You are Remembered

Happy Thanksgiving - 

I am grateful for our nation's men and women in uniform who serve so faithfully around the world and for their families who endure daily sacrifices.

Southern Comforts

If you haven't noticed,  our once unthinkably unshakeable economic foundation has turned to quicksand.  The holidays are coming and the weather is as inhospitable as Mr. Dow Jones.  

A little Southern Comfort is in order. No, not that kind. The literary variety.

Our friends from Tennessee know better than most how to spin a good yarn.  Although quite different personalities, these two TV favorites each have something to say about living, laughing and loving.

DIXIE CARTER 

Everyone's favorite Emmy Award nominated designing woman, Dixie Carter's 1996 memoir Trying to Get to Heaven: Opinions of a Tennessee Talker (Fireside) will warm your heart. It's one of the most precious and rewarding reads around. An instant bestseller the moment it hit shelves, Carter's homespun Southern grit and old-fashioned countrified wisdom will still carry you through the bleakest months ahead.  Set the book aside on December 20th to watch her in the Hallmark holiday movie Our First Christmas. 

Check out the video: Remember her great turn as the firebrand Julia Sugarbaker on the mega hit series Designing Women?

LESLIE JORDAN 

Leslie Jordan won an Emmy Award for his recurring role on Will & Grace and is one of America's most prolific character actors. Jordan's new book My Trip Down the Pink Carpet (Simon Spotlight, 2008) chronicles his precarious rise in Hollywood. It is a veritable minefield of candid revelations:  Addictions, personal demons, tattletale stories on his Tinsel town contemporaries and frank talk about being an out gay actor.   

Ms. Carter as steel magnolia Julia Sugarbaker in Designing Women:

Marketing is for Kids

Book Evangelist of the Day: Kevin Gerard

When San Diego author Kevin Gerard first introduced his fantastic fantasy series Conor and the Crossworlds in 2004, he knew he had something special. His readers, primarily composed of middle school kids, loved and related to the story of ten-year old Conor and his out-of-this-world adventures.

Now on this fifth book, Gerard has found a way to keep his core fans engaged and attract a whole new audience for the series. 

Besides his full-time job writing, Gerard teaches at Cal State University. As any good teacher understands, it is about students getting involved - participating.

A golden apple to Gerard who has devised an intricate and intriguing contest for his savvy readers. 

Drawing from the Five Keys of the Creators storyline found in the third book of the series, Gerard is launching a nationwide treasure hunt in January.

He's hidden the custom-designed Five Keys of the Creators across America and spreading the word on YouTube and beyond. 

The prizes are pretty epic.

Five lucky adventurers will win an Apple laptop computer, an iPod, signed copies of all five books and $500 bucks.  

You want to find them?  Start reading book three.

Kudos to Gerard who not only writes great stories, he brings them to life.

For more info on Gerard and the Conor and the Crossworlds series:  www.conorandthecrossworlds.com 

Things We Lost in the Fire

At dawn this morning, Christopher Lloyd wandered glassy-eyed through the smoldering cinders of what remains of his multimillion dollar home.  

The actor, best known for the Back to the Future movies, is one of 50,000 Southern Californians displaced by the fires that are raging from Santa Barbara to southeast of Los Angeles.  The flames have engulfed nearly 37,000 acres. 800 homes -from modest to mansion - have been destroyed without prejudice. 

On this fifth day of fires; soot and debris choke the Los Angeles skyline.  Ash swirls through the hot air, kicked up by the rush of traffic. It lands on cars like a cruel frost.

Lloyd lamented to ABC's Good Morning America that he had procrastinated on sorting and storing his Hollywood memorabilia.  
Now, he says, it doesn't matter anymore.

As he meanders through the ruins, Lloyd seems unsure of what to do with himself or where to turn.  He has, quite literally, lost his place.

Today, sort out what needs sorting out. Make amends where they are due. Start an adventure. Write something extraordinary and share it with the world. 

Time burns mercilessly.

We are all equal in the force of nature. 

Rain soaks. Wind pushes . Sun parches. Oceans rise and fall.

Fire, can even touch the stars.

Life Measured By Books

I have 42 books on the table next to my bed. Can a life be measured by books? If so, what do our books say about us - our passions, interests, values, desires and fantasies? If the saying you are what you eat holds a kind of truth; are we also what we read?

Here is what I can tell you about the 42 books on my table:

I haven't written any of them

I have read 34 of them

I have read 4 of them, twice

I know 14 of the authors

I purchased 12 of them

12 are hardcover

I have represented 9 of the authors

2 of the books are on personal finance

I have yet to read either of them

2 are collections of short stories

1 is a collection of essays

2 are books of poetry

1 arrived from the Amazon Stork yesterday

I have had 1 of them since the day I was born

A sample of titles in no particular order:

Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls (for grades 5-8)

Dangerous Muse: The Life of Lady Caroline Blackwood by Nancy Schoenberger

Self-Help: Stories by Lorrie Moore by Lorrie Moore

Why We Make Movies: Black Filmmakers Talk About the Magic of Cinema by George Alexander

The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life & Times of Harvey Milk by Randy Shilts

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

No Great Mischief by Alistair MacLeod

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris

Mother Teresa's Prescription: Finding Happiness & Peace in Service by Paul A. Wright

Passing: Poems by Eloise Klein Healy

After a survey of my books, I have come to discover some patterns. Some are not surprising, while others are rather eye-opening.

Next time you're in bed, glance at the nightstand. What secrets do these silent tomes hold between their pages? They just might read you, like a book.

Take a Chance on You

It's Sunday. Time for Confession.

How often have you told someone about a great book?

How many times have you helped someone (sometimes just an acquaintance) start or finish a project?

How much time and energy have you put into promoting the work of your  friends, family and colleagues? 

My guess:  A lot.

Now, consider this question carefully: Have you put the same amount of time, passion, energy and talent into your own book or writing project?  How about half the time? A third?

Crickets.

That's what I thought.

And why not?

Don't have time? You had time to help your friends.  Besides, you just spent countless hours writing and rewriting over 200 pages.  Try again.

Too shy?  

You poured your heart and soul into 75,000 glorious words. 

Oh, did you mean for that next great American novel to be locked away in your desk for no one to read? Pardon moi. 

Authors need to focus on more than writing.  We need to change our mentality. It's time to think our book from Mind to Market.

If you're capable of promoting others (including total strangers), you could (and should) do it for yourself.

It's time to get out of the way of your own success.

Here's why:

You deserve it.

No one knows you or your work better.

No one can speak about your work more authentically.

No one will commit as much time and energy.

No hero is on their way to save the day (or your book from oblivion)

Be the hero you are waiting for.

Promote Thyself.

Ferriss Wheeling

You want the secret to a successful brand or business? Multiple impressions, folks. Rich Little (If you were born after 1980, Google him) has nothing on Timothy Ferriss, the self-styled guru of lifestyle design. His disciples are devoted and I'm fast becoming a true believer. Ordered his bestseller The 4-Hour Workweek after my friend Kristi lost her voice singing his praises over dinner one evening. I remember catching him a couple of months earlier on the Tube. As we wait for the Amazon Stork, check out his videos. This one, made while he packed for a Hawaiian Tropic, is awesome.

In Twilight, Fast Falls the Eventide

William Gay's finely wrought novel, Twilight (MacAdam Cage, Softcover, 2007), both enraptures and appalls. A Southern storyteller in the vein of Faulkner and O'Connor, Gay draws us into the dark world of the Tennessee wood where mythology and modernity share equal credence. The story follows a young brother and sister who unearth a gruesome secret; the town's undertaker, Fenton Breece, has undertaken activities both nefarious and necrophiliac on his lifeless clientele. After a blackmail scheme goes terribly wrong, Breece hires a deranged local to hunt down his would-be extortionists and bring them to bloody injustice. Gay's use of language is not only masterful, it is wholly fresh and innovative. Start reading at dawn, finish at Twilight.

Lopez Serves Up Delish Dish

The landmark film Real Women Have Curves empowered women of all shapes and sizes to embrace their curve appeal. In the process, it garnered two Sundance Film Festival Awards, a National Board of Review Award and an Independent Spirit Award. The coming-of-age story also thrust its star, America Ferrera, into the national spotlight and on the road to an Emmy Award as the title character in the ABC hit series Ugly Betty.

Playwright Josefina Lopez wrote Real Women Have Curves and co-wrote the screenplay with George LaVoo. Together, they shared the prestigious Humanitas Prize for Screenwriting.

In March 2009, Lopez debuts her first novel, Hungry Woman in Paris (Grand Central Publishing) and its a delish dish. Story will appeal to anyone who has ever felt completely at odds with their present life, disillusioned with their future and chooses flight over fight.

Our protagonist, Canela, flees LA to Paris. On a whim, she enrolls in the world's top cooking school. Her senses soon come alive as she begins to taste the joys of food, intimacy and self-acceptance - basic ingredients for happiness. Hungry Woman in Paris is a manifesto for lonely hearts and a literary triumph for Lopez.