Winners!

Guys, thank you all SO much for the well-wishes and congratulations. You made celebrating my good news completely awesome, and I could never thank you enough.  But you don't want to read all my gushy thoughts, so on to the winners!!!!

Thanks to the Truly Random Number Generator, the winner of an ARC of Marie Lu's LEGEND is

Mary B!!!!!!

And the winner of the signed pre-order of Miranda Kenneally's CATCHING JORDAN is

Yasemin!!!!!!

I will be emailing both of the winners today! Thanks again for helping me celebrate and an extra big thanks to those of you who helped spread the word via twitter, facebook, and blogs. You rock!

Hopefully we'll be celebrating lots more good news in the future!

News! And The First Post Where I Use The Words “My” and “Agent!”

Sooo my title probably ruins the surprise a little bit, huh? This is the news I have been promising you on twitter and facebook! I’ve signed with an agent!

Me!

A real, live agent! Not to be confused with a not-live one. Like a plastic one. Or rubber.

My story is a short, fast-paced, crazy-lucky one. The condensed version: I received offers! And I accepted one!

Miranda Kenneally (author of CATCHING JORDAN, Dec. 2011) had already read my manuscript. And she kinda loved it, even though she’s a contemp writer, and my manuscript is...not contemp. And Miranda knows I’ve always fancied her agent, Sara Megibow.

***You all probably remember when Sara Megibow was a guest judge on the Sisters in Scribe blog, yes? If not, that post is here. Sara is fantastic! She’s professional, assertive, super nice, and about a zillion other gushy things.***

My situation was a little different than most, so Miranda emailed Sara and gave me a referral! Sara read my query letter, and requested the full. There were phone calls, and thoughtful consideration of all of my agent options (options!), and in the end, it was Sara Megibow who won my heart.The perfect match for me and my fledgling career.

I have signed with Sara Megibow of the Nelson Literary Agency!!!!

(I am also REALLY bad at photoshop)

*confetti*

And to celebrate, I’m giving away books from Nelson Agency authors!







First up, an advanced reader copy of Marie Lu’s YA dystopian, LEGEND (Putnam Children's, Nov. 2011), courtesy of Sara Megibow! Thanks, Sara!











ANNNND I’ve also got a SIGNED pre-order of CATCHING JORDAN (Sourcebook, Dec. 2011) by Miranda Kenneally up for grabs! This will be a final copy, but you won’t get it until Nov-Dec. Thanks, Miranda! *squishy hug*










To enter, fill out the form below. Contest ends Wednesday, July 20th at 11:59pm EST. TWO winners will be randomly chosen and announced on Thursday, July 21st. I’m not requiring you to be a follower of any blogs, or to spread the word via social networking sites, but I’d sure appreciate it if you did. Giveaway IS international. Yay!

Thanks, y’all!




And if for some odd reason that form didn't load for you, you can find it here.

And, and if you want to double your chances of winning a copy of CATCHING JORDAN, Miranda is having a contest at her blog. You can win an ARC of her book, or a crit from our agent, Sara Megibow, or a crit from YA authors, Sarah Skilton or Jennifer Shaw Wolf, and a number of other awesome prizes. Ends July 10th at 11pm EST.

Under Construction.

Just ignore my mess. Pretty please.

Elvis Lives!

It is summer! Finally! The warm weather is here, the kids are home until September, and I am in full mom mode. Which, unfortunately, leaves very little time for blogging, reading, and writing. If I post infrequently, please forgive me. I've got the summer fun bug.

As you may know, and if you didn't you do now, I am a big Elvis Presley fan. I think he's the most beautiful man that ever lived, and his voice belongs to some supernatural being of awesomeness. Sooo naturally, when I hear that an Elvis impersonator is doing a free concert at the beach fair, I HAD to go. Even though it was Father's Day and I'm pretty sure my husband was a teensy bit jealous. Seriously, babe, the real thing is long gone and nobody compares to you. Mwah. So we took the kids to the beach for the day and then parked on the grass for the concert. I saw "Elvis" when they were setting up the stage and had to run up there and say hello. He was super nice and took a picture with me. I warn you, he looks nothing like The King, but still, he was awesome. 

I give you Elvis, the Italian version from Jersey.

He told me if I came back up after his concert, he'd take another photo wearing his costume, but we left an hour into the show. Kids needed to go to bed, although my oldest did not want to leave. She stood by the stage the whole time we were there. "Elvis", by day known as Anthony Liguori Jr., waved at me from the stage while he was singing and then brought me a scarf, which my girl confiscated and wore all night.

This is the very short (battery died) video I took where he waved at me. :) It's a small wave, and then my camera got all shaky because...well because he waved at me.

As you can hear from that short clip, he was awesome! Sounded VERY much like Elvis, and he was a great performer. If he's ever in your area, check him out!

I hope you're all enjoying your summer!

Announcement of Awesome!

For a friend. This particular announcement is not my own.

Remember when we (Valerie, Natalie and I) decided that we were going to write one story a week at Tangled Fiction? And everyone said we were crazy?

Natalie has proved to be the craziest of our bunch. Stop by her blog and congratulate her on her big announcement, and to partake in her blind joy!! You don't want to miss it.

Hiatus

I know my blog posts here are sporadic at best, but it is summer and I am outdoorsy. I won't be doing a whole heck of a lot of blogging over the next few months--very busy schedule!

But for great posts about books and writing you can check out Sisters in Scribe. My scribe sister, Valerie, is out of the country for a while so she might not be posting much, but Kristi is an admitted over-achiever. You can always count on her Tuesday posts! And my Thursday posts will be there as well as a Contest Monday and a Friday Book Recommendation.

Hope you're having a fantastic summer!

*back to baking my strawberry pies*

Summertime Hideaway!

I've been slacking a little lately. Or distancing myself from my WIP, rather. Yes. That.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Memorial Weekend! Mine was a success. With my grilling skills, yes, but I mean with my summer-spot hunting. New York is a very crowded place. I don't think a spot exists within the city limits that is not cluttered with people.

Except this one.

And I like you, I really do. But I'm not telling you where this is because it is MINE! Precious.

It is a part of the beach near my house. (I live on an island. Sounds exotic. It's not.) Apparently, not a lot of folks like to hang out on the beach that has more shells than sand and smells like dead sea creatures because the tide comes in and drops them off in shallow pools for the birds to eat. But I like it just fine. Because it is EMPTY! Seriously, I felt like I spent the afternoon in a Dystopian novel. Or like I'd turn a corner and see Mary chopping the head off of a water-logged Mudo.

There were a few inhabitants.

But they're really very quiet. I do believe I've found my new writing spot. Have you a favorite hideaway?