aubrey gross

Winner: Aubrey Gross Giveaway!

~ Shara ~ Leave a comment

heavenlybodiesBNThe end of giveaways always come too soon, but at least I remembered to do this before the clock struck midnight. No turning into a pumpkin for me!  Aubrey’s giveaway only encouraged two people to throw their hats in the ring, which means we had one winner. I’ve emailed both Aubrey Gross and that winner, and I’m letting that winner work out the details for her prize!

Thank you to all who entered, and all who spread the word! Aubrey has quite a lot of fiction available, so whether or not you won, or whether or not you even entered, I hope you get a chance to give her fiction a shot!

In the meantime, you may have noticed: there’s no October interview! I’ve got TWO interviews still in progress, and one possible one in the docket, but between my day job, running Speculative Chic, and going on an EPIC vacation this month, I decided to take a break. I hope to be back in November (but with WHO?), so stay tuned and if anything, since there won’t be weekly content on this blog, check out Speculative Chic‘s daily content during the week!

 

Giveaway with Aubrey Gross

~ Shara ~ Leave a comment

Do you see ALL of these books? Well, if you like romance at all, step right on up, because Aubrey’s offering an awesome giveaway.

That’s right, GIVEAWAY. Not Scavenger Hunt. You don’t have to do a darn thing except decide which book you want and fill out the form linked below.

Sound awesome?

Here’s how it works:

You can win a copy of ANY of the above books. If you live in the United States, you have your choice between a signed copy from Aubrey OR an e-copy (except Heavenly Bodies, which is only available in e-copy). If you live outside of the United States, you have your choice of an e-copy only of any of the above books.

Clear as mud? I hope so, because now I need to explain how many winners there will be.

If we get 10 or less entries: there will only be ONE winner.

If we get 11 or more entries: there will be TWO winners.

So please, enter below, and boost the signal, because it increases your chances of winning!

CLICK HERE: Aubrey Gross GIVEAWAY!

You have until Tuesday, October 4th to enter. Winner(s) will be selected at random and notified by email on Wednesday, October 5th.

One entry per person, no purchase necessary, void where prohibited, all entrants’ information will be deleted once winners have been confirmed, etc. If you’re unsure as to whether or not your entry came through, please comment here to ask.

Please enter, and encourage your friends who enjoy reading romance to enter as well! Aubrey offers a variety, so definitely give her work a shot!

Second Chances with Aubrey Gross

~ Shara ~ Leave a comment

Aubrey and MemawWelcome to third and final installment of Calico In Conversation with Aubrey Gross. If you missed Parts One and Two, click below to catch up:

Part One: Hard to Swallow
Part Two: Triumph and Taking Risks

Editor’s Note: this interview was originally conducted in March through August of 2016.

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Let’s say you’re at a party, and you meet someone whom you learn is an aspiring writer. Really novice and is tinkering with a novel. Quick: what’s the first piece of advice you give them?

Just finish it. The first draft doesn’t have to be the best thing ever — it just has to get done. Lots of people “want” to write. Only a handful of those people actually manage to do it and have a finished product.

Great advice! That’s something every writer needs to hear, and it’s the toughest to follow. So let’s talk about YOUR work. What do you think is the one thing all of your books have in common?

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Triumph and Taking Risks with Aubrey Gross

~ Shara ~ Leave a comment

Welcome to Part Two of Calico In Conversation with Aubrey Gross. If you missed Part One: Hard to Swallow, feel free to click here to catch up!

Editor’s Note: this interview was originally conducted in March through August of 2016.

book signing

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I feel like over the years, genre fiction has gotten to be far more accepted by the mainstream, though sometimes you’ll still get a literary snob complaining about things like YA fiction or Game of Thrones. But thanks to the film and television industry, I feel like there’s a boom there that I hadn’t previously seen in my lifetime. EXCEPT: why is romance still the red-headed stepchild of the genre market?

I think it’s a combination of things. There’s the misconception that romance is “mommy porn” or “porn for desperate, single women,” which couldn’t be further from the truth. Romance isn’t pornographic. Romance is about emotions, and a lot of people don’t “get” why anyone would want to read a book that’s primarily character-driven and chock full of all kinds of emotions (and, yes, often sex). My reason for reading romance is that it reaffirms my belief in love despite the odds, whether those odds be a psychotic killer on the loose, a mother determined to see her daughter married off to the duke rather than the earl, the complexity of a long-distance relationship, or a heroine who’s unable to trust after being left at the altar by her first love. Romance is about triumph and taking risks and stepping out of your comfort zone and growing as a person — all in the name of love. A lot of critics say romance novels are unrealistic, to which I say: but are they really? In our relationships, we all have things we have to overcome in order to be happy. Distance. Past experiences. Wariness. Job dynamics. Our own internal fears. The list goes on and on.

And I’ll also be quite frank — I sometimes think part of the derisiveness is simple jealousy. In 2013, $1.08 billion in romance novels were sold according to BookStats. And according to Nielsen and BISAC, romance novels accounted for 13% of adult fiction novels sold (source: RWA). Because those numbers only reflect books with ISBNs, there are a lot of indie books NOT being reported on (the folks over at Author Earnings do an amazing job of explaining this). The July 2014 Author Earnings Report took a look at the genre breakdowns, and at the time 66% of romance novels in the Kindle Store were indie published (my guess is that it’s probably more than that now, just from anecdotal evidence). Basically, what it boils down to is that a lot of people read romance, which means more readers (and yes, more money) for romance authors as a whole. I might be off base with that one, but from personal experience and the experiences of other authors, I don’t think I’m too off the mark on that. 😉

I’ve often wondered, too, about the fact that romance tends to be the ONE genre that’s primarily driven by women, if there isn’t a little bit of institutionalized sexism happening here, intentional or not. And no, I’m not just blaming the men; women can and are just as bad when it comes to criticizing the genre, its tropes, and its readers. I admit to being guilty of it myself, once upon a time ago.

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Winners: Matthew S. Rotundo Giveaway!

~ Shara ~ Leave a comment

So as usual, the winners tend to creep up on me, and I forget to make the announcement until the end of the day. But the giveaway did encourage six people to draw their hats in the ring, which means we had one winner. I’ve emailed both Matthew S. Rotundo and that winner, and I’m letting that winner work out the details for her prize!

Thank you to all who entered, and all who spread the word! Matthew wrote quite the ripping yarn, so whether or not you won, I hope you get a chance to give his fiction a shot!

Cover Art by Ryan Malm
Cover Art by Ryan Malm

For those of you who didn’t win, and those of you who did, have you caught Part One of Aubrey Gross’ interview with me yet? She hasn’t promised a giveaway or a scavenger hunt, not yet, but I bet if we show her a lot of support, she might be willing to give away a free book or two! Just click here to start with Part One: Hard to Swallow (yes, Aubrey totally approved that title), and come back next Tuesday for Part Two: Triumphs and Taking Risks!

Hard to Swallow with Aubrey Gross

~ Shara ~ 2 Comments

unnamedAubrey’s been reading and writing since she was about two and a half, and has been a storyteller for as long as she can remember. Early on, she discovered a love of romance, reading her first Harlequin somewhere around age twelve (it featured an F1 race car driver, as this was long before NASCAR was cool). She wrote her first romance novel in high school. It was admittedly not very good, but she wrote another, and another. She thinks those first few might still be on a floppy disk somewhere in a storage bin.

Aubrey eventually honed her writing abilities through undergrad creative writing courses and eventually graduate school, where she earned a Master of Arts in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University. These days she writes books she likes to describe as “stories about broken people healing, finding love, and laughing a little bit, too.”

Editor’s Note: this is part one of a three-part interview. Parts two and three will be published September 13th and September 20th, respectively. Also, this interview was originally conducted in March through August of 2016.

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Now, to get started, I ask all of my interviewees the same starting question, and that’s this: how do we know each other?

We go way back to our freshman year of college at Hollins University. We were in the same creative writing class our first semester, and a small group of us just kind of gelled and nicknamed ourselves The Merry Bandits. We’ve been brain twins ever since. 😉

Brain-Twins FTW!!!! Hollins was and is known for their creative writing program. Given you’re from Texas, why did that inspire you to travel so far?

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Culture Consumption: June 2016

~ Shara ~ 3 Comments

Happy July! The year is officially half over! June brought the first month of Calico in Conversation, which was SEKRIT PROJECT #1 and seems to be going well so far. And this time next month, you’ll be introduced to SEKRIT PROJECT #2, so please, stay tuned to the blog for any announcements.

In addition to working on said SEKRIT PROJECTS, June brought a lot of great entertainment, so let’s break it down, shall we?

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Introducing Calico in Conversation

~ Shara ~ 2 Comments

I’ve been working on some SEKRIT PROJECTS the past few months, and of the two, one is finally coming to fruition!

Back in February, I put up a side bar: Authors I Know. The purpose of this was to bring some recognition to the writers who labored in the trenches with me and have managed to get out there and get their wonderful words in the hands of the public. This post gave me an idea: why stop there? Why not highlight them individually? And how would I do that?

The result: Calico in Conversation: an organic interview where I would start off each interviewee with the same question, and then see where the conversation takes us.

So it’s with great excitement, and some trepidation, that Calico in Conversation kicks off next Tuesday, June 7th, with part one of my interview with Maria V. Snyder, author of the recently published Night Study, and one of the most prolific authors I know personally.

Yes, you read that right: PART ONE. Maria and I got into chatting so much that the interview has to be broken into THREE parts, so expect additional installments on Tuesday June 14th and Tuesday June 21st! Then in July, I’ll move onto another author. In August, yet another author. And so on and so forth until 1) I get bored and/or 2) I run out of authors to torment.

I won’t claim to be a professional journalist or interviewer, and I suspect my skills will sharpen as time goes on. But it’s great to get back in touch with these friends and colleagues of mine to talk shop, motivations, inspirations, and what life looks like outside of writing! I hope you’ll have as much fun with these interviews as I have, and if you’re wondering who to expect in the future, just take a gander below: if you have any questions for these fine folks, you can either comment here for me to slip them into the interview, or comment when the interviews go live for the authors to answer themselves!

Stay tuned!!!!

Cover art by Brad Sharp
Cover Art by Ryan Malm