Thursday, February 28, 2013

Author Interview ~ Debra Jayne East




Hello everyone, please welcome Debra Jayne East to Sensuous Promos today as she shares with us a little bit about herself and her work. 

Debra, thank you for joining us today. I know the readers are eager to get to know you, so let’s get started. 

Can you tell us a little bit about where you are from? 

I was born in Martinsville, Virgina. At eighteen, I moved to North Carolina below the Blue Ridge Mountains and I love it. I enjoy wildlife and there are plenty of deer, foxes and birds I see almost every day. The most striking thing is the amount of beautiful old houses I have come across. I adore Victorian style houses and they are scattered all over North Carolina.

What does your writing desk look like? What would we find on it right this minute? 

Well, lucky for me I’ve just recently bought a new desk so it’s relatively clean and not heaped with magazines and candy papers like usual. Let’s hope it stays this way!



What inspired you to write your first book

I was depressed from the breakup of my long standing marriage. I was at the end of my rope and was getting bad thoughts about what I should do. I just happened to be getting out of my car and reached down into the grass and pulled out a crooked heart-shaped stone. I heard a voice inside my head say, “even though it’s crooked and imperfect, it’s still a heart and you can still love.” It saved me and inspired me at the same time. 

Is there a message in your book that you want readers to grasp? 

I think there is a message of hope for everyone dealing with a broken heart. When we lose a loved one from death, breakup, or divorce, our hearts are designed to keep on loving. We just don’t want to right away because we are hurting. We all have second, third and fourth chances for love. You just have to take them. Try to be patient and realize you can’t find someone over night. Take your time and heal. Focus on just you and how you can make yourself better for a new start. Go to the gym, get a new hairstyle or start a hobby. Time will be your friend if you focus on your future instead of the past mistakes.


What are you currently working on? 

Can you give us a sneak peek? The title is Crimson Snow. It’s also a paranormal romance, but very different from what I normally write and I think my readers will be surprised. I have always loved knights in armor, castles, dragons and magic. That’s enough of a teaser! You can read the first chapter on my blog here: http://debrajayneeast.blogspot.com/2013/01/crimson-snow_14.html


Who is your favorite author and what is it that really strikes you about their work? 

My favorite past author is Grace Livingston Hill who could write so convincingly, she could squeeze tears from a turnip. I adore all her work and her stories give a great perception of what love is for a young girl. Presently, I enjoy Stephanie Meyers of the Twilight fame. She has given the world the joy of reading again through her books. That kind of inspiration is genius. I admire her greatly.

Do you have a cover artist you’ve worked with that you’d like to give props to? 
Yes, I do. His name is Paul Beeley and his company is Create Imaginations, {http://create-imaginations.com/index.html} The cover he did for my book, Radiance:Love after Death is currently in first place for the Goodreads best illustrated cover contest. One of his other covers he did for another author got the attention of a producer and is now being made into a major motion film. I am very proud of my association with Paul and plan on using him in my future projects. His work is amazing and what’s great is he uses the author’s ideas and thoughts and brings them to life in ways you never thought of. Here is the Amazon link for my current book so you can see his outstanding work. {You can also read the first two chapters free in the look inside feature.} Amazon: {http://tinyurl.com/b6sn5kg}
Do you have any advice to offer other writers? 

Yes, I can say it’s to never compromise on something you believe in. If you don’t like the cover your editor has commissioned, or if you disagree on details remember you wrote the book. Stand firm in what you want and in the end you will be glad you did not give up.


Do you have anything else you’d like to add? 

Thanks for having me here today!

Where can our readers find you on the world wide web?

Buy Sites:
Social Media:

Thanks everyone for stopping by and getting to know XOXO Publishing author, Debra Jayne East!



Read More »

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Author Interview ~ Duane Voorhees



Hello everyone, please welcome Duane Vorhees to Sensuous Promos today as he shares with us a little bit about himself and his work.
Duane, thank you for joining us today. I know the readers are eager to get to know you , so let’s get started.
Can you tell us a little bit about where you are from?
It depends on how you define “from.”
At a very early age, they tell me, I was born in Germantown, Ohio. During much of my infancy my grandparents raised me, but sometimes I travelled with my mother, an itinerant stripper, so I have childhood memories of upstate New York and Chicago. I don’t really sound like someone from rural southern Ohio. But through most of elementary school I was in Germantown, until we moved to Farmersville, an even smaller burg 4 miles away. There wasn’t much for adolescents to do there except watch each other grow. (And, in some instances, getting hands-on experience with the results of some of that growth). After I finished high school, I commuted weekly between Farmersville (and then, back to Germantown!) and Columbus (Ohio State) or Bowling Green (as in Bowling Green State University).
So, I was more than ready to get away from the Germantown-Farmersville hub of the universe. I “lived” (or at least resided) in Charleston, South Carolina; Jacksonville, Florida:  Nutley, New Jersey; and Montreal. For much of that time I was a door-to-door salesman, so I was on the road a great deal. For instance, I know (or knew, at any rate) all the spots from Louisbourg to Moosonee to Brandon, and I also drove extensively throughout the American South and from coast to coast.  This was all mile by mile, behind the wheel of a car.
Eventually, I ended up in Korea (didn’t drive there), where basically I “settled down” for a quarter century, but in a typically rather unsettled way.  Periodically, I visited Rio de Janeiro, Copenhagen, Naples, and India and most of the countries in East Asia, and I plan to move permanently to Thailand someday. Right now, however, I reside in Iwakuni, near Hiroshima, Japan.
So, you see, it’s hard to give a simple answer to the “from” question.

Do you write about things similar to your own life experiences?
Personal experience is at the heart of writing, but it’s a multi-chambered heart. Observations of others’ experiences, vicarious experiences via books and movies, and imagining other people’s experiences are also part of the writing anatomy. But, by the time the work gets to the page, in my case very little of the personal remains. Writing has as much to do with concealing as it does with revealing; both aspects are vital to the exploration of truth and passion.

What book would we find you reading right now?
I just finished the Sylvie Simmons life of Leonard Cohen and am midway through the Jon Meacham bio of Thomas Jefferson.  Both subjects have long battled for acceptance by my moral intellect, Cohen as bewildered truth-searcher and Jefferson as seer-cum-hypocrite.  After reading Simmons, I now find Cohen’s character more accessible than previously, as a triumphant failure if you will, but Jefferson’s paradoxes are still a puzzle to me. Maybe by the time I get to the end of the book they will be more comprehendible.
But we are all enigmas, of course, to others and to ourselves. The only difference is that LC and TH spent decades minding their accounts in very public, and very readable, ways.

Do you see writing as a career?
Writing is the opposite of a career; it is a slow, painful, necessary process, ending eventually in exhaustion rather than accomplishment. At some level, worthwhile writers are plodding masochists and unredeemed liars, certainly not speedsters and honest medalists. But, still, these are useful masochists, prophetic liars. They help us struggle toward self-apprehension.

Can you share a little of your current work with us?
Sure.
I hope three short selections are not too much of an imposition.
I’ll start with an excerpt from “We Within the Wheels: Dalit”

Now my beauty  r  e  a  c  h  e  s     o   u   t   in search of your moist and hidden cottage. (Remember the crisp sunflowers asmoke unkempt against the steep/&damp scampismelly dirt path. Recall the rose-of-sharon labyrinth oft-credited – before and since – as the soul’s taoWay, eelslick & serpent straight, into the nirvanic heart of notUnbeing.) Your thatched and pointed little house…. It’s not where last I fingered its locks. The knobs now, I;m told, are handled some other where.

But even so, blind and blind, my beauty reaches out

reaches                                     out
my blind beauty reaches
                               out into cold and empty vacuum.
************
AH! NIGHTS
Ah! Nights you were a harem
and I the unmade Bedouin too long in the thirst—
past the black eunuch of the night
I would steal to your tent,
unarmed save a single arrow in my quiver,
would draw back your damascene veil,
and let fly my shaft deep into your bulls-eye arabesque---

Or: you were queen of the hive
and I a drone among the honeys
getting a buzz on and doing my job,
plunging among the dusky clover
trying to pollinate the skies,
to flower the night with stars---
(to lose my only stinger would be to die….)

Or else you were Madonna
awaiting a Jealous Commanding God,
The Spawner Of The Cosmos,
A Beam Of Light Made Flesh to hold you in your place.
(while you waited in rapture for the coming of your lord,
i a small choirboy would steal into your unguarded churchyard
to send a solitary firework into the cathedral’s secret hole
in hopes it explodes high up in the beribbe’d vaults,
surprising celebate fathers from their sleep.)
********
ALL PROPHECY IS HISTORY

Blind men at dusk predict
the next day will bring light.

No past dies completely.
Its bone cements my wall, and its ash
congregates in these porcelain dolls;
all history is prophecy, and harvest, blight.

And so my tomorrows are today’s mystery. Yes,
“the future looks bright.” But it’s too bright to see
the soonest cloud bringing its silver and its stain.

I’m in Hiroshima, just waiting for the plane.

Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?
Balance is hard. I always want the “right” word embedded in the “right” phrase in the context of the “right” poem taken as a whole. I want a structured statement that expresses organic reality. Rhythm, rhyme, assonance, consonance, meter, pattern: these are all important qualities that a lot of contemporary poets neglect, but none of these should become a mechanism of enslavement (of either writer or reader). Concision is a virtue, and over-elaboration can be a vicelike grip on the reader’s engagement, but minimalism lacks affect. By the time I’m done with something, or as finished as I can get at any rate, I want ordinary people and verse junkies alike to both feel and understand what the poem’s message is, not admire its guidebook architecture or throw up their hands in confused despair.

Who are your favorite authors and what is it that really strikes you about their work?
I’ve read thousands of books in my lifetime, not a remarkable figure by any means. Most of them are not even distant memories. But some writers manage to take up residence within. Some of them are ill-mannered enough to pound on the doors of consciousness at all hours, and some of them have the decency to be quiescent until you need them.
The best book I never read is James Joyce’s Ulysses; I like the theory of that book but can’t follow its execution. But I like the innocent depravity of e. e. cummings, his enthusiasm for the destruction of propriety that manifests itself visually as well as rhetorically. I like William Faulkner’s non-innocence that manifests itself in the same way but is deeper and darker than in cummings’ case. I like Mark Twain’s late musings, so cleverly wrapped up in hilarity we don’t  see their actual import at first blush, they sneak up on us later and pound us in the head; and I thoroughly enjoy his wonderful aphorisms, more cynical and less clinical than Benjamin Franklin’s. I like the early Ernest Hemingway, who somehow manages to be a minimalist while leading readers to know what they need to know without being told and without losing them to ennui. I like Isaiah’s over-the-top imagery in the service of his inhuman righteousness. I can appreciate the Karl Marx of the Manifesto, in its  idyllic, dynamic expression of the wonders of industro-capitalism (and I hate the later grind who proceeds to unravel it all).  I like the paradoxical absurdity of Joseph Heller and the straightforward clarity of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. I get swept away by the majestic prose and messaging of Herman Melville and the straightforward metaphors of Ray Bradbury. I like the tart verses of Stephen Crane, but also the byzantine labyrinth of Wallace Stevens’ best work.  Herbert J. Muller engages my intellect while showing me the uses of the past. Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan manage to puzzle and enlighten simultaneously, while keeping step musically in their lyrical dance with Paul Simon, Eric Andersen, Tom Waits, John Lennon/Paul McCartney, Joni Mitchell, and pre-celebrity Kris Kristofferson.  I’m also a sucker for Philip K. Dick’s elaborate plotting and Emily Dickinson’s cryptic simplicity. Theodore Sturgeon never impressed me as a stylist, but the chutzpah of his subject matter is admirable.
But these are only a few, of the thousands. These are among the ones who have taught me how to write, and what to feel, even if their lessons are contradictory and complex, and even though their teachings never really took.

Do you have any advice to offer other writers?
The only advice I have is: Don’t listen to me. Grow ears for yourself.

Do you have anything else you’d like to add?

All too often, readers are trained to think they don’t like poetry, but when they accidentally encounter the genuine character they can’t escape its grip. It goes into the soul and it lives there.  But don’t rush through it. Don’t force it. Let it gestate on its own terms. It’s possible to enjoy the butterfly (or the volcano) with no premonition for metamorphosis.  Don’t be afraid of poetry; don’t underestimate its transformative yeast. (Repetitive dosages enhance efficaciousness. )

Where can our readers find you on the world wide web?

I’ve started a blog at poetrybyduane.wordpress.com, but I haven’t really put much work into it yet.  I have a facebook page (Duane Vorthees), and I check in every day at duanev@hotmail.com. My books are available at xoxopublishing.com.
 

Thanks for joining us today, Duane. It was a pleasure getting to know you! ~ CJ




Read More »

XOXO Publishing, The Publisher of a New Era


XOXO Publishing, The Publisher of a New Era


Read More »

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Book Spotlight with CONTEST ~ Forbidden Pursuit by Jean Hart Stewart


PURCHASE HERE

Forbidden Pursuit 
Imprint: Romantica®
Line: Twilight
Series: Passionate Pursuits

Book three in the Passionate Pursuits series.


Handsome, charismatic Arden, eldest son of the most powerful elf in Britain, is in trouble up to his very pointed ears. His brother’s mistakes have set in motion events that threaten his whole family, making it the absolute wrong time to find the one woman meant for him.


Arden must take up the hardest challenge of his life—a slow courtship to prove himself to Brielle and her family. Finding places to take her into his arms for even a moment requires ingenuity and creativity, especially as he still has to deal with a murderous pimp out to hurt anyone he can get his hands on, including the only woman Arden is ever going to love.

Powerful or no, it’s a lot for one elf to handle.

Watch the book trailer: 


  
**CONTEST**

Leave a comment below with your email address for your chance to win 1 of 2 prizes.

  • Grand Prize - an eBook copy of Forbidden Pursuit and a Forbidden Pursuit t-shirt!
  • 1st Prize - an eBook copy of winner's choice from Jean's backlist of wonderful books!    

Check out Jean on her Website,


Contest runs through 2/27 at 11:59pm EST
Read More »
Margaret Tanner Margaret Tanner Margaret Tanner Margaret Tanner Margaret Tanner Margaret Tanner Margaret Tanner Margaret Tanner Margaret Tanner Margaret Tanner
The Deal Series Author Deborah Ann Rex, The Ex and The Hex Letterbox Love Stories Volume 1 Blood will Freeze by Tony-Paul de Vissage The Tarnished Series by Brita Addams Stacked Deck by Jack Frost The Night Man Cometh by Tony-Paul de Vissage Finding Holland by Grace Ryles Twisted Love by JoAnne Myers Cowboys Never Fold by Lexi Post 4 tales of Betrayal when lies, lust, and deceit are unleashed Available now on Bookstrand.com Ravens of War 3 Nikki's Fated by Suzette Rose Cauler Award Winning Author, Lexi Post Loves Myths and Monsters by JoAnne Myers Bookstrand Best Selling Author, Suzy Shearer Check out al of Shirley's Books Zane's Choice:The Doms of Club Mystique 4 by Mardi Maxwell Mirage by Denyse Bridger Amazon Best Selling Author, Christina Tetreault Claiming Her Temporary Men by Grace Ryles Matrix Crystal Hunters by Janice Seagraves Rescued by her Alien Warriors by Doris O'Connor
Margaret Tanner Margaret Tanner Margaret Tanner Margaret Tanner Margaret Tanner Margaret Tanner Margaret Tanner