D.R. Graham's Blog, page 4
September 15, 2014
Young Adult Reader Appreciation Week: September 22-26, 2014
It probably goes without saying that authors adore readers. Not just because they drive our book sales (though we do enjoy that part as well), but we love them because they inspire us in so many ways. Whether it’s great book discussions on twitter or awe-inspiring, witty book reviews on blogs, readers let authors know that all those countless, caffeine fueled hours of staring at a blinking cursor were not in vain. They challenge us to make our work better with every retweet and Facebook like. Readers are truly an inspiration, and it’s time we appreciate them.
That’s right, next week is all about you. And while we are busy giving away tons of fantastic prizes both on twitter and our YA Reader Appreciation Blog Hop, we will be introducing you to some of our favorite characters and novels.
But let’s get to the good stuff first…the prizes.
What and How You Can Win:
There are two ways to win prizes during our YA Reader Appreciation Week September 22-26, 2014. All week make sure to follow the YA Reader Appreciation authors on twitter because they will be giving away a ton of swag. Not only will you get exclusive content from their latest works, but simply by hitting follow on twitter, you could win a ton of free books and book-related awesomeness. Just look at the twitter loot below:
#YAReaderWeek Twitter Prizes From Authors:
Tiffany Truitt (@tiffanytruitt) – ebook of The Language of Silence
Shannon Alexander (@shanlalexander) – 4 Teal Toes prize packs (teal polish & teal nail kit in a teal burlap bag) and 1 Ugly Cry Reader Survival kit (tissues & Amazon gift card)
Danielle Graham (@drgrahambooks) – 1 digital copy of PSI ANOTHER DAY by D.R. Rosensteel, One digital copy of WILL THE REAL ABI SAUNDERS PLEASE STAND UP by Sara Hantz, 1 audio copy of NEVER ENOUGH by Denise Jaden, 1 digital copy of HIT THAT AND YOU’RE DEAD by D.R. Graham
Lisa Brown Roberts (@lbrownroberts) – 1 hard copy of ROCK ON by Denise Vega
But the fun won’t just be going on in the twitter universe. Each day of the blog hop, you can enter to win a HUGE, HUGE, HUGE prize pack of awesomeness. How? It’s pretty easy; follow the hop and enter the raffle.
Blog Hop Prizes:
Ebook of The Language of Silence by Tiffany Truitt
Ebooks of Colors Like Memory and The Chemistry of Fate by Meradeth Houston
Ebooks of Model Position and Private Internship by Catherine Stine writing as Kitsy Clare
Ebook of Love and Other Unknown Variables and a handmade math book magnet by Shannon Alexander
1 digital copy of Psi Another Day by D.R. Rosensteel,
1 digital copy of Will The Real Abi Saunders Please Stand Up by Sara Hantz,
1 Audio Copy of NEVER ENOUGH by Denise Jaden,
1 Digital copy of HIT THAT AND YOU’RE DEAD by D.R. Graham
Ebooks of The Vulcan Legacies Series by Sasha Hibbs
Swag bag of “Talismans for the Journey” inspired by the novel HOW TO DROP A CLASS & FALL IN LOVE by Lisa Brown Roberts
1 hard copy of KISSING SHAKESPEARE by Pamela Mingle
Now…on to the hop. Each day the authors below will be talking all things YA. And having a little fun doing it too.
http://catherinestine.blogspot.ca/
http://sashahibbs.blogspot.com/
http://meradethhouston.blogspot.ca/
http://www.lisabrownroberts.com/
http://www.katejarvikbirch.com/
http://www.shannonleealexander.com/
http://www.drgrahambooks.worpress.com/
http://tiffanytruitt.wordpress.com/
Monday (9/22) is Man Crush Monday where you can meet the leading males of some of YA’s hottest new novels.
Catherine Stine hosts Kate Jarvik Birch
Sasha Hibbs hosts Shannon Lee Alexander
Meradeth Snow hosts Sasha Hibbs
Lisa Brown Roberts hosts D.R. Graham
Kate Jarvik Birch hosts Tiffany Truitt
Shannon Lee Alexander hosts Catherine Stine
D. R. Graham hosts Meradeth Snow
Tiffany Truitt hosts Lisa Brown Roberts
Tuesday (9/23) is Transformation Tuesday where you will find out how your favorite novels went from simply ideas to published works.
Catherine Stine hosts Meradeth Snow
Sasha Hibbs hosts Lisa Brown Roberts
Meradeth Snow hosts Kate Jarvik Birch
Lisa Brown Roberts hosts Shannon Lee Alexander
Kate Jarvik Birch hosts Tiffany Truitt
Shannon Lee Alexander hosts D.R. Graham
D. R. Graham hosts Catherine Stine
Tiffany Truitt hosts Sasha Hibbs
Wednesday (9/24) is Woman Crush Wednesday where you will meet the leading ladies of some of YA’s hottest new novels.
Catherine Stine hosts Tiffany Truitt
Sasha Hibbs hosts Catherine Stine
Meradeth Snow hosts Sasha Hibbs
Lisa Brown Roberts hosts Meradeth Snow
Kate Jarvik Birch hosts Lisa Brown Roberts
Shannon Lee Alexander hosts Katie Jarvik Birch
D. R. Graham hosts Shannon Lee Alexander
Tiffany Truitt hosts D.R. Graham
Thursday (9/25) is Throwback Thursday where you will find out more about the lives of some of your favorite YA authors.
Catherine Stine hosts Lisa Brown Roberts
Sasha Hibbs hosts D. R. Graham
Meradeth Snow hosts Tiffany Truitt
Lisa Brown Roberts hosts Catherine Stine
Kate Jarvik Birch hosts Sasha Hibbs
Shannon Lee Alexander hosts Meradeth Snow
D. R. Graham hosts Katie Jarvik Birch
Tiffany Truitt hosts Shannon Lee Alexander
Friday (9/26) is First Look Friday where you will qet a sneak peek and exclusive content from our YA authors.
Catherine Stine hosts Shannon Lee Alexander
Sasha Hibbs hosts Meradeth Snow
Meradeth Snow hosts D. R. Graham
Lisa Brown Roberts hosts Tiffany Truitt
Kate Jarvik Birch hosts Catherine Stine
Shannon Lee Alexander hosts Sasha Hibbs
D. R. Graham hosts Lisa Brown Roberts
Tiffany Truitt hosts Katie Jarvik Birch
We hope you are just as excited as we are to celebrate some YA Readers! Help spread the word and check back on 9/22 for the start of the blog hop and tons of chances to win some great loot! But WAIT…you can start entering the giveaway today by following our YA authors and helping to spread the word. Click on the raffle link below to find out more!
September 8, 2014
They’re Indians, what do you expect?
My entire extended family is from Saskatchewan and when I was very young I remember seeing a group of men fighting and stumbling around on a Regina sidewalk. I asked why they were acting like that and my older cousin said, “They’re Indians. What do you expect?” Someone else mumbled something about drunk and Welfare Wednesday, which I didn’t understand. Then we were ushered away.
In elementary school, my favourite subject to study was the “First People of Canada”. I loved learning about their art, their connection with the land, their myths and legends, their housing, and the clan structures. I still to this day stare at museum dioramas and visit ancient archeological sites imagining what it would have been like to live in a traditional First Nations’ way.
Being born in Yukon Territory and then living in Prince George, I saw a lot “First People of Canada” who didn’t look or act anything like the wise and noble people I was learning about in school. They were the cliché image of the Indian in the derogatory “Chug” jokes that I heard outside of school.
I didn’t understand what happened to the “First People of Canada”.
At university, I continued to study the First Nations with instructors who were Aboriginal. That was when I read Resistance and Renewal — Surviving the Indian Residential School by Celia Haig-Brown. I still have my copy today because it had such a profound impact on who I am and how I think about every single social issue.
I started to understand what happened to the “First People of Canada”.
From the 1880’s until 1986, the “First People of Canada” were victims of antidialogical action, which is one group dominating and controlling another group through invading the cultural context, imposing their own view of the world, silencing them and disrespecting their potential.
In this case, it was called residential school.
Two primary objectives of the residential school system were to remove and isolate children from the influence of their homes, families, traditions and cultures, and to assimilate them into the dominant culture. These objectives were based on the assumption Aboriginal cultures and spiritual beliefs were inferior and unequal. Indeed, some sought, as it was infamously said, ‘to kill the Indian in the child.’ Today, we recognize that this policy of assimilation was wrong, has caused great harm, and has no place in our country.
- Prime Minister Stephen Harper, official apology, June 11, 2008
A formal apology from the government over the residential school policy was necessary, but the damage was already done.
For generations, Aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their families, forbidden to speak their own language, abused, and given an inferior education that focused more on skills training for manual labour and domestic work. Because they were removed from their families and segregated from their siblings by gender, many students grew up without experiencing a nurturing family life and without the knowledge and skills to raise their own families.
The last residential school did not close its doors until 1986, so many of the leaders, teachers, parents, and grandparents of today’s Aboriginal communities are residential school survivors.
Half of all children in foster care in Canada are Aboriginal. Four percent of all Aboriginal children are in care compared to .3 percent of non-Aboriginal children. Although Aboriginals only comprise three percent of the adult population in Canada, forty-one percent of women who are incarcerated are Aboriginal and twenty-five percent of men. There are almost 1,200 Aboriginal women who have been murdered or gone missing since 1980.
They’re Indians. What do you expect? Well, the United Nations human rights envoy has suggested that we should expect that the outstanding concerns related to the First Nations education bill be addressed, a national inquiry on missing and murdered women be conducted, the mandate of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission be extended “for as long as may be necessary”, the housing crisis be addressed, education, health and child welfare be funded, and service delivery be coordinated with provincial and Aboriginal governments.
I expect to live in a country where every single Aboriginal child who is placed in foster care because his or her parents were raised in an institution and didn’t learn parenting skills matters. Every single Aboriginal man who committed suicide because he was haunted by the sexual abuse he endured at a residential school matters. Every single missing, murdered, or incarcerated Aboriginal woman who didn’t know any other world than one of poverty, exploitation, addictions, and abuse matters.
I know there are people who will argue that the government has already spent enough money trying to “help” First Nations people. Critics will use arguments such as, “Aboriginals already don’t pay taxes, they get special privileges for fishing, and their university tuition is paid for, but they can’t capitalize on those opportunities.” There are also people who will argue that the past was the past and Aboriginals should get over it and assimilate.
The mistaken belief that assimilation to white culture is the only right way to live is what started this problem in the first place.
First Nations people are not inferior, they are not stupid, they are not useless, and they are not worthless. They are recovering from one hundred years of abuse, family destruction, and cultural genocide. Trauma takes time to heal. Education takes time to instill. Healthy communities and traditions take time to rebuild. Many nations have already become healthy, strong, and wealthy again, but it will take longer in remote and isolated areas. It will take forever if they continue to believe the lie that being an Indian means being inferior.
When someone says, “They’re Indian. What do you expect?” I hope you respond by saying, “Great things.”
Update: I would like to thank everyone who has sent me e-mails and left phone messages to privately thank me for writing this article after an abridged version was first published in the Richmond News. It means a lot to me that it resonated with you and that you would take the time to thank me. I hope that this article will continue to bring awareness and open discussions.
- Danielle
July 25, 2014
July 1, 2014
Cover Reveal: FOREIGN EXCHANGE by Denise Jaden
FOREIGN EXCHANGE Cover Reveal and ISLA AND THE HAPPILY EVER AFTER Giveaway!
Here are a few of Denise’s thoughts on Foreign Exchange and its cover…
I’m so incredibly excited to share my cover of Foreign Exchange with you! This book holds a very special place in my heart. I wrote it during a very difficult year of my life, and the characters and their stories were a real bright spot for me.
Because this book is so important to me, I’m giving away something VERY important to me to go along with this cover reveal. I was fortunate enough to receive an early copy of the highly-anticipated Isla and the Happily Ever After by one of my all-time favorite authors, Stephanie Perkins. ISLA and Foreign Exchange are both romances with swoon-worthy boys, and they’re both set partially in Europe. So I want one lucky person to receive my advanced copy of ISLA in to get you excited for Foreign Exchange!
Read on, check out my cover, and read the first chapter of Foreign Exchange below. It’ll all help you in earning extra entries to win my copy of Isla and the Happily Ever After!
And here is the beautiful cover…
Jamie Monroe has always played it safe. That is, until her live-for-the-moment best friend, Tristan, jets off to Italy on a student exchange program. Left alone with her part-time mother and her disabled brother, Jamie discovers that she is quite capable of taking her own risks, starting with her best friend’s hotter-than-hot older brother, Sawyer. Sawyer and Tristan have been neighbors for years, but as Jamie grows closer to the family she thought she knew, she discovers some pretty big secrets.
As she sinks deeper into their web of pretense, she suspects that her best friend may not be on a safe exchange program at all. Jamie sets off to Europe on a class trip with plans to meet up with Tristan, but when Tristan stops all communication, suddenly no one seems trustworthy, least of all the one person she was starting to trust—Sawyer.
“Foreign Exchange is a fresh contemporary YA that will keep readers compulsively turning pages until the very end. Combining international intrigue with a steamy forbidden romance makes for a can’t miss read.”
- Eileen Cook Author of Year of Mistaken Discoveries.
“A pitch perfect voice and delicious chemistry kept me turning those pages!”
- Tara Kelly, author of Amplified and Encore
“Foreign Exchange is heart pounding and suspenseful…the teenage dream of escaping the boredom of suburbia by travelling Europe and spending quality time with a hot guy shifts into a dangerous nightmare.”
- D.R. Graham, author of Rank and the upcoming Noir et Bleu MC series.
Read the first chapter of Foreign Exchange here! Enjoy!
One of the entries in the Rafflecopter below will ask you a question from the above chapter!
This contest is open internationally!
Don’t forget…this copy of ISLA could be yours…
June 6, 2014
May 30, 2014
May 24, 2014
May 8, 2014
Is Being Nice Always Necessary?
A woman with a heavy
accent called my office yesterday from an unidentified local number. She asked for our accounts receivable department. I told her that we didn’t have an accounts receivable department so she asked to speak to the owner. After explaining that I was one of the owners she said that the credit card they had on file needed to be updated.
“Which company are you calling from?” I asked because she hadn’t stated it at the beginning of the conversation and I could hear the chatter of operators in a call station in the background.
“Uh.” She paused, shuffled through some papers, and eventually came up with the name of a Canadian company that we do business with.
Consumer advocacy groups are always warning people to not give out personal or financial information over the phone and since the call was originating from out of the country but re-routing through a local number I was cautious. I told her I would look into it and contact the company’s local representative directly to update the information if there was a problem with the account.
Sh
e became hostile and rude saying that I was obviously not the owner as I stated otherwise I would be able to deal with the credit card information on the spot.
Her reaction was strange. There is a possibility that she was legitimately authorised by the company to collect the information, but whenever someone becomes aggressive it raises red flags.
She is just a woman trying to do her job and earn a paycheque. Maybe she was having a bad day and couldn’t muster her normally pleasant disposition. Maybe she has challenges with communication and wasn’t able to clearly represent who she was or what she was doing. In which case, I should be patient and understanding, right?
Or, maybe my instincts were correct and she was working on behalf of a company trying to defraud me. In which case, I should blow her off, right?
I was torn between being polite and matching her tone. Most people want to be seen as a nice person, but there is a line that gets crossed when the other person is not nice to you.
It is possible to act “nice” and not be kind. It is also possible to be a kind person without coming across as particularly “nice” depending on tone of voice, bluntness, and body language. In a situation where someone is being aggressive or trying to take advantage of you is being nice and accommodating the best reaction? Is being nice on the surface worth anything if it’s not rooted in genuine kindness?
A person who only acts nice on the surface typically remains silent or caves in when there is a conflict or a situation that is emotionally charged. A genuinely kind person will speak up. A kind person will advocate for equality, justice, and fairness even if it means rocking some boats to make sure it happens.
A person who only acts nice on the surface tends to bottle up all of his or her needs and buries the resentment and anger that results from being taken for granted by others. Genuinely kind people are comfortable stating what does and doesn’t work for them while striving to reach a win-win compromise that could work for everyone.
A person who only acts nice on the surface will lie in order to preserve an image of being a good person. Genuinely kind people know that the truth is the only way to actually understand each other and reach peaceful solutions.
People who only act nice on the surface are so busy tiptoeing and side-stepping to please and avoid hurting people’s feelings they forget which direction they were supposed to be moving in on their own journey. Genuinely kind people move forward on their path with as much patience and compassion as they can despite nay-sayers or criticisms.
There are many people who will argue that being nice is more important than anything else. I’ll argue that being genuinely kind is more important and that in some situations being too nice will put you at risk of being taken advantage of. Ideally, we would all be nice and kind. I’ll keep working on it.
April 29, 2014
Retirement of the Old Green Dell
I retired my old green Dell laptop today. In her almost ten years of life she has written twelve full-length novels, hundreds of newspaper articles, and every blog post I’ve ever done, except this one. She not only launched my career as a writer, but landed me three book publishing deals, a spot on iBooks bestseller list, and a journalism award.
She initially had her issues, mostly as a result of her Vista roots, but those resolved over time with updates and customization. The paint on the keys is worn and her battery reached the end of its life about six months ago, but that’s not what did her in. Ironically, an update of the security software wiped out her operating system. She still operates on factory settings, but like a good race horse with a decorated career, she’s past her prime and has earned some R&R out in the pasture.
Anyone who is not a writer probably doesn’t understand my sentimentality towards a computer, but she and I were completely compatible. I once heard Alicia Keys describe her piano as a constant friend who was always there for her and accepted her unconditionally. Sure, Old Green Dell could be a bitch sometimes with her Vista blue screen info dumps at the most inopportune times, but she worked hard as my unwavering friend for almost a decade.
My new Dell with touchscreen is winning me over and unlike every other person on the planet I actually love the 8.1 operating system, but my old green Dell will always hold a special place in my heart. Happy trails Old Green Dell.
