S. Smith's Blog, page 20
September 16, 2015
Heirloom Expo 2015 In Pictures, Part I
S. Smith is the author of the awesome and award-winning middle grade/YA series, Seed Savers. Visit her Facebook and Pinterest pages. Follow her on Twitter. Sign up for the newsletter!
September 5, 2015
Meet Me At the Fair
I’m going to the fair.
Not that one!
Next week, September 8, 9, 10, I’ll be in Santa Rosa, California at the National Heirloom Exposition, billed as “The World’s Pure Food Fair.” It will be held at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds. Here’s what they have to say:
Education about heirloom growing, sustainability, market farming, and risks of genetically modified foods will be a prime focus of many of the speakers, exhibitors, and vendors. An impressive line-up of nationally and internationally recognized speakers will include Ronnie Cummins from the Organic Consumers Association, Jeremy Seifert of GMO OMG, and Dr. Vandana Shiva from India. More than 100 on-topic speakers will engage audiences on all things related to ‘pure-food’, ‘gardening’ and ‘farming’ throughout the entire three days.
The exhibit hall will be filled with displays of thousands of varieties of heirloom fruits and vegetables. Some of the most innovative minds will showcase items of interest to inspire others. Please bring yours!
I attended the expo last year and it was great! Not as big as you might expect, but there are a lot of cool people as speakers, workshop leaders, vendors, and other attendees. If you are anywhere near, you should definitely drop in for a few hours.
I’ll be there with my book series, Seed Savers. The first three books are available now, with the fourth book due out in November. Seed Savers takes place in a future where gardening is illegal and fresh produce is not available (or recognized). Three children are on a quest to find out more and bring back real food. You can read more about the books here.
Please come by my table if you go!
S. Smith is the author of the awesome and award-winning middle grade/YA series, Seed Savers. Visit her Facebook and Pinterest pages. Follow her on Twitter. Sign up for the newsletter!
August 29, 2015
Cover Reveal: KEEPER (Seed Savers)
Coming in November 2015: Keeper, book 4 in the Seed Savers series.
November 7, 2015
In this fourth book of the Seed Savers series, friends Clare and Lily reunite, Trinia Nelson schemes to maintain control of the nation’s food, and the Seed Savers’ Movement is on the verge of splitting into factions.
Can James Gardener keep together the group he helped form a decade ago, or will chaos ensue?
Available November 2015. Preorder the ebook now at select retailers.
S. Smith is the author of the awesome and award-winning middle grade/YA series, Seed Savers. Visit her Facebook and Pinterest pages. Follow her on Twitter. Sign up for the newsletter!
August 23, 2015
Seed Savers Boxed Set on Sale
I have been busy lately with a lot of things… a new book, a new edition of an old book, a boxed set, learning new software, etc. So today I begin to try and catch up.
Remember that you can always check my facebook or twitter account for more up-to-date news, or add yourself to the email list for right-in-your-inbox updates on an almost monthly basis.
First, I am happy to announce that book four of the Seed Savers series is set to release in November! I know many of you have been patiently (or not so patiently) waiting for this. The title is Keeper, and I’ll post a cover shot soon.
To get the ball rolling for the launch I have created an ebook boxed set of the first three books. It’s currently up only on Amazon, but I plan to distribute it more widely soon. The price is $5.99, which is a great price for the three books that are normally $3.99 each. (Although Treasure is usually discounted to free on most platforms.)
However, for this week only, the box set is on sale for a whopping sale price of only $.99. That’s 99 cents FOR ALL THREE BOOKS! Download now to any kindle device or reader and tell your friends.
If you aren’t familiar with the Seed Savers books, they are a series written for older children (and up) about a future where gardening is illegal and the government controls the media. An underground group known as the Seed Savers still grows hidden vegetables to save seeds and continues teaching the younger generation gardening skills. Read more here. The books are enjoyed by children and adults alike and especially by people who like to garden.
S. Smith is the author of the awesome and award-winning middle grade/YA series, Seed Savers. Visit her Facebook and Pinterest pages. Follow her on Twitter. Sign up for the newsletter!
May 25, 2015
All Seed Savers Books on Sale This Week
For those of you who don’t receive the newsletter, just wanted to let you know that all of my Seed Savers books are on sale for the remainder of the week. Perfect for summer or any time, the Seed Savers books take place in a future where gardening is illegal in the United States and where all food in processed beyond recognition.
Here’s the info on the sale (normal prices are $3.99 each):
Treasure is still available for FREE
Lily is marked down a dollar to $2.99
These prices will be good until May 31, so if you haven’t read them all, go for it!
I also want to let you know that since I am updating the covers and will soon have a second edition of Treasure, I’m selling my inventory of paperbacks for reduced prices ($3 off list prices for each book). If you want a good deal on the physical books just shoot me an email.
Book four, Keeper, is still set to release in November, although I fell a bit behind schedule this week. Don’t forget to tell your friends about Seed Savers. Another great thing you can do is leave reviews on their Amazon pages. One or two sentences is fine. (Thanks!)
Hope you are having a great holiday weekend!
S.
S. Smith is the author of the awesome and award-winning middle grade/YA series, Seed Savers. Visit her Facebook and Pinterest pages. Follow her on Twitter. Sign up for the newsletter!
May 7, 2015
How To Have A Great Trip on Amtrak (Summary of Our Trip)
1. Live in a town large enough to have an Amtrak station with actual agents and the ability to ship luggage through to destination.
2. Live in a town small enough that the agent remembers you from four years earlier, the last time you took a long distance trip. This familiarity will get you full attention and wonderful service. (Kudos to Mary in Salem, Oregon.)
3. On the return trip be lucky enough to depart from another small station where another helpful agent who loves her job finds you a sleeper car for a longer distance than your original ticket and still saves you $171 (all without asking!) (Kudos to the woman in South Bend, Indiana whose name I’ve forgotten.) She also told us about the Metropolitan Lounge at the Chicago train station.
4. If possible, splurge for a sleeper and find out all of the benefits associated with that, including the nice station lounges, full meals included in the diner car (great food!), and access to the parlour car on the Coast Starlight run. (Sadly, we missed this. We got on at midnight in Sacramento and thought we could handle coach for the remainder of the trip. However, we had rotten seats so didn’t sleep well and then had to listen to all the wonderful food being served in the very comfortable parlour car for the remainder of the ride up the coast.)
The “roomettes” aren’t big, and they are expensive, so book well in advance for best prices.
5. Even if you go coach, you can still make the most of your trip by not staying glued to your seat. You may as well fly or take a bus if you just sit in your seat the whole time. Get up! Move around! Walk the length of the train to see what’s there. Get off at the allowed “smoke/fresh air” breaks (yeah, I know, the air’s not always fresh with all the smokers out there!)
If the car you’re in isn’t full, feel free to find another seat and spread out. And the lounge car is available to everyone. It is light and bright, with seats looking out, as well as booth type seats and tables. It’s a great place to hang out. Downstairs from the lounge is the cafe which sells more snack-type food, but is less expensive than the diner.
The lounge or club car is also a great place to hear the Trails and Rails programs when they are offered.
Don’t be afraid to talk to people! It’s really interesting to meet people and share stories.
6. Lastly, schedule your trip to return home early Sunday afternoon. You may have a communication mix-up and several friends and/or family will be there to meet you. (Thanks Al and Rex and boys!) When you get to your home sweet home, you can enjoy the rest of the day without feeling the need to get busy. Pour yourself a glass of wine that doesn’t cost six bucks and sit back and relax. :)
7. Odds and ends: take pictures, enjoy the scenery, catch up on reading, give in to that Solitaire addiction. Most of all: enjoy yourself and let someone else do the driving.
S. Smith is the author of the awesome and award-winning middle grade/YA series, Seed Savers. Visit her Facebook and Pinterest pages. Follow her on Twitter. Sign up for the newsletter!
April 20, 2015
Road Trip Snippets (A Year Late)
A year ago I was in the middle of a book tour where I visited fifteen bookstores and two schools in the big state of Texas. Before that, my husband and I attended the wedding of our niece in Denver, Colorado. The whole trip lasted from April 9 to May 1 and took us through nine states. It was quite a journey. I feel a little tired just thinking about it.
Now we are getting ready to take a much shorter trip, again leaving in April and returning in May. We’ll fly and take the train, rent a car in Utah, and hop on the train again. We’ll attend our daughter’s college graduation in Indiana and see some national parks in Utah.
I wish I were a better blogger. I have lots of ideas. Write on lots of scraps of papers. Blog in my head often…but not so good at actually working it all out and posting, or getting the photos off of my camera, for that matter. Yes, someday I’ll own a smartphone, but not for now.
So what’s the point? Recently, I ran across three small pieces of paper with the title “Snatches of Conversations from the Roadtrip.” Or “Roadtrip Snippets”
I decided maybe I should post as is, considering it’s a year late. As my 8th grade teacher often said, “Better late than never.” To which he always added: “Better never late.” :)
I present to you now, from my April 2014 Tour/Roadtrip:
Roadtrip Snippets
Me (Wyoming): “This does not look like the cover on the tourist magazine.”
Husband: “Location, location, location.”
Me: “Good point. Where is that place from Close Encounters. I want to see that.” (Looks out window hopefully.)
*
Me: “Texas is a big state.”
Husband: “Yep.”
Me: “Was that a tumbleweed we just hit?”
*
Me: “I didn’t know there were mountains in New Mexico.” (Looking at map and then out the window.) “I bet we can see Oklahoma from here.”
“Snow! Is that snow? That’s snow!”
*
“Is that the sun? Why can I look directly at the sun? Is this a dust storm?”
*
“Navigation. Destination. Find a POI near here. Motel.”
*
“Do you think it’s always this windy here?”
*
In the skyway highways of Dallas: “I miss Wyoming roads.”
*
In New Mexico: “I miss Texas rest areas.”
*
In Arizona: “They have Safeways! We’re almost home!”
*
“I’ll never make fun of the trees in Idaho again.”
*
“I’m going to miss this car.”
*
Singing with John Denver as we near Oregon: “Hey it’s good to be back home again.”
*
“Did I just miss my exit? Did I just miss my exit?”
Car: “Make a legal U-turn. Go 100 feet and make a legal U-turn.
“Shut up car. You’re wrong.”
Looking forward to the next adventure. :)
April 1, 2015
Book Review of Ask Nana Jean About Making a Difference:Reflections on Life
The title says it all. This book is a book of reflections by Jean Moule, emerita faculty member at Oregon State University. It’s a wonderful book, not meant to be read all in one sitting, but rather in small bites when you want to treat yourself to something wonderful like a chocolate truffle or two. Thank you, Jean, for sharing your wonderful insights and exciting life experiences.
Below is the review I posted on Amazon. Find out more about Jean at her website.
Making a Difference by Jean Moule is a wonderful book about family, diversity, and oh so many other things. The book is divided into four sections (Family, Skin Deep, Travels, Aim High), and consists of columns Moule published in the magazine, Skipping Stones. Skipping Stones “is a multicultural, literary, nonprofit, magazine that encourages cooperation, creativity and celebration of cultural and linguistic diversity in our youth.”
Making a Difference made me laugh and cry. I cried at the end of “Nana Jean On Love.” I adored the story of Bella in “Learning to Work Together.” A lot of people don’t give seven-year-olds credit for being intelligent, thinking, human beings. In fact, I loved all of the chapters about the special things Moule does with her grandkids.
In “Cycle of Enlightenment,” I marked this phrase: “I know that the change has happened in my attitude–there has not been a sudden city-wide effort to make Jean feel comfortable.”
The subtitle of this book is “Reflections on Life.” Very inspirational reflections, indeed. Get yourself a copy now, and happy reading!
S. Smith is the author of the awesome and award-winning middle grade/YA series, Seed Savers. Visit her Facebook and Pinterest pages. Follow her on Twitter. Sign up for the newsletter!
March 16, 2015
Lucky Spring Sale
Just a quick post to let people know that from St. Patrick’s Day (March 17) through Spring Equinox (March 20), both Treasure and Lily of the Seed Savers series will be ON SALE. Treasure has been FREE now for about two months (I don’t know how long I’ll keep it free), but Lily is usually $3.99.
For this week you can pick them both up for only 99 cents TOTAL!
If you prefer buying them elsewhere, check the links here for other sellers, but Lily is only marked down on Amazon.
Seed Savers is a light, scifi dystopian series set in a future where gardening is illegal. It’s perfect for schools, gardeners, homeschoolers, kids, and adults. The first three books in the series can be read in any order. Find out more here. Or watch the video for book one.
Spread the word!
March 1, 2015
Read Across America Day — Go Indie!
For Dr. Seuss Day, why not try some Indie books? Below are five suggestions with links to their Amazon pages where you can read all about them! These books are listed primarily as middle grade (grades 6-8).
1. Treasure (Seed Savers) by S. Smith — speculative fiction, garden theme
2. The Candle Star (Divided Decade Trilogy) by Michelle Isenhoff — historical fiction, civil war
3. Trouble Blows West (A Ginnie West Adventure) by Monique Bucheger — contemporary, social issues
4. The King’s Ransom (Young Knights of the Round Table) by Cheryl Carpinello — medieval
5. The Princelings of the East (Princelings) by Jemima Pett — fantasy
Have a nice day and don’t forget to share a book with someone!
