S. Smith's Blog, page 24
May 1, 2014
Frankenmeat: ‘Not bad, actually’
Um, sounds a little like something out of Seed Savers…
Originally posted on Eatocracy:
In a nondescript hotel ballroom last month at the South by Southwest Interactive festival, Andras Forgacs offered a rare glimpse at the sci-fi future of food.
Before an audience of tech-industry types, Forgacs produced a plate of small pink wafers — “steak chips,” he called them — and invited people up for a taste. But these were no ordinary snacks: Instead of being harvested from a steer, they had been grown in a laboratory from tiny samples of animal tissue.
One taster’s verdict on this Frankenmeat? Not bad, actually.
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April 21, 2014
And The Tour Goes On
This is a quick update on my Texas Earth Day Tour for the Seed Savers Series.
The week in Houston was fun, best of all was meeting my “biggest fan in Texas,” Andi and her family and taking a walk through her urban woods. She told us all about the grapes, berries, and other food that she forages for her family.
I also met a lot of nice people at the bookstores there, and had some great conversations. But the tour continues.
After a most non-traditional Easter away from family and friends, my husband and I are now in San Antonio for a brief but busy visit. Last night we got to play tourist down at the Riverwalk, and today I’ll be at the Broadway Half Price Books from 12-3:00. What I’ve seen of San Antonio so far is very pretty, and being from Oregon, it’s interesting to see all of the cactus type plants. It seems like there are more birds here, too, and it is definitely hard to remember that it is only April with such warm weather!
Tomorrow is Earth Day and I’ll be at three stores, back to back! Please check the schedule on my events page, and if you are in the area, do come and see me!
For pictures from the tour so far, check out this album. Oh, and book 3, Heirloom, is still on Goodreads Giveaway.
S. Smith is the author of the awesome and award-winning middle grade series, Seed Savers. Visit her Facebook and Pinterest pages. Follow her on Twitter. Sign up for the newsletter!
April 19, 2014
S. Smith Book Signing – Earth Day Every Day Part Four
First stop on the tour…
Originally posted on Anakalian Whims:
The Half Price Books Clear Lake store was a lovely host today for S. Smith’s first signing of her Texas Earth Day Tour.
The weather was gorgeous, a little chilly for we Texans, but quite beautiful. A great day for an author from Oregon to set up shop in Houston.
Last night, in preparation, I made seedling cupcakes. Yet another great Pinterest idea that the Texas humidity took a toll on. The fondant sort of got floppy the warmer it got throughout the day, and the green sort of melted a bit. But over all, I’m pleased with my first try.
We met new readers today, and enjoyed chatting with the customers in the store. Of course, the first and most common questions was, “What are the books about?”
If you’re stumbling across my blog for the first time, Seed Savers is a young adult series about a dystopian…
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April 17, 2014
Meeting S. Smith – Earth Day Every Day Part Three
Originally posted on Anakalian Whims:
I couldn’t have had a more perfect day. It all started with an amar
yllis bloom opening and an email. S. Smith had arrived in Houston and was looking to hang out before her first Half Price Books signing tomorrow.
Today I finally had the pleasure of meeting S. Smith, the author of the Seed Savers series. I never thought this day would actually come, as I am a book reviewer in Texas and she is a young adult fiction writer from Oregon. But lo and behold! She had a reason to come down south and booked a Texas Earth Day tour starting with Houston.
I was delighted that she wanted to go for a walk in the woods by our house. It was a joy picking along the trails, chatting, with my daughter and her husband in tow. We talked about the difference in the woods of Texas from…
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April 15, 2014
Coffee and a Gift
We are finally here. I’m not sure of the date, but I know the book signing tour begins tomorrow. I’m pretty sure today is Tuesday. But you know how it is when you’re on the road. Just a series of rest stops and cheap motels. About that, Texas has some fine rest/safety stops.
So we were in the lobby of our affordable accommodations (nicer than “cheap motel,” don’t you think?) getting our free continental breakfast when we were joined by another patron. He was a small, older man, well-worn and weathered by life. (Only now in trying to think back and properly describe him as my son would–the better writer of we two–do I realize that I am not observant enough.)
As we sit down to eat our bowls of Raisin Bran, the man approaches and gives me a little piece of bent up wire. I haven’t yet been awake an hour and haven’t had a full cup of coffee. It takes me a moment to make out what it is as he continues to explain.
“It’s a cross,” he says. “I make them and give them away as gifts. “See, I have more,” he explains, showing me a handful of them. I nervously wonder if I am supposed to pay him something. Not that I have any money on me anyway.
“Thank you,” I finally manage to say. He tells me that the coffee is very hot, that he doesn’t like it that way. “Oh, yes,” I agree, picking mine up, which is steaming. “It does seem too hot.” Just then the phone at the desk rings.
“Are you John?” the clerk on duty asks. John takes the call. I hear him say, “Why I’m here on the phone, ma’am,” as if answering the question, “Where are you?” He decides he needs to take the call in his room, and that is the end of our meeting.
I’ll admit, I felt a slight sense of relief. And now I sit here, this two-inch bent metal cross to the left of my computer, remembering that it is Holy Week. With all the driving, a wedding, and now a book tour, it is easy to forget. But like Clare in book 3, Easter has always been my favorite holiday and I am grateful for the reminder.
Thank you, John, for your little gift.
S. Smith is the author of the awesome and award-winning middle grade series, Seed Savers. Visit her Facebook and Pinterest pages. Follow her on Twitter. Sign up for the newsletter!
ON TOUR NOW IN TEXAS!
BOOK 3, HEIRLOOM ON GOODREADS GIVEAWAY.
April 4, 2014
Texas Earth Day Tour Update
Just a quick update post.
San Antonio has been added to the Texas Earth Day tour. I will be visiting four Half Price Books stores in San Antonio, mostly on Earth Day (April 22). So if you are in the area, come and see me! The specifics can be found on my Book News and Events page.
Also, Heirloom is on Goodreads Giveaway now through May 3. Sign up to win one of three autographed paperback copies. (Sorry, not worldwide this time.)
That’s all for now!
-S.
S. Smith is the author of the awesome and award-winning middle grade series, Seed Savers. Visit her Facebook and Pinterest pages. Follow her on Twitter. Sign up for the newsletter!
March 28, 2014
Author S. Smith Texas Earth Day Tour
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
Sandy Smith, 503-362-6591
AUTHOR S. SMITH VISITING HOUSTON FOR EARTH DAY TOUR
Ultimate Food Police Imagined in New YA Series
SALEM, Ore. March 26, 2014—Would you still garden if it were illegal? That is the question confronted in Smith’s futuristic series, Seed Savers. Seed Savers envisions a time when corporate agriculture and the government have merged into one controlling agency—GRIM. Gardening and seed ownership is illegal, and the population eats a dumbed down, ultra-processed version of food.
Smith—gardener, seed saver, and teacher—wanted to write an enjoyable book that could be used in gardening classes and clubs. Ms. Smith was raised on a small family farm and still grows most of her own food. “Seed Savers is a love story starring homegrown food … politics obviously comes into the book, but it’s much more than that,” she said. When asked if the novels have a message, Smith said, “… the main message is that kids (and grown-ups) can make a difference in their world.”
Heirloom, the most recent book in the five book series, is listed in the March issue of San Francisco Kids Book Review and has recently moved into round two of the ABNA contest. The Portland Book Review says of Heirloom: “The concept of gardening being an illegal activity in this country is an interesting one, particularly in light of the growing use of processed and genetically modified foods in our diet. The concept becomes even more intriguing when a powerful company begins to systematically eliminate real food from the palates of American citizens… The characters are well developed and will be endearing to readers… Heirloom is a satisfying dystopian novel that younger fans of sci-fi will enjoy.”
Ms. Smith will be in Houston from April 15 to April 22, visiting and signing books at several Houston bookstores. Following her Houston visit, she has stops planned in Austin and Dallas as well. For a complete schedule, visit Ms. Smith’s website at http://authorssmith.com under events.
The names of the first three Seed Savers books are Treasure, Lily, and Heirloom. They are available digitally and in print wherever books are sold (ask to have them ordered). Books will be available for purchase at Ms. Smith’s appearances.
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S. Smith is the author of the awesome and award-winning middle grade series, Seed Savers.
Visit her Facebook and Pinterest pages. Follow her on Twitter. Sign up for the newsletter!
March 20, 2014
Pitching for the ABNA Contest
Now that it’s over, now that I’m in, I feel like I can share about the all-important Pitch.
But first, a little background information for those of you new to the arena. What is the ABNA and why does anyone care? ABNA stands for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. The contest has being going on annually for a little more than five years. It is an award contest for unpublished manuscripts (including self-published books). Read more details here.
Why do authors care? This of course is only my opinion, but there are several reasons why authors get excited about the contest. First of all, any writing contest is attractive to beginning authors because it always helps to be able to call yourself an “award-winning author,” or have “an award-winning” book. Most contests, especially ones with name recognition, cost a lot of money to enter. Granted, for some people, $80 or $100 or $250 might not sound like a lot of money, but when you have written a book and are making 33 cents a copy by pricing it at 99 cents or giving it away as a free ebook, trust me, that contest money adds up. The ABNA is FREE to enter. Prizes at the top include publishing contracts and cash advances. But I think for many entrants (myself included), we just hope that more people can find out about our books. It’s a big world out there and anything we can do to help spread the word is a good thing.
So, the pitch.
During the two week or so open period of submission, everyone scrambles to submit three things: a 300 word pitch, a 4-5 thousand word excerpt, and the manuscript. 10,000 entries are accepted. During the first round of judging, only the pitches are read. ONLY THE PITCHES ARE READ!!!! So this freaks a lot of people out. All you have to do is read the thread on ABNA and see how many people think the pitch is the hardest part. This puzzles me a little. If a person believes they are capable of writing a compelling 50,000+ word novel, do they not think they can write a compelling 300 word pitch?
The first place to start is to read Amazon’s description of what the pitch should be. The next, and probably more important step, is to study the pitches posted from previous winners. (Before the contest opens, Amazon has these things posted. Someone has also recently created a new thread on pitches that made the cut.) That’s what I did. After studying the pitches, I thought about my book. I worked on my pitch. Let it sit. Came back to it. Then I had my son read it. He is eighteen and an amazing writer. He gave me some pointers, but overall gave it a thumbs up. Nothing resembling enthusiasm, but you know, “It’s okay, Mom.”
Voila. The Pitch. And it worked! Two days ago I was excited to read that Heirloom (Seed Savers, 3) had made it to Round Two in the 2014 ABNA contest.
For me the scariest part is the excerpt. Two reasons. 1) Beginnings are my weakness (and that really does suck in the book writing world!)2) My entry is the third in a series, which poses some unique problems. But I think I’ll share my strategies on the excerpt in another post. Right now some of you probably just want to read my pitch. I did post it in a previous blog entry, but I’ll go ahead and repost.
Here it is. The pitch for Heirloom that got its little novel foot in the door:
Pitch for Heirloom (Seed Savers, 3)
Jason might go all Edward Snowden on us. He’s ticked that the government put him in foster care and locked up his parents.
Arturo’s inconsistent English and penchant for mysteriously showing up might seem suspicious if he wasn’t so darn charming.
Clare and Dante just want to garden.
Lily, well Lily gets braver by the minute.
It’s late in the twenty-first century and large corporations have merged with U.S. government agencies to control the nation’s food supply. Not only is gardening and seed ownership illegal, but fresh food is unheard of by the masses who are fed the processed food groups of Vitees, Proteins, Carbos, Snacks, and Sweeties.
Thirteen-year-old Clare and her brother Dante have escaped to Canada where the old ways still exist. It is there that they make friends with the roguish Jason and learn the political history of their own country’s decline of freedoms.
Meanwhile, Lily, the friend who was left behind, begins her own journey to find the father she never met—a former leader in the ill-fated Seed Savers rebellion of fifteen years earlier. From Florida to the Smoky Mountains, Lily follows the signs in search of her father and is helped along the way by the quirky characters she meets. Not to mention the attractive Arturo who shows up midway to “protect” her.
Heirloom seamlessly weaves the gentle agrarian story of Clare and Dante together with the swiftly-paced adventure of Lily and Arturo. Themes of family, empowerment, and politics meet in this futuristic tale nostalgic for the past. Heirloom is a hopeful dystopia in today’s current sea of post-apocalyptic literature.
S. Smith is the author of the awesome and award-winning middle grade series, Seed Savers. Visit her Facebook and Pinterest pages. Follow her on Twitter. Sign up for the newsletter!
March 11, 2014
This Blog Post Brought To You By The Cat
We have a cat. An old cat. Maybe she’s senile. Maybe she has kitty Alzheimer’s. Or maybe she just has a good imagination and is hoping we will accept her earnest gifts.
Meet Spice.
In her younger days, Spice used to catch birds, mice, and snakes. Not nice, I know. But it’s what cats do. She didn’t do it often, and they were usually taken away from her. She wasn’t the deposit-it-on-your-doorstep type of cat.
Things are different now. Spice is sixteen years old. She stays inside more. Now she brings us stuff. It started a few years ago, and at first we weren’t sure how things would just magically appear in the middle of the floor during the night. Hair scrunchies, foam hair curlers, items no one was really sure where they had come from. Honestly, it was a little creepy sometimes.
Eventually we realized it was Spice, because she added sound to the repertoire. She does this weird two syllable meow that sounds like, “Timmy, come quick, the barn is burning down with all of the horses still inside!” In the beginning we used to go running to see what horrible mishap had befallen some poor kitty, only to find Spice proudly standing over the vanquished Lincoln log. Now we know the drill. “Sounds like Spice has caught something,” we say now. We find her with a cotton ball, wonder how and where she finds these things, pet her, and say, “Good kitty, good Spice.”
And then the other night she woke me up with that horrible yowl. 3 a.m. I was not pleased. There is only so much meowing a person can sleep through. I got up and opened our bedroom door to the hallway, thinking one of the other cats must be dead on the road for this much racket. Then I saw it through the light shining in from the skylight.
This time Spice had caught a real mouse.
A computer mouse, that is.
Oh, Spice, we are going to miss you when you’re gone. 
S. Smith is the author of the awesome and award-winning middle grade series, Seed Savers. Visit her Facebook and Pinterest pages. Follow her on Twitter. Sign up for the newsletter!
March 2, 2014
Read An Ebook! (And other news…)
The Rooted in Food Fair in Silverton was great. It’s only the third year they have been doing it and I think it’s just going to get bigger and better as time goes on. I met a lot of nice people and signed and sold some books. I also got invited to another “seed” event for next week, so I’ll be going to that one also.
I am still hoping to travel to the Denver area in April and possibly Santa Fe and then to the Houston area in Texas. If anybody along that very non-specific trail I just mentioned has ideas for schools, events, or bookstores where I could stop, do let me know! I hope to add a “Teacher/School” page to this website soon. It’s been on my agenda for about a year now…so much to do
If you spend much time online I’m sure you’ve seen by now that today marks the beginning of Read An Ebook Week.
I couldn’t find the exact year of the first “REAW,” but the year 2004 came up. The founder is Rita Toews. Of course, the event grows every year, with more and more people owning tablets and reading digitally. Reading digitally tends to strain my eyes, but there are benefits. I especially like using my tablet for reading on trips so that I don’t have to carry lots of books. I also like that I can make the words bigger at the end of the day when my eyes tend not to focus as well.
This week I have put book one of my Seed Savers series on sale at 75% off for REAW. The series is about a future when gardening is illegal and all food is processed. The books are targeted to older children but many adults also find them enjoyable. Take a look at the reviews here or on their Amazon pages and if you are interested, grab the first one while it’s on sale!
Link to Treasure (Seed Savers, 1) on Amazon
Link to Smashwords (for other e-book formats) use the code REW75
S. Smith is the author of the awesome and award-winning middle grade series, Seed Savers.
Visit her Facebook and Pinterest pages. Follow her on Twitter. Sign up for the newsletter!
