Deb Meredith is at the Malice Domestic Conference this weekend and on the panel “Get a Clue” on Sunday. On Monday, she will be at the Festival of Mystery in Pittsburgh, PA (the Greek Orthodox Church in Oakmont, at 12 Washington Avenue) starting at 4 PM.
Deb Eve will be at the CARE Conference and Celebration in Washington, DC, May 5 & 6. She will be speaking on a panel about connecting the world’s women in the fight against global poverty. CARE will also be actively promoting FIRST COMES LOVE, THEN COMES MALARIA, and ten percent of Eve’s royalties are being donated to CARE for their malaria prevention work in Africa.
FIRST COMES LOVE, THEN COMES MALARIA was recently given a glowing review at Founding Deb Kristy Kiernan’s blog. And it got a nice mention in What We’re Reading Now in the latest online issue of Fodor’s Travel Guides. Eve will also be a guest on The John Carney Show on KMOX-AM in St. Louis MO, on Tuesday, May 5 at 11 PM EST.
Debs past and present have donated items to the Brenda Novak online auction to benefit diabetes research. It’s just like eBay, but for charity! Hundreds of items of interest to readers, writers and anyone else will be available for bidding the entire month of May. The auction includes a signed advance copy of REAL LIFE & LIARS from Deb Kristina, from Graduate Deb Jenny Gardiner a signed copy of SLEEPING WITH WARD CLEAVER plus a critique of a partial by Jenny, plus two signed copies of DRIVING SIDEWAYS by Graduate Deb Jess Riley.
May 3rd, 2009
| Posted by admin | 2009 Debs, Eve Brown-Waite, First Comes Love, Then Comes Malaria, Kristy Kiernan, Meredith Cole, Posed for Murder
| One Comment
Deb Katie Alender is excited to present the book trailer for BAD GIRLS DON’T DIE. Click here to watch it at YouTube! She is also excited to finally have her hands on a “real” copy of BGDD, and to report that the book cover is even more gorgeous than she ever imagined.
Deb Meredith is off to Boston on Tuesday for an event with Kate’s Mystery Books at Redbones BBQ called Murder Underbones (55 Chester St., Sommerville, MA) from 5:30-7 PM.
Then, on her way back to NYC, Meredith will stop by the New Canaan, CT Library for a mystery panel with Jane Cleland and Rosemary Harris at noon (151 Main Street).
Deb Eve invites everyone to visit her beautiful new website! While there, you can read the first chapter as well as early reviews of FIRST COMES LOVE, THEN COMES MALARIA. You can also learn about the causes she’s supporting and by clicking on the Events tab, you can see a photo gallery of her life in Ecuador, Uganda and beyond.
Review News
Of Deb Katie Alender’s BAD GIRLS DON’T DIE, Kirkus Reviews says, “Strong characterization will draw readers in. Despite their realistic shortcomings, both primary and secondary characters are unique and satisfyingly complex.”
Graduate Deb News
Congratulations to founding Debutante Kristy Kiernan on the sale of her new novel to Berkley! This novel is about the emotional complications of in-vitro fertilization, in which a woman must grapple with the moral implications of learning she has an inheritable disease after her donated eggs have resulted in a child for her best friend.
Also congrats to founding Debutante Tish Cohen on the sale of her third novel, THE SATURDAY DAUGHTER, in which a sister and brother discover that the mother they thought abandoned them as children has actually been searching for them, and that their father, whose memory is decaying from Alzheimer’s, had kidnapped them away years ago, to Harper Perennial and Harper Canada.
Friends of the Debs
Kudos to friend of the Debs/Backspace.org founder (and therefore friend to authors everywhere!) Karen Dionne on the sale of her second novel, BOILING POINT, to Berkley, for publication in Fall 2010!
What We’re Reading
Deb Katie is reading Meg Cabot’s HOW TO BE POPULAR and Kathleen Norris’s ACEDIA AND ME.
March 22nd, 2009
| Posted by admin | 2009 Debs, Bad Girls Don't Die, Book Tour, Eve Brown-Waite, First Comes Love, Then Comes Malaria, Kristy Kiernan, Meredith Cole, Posed for Murder, Publishing
| One Comment
What a delight to be invited back to The Debutante Ball. Nice place you got here, filled with interesting, brilliant, and gorgeous women. Thanks for having me, I shall try to recall some of my own dancing skills for my visit so I don’t embarrass anyone.
When the 2009 Debs asked if I’d like to do a guest blog they said I should tell you all about my new book, Matters of Faith, but I always did have a tough time sticking to the topics, didn’t I? I also wasn’t sure what I would tell you that you couldn’t already get at my website, or on Amazon, or at any of the hundreds of book sites that have sprung up like chantrelles in the forest.
I could copy over the reviews (they were good), copy over the information on the back jacket (it’s about a Florida family dealing with a daughter with severe food allergies, and a son whose religious quest wreaks havoc when he brings home a girlfriend who doesn’t believe in medical intervention), and list a couple of great things that happened for the book (like being an IndieBound Notable Title and having Jacqulyn Mitchard give an endorsement), but it all seemed pretty dry.
So last night I logged onto the Ball, just to sort of immerse myself in it again, to maybe take a quick look at a few of my old posts, remember my blogging voice. But I wound up sitting on my sofa until almost midnight with my laptop on my…well, on my lap, and reading all of the Founders posts.
What fun we had! Wow, was that only a couple of years ago? I laughed (remember the week we had to write about bald men and everyone detested the topic and it wound up being our largest trafficked week ever?), and I cried (my iRobot – A Love Story features Niko The Beloved Troll, who we had to put to sleep in December, which I am still quite devastated over), and I shook my head in amusement at our collective nerves over our debuts coming out, oh, and I’d completely forgotten about Butter Daoe MacPherson! Watch for that debut in the future.
And then I read the posts in which we turned to Ball over to the Class of 2008, Danielle Younge-Ullman, Gail Konop No Hyphen Baker, Jenny Gardiner, Jess Riley, Lisa Daily, and, well, Eileen Cook, and was filled with pride at what we’d accomplished and handed over, and then was amazed at all the things that class accomplished!
I got so nostalgic that I e-mailed the founders– Tish Cohen, Anna David, Mia King, Eileen Cook, and Jennifer McMahon– and told them how delightful that time was for me.
So, yeah, do me a favor, go buy Matters of Faith, that’d be great. Because if you don’t buy the book I don’t get to write another one. You know that. Right? But you don’t need a pithy blog entry to convince you to buy the book. You already know if you want to read it or not. So, go do your thing.
No, I decided what I really wanted to say, and it’s to the class of 2009: Most of you don’t know me that well, and hey, why should you care what I think about you? But… I AM SO PROUD OF YOU. Your bravery inspires me all over again.
I know what it took to get here. I know how hard it was. I know how hard it is. I know how hard it continues to be. I know how things might change, how you will lose some friends, gain others, worry over sales and marketing and publicity, and over learning it all. I know how you will struggle to be heard, and, even more important, to be understood. I know you will develop facial tics over reviews, not just from the critics, but from the readers, the one-star, the two-star, even the three-star heart stoppers. And I know the joy coming from the four and five-stars, the fan mail, the signing requests.
I am filled with excitement and happiness for you all, Kris, Eve, Tiffany, Meredith, and Katie. And I am filled with certainty that if you are good to each other and embrace this year with gratitude that you will look back on this time as one of the most fulfilling of your life. Don’t be afraid to stop for a minute and be emotional over it. Nobody who doesn’t understand will know what a goofball you are, and those who do understand will feel all goofbally for you.
Hang in there, it’s worth it, and I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat.
My very best wishes to you, Debutantes of 2009.
Dance pretty.
And thanks for having me.
January 17th, 2009
| Posted by Kristy | 2007 Debs, Farewell, Kristy Kiernan, Matters of Faith
| 13 Comments
I have so enjoyed catching up with my fellow founders this week! How lucky we were to have found such talented women, and how amazing that they’ve all gone on to be so successful. I’ve also had a great time following the 2008 Debutantes, the second class, the one the future of The Ball hinged on. And what a wonderful job they’ve done, not only growing the original concept to include fabulous guests, but also increasing readership and managing to get together in “real life” the way the Founders always wanted to but didn’t seem to be able to manage!
Perhaps one day we’ll do a big Debutante Reunion and ALL the classes can attend?
Ah, future plans. I love thinking about the future. And I’m looking forward to the 2009 Debs taking over, finding their dancing legs, and bringing new ideas and energy to The Ball. Congratulations to Debs past, present, and future. I think we’ve built a lovely dance here.
As for what I’ve been doing over the past year, well, I’ve mostly been wrestling with my e-mail in-box. Why will it NEVER empty?
I, like the other Founders, initially felt a relief at not being responsible for a weekly blog post, but as time went on I also found myself missing the opportunity to cast off some extra words and ideas clogging up my creativity. Does it fit in my book? Will it fit in a future book? No? Then get out of my head! Be gone, word demons!
Ahhh, I thought, perhaps I should blog again?
So, yes, I’ve continued to blog. I blog for “A Good Blog Is Hard To Find,” which is a blog made up of something like 32 Southern authors, so I only pop up there once every six weeks or so. I also blog over at Red Room, where I can blog as little or as much as I want and there are hundreds of authors there, also blogging whenever they feel like it. I tend to be slightly more “out there” at Red Room for some reason.
And then I started my own personal blog, mostly as a way of keeping people updated on my books, and that blog rolls over to my Amazon pages. Aside from all this blogging, I’ve also been Facebooking, Twittering, and SlingPaging. Yeesh, I’m everywhere!
I’ve also written another book, Matters of Faith, which came out a couple of weeks ago. It has received lots of exciting reviews, but you can see all that stuff on my website (and blog!). I’ve done things a little differently with Matters of Faith than I did with Catching Genius.
With a first book I think you just have to throw everything against the wall and see what sticks. Later on, after everything has calmed down, you check out the wall, sweep up what fell, and toss it away. So with Matters of Faith I am not doing nearly as much travel, which turned out to be absurdly expensive once totaled up.
I also learned that not all events (that you likely paid to go to) are created equal, and I think I’ve learned how to separate the wheat from the chaff so that I can make better decisions. There are some events at which you are simply an entertainer. I could have stood up there and juggled, told jokes, or simply made funny faces and it wouldn’t have mattered. But I didn’t get into this industry to entertain people with ME, I want to entertain them with my BOOKS. If I wanted to be a personal entertainer I would have been on Last Comic Standing.
So, you learn your lessons, and you make changes. And now I’m entering that part of the whole process again, and I’ve learned to politely decline (*gasp* I know, “decline” was NOT in my vocabulary as a debutante) some things, and to go after others. I’ll keep you posted on how all that works out for me!
In September Matters of Faith will be an IndieBound Notable Title, which, considering my unnatural love for indie bookstores is especially exciting for me.
I’m also writing a new book. I’ve been stuck at about 80,000 words for a month, mostly because I found it very difficult to work as the Matters of Faith publication date neared, and now that it’s out, I’m finding it just as hard! However, this is the nature of the career when you get past that debut year. You’re promoting one, editing one, writing one. And, oddly, that first thing never goes away. Just because a new one comes out doesn’t mean the first one disappears. So, to make this career work, you just keep adding on, so now I’m promoting two books, writing one, outlining one.
It’s an interesting transition to make, and I think I’m slowly getting a handle on it.
Home life hasn’t changed much. The husband is as adorable as ever and still incredibly supportive of the whole writing thing. The troll is still around, though going distressingly white on her muzzle, and shedding just as much as she ever did. We added a second Roomba to our family, and now we have dueling Roombas trying to keep up with the dog fur.
All of my orchids have officially come out of their pots and are thriving with zero help from me in trees around our home. Oh!! I do have some exciting news! I’m a brunette again! That’s right, I got tired of futzing with it and am back to my natural color. Well, as close as I remember it anyway. I still get it colored in order to cover up the white (not gray, startling white) hair. I’m not a savage after all.
Wow, the past year, distilled down to 900 words. Huh. Seems like it should take at least 1,200.
So, bring on the new Debs! I wish you all great luck, be kind to each other, you’ll be amazed at how your paths will continue to cross through the years.
Founder Kristy, continuing to work the dream, signing off…
August 23rd, 2008
| Posted by Kristy | 2007 Debs, Catching Genius, Kristy Kiernan, Matters of Faith, writing
| 10 Comments
Deb News:
Deb Jess is thrilled to announce that Driving Sideways is going back to press for a second printing!
Also, Jess would like to thank Julie Peterson at Booking Mama for a terrific review and interview this week.
Deb Danielle received three stars for her upcoming August debut of FALLING UNDER from Romantic Times.
Deb Jenny would like to thank Kim Alexander for the fun interview on Fiction Nation on XM Radio. Unfortunately Deb Jen was out of the country when it aired so didn’t get a chance to give heads-up on it! It might air again—we’ll see!
Founders News:
Founder Kristy Kiernan has received two fabulous early reviews for her August release, MATTERS OF FAITH. Publishers Weekly says:
“In this tense, well-paced novel about belief, Kiernan explores what happens when faith and love test the limits of family fealty. In southwest Florida, college student Marshall Tobias is in search of something to believe in. He thinks he’s found God and the woman he’s always dreamed of when he falls in love with fundamentalist believer Ada Sparks. But Ada’s against medical intervention for illness, and tragedy results when she sets out to “help” Marshall’s 12-year-old sister, Meghan, overcome her life-threatening allergies.
Switching points-of-view between Marshall and his mother, Chloe, Kiernan (Catching Genius) movingly portrays a 20-year-old marriage gone flat and torn apart by crisis, a troubled son, a daughter hovering between life and death, and the hard-to-discern boundaries between true faith and unhealthy fanaticism. She handles her difficult material respectfully.
Most interesting is her portrayal of the well-meaning traps parents fall into when encouraging open-ended exploration of faith without context, or choosing to remain silent. The thoughtful themes, interesting characters and page-turning drama of this novel will likely make it a book club favorite.”
And Romantic Times gave MATTERS OF FAITH 4-1/2 stars:
“The fluent prose and authentic characters will leave the reader wanting more from Kiernan.”
Deb Friends:
Deb friend Kristy Barrett has just launched a new book-review blog! Welcome to the blogosphere, Kristy!
Debs are Reading (and listening to):
Deb Jenny is just back from vacation and can’t rave enough about Anthony Capella’s THE WEDDING OFFICER. If you don’t come armed with an appetite, expect an unnatural need to get to your nearest Italian restaurant 
.
She also thoroughly enjoyed Joanna Bourne’s much-buzzed about debut novel, THE SPYMASTER’S LADY–the author has a true gift for dialogue, characterization, and an uncanny ability to write in french-accented English.
Fun beach read: Julia London’s AMERICAN DIVA.
And lastly, while on vacation with a few families of very dear friends, Deb Jenny was thoroughly impressed with the talented Low Hendley’s music, which was playing on someone’s iPod. Low, who’d come along on the trip with our friend’s son, Bryce Johnson, played a few songs for which he not only wrote the music and lyrics, but also performed all instruments and sang. All done on his Mac. Here’s a link if you want to hear (some songs include Bryce on guitar), and a couple of the songs are available for purchase on iTunes listed under his real name, Owen Hendley. Low’s heading off to college and I hope we’ll all get a chance to hear more music from him in the future.
June 29th, 2008
| Posted by Jess | 2008 Debs, Falling Under, Kristy Kiernan, Matters of Faith, Sleeping With Ward Cleaver, press mentions, what we're reading
| 2 Comments
I’ve been thinking about this topic a lot since it was first proposed and thinking how much I like it but that makes me wonder if that means I’m superficial since I immediately interpreted “hot” as meaning sexy or attractive or does that mean that I’m just caught up in this whole list thing that seems to be a trend or that I’m over-thinking the whole thing or…
… okay, 20, huh?
1-5. My fellow debutantes. So in the order of their “hot” mugs appearing on the site… Danielle Younge-Ullman, Eileen Cook, Jenny Gardiner, Jess Riley and Lisa Daily.
6. Lolly Winston
7. Kristy Kiernan
8. Amy MacKinnon
9. Tasha Alexander
10. Amy Guth
11. Nicole Krauss
12. Marisha Pessl
13. Sara Gruen
14. Jhumpa Lahiri
15. Zadie Smith
At this point I’m looking at my list and thinking that’s all females which I’m thinking that might lead you to believe I’m not attracted to men. But that isn’t true. I just think there are more attractive female authors than male authors. But in the spirit of fairness and equality and all that jazz, I’ll give it a shot…
16-18. For the hot nerdy brainy look, I’ll go with the three Jonathans… Jonathan Lethem, Jonathan Safran Foer, Jonathan Franzen.
19. Ethan Canin
20. Dave Eggers
That’s 20. That’s it.
Should we have a vote at the end of the week? Or, better yet, how about all of you, readers, share your list and then we can make a master list that we can… I don’t know, do something with?
Deb Gail
June 9th, 2008
| Posted by Gail | 2008 Debs, Danielle Younge-Ullman, Eileen Cook, Jenny Gardiner, Jess Riley, Kristy Kiernan, Lisa Daily, beauty
| 15 Comments
Okay, I don’t actually have dirt, but I like alliteration, needed a title and figured it might catch your attention. And I do have some behind the scenes tidbits to share that are interesting, if not particularly dirty.
We started as strangers back in July and had to divvy up jobs, learn how to use the site, post our blogs etc. About 200 emails later, with a huge amount of help and advice from Kristy and the other Founding Debs, we went “live” in the second week of August.
I was totally freaked. I feared the site would implode when I hit the word “publish.” I remember getting instructions from Kristy about how to do a link and I was so overwhelmed I thought, Well, I just won’t ever link anything. What do I need to link for?! I will be link-free. And I couldn’t imagine how I’d write something each week for an entire year. It took me about 25 hours to write and edit my first post (I know this because I have 20 hours of daycare weekly for my toddler and I used all of it, plus) and I spent the entire first day glued to the site waiting for comments, responding to them, rereading my post, rereading the comments, etc. This went on for weeks. I was an obsessive lunatic who would clearly never turn in my edits for Falling Under, much less write another book.
Well, we all got the hang of it and you’ve probably noticed we’re having a great time getting to know each other and many of you. But behind the scenes…
There have been 5353 emails between us on our closed Yahoo loop and hundreds more individual and group emails between us plus fan mail, letters from authors, pitches from publicists, applications to various conferences and festivals and a surprising number of people asking if we’ll help them plan a real debutante ball for them in their hometown, at their high school, etc.
We have brainstormed about publicity, title changes and cover art. (We are part of the reason the toenails got painted on the cover of Driving Sideways, for example.) We’ve shared stories about signings, talked about interviews, pitching, getting blurbs (thank you ladies for telling me to get them early and get them myself—my editor was very pleased and so were my publicists) and helped each other through the inevitable emergencies and freak-outs we all have as our release dates loom.
And somewhere along the line these wonderful women, who I’ve never met in person, became my friends–good friends!–and that has made this experience incredibly rich.
A couple of favorite memories:
The day Lisa found out Fifteen Minutes of Shame was going to be optioned (before she could announce it because the details were still being worked out) she emailed the news and we all sent whoops and cheers (via email) and proceeded to celebrate with our food or beverage of choice. (For me I believe it was Port.) The emails flew back and forth that night as we got the details from Lisa and then I believe we went on a wild and funny tangent about hidden talents which inspired Jess & Eileen to give that as our topic a few weeks later.
On Super Tuesday I emailed to let my fellow debs know that, like every good Canadian, I was watching American Politics on CNN. One email turned into 70 as we sat with our laptops in front of our televisions and watched. Jenny had stories from her days working for a Senator, Gail had thoughts about the Democratic candidates and we discussed everything from Obama vs Hillary to Mormon underwear. Another night of thought-provoking conversation mixed with snort-worthy hilarity.
On the site and off, my fellow debs have encouraged me and egged me on, drawn out hidden parts of my personality, challenged me and gained my respect and admiration. And as each book has come out I’ve felt, just a little bit, like it was my book too. And so this year, I get six debuts instead of one, and five new talented, smart, funny, generous friends.
Cheers to you, ladies.
And to all of you, of course
Deb Danielle
(Hey, did you notice the all the links I put in?! And BTW, I’m still quite obsessive on Thursdays.)
May 8th, 2008
| Posted by Danielle | 2008 Debs, Book covers, Danielle Younge-Ullman, Eileen Cook, Falling Under, Fifteen Minutes of Shame, Gail Konop-Baker, Jenny Gardiner, Jess Riley, Kristy Kiernan, Lisa Daily, Sleeping With Ward Cleaver, Unpredictable, drinking, movie deal
| 15 Comments
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