It’s hard to believe that THESE GENTLE WOUNDS has been out for almost two months. I still gush when I see it on a bookstore shelves or find out that someone has read it. And though I’m deep in the process of three other manuscripts including my 2015 release, WHAT REMAINS, I thought this would be a good time to gather a couple of interesting posts / fact about TGW.
First off….like every writer I know, I’m a reader. Sometimes voraciously. And there are writers I adore and idolize and whose works I snap up the minute they go on the shelves. I’ve been so fortunate to have received shout-outs from two of my favorites:
- J. H. Trumble’s DON’T LET ME GO is one of my favorite books. It reduced me to an ugly sobbing mess because I loved these characters so much and just didn’t want to let them go. Janet’s review of TGW is something I’m going to treasure, for a long, long time:
- Likewise, I’m fond of referring to Brigid Kemmerer’s Elementals series as my favorite guilty pleasure, but really, I don’t feel at all guilty. The relationships between the brothers in her books is absolutely riveting and, with every book, she proves that fantasy books can be just as strong in character development as contemporary. I really appreciated her recent shout-out:
If you’ve read TGW or intend to read it and want to know what I was listening to when I wrote it, YA MISFITS were kind enough to let me talk about my playlist as part of their Band Geek Thursday series.
If you want to know a little bit more about Kevin, and I’m thrilled that so many of readers said that they did, I wrote a character profile that published as part of my blog tour on Loving the Language of Literacy’s blog.
And finally, if you’re super bored: Here are 10 Things About These Gentle Wounds that you might not know, followed by 10 even more random things about me that might amuse you.
ABOUT TGW
1. I wrote the book after a women in NY drove her car into the river with her four kids in it and one of her sons survived.
2. Pea Balls are a real recipe
3. An early draft was one of the winners of the She Writes YA Novel Contest
4. I wrote this book for myself and never, ever planned to show it to an agent/editor.
5. There is one thing that Gordie experiences that I have as well.
6. My favorite scene in the book – between Gordie and his brother Kevin – was written because one of my critique partners told me that the last third of the book needed more angst in it.
7. Gordie was named after Gordie Howe who played for The Detroit Red Wings.
8. I’m from Detroit and love hockey, but Gordie became a hockey player because I was watching so much of it during the Olympics.
9. After I wrote TGW, I started working on something (relatively) funny because I found it so difficult to get out of Gordie’s head.
10. The books’ original title was In Case of Emergency (ICE).
ABOUT ME:
1. I worked as a drama critic in Chicago for a couple of years
2. I have no sense of direction. At. All.
3. I make up songs to sing to my dog when I walk him.
4. My husband and I looked in four countries for wedding rings we really liked and ended up buying them in Brooklyn across the street from my old apartment.
5. I won a writing contest in 9th novel I wrote about a baseball-playing angel.
6. My minor in college was theatre even though I was terrified being on stage and wasn’t very good at it.
7. I LOVE holidays. Any holiday. I just like celebrating things!
8. I very rarely remember my dreams.
9. I was General Manager of my college radio station, but hated speaking on the air so I just played all of the BBC's Rock over London discs..
10. I thought I hated beer until I tried Guinness.