Alison Kent's Blog, page 26
July 13, 2010
Books to turn to
Earlier today on Twitter, Lynn Griffin, author of Sea Escape, asked:
Writers–what novels or books on craft see you through when the writing gets tough?
We all have our favorite craft books, but I really loved how she used novels to illustrate what they've helped her with. Here's her list (though she may have added more after I grabbed these):
For theme and use of symbols I turn to John Irving's PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY
For strong execution of multiple points of view, I turn to THE HISTORY OF LOVE...
July 10, 2010
So I made this pie . . .
Like a lot of you probably do, I subscribe to Hungry Girl's newsletter. For July 4th, she included a crock pot recipe for pulled pork. My favorite pulled pork recipe is The Pioneer Woman's, but I wanted to give HG's a try.
The only change I made is that I used all tenderloin and no shoulder, and though the meat was good, the sauce was a vinegary no go. We had a ton leftover, but I also had a chuck roast that had to be cooked, so did that the next day (again, The Pioneer Woman's no fail...
July 5, 2010
AFTER THE NIGHT, a mini-review
Faith Devlin: A poor, outcast child in Prescott, Louisiana, she'd always adored the town's golden boy from afar. But he called her white trash that sultry Southern night when his rich, respected father disappeared, along with her pretty Mom. Now Faith wanted to hate Gray Rouillard…not to feel a powerful surge of desire. But she couldn't quench her passion, any more than she could hide the truth about the past she had waited so long to unravel.
Gray Rouillard: Even when he raised hell, he did ...
July 4, 2010
July 1, 2010
A book within a book & Dear Author's Blogger Bundle
For their second blogger bundle, Jane of Dear Author went to the experts: readers! Their task: recommend titles that have not been previously available as ebooks and vote on the ones they want in a bundle. Suggestions were made, reasons argued and votes cast. Now, the four winners are gathered here! From a romantic comedy from Harlequin Duets to an unusual younger hero story, they were the books that stayed in readers' hearts and intrigued new readers' minds.
It was great fun to see readers c...
June 30, 2010
Small town names (& a contest)
Small town contemporary romances are all the rage. I'm not sure if we have Robyn Carr to thank for that, with her Virgin River series, or Susan Wiggs, with her Lakeshore Chronicles, or Debbie Macomber, with Blossom Street and Cedar Cove. Maybe Jan Karon started it all with Mitford.
Or maybe readers are responsible, ready for quiet streets without otherworldly creatures lurking in alleyways, allowing for Emilie Richards' Happiness Key, and Toni Blake's Destiny, and Carly Phillips' Serendipity, ...
June 29, 2010
Don't know much about poetry, but I know what I like, and I LOVE Kim Addonizio
Originally posted May 13, 2009
Today at Paperback Writer, Lynn Viehl is talking about poetry and Sage Cohen's book WRITING THE LIFE POETIC. I know next to nothing about poetry, not about iambic pentameter or modernist and post-modernist, though I do love me a good Haiku and for awhile was Twittering in Haiku form. That said, PBW's post reminded me of my discovery of Kim Addonizio. Her work is gritty and raw and real, and it's the same tone that I find in many of my favorite fiction authors...
Don’t know much about poetry, but I know what I like, and I LOVE Kim Addonizio
Originally posted May 13, 2009
Today at Paperback Writer, Lynn Viehl is talking about poetry and Sage Cohen’s book WRITING THE LIFE POETIC. I know next to nothing about poetry, not about iambic pentameter or modernist and post-modernist, though I do love me a good Haiku and for awhile was Twittering in Haiku form. That said, PBW’s post reminded me of my discovery of Kim Addonizio. Her work is gritty and raw and real, and it’s the same tone that I find in many of my favorite fiction authors, where prettiness isn’t used to cover up the truth, but potent words are used to convey it.
Since I’m such a blogging failure these days, I thought I’d share a couple of her poems that are available online at Poets.org and PoemHunter.com, and urge you to check her out. (Disclaimer: The poems aren’t necessarily included in the covers of the volumes shown. I just grabbed those for illustration purposes.)
You Don’t Know What Love Is
but you know how to raise it in me
like a dead girl winched up from a river. How to
wash off the sludge, the stench of our past.
How to start clean. This love even sits up
and blinks; amazed, she takes a few shaky steps.
Any day now she’ll try to eat solid food. She’ll want
to get into a fast car, one low to the ground, and drive
to some cinderblock shithole in the desert
where she can drink and get sick and then
dance in nothing but her underwear. You know
where she’s headed, you know she’ll wake up
with an ache she can’t locate and no money
and a terrible thirst. So to hell
with your warm hands sliding inside my shirt
and your tongue down my throat
like an oxygen tube. Cover me
in black plastic. Let the mourners through.
I want a red dress.
I want it flimsy and cheap,
I want it too tight, I want to wear it
until someone tears it off me.
I want it sleeveless and backless,
this dress, so no one has to guess
what’s underneath. I want to walk down
the street past Thrifty’s and the hardware store
with all those keys glittering in the window,
past Mr. and Mrs. Wong selling day-old
donuts in their café, past the Guerra brothers
slinging pigs from the truck and onto the dolly,
hoisting the slick snouts over their shoulders.
I want to walk like I’m the only
woman on earth and I can have my pick.
I want that red dress bad.
I want it to confirm
your worst fears about me,
to show you how little I care about you
or anything except what
I want. When I find it, I’ll pull that garment
from its hanger like I’m choosing a body
to carry me into this world, through
the birth-cries and the love-cries too,
and I’ll wear it like bones, like skin,
it’ll be the goddamned
dress they bury me in.
June 28, 2010
212, a mini-review
When New York University sophomore Megan Gunther finds personal threats posted to a Web site specializing in campus gossip, she's taken aback by their menacing tone. Someone knows her daily routine down to the minute and is watching her — but thanks to the anonymity provided by the Internet, the police tell her there's nothing they can do. Her friends are sure it's someone's idea of a joke, but when Megan is murdered in a vicious attack, NYPD Detective Ellie Hatcher is convinced that the...
June 27, 2010
CAUGHT, a mini-review
17 year-old Haley McWaid is a good girl, the pride of her suburban New Jersey family, captain of the lacrosse team, headed off to college next year with all the hopes and dreams her doting parents can pin on her. Which is why, when her mother wakes one morning to find that Haley never came home the night before, and three months quickly pass without word from the girl, the community assumes the worst.
Wendy Tynes is a reporter on a mission, to identify and bring down sexual predators via...
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