Ciji Ware's Blog, page 4

How to Build a Cottage in Your Mind

Pin It I admit it:  over the years, I’ve become a rather obsessed “cottage collector.” Perhaps it’s because, at around ten years old, I began visiting my Grandfather Ware at the tiny stone cottage perched on a sand dune on Carmel Beach that he rented the same year we moved as a family from Los Angeles to the amazing village of Carmel-by-the-Sea. My father, writer Harlan Ware, would escort me along the streets-with-no-sidewalks to the Forest, Studio, and Golden Bough... Read More...

That’s What Friends Are For…

Pin ItA quite remarkable phenomenon is percolating among the community of multi-published novelists.  It’s more than a “you scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours”  book promotional network, but rather a curated, semi-underground system of authors who know, trust, and admire each other’s work and are willing to give a shout-out on their own book blogs and on Facebook, Twitter, etc. to a sister novelist who has a new book being launched by the author-as-publisher. This is especially true these... Read More...

Rescue Dogs and the Making of a Subplot

Pin ItLike many millions on our planet, I love animals and have had a cat or a dog in my world virtually all my life.   My current pooches, seen here around Christmastime, are two Cavalier King Charles Spaniels: Ensign Aubrey and Charlock (a.k.a Cholly Knickerbocker).  They prove to me each day that dogs teach us our best lessons about noble behavior and unconditional love. Around the time I was noodling about the plot for my stand-alone contemporary sequel to  the “time-slip”... Read More...

Downton Abbey in Modern Dress?

Authors write sequels for many reasons, but That Summer in Cornwall, just published January 31 as an e-book at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iTunes/iBook, (print version available in March, 2013), came about because I always wondered what happened to the Anglo-American couple, the former Blythe Barton Stowe, and the life peer, Sir Lucas Teague after they joined forces to save the slightly down-at-the-heels Barton Hall from financial ruin at the end of my bestselling A Cottage by the Sea. When... Read More...

Making “The Lists”

You’ve heard the line “I was an overnight success after twenty-five years?”  Well, that certainly applied to yours truly when I received an email early in the summer from my publicist at Sourcebooks/Landmark .  ”Great news!” chortled Beth Pehlke.  ”Your book Midnight on Julia Street is going to be a Nook Daily Find August 24th!”  The price would be dropped to $1.99 that day as a way of encouraging new readers to discover a bargain novel by Ciji Ware…and hopefully  be inspired... Read More...

Now Available on iTunes

These books are now available on iTunes: Fiction Cottage by the Sea Island of the Swans A Race to Splendor Wicked Company Non-Fiction Rightsizing Your Life

“YOU’RE A FINALIST!”

  Every once in a while during my twenty-five years slogging away as a novelist, there are surprises that land on my doorstep–or in this case, via my InBox. Today, the president of Women Writing the West, Suzanne Lyon (a novelist herself, of course) sent me word that my historical A RACE TO SPLENDOR was one of three finalists in the coveted (at least in my world) category of Historical Fiction for the 2012 WILLA Literary Awards, presented in October... Read More...

Natchez Revisited on the Veranda…

My latest release from Sourcebooks Landmark, A Light on the Veranda, was March 1, and with it,  the usual "guest blogging" I'm asked to do on some terrific historical novel sites that I will link to below.  What has been such a joy is to have dug through masses of photographs that I took during the research period into the "Town that Time Forgot" for the stand-alone sequel to Midnight on Julia Street. With every novel I have ever written,... Read More...

Culinary Research in the Big Easy

A wonderful new "Author's Cut" edition of my novel, Midnight on Julia Street, was recently released by Sourcebooks, and prompted so many memories from the days when I was researching life in modern day and 1840 New Orleans.   This "time-slip" story deals with burnt out television reporter who arrives in the Big Easy with high hopes that at last, she can tell the truth as a journalist without getting fired.  (No such luck, I'm afraid…) Julia Street–once the heart... Read More...

Ciji's Chicken and Sausage Gumbo

CIJI CHICKEN & SAUSAGE GUMBO –Revised  1-6-2012 My original recipe was from Emeril's Christmas cookbook, but over the years, I've made changes–and then my niece Alison and I have made a few more key "adjustments" when we cooked it together over the holiday, allowing for wonderful flavors, with the spiciness adjusted to individual palates INGREDIENTS:  1 cup of vegetable oil (Canola) 1 cup bleached all-purpose flour 1 tsp cumin 1 tbs New Orleans spices (bbq  or Alison's  rubs, red pepper... Read More...