February, 2011
Links to Conferences and Giveaways
Feb
20, 2011 |Filed in:
Uncategorized
The William Bernhardt Writers Workshop and Seminar is accepting attendance forms. You can find more information here and please take note, if you send in your form and fee before April 1st, the Workshop fee is reduced by $50 and the Seminar fee goes down by $100. I know not everyone is in the Midwest, but if you are, this is a great opportunity to meet two different agents.
And The Winners Are…
Feb
14, 2011 |Filed in:
Uncategorized
Thank you so much to the many wonderful readers who commented this month! You have been a true God-send. Most of you aren’t aware, but I struggle with severe winter depression from October through March and February is always my worst month. This contest and forcing myself to interact with people when I instinctively want to squirrel myself away has been helpful to my sanity. 🙂
The ultra-cool prizes include:
A. First Fifty Pages Critique
B. Query Letter or Synopsis Critique
C. The wooden box to the right, carved by East Indian artists.
D. A Barnes & Noble Notepad with this beautiful Chinese-style illustration and magnetic closure. (See the picture at the top of this post for the cover and inside illustrations.)
E. Wonton Bath Fizzers. Fill your bathrub with warm water and dissolve the wonton – err, fizzer in it. Kinda cool, huh? (For all those interested, they contain Sodium Bicarbonate, Citric Acid, Pentasodium Triphosphate, Cellulose Gum, Talc, Sodium Sulfate, Isopropyl Palmitate, Parfume, FD&C Blue #1 Cl42090.)
F. A copy of Malinda Lo’s “Ash” OR Diane Lee Wilson’s “To Ride the God’s Own Stallion” were added last week. You saw that, right? 😀
That makes a grand total of eight prizes, just so you don’t have to count.
Now, onto our winners! This was a pretty straight-forward contest in that the winners are those who followed, commented and posted about the contest. Without further delay, broo-ha-ha, obfuscation… Oh, all right. LOL The winners are:
My winners are 1. Eve (aka, Lilacfield). Eve, you get a fifty-page critique OR your first pick of any of the above prizes!
Second place goes to Lynda Young and third to Susan B. Kason and can choose between the two remaining critiques (see below) OR one of the other gifts. Janet Johnson won fourth prize and Rachna Chambria won fifth. Margo Berendson won sixth place, TK Richardson and Lisa Gibson won seventh and eighth places. Wait a minute. There are seven prizes, you say? Yup. Since I have such wonderful commenters who gave me a tie in points, I’m adding in one more prize – a synopsis critique (instead of having it be a query or synopsis critique).
So, wonderful ladies of the blogosphere, would you please be so kind as to contact me at victoria[_]dixon[@]msn.com so I can get your prizes to you? (I apologize for the brackets! Stupid spambots.)
One MORE Giveaway
Feb
11, 2011 |Filed in:
UncategorizedYup. I’ve decided I need to add something to my list so here goes:
Winners will also be able to choose from Malinda Lo’s “Asha,” courtesy of Tessa at AndAnything :
and – as much as I did enjoy it – I’m willing to give up my copy of “To Ride the God’s Own Stallion.”
Just keep on commenting, feel free to tweet, facebook or blog about it and if you do, let me know. As per my original One Hundred Followers Post, I’ll give out extra points for each post.
To Ride The God’s Own Stallion
Diane Lee Wilson’s “To Ride The God’s Own Stallion” is the story of two boys, a horse and the destiny the three weave together within the Assyrian Empire.Soulai is a poor boy sold into slavery to Prince Habasle, a palace brat who fights to prove himself to his father and people. Both boys are drawn to the “parti-colored” stallion whose falcon-shaped birth mark displays his connection to the god, Ninurta.
The horse’s destiny leads to war and Habasle is eager to ride him into battle, but he must do so with Soulai trying to protect the horse and the King’s mad physician trying to sacrifice the animal.
Wilson has done a fine job of sketching the historical texture of the period while keeping the novel’s place moving. The characters developed in a believable and enjoyable fashion. It was especially nice that I never felt like they were boys written by a woman writing how she thought boys should behave. I will say, there were no surprises.
I did read a few oddities I had to gloss over to continue reading. There are three sections to the book and each section is begun in the perspective of an animal. This confused me and I did not believe them necessary to understand or believe the story’s events, so I’m surprised the author used the technique.
However, once past those passages, the novel has a smooth read broken only by my occasional recognition that there are three main characters. You care for each of them and they each have identical, linked growth patterns and carry equal weight, though not perspective.
I still wonder if that wide-spread equality is why I never felt as drawn to any of the main characters as much as I did when reading Wilson’s “I Rode A Horse of Milk White Jade.” Nonetheless, there were times it was difficult to put down “To Ride God’s Own Stallion.”
It is an enjoyable read, especially for boys or those who love a great horse story in an unusual setting.
It is an enjoyable read, especially for boys or those who love a great horse story in an unusual setting.I know, I said I’d post reviews on Wednesday, but I’m still struggling to keep things going this month and Wednesday sped by way too fast this week. I wanted to remind folks that my One Hundred Followers Giveaway will wrap up on February 13th, so be sure to comment and comment often. I’m also going to throw in a few extra giveaway goodies, so stay tuned, true believers. 😀