Anne Frasier's Blog, page 13

Wisconsin in August

ONE BOOK, ONE COMMUNITY AUTHOR EVENT

Tonight is the One Book, One Community event for The Orchard!


Where and when:


SouthShore Center
5735 Country Club Rd.Shorewood, MN


August 1


7:00 - 8:30


My talk about The Orchard will be followed by a Q&A.
Books will be available for signing.


Sponsored by Friends of the Excelsior Library, Presented in collaboration with Excelsior Books and SouthShore Center.


Excelsior Bay Books

CELEBRATE FRIDAY THE 13TH WITH A FREE CAT BOOK

A few things on this Friday the 13th:
The Girl with the Cat Tattoo is free today.



Black Tupelo, my complete short-story collection is now available for 3.99.




Also available:  Dark: Volume One 


And:  Dark: Volume Two 


 .99 each

Black Tupelo contains all of the short stories (but not poems) from Dark: One and Two, plus Max Under the Stars.

I can see you.

No. Really. I can see you.

USING A PEN NAME FOR NONFICTION

I've talked about this before, but I really wanted to use a pen name for The Orchard. At the very least, Anne Frasier, but even better would have been something entirely new. The name I came up with was my grandmother's last name of Ahlberg.  So I was thinking Terry Ahlberg.  I saw using a pen name as a way of telling my story without exposing people who wouldn't want to be exposed. But both my editor and agent felt very strongly about my using my real name, and other people in the business were adamant about using real locations. 


Now, coming up on the one-year anniversary of  the release of The Orchard, I will say that I feel even more strongly that it should have been published under a pen name due to the exposure it's received.  Way back when I was hoping to use something other than my name, my agent said nobody from my old life would even know the book existed anyway.  And both my editor and agent's argument was that it was nonfiction and nonfiction should be published under a writer's real name. I totally understand that, but I don't see a problem with publishing nonfiction under a pen name.  In fact, I think it could prove a good idea in many cases.  And a little mystery is never a bad thing.

FROM BOOK LOVER TO BOOKSELLER

Phyllis has been a book lover...well, I'm guessing her whole life.  I've known her online for years and years, and she knows her stuff and has ALWAYS BEEN a big, big, big supporter of authors.  A few years ago she decided to fulfill her lifelong dream of opening a bookstore. Yes, the economy wasn't great, but many of us have come to that place in our lives where we decide it's now or never.  And we dive in because not doing it is no longer an option.  That's how it is with pursuing dreams.   Coincidently, Phyllis and I both pursued our dreams at the same time. She dove in and opened a bookstore, and I dove in and wrote The Orchard. 


But the economy continued to slide, and print books... Well, we know how it's going with print books. And then...construction. I once did a signing at a bookstore that was surrounded by road construction, practically required a hardhat, and seemed in danger of falling off a cliff. The place was deserted because of course nobody could get there.  So I'm kind of imagining the same scenario with Phyllis's store. These construction projects are business killers. I see that all the time in Minneapolis and St. Paul.  But anyway, Phyllis ended up turning that open sign to closed.  Temporarily. She plans to find another (cheaper) location, and also plans to narrow the focus of the store. I think this is a doable plan, with more of a focus on local authors. This seems to be a successful formula for many bookstores.  But anyway, she's set up a funding campaign similar to Kickstarter.  Check it out and please pass the word.  We need our indie stores, and we need booksellers like Phyllis who love books and love to talk about books and love to share books.  


http://www3.indiegogo.com/darkhorserebirth

FLASH

 I've been going through my short stories, and I came across this piece of flash fiction written for The Clarity of Night...wow, maybe six or seven years ago?  





                                                           Midnight Road
            The strange object loomed above them.  “I wonder what that is,” Fontaine said.   But he didn’t really care.  It was silly to dwell on such things.            “See those wires?”  Mary pointed.  “I heard they used to carry some kind of power.”   She slapped a pair of patched jeans against a rock.            “My grandmother says that, but she’s nuts.”            Mary nodded.  “Crazy as a full moon in June.”            “Nutty as a nut tree.”            Fontaine threw the last of the wet clothes into his basket and got to his feet.  “My grandmother refused to go through the mental cleansing.”  There, he’d finally voiced his family shame.            “My mother says it’s vulgar to cling to memories.”  Mary stood and picked up her basket.   “A cleanse a day keeps the sorrow away.”            The sun rises in the East.  All children turn toward the sun.   Fontaine turned.  “A cleanse in time saves a mind.”            The darkening sky reminded them of the impending loss of light.  Side by side they hurried home, their shadows stretching and shrinking, bending and folding across the midnight road.            

Jerome. Again.

A few more Jerome photos.

ZERO CALORIE READING SNACK

Free June 30 and July 1.
Right now you can download a really short short story for free.


I've decided to work on publishing all of the short stories I have lying around. This amounts to at least twenty, maybe more. At some point, I will bundle them into collections by genre. Lately I've been writing more phantasmagoric (The Pale Boy) stories, but I also have crime fiction, fantasy, and romance.  I'm designing square covers so they won't look like a typical full-length book.


Woman in a Black Veil is a gothic paranormal of about 10 pages.


Woman in a Black Veil

And as always, The Pale Boy is free.


Oh, and Woman in a Black Veil is a little sexy. Probably PG 13. 

JEROME

For the past several years I've had this recurring dream where I'm driving a car on this narrow road, winding around and around this cartoon mountain to finally reach the top. 
I saw that place for real when I was in Arizona. Forget Sedona.  Well, don't forget it because the area is breathtaking, but the town is...well, kind of one big upscale shopping mall. I couldn't wait to get through it and out of it. I think it was maybe another ... I don't know, 25, 35, 45 miles to Jerome. I'm too lazy to look it up. But Jerome. OMG. You have to go there. It was a copper mining town back in the day, and the terrain is so steep that buildings have actually slid downhill.  And just like my dream, the road winds around until you reach the town on the top of the mountain.
At one time Jerome had a population of 15,000.  Today it's around 400. But on weekends the town is packed. Lots of eateries, and...well, the place is just weird. And I like weird. It claims to be the biggest ghost town in the United States. I believe it.  And it's also supposed to be haunted. Well, I'm not sure I believe that. We stayed at the Jerome Grand Hotel, which has been featured on some paranormal shows.  It was originally a hospital, and still had  the original elevator and boiler system. And it sits on the very top of the town.  Oh, and 9,000 people died there. Or at least that's what I overheard in the lobby.  By late afternoon the town is almost dead. By 5:00 the shops are closed and the hundreds (thousands?) of people who clogged the streets during the day flee.
The phone in our room. It rang once. It was the guy at the front desk trying to help us find a place to get our flat tire repaired. When you're on the top of a mountain, and it's Sunday. We ended up going to a nearby town...  Guess.  Walmart. Walmart saved the day.   Shop window  Another shop  It was pretty grand  Elevator in hotel  A cool thing in Sedona outside the cool thingChapel of the Holy Cross Spooky chair in the spooky hallway of Jerome Grand Hotel
And I don't know what's going on with comments.  I get email comments, but when I come here the comments are gone. I think blogger is deleting some of them. I'm not doing it.