Mara Dabrishus's Blog, page 7
August 12, 2015
Some August News
Summer has certainly been busy so far! I’m diligently editing Finding Daylight (and I hope to bring you guys more news on that story soon), I’m picking up and moving to a house in a couple of weeks after years of apartment dwelling, and fall semester is about to start at my trusty librarian gig–always a fraught time, let me tell you.
Also, I kinda got married.
Aside from all of this life and editing stuff, I did have time for the amazing Laurence from La Romantique, who asked me some very fun...
August 6, 2015
Recalculating
I use Google Maps and/or Waze a lot of the time I’m in the car. You’d think I’ve lived in my city for five years and never bothered to memorize the roads, but my city is old by Midwestern American standards and therefore weird, so it helps to be offered alternate routes. Also, I’m now obsessed with crowd sourced traffic programs. There’s an object on the side of the road ahead! Watch out!
Yes, my city has an island named Whiskey.
If only I could use this for editing. Currently I am neck deep...
July 24, 2015
Free E-Book Weekend!
Saratoga opens today, therefore Stay the Distance is FREE this weekend. If you can’t get to Saratoga this year (like me), Stay the Distance might just be the thing for you! Get your copy anywhere between July 24 – July 26 at Amazon.
If you haven’t heard of Stay the Distance yet, here’s the description:
July Carter’s world is perfect from the back of a horse. From the ground, everything is a complete mess: her jockey mom ran off for California years ago, her dad always seems more interested in...
July 12, 2015
Wednesday Riders by Tudor Robins
Wednesday Riders
by Tudor Robins
I loved Appaloosa Summer, the first in Tudor Robins’ Island Trilogy. Reading Wednesday Riders was the obvious choice for me after such a strong first book, and I have to say that it didn’t disappoint.
In this installment we find Meg Traherne newly graduated from high school. She’s been accepted to college, owns a new horse, and is still in love with island dreamboat, Jared. Things appear to be going swimmingly, and Meg can’t wait to get back to the island for...
July 11, 2015
NetGalley
Confession time. I casually stalk NetGalley.
NetGalley is an amazing place, and I’ll let it handle its own description:
Do you review and recommend books online, in print, for your bookstore, library patrons, blog readers, or classroom? Then you are what we call a “professional reader,” and NetGalley is for you. Registration is free, and allows you to request or be invited to read titles, often advance reading copies, on your favorite device.
Are you a publisher, author, or PR professional la...
July 10, 2015
The Post-it Notes on My Wall
About a year ago, I started to work on what will be my second novel. Of course, at the time I did not know it would be my second novel. Last summer was a weird place for me, in writing terms. I was deep in the editorial pit that is polishing a novel, had started and stopped two new novels when I discovered I had no idea where I wanted them to go, and generally felt like a crazy person surrounded by swirling plotlines that refused to make sense.
Then my best friend Erin stepped in. Erin lets m...
June 22, 2015
Whirlaway: a Short Story
Friends! Gather around.
Five years ago, the Thoroughbred Times published my first story, Whirlaway. I wrote it for their fiction contest, and weirdly enough it won. At the time, Stay the Distance was a rough draft and Whirlaway was a writing exercise. A prequel of sorts. At the very least, I thought I might be able to get inside July’s head from another angle. The editors at TTimes thought otherwise and it appeared in one of their March issues all the way back in 2010. Whirlaway was 100% excl...
June 12, 2015
A Horse Called Pharoah
Welcome to my constant mental state.
When American Pharoah won the Belmont Stakes and the Triple Crown, a friend of mine tweeted that she was rereading Thoroughbred book number 21, Wonder’s Champion, because it was the only book she had where a horse wins the Triple Crown. I immediately fired off a reply: I need to hear all of your new thoughts on this. Please, now, thank you.
Like many people, I watched the Belmont Stakes through a screen. Mine happened to be on my phone. I was a houseguest...
June 8, 2015
Interview: Natalie Keller Reinert
Natalie Keller Reinert is known for her contemporary horse books for adults, especially her series of horse racing novels The Head and Not The Heart, Other People’s Horses, and most recently Turning For Home. She’s also taken the plunge into eventing with Ambition, for which she’s currently writing a sequel.
I recently read Turning For Home like a person obsessed, completely drawn in to Natalie’s description of Ocala horse country. Within it is Alex, a farm co-owner and racehorse trainer who...
June 2, 2015
Westward
This is a busy summer. I’m editing a new book, which I’ve just shipped off to my editor for its first serious round of welcome (and much needed) criticism. There’s this whole getting married thing in July, for which we are still lacking important details like a venue and appropriate clothes. And then there’s house hunting, because there are never enough houses to look at. Oh, did I also mention a possible move to Denver? What more can happen, right?
So, I put everything down for a week and ca...
