Mark Fink

This week, we’re celebrating Mark Fink’s debut! Mark has written and produced for television and has worked for every major network. He wrote comedies including Full House, and Saved by the Bell, and created the NBC Saturday morning series, Hang Time. Two of his published short stories have won awards. He lives near Los Angeles with his wife and two sons, and plays basketball as often as his body allows.

Here’s a little bit about STEPPING UP (WestSide Books)

Ernie Dolan is plagued by the curse of average. Nothing about him stands out, except his stutter. He goes off to a competitive basketball camp with best friend Mike Rivers. Mike excels and Ernie embarrasses himself in his first pick-up game, earning the nickname “choke.” As Mike hangs with the more popular kids, this puts a big strain on their friendship and Ernie finds new allies. Things change dramatically when Ernie morphs from outcast to hero, risking his life to save three campers from near tragedy. His funny, heartwarming story unfolds against the backdrop of exciting, authentic basketball action while touching on teen issues of friendship and the near-deadly consequences of peer pressure.

STEPPING UP by Mark Fink

If you had to give your book a movie rating: G through Rated R, which one would you give and why?

PG – It’s quite suitable for the entire family.

What topics, issues, or themes does your book address? What drove you to write about them?

I wanted to write about the concept of average, a real Every Kid. I wanted to explore how within all of us average people, there is the capacity for some extraordinary achievements.
I also wanted to write about boys and sports and how that defines social behavior and the consequences of peer pressure.

Name three examples of readers who would identify or like your book.

• Any teen who’s interested in or ever played basketball or any sport.
• Any teen who’s been away to camp.
• Parents who want to give their kids a funny, real-life reading experience with a few subtle positive messages.

List a few statistically improbable phrases or sentences one might find in your book. These are phrases or sentences you might never find anywhere else.

• The Curse of Average
• It’s guys like us who eventually run the world
• Soak it up. (The Russian coach mangling “Suck it up.”)

How can your book be used in the classroom?

This book can be useful in discussing themes of friendship, peer pressure, teamwork, self confidence, and what it truly means to be a hero.

Now tell us about other already-published books that readers of your book might enjoy.

• Hoops of Steel by John Foley
• YA books by John Feinstein

Now whet our appetites with a teaser.

Did you ever have one of those days when your shoelace breaks, your hair sucks, your email’s down, you run out of matching socks, and the only one on the planet who really understands you is you? Well, I’m having one of those lives.

Are you offering authors visits to schools, libraries, or other organizations?
Yes.

Are you willing to speak nationally?
Yes, and globally and intergalactically if necessary.

List a few example titles of presentations, talks, or workshops you might give for an author visit.

• What price will one pay for popularity?
• What does it mean to be a hero?
• Writing comedy is no laughing matter

This concludes our interview with our latest author, MARK FINK. We wish him much success with her debut novel STEPPING UP. To see what Mark is up to these days, visit his website at www.booksbymark.com.

*GIVEAWAY ALERT*  Mark is giving away a signed copy of STEPPING UP. Tell your friends and  leave a comment for the author!  Enter by April 8th, 2009 11:59 PM CST.

Your email address will not be displayed publicly and will only be used to contact you if you win! And don’t forget to participate in our other AuthorsNow! giveaways.

What: A gorgeous Debut 2009 tote packed with Debut 2009 author ARCs, finished copies, and other booky-goodness!

When: Going on now through -3/27/2009 Midnight EST.

How: Just leave a comment on the Debut 2009 official entry post located at the link below, telling us—what topic would you really like to see a book about, either fiction or nonfiction? You’ve got the ear of a whole crowd of writers here — tell us what is missing from your collection!

Where: http://community.livejournal.com/debut2009/567609.html

Yet somehow, I thought that having the validation of a book offer would make writing easier.  Ideas would surge.  Words would flow.  The constant tapping of my keyboard would be so loud and persistent, it would force my dog to seek refuge in the farthest corners of our home.  And all my writing insecurities would go away.

It hasn’t happened.  I still fight with words, search for a voice and wonder if I can do it.  And our German Shepherd-sized dog still finds a way to sleep as close to my deskchair as is physically possible.

There’s a plus side to my writing anxieties.  I can empathize with any quirk or idiosyncrasy my characters might choose to have.  And when they go through their angst, I understand their struggles.

Sure there are days when I wish my worries would take a long vacation, but what if they disappeared forever?  Would I still create the same type of stories I now feel compelled to write?

Maybe our insecurities are as essential to our writers’ spirits as our positive traits.  By creating obstacles, they challenge us to grow and force us to move forward.  They help mold and shape our stories.

Today, I’m going to embrace my doubts, make friends with my insecurities and celebrate my writer’s spirit.  I’ll also try not to trip over the dog.

A little bit about WAITING TO SCORE.

WAITING TO SCORE by J.E. MacLeod

Zack Chase, new in town, gets a crash course in the dangerous, fast-paced lives of local teen athletes. A good-looking, book-loving hockey star, Zack’s also expected to be a womanizing, alcohol-abusing party animal, but it’s not who he is. As jealous, obnoxious team captain Mac hounds him, Zack falls for Goth-girl Jane and befriends her teammate brother, both with their own secrets. Tragedy strikes and affects them all in this true-to-life debut novel, giving readers an insight into the lives of high school students and athletes.

If you had to give your book a movie rating: G through Rated R, which one would you give and why?

I don’t know.  I think Waiting to Score deals with a lot of serious subject matter, but to me, it’s realistic. I don’t really believe in censoring what kids read. There are consequences to actions in this book, and honestly if a parent and a teen both read it, I think it could open up some interesting discussions.  How about PG?

What topics, issues, or themes does your book address? What drove you to write about them?

My book addresses teen alcoholism, suicide and even date rape,  but in a way that I hope is not depressing. (If that’s possible lol) It’s a book about making choices. I had a pretty tough time as a teen and all these issues touched my life in some way. I write about it, because I care and I remember how hard things can seem when you are in the middle of it.  The biggest thing I hope I portray is that there is always hope if you can believe in yourself.

Name three examples of readers who would identify or like your book.

• Teenage boys trying to figure out who they are and where they fit in, what they want versus what their parent(s) want FOR them
• Teenage girls who wonder if boys have real feelings too.
• Parents who are wondering what their kids might face in high school. Waiting To Score doesn’t tiptoe but it does go beneath surface impressions.

List a few statistically improbable phrases or sentences one might find in your book. These are phrases or sentences you might never find anywhere else.

Even I get a little sick of the kind of girls who usually hang around hockey rinks. We called them Pucks in Kirkdale. Blondes and brunettes with tight clothes and made-up eyes. Pucks, hockey groupies, whatever. I kind of thought girls should have better things to do with their time. Giggling and hanging around boys who weren’t very nice to them didn’t strike me as overly ambitious.

How can your book be used in the classroom? Or if this book isn’t that kind of book, tell us why you think this book is different from the rest.

I think Waiting To Score could easily be used to open up discussions of who people really are, versus who they appear to be. I’ve gotten good feedback that Waiting to Score collapses some stereotypes, and I think the characters would open up a good discussion about not judging a book by it’s cover.

It would be a great tool for examining pressures kids have on them from their parents as well as peer pressure from other kids.

Now tell us about other already-published books that readers of your book might enjoy.

One reader compared the feel of Waiting To Score to Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson. Now that’s a reader I love! I think Waiting To Score would appeal to readers of Chris Lynch’s, Inexcusable,  and Gordon Korman’s,  Jake, Reinvented.

Now whet our appetites with a teaser. Please provide the first few lines or opening paragraph of your book.

I didn’t want to look up. Didn’t want to care.

But I did.

Are you offering authors visits to schools, libraries, or other organizations?

Yes!

Are you willing to speak nationally?

Well, I live in Western Canada, but I do love to travel!

List a few example titles of presentations, talks, or workshops you might give for an author visit.

1. The Writing Life- From Book Idea to Book Store
2. Overcoming Stereotypes in Fiction
3. The Changing Genre of Young Adult Fiction

This concludes our interview with our latest author, JE MACLEOD.  We wish her much success with her debut novel WAITING TO SCORE.

To see what JE is up to these days, visit her website at http://www.jemacleod.com or her blog at http://jemacleod123.blogspot.com/.

*GIVEAWAY ALERT*  J.E. is giving away 5 glow-in-the dark hockey pucks to five lucky winners. Tell your friends and  leave a comment by saying Hello to the author!  Enter by March 4th, 2009 11:59 PM CST.

Your email will  address will not be displayed publicly and will only be used to contact you if you win! And don’t forget to participate in our other AuthorsNow! giveaways.

Golden Books dates back to 1942 when their books were 25 cents.  The original books were hardbacks with dust covers and 42 pages, but that quickly went away due to cost.  The dust jacket even contained specialized promotions for War Bonds!  Can you imagine the Pokey Little Puppy hocking war bonds?  Today Little Golden Books are commonly found in Wal-Mart 2 for $5, but that doesn’t mean their quality is any less.

One of my first books was the Pokey Little Puppy and The Saggy Baggy Elephant. The text was easy to roll around my tongue and I found the art comforting.  I loved the gold foil on the side of the book (which I pretended was real gold).

Pat the Bunny is one of my favorite baby shower books, and Richard Scary is also another author/illustrator of Little Golden (my favorite is Worst Helper Ever).

Diane Muldrow dug through her extensive art galleries at Little Golden to show us how art has changed over the past half century.  From all-white families having mom cooking dinner and dad smoking a pipe on the couch (50′s) to multi-cultural families emergence in the 70′s to single parent families 80′s.  As times change, so do our books.

I had to crack up over the pictures of the licensed titled she showed featuring Donny and Marie, Mister Rogers or Scooby-Doo.  I had many of the titles because we were a lower-middle income family.  But, my mother never denied me a book from Kmart or the Post-Exchange.  My little golden books traveled the world.  When languages and cultures changed around me, I still my 24 pages of sameness I could count on to make the world sane again.

Golden Books now has a wonderful book written by Leonard S. Marcus, Golden Legacy, full of their history, the people who shaped picture books today and classic art pieces from their archive.  It’s a must have for your personal library.

“Golden Legacy is a lively history of a company, a line of books, the groundbreaking writers and artists who created them, the clever mavericks who marketed and sold them, and the cultural landscape that surrounded them.” – The flap copy says it all.  The New York Times and SLJ agree.

http://www.randomhouse.com/golden/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780375829963

Bettina Restrepo’s first picture book, Moose and Magpie, (Sylvan-Dell) will be out Summer 2009.  She loves reading to her young son who is her Worst Helper Ever.

Learn more about her books and school visit programs at www.bettinarestrepo.com

What: The Great “Haul” of China – a $10 gift card, a signed copy of THE GREAT CALL OF CHINA, a certificate declaring you General Commander, and your very own Terra Cotta Warrior direct from Xi’an, China.  Everyone wins a party favor including autographed bookplates and a chance to win 1 of 4 hong baos (red envelopes.)

When: Now through 02/28/09.

How: Attend the party online and complete a party favor request form to receive your party favor. To win the 2nd Great Haul, play a simple game based on the movie for THE GREAT CALL OF CHINA.

Where: http://www.cynthealiu.com

When I reminisce about favorite childhood books, I have to admit that a big portion of the memories involve the characters chowing down on delectable treats. From Chester Cricket sharing a bit of liverwurst with Tucker Mouse to Ramona’s trip to Whopperburger to the bubbly pies at Harper Hall, I’ve always loved reading about what characters eat.

At first I thought I’d do a single posting here about favorite food scenes. But as I talked with my food-scene-loving friends and my list of favorites grew, I started thinking about how I’ve always wanted to try actually making some of these dishes. So I’ve decided to make this my monthly quest: each month I will pick a dish from a YA or MG book and attempt to make it myself.

I must admit that this isn’t the first time I’ve considered recreating literary treats in my own kitchen. A few years ago my friend and I tried our hand at Turkish Delight, figuring that a candy that can tempt you into betraying your friends and joining up with the evil queen must be absolutely amazing. Sadly, our attempt was a miserable failure, as documented here on my recipe blog.

There are also some food scenes that I must resign myself to never being able to recreate in real life. The mouth-watering meal-in-a-stick-of-gum from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory will have to remain an entirely literary feast. And I’m just going to have to imagine what the contents of the Drink Me bottle in Alice in Wonderland tasted like (or read the wonderful description in Lisa Mantchev’s forthcoming Eyes Like Stars).

This month, I started with one of my all time favorite books for food descriptions: Farmer Boy, by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Of all the many, many delicious descriptions in that book, one that has always intrigued me is the Bird’s Nest Pudding:

“It takes a great deal to feed a growing boy,” Mother said. And she put a thick slice of bird’s nest pudding on his bare plate, and handed him the pitcher of sweetened cream speckled with nutmeg.

Almanzo poured the heavy cream over the apples nested in the fluffy crust. The syrupy brown juices curled up around the edges of the cream. Almanzo took up his spoon and ate every bit.

A bit of googling found me this promising recipe on Allrecipes.com so I headed off to the grocery store for apples and heavy cream. I followed that recipe almost exactly, except that I left out the maple flavoring, and I baked my version in two pie-plates. Here’s the result:

And an individual serving, next to my copy of Farmer Boy (and my to-read stack):

And that picture is all that’s left of it! Like Almanzo, I ate every bit! It’s hard to go wrong with apples, cream and sugar but it really was very good. And you know, the brown juices did curl up around the edges of the cream. And the crust was fluffy!

I’ll be continuing to try my hand at other “book-food” over the coming year, and I would love to hear comments about your own favorite food descriptions and any attempts you’ve made to recreate them. And if there’s something in particular you think I ought to try, send that along too!

Cynthea Liu at 2, growing up in Oklahoma

Hi everyone,

I’m so happy to post on Connect on this auscpicious day! It’s my debut – THE GREAT CALL OF CHINA is out! (ages 12+, an adopted teen searches for answers to her past).

I didn’t think the day would be this emotional, but when Papa Liu rang my house, sobbing, I knew I had done something horribly wrong or very right.

Fortunately, I did good.

Come see the movie that made Dad cry.

The film that’s convinced him his hard work in the States to secure his children’s bright future has finally paid off.

(*Just don’t tell him how much I make.*)

This is your special invite to attend a party like no other.

It’ll make you dance, sing, and maybe shed a tear or two, too.

THE GREAT CALL OF CHINA Release Party.

See the movie. Play the games. Enjoy the food.

All day long.

http://www.cynthealiu.com

Thanks in advance for your support!

To be a writer, you write, right? If only. To be a writer, you not only write (and isn’t that a loaded word?), you must network (via the internet and in person), and you must promote, via public speaking.  Suddenly, the shy, reticent wordsmith has to get out there and talk in front of strangers.  Gulp.  Help!

So I’m taking a six week course on public speaking. We meet once a week and together we experiment with voice. Not the writing voice, but the speaking voice.  It’s been a lot of nerve-wracking fun. 

Some points to share when speaking in front of your peers:

About you:

* speak slowly and practice timing yourself

* don’t fiddle with your pen, your hair, your glasses, etc.

* look people in the eye – they’re interested, they want you to succeed

About your speech:

* open with an attention getting statement or visual

* less is more, don’t overwhelm with information

* conclude on a strong, unapologetic note, summing up what you’ve just told them

Oh, and don’t thank the listeners. They’ll be applauding you for giving such a wonderful and inspiring talk.  

Of course, speaking to kids is a slightly different ball game. No doubt they’ll be more honest, perhaps more critical, and not necessarily as interested: all the more reason to practice being an engaging, dynamic speaker.

So I highly recommend finding a local group where you can have some fun finding your voice.  Check our www.toastmasters.org for more information or, like I did,  your community extended-education program.

Let me introduce our next speaker, debut novelist … Hey! That’s us!

So what if I started a Mother Son Book Club? Maybe that would be a good activity for when the teen-age years hit (in 1 year, 1 month, and 5 days). A quick trip to the land of  Google yielded little. I found one interview here:

http://litguides.com/2008/07/23/mother-son-book-club/

Just like in my regular book club, we could choose books that lead to excellent discussions about the nature of good and evil, difficult choices, and world history. 

I’m considering: Elijah of Buxton, The Golden Compass, Holes, and the Lightning Thief. 

Any other suggestions?

One of the benefits of literature is the chance to explore alternatives in a way that we can’t in life.  In books, we get to try the road not taken.  One way for readers, classes, and book clubs to approach a book is to look at the choices made by characters, and to ask:

How did the character’s action and personality set up the choice?

Did you expect the character to make that choice?

Did the consequences unfold as you foresaw?

What regrets do you think the character will have over this choice?

What would’ve happened if the character had made a different choice?

How would other characters in the book handle that choice?

And my favorite:

What would you do if confronted with the same choice?