Category Archives: Blog

Landing an Author Interview

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Getting Interviews & Making Waves

A well-placed piece of press can help you reach a wider audience. But how do authors get interviews? Well, it’s not by sitting around and waiting for the media to come knocking.

The best way to expand your reach is to find media outlets in markets you want to target and send them a press release. Press releases inform editors and reporters about items that might be of interest to their readers.

Press Release: Any information sent to the press and/or media outlets is considered a press release.

Media outlets get a lot of press releases, so here are some tips to make yours stand out. And you can breathe easier knowing the resulting interviews will flow smoothly because you’ve prepared everything beforehand. Continue reading →

Summer Cleansing w/Taranis

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The month of July is often referred to as the month of the Thunder Moon. Celts venerated all natural phenomena, so it’s not surprising that they had a thunder god. Taranis, whose name literally means thunderer, is that god.

While there are only seven inscriptions specifically to Taranis, they are spread across a surprisingly large area, including: Britian, France, Germany, and Yugoslavia. However, there are plenty of monuments dedicated to a sky deity scattered throughout Gaul that depict both the sun-wheel and thunderbolts. Taken together, this indicates that Taranis’s cult was both widespread and well known.

Given the sun-wheel and thunderbolt’s repeated linkages, and owing to Taranis’s later conflation with Jupiter, it’s possible that he had power over all celestial activities, including snow, wind, and rain. This time of year, summer storms blow in, lighting up the heavens and showering us with rain. In agricultural areas and places suffering from wildfires, these storms often have a cleansing effect, knocking smoke and dust from the sky. If you, like the smoky skies, could use a little cleansing and clarity, call on Taranis. Continue reading →

Crowdfunding for Tips for Authors

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To start, ask yourself a couple questions.

First: “Do you want your book to sell?”
Second: “Do you want to sell your book?”

These questions illustrate vastly different mindsets. Most authors want their book to sell. Few are willing to actively sell their book.

Self-published means self-promoted. If you want your book to sell, you must sell your book. There is no magic formula that will compel people to hand you cash. Authors need to employ all the same marketing strategies to promote a Kickstarter campaign as they do when promoting their books.

Earlier this year I used proven business skills to successfully launch a Kickstarter that raised over $3,000 for my debut novel in just 30 days. In this post, I share my marketing tips.

Continue reading →

Movies Based on Banned Books

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Banned books are trending on social media and in the news. Parent groups concerned about the content in books stage protests and overrun school and library board meetings. If you’re not a reader and want to know what this banned book whoopla is all about, have I got a surprise for you. Many banned books have been made into movies!

Common refrains from book banners are, “Books should have a rating system, like movies” and “Books for adults should be kept separate from books for children.”

Both of those things already happen! Books are rated and organized according to age-appropriateness and reading level. There’s no way a child perusing picture books would accidently stumble across a western, a romance, or even a Christian fiction novel because they are all shelved in different parts of the library.

But my question to book banners is, “If the books are so bad, how come no one is trying to ban the movie?”

Below, I’ve outlined the basics of how books are organized and catalogued in schools and libraries. I’ve also included lists of popular movies based on banned books for each category. Continue reading →

Celtic Cat Myths and Legends

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I’m in the process of putting in a fairy garden. At the outset, I did not realize it would be a multi-year process.

Last summer, I removed enormous juniper shrub. It was easily 30 feet across. But on July 19th my cats were poisoned. Speculation and conjecture filled the neighborhood with everyone chiming in with a new theory about how or why it happened. Tabby pulled through, but Storm died.

I buried Storm at the site of my future fairy garden. After creating a cat-sized mound over the grave, I told my son, “This will be Storm’s Garden. Her ghost will probably spend all day catching fairies and ripping off their wings.”

The problem with that sentiment is, as onery as Storm was, fairies like cats. In Scotland and Ireland there are legends of cat-sìth—mythical fairy cats. Continue reading →

Idaho’s Banned Books

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There are several problems with banned books lists, the first of which is that they keep getting longer. The American Library Association (ALA) reported a record number of book bans in 2022. Last year there were 1,269 attempts to ban books, up from 729 in 2021 and 156 in 2020. And they just keep coming.

The other problem is deciding which list to check. Do you want children’s books, novels, classic literature, or nonfiction? Do you want books banned anywhere in the United States or only those banned in your state? Do you want a list of the most banned books of all time or just those that were banned last year? How about a list of banned books that are over 100 years old? Or better, how about a list of 100-year-old books that were banned last year? 

After a lot searching, I’ve created a list of 83 books recently banned in the State of Idaho. Continue reading →

Natural Egg Dyes

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The Ostara Sabbat marks the end of the dark half of the year. In the Anglo-Saxon calendar, Eostremonath was named after Eostre (Ostara in Old High German). Eostre is maiden goddess of dawn and the spring. At the equinox a feast is celebrated in her honor, replete with offerings of colored eggs. Exchanging eggs was thought to ensure abundant crops in the coming autumn and Saxons exchanged colored eggs as a talisman representing new life. The eggs were consumed in Eostre’s honor.

A favorite way to celebrate the holiday is by dying eggs. If you feel adventurous, skip the dye kits available at the grocery store and use vegetable dyes. It’s a fun way to connect with our ancestors and lets kids of all ages feel like a potion master in their own kitchen!

Continue reading →

City Spotlight: Viola

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My most recent article, “Viola: Here, Gone, and Coming Back” appears in the March 2023 issue of IDAHO Magazine. The article contains Viola history, ghostly run-ins, and interviews with current businesses and residents, along with a little hope for the future. Locally, IDAHO magazine is available at BookPeople of Moscow.

Purchase a copy directly from IDAHO Magazine for just $6 here:
Buy it now!
OR
Purchase only the Viola article for $1.99 here:
Viola—Spotlight – IDAHO magazine

Thank you for supporting Idaho businesses and Idaho authors.

Klara’s Journey on Kickstarter

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I just launched Klara’s Journey on Kickstarter! On the Kickstarter website you’ll find:

The trailer was created by Damonza and is absolutely amazing. You definitely don’t want to miss it!

In addition to the trailer, there’s a video describing the project, my project budget, images of the map and the calendar created for the novel. You’ll even get a peek at the initial inspiration for the novel. (Hint: It started with a song!) I even posted the first editorial review . . . and it’s good. Really, really good!

Kickstarter allows you to pre-order both ebooks and paperbacks. Books will ship the last week of May. As a bonus, all paperbacks will be autographed before they’re shipped.

Pre-order on Kickstarter today!