RIASS stuff:
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Giveaway: Fallen Grace by Mary Hooper'(open to all)
Q&A with Andrea Kane, author of The Line Between Here and Gone
I'm over at the Walker Books Walk-a-Book blog talking about dreaming big with children's fiction.
I'm always looking to feature guest posts/interviews with writers and bookish people. If you'd like to be featured on RIASS, just drop me a line at readinasinglesitting AT gmail.com
Other bookish stuff:
Drusilla Modjeska on why women are reading'50 Shades of Grey:'Im more persuaded by the argument that its a relief from the flood of visual, sexualised imagery that never gives us women that might be us. Written erotica (if thats what it is) opens up a space for the imagination of the woman as reader to place herself in the action. She can tailor the story to her own needs, so to speak.
and'The Guardian on why'women love Fifty Shades of Grey'Jamess sex scenes are not incidental, they are the meat of the plot, the crux of the conflict, the key to at least one of and possibly both the central characters. It is a sex book. It is not a book with sex in it.
On the 1868 marble house on 5th Ave. built by society woman and the Wharton relative who inspired character in The Age of Innocence:'It was her habit, Wharton wrote, to sit in a window of her sitting room on the ground floor, as if watching calmly for life and fashion to flow northward to her solitary door. She was sure that presently the quarries, the wooden greenhouses in ragged gardens, the rocks from which goats surveyed the scene, would vanish before the advance of residences as stately as her own.
A romance authors male character dialogue analysed:'The above dialogue is so good for a romance novel but soooo fucking bad for real life. But before I get into that I concede to Gina and admit defeat. She can write better male dialogue than I can for a romance novel ' simply because it isn't real male dialogue and I don't know how to write fake male dialogue.
On the art of negative reviews'But one reason for this stuff that rarely seems to be addressed is: people like it. They like the heat of the argument. They like to see Godzilla doing battle with Mothra. They like to see Punch hit Judy.
F. Scott Fitzgerald and his editor Max Perkins discuss revisions to an early draft of The Great Gatsby: Your wire & your letters made me feel like a million dollars'Im sorry I could make no better response than a telegram whining for money. But the long siege of the novel winded me a little & Ive been slow on starting the stories on which I must live.
Richelle Mead talks about her Bloodlines sequel, The Golden Lily'I wanted to introduce a human element to the books but had to figure out why those humans would help vampires. A friend of mine suggested the alchemists and how they'd been tied to magic and chemical compounds centuries ago.
12 stats that matter to digital publishing
A Publisher's Year: The hard'sell'It's getting a book in a position to attract attention that's the challenge. Ads are expensive. Some writers shun social mediaAn excerpt is easily skipped, a TV channel changed, the radio turned off.
The science of why it's possible to actually die of a broken heart:'At the neurobiological level, the protest stage is characterized by unusually heightened, even frantic activity of dopamine and norepinephrine receptors in the brain, which has the effect of pronounced alertness similar to what is found in young animals abandoned by their mothers.
Margaret Atwood: why Wattpad works'On'www.wattpad.com'' using your computer, tablet or phone ' you can post your own writing. No one need know how old you are, what your social background is, or where you live. Your readers can be anywhere.
A portable reading room
Macmillan Knows Publishing Is Doomed, So It's Funding the Future'He's buying companies that will help Macmillan survive as a business once textbooks go away completely.'This includes'Prep-U, a quizzing engine for classrooms,'i-Clicker, a mobile classroom polling company, and most recently'EBI, a data and evaluation startup.
Tor to Publish New John Scalzi Novel as E-book Serial
A song with books in it (video)
Trailer for Year Zero by Rob Reid
Send to Kindle
Ive downloaded wattpad app ages ago and d/l a book due to the title (it had a favorite drink on it bubble tea!) but was never compelled to read it I actually completely forgot about it. Got a new phone last month and decided to re-d/l the app and read something I got completely hooked okay, it was a hot & steamy variety although it wasnt finished yet so it hasnt quite got to the steamy part yet, ha ha ha but aside from a number of misspelling, I really liked it. A positive first experience Will read something else another day :)
Ive never used the app, Tien, but it sounds like it might be an interesting way to check out some new authors! Thanks for the recommendation. :)