Category: Special Features
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New Author Lelian Shepherd Creates a Vampire Unlike Any Other
A few weeks ago, I featured fellow Van Velzer author Kathryn Haueisen on this blog. For this post, I’m turning my “pen” over to Lelian Shepherd, whose novel Bloodline Divide will soon be published by Van Velzer. Many vampires have stalked through the pages of novels since Bram Stoker’s Dracula came out in 1897 – but I doubt if any of these vampires have been…
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The Value of a Book
I recently saw a list of the most valuable books in existence today. At the top of this list was the Codex Leicester, which is a notebook comprising many of Leonard da Vinci’s hand-written scientific writings. Worth roughly $69 million, the notebook is referred to as the Codex Leicester since it was once owned by…
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Local Author Focuses on Encounters Between Indigenous People and Anglo Settlers
Sometimes, I think this blog is rather boring. Whether that’s true or not, I think it would benefit if it provided readers with the views, experiences, and writing adventures of other authors. With that in mind, let me introduce you to Kathyrn Haueisen. I met Kathryn at the Lithopolis Book Fair last year. Even before…
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Podcast Offers New Avenue for Book Promotion
During my youth and early adulthood, the only types of electronic mass media available to the public were television and radio. Now, there are a multitude of electronic channels for mass communication made possible by the Internet. For only the second time, I took part in one of these new channels, specifically a podcast administered…
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The Secrets We Carry Wins Two Reader Views Awards
Over the course of my 76-plus years on this planet, I’ve written thousands of compositions, ranging from elementary-school book reports to full-length novels. Some of these writings were not very good, and even those that were never received any recognition beyond a grade of A. That changed last Sunday when Reader Views notified me that…
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Christmas, In a Word
Three years ago, I wrote a blog that explained how Xmas — contrary to the belief of a local pastor — was not an attempt to eliminate “Christ” from Christmas. Rather, the X was an abbreviated reference to Jesus. I noted that in Greek (the language used in the New Testament) the word for Christ…
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A Visit to Bookingham Forest
(With my website under construction until very recently, I didn’t have time to write a new blog for the first half of August. But this earlier piece, written for my 2016 Otterbein creative writing class, is both fun and bittersweet, since both Naomi and Alek are now too old for story time at Bookingham Forest.)…
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My Interview with Lancelot
Having taught public speaking for over 20 years, I feel pretty confident expressing myself in front of a live audience. But I felt a tremor of nervousness when Brooklyn-based author and blogger Lancelot Schaubert offered to interview me in front of an online audience. For one thing, I wouldn’t see this audience, wouldn’t know how…
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My 10 Favorite Books Revisited
One of my earliest blogs dealt with my 10 favorite books. With so much of my time being taken up now by preparations for my May 10 book launch, I’ve decided to save time by re-posting that blog rather than writing a new one. I will make a few new observations at the conclusion. MY…
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The Galleys: The Final Frontier
A book headed toward publication will go through many stages starting with the prewriting, to the writing of drafts, to proofing, and then to submitting the final draft to an agent or publisher. If you are self-publishing, the process may end there, but if you are working with a small press or a traditional press,…