The Debutante Ball, established in 2007, is a group blog for authors making their debut in the literary world. We are now in our twelfth season of celebrating up-and-coming authors. Former Debs include bestsellers in the genres of women’s fiction, mystery, literary fiction, nonfiction, young adult, and more. Click on any of the photos above to learn about The Debutante Ball Class of 2019 and their books. Read about the bestselling…
Interview with Amy Gentry and Last Woman Standing Giveaway
So excited to welcome another of my fabulous agent sisters, Amy Gentry, to the Deb Ball this week! Amy Gentry is the author of Good As Gone, a New York Times Book Review “Editors’ Choice” and Entertainment Weekly “Must List” Pick. She is also a book reviewer and essayist whose work has appeared in numerous outlets, including the Chicago Tribune, Salon, The Paris Review, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and the Austin Chronicle. Amy has a doctorate in English…
A Year or a Career
Before writing this blog post, I never really gave much thought to a bucket list for this year. Or a career bucket list, for that matter. I daydream about miraculous debut and career events all the time: I see my book in O Magazine. Terry Gross wants to interview me on Fresh Air. I make the NYT bestseller list. Wait, they get bigger: eventually, I win the Pulitzer…
Did I dream this book cover or is it really this gorgeous?
I don’t know if I should be writing this post right now because technically it’s Friday and my day to blog here on The Debutante Ball is over. But it seems like these days, the time is slipping away so rapidly! Appropriately, I’m writing about dreams from the comfort of my bed, in my pajamas, minutes away from falling asleep… Every writer who isn’t an author basically dreams of the…
Dream Big
I think most of my fellow Debs are sharing more realistic writing dreams this week. I have those, of course. I used to say that all I wanted was to see my book on the shelf at the Chicago Public Library one day. I even took a picture of the spot where it would go: And I still want that! I’m going to be ecstatic to cross that item off…
Attacus Atlas & Other Inventions: Dreaming of Hawaii (and other bucket list items)
Once upon a time, I lived in Honolulu. Although I had a touch of island fever (who am I kidding? I had a terrible case of island fever because I was living on land which was surrounded on all sides by the vast ocean….), I generally loved living there for those two years, six weeks, and perhaps four days. I worked as a reporter for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin (which has now…
Dreams or Delusions
A year ago, if you’d asked me my wildest dreams about my debut year, I would’ve gotten starry eyed and mentioned B&N’s most anticipated lists, LGBTQ awards, fanfiction, and fanart. Interviews and large convention invites. My favorite authors recognizing me. Then, if you’d pressed, I might have whispered things like the Hugo awards or what do you know about the Campbell? After a year of really being in publishing and…
[News Flash] January 13, 2019
Thank you so much to yesterday’s guest, Barbara Ridley! If you haven’t already, enter the #DebBallGiveaway to win a copy of When It’s Over. You can enter by sharing our post on Facebook and/or retweeting the following tweet (make sure you follow @DebutanteBall on Twitter too!): So excited to have @barbara_ridley on the @DebutanteBall this week! RT & follow for a chance to win a copy of her #novel WHEN IT’S…
Interview with Barbara Ridley + WHEN IT’S OVER giveaway
We are so excited to welcome Barbara Ridley to the Debutante Ball this week! Barbara was born in England but has lived in California for more than 35 years. After a successful career as a nurse practitioner, which included publication of academic articles in peer-reviewed journals, she is now focused on creative writing. Her work has appeared in journals such as Writers Workshop Review, ArsMedica, The Copperfield Review, Blood and Thunder and Stoneboat. WHEN IT’S…
A TBR For 2019
This week, I thought I might try to focus on picking one book to represent each genre I like to read in order to keep my list here from being a thousand books long. I may fudge a little, since many of the books I’m anticipating could fall into more than one category. YOUNG ADULT: On the Come Up by ANGIE THOMAS I know this pick could not be…
No, I’m not reading 100 books this year. But I’ll read these five.
I am not a fast reader, which makes keeping up with all the new books sort of difficult. This year, I’m excited for lots of great books (like Willa & Hesper by Amy Feltman! The Affairs of the Falcóns by Melissa Rivero! Good Talk by Mira Jacob! The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling!), but I’m also looking forward to finally get to read the ones that have been sitting on my shelf already….
