HAPPY 200 GIVEAWAY!!

As promised - to thank you for helping us reach 200 followers on Facebook, we're giving away an AUTOGRAPHED book!

One signed copy of Kendare Blake’s Girl of Nightmares
Contest ends at midnight on 12/4/2012
One entry will be chosen at random and notified no later than 12/7/12
One group of entries per email address
Limited to residents of the United States only

Required: Leave a blog post comment with your email address so that you may be contacted in the event your entry is chosen as the winner (+1)
Follow the Montgomery County Book Festival blog at http://mocobookfest.blogspot.com/ (+1)
Follow Montgomery County Book Festival on Twitter @MontCoBookFest (+1)
Tweet about the giveaway @MontCoBookFest using hashtag #happy200 (+1)
Like the Montgomery County Book Festival page on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/#!/MoCoBookFest (+1)

GOOD LUCK!!

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An Interview with Anita Bunkley

Q: Of which book are you the most proud? And why?

A. I really enjoyed writing my historical novel, Wild Embers.  Set during World War II, it looks at the African American experience during the war through the eyes of an African-American nurse.  The research was fascinating and it is a period in time where black women's voices were seldom heard.

Q: Patty Campbell talks about the germ for a piece of writing being like the sand in the oyster. What is your grain of sand? Do you begin with character or setting or something else?

A: If it is an historical novel I try to find some unusual or little-known aspect of history to center  the plot, then the characters are introduced into that setting.

Q: What do you hear from your readers?

A: I have been fortunate to have developed a large following of readers who enjoy my novels, both historical and contemporary.  They enjoy my strong women characters very much.

Q: Why do you write for Young Adults or Children or Adult (whichever is pertinent)?

A: I write books that I, as an adult would want to read, and that I hope my target audience will embrace.

Q: Who is your favorite character you have written or read about?

A. I don't have a favorite, but I enjoy stories with strong women characters who take charge of their lives and overcome great obstacles.

Q: What is one thing you would like your readers to know about you?

A: I would like them to know that I write for my readers, not myself.  I always put myself in the reader's place as I launch a new book and strive to deliver a good read that they will enjoy.

Q: Do you have a pet (pets)? Tell us about it (them) and how they help/hinder your writing.

A: No pets, just a large vegetable and herb garden that I dote on. Getting outside and working in the garden is great relief after a long day at the computer.

Q: What is the hardest part of waiting for a book from the end of your writing to when it is released? 

A: That is usually the busiest time, planning promotional activities and getting reviews.  You just hope the reviews will be good.

Q: How often do you dream about the writing you are working on?

A: Rarely, but I think about the characters all the time.

Thank you so much for your time, Anita! We look forward to seeing you at the festival.

To learn more about Anita Bunkley, visit her website.

Introducing 2013 MCBF Author, Anita Bunkley

Anita Bunkley is the author of more than twenty successful mainstream novels and novellas. A member of the Texas Institute of Letters, and an NAACP image award nominee, she enjoys researching the lives of interesting African Americans whose stories have not been told. Her book Emily, the Yellow Rose creates the legend of a woman whose place in Texas history and connection to the folksong, The Yellow Rose of Texas, had been lost. Twenty three years later she is still uncovering interesting stories and is currently at work on a new novel set in Pre-Civil War Oklahoma that delves into the intertwined lives of Blacks and Native Americans. Represented by Marcil-O'Farrell Literary LLC. New York, NY
　

An Interview with Carolee Dean

Q: Of which book are you the most proud? And why?

A: I'm proud of all my books for different reasons. COMFORT was my first novel, and at the time, just completing it felt like a miracle.  My second novel TAKE ME THERE is about a boy who's running from a gang in California after a botched initiation where someone dies. He goes to Texas looking for his father who is in prison to find out if badness is in his blood or if it is something he can outrun. Many teens have told me how strongly this book reflects their personal experience. I'm very proud of that, especially since the story is so different from MY personal experience.

My third novel, FORGET ME NOT, is about another tough subject, cyber bullying that leads to an attempted suicide. I wanted to approach it from a different angle without becoming overly dark and I wanted it to be hopeful without an overly cheerful ending. Ally, the main character, finds herself on an abandoned hallway with a group of teens who have killed themselves. She must decide whether to go back and walk through the pain that made her want to end her life or stay on the relative "safety" of the hallway.

FORGET ME NOT comes out this month (October) and there is a GHOST TOUR with prizes going on at my blog at http://caroleedeanbooks.blogspot.com

Q: Patty Campbell talks about the germ for a piece of writing being like the sand in the oyster.  What is your grain of sand?  Do you begin with character or setting or something else?

A: A germ of sand is a good metaphor, but I tend to think of my writing process more like a pot of soup. I encounter images, ideas, and experiences everyday that go into the pot to simmer. These very different tidbits bubble to the surface in combinations I never would have imagined.

Here are some of the "soups" I've cooked up and the images and experiences that helped create them.

COMFORT - My experiences as a Texas high school student preparing for the UIL  poetry interpretation competition... A cafe with terrible service and frozen food with a video running constantly of the owner's husband playing guitar... a classmate showing up to school with a black eye, telling everyone her father hit her because she thought if she embarrassed him, he wouldn't do it again...

TAKE ME THERE  - A local poet, Jimmy Santiago Baca, who taught himself to read and write in prison and became known around the world for his art... A boy who ended up in prison because he stopped at a fast gas so his friend could get cigarettes, not knowing his friend intended to rob the place at gunpoint... A girl left alone her senior year in a million dollar house because her parents were getting a divorce and wanted to move on with their lives... Texas high school football...

FORGET ME NOT - A girl sitting inside with her boyfriend during lunch, looking out the window at the kids on the quad as if she'd rather be anywhere but where she was... The raven who left a dead pigeon outside my office door... The boy in my seventh grade class who hung himself...

Q: Why do you write for teens?

A: I'm very lucky because I get to spend every day in high school. I work at a high school as a speech- language pathologist. Seeing what my students are going through reminds me of my own troubled adolescence. There are things that happen to us when we are young that we don't have the perspective to fully understand. When I go back and revisit those things now, it helps me process and understand what  happened. Every story I write for teens helps me grow up just a little bit more.

Q: What is one thing you would like your readers to know about you?

A: I have a strong sense of humor, despite the dark subjects I write about, which is why there are always humorous (or at least quirky) elements in my books - like the mother who wants to make her husband into a country and western superstar, even though he doesn't really want to be one... the grandmother who treats her pig like a household pet... and the boy who spends a month speaking in iambic pentameter when he returns home from the psychiatric hospital.

Q: In high school, where did you fall? (Prom Queen/King, Gamer Geek, Brainy/Book Nerd, Jock, Shy/Quiet Scholar, Skate Rat, Stoner, Class Clown, etc.)

A: I was very religious. My favorite book was the Bible. One story that stood out in my mind because it was so disturbing was the one about the man who cut his wife's dead body into twelve pieces and sent the  pieces to the twelve tribes of Israel. I could hardly believe my parents were letting me read such racy stories, and wondered if they were really reading them as closely as they claimed.

We moved to Lubbock when I was 15 so my father could attend preaching school and my senior year we moved to Happy, Texas where we lived next to the church on Main Street.

As I've gotten older, I've become more spiritual and less religious. My family sometimes wonders about the dark subjects I write about. If they had read the book of Judges a little closer, they might understand.

Thanks so much for your time Carolee! We look forward to seeing you at the festival.

Visit Carolee Dean's website or follow her on Twitter at @caroleeJDean

Introducing 2013 MCBF Author, Carolee Dean

Carolee Dean has made numerous appearances as a guest poet/author at schools, libraries, poetry events, and teacher conferences. In addition, she was a featured author at the 2002 Texas Book Festival. She holds a bachelor’s degree in music therapy and a master’s degree in communicative disorders. She has spent over a decade working in the public schools as a speech-language pathologist and has helped to sponsor poetry slam teams at both the middle school and high school levels.

In addition to working with students of all ages in the public schools, Carolee has also worked with teens in a psychiatric hospital and a head trauma rehabilitation unit. She teaches creative writing through a summer program.

In her first novel, Comfort, Carolee explores how words and poetry have the power to change one young man’s life. Comfort was published by Houghton Mifflin. It was nominated as a Best Book for Young Adults, received awards from the International Reading Association and the Texas Institute of Letters, and was on the TAYSHAS (Texas Library Association) reading list.

In Take Me There (Simon Pulse, Summer 2010), she follows the journey of a budding young poet who cannot read or write, but dreams of using words to escape a life of crime and deprivation.
Forget Me Not (Simon Pulse, October 2012) is a paranormal verse novel that tells the story of a girl whose life is devastated when a scandalous photo of her is texted around the school.
       
Carolee lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico with her husband and children. In addition to poetry, she loves hiking and biking along the beautiful Rio Grande River and skiing wherever there are mountains and snow. She is available for author/poet visits as well as educator workshops.

For more about Carolee, visit her website.

An Interview with David Macinnis GIll

Q: Of which book are you the most proud? And why?

A: I'm most proud of INVISIBLE SUN, which came out March 2012. It's very difficult to write a novel, but it's exponentially more difficult to write a sequel that both stands on its own as a story and adds to the mythology of the world created in the first book.

Q: Patty Campbell talks about the germ for a piece of writing being like the sand in the oyster.  What is your grain of sand?  Do you begin with character or setting or something else?

A: For me, the grain of sand is usually a premise that is so intriguing that a world and characters form around it. For Soul Enchilada, it was what would happen if a demon were interested in repossession? For Black Hole Sun, it was what kind of frontier would a terraformed Mars have?

Q: What do you hear from your readers?

A: Most readers write about how much they like the characters or how they are like the characters. They also want to know the plots for the next books!

Q: Why do you write for Young Adults?

A: I write for young adults because I'm fascinated by those moments that cause/allow/propel a child to become an adult.

Q: Who is your favorite character you have written or read about?

A: My favorite is and always will be Bug from Soul Enchilada. She's smart and feisty, humble and heroic, beautiful and completely unaware of it. I admire her.

Q: What is one thing you would like your readers to know about you?

A: I'm really 17 inside.

Q: In high school, where did you fall? (Prom Queen/King, Gamer Geek, Brainy/Book Nerd, Jock, Shy/Quiet Scholar, Skate Rat, Stoner, Class Clown, etc.)

A: Brainy book nerd geek with flair for politics who didn't find his voice until senior year and then wouldn't shut up.

Q: Do you have a pet (pets)?  Tell us about it (them) and how they help/hinder your writing.

A: I have two adopted dogs. They help my writing because they go on walks with me.

Q: What is the hardest part of waiting for a book from the end of your writing to when it is released?

A: Waiting for readers to find the book and then react to it. That seems to take a lifetime.

Q: How often do you dream about the writing you are working on?

A: When I'm drafting a first draft or revising, I often dream in the main character's voice. When that happens, I know that I understand my character.

Thank you so much for your time, David. We look forward to seeing you at the festival!
Learn more about David Macinnis Gill at his website.

Introducing 2013 MCBF Author, David Macinnis Gill

David Macin­nis Gill is the author of the debut novel, Soul Enchi­lada, from Greenwillow/Harper Collins. His sto­ries have appeared in sev­eral mag­a­zines, and his crit­i­cal biog­ra­phy, Gra­ham Sal­is­bury: Island Boy, was pub­lished by Scare­crow Press. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English/creative writ­ing and a doc­tor­ate in edu­ca­tion, both from the Uni­ver­sity of Ten­nessee, as well as a M.ED. from Tennessee-Chattanooga. David is the Past-President of ALAN (The Assem­bly on Lit­er­a­ture for Ado­les­cents) and an Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­sity of North Car­olina at Wilm­ing­ton. He is rep­re­sented by Rose­mary Sti­mola of the Sti­mola Lit­er­ary Studio.

Read more at his website.