Blog Hops & Other Updates

You might have noticed the graphic in the right sidebar about the 12 Days of Christmas Blog Hop, which begins on Tuesday, Dec. 13. Hosted by the lovely Christina at Intoxicated by Books, 75 bloggers will take part and give away books (and book-related items) on Dec. 24. All you have to do to win is leave a comment on the blog post (which will go up at 12:01 a.m. on Dec. 13) and I'll pick a winner on Christmas Eve. What will you win? The paperback of Conquering Venus, a code to download a free eBook of Remain In Light and my poetry chapbook Slow To Burn. I might even thrown in some spiffy bookmarks. I'll also be linking to all the other bloggers giving away books, so this has the potential to be a big holiday bonanza for book lovers. You can see all the participating authors at this link.

On Friday, Dec. 16, I'll participate in the literary Sleigh Bells and Ink Wells Blog Hop being organized by fellow Vanilla Heart author Smoky Zeidel and author Patricia Damery. This will be a "moveable feast" event with 15 authors taking part. Each author will write about their books, inspiration, etc. and then link to the next author. My blog post will be 12 things (for the 12 days of Christmas, naturally) that have inspired The Venus Trilogy. You might be surprised by some of them. And I might even give away another eBook. You'll just have to check in Friday and find out.

I had hoped my eBook of short story collection would be ready for the holidays, but now I'm looking at first quarter of 2012. Two of the stories are done and dusted, I completely rewrote the third and the fourth still needs tweaking. And it still needs to go to my editor. I'm pleased with how these stories are turning out and I can't wait for you to read them.

On Friday, The Guardian newspaper in the UK used part of my review about Kate Bush's classic Hounds of Love album as part of an overview of her career, as well as giving readers a chance to vote in a poll. You can read the article here.