Blisscraft Life With Christina Katz

Mark Your Calendar for the Global Launch Party December 6, 2011!

Need help growing and nurturing your writing career? How about tending your career over time in a world driven by distraction, stress, and superficiality?

The Writer’s Workout contains 366 ideas for expanding your craft, sales, self-promotion, and professional development process, without repeating all the same old advice.

Today, thanks to technology and the no small amount of hard work on my publisher’s part, we will launch The Writer’s Workout in multiple formats to readers all over the globe at (roughly) the same time. Yahoo!

My publisher has assured me that The Writer’s Workout will roll out in multiple formats (paperback, e-book, and PDF) by the publication date, which is December 6, 2011.

This sounds like the perfect date for a publication party to me! Please mark your calendar for the big global publication party on Tuesday, December 6, 2011. If you think you will need a reminder, please subscribe to my The Prosperous Writer e-zine.

In December, you will be able to get your hands on The Writer’s Workout all over the globe in multiple formats so you can read it the way YOU want to read it. (Of course, I can’t promise every format will be in every place all at once, but at least everyone should have some form of access at approximately the same time.)

Have you appreciated my past work? Taken a class with me? Heard me speak? Attended my author series? Learned something from one of my articles? Received a giveaway book or scholarship because of me?  Enjoyed reading my blog posts since 2007 and/or my free e-zines since 2003? Launched a profitable writing career thanks to my teaching?

If so, I hope you will do me the honor of buying a copy of The Writer’s Workout by December 6th via your local independent bookstore, your local chain bookstore, online, via e-book, via pre-order, or whatever purchasing method makes the most sense to you. I will be posting alerts here in the blog as various formats become available.

One pre-order option is available NOW if you are as excited as I am. You can now pre-order The Writer’s Workout on Amazon at a deeper-than-usual discount. To grease the pre-order wheels, I will enter the first 50 writers who pre-order the book via Amazon into a drawing for a free one-hour phone coaching consultation in December 2011 (either before or after you read the book, your choice). I will select three winners from those who turn in their receipts and you can start turning in your receipts as of today, and I will hold onto them for the December drawing.

Just send them to “katz christina at comcast dot net” with “TWW Amazon Drawing” in the subject line. Please also keep your receipt copy handy until then, as well.

I am very excited to launch my third book! I am sure time will fly between now and December. It always does. In the meantime, I hope everyone has a wonderful summer and enjoys the rest of the Writer Mama Every-Day-In-May Book Giveaway.

Write on!

Today is Literary Mama Day, which means we are welcoming some of our friends from over at Literary Mama to participate—hooray! I’m very pleased to have Caroline Grant and Suzanna Kamata presenting their latest books. Comment to win and I’ll choose a winner for each book.

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Caroline M. Grant is the Editor-in-Chief and a movie columnist for Literary Mama. She is also co-editor, with Elrena Evans, of the anthology Mama, PhD: Women Write About Motherhood and Academic Life (Rutgers University Press, 2008). She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of California at Berkeley, where she taught classes on film, women’s studies, American literature, and writing; she has also taught at Stanford University and the San Francisco Art Institute. Her essays have been published in a number of journals and anthologies. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and two sons; she writes about family on her blog and, with Lisa Harper, about food at Learning to Eat. Visit her website for more information, including clips from her radio and television events.

Mama, PhD is a literary anthology of personal narratives by women both in and out of the academy, writing about their experiences attempting to reconcile bodies with brains. The anthology voices stories of academic women choosing to have, not have, or delay children. The essays in this anthology speak to and offer support for any woman attempting to combine work and family, and make recommendations on how to make the academy a more family-friendly workplace.

1. How has writing (either just the act of writing or writing this book or both) impacted your self-confidence?

Writing my contributions to Mama, PhD and editing the collection confirmed that I made the right decision, when I became a mother, to leave higher education and pursue an independent writing life. Getting my first book published relatively easily was a great boost of self-confidence, but I know my experience was also an anomaly, so now I am relying on the confidence I developed and the knowledge I gained in that process as I shop my second book.

2. What are three words that describe your creative book-writing process?

Wide-ranging, detail-oriented, deadline-driven!

3. What good has your book created in the world?

We wanted Mama, PhD both to enlighten people about the challenges facing mothers who work in higher education, and to lobby for change. Since the book came out, we—both editors and contributors—have spoken at schools, conferences and bookstores and are continuing to develop a network of people working to improve the lives of parents working in higher education. The book has provoked great conversations that have motivated policy changes at schools around the country.

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Suzzana Kamata was born and raised in Grand Haven, Michigan. She is most recently from Lexington, South Carolina, and now lives in Tokushima Prefecture, Japan with her husband and two children. Her short stories, essays, articles and book reviews have appeared in over 100 publications including New York Stories, Calyx, Crab Orchard Review, Pleiades, Kyoto Journal, The Utne Reader, The Japan Times, Brain, Child, Skirt!, Ladybug and Cicada. Her work also appears in the anthologies Yaponesia, The Beacon Best of 1999, It’s a Boy, It’s a Girl, Literary Mama: Reading for the Maternally Inclined, Not What I Expected and Summer Shorts. Formerly fiction editor of Being A Broad, a magazine for foreign women living in Japan, she now serves as fiction editor for the popular e-zine Literary Mama, and edits and publishes the literary magazine Yomimono. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize five times, and received a special mention in 2006. She is also a two-time winner of the All Nippon Airways/​Wingspan Fiction Contest.

Previously published in literary magazines and journals, this collection of stories about expatriates in Cuba, Egypt, Australia, Japan, and France confront universal matters of the heart. “The Beautiful One Has Come” is about a young Japanese woman, who nurtures an obsession with Nefertiti—with tragic results. In “Polishing The Halo,” an American mother in Japan grapples with news of her daughter’s disability, while in “Mandala,” an eccentric Japanese doctor provides an unlikely haven for a newly divorced expat.

1. How has writing (either just the act of writing or writing this book or both) impacted your self-confidence?

Finishing a story always gives me a sense of accomplishment, even though there may be many more drafts down the road. In the writing of these stories, no one was holding me to a deadline, and as I was the mother of small children, there were many obstacles and distractions. I feel proud of myself for having written them in spite of everything.

2. What are three words that describe your creative book-writing process?

lengthy, messy, dreamy

3. What good has your book created in the world?

Hopefully the readers of these stories will come away with a greater understanding of people of other cultures. My goal is to increase the amount of empathy in the world.

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Suzanne said that her goal with her writing is, “to increase the amount of empathy in the world.” What is your goal with your writing? Either with an individual piece you are working on right now or with your writing career in general?

Answer in the comments in 50-200 words (no less and no more to qualify to win one of today’s books). Please read the complete rules at least once!

Thanks for participating in the Writer Mama Every-Day-In-May Book Giveaway! Have you told ten friends about the giveaway yet?

I interviewed Heather for a feature profile in The Oregonian after she wrote her first novel Blackbelly. Today, she has four novels published and has recently earned an MFA in fiction, which she pursued after she was already published. You gotta love that willingness to learn, and you gotta love Heather Sharfeddin. Please help me welcome her.

Heather Sharfeddin (Sharf-a-deen) started her career as a storyteller in the first grade, though her teacher preferred the term “liar.” Confused, she went on to become an auctioneer’s assistant, carhop, billing clerk, motel maid, technical writer, knowledge management director, web usability analyst, and finally, novelist. So, you can get paid to make things up!

Author of four novels, each set in the Northwest, her work has earned starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews and Library Journal, and has been honored at the New York and San Francisco Book Festivals. Her first novel, Blackbelly, was named one of the top five novels of 2005 by the Portsmouth Herald.

Sharfeddin lives in McMinnville, Oregon, nestled midway between Portland and the Pacific coast in Oregon’s wine country. She holds an MFA in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts.

In Damaged Goods, Sharfeddin introduces us to Hershel Swift, a successful auctioneer living amidst the forests and hazelnut farms of small-town Oregon. A car accident leaves him a broken man—confused, angry, and unable to do the one thing he’s always been expert at—looking at anything and instantly determining its value.

His past is suddenly blank to him, and the only evidence he has of the man he once was is in the accusing eyes of the people he’s hurt. This is when Silvie comes into his life, fleeing from a man who made her ashamed of her own past and desperate to escape it. She seeks Hershel out as shelter in a storm, and Hershel finds in Silvie a shot at redemption. He can’t remember who he was, but she can help guide him to what he can become.

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Let’s talk about a willingness to learn. What areas of your writing career could use improvement? Consider craft, selling your work, zooming in on a specialty, self-promotion or any part of your writing career that you feel could serve you better if you kept working at it and tell us how you plan to grow.

Answer in the comments in 50-200 words (no less and no more to qualify to win one of today’s books). Please read the complete rules at least once!

Thanks for participating in the Writer Mama Every-Day-In-May Book Giveaway! Please bring some friends back with you next time.

In this post, Wendy Burt-Thomas admits in this post to being “practical and linear.” And she helped me start treating my writing career a lot more practically, as well. I also met my husband in her writing workshop…almost twelve years ago. Whether she’s writing or matchmaking, I think you’ll agree—she’s got the write stuff.

Wendy Burt-Thomas has made a living as a full-time freelance writer and editor for nearly a decade. (Yep, it’s possible!) With more than 1,000 published pieces and four books, she describes her writing process in three words: “Butt in chair.”

Who says query letters have to be boring? Whether you’re writing to catch the attention of an agent, publisher or magazine editor, The Writer’s Digest Guide to Query Letters is a fun but information-packed resource. With more than 25 sample query letters, plenty of do’s and don’ts, and detailed techniques, The Writer’s Digest Guide to Query Letters will get you on the path to publication.

Burt admits to being “very practical and linear,” which explains her love for how-to books. “But so many are dry and don’t even hint to the author’s personality,” she says. “My goal was to write a book with so much practical advice that people would have to read it twice, but also enough humor that they’d WANT to.”

Wendy says she loves getting emails from readers who say her book helped them get published. She gets more “fan mail” on the query guide than anything she’s ever written … combined. “I guess that’s not saying much considering I do a lot of writing for small businesses. Nobody ever writes to tell me they loved my piece on low-flow toilets.”

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Ah, query letters. You love writing them…right? Or maybe not. Tell us how you feel about writing queries and/or about selling your words in general. The truth now. No fudging.

Answer in the comments in 50-200 words (no less and no more to qualify to win one of today’s books). Please read the complete rules at least once!

Thanks for participating in the Writer Mama Every-Day-In-May Book Giveaway! Please bring a friend next time you come.

Fasten your seat belts, folks, because here comes Lela Davidson and she has been blacklisted from the PTA. Whether you think we should all be so lucky or you are a loyal PTA volunteer, I think there is a laugh and a nod of recognition in Lela’s first self-published collection of essays for every mom.

Lela is the author of Blacklisted from the PTA, Managing Editor of ParentingSquad.com, and the Parenting Columnist on HubPages.com. She is also the Associate Editor of Peekaboo magazine and represents the publication in the Parenting U segment on ABC affiliate KFSM Wake Up With 5News. Her writing is featured regularly in family and parenting magazines throughout the country and in Chicken Soup for the Soul: New Moms. Lela is also a popular teacher of online writing and promotion strategies.

Blacklisted from the PTA captures Lela Davidson’s irreverence. Whether it’s PTA meetings or POA politics, Lela exposes the humor in every awkward moment of familial failure and maternal meltdown. Lela says what the rest of us are thinking. Her hilarious observations and subtle satire are always spot on. She’s not afraid to reveal her screw-ups, along with fleeting delusional moments of wherein she honestly believes she is the best mom ever.

1. How has writing (either just the act of writing or writing this book or both) impacted your self-confidence?

There is nothing so exciting as when someone tells me that something I wrote made them laugh. That has been happening on a regular basis ever since I started writing these essays and posting them online, and then publishing them in a local magazine, and then submitting them beyond my own small circle. I’m always thrilled to get that stamp of approval from a reader. However, there is something very different about seeing them all gathered together in a nice typeface with a catchy cover (and oh, did we agonize over the cover!) But nothing compared to watching my husband read my bound-and-bar-coded review copy and hearing him say, “This is really good!”

2. What are three words that describe your creative book-writing process?

Long, slow, deep. Wait, no – that’s yoga. I would say erratic, fun, and Post-It-Note. When something makes me laugh and I find myself telling the story I write down the key elements. Then I try to get something down on paper before I lose the spirit of what I thought was funny. Sometimes these things translate to the written word and sometimes they don’t. If it’s working and I can make a story of it, I go back over the notes and shape it into something that makes sense. And deadline. No deadline, no essay.

3. What good has your book created in the world?

Smiles, giggles, and a fair amount of LOL-ing. People tell me a lot that they’ve experienced something similar to one or another thing I’ve written. I hope that by presenting mundane or frustrating facts of family life with humor that people (moms especially) will be a little easier on themselves, but if all they do is smile for a second that’s good enough for me.

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Have you written any personal essays for pleasure or publication? Lela’s essays are sassy and funny. But every essay writer has a unique style and tone. How would you describe yours? (If you don’t write essays for publication already, tell us how you imagine yours would be described.)

Answer in the comments in 50-200 words (no less and no more to qualify to win one of today’s books). Please read the complete rules at least once!

Thanks for participating in the Writer Mama Every-Day-In-May Book Giveaway! Please bring a gaggle of friends next time you come.