Today I entered the Query Tracker Agent Judged Contest and I must say, I really had a blast!
The contest opened at 12:00 p.m. and I was ready at my computer, at work (technically, I was on lunch, in case my boss is reading this!), refreshing, refreshing; waiting for the registration form to appear. Like an apparition, it did appear and, with trembling hands, I filled it out and pasted my log line and first paragraph into the form, then I pushed the button and, like a magic, the form disappeared into the IT netherworld.
I must take this opportunity to apologize to one of my co-workers, Jen. At one minute to 12:00, Jen approached my desk and proceeded to ask me for something (I really don't remember what she asked for). I replied, "Jen, could you come back in five minutes, please?" She glanced at my screen, smiled knowingly and said, "Oh, sure, no problem." What a good sport she is!
Anyway, it was fun while it lasted and I am looking forward to doing it again.
Thanks Elana and the Query Tracker team!
Monday, March 29, 2010
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Michael Scott - Beloved Irish Writer
With St. Patrick's Day fast approaching, I thought I'd write about wonderful Irish writer, Michael Scott.
Michael Scott has been writing for over 25 years (his first book was published in 1983), and is one of Ireland's most successful and prolific authors, with over 100 titles to his credit, spanning a variety of genres, including Fantasy, Science Fiction, Folklore.
Michael is considered an authority on folklore of Celtic lands. His collections, entitled, Irish Folk & Fairy Tales, Irish Myths & Legends, and Irish Ghosts & Hauntings, are considered the definitive work on the subject. The Irish Times recently proclaimed Michael, "The King of Fantasy in these Isles."
His horror novels, Banshee, Image, Reflection, Imp and Hallows are considered classics of the genre. Michael's fantasy trilogies, Silverhand and Silverlight were published in the U.S. to excellent reviews.
The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel, is a series of six YA Fantasy novels that chronicle the adventures of 15 year old twins, Sophie and Josh Newman, who stumble into a world of magic that criss-crosses the globe. Many of the characters are from history and mythology, indeed, Nicholas Flamel, a French alchemist, was a real person born in 1313. The film rights to the series have been sold, and the first book, The Alchemist, is in production, set to be released in 2011.
The six books are: The Alchemist, The Magician, The Sorceress, The Necromancer, The Warlock and The Enchantress.
Check out this beloved Irish YA Fantasy series.
Michael Scott has been writing for over 25 years (his first book was published in 1983), and is one of Ireland's most successful and prolific authors, with over 100 titles to his credit, spanning a variety of genres, including Fantasy, Science Fiction, Folklore.
Michael is considered an authority on folklore of Celtic lands. His collections, entitled, Irish Folk & Fairy Tales, Irish Myths & Legends, and Irish Ghosts & Hauntings, are considered the definitive work on the subject. The Irish Times recently proclaimed Michael, "The King of Fantasy in these Isles."
His horror novels, Banshee, Image, Reflection, Imp and Hallows are considered classics of the genre. Michael's fantasy trilogies, Silverhand and Silverlight were published in the U.S. to excellent reviews.
The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel, is a series of six YA Fantasy novels that chronicle the adventures of 15 year old twins, Sophie and Josh Newman, who stumble into a world of magic that criss-crosses the globe. Many of the characters are from history and mythology, indeed, Nicholas Flamel, a French alchemist, was a real person born in 1313. The film rights to the series have been sold, and the first book, The Alchemist, is in production, set to be released in 2011.
The six books are: The Alchemist, The Magician, The Sorceress, The Necromancer, The Warlock and The Enchantress.
Check out this beloved Irish YA Fantasy series.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
The Great White North
It’s called the GREAT White North for Many Reasons . . .
Canada has been nicknamed The Great White North for the substantial blanket of snow that covers the ground for half the year, but as an aspiring writer, I see its greatness in the talent of our past and present literary community:
Lucy Maud Montgomery
Born in 1874, Montgomery is best known for a series of novels beginning with Anne of Green Gables, published in 1908. The charming series was an immediate, international success featuring the beloved character, Anne Shirley, who goes to live with an elderly rural couple who are expecting a boy orphan, but are mistakenly sent a girl, yet decided to keep her.
Maza de la Roche
Mazo de la Roche (1879 – 1961) was born in Newmarket, Ontario (very close to where I presently live). Her third novel, Jalna, was submitted to the American magazine Atlantic Monthly in 1927, winning a $10,000 award, a small fortune in the 20’s! Its publication brought de la Roche fame and fortune at the age of 48 (yes, there’s still hope for me at 49!). The series tells the story of one hundred years of the Whiteoak family covering from 1854 to 1954. The novels were not written in sequential order, however, and each can be read as an independent story. The Jalna series has sold more than eleven million copies in 193 English and 92 foreign editions.
Margaret Laurence
Margaret Laurence (1926-1987) is one of Canada’s most loved and respected writers. She is the author of sixteen books, including a travel memoir, five novels and two collections of short stories, a translation of Somali tales and poems, a collection of essays and an important study of Nigerian dramatists. Laurence was born in 1926 and lived in Lakefield, Ontario (the northern town where Prince Andrew went to college). In perhaps her best-know work, The Stone Angel, Laurence tells the story of a 90-year old woman struggling to come to grips with a life of intransigence and loss. "Pride was my wilderness, the demon that led me there was fear." Although Stone Angel has been banned from some schools, it is studied at the grade 12 university level in other schools.
The Diviners, published in 1974 was Laurence’s final novel. Although on the surface, The Diviners depicts very different roles for women than her earlier novels do, there is a recurring theme of the female perspective on contemporary life. Margaret Laurence wrote fifteen books and a memoir that was published posthumously. She as also well-known for her work as a peace activist and as one of the founders of the Writers’ Union of Canada. Her encouragement of fellow writers is legendary.
Mordecai Richler
Mordecai Richler (1931 – 2001) was a Canadian author, Academy Award-nominated screenwriter and essayist. He was born in Montreal, Quebec. Richler wrote movingly of his working class neighbourhood and its people, chronicling the hardships and disabilities they faced as a Jewish minority:
“To a middle-class stranger, it is true, one street would have seemed as squalid as the next. On each corner a cigar store, a grocery, and a fruit man. Outside staircases everywhere. Winding ones, wooden ones, rusty and risky ones. Here a prized lot of grass splendidly barbered, there a spitefully weedy patch. An endless repetition of precious peeling balconies and waste lots making the occasional gap here and there.”
His best known works are The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, and the Jacob Two-Two children's stories. A leading critic called him "the great shining star of his Canadian literary generation.”
Margaret Atwood
Ms. Atwood was born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada in 1939 and began writing at the age of six. She graduated from Harvard’s Radcliffe College in 1962 and went on to write The Edible Woman, The Handmaiden’s Tale, Cat’s Eye, The Robber Bride, Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood. Atwood writes Dystopian Science Fiction, but prefers to label it “Speculative Fiction”, and "Adventure Romance" because it does not deal with “things that have not been invented yet” and goes beyond the realism she associates with the novel form.
Michael Ondaatje
Michael Ondaatje was born 1943 in Colombo, Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) and moved to England with his mother in 1954. After relocating to Canada in 1962, Ondaatje became a Canadian citizen. His style of fiction was introduced in Coming Through Slaughter and mastered in The English Patient. He creates a narrative by exploring many interconnected snapshots in minute detail.
Canada is known for many national treasures—Wayne Gretzky, Christopher Plummer, Ellen Page, Mike Myers, Niagara Falls, The Canadian Rocky Mountains, Hockey, Maple Syrup, Canadian Bacon, French Canadian Pea Soup, Butter Tarts, The Northern Lights, Canada Geese, Tim Horton’s (much-coveted coffee and donuts), Poutine (French Fries drizzled with melted cheese curds and gravy-my kids love it!), The Hudson Bay Company (which once owned 1/11th of the Earth's surface), Molson’s beer, great Health Care and Halloween costumes for kids that fit over snow suits—but, check out these great Canadian writers.
I know they won’t disappoint.
Canada has been nicknamed The Great White North for the substantial blanket of snow that covers the ground for half the year, but as an aspiring writer, I see its greatness in the talent of our past and present literary community:
Lucy Maud Montgomery
Born in 1874, Montgomery is best known for a series of novels beginning with Anne of Green Gables, published in 1908. The charming series was an immediate, international success featuring the beloved character, Anne Shirley, who goes to live with an elderly rural couple who are expecting a boy orphan, but are mistakenly sent a girl, yet decided to keep her.
Maza de la Roche
Mazo de la Roche (1879 – 1961) was born in Newmarket, Ontario (very close to where I presently live). Her third novel, Jalna, was submitted to the American magazine Atlantic Monthly in 1927, winning a $10,000 award, a small fortune in the 20’s! Its publication brought de la Roche fame and fortune at the age of 48 (yes, there’s still hope for me at 49!). The series tells the story of one hundred years of the Whiteoak family covering from 1854 to 1954. The novels were not written in sequential order, however, and each can be read as an independent story. The Jalna series has sold more than eleven million copies in 193 English and 92 foreign editions.
Margaret Laurence
Margaret Laurence (1926-1987) is one of Canada’s most loved and respected writers. She is the author of sixteen books, including a travel memoir, five novels and two collections of short stories, a translation of Somali tales and poems, a collection of essays and an important study of Nigerian dramatists. Laurence was born in 1926 and lived in Lakefield, Ontario (the northern town where Prince Andrew went to college). In perhaps her best-know work, The Stone Angel, Laurence tells the story of a 90-year old woman struggling to come to grips with a life of intransigence and loss. "Pride was my wilderness, the demon that led me there was fear." Although Stone Angel has been banned from some schools, it is studied at the grade 12 university level in other schools.
The Diviners, published in 1974 was Laurence’s final novel. Although on the surface, The Diviners depicts very different roles for women than her earlier novels do, there is a recurring theme of the female perspective on contemporary life. Margaret Laurence wrote fifteen books and a memoir that was published posthumously. She as also well-known for her work as a peace activist and as one of the founders of the Writers’ Union of Canada. Her encouragement of fellow writers is legendary.
Mordecai Richler
Mordecai Richler (1931 – 2001) was a Canadian author, Academy Award-nominated screenwriter and essayist. He was born in Montreal, Quebec. Richler wrote movingly of his working class neighbourhood and its people, chronicling the hardships and disabilities they faced as a Jewish minority:
“To a middle-class stranger, it is true, one street would have seemed as squalid as the next. On each corner a cigar store, a grocery, and a fruit man. Outside staircases everywhere. Winding ones, wooden ones, rusty and risky ones. Here a prized lot of grass splendidly barbered, there a spitefully weedy patch. An endless repetition of precious peeling balconies and waste lots making the occasional gap here and there.”
His best known works are The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, and the Jacob Two-Two children's stories. A leading critic called him "the great shining star of his Canadian literary generation.”
Margaret Atwood
Ms. Atwood was born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada in 1939 and began writing at the age of six. She graduated from Harvard’s Radcliffe College in 1962 and went on to write The Edible Woman, The Handmaiden’s Tale, Cat’s Eye, The Robber Bride, Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood. Atwood writes Dystopian Science Fiction, but prefers to label it “Speculative Fiction”, and "Adventure Romance" because it does not deal with “things that have not been invented yet” and goes beyond the realism she associates with the novel form.
Michael Ondaatje
Michael Ondaatje was born 1943 in Colombo, Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) and moved to England with his mother in 1954. After relocating to Canada in 1962, Ondaatje became a Canadian citizen. His style of fiction was introduced in Coming Through Slaughter and mastered in The English Patient. He creates a narrative by exploring many interconnected snapshots in minute detail.
Canada is known for many national treasures—Wayne Gretzky, Christopher Plummer, Ellen Page, Mike Myers, Niagara Falls, The Canadian Rocky Mountains, Hockey, Maple Syrup, Canadian Bacon, French Canadian Pea Soup, Butter Tarts, The Northern Lights, Canada Geese, Tim Horton’s (much-coveted coffee and donuts), Poutine (French Fries drizzled with melted cheese curds and gravy-my kids love it!), The Hudson Bay Company (which once owned 1/11th of the Earth's surface), Molson’s beer, great Health Care and Halloween costumes for kids that fit over snow suits—but, check out these great Canadian writers.
I know they won’t disappoint.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
This Day in Literary History . . .
On January 24, 1862, Edith Wharton was born to an old and wealthy New York family. She grew up in an opulent world where pre-Civil War society tried to keep the nouveau riche at bay. Wharton, expected to become a typical wife, mother, and hostess, instead showed intellectual talent and began to write at an early age. At age 23, she married prominent socialite Edward Wharton, who had neither a profession nor fortune - they divorced in 1913. Edith returned to writing, often dealing with themes of divorce, unhappy marriages, and free-spirits trapped by societal pressures - in other words, she wrote what she knew.
Wharton's 1905 novel, The House of Mirth, told the story of a New York socialite with a strong sense of individuality who cannot adapt to the roles to which were expected of her. The book became a bestseller. Her novella, Ethan Frome, detailing a New England farmer trapped by the demands of the women in his life, is one of her best-known works. Her 1920 novel, Age of Innocence, won the Pulitzer.
Edith remained in France during World War I, assisting refugees, and was made a Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor in 1916.
In 1927, she published another bestseller, Twilight Sleep, then her autobiography, A Backward Glance, in 1934. She died in France in 1937.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Patches - A Sweet Curmudgeon
Patches is the hyper-active feline featured in WIND. He was given to me by a coworker about five years ago. I adopted him thinking he would be a good replacement for Samantha, who had just passed away (the cat I inherited from my father). You see, my son, Matthew, had grown very attached to Samantha, and was heart broken when she died. As it turned out, Patches took to me in a big way and inched his way into my heart. (Another cat, Sparkles, became Matthew's good friend). Patches is a sweet curmudgeon. He cries on the counter when he's hungry and his cry sounds like a baby bird begging for a worm. This prompted one young visitor to the house to ask, "Do you have a bird in here somewhere?" He's extremely bossy and chases the other cats every chance he gets, but like most bullies, he's a coward at heart - he runs for his life and hides in a kitchen cupboard when Lucky, the Dachshund, chases him (Lucky is referenced to in WIND and will make an appearance in SAND.) Nonetheless, he's a dear and we all love him.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Saturday, January 9, 2010
The Sun Is Finally Out
Saturday morning, a steaming cup of coffee and the sun is finally out, after a week of snow, snow & more snow. The teenagers are still sleeping, dreaming of movies, videos and pizza, no doubt! The two dogs and several cats are sleeping in a generous slice of sun on the floor. I am taking this gift of a quiet morning to write. All is right with the world (for the moment!).
Have a lovely day!
Have a lovely day!
Friday, January 8, 2010
Snow, Snow & Yes, More Snow!
It's cold - the perfect excuse to stay in and write, or at least try, and drink large quantities of coffee. The frigid temps are getting everyone down (even in Florida, I heard on CNN!) I think I'll hibernate until Spring (would that I could!), then creep out of my lair, stretch, and wonder if Tim Horton's (Canadian chain of coffee/donut shops that I can only describe as Nirvana) is still open. That's what bears do.
Canadian bears, anyway.
Canadian bears, anyway.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
My Favourite Books (Top 20)
- Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
- Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
- Exodus by Leon Uris
- The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
- American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld
- The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
- A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
- The Thornbirds by Colleen McCullaugh
- Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen
- The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell
- And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
- Dolores Claiborne by Stephen King
- Dracula by Bram Stoker
- The Shipping News by Annie E. Proulx
- The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
- White Oleander by Janet Fitch
- Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
Sunday, November 8, 2009
WIND by Cynthia Watson
I have finally completed my 75,000 word Young Adult novel - Wind. Now I'm beginning the quest for a literary agent. I have queried a handful of agents - I've had several requests for partials and am hopeful something will be forthcoming soon! I'm dying to share my adventure with everyone! It's exciting & romantic, with a sincere, yet funny heroine & a mysterious stranger from Italy who changes her life forever.
Stay tuned . . .
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