Authors, Kai Strand & LA Dragoni

Three Times a Charm is a weekly feature that spotlights authors, illustrators, bloggers, agents, editors or promoters from the publishing industry. This week we are joined by my fellow GAP author, Barbara Bockman. Hi Kai. Thanks a lot for letting me be part of your “Three Times a Charm” series. I’m so glad you could visit with us. Barbara, you had a big year last year. Tell us all of your exciting news. My works: I’m pleased that my first two books came out in 2011. The first, a middle grade novel, Wounds , is published by MuseItUp Publishing and the second, a picture book, illustrated by Jack Foster, Fantastic Flight, is published by Guardian Angel Publishing . Both are available directly from the publishers’ bookstores. I love historical fiction, folk tales, fairy tales, and stories of different cultures. I’m working on a young adult novel set in Ancient Rome and a middle grade set in Sri Lanka. Things that are close to my heart find their way into my st...

Three Times a Charm is a weekly feature that spotlights authors, illustrators, bloggers, agents, editors or promoters from the publishing industry. This week author, Jo Marshall, joins us. First, I want to thank you, Kai, for your hospitality, and the invitation to your blog.   I’m a new author, and this is my second blog interview, so I think you are very brave to ask me to be your guest.   If there is a way to mess it up, I’m sure to stumble over it.   I am impressed with your enthusiasm, and the fact that you are an accomplished blogger.   Besides all that, your blog is fun and upbeat, and I feel privileged to be part of it. So, thank you! Aw, thanks, Jo. Can you tell us about you? About me?   Well, I grew up in the desert on the Navajo Indian Reservation in Shiprock, New Mexico. I also lived in Maricopa County, Arizona, and in the foothills of the Sierras - Reno, Nevada.   During my and my husband’s military tours, I lived in Japan an...

Three Times a Charm is a weekly feature that spotlights authors, illustrators, bloggers, agents, editors or promoters from the publishing industry. This week fellow angel author, Mary Esparza-Vela, joins us. Mary, tell us about you. My name is Mary Esparza-Vela and I am a recent member of the Guardian Angel Publishing family. I reside in Texas with my husband and three sons who have supported me in all my writing endeavors. Before tackling the career as a children’s writer, I worked at a medical facility as an Editorial Assistant. The duties involved reviewing and editing publications that went before a Board of Directors for approval. My writing credits include articles published in Catholic newspapers, seven contest winners published by a non-profit organization, and a winning entry in a Writer’s Digest Competition. Tell us more about your new book. Guardian Angel Publishing recently published my first book, “The Odd Chick” and more books ar...

Happy World Read Aloud Day! I’ve decided to celebrate by sharing a video taken at my very first book signing of me reading from The Weaver . I believe this is from a year ago, March 2011. I find it fun to hear an author read her own work. It almost always changes the tone of the book from how I read in my head. What you will be reading aloud today? And whom will you read aloud to?

Three Times a Charm is back!!! It is a weekly feature that spotlights authors, illustrators, bloggers, agents, editors or promoters from the children’s publishing industry. To usher us back into a charming normality is author, Susanna Hill. Welcome, Susanna. Can you tell us about yourself?    I was born into a family of readers.   From my earliest memory, our home was filled with books.   Seriously.   Filled J   They were actually stacked in the hallway until we finally got some new bookshelves… which filled up quickly… and then there were more stacks J   My parents read to us at bedtime.   They read to us in the car.   If it was too dark to read in the car, my dad would tell us the stories of Shakespeare   - Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear – in his own words so we could grasp the stories, but with many of the soliloquies thrown in for good measure.   I didn’t know, when I was a child, that this was not the norm.   I ...

So much news released today in the publishing world, it has my head spinning a bit. But there is an underlining theme that keeps rising to the top for me. Limits. Too many limits. Random House is entertaining the thought of raising the price of ebooks to libraries up to three times the price of print books. I read the article and I can’t pretend to understand the logic. Silly me, I consider an ebook…well…a BOOK, so I’m actually okay with a library policy (or publisher imposed policy) that each ebook can only be checked out by one patron at a time. Therefore I can’t begin to understand why a library copy should be worth three times its print cousin. If the book is popular, buy another copy just like you would the print version. A price structure like that limits the library from doing so, and that limits the reader from having access. I also just skimmed an article about Scholastic beta testing a proprietary ebook distribution method. When I think proprietary, I ...

Happy March! March came in like a lion here. Snow, high winds, 2 hour school delay. I like knowing that it will go out like a lamb, because that makes me think of spring. When the breeze is a perfect twining of cool and warm drafts. Where the air carries the scent of wet dirt and the sweet notes of chirping birds. Tulips, my favorite flower, will nod and bob on tall, strong stems to the sunny, smiling daffodils. Oh how I love spring and it is so close! I want to thank all the lovely writers who trusted me to share their stories in February. I had so much fun putting that all together. Oprah Winfrey once said, “Everybody has a story. Everybody.” I’ve always believed that, but it felt so much more real to me last month as I received the guest posts and read them and staged them for posting. As I enjoyed the interaction in the comments and the additional stories shared. I understand better why Oprah does what she does. The posts resonated with readers in so many ways; spa...