A Circuitous Route: The reflection of the world is blues, that’s where that part of the music is at – Jimi Hendrix I have no way to express how stunned I am, sitting here today, holding my newly hatched ARCs. It is surreal to see this book in galley form, it is surreal to see my family hold my debut novel in their hands. By all accounts I should…
I remember listening to Santana’s “Maria, Maria”, and wondering what the hell kind of Latina I was for not being more like HER. In college in Southern California, I even used to think: she’s not far from me now. She’s out there, falling in love in East LA, and here I am, earning a college degree and making passes at men outside my family’s income bracket. That gap between me and…
The Twice-Born Book: I wrote my first book because I wanted to read it – Toni Morrison I’m a voracious reader. I admit it. I started young – one of my favorite books came in to my possession when I turned nine. A friend of the family gave me Anthony B. Lake’s A Pleasury of Witticisms and Word Play. Inside those pages I learned all about anagrams and palindromes,…
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…
This week, we take a break from our traditional Saturday Guest Author posts in order to introduce you to the new class of Debutante Ball authors! We are so excited for them to begin their tenure starting tomorrow! Layne Fargo will be taking over the weekly News Flash. Layne Fargo has Master’s degrees in theater and library science, which seem slightly less useless now that she writes very dramatic books….
As I contemplated this post, I wondered what more I could say. I feel like I’ve pulled back the curtain on my life a bit this year as we’ve gone through the ups and downs of being a debut author. I’m not going to lie, it’s been hard and exhilarating and daunting and anxiety inducing and a dream come true and a nightmare all at the same time. It’s been…
This has been an amazing year! I’ve learned so much — about publishing, about myself as a writer, about the writing and reading community. I’m so thankful I had the opportunity to write for the blog every week, to push me to think about topics I might not have otherwise. I have four amazing friends who have my back, and I’m so thankful for that. The writing community…
Yeah, baby! Post #52! I did it!!!! Whew. At the beginning of this adventure, I doubted my ability to churn out an article a week. But despite the effort required to make this blogging thing work, writing for The Debutante Ball has been infinitely worthwhile. I looked back over my year’s worth of posts this week, and while some of them did veer toward the crappy end of the…
A few weeks ago my kids and I went to Cedar Point, which claims to be the roller coaster capital of the world. My day was filled with moments of absolute terror, exhilaration, and an assortment of pains in my legs and feet. A roller coaster may be a tired metaphor for a book release, but I’m standing by it. It’s my last post on the Ball, and tired is…
Debuting is hard. This past year has felt, in many ways, like a crucible of anxiety. There’s so much build-up, so many expectations, and then such detritus left behind when the rush ebbs away. For someone already inclined to fret, this pretty swiftly became a Problem, and so a lot of the past year has been spent learning new techniques for managing my instincts for self-flagellation. Last week, my extended…
