Mark Freeman's Blog, page 5

Author Interview: Jackson Pearce

Jackson Pearce's debut novel, AS YOU WISH, is due to be released August 25th.  Jackson was kind enough to sit for an interview with me about her novel and life as an author.  You can find out more about Jackson and follow her on Youtube  or at her website and blog.

A bit on Jackson  from her online Bio:

"Jackson Pearce is twenty-five years old and currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with a slightly cross-eyed cat and a lot of secondhand furniture. She recently graduated from the University of Geo

Dull Boy Review.

Dull Boy by Sarah Cross

Description provided by Amazon.com.

What do you do if you can deadlift a car, and you spend your nights flying to get away from it all? If you're fifteen-year-old Avery Pirzwick, you keep that information to yourself. When you're a former jock turned freak, you can't afford to let the secret slip.

But then Avery makes some friends who are as extraordinary as he is. He realizes they're more than just freaks—together, maybe they have a chance to be heroes. First, though, they

Eyes Like Stars Contest

Lisa Mantchev, the supremely talented author of Eyes Like Stars, is running a pretty neat contest to promote her book.  She's giving away copies of her book to ten people who email her pictures of her book at landmarks or interesting places around the world.  Or, if you don't have a copy of the book yet, you can blog about where you'd take a picture of her book should you win one.

Me? 

Well, considering I live in Vermont, my first choice of landmark would, of course, be the Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream

Lots of Goings Ons…

The last week or so has been a very busy one, so please excuse the lack of actual topic for this entry.

I am currently in the process of conducting an online interview, my first, with Kaleb Nation (aka Twilightguy.com) the author of the forthcoming novel, Bram Hanbric: The Farfield Curse.  I'm really excited to be able to interview Kaleb for my website.  He is going to be the next household name in terms of YA literature and to be able to interview him is EPIC.  The interview will be posted to my

Vultures lurking about the court house…and no, I don't mean the lawyers.

I'm back at the library today and, finding myself gazing out the window at this summer's uncharacteristic blue sky, noted several turkey vultures soaring about.  They were circling the Hyde Park Court House, the tallest building in the village with its prominent clock tower.  The building is also shadowed by a large radio or communications tower next to it, not nearly as attractive architecturally as the court house, but I'm sure much more effective to the County Sheriff's department who – I bel

Alarming is Our Desensitivity to Alarms

So, for the past three days a car alarm has been going off, fairly regularly, outside the library where I've been writing.  The library is across the street from the court house and my seat on the second floor offers me an excellent vantage point of the car in question.  Now, not every time , but most someone has been standing next to or relatively close to the car when the alarm goes off.  Practically every time the alarm goes off there are other people on the street nearby.  A passerby on the

Green.

Jim Henson really didn't know how complex the word "green" would become when he had Kermit lament his famous line.  Decades later and the word has taken on a whole new meaning, but even then there was so much more to the word than just one frog's take on it.

The word has become a part of our lexicon referring to how "eco-friendly" someone or something is.  It's become quite hip, and Kermit would appreciate this, to be green.  Just recently, a very conservative friend was telling me about replacin

Soccer Camp and Sports Dad Anxieties

So, my oldest daughter just wrapped up British Soccer Camp this past week. It was her first go at any kind of camp, really, as well as her first concentrated dose of any organized sport. Overall, I think she succeeded. I'm still not so sure about myself.

I kept my promise, mostly, to not embarrass her by shouting, cheering, or otherwise drawing any attention to her on the field. With the exception of one or two outbursts, I kept my word. She did not admonish me for these failings, if anything, my

Percy Jackson and the Olympians Review

Percy Jackson and the Olympians, a Young Adult Urban Fantasy, written by Rick Riordan and published by Disney  Hyperion for Children is a New York Times selling five book series.  Riordan re-imagines many of the Greek tales and myths and repackages them into a modern urban fantasy revolving around a few young demi-god – halfblood – heroes.  The main protagonist, Percy Jackson, is a young, newly discovered halfblood, and son of one of the Greek gods – who really do exist and live in the clouds ab