S.M. Stevens's Blog, page 19

15 Free Books Left

We’re halfway through the “30 Days of Free Books” COVID-19 program, and there are still many great books in many genres from many amazing authors up for grabs!

Entry is free, other than answering 1 quick, multiple-choice question about how the coronavirus has affected your reading habits. The other authors and I thought it was important to make this as easy as possible given the stress our world is under right now. So we don’t require a tweet or a newsletter sign-up or your first-born for you to enter to win a free book.

Visit the “30 Days of Free Books” webpage to view the remaining drawings and enter the ones you like.

In the meantime, I want to thank all of the authors taking part in this little program. We’re getting feedback from some of the winners that these books are bringing smiles to their faces, and that’s what authors thrive on–knowing that our work has done some good. That is more important than ever these days when we all need to find ways to support each other.

Here are the participating authors, many of them award-winners and best-sellers; all of them wonderful people and talented writers:

Corey Anne Abreau (Children’s)Joseph Carrabis (SciFi)Mari Coates (Historical Fiction)Camilla Downs (Memoir, Poetry)Helen Epstein (Memoir, Nonfiction)Terry Farish (Young Adult, Children’s)Helen Fremont (Memoir)Mark Goldstein, DVM (Nonfiction)Jean Grant (Contemporary Fiction, Women’s Fiction)Cheryl Holloway (Romance)Michael Lauchlan (Poetry)M.T. Maliha (Mystery, Historical Fiction, Thriller)I.J. Miller (Literary Fiction, Suspense, Women’s Fiction)Dale Neal (Literary Fiction)Eileen O’Finlan (Historical FictionDzvinia Orlowsky (Poetry)Peg Alford Pursell (Short Stories)Susan Roney O’Brien (Poetry)Michael Signer (Nonfiction)S.M. Stevens (Contemporary Fiction, Young Adult, Middle Grade)Clare Urbanski (Fantasy)Jane Willan (Cozy Mystery)Catherine Zebrowski (Contemporary Fiction, Magical Realism)

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Fun Photo Friday: COVID-19 Stay at Home Edition

I’m a big believer in dark humor to get us through the tough times — the outgrowth no doubt of growing up in a large family where sarcasm abounded. So I am loving the COVID-19 memes and cartoons peppering our social media feeds on an hourly basis.

So, this Fun Photo Friday features a bunch of funny coronavirus-related images. As there are so many to choose from, and as I sadly expect I’ll be able to publish a variety of COVID-19 posts before this pandemic comes to a close, I have actually categorized the memes.

Today, I offer up the COVID-19 Fun Photo Friday Collection: Stay at Home Edition which captures the ups and downs of isolating ourselves in our homes, and social distancing when we venture outside. (Click anywhere in the images to open up larger and scroll through.)

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4 Minutes of Feel-Good Time

For 4 minutes of feel-good time, listen to my friend MT Maliha‘s podcast episode “Better Days Ahead”. It’s full of inspiring bits related to the coronavirus pandemic.

There is a great bit for couples who are finding that sheltering in place together is proving too close for comfort. 

Fun Photo Friday: COVID-19 Attire

I’ve been falling behind on my Fun Photo Friday posts in this surreal coronavirus-dominated world in which we live. But we still need fun photos and humorous videos to keep us sane!

There is no shortage of funny COVID-19-related humor going around. Here’s one of my favorites, which seems particularly timely as the U.S. government recently advised people to wear masks when out in public. Now, instead of feeling self-conscious for wearing a mask, we will feel self-conscious for NOT wearing one! And that’s great news for preventing transmission.

(Apologies for not crediting the person who created this as I don’t know who it was!)

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Authors Unite for Free Book Giveaways

I couldn’t be more excited to announce “30 Days of Free Books” — a month of free book giveaways to get some literature into the hands of people housebound and sheltering in place due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The idea for this hit me while reading about all the TV/streaming services offering extended free trials to people suffering cabin fever thanks to COVID-19. Why not get some free books to people too, I thought?

From there, it was a matter of reaching out to authors I’ve met over the past year of promoting my novel Horseshoes and Hand Grenades. But I could not have pulled this off without the generosity of the participating authors, who jumped on board and offered to donate a copy of their book(s) for the program.

In particular, I owe thanks to Helen Fremont for her massive role recruiting other authors, and to poet Susan Roney O’Brien who introduced me to Helen and has been a catalyst in so many other ways.

We ended up with 23 authors from 12 states representing every genre known to humankind. So there is sure to be something on the list to float your book boat.

Check out how it works here, and share liberally — we all need some fun these days, and what’s more fun than a freebie?

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Sneak Preview – 30 Days of Free Books

Sneak preview: During this coronavirus crisis, housebound people are turning to streaming services and social media to stay entertained and sane. It’s time to get some books into that mix, don’t you think?

We’ll be announcing something special in a day or two. (As you can guess from the title of this post, it has something to do with free books haha. But the details aren’t quite ready to be announced.) Meanwhile, I’ll just say that authors are a special bunch!

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Fun Photo Friday: Where’s Waldo, Social Distancing Edition

Today’s Fun Photo Friday features an image you may have seen making the rounds on social media: “Where’s Waldo?” — social distancing edition. As the terms coronavirus, COVID-19 and social distancing are now in common usage, I doubt this needs any explanation!

But for those not familiar with Waldo, here’s what a typical “find Waldo” challenge looks like:

[image error]Image from Stack Exchange

Stay safe, everyone.

(Featured image by Clay Bennett, copyright Times Free Press.)

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Fun Photo Friday: Stella & the Leaf Pile

Today, we bury our heads in a leaf pile and share a funny video that has nothing to do with the coronavirus.

Nothing says sheer joy like a kid jumping into a leaf pile. Or so I thought until I saw this video. Stella is a dog. And a leaf pile lover. So for this Fun Friday Photo, I present to you, Stella & the Leaf Pile.

Be sure to watch the ending shot, which starts at around 2:50. Enjoy!

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Fun Photo Friday: #IWD2020

So I completely missed International Women’s Day due to an overloaded schedule. I knew it was happening, and definitely should have added my voice to the chorus of celebratory and inspirational cries heard around the globe last Sunday, March 8. But time was not on my side. (Cue the Rolling Stones.)

I figured I could turn my tardiness into a positive by finding an amazing image that represented International Women’s Day for this week’s Fun Photo Friday post. But that proved harder than I expected.

Instead, I present this image, created by the amazing Natalie Simone. To me, it embodies so much of what makes women women:

We are strong. We are powerful. We demand equality and justice.

We are pain. We are fear. We self harm. We are alone. We suffer.

We celebrate. We shout. We laugh. We embrace. We lean. We support. We shoot rainbows of emotion into the sky.

We are the cosmos.

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Don’t Let the Trauma Define You

At some point in life, some people stop being self-conscious talking about themselves and speak more publicly in hopes of helping others. I have reached that point.

I realized this after recording an interview for Darlene Corbett’s wonderful podcast, Tap Into the Power of U. One reason I chose PR as my initial career was that it let me stay behind the scenes, putting others out front and helping them look good.

Darlene’s message, on the other hand, is all about putting yourself out there, as the description of her podcast says: “Women and Men 40+, are you stuck? This lively podcast will help you Tap Into The Power of YOU, get UnStuck and then Stop Depriving The World of You.”

Darlene is a therapist, motivational speaker and success coach, and I’ve decided she is really good at what she does, because she got me talking freely about my life and what I’ve learned, and embracing the idea that my words might help others. Now I wrote Horseshoes and Hand Grenades specifically to help victims of “less severe” sexual abuse and harassment acknowledge that their experiences matter. But that doesn’t mean I saw myself as a mentor of any kind.

So the interview with Darlene, Tenacious Author: S.M. Stevens, was an eye-opener. More important, maybe it will help someone. Here’s an excerpt from the podcast that might be helpful to women struggling with the fall-out from being sexually abused or harassed. I know the situation is waayyyyy more complicated than this suggests and healing can’t be achieved with a few lines of advice. But it’s an important sentiment that may hit a chord with some victims.

Darlene Corbett: I’ve had clients over the years who have dealt with this heinous crime, and they can overcome it and live a successful life.

S.M. Stevens: I don’t think people should push these things away. You have to deal with them. Even if it didn’t seem severe, it may have affected you. But at the same time, we are so much more than our traumas. We do move on and we are a lot more than these incidents.

Darlene Corbett: This is a piece of your life. It’s not all of your life. It’s a piece of who you are and it defined you maybe at that time, but it doesn’t have to define you your whole life. These things have to be dealt with. Eventually what’s going to lift them is to take those strengths that helped them get through it in the first place, and develop themselves in ways they may not even realize they could do.

I encourage you to listen to the podcast if you need a prod in a new direction, a shift in your life. This applies whether you are a sexual crime victim or not. And please post a comment below or contact me directly to let me know if the podcast helped you in any way.

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