Today is publication day for Laura Whitcomb and we will be giving away both of her latest books to one lucky winner!
Laura has an amazing imagination. I also like her writing instruction books for Writer’s Digest, Novel Shortcuts and Your First Novel written with her agent, Ann Rittenberg. If you like YA and any kind of supernatural writing, you really must check out Laura’s books. Please help me welcome Laura!
Introducing Laura Whitcomb
Laura Whitcomb is the author of the supernatural YA novels A Certain Slant of Light (a Discover Great New Authors pick at Barnes and Nobel) and its companion novel Under the Light (published May 14) as well as The Fetch (in the Top Ten YA books of 2009 by the Indy Next List.) She has also written two books on the craft of writing, Novel Shortcuts and Your First Novel which she co-authored with her literary agent, Ann Rittenberg. Laura’s fiction has been published in nine foreign languages, produced as audio books, and Slant is optioned for film by Summit Entertainment, the producers of the Twilight movies.
Laura grew up in a mildly haunted house, which may be why she writes about ghosts, death escorts, and (soon) fairies. She got her English degree from California State University at Northridge and taught Language Arts in California and Hawaii. She has won three Kay Snow writing awards and once was runner-up in the Bulwer-Lytton contest for the Best First Sentence of the Worst Science Fiction Novel Never Written.
She broke in as a professional novelist after writing twenty manuscripts over a period of twenty years. To keep her life interesting she works with the Portland Christmas Revels and sings madrigals with the Sherwood Renaissance Singers at fairs across Oregon and Washington. In August she will be teaching a workshop called “The Ten Day Revision” at the Willamette Writers conference. She lives in Wilsonville, Oregon with her son.
Learn about Under The Light
Helen needed a body to be with her beloved. Jenny had to escape from hers before her spirit was broken. It was wicked, borrowing it, but love drives even the gentlest soul to desperate acts.
And Helen, who has returned to help Jenny, finds herself trapped, haunting the girl she wished to save. Jenny and Billy’s love story begins out-of-body and continues into the tumultuous realm of the living, where they are torn apart even as they slowly remember falling in love.
Learn about A Certain Slant Of Light
In the class of the high school English teacher she has been haunting, Helen feels them: for the first time in 130 years, human eyes are looking at her. They belong to a boy, a boy who has not seemed remarkable until now.
And Helen — terrified, but intrigued — is drawn to him. The fact that he is in a body and she is not presents this unlikely couple with their first challenge. But as the lovers struggle to find a way to be together, they begin to discover the secrets of their former lives and of the young people they come to possess.
Here is an example fan trailer made for A Certain Slant Of Light.
I asked Laura three questions about our giveaway’s theme topic, self-expression:
1. Is self-expression an important part of your life today, why or why not?
Yes, self expression is important in my life. Absolutely. It’s what it’s all about.
2. What does self-expression mean to you and how do you do it in the world?
Being a novelist and being a mom, the two jobs that take up most of my time, are all about self expression. Telling stories draws on my true self and beliefs, my most personal ideas and deepest emotions–it’s a big messy wonderful self expression circus. And being with my son, loving him, showing him what I find delightful in life, opening up to him every day my flawed self and yet saying by demonstration, “It’s okay to look up to me and be like me, because I survive life well and I’m a happy person who loves myself” . . . these things are all about self expression, too.
3. How does your self-expression impact the world—your family, your friends, your readers, and everyone else?
If you spend most of your time storytelling and learning all over again from a three-year-old how to live in The Now and to enjoy the wonder of simple things, you are rewarded with mountains of blessings. People who get and love what you write tell you why when they run into you at book events, or when they send emails or FB messages, or even when they send snail-mail letters, or fan-made videos. They give you a piece of themselves–they tell you the secret of what made them cry or why they fell in love with your fictional hero or which chapter was like a painful chapter of their own lives. Or if they’re fellow writers they’ll start up fabulous conversations with you over tea about how they struggled with the same bit of self expression you dealt with in your last draft. And if you walk around with your self expression set on “maximum silly” because of hanging out with a preschooler all the time, you become almost impossible to embarrass and people will let their hair down around you, even strangers, and give you wonderful gifts: smiles, shared jokes, spontaneous anecdotes, cool advice, and sudden inexplicable friendships.
And Now, Your Turn…
You remember how this works right?
Please read the complete rules at least once!
I ask you a question.
You answer in the comments for your chance to win a book each day.
Please just respond once, even if you make a typo. 
Answer in the comments in 50-200 words (no less and no more to qualify to win one of today’s books).
Quickly, without censoring or over-thinking write your top five favorite movies of all time. Then pause, and look at the list. What are the themes? What do the themes mean in connection to you? Whatever you notice quickly counts.
Ready, set, comment! I will hold the drawing tomorrow and post the results here in my blog.
Thanks for participating in the Writer Mama Every-Day-In-May Book Giveaway!
And thanks for spreading the word. We will be giving away great books by wonderful women authors all month.
View the complete list of authors and books.
View the giveaway Pinterest board.
Comments on this entry are closed.
The Color Purple, Raising Arizona, Amadeus, The Royal Tennenbaums and Oh Brother Where Art Thou?.
Wow. I’m not sure what the theme there is. Quirky, touching, maybe a touch of melancholy. I imagine all those words could be used to describe me. I’m not the romantic comedy type of girl by any means. I like things a little off beat maybe because I am off beat. As I have grown into middle age I have become quite comfortable with who I am. I care less and less how others perceive me as long as I am being myself.
Thanks for the question. That was fun and intriguing!
My Top Five Favorite Movies Are:
Amelie
The Breakfast Club
Say Anything
Donnie Darko
Sixteen Candles
I’d definitely say that I have a thing for 80s romantic comedies. I’m not sure where Donnie Darko fits in with the rest but the underlying theme in all of these movies is that love prevails. This connects to me in a deeply personal way because I want to meet someone who gets me in a stand-outside-my-window-with-a-boombox-playing- Peter-Gabriel-kind-of-way.
Love actually, the sound of music, pretty woman, sleepless in Seattle, and crossing delancy. I am guessing I love romance, a good love story! And of course they all have great soundtracks that I enjoy listening to as well. I am a sucker for a little conflict, some self discovery and a happy ending. I like other kinds of movies as well and enjoy the escapism of watching all kinds of stories, but a good cry and a happy ending and good music are very cathartic. Guess I am just sappy.
Five favorite movies : One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Little
Big Man, Dances with wolves, To Kill a Mockingbird and People Like Us.
Each of these movies attempts to give a lesson in morality, and whether I agree or not they are all done well. I get the
point. Each of them, except To Kill a Mockingbird and People Like Us, do it with humor. I like that there is something to learn in all of them and that there is empathy for the underdog who is struggling with their own demons, trying to do the right thing. I prefer movies
that have a take away for me to mull over.
These are all great movies and very entertaining. All somewhere down my list too.Getting a list of 5 is tough.Good choices.
I love the fact that now I have a new list of movies to watch!
Thanks !
These are great choices to keep you motivated and like the ones above good ones to add to my list.
My Top five movies, at least for today are:
Forest Gump, The Help, Good Will Hunting,
Dead Poet’s Society, The Seventh Sign. The themes that jump out at me are faith in oneself and overcoming adversity. As well they are all about revealing a depth within the characters that is not readily apparent to others. There is a thread of optimism in them all.
Favorite movies that come to mind are Shirley Valentine, Les Miserables, Room with a View, West Side Story, and To Kill a Mockingbird.
I can identify a couple of themes: Love, music, a sense of justice for everyone, equity, striving for your dreams. All of these themes are important in my life, and I have tried to act in such a way that people in my life, especially the children, will come to find these things important too.
1. Pride and Prejudice (BBC version)
2. Jane Eyre (BBC version)
3. A Beautiful Mind
4. Oklahoma!
5. Fiddler on the Roof
In ‘Pride and Prejudice’ one theme I love is learning to really understand a person, not just what you get at first sight. In ‘Jane Eyre’ one theme is also getting to know someone for who they are inside (Jane is plain, yet Mr. Rochester falls in love with her). Overcoming seemingly insurmountable difficulties is a theme of ‘A Beautiful Mind.’ In ‘Oklahoma’ love triumphs. And in ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ Tevia learns to balance beautiful traditions with inevitable progress. Seeing people and loving them for who they are is terribly important to me! I have overcome some odds and am always inspired by seeing other people overcome odds as well. I’m a hopeless romantic. And I’m always intrigued by the importance of balancing traditions with newness. So each of the movies mentioned above means something special to me!
Little Miss Sunshine, Iron Man, Millions, You’ve Got Mail, Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart. To me, they share a theme – that change can always happen. It’s a decision – even if you think you’re trapped, you can still change by changing how you think about where you are. There is always hope.
Wuthering Heights; Lassie, Come Home; Grease; Mama Mia; Wizard of Oz.
I could watch these over and over.
Kathleen at Gorham Printing
Christina, this question was a real eye opener. It helped me understand why I chose to use a young woman’s struggle with and survival after the death of a parent as the theme for my YA novel.
My top five movies are: 1. Bambi, 2.Star Wars, 3. The Big Chill, 4. Titanic, 5.Avatar. In four of these movies, characters lose one or both parents and must their way in life relying on their own resources. I was four years old when Bambi was re-released in 1957. It was the first movie I ever saw. My grandmother and aunt took me because, as usual, my mom was working. The despair Bambi felt when his mother perished in the forest fire haunts
me to this day.
In Star Wars, Titanic and Avatar, young people must also find themselves after the loss of parents. While in The Big Chill the movie’s 30-something characters are dealing with the suicide of a good friend, rather than a parent, the similarity to the other movies is that death changes everything and shapes who you are as a person.
I guess the top five are Chocolat, A
Wonderful Life, Castaway, any Star Trek film, Under the Tuscan Sun. My initial
response is that these films, overall, depict the themes of dreams, hope, tolerance,
openness, and perseverance to achieve them. I guess these films describe some
of my character traits quite accurately. Very interesting… A few of them a romantic, too. That’s me as well. 😉
My five favorite movies of all time are the Matrix Trilogy, Love Actually, The Notebook. The themes are ‘knowing the power is inside’ and ‘love’. The Matrix Trilogy show how life unfolds if you think things are just average or life is a day in, day out routine. If one remains open, sometimes you find yourself in a position to tap into a power that you may not have known existed inside. The Notebook and Love Actually demonstrate love in it’s many phases, stages and manifestations. It’s always there. It is eternal. It’s a joy, when we allow it to be. These are reflective of my life in several ways. It’s all good.
1. Stand By Me
2. Pretty in Pink
3. The Shawshank Redemption
4. Beaches
5. Dead Poet’s Society
Okay, so obviously I’m drawn to movies that pretty much bring me to tears! I am a huge fan of the 1980s era John Hughes movies, too, which is reflected in my #2. I can quote “Pretty in Pink” and “Some Kind of Wonderful” pretty much word for word. I get particularly angry these days when I watch “Dead Poet’s Society” because as a parent, I can’t imagine myself bullying either of my children the way Neil’s dad did. I am also drawn to themes of childhood friendship and coming of age stories, which makes sense as I’m working on a YA right now that features those topics.