Goodbye 2014

Goodbye 2014

2014 was a year full of ups and downs for me.

I started a writing club this year that meets every other Tuesday and have been dedicating more time to writing poetry as well as short stories. I started a novel and have a huge outline going. I even took a poetry class and a short story class this year. I'm super proud of myself for doing that.

I read over 100 books in 2014.  112 to be exact.  This is the most I have ever read in my life in one year. I read a huge variety of books from many genres.  Not sure if I will ever read this much again in one year.  It helped that I broke my foot in 3 places in May and couldn't walk all summer.  Crutches suck by the way.  I spent most of my summer in a boot, lying on the couch with my foot up.  Then my son broke his ankle in 2 places and now we are up to our ears in medical bills.  Sad.

I took three trips this year. I went to New York City in January and again at the end of March with my daughter and several high school students.  I LOVE NYC!  Then in June I traveled to Maryland/DC area for National History Day and my student Tasha took home the top prize in the Nation in the senior paper category.  It was an amazing experience and one that I will never forget.  It was the highlight of my teaching career so far.

In September I started teaching a college class.  This has been one of my goals and it frankly is hard to teach high school and college at the same time.  So hard but I'm managing with less free time, less reading, writing and blogging (my blogging really took a hit) time and my kids cooking dinner and online grocery shopping.  Can anyone say "super busy"!

I will post a goals 2015 piece in the next couple of days.

Happy Last Day of 2014!!

Book Gifts

Book Gifts.

Last year, I received 6 books for book gifts and I made a goal for myself to read all them by the end of 2014.  I read 4 of them and plan to read the 5th next week.

So often I receive a book and then I add it to my shelf full of books to read and then it lingers there on the shelf for way too long.  So I am determined to read these books this year and I thought I would do a post on it to hold myself accountable.

Here I the books I received for the Holidays and plan to finish reading in 2015.

1.  Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward.  I loved Jesmyn Ward's Salvage the Dogs.  It is one of the best books I have ever read and I can't wait to read this memoir.  I received this book from my Secret Santa Carol from the blog http://carolsnotebook.com/

2.  The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch.  My Secret Santa, Carol also bought this for me.  This
book looks like an adventure and I can't wait to dive in.  Reading is so much fun!
Thank You Carol.  I love my new books and can't wait to read them.

The next three books, I received from my 2 teenage children and my husband. I'm super pumped about reading these books this year.

3.  All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.  This book is topping all the best of 2014 lists.  It is a WWII novel set in Paris.  Historical fiction is my absolute favorite.

4.  The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin.  Another book
topping all the best of 2014 lists.  I love books about books and I can't
wait to read this.  I'm seriously jumping up and down.  Reading makes me so happy.

5.  Neverhome by Laird Hunt.  I met Laird Hunt in October at the Twin Cities Book Festival and heard him speak.  Neverhome is about a female soldier during the Civil War who disguises herself as a man.  I am choosing to read this as my first book of 2015!  Happy Dance!

My Mom and Step-dad got me three different types of cookbooks.  I won't necessarily read them in the same way I would a novel but I pledge to cook out of them for a year, at least one recipe a month.

Here are my three new foodie books.

1.  Water Infusions.  Refreshing, Detoxifying and Heathy Recipes for your Home Infuser by Dr. Mariza Snyder & Dr. Lauren Clum.  Yep I got a water infuser and I am loving it.  I made Pear and Cinnamon water last night and it is delicious.  Tomorrow, I am making something with Mint.

2.  The Green Smoothie Bible.  Super-Nutritious Drinks to Lose Weight, Boost Energy and Feel Great by Kristine Miles.  I love smoothies and make them almost every day of the week for breakfast.  I am looking forward to trying some new varieties and getting more green in my shake.  Yum.

3.  My Prairie Cookbook.  Memories and Frontier Food from My Little House to Yours by Melissa
Gilbert.  I LOVE Little House on the Prairie books and the TV show and I'm excited to read and cook out of this book.  There are lots of pictures and memorabilia included in the book too.  Double Yummy.

I love all my new book gifts.

What books did you receive as gifts??

The Lovers Set Down Their Spoons by Heather A. Slomksi

The Lovers Set Down Their Spoons by Heather A. Slomksi

First off, I love the title of this book, The Lovers Set Down Their Spoons and I was also intrigued by the beautiful cover.  Inside the book you will find 15 short stories that vary in length from one page to a short novella in length  Each story is beautifully written and imagined.

How you read a short story collection varies from book to book and person to person.  When I started reading The Lovers Set Down Their Spoons, I read one story, then another and then a third.  Quickly I realized that I wanted to savor these stories so I could have time to think about them and swallow their meaning.  So I switched my reading pattern.  I read one story in the morning, usually a short one (1-2 pages) and one story at night, usually a longer story.  This worked splendidly and I fell in love with this book and these stories.

Heather is a wonderful writer and she mesmerizes the reader with her beautiful imagery and prose.  Each story is unique and unpredictable and they leave the reader hungry for life and love and for more stories.  Many of the stories are grounded in reality and characters must face loss, grief or regret but some of the stories take you into a sphere you may not recognize, hidden somewhere in a different mental state or space where heartbreak lives.  Each story is addictive like food and wine.

It is hard to pick a favorite story out of this collection because each story is so good.  My favorite has to be Iris and the Inevitable Sorrow, or The Knock at the Door because it is so creative.  Although Neighbors is also amazing with a little bit of creepy thrown in.  And then there is the last story, Before the Story Ends, which is heartbreakingly beautiful.

The Lovers Set Down Their Spoons won the Iowa Short Fiction Prize and was published by the University of Iowa press.  Heather joins an impressive list of short story writers and she is very deserving of this prize.  I read seven different short story collections in 2014 and The Lovers Set Down Their Spoons is definitely my favorite.

A Brief History of Seven Killings Giveaway Winners

A Brief History of Seven Killings Giveaway Winners

Marlon James has written a riveting political thriller surrounding the assassination attempt of singer, Bob Marley.  James, along with his publisher, Riverhead books and Penguin Random House are giving away 2 copies of A Brief History of Seven Killings.
And the winners are...

Aleah from New York
Carl from Arizona

Congratulations to both of you.

Enjoy your new book.
Happy New Year!

Heather A. Slomski Guest Post + Giveaway

Heather A. Slomski Guest Post + Giveaway

Heather Slomski is December's, Minnesota Author in the Spotlight here on BookSnob and she has written a guest post on how the weather influences her writing and is portrayed in her stories.  As I look out the window,  it is snowing and huge white flakes are falling on the brown ground.  Weather definitely affects my mood and influences authors and stories.  Read on.


On Weather

Today, after I put my toddler down for a nap, I looked out at the cold, gray afternoon and was reminded of something that, surprisingly, I only recently realized about my writing: my loyalty to the weather.

I am a fiction writer, and while my writing is certainly at times influenced by my life—the people in it, the things that have happened to me or to the people that I know—when I sit down to write, these people and events detach themselves from reality and become fiction. The more a story derives from reality, it seems, the more fictionalization it undergoes. This is not a conscious decision to “hide” the truth, but rather something I do naturally. I write fiction, not nonfiction. Therefore, if I’m writing about something that stems from real life, I have to give this “something” an imaginative life if I am to have any interest in writing about it. More precisely, the

imaginative life of the something real is what inspires me to write about it in the first place. One aspect of my work that I never imagine, however, is the weather.

Every story I’ve ever written (and I’m certain every story that I will ever write) takes place at the time of year when I wrote it. For example, my story titled “Iris and the Inevitable Sorrow, or The Knock at the Door” takes place on and around Valentine’s Day, and I wrote this story over the course of one particular February. “Before the Story Ends” begins in late autumn but takes place primarily between mid-December and New Year’s Day, and I started this story one New Year’s Day and finished the first draft by the end of January. And to give one last example, my short-short titled “Rescue” takes place at the end of summer, and I wrote this piece one August.

I’ve always been aware that setting is important to my work; it is often my main reason for writing a

story—to spend time in an imagined place or to return to a place I’ve left. Weather is an element of setting, so I suppose the connection I’m making here is rather obvious, but to me it’s a bit intriguing, because if I fictionalize almost everything else in my work, why not the weather?

I suppose the reason has a lot to do with mood. The weather outside influences my mood, and that mood (and weather) ends up seeping into my work. While it would make sense that I might want to write a summer story in the dead of winter in order to escape the cold and to “be” in a summer climate, or to escape the heat of summer by writing a story about a snowstorm, I’m just never in a summer mood in the winter or a winter mood in the summer. The moods I create in my stories stem from the moods I’m in while writing, and because my moods are influenced by weather, I’ve discovered that I’m a very seasonal writer.

By Heather A. Slomski

Thanks Heather!  If you would like to win a copy of Heather's Award winning book of short stories, The Lovers Set Down Their Spoons, please enter here:  The Lovers Set Down Their Spoons Giveaway

Happy Holidays!

The Lovers Set Down Their Spoons Giveaway

The Lovers Set Down Their Spoons Giveaway

Heather A. Slomski is the December Author in the Spotlight here on Booksnob and she, along with her publisher, the University of Iowa Press, are giving away 3 copies of her award winning book to followers who live in the United States.  This is a book of awesome short stories you don't want to miss.

Here is the synopsis from Goodreads:

Winner of the 2014 Iowa Short Fiction Award, Heather A. Slomski’s debut story collection takes loss as its primary subject and holds it up to the light. In prose spare and daring, poised yet startling, these stories take shape in reality, but reality, they sometimes show us, is not a separate realm from the fantastic or the surreal. Two couples meet for dinner to acknowledge an affair. A mannequin recalls a lover and the life she mysteriously lost.  Two girls observe a young widow’s grief through a café window. A man’s hat is as discerning as Cinderella’s shoe.

In the fifteen stories that comprise this collection—some short as breaths, two of them novelettes—Slomski writes with a keen eye about relationships. About the desires that pull us together and the betrayals that push us apart. About jealousy, obsession, loneliness and regret—the byproducts of loving someone that keep us awake at night.

The characters in these stories share meals, drink wine, buy furniture and art. They live domestic lives, so often wanting to love someone yet ending up alone. In one story, a woman’s fiancé leaves her when she goes to post some mail. In another story, a man can’t move past an affair his wife almost had. Another story describes a series of drawings to detail a couple’s end. But while loss and heartache pervade these stories, there is also occasional hope. For, as the title story shows us, sometimes a breakup isn’t an end at all, but the beginning of your life.

Contest Rules:
Fill out the form
U.S residents only
Ends Dec 31st at midnight
Good Luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Announcing December Author in the Spotlight

Announcing the December Author in the Spotlight.

It's December already?  Really?  I feel like November skipped by so fast, I didn't get to really enjoy it.  November tends to be my busiest month, so I'm looking forward to cold weather and snow and hibernating near my fireplace with a good book during the month of December.  The cold weather has been in Minnesota awhile now and today it was -1 degree when I woke up. Bring it on, old man winter!  Winter Break can't come fast enough.

So this month I'm featuring a new author, Heather A. Slomski with her first published book of short stories called The Lovers Set Down Their Spoons.  Heather entered the Iowa Short Fiction contest and won!  This book is a collection of the 15 short stories that won her the coveted prize.

Here is a synopsis from Goodreads:

The Lovers Set Down Their Spoons:
Winner of the 2014 Iowa Short Fiction Award, Heather A. Slomski’s debut story collection takes loss as its primary subject and holds it up to the light. In prose spare and daring, poised yet startling, these stories take shape in reality, but reality, they sometimes show us, is not a separate realm from the fantastic or the surreal. Two couples meet for dinner to acknowledge an affair. A mannequin recalls a lover and the life she mysteriously lost.  Two girls observe a young widow’s grief through a café window. A man’s hat is as discerning as Cinderella’s shoe.

In the fifteen stories that comprise this collection—some short as breaths, two of them novelettes—Slomski writes with a keen eye about relationships. About the desires that pull us together and the betrayals that push us apart. About jealousy, obsession, loneliness and regret—the byproducts of loving someone that keep us awake at night.

The characters in these stories share meals, drink wine, buy furniture and art. They live domestic lives, so often wanting to love someone yet ending up alone. In one story, a woman’s fiancé leaves her when she goes to post some mail. In another story, a man can’t move past an affair his wife almost had. Another story describes a series of drawings to detail a couple’s end. But while loss and heartache pervade these stories, there is also occasional hope. For, as the title story shows us, sometimes a breakup isn’t an end at all, but the beginning of your life.

This month you can expect a book review, a giveaway, an author interview and if we are lucky, a guest post.  I love short stories and try to read one short story every Saturday.  I'm eagerly to read Heather's book.  You can visit Heather at her website:  http://heatheraslomski.com/

Have a great month.

Happy Reading!