and all the other nail-biting emotions that go along with having such a personal piece of me out there. My dear friend and fellow blogger, Kristy Kiernan, has suffered listening to my trepidation, but I imagine that she — as well as the wonderful writers at Southern Authors Blog — also felt the jitters that come with a first book. After all, we want our readers to enjoy our books. To feel like they can escape from the real world for a few hours. To feel uplifted and inspired and entertained. In a way, having my novel in the public is like hosting a party. I want everyone to be happy and taken care of. And if that’s why I push myself so hard to make my second book better than the first, and the third better than them all, then maybe this anxiety isn’t such a bad thing.

NEW RELEASE FROM ONE OF OUR OWN...

SOUTHERN FATALITY is now available in mass market paperback! (St. Martin's paperbacks, US $6.99 / CAN $8.99) Originally released last year (St. Martin's Minotaur) the book is the first of a new mystery series by T. Lynn Ocean.

"…keeps readers entertained right up to the explosive ending." –PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY

ABOUT THE BOOK: Immerse yourself in the magical port city atmosphere of Wilmington, North Carolina and visit The Block-- a historic building situated on the Cape Fear River that serves as a grill and pub downstairs and cozy living quarters upstairs. But don't get too comfortable, because when the sexy and hard-hitting security specialist Jersey Barnes stumbles into a scheme that will steal millions of dollars from American taxpayers, you'll want to go along for the ride!

COMING NEXT: Jersey Barnes is back in SOUTHERN POISON, available September 2.

TO LEARN MORE: Visit the author website at www.tlynnocean.com