Editor’s Note: This week we’re catching up with last year’s Debs and seeing what they’ve been writing, publishing and working on since they were last on the Ball. Today, we welcome back Natalia Sylvester, author of CHASING THE SUN. What a treat it is to be back at the Deb Ball! Thanks so much to Karma, Sona, Amy, Shelly, and Colleen for the invite. When Amy mentioned that this week…
Congratulations to Amy Mays, Lauren Stacks Yamaoka, and Michelle Westenbroek — winners of FIVE DAYS LEFT, by guest author Julie Lawson Timmer! Check back next Sunday for the winners of FOREVER, INTERRUPTED, and AFTER I DO, by this week’s guest author Taylor Jenkins Reid… From the 2015 Debs… Colleen Oakley spent Friday and Saturday this week in Norfolk, Va. at SIBA, the conference for the Southern Independent Booksellers Association. It…
This isn’t a final goodbye, but a fare-thee-well until we next meet online (or maybe in person!). And, this probably isn’t news to anyone: We’re going to miss being Debs and miss all of you. Keep in touch by bookmarking the individual blogs of all the 2014 Debs: Lisa Alber has just reprised her blog. You can also find her at www.lisaalber.com, Twitter, and Facebook. This week a Northern California…
I’ve started and deleted this post so many times I’ve lost count. A confession: for someone who’s built their life around words, I often find life gives us moments far more meaningful. Maybe that’s what all the writer angst finally boils down to: we can’t ever express exactly what we hope to. But we can’t not try. So rather than saying good-bye, I’ll try to explain why being a Deb…
Congrats to Jenna, who won a signed copy of A PINCH OF OOH LA LA from Renee Swindle! From the 2014 Debs… Lisa Alber is having a blast at Killer Nashville. Also, silly her, she likes that her bio was included on the Left Coast Crime Crimelandia committee page. Fun to be helping out with that conference coming up in Portland in March, 2015! Susan Gloss says “pinch me!” As part…
I love that we titled this week’s topic “Progress” on our new works. I have to chuckle/whimper when I see that. It’s about the same noise I make when people ask me how my next book is going, even though I’m still doing events, promotion, and all-around worrying/looking after Chasing the Sun. The truth is, I’m not sure how it’s going. My agent’s reading the first few chapters because I…
I thought this post would be much harder to write because, like Lori, I don’t quite feel like quite enough time has passed between now and my launch to effectively look back and reflect. But then I realized we don’t always have to let a lot of time pass before reflecting. We can look around and see where we are now and take a moment to assess what we’d like to…
Congrats to Marci & Sharon, who won copies of DESOLATION ROW from Kay Kendall! From the 2014 Debs… Heather Webb is so excited! She hired an artist—her former high school student who is now a professional artist—to do charcoal renditions of Camille Claudel’s works for her novel RODIN’S LOVER. (Photo rights were astronomically expensive and impossible to obtain) They’re utterly gorgeous—completely breathtaking! She can’t wait to share them! Lisa Alber is…
Lori was right. I’ve got no answers here. I’m imagining that back when we finalized this year’s topic calendar and decided this week we’d talk about Overwhelmed Author Syndrome, we all thought: all our books will be launched by then, and surely we’ll be feeling like pros! Like we’ve totally got a handle on things. But the truth is, I’m overwhelmed constantly. The good news is, I’ve learned a few…
Congrats to Ronna, who won a signed copy of BLADE OF THE SAMURAI from Susan Spann! From the 2014 Debs… Natalia Sylvester did an interview with the Los Angeles Review of Books, in which CHASING THE SUN was described as “an important and moving addition to the literature chronicling the brutality suffered by Peruvians during President Fujimori’s decade in office.” Also, she got some pictures from her Univision appearance last week!…
