Book Review: "The Fiction Writers Handbook"

Book Review: "The Fiction Writer's Handbook"

by Shelly Lowenkopf

This Book Review post is part of the Premier Virtual Author Book Tours on behalf of this book. Click on the Tour image, above, to visit the other stops on the rest of this Tour.

Description of the Fiction Writers Handbook:

Publisher: White Whisker Books, November 16, 2012

Category: Non-Fiction, Writing, Publishing
Tour Dates: Feb 18-March 15, 2013
Available in: Print, Kindle, & Nook  336 pages

Promotional Description:

The Fiction Writer's Handbook is the definitive volume to explain the words and phrases that writers and editors use when they talk about a work. In the highly competitive publishing world, today's writers need to stay ahead of the competition and make every sentence count. This book will help new writers who need an understanding of the writing process, and for seasoned writers, it is a powerful tool.

Dr. Bill says:

The Fiction Writer's Handbook by Shelly Lowenkopf is a reference that will be useful to every writer of whatever genre. As as a writer, editor, and educator, Lowenkopf knows what we need as writers and had provided it is one handy volume. Open it up to any section and you will will get inspiration, a useful tip or a needed 'kick in the pants.' 

With the publishing world changing every day, it is great to have this distinctive volume of timeless advise at my fingertips. Thank you.

Promotional Information About Shelly Lowenkopf:

Shelly Lowenkopf taught in the University of Southern California's Master of Professional Writing Program for 34 years, has taught at the annual Santa Barbara Writer's Conference since 1980, and has been guest lecturer in many schools and conferences. He is currently Visiting Professor at the College of Creative Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, with classes in noir fiction, the modern short story, genre fiction, and developing a literary voice. Lowenkopf has served as editorial director for literary, general trade, mass market, and scholarly book publishers, seeing over 500 books through the editorial and production process. His own short fiction has appeared widely in the literary press.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/lowenkopf   

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/shelly.lowenkopf

The Fiction Writers Handbook  Web Tour Schedule

So Many Precious Books  Feb 19  Spotlight & Giveaway

Angler's Rest Feb 20 Review &             Giveaway

Dizzy C's Chick Book Feb 21 Review                                   

Dizzy C's Chick Book Feb 22  Guest Post & Giveaway

Cozy Little Book Journal            Feb 26            Review                       

Cozy Little Book Journal            Feb 28 Interview & Giveaway
Bloggin Bout Books Feb 27 Review & Giveaway

Dr. Bill's Book Bazaar Feb 28 Review                                   

Alive on the Shelves Mar 1 Guest Post           

Angela Shelton            Mar 4 Review & Giveaway

Teena in Toronto Mar 5            Review                       

Book Lover's Library  Mar 6 Review                                   

Book Lover's Library Mar 7 Guest Post
Reviewing Shelf                  Mar  11 Review                                                     

Every Free Chance Mar 11 Guest Post

Broken Teepee             Mar 12 Review                                                     

Frugal Experiments Mar 13 Review & Giveaway

Joy Story Mar 14 Review & Giveaway            

Happy Reading,

Dr. Bill  ;-)

 

Book Review: "the Eighth Wonder" by Kimberly Young

Book Review: "the Eighth Wonder" by Kimberly Young

This Book Review post is part of the Premier Virtual Author Book Tours on behalf of Kimberly Young's book. Click on the Tour image, above, to visit the other stops on the rest of this Tour.

Publisher: Author House, January 31, 2012
Category: Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Romance
Tour Dates: February/March, 2013
Available in: Print, Kindle,  & Nook, 208 pages

About the book, from the promotional material:
A modern Bridges of Madison County, Nicole Benson, 35, is an ambitious college professor with dreams of teaching at an Ivy-League school until she meets Tom Ryan, 44, married 23 years and shattered after his daughter’s death from leukemia. A first-generation in her family to go to college,  Nicole is a self-made woman. She put herself through school, sacrificing marriage and children for her career. In the summer of 1997, she finally graduates with a Ph.D. from NYU, but her life is thrust into chaos when her father is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Abandoned by her mother as a girl, her father is all she has.
After fifteen years in New York City, Nicole leaves everything and everyone she knows to teach for a year in rural Bradford, Pennsylvania to be close to him in nearby Buffalo. Now, trapped in tiny Bradford, she has never felt more alone in her life…until she meets Tom Ryan.
At 44, Tom represents what Nicole longs to be: settled, secure, and clear about his purpose and direction in life. Emotionally scarred, he and his wife are empty nesters with an older son away at college and struggle to grieve together after the death of their daughter. Tom and Nicole’s story begins as a journey of self-discovery for both of them but turns to bittersweet romance when their friendship becomes love. Nicole risks offering what she has never given before, her heart; and Tom has never felt happier or more conflicted when he falls in love for the second time in his life.


http://youtu.be/ekTyjqDWXjU

If you haven't read her promotional literature:
Kimberly Young is a licensed psychologist, an author, and an internationally-known speaker on Internet addiction. In 1995, she founded the Center for Internet Addiction and since then she has written numerous articles on the topic including four books, Caught in the Net, Tangled in the Web, Breaking Free of the Web, and Internet Addiction: A Handbook for Evaluation and Treatment.
She is a professor at St. Bonaventure University and her work has appeared in hundreds of media outlets including The New York Times, USA Today, Time, and Newsweek, and she has appeared on The Today Show, Good Morning America, CNBC, CNN, and ABC World News Tonight. She has written creatively on and off since she was eight-years-old, mainly working on poems and short stories. While recovering from retina re-attachment eye surgery, she was homebound for several months and decided to pursue her creative writing more seriously. The Eighth Wonder is her first novel.
Author Website: http://kimberlyyoung.net
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kimberly-S-Young/110260432388254
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrKimberlyYoung



Dr Bill says:

Great stories with a sense of place and home draw me in quickly. The Eighth Wonder did just that. The May-November relationship between Nicole Benson and Tom Ryan was a bonus, in my view. This is a wonderful human story in a distinctive setting. What more could one ask - a story you won't soon forget!

Did you notice what remains of the bridge, in the photo of Kimberly, above?

If you have not checked out the story of the Kinzua Bridge in north-central Pennsylvania, itself, just click on the link for another fascinating story of its own.

Happy Reading,

Dr. Bill  ;-)

It's Monday, What are You Reading? Almost President

It's Monday, What are You Reading?
Almost President: The Men Who Lost the Race but Changed the Nation by Scott Farris


This is the forty-seventh entry for this meme suggested by Sheila@ One Persons Journey Through A World of Books. [Entries 22-25 in the series were posted at  the Dr. Bill Tells Ancestor Stories]


We got this book on Kindle… I've been reading on it off and on… now about half-way, reading Goldwater and McGovern.

Book Description on Amazon:

Publication Date: December 6, 2011
As the 2012 presidential campaign begins: Profiles of twelve men who have run for the presidency and lost, but who, even in defeat, have had a greater impact on American history than many of those who have served as president—from Henry Clay to Stephen Douglas, William Jennings Bryan to Al Gore—Plus, mini-profiles on 22 "honorable mentions."

From the Inside Flap
“I would rather be right than be president.”
—Henry Clay, 1824, 1832, 1844 presidential runner-up

Henry Clay is one of a dozen men profiled in the chapters of Almost President, men who have run for the American presidency and lost but who—even in defeat—have had a greater impact on our history than many of those who have served in the Oval Office. Veteran political journalist Scott Farris tells the stories of these legendary figures, from Clay to Stephen Douglas, from William Jennings Bryan to Thomas Dewey, and from Adlai Stevenson to Al Gore. He also includes concise profiles of every major candidate nominated for president who never reached the White House but who helped promote the success of American democracy.

Farris explains how Barry Goldwater achieved the party realignment that had eluded FDR, how George McGovern paved the way for Barack Obama, and how Ross Perot changed the way all presidential candidates campaign. There is Al Smith, the first Catholic nominee for president; and Adlai Stevenson, the candidate of the “eggheads” who remains the beau ideal of a liberal statesman. And Farris explores the potential legacies of recent runners-up John Kerry and John McCain. The book also includes compact and evocative portraits of such men as John C. Fremont, the first Republican Party presidential candidate; and General Winfield Scott, whose loss helped guarantee the Union victory in the Civil War.

Almost President reveals that losers often show more foresight than winners, that being ahead of their time is one cause of their defeat, and that losing, like the demolition of a house, can be an opportunity for reconstruction of a political party and the nation. Losing presidential campaigns have created new political alignments and broken down barriers to participation for a wide variety of groups, from Catholics to women. And losing presidential candidates, by conceding victory graciously—an uncommon occurrence in many other nations—ensure that our American democracy works.




 Happy Reading!

Dr. Bill  ;-)

It's Monday, What are You Reading? John Quincy Adams

It's Monday, What are You Reading? John Quincy Adams

John Quincy Adams by Harlow Giles Unger


This is the forty-sixth entry for this meme suggested by Sheila@ One Persons Journey Through A World of Books. [Entries 22-25 in the series were posted at  the Dr. Bill Tells Ancestor Stories]

One of my Christmas book gifts… neat  ;-) And, one of my favorite figures in American history!  ;-)

Book Description of John Quincy Adams on Amazon:

He fought for Washington, served with Lincoln, witnessed Bunker Hill, and sounded the clarion against slavery on the eve of the Civil War. He negotiated an end to the War of 1812, engineered the annexation of Florida, and won the Supreme Court decision that freed the African captives of The Amistad. He served his nation as minister to six countries, secretary of state, senator, congressman, and president.

John Quincy Adams was all of these things and more. In this masterful biography, award winning author Harlow Giles Unger reveals Quincy Adams as a towering figure in the nation’s formative years and one of the most courageous figures in American history, which is why he ranked first in John F. Kennedy’s Pulitzer Prize–winning Profiles in Courage.

A magisterial biography and a sweeping panorama of American history from the Washington to Lincoln eras, Unger’s John Quincy Adams follows one of America’s most important yet least-known figures.




Happy Reading!

Dr. Bill  ;-)

It's Monday, What are You Reading? Seward: Lincoln's Indispensable Man

It's Monday, What are You Reading?

Seward: Lincoln's Indispensable Man by Walter Stahr


This is the forty-fifth entry for this meme suggested by Sheila@ One Persons Journey Through A World of Books. [Entries 22-25 in the series were posted at the Dr. Bill Tells Ancestor Stories]

One of my Christmas book gifts… getting right at it!  ;-)


Book Description of Seward on Amazon:

From one of our most acclaimed new biographers– the first full life of the leader of Lincoln’s “team of rivals” to appear in more than forty years. William Henry Seward was one of the most important Americans of the nineteenth century. Progressive governor of New York and outspoken U.S. senator, he was the odds-on favorite to win the 1860 Republican nomination for president. As secretary of state and Lincoln’s closest adviser during the Civil War, Seward not only managed foreign affairs but had a substantial role in military, political, and personnel matters.
Some of Lincoln’s critics even saw Seward, erroneously, as the power behind the throne; this is why John Wilkes Booth and his colleagues attempted to kill Seward as well as Lincoln. Seward survived the assassin’s attack, continued as secretary of state, and emerged as a staunch supporter of President Andrew Johnson, Lincoln’s controversial successor. Through his purchase of Alaska (“Seward’s Folly”), and his groundwork for the purchase of the Canal Zone and other territory, Seward set America on course to become a world empire.
Seward was not only important, he was fascinating. Most nights this well-known raconteur with unruly hair and untidy clothes would gather diplomats, soldiers, politicians, or actors around his table to enjoy a cigar, a drink, and a good story. Drawing on hundreds of sources not available to or neglected by previous biographers, Walter Stahr sheds new light on this complex and central figure, as well as on pivotal events of the Civil War and its aftermath.




Happy Reading!

Dr. Bill  ;-)

Writing Plans for 2013

Writing Plans for 2013

1. I now describe 'what I do' in retirement as "Reading and Writing" - I read to write; I write for personal satisfaction. My writing takes many forms, it changes from time to time in order to maintain satisfaction levels.

2. During 2012 I added the commitment to be a monthly columnist for the digi-mag "The In-Depth Genealogist," as The Heritage Tourist. I will continue this in 2013 with one monthly column and one monthly blog post there.

3. I became an active 'lensmaster' on Squidoo.com during 2012 by creating/writing 126 new lenses (webpages) on a variety of topics, with Heritage Tourism and Family History leading the way. I will continue this activity in 2013 at a measured pace. My lenses about books I read have been popular; I will continue to write them. I also write reviews, have guest posts and interviews, and participate in Virtual Book Tours on my blogs, listed below.

4. It seems I need to have each of my five blogs to have the necessary outlets for what I want to write. Each has its own content and focus, and I've noticed the priority among them shifts a bit, month by month. That is fine as it seems to keep me from getting bored.
Dr. Bill Tells Ancestor Stories
Dr. Bill on Retirement
Dr. Bill's Book Bazaar
The Homeplace Series Blog
The KINNICK Project

4. I will continue to write articles each month for Examiner.com on my three topic areas: Springfield Genealogy Examiner, Ozarks Cultural Heritage Examiner, and (added in 2012) Springfield Heritage Tourism Examiner; two or three articles in each topic, each month.

5. 2012 was a year of research (reading), writing and shifting priorities in my fiction priorities. My only publication was another short story in the OWL Anthology (second in two years). It was the next 'episode' in the 1833 background research for "The Homeplace Series." These two short stories are now being shared on the blog "serialized" over a few months. This will continue as I move toward the publication of a "background" book on the family history of the characters in my "Back to the Homeplace" and "The Homeplace Revisited" novels (working title: "American Centennial at the Homeplace"). This book is anchored by an Extended Short Story about  the Homeplace during the Civil War. In 2013 I also hope to publish my first Mystery: "Murder by the Homeplace" set immediately following the end of "Back to the Homeplace" with characters from that novel having secondary roles in the Mystery novel. Finally, looking the future, I will continue to develop content for "The Homeplace Series" as it moves to a transmedia platform, starting with the existing wiki which will continue to be developed in association with my daughter, Dr. Annette Lamb, and her eduscapes.com and Lamb Learning Group activities. We are also considering an affiliation with an app developer (in the future) to provide multiple transmedia entry points to "The Homeplace Series" content that will continue to be expanded and developed on multiple platforms. ["The Homeplace Forever" - the third in the original trilogy - set in 2006, continues in development, along with stories across all the years from 1833 to the present, and into the future.]

6. Work will continue, off and on, on the non-fiction family history on our Revolutionary War ancestor, Sergeant Major William KINNICK. He is my 5th great-grandfather as well as the 3rd great-grandfather of 1939 Heisman Trophy winner Nile KINNICK, for whom KINNICK Stadium at the University of Iowa is named. There is surely some promotion value there to exploit. I will also continue to research and write on issues related to a non-fiction family history book on my great-grandfather Michael Smith. I am still developing alternative approaches to making this project most effective. These two are unlikely to be finished 2013; but they are still active projects.

7. My actual genealogy work, other that writing for my blogs and elsewhere, largely revolves around projects that come up from time to time from 1) contacts from and with cousins, 2) cooperatively assisting my wife on her several projects, and 3) providing support to our youngest daughter, Arrion, on her family history projects - primarily related to her annual trips to Europe. Arrion visited our Smith family ancestral ground of Alsace (Colmer, France - my paternal line) and Black Forest area in 2012 and a possible visit to Denmark (my maternal grandmother was born in Denmark) in 2013.

Happy Reading! ;-)

Note: This will be posted to each of the five blogs linked above, this year, on January 1.

It's Monday, What are You Reading? American Lion: Andrew Jackson

It's Monday, What are You Reading? 

American Lion: Andrew Jackson


American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, by Jon Meacham


This is the forty-forth entry for this meme suggested by Sheila@ One Persons Journey Through A World of Books. [Entries 22-25 in the series were posted at  the Dr. Bill Tells Ancestor Stories]


I had felt this book to big and thick to read, when it came out. My wife got it for me on my Kindle, and it is now my Kindle reading book. Going very well. As I've said before, some books are better on Kindle, some books better in print; for me, at least!  ;-)

I really liked the way Meacham treated Thomas Jefferson - the same seems to apply to Jackson! ;-)


Book Description of American Lion on Amazon:

Andrew Jackson, his intimate circle of friends, and his tumultuous times are at the heart of this remarkable book about the man who rose from nothing to create the modern presidency. Beloved and hated, venerated and reviled, Andrew Jackson was an orphan who fought his way to the pinnacle of power, bending the nation to his will in the cause of democracy. Jackson’s election in 1828 ushered in a new and lasting era in which the people, not distant elites, were the guiding force in American politics. Democracy made its stand in the Jackson years, and he gave voice to the hopes and the fears of a restless, changing nation facing challenging times at home and threats abroad. To tell the saga of Jackson’s presidency, acclaimed author Jon Meacham goes inside the Jackson White House. Drawing on newly discovered family letters and papers, he details the human drama–the family, the women, and the inner circle of advisers–that shaped Jackson’s private world through years of storm and victory.

One of our most significant yet dimly recalled presidents, Jackson was a battle-hardened warrior, the founder of the Democratic Party, and the architect of the presidency as we know it. His story is one of violence, sex, courage, and tragedy. With his powerful persona, his evident bravery, and his mystical connection to the people, Jackson moved the White House from the periphery of government to the center of national action, articulating a vision of change that challenged entrenched interests to heed the popular will–or face his formidable wrath. The greatest of the presidents who have followed Jackson in the White House–from Lincoln to Theodore Roosevelt to FDR to Truman–have found inspiration in his example, and virtue in his vision.

Jackson was the most contradictory of men. The architect of the removal of Indians from their native lands, he was warmly sentimental and risked everything to give more power to ordinary citizens. He was, in short, a lot like his country: alternately kind and vicious, brilliant and blind; and a man who fought a lifelong war to keep the republic safe–no matter what it took.

Jon Meacham in American Lion has delivered the definitive human portrait of a pivotal president who forever changed the American presidency–and America itself.




Happy Reading!

Dr. Bill  ;-)