Best Books of 2011

Just to clarify, these are the best books I read last year, not the best books to come out in 2011.  10. At Home on Ladybug Farm by Donna Ball. The second in the wonderful Ladybug Farm series. If you haven’t read them yet, I encourage you to pick them up. I bought myself the [...]

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Today is national Poem in Your Pocket Day. It sounded like a fun thing to do, but here’s my problem. Today is my day off, and I am home writing. Which means I am in my sweatpants. Which have no pocket. So instead of carrying the poem in my pocket, I’ve opted to post a [...]

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Dear WIP, Look at you, so smug and silent, with your one inch margins and your fancy Courier font. You knew I’d be the one to crack first, didn’t you. Didn’t you?!? But something has to be done.  I can’t stand this distance between us any longer. I’m not going to rehash the whole break-up. [...]

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At the beginning of 2010, I made a promise to myself – a resolution, if you will – to keep track of all the books I read. I thought it would be fun to have a number (100!) as well as a handy list, should anyone ask “Say, Shannon, what were the 10 best books [...]

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So I entered a pitch contest over at Market My Words – a fabulous blog run by author Shelli Johannes-Wells (find link at right).  I stumbled across the contest purely by accident, when my son was home sick on Tuesday and I was procrastinating on revision yet again. The setup was simple – give your [...]

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What I’m Working On: I did one more final polish on my Lily Island story and sent it off to Writer’s Digest this morning. I’m feeling good about it, so good that if it doesn’t net me anything at WD, I’m going to try and submit it at Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. It’s been one [...]

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There are so many books in the world, and so little time to read them. This is not new insight, I’m aware, but it is something I struggle with both as a reader and a writer. After all, how can I justify putting a book down just because it hasn’t held my attention as closely [...]

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  What I’m working on: I’m working on a new story, the plotline of which I’m keeping to myself for right now. Unfortunately, it has an impossible deadline of Tuesday. I want to submit it to the Good Housekeeping Short Story Contest, which is being judged by Jodi Picoult. Grand prize is $3000, and while [...]

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It puzzles me that many writers seem threatened by the idea of amateurs dabbling in their medium. I wonder, is Diane Von Furstenberg angered at the thought of my mother-in-law shopping at Hobby Lobby for fabric and patterns? Does Steven Spielberg rue the day handheld video recorders became the product of the masses? There are enough stories out there for all [...]

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