C.L. Coons's Blog

Contest! Want a $10 giftcard? You got it!

Okay, everyone! It's contest time! Tomorrow is FREE PANCAKE DAY at IHOP (http://www.ihoppancakeday.com/index.html) -- So, here's your challenge: Bring your copy of Collide to free pancake day and take a picture of you, Collide and your pancakes, and add it to my Facebook page! ( http://bit.ly/d5iYQh ) The picture with the most "LIKES" will win a $10 gift card to IHOP or STARBUCKS or iTUNES - you pick! Contest ends tomorrow at MIDNIGHT and voting will be open until SUNDAY!

Check out the YouTube for more details:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ej0e5C...

Collide available at Barnes & Noble & an Event.

Hi Readers!
I have a few items of business this morning ...

First, I am so excited to announce that B&N is stocking Collide, as evidenced on their website. While this is awesome, what's really badass is that member's price is available for everyone! Which means you can get your copy for $12.20!
I don't know how long this will last, but be sure to get your copy asap!
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/book...

Next, I wanted to send out an open invitation to people living in Phoenix, Arizona. I was invited to speak on a panel this coming Saturday at the Mesa Public Library at 1pm. You can find out more info at http://booktour.com/author/cl_coons

Hope to see you there!

First Big Announcement of 2010!

I am pleased to announce my part­ner­ship in Lit­Sis­ters Pub­lish­ing, a bou­tique pub­lisher spe­cial­iz­ing in high qual­ity fic­tion by women authors. Each part­ner is an acclaimed author in her own right and, together, the part­ners bring over sixty years of busi­ness, mar­ket­ing, PR, R & D, and entre­pre­neur­ial acu­men to this new era of pub­lish­ing.

We have taken our des­tiny into our own hands and are excited to empower other women authors on their jour­ney to pub­li­ca­tion and beyond. Lit­Sis­ters is cur­rently pro­duc­ing our 2010 list . Please check in with us later this year for infor­ma­tion on sub­mis­sion oppor­tu­ni­ties for our 2011 list.

For more infor­ma­tion, please find us at www.litsisterspublishing.com. Fur­ther, we invite you to join our Lit­Sis­ters writ­ing com­mu­nity – open to all writ­ers – at www.litsisters.com. Sign up for our newslet­ter to receive updates, tips and news.

Get to know the delicious, gorgeous Hayden Thompson!

I’m watch­ing Leah and Hay­den hug, as she’s about to leave and give him pri­vacy for his sit down with me. He kisses her cheek and tou­sles her hair and she smiles up at him – God, he’s so much taller than she is — and she reaches for the door han­dle.

“Wait,” he says. She stops and turns around. From the ground next to the chair she just sat in for her inter­view, he picks up her Burberry purse. “Don’t for­get your bag.”
Leah takes it from him and gives me a bash­ful smile. “Thanks, Den. Talk to you later,” she says. Another quick hug, and she’s gone.
CL: Nice to see you, Hay­den.
HT: Call me Den. What’s doing, CL?
CL: Shall we get started?
HT: Let’s rock it.

Favorite color:
“Pur­ple,” he says. Final. No ques­tion. Why, I ask. “It’s a good color,” he says.
All right. Mov­ing on.

Favorite sea­son:
“I like win­ter. It doesn’t get all that cold in Phoenix, or in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, where I’m from, but it’s chilly enough to need to wear lay­ers. It’s a nice change from the mil­lion degree heat we have most of the year.”

If you could live any­where in the world, where would you live and why?
Hay­den rakes his hair out of his eyes, tuck­ing it behind his ear. “I like where I live,” he shrugs. “I’m a sim­ple guy. I moved here to go to ASU for my degree in design, and love it here. It’s a good place to put down some roots.”

What’s been the great­est moment of your life so far?
He half-smiles, and I can tell from the mis­chief that’s danc­ing in his eyes, he’s not going to give me the answer I want. “I’m really proud of being a busi­ness owner. I’ve always wanted to be self-employed. My design com­pany is some­thing I’m really proud of.”
Way to avoid the ques­tion, Den.
“Fine,” he says, with a hint of amuse­ment in his voice. “When the Red Sox won the World Series.”
I sigh.

Do you have a cell phone, if so… what kind is it?
Hayden’s half smile turns into a full one, and I know he’s in his ele­ment. He’s a guy’s guy, all gad­gets and elec­tron­ics and cars and sports. From his pocket, he extracts an iPhone. “I love this thing. My iPhone is my world.” He’s flip­ping through things, and throw­ing out words like “apps” and “e-readers” and shows me his cal­en­dar, how he can buy movie tick­ets on it and a pic­ture he took of Leah. “Pretty cool, huh?”

If you won $1,000,000 in the lot­tery, how would you spend it?
“I don’t know that I would. I don’t need much. I have my car, my place … I think I’d leave most of it in the bank. Maybe take Bowen shop­ping, she’d like that. And buy my par­ents a new car. They need one so bad.”

What’s one place you feel the most peace­ful?
He raises an eye­brow at me like he’s try­ing not to ask me where I’m get­ting these frilly ques­tions. “I don’t know! I guess I like Bowen’s kitchen. The chairs at her table are comfy, and she always has killer snacks. That’s pretty peaceful.”

Favorite movie?
“Indi­ana Jones. Lucas makes clas­sics. Indy, Star Wars … that’s pure gold, CL. Pure. Gold. Indy on DVD is what got me through col­lege. Honest.”

Favorite lyric from a song?
Hay­den looks at me like I’ve asked him to spell a thirty-letter word. “How can I pos­si­bly answer that? There are far too many amaz­ing lines.” Pick from your top-ten, I tell him. He bites his bot­tom lip in thought and I can’t help but notice he and Leah have that habit in com­mon. “I’m going with old-school Bon Jovi here, CL. Wanted Dead or Alive. ‘I walk these streets, a loaded six string on my back / I play for keeps, ’cause I might not make it back / I been every­where, and I’m stand­ing tall / I’ve seen a mil­lion faces and I’ve rocked them all.’ God,” Hay­den says, shak­ing his head. “The man is a genius.”

Are you a cat per­son or a dog per­son?
“Dog!” he says, as quickly as Leah did. “I can’t do cats.”

You’re stranded on a desert island. You can take three things with you. One has to be a book, one has to be an album (we’ll pre­tend you can lis­ten to it) and one per­son:
“As for a book, I’d take Hatchet by Gary Paulsen. I read it when I was a kid, for school, and it stuck with me. Maybe it would give me some sur­vival ideas,” he chuck­les. His laugh sends goose­bumps fly­ing down my arms, and I’m caught up in the melody of it. He’s divine. “For an album? That’s a tough one. I’d have a hard time nar­row­ing it down between Bon Jovi, Cold­play, Jour­ney and Sina­tra. I know, I have music ADD. Okay, and I can bring a per­son? I’d bring Bowen. Leah’s some­one you want to be stuck with on a desert island.”
Why, I ask.
That mis­chief is back in his eyes again. “She’s good fun,” he says, and leaves it at that.

If you put your iPod on ran­dom right now, what’s the first song that plays?
“I don’t have mine with me,” he says, with a frown. “But I’ll ran­domly pick, and I have a feel­ing Bowen put some girlie crap on there. I bet Spice Girls or Brit­ney Spears would play first, to embar­rass me.”

What soothes you?
The smile in his voice fades a bit as he speaks, and it’s replaced by a soft­ness. He crosses his legs at his ankles and brushes a strand of hair from his ocean green eyes that seem to be a bit darker now. “When I’m stressed,” he says, look­ing down at his knees. “I go to Bowen’s and we watch a movie. We sit together on the couch, and I always put my arm around her. I dunno. There’s some­thing sooth­ing about sit­ting with her and watch­ing a movie. Calms me right down. Go fig­ure.”
And I decide at that moment to be a crappy jour­nal­ist and not push him for more info, and let his words hang in the air between us.

What do you want your life to be like in five years?
Hay­den looks back up at me. “Like it is right now. I want to have my com­pany still doing well, maybe get a big­ger place, have the Pon­tiac paid off … I still want to have break­fast with Leah at IHOP every Sat­ur­day morn­ing. I want to go shoot pool and have a beer with Gary and the guys.” What about mar­riage and chil­dren, I ask. He stops for a minute, and then nods. “A wife and kids would be the best. I want kids, for sure. And I want to be mar­ried. If that hap­pens in the next five years, great. If not, I can wait. I’m only going to do this once, and I want it to be right.”

What are you most afraid of?
“This is going to make me sound like a wuss, but los­ing Bowen. She’s my anchor. For the past eight years, she’s been my best friend. I can’t imag­ine my life with­out her. Can we lay off these seri­ous ques­tions for a bit, CL? Shit!”

Fine. What’s your favorite dessert?
“Cheese­cake. Oh, man, I love cheese­cake! Not as much as I love pan­cakes, but cheese­cake is up there.”

If you could go on a vaca­tion for a week to one place, where would you go?
“I’ve always wanted to go to Italy, or France. The food would be amaz­ing. And before you ask, yes, I would absolutely just go to eat.”

What’s your favorite ice cream?
Hay­den grins. I see how he works. Ask him life ques­tions and he shifts in his seat. Talk to him about food, and he comes alive. “Choco­late Chip Cookie Dough,” he says, and his stom­ach growls. “Man, I’m hungry!”

What’s your favorite arti­cle of cloth­ing?
“My Chucks,” he says, glanc­ing down at his feet with ado­ra­tion. His clas­sic black and white Con­verse Chuck Tay­lors have seen bet­ter days, but they are def­i­nitely well-loved. “Jeans and t-shirt and Chucks. They’re the best.”

Last one, Den. What’s your favorite mem­ory?
And just like Leah did, he gets quiet again. He looks down at his Chucks and takes a deep breath. “What did Bowen say?” he asks. I tell him he needs to wait and read it for him­self. No free­bies from me. He chuck­les at me and nods. “Fair enough,” he says. “The first thing that comes to mind is the first Dbacks game I took Bowen to. She wasn’t a big ball fan before then, but I got her going. That was fun. But I think my absolute favorite was the year we all went out to the beach for New Year’s Eve. We had a fun night.”

I bite my tongue, I don’t want to give any­thing away, but I have a feel­ing that Hay­den and Leah have no idea just how much they’re on the same wave­length. I just smile at him.
“This is great, Den,” I say, scrib­bling notes.
He stands and pulls out his phone, and I can see he’s check­ing his text mes­sages. Leah’s sent him a cou­ple dur­ing our inter­view. He laughs to him­self and types back at a speed that must be world-record level. When I’m done scrib­bling notes and he’s done tex­ting or buy­ing a Volvo or what­ever it is he can do on that phone, he smiles at me.
“This was fun, CL. Thanks for the inter­view,” he says, his man­ners impeccable.

“That’s my line,” I joke as he gives me a hug.

I can hear his phone beep in his pocket, and he laughs again. It’s from deep within his chest, and it vibrates through me. It’s impos­si­bly sim­ple to get caught up in him.

“I bet­ter run, that’s Bowen. She’s dying to know what we talked about and she said some­thing about post-interview pan­cakes, so …”

His laugh is con­ta­gious as I let out a gig­gle. “Have fun,” I say and give him a wave as he walks out the door.

When he’s gone, I decide to take a break. Mark isn’t due for a few hours, so I’ll go grab some lunch and meet up with him for Twenty Ques­tions later.

Twenty Questions with Leah Bowen

Twenty questions with Leah Bowen; an interview.

Favorite color:

“Easy. Green. I’m def­i­nitely a green girl,” she says, with a blush. I want to point out that both Mark and Hay­den have green eyes, but I move on.

Favorite sea­son:

“I love the spring. Spring in Phoenix is beau­ti­ful. The sum­mer is crazy hot, and we don’t get much of a win­ter … but the spring is all about new life, and I love that.”

If you could live any­where in the world, where would you live and why?

“You know, I adore liv­ing in Phoenix. But there’s some­thing about the Chicago metrop­o­lis that is so appeal­ing. I think if I had my way, though, some­where in Italy would be great. Maybe a Tus­can villa,” she laughs.

What’s been the great­est moment of your life so far?

Leah doesn’t even hes­i­tate with this one, “With­out a doubt, watch­ing Fire­fly grow. When I first started, I was threaded neck­laces in between classes, and shop­ping for gems when I wasn’t study­ing. It’s just so much big­ger than I ever dreamed.”

Do you have a cell phone, if so… what kind is it?

Leah reaches into her purse and pulls out a beat up flip phone. “I have this. I have no idea what brand it is. Den picked it out for me a few years ago when I needed a new one,” she says, and flips it open, giv­ing me a shrug. “Noth­ing fancy here. I can text and make and receive calls.”

If you won $1,000,000 in the lot­tery, how would you spend it?

Throw­ing her phone back into her purse, she sits back with a sparkle in her eye. “I’d buy a house. Noth­ing too big, but with a pool. And a car, so I could own it out­right,” she crin­kles her nose. “I hate monthly pay­ments. Out­side of buy­ing a ridicu­lously expen­sive purse or some­thing, I think I’d bank it and use the inter­est to build up Fire­fly even more.”

What’s one place you feel the most peaceful?

At this ques­tion, Leah blushes, and I some­how feel like I’ve asked her some­thing really inti­mate. She gets quiet and looks down at her hands. “I think a lot of peo­ple would answer that with a loca­tion … like the beach or some­thing. But for me …” she trails off and I have to clear my throat to get her atten­tion. When she looks up again, there’s some­thing serene in her face, as if she’s just men­tally gone to that peace­ful place. “Hayden’s liv­ing room. It’s always been so … peace­ful. His fur­ni­ture is so cushy and soft. He has these leather couches you can just sink into. And dark wood tables. The sim­plic­ity of the brown leather and un-fancy tables is just so … it puts me at com­plete ease.”

Favorite movie?

As if glad to be off the sub­ject, she perks up. “My favorite movie is Indi­ana Jones and the Tem­ple of Doom. When I was in col­lege Den got me turned on to them, he’d have them on in the back­ground while we were study­ing for finals.”

Favorite lyric from a song?

Leah twirls a curl around her fin­ger as she thinks. “I really love Frank Sinatra’s Fly Me To The Moon, you know? It’s so …” she stops, and I swear she swoons before she con­tin­ues. “You can get lost in that song. I love the line – fill my heart with joy, and let me sing for­ever more,” she says, in a sing-songy voice, like she’s try­ing not to belt out the tune. “It’s so sim­ple, but so full of emotion.”

Are you a cat per­son or a dog person?

“Dog!” she exclaims. “Marie has a cat. We don’t get along.”

You’re stranded on a desert island. You can take three things with you. One has to be a book, one has to be an album (we’ll pre­tend you can lis­ten to it) and one person:

“Ahh, the ‘stranded on an island’ ques­tion. You’re one heck of a jour­nal­ist, CL,” she says, rolling her eyes. I shake my head and we exchange smiles. “Oh-kay,” Leah says and is silent as she thinks about it. “I think I’d bring Wuther­ing Heights. And the for album … I’m going with this one com­pi­la­tion CD I found a while ago. It’s called Clas­sics of the Heart, and it’s all of these amaz­ing clas­si­cal piano pieces – oh, you’d love it, CL – I’d bring it to remind myself of the opti­mism and beauty that I left behind. And as for a per­son? Well, I’d like to say Mark. We just started dat­ing. That’s a lit­tle weird, isn’t it?” I shrug in the way that says hey-its-all-you-no-judgment, and she sighs. “I guess Den, then. He’s my best friend and the only per­son I can stand to be around for hours on end and not want to kill,” she laughs.

If you put your iPod on ran­dom right now, what’s the first song that plays?

“I actu­ally have mine with me! Another thing Den made me buy. He gave me the whole ‘Bowen, you’re eight years behind tech­nol­ogy!’ speech,” she says, in a per­fect imi­ta­tion of Hay­den as she pulls out the lit­tle lime green iPod Shuf­fle. She pushes a few but­tons, sticks white ear­buds in her ears and waits for a few sec­onds. Then, she’s laugh­ing hys­ter­i­cally. “Of course! It has to be the most embar­rass­ing song in the world!”

Leah won’t even tell me, she sim­ply hands over the ear­buds for me to sam­ple. Ugh, yeah, Embar­rass­ing is right. She’s lis­ten­ing to “If You Wanna Be My Lover” by the Spice Girls. I just shake my head and hand them back to her.

“Can we pre­tend that didn’t hap­pen?” she asks.

I just shake my head again.

What soothes you?

“When it rains in the desert. It’s so rare here. When it rains, the sound the droplets make when they hit the dirt, or the tin roofs, the way the palms rus­tle in the wind. It’s so soothing.”

What do you want your life to be like in five years?

This, she answers with cer­tainty. “I want Fire­fly to be huge. I want every­one to know what it is, and I want to be able to work it full time. I’d love to be mar­ried. Find the one, maybe have a dog. Maybe a baby, too. But my career has to come first. I’ve wanted Fire­fly to be a house­hold name my whole life.”

What are you most afraid of?

“Fail­ing,” she says, with­out miss­ing a beat. “Fire­fly is my life. I’ll do what­ever it takes.”

What’s your favorite dessert?

“I love cupcakes!”

If could go on a vaca­tion for a week to one place, where would you go?

Leah nods, and smiles. There’s some­thing dis­tant in her eyes, as if a vaca­tion sounds amaz­ing, but could never hap­pen. “I would love to spend a week in Paris. But, for me, I want to be in love when I go, you know? I know it’s cliché to say that it’s the most roman­tic city in the world, but I believe that. And I want to expe­ri­ence that with the per­son I love most in the world.”

What’s your favorite ice cream?

“Mint choco­late chip!”

What’s your favorite arti­cle of clothing?

“Not to be all shameless-self-promotion and all, but my Fire­fly medal­lion,” she fin­gers the sil­ver chain and cir­cu­lar medal­lion that hangs around her neck. “It’s from my core col­lec­tion, and it’s my favorite thing. I wear it almost every day.”

Last one, Leah, and we’ll wrap up. What’s your favorite memory?

That famil­iar blush rises in her cheeks again and she shakes her head just a touch. I’m sure she didn’t expect me to notice, but she bites her bot­tom lip and answers in a tiny voice. “New Years Eve. Five years ago,” she says. Care to elab­o­rate?, I ask her. “It was just,” she pauses, then her gaze meets mine. “It was a great night.”

Pre-Order Collide & Save!

Hi GoodReaders!
Just a blog post to let you know that COLLIDE is now available for pre-order!
You can order your signed copy at www.clcoons.com
Just let us know who to sign it to, and we'll get you your copy before the official release date of December 10th!

By pre-ordering COLLIDE, you save $2 off the amazon list price, and have a flat shipping rate. We'll ship to anywhere in the US & Canada.

And, feel free to send me any questions you may have. I'd love to get an Q&A started.

Thrilled!

Hi Everyone,
I can't tell you how thrilled I am to be on Goodreads. I have been an avid user for a while now, and I hope to share some of my favorite books with you, as well as keep in touch and answer any and all Collide-related questions when they come up.
Collide is launching on December 10th, and I'm so excited to share this work with you.
Talk soon!
CL