Sandy has blown on by us and we're still here. Lost power most of last night, but back up and running this morning. Hope all of you stay safe! Me? I'm going to have another hot cup of coffee and some of Calene's Coffee bread.

Carlene Dater’s Swedish Coffee Bread

Cream together, ½ cup butter and 11/4 cups sugar -
Add 2 beaten eggs
1 cup sour cream
1 tsp. vanilla. Mix well.
Add 2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder and ½ tsp. Baking soda. Mix in flour to form batter.

In a separate bowl, mix ½ cup chopped walnuts, 2 tsp. Sugar and ½ tsp. Cinnamon.

Put half the batter in a greased Angel food cake pan or, anyway a pan with a hole in the middle.

Sprinkle half the nut mixture on batter in pan. Add remaining dough then add the rest of the sugar/nut/cinnamon mixture on top. Bake one hour in 350-F or 177-C degree oven. Yummy.

Contributed by Carlene Dater, author of One by One, and The Colors of Death...Proving yet again that no good deed goes unpunished, Callie Sue agrees to help her uncle while he is ill. But murder happens and  Callie’s uncle is suspect #1. His employees act suspicious and Callie has a reputation to maintain as a snoop. The only other plus is that one of the police detectives is a charmer …

Hurricane Food -- recipes

With Hurricane Sandy roaring away outside, I've been putting some things by that don't need cooking and that can be eaten cold, in case the power goes out. These may not be exactly gourmet food, but they beat crackers and peanut butter.

Arline's No Cook Hurricane Salad:

1 can Spam, diced

2 cucumbers, very thinly sliced
1 red onion, very thinly sliced 

2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons low-fat sour cream or 2 tablespoons yogurt
salt and pepper, to taste (I like a lot of pepper)
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon chopped fresh dill

Directions:

1  Mix cucumbers and onions together.

2 Mix rest of ingredients together in a closed bowl and give a shake.
 

3 Add to cucumbers, chill till very cold & serve munch as needed when the lights go out.

Terry White's Chicken Angel Hair

This has to be cooked ahead, but tastes really fine cold...

4 to 6 chicken breasts, diced in 1 inch cubes.

1 pkg. Angel Hair pasta

2 heads brocolli, or a large pkg. frozen brocolli

2 red tomatoes diced

1/2 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1 tsp. salt

 

1 tbsp. Italian Seasoning

 

1tbsp. Coarse ground pepper

 

Grated Parmesan Cheese to use as a topping.

Fresh garlic OR garlic powder to taste.

 

 

Prepare the angel hair, coat with half the extra virgin olive oil, and set aside. DO NOT OVERCOOK.

In a wok or a stainless steel bowl, toss the chicken breasts and remaining olive oil over heat until, they start to turn white. Add broccoli and diced tomatoes.

Stir fry until the chicken is done, the broccoli is aldente and the tomatoes form a little broth in the bottom.

 

Add seasonings

 

 Remove from heat and add angel hair. Stir until all ingredients are well mixed.  Serve hot if you can't wait. Or store it in the refrigerator in a covered plastic bowl.  Serve cold with Parmesan Cheese.

If the power is already out, put your bowl outside in the cold.

Books that went to press, or back to press again, this week:

A DESIRE PATH, by Jan Shapin

Galleys that went out, or went out again, this week:

HAUNTED PAST, by Robert Kanehl

MURDER AT MAMA TRUCKER'S, by Terry L. White

WORLD WITHOUT END, by Nancy Madison

LITTLE MORNINGS, by C.M. Albrecht

Work continued, or began on the following:

BOUNTY OF PALMETTO KEY by Shirley B. Ring

CHANGELING KILL, by Kathryn Flatt


STAR-WOLF, by Warren Graffeo

MURDER BY BEST SELLER, by Gabriel Timar

If anyone here knows Warren Graffeo or is in contact with him,
PLEASE ASK HIM TO CONTACT:

arline@mail.com

Scenes? - writing tip

If you enjoyed Game of Thrones on TV, you might like this medieval romance.

Question:  I had an editor read my book and she said I have a lot of scenes where "nothing happens" and I should take them out. To me lots of stuff happens and they are some of my favorite scenes...how can I tell if she's right?

Answer: Every scene should begin with a solid transition that establishes the moment in time and space, tells the reader who is present, and sets the problem/hook statement in the first or second line. Thereafter the action and dialogue develop until the turning point is reached, then  a final hook for that scene is set, and the scene ends.  

The turning point is always when something changes forever. Sometimes they can be hard to spot. Say for instance a medical examiner is called to the scene of a murder. He looks at the corpse and at the uniformed cop on standby, then says, "He's done it again. This is the same as the last one." 

Now that may seem like not much, but the point of this scene is to let the reader know a serial killer is on the loose, and the ME has done that with one line! Therefore, that line should come at the End of the scene, not at the beginning...

Now if there's no turning point -- the place where something changes forever -- the scene is pointless and can be removed, regardless of how well written it is, or how much you enjoyed writing it and  like what happens in it.

I can give you a perfect example of a pointless scene from my own writing.  In GHOST DANCER there is an Epilogue at the end, where the main characters go and have tea with the heroine's mother.  Now I LOVED writing that scene and readers tell me they love reading it, but it is still pointless. It's a fantasy. It's fun. But nothing changes there. The story would certainly be complete without it.  

I left it in for all the reasons above, and when I sent the book to my first publisher, Connie Foster, I waited for her to suggest taking it out. She didn't, and it's still there.

Vegetable Tempura -- recipe

In Book One of the Red Knight Series, Judicator, Gwendolyn the Celebate, 

 is kidnapped to join an “army of the dead” led by Victor. She embraces 

 the future and her new identity as Captain Isobel. Isobel revels in her acceptance

 by the other warriors, and tries not to be too disturbed by some shady areas in 

Gwendolyn’s past. She is impressed by the Army’s domestication of dragons, 

and the sophisticated magical powers possessed by some of them. 

Though “Gwendolyn” has died and Isobel has taken her place, it soon 

becomes clear that someone is trying to kill her, or Victor, or both.

Vegetable Tempura ingredients:

4     fresh shiitake mushrooms
1     small sweet potato
1     carrot
20     slender string beans

Tentsu Sauce*:
1         cup daisho (bonito soup)
¼ to1/3     cup soy sauce
¼ - 1/3     cup mirin
    *Alternative sauce: Teriyaki Sauce

To Make Batter: (For light batter, use sifted flour and ice-cold water)

Beat eggs, stir in water. Add flour, mix lightly with chopsticks, using thick ends. Do not place batter near fire nor leave out too long before using, as it will become gluey. Only make one batch of batter at a time.

To Fry:

Fill deep frying pan with oil about 1" from the top. Should be three  inches deep. Start heating before making batter. Bring to medium heat when batter is ready.

Test temperature by dropping small amount of batter in oil with chopsticks. Do not try to fry too much at a time. No more than half the surface should be covered. Turn only once. When crisp, remove from oil, shake once or twice to remove excess oil.

Drain on rack or on paper towels arranged on colander. Do not lay one on top of another. Skim off excess dropping before frying a new batch.

When oil temp reaches 320 -F or 160-C degrees, begin frying peppers.  For vegetable tempura follow directions above with vegetables. Artistically arrange and serve with sauce.

Contributed by Ray Morand, author of The Red Knight Chronicles.

How to get in emotion -- writer's tip

One of this quarter's well-received titles.

Ever since his mother died, David Sinclair, a tenth grader, can’t seem to finish anything he starts. After his alcoholic father gripes about all the money he’s blown on Karate lessons, tennis lessons, and several other things for his son that came to nothing, David decides to try out for the Heather Heights High School football team as a placekicker. Their star player, Glenn Samson, believes nothing matters but football. David has always admired Glenn and starts thinking the same way. Although he’s never kicked a football in his life, he sticks with it—lifting an old abandoned telephone pole lying on the ground on the huge lot behind his house over and over to gain strength, and practicing until his foot can boot the ball fifty yards. But being a football hero costs a precious price, threatening to ruin his football career before it even gets started. Can David recover from that cost? And will the lessons learned eventually carry him to a much sweeter victory that takes him beyond football?

Question:  My writer's group said my  writing is "too flat" and "needed more feeling" then when I did a rewrite with more description of how people were feeling, they said it "still just talked about the feelings..."  Any ideas?

Answer:   The best advice I can give is not to describe what other people (your characters) feel, but to try to get inside those feelings yourself...

When you need to give a character a strong emotion, try to find a moment in your own past when you felt that emotion. Once I needed to find shock and horror for a character in a story who was being attacked by a corpse. Needless to say, I had never been attacked by a corpse, but...

To do that I remembered a day when I'd taken clothes in off the line, folding them into the basket as I went. When I started to put them away, a snake crawled out from between the towels and landed between me and the door. I am terrified of snakes. I took all the sick, palpitating, screaming horror I felt when I saw the snake and gave those emotions to the my character. Her palms sweat, her hands shook, the room seemed to come and go. And I used what I had felt toward that snake, to understand how she might feel when she walked into her own horrifying situation.

Tanya Ramagos's Hush Puppies - recipe

 Tanya Ramagos's Hush Puppies

2     cups yellow cornmeal
2     tbsp. Flour
1     tbsp. Salt
½     tsp. Baking powder
2     tbsp. Chopped or grated onion
2 ½     cups boiling water

Mix all ingredients, except boiling water. Slowly pour ingredients into rapidly boiling water, stirring constantly. Cook until mush-like. Remove from heat.  Shape, while warm, into 2-inch balls or patties and place on waxed paper to cool. Brown in deep hot fat. May be made ahead and kept in refrigerator several hours before frying.

Catching UP!

Books that went to press or back to press this week:  None

Galleys that went out or went out again, this week:

WILT THOU BE MINE, by Ann Nolder Heinz

Work began or continued on the following:

COUNTING ON YOU, by Dr. Kris Condi

BOUNTY OF PALMETTO KEY by Shirley B. Ring

CHANGELING KILL, by Kathryn Flatt

STAR-WOLF, by Warren Graffeo

MURDER BY BEST SELLER, by Gabriel Timar

If anyone here knows Warren Graffeo or is in contact with him,
PLEASE ASK HIM TO CONTACT:

arline@mail.com

Birdie DeCoursey's Crab Cakes - recipe

No comments as yet on the contract news. If you know other authors who don't follow the blog, please share the link with them. The new terms will not be in effect until Jan. 1, so we have plenty of time for revision and ideas for improvement.


October is the last of crab season, a time when crab meat is at its most reasonable, so it's a good time to make up a few batches of this recipe. Also the tail-end of your garden may provide you with some extra green peppers. You can shape the cakes and freeze them on a cookie sheet, then drop them after freezing into ziplock bags.  They will make a great quick meal all winter long. Just take as many as you need out of the bag, and fry them up.

Birdie DeCoursey’s Killraven Island Crab Cakes

1         lb. Crab meat (more if crabs are plentiful)
2         eggs
2/3      cup corn meal ( or left over mashed potatoes)
1/4      cup milk
1/4      cup grated onion
½        cup grated green pepper
1         tsp. Salt
½        tsp Pepper
½         tsp curry* powder** more if you like it spicey

In a bowl, beat eggs, milk, and seasonings. Add onion, pepper, and corn meal, or mashed potatoes and mix well. Gently add in crab meat and shape into cakes about as big around as a water glass and half an inch or so thick. (They can be frozen for later at this point.)

Drop into hot shortening and fry (turning only once) until golden brown.  Birdy used lard, but Crisco will work just fine. Fry over medium heat with plenty of shortening in a heavy iron skillet.

(*The Curry Powder is Birdey’s secret ingredient. Coursey gets it for her in  Baltimore and only her dearest friends know about this.  ** Old Bay Seasoning can be substituted if desired.)

Contributed by Arline Chase, author of The Drowned Land, a collection of short stories where Birdy made her first appearance,  and Killraven, a novel where  Hope Voeschell, a young woman  raised in a pacifist sect, falls in love with DeCoursey Rogers a violent man.... but when their island community encounters rape and murder, Coursey’s “eye-for-an-eye” reaction may cost him everything.

New Contract in the Works

If you like DEXTER, you'll enjoy this one!

 

New Contract in the Works

We are in the process of editing our contract for several reasons. Our contract is based upon one produced by EPIC and recommended to both authors and publishers as “a standard of fairness” in the e-book industry. 

 

A copy will be posted to this blog when it is complete and you will all be able to offer input, questions and advice, before it goes up on the web site for signing. Once the Board of Directors has adopted the new contract its terms will apply to all contracts presently in effect, though we would like all of you to send us the additional information asked for at that time.

 

Planned Changes:

 

We like our contract, but would like it to reflect a few changes that have come up in the industry over the years:

1. Only one contract should be necessary and it should cover both e-book publication and POD publication. When the present one was written, we did not produce paper books and the second contract was added to cover that when we began.

2. Language should be clear and easy to understand.  Each time a new author is signed, we inevitably get questions via e-mail about what something means. Sure, the answers are posted on the web site, but the language in the contract should be clear and understandable on its own.

3. We need to provide for eventualities. The copyright laws assure your rights for the next 150 years. A few of our authors have suffered illnesses. One had a stroke on the tennis court and if his daughter had not kindly informed us, we would not have had any information on who could accept his royalty payments for him. So you will be asked for that information as well.

4. The present contract gives some information about the obligations of the Publisher, but they are only general ones. We believe an author should understand exactly what the responsibilities of the publisher are and will outline them in specific terms.

5. ALL ROYALTY PAYMENTS AND PERCENTAGES WILL REMAIN THE SAME, but we would like to implement the electronic transfer of funds via PayPal if at all possible. All payment will be sent as “money owed” so the full amount should be received by the author and transfer costs will accrue to the Publisher’s account. Postage is going up again in the new year.

6. Royalty payments will change to reflect the present practice of paying every author, every cent, every quarter. It costs more time and trouble in bookkeeping to wait until the amount reaches a certain level and regardless of the contract wording we have not been holding any monies back for the past five years.

Promo OP from AllRomanceEbooks - Omnilit

All Romance is pleased to announce a new promotional opportunity for Publishers/Authors AND a new exclusive discount that P & N Graphics will be offering our clients. 

The New Book-A-Day Give Away Promotion

Starting in November, we will implement regular eBook giveaways through our site. If you have a big release or an up-and-coming author you want to p ush through All Romance, this is an excellent chance to reach out to the hundreds of thousands of readers who visit our sites and subscribe to our newsletters and alerts.

How it will work:

Several times a week, we’ll offer readers the chance to win a hot romance. Methods for collecting entries will vary--we’ll either ask readers to comment on a post at AReCafe, or share the sale link via Twitter or Pinterest. We may even have people comment on our Facebook pages. After we’ve chosen the winner, he/she will be gifted the book through All Romance or OmniLit (we'll handle the distribution and work with the customer to resolve any support issues, don't worry).

We would love for you to participate in these giveaways! Here is what we’ll be looking for in terms of prizes:

• Recent releases - books that have been out for six months or less.
• Longer works - books of about 50K words or longer
• Books available in a variety of eBook formats to accommodate readers (EPub, PDF, and either MOBI or PRC are recommended).
• All genres of romance accepted - sweet to erotic - though we will note if a book is for mature readers.
• Most importantly, the book must be available for sale on ARe or OmniLit at the time of the giveaway.

How to participate:

For Non-DRM files

Send an email to our Community Manager Kathryn Lively at Kathryn.Lively@allromanceebooks.com, subject heading “Book-A-Day” with the following information:

•         Title/Author of book
•         URL on ARe/OmniLit where it may be found
•         Book file(s)

For DRM files 

Look up the current price of the book on AllRomance.com and note it. Then, send payment for that amount via Paypal to Paypal@AllRomanceeBooks.com. Note that the payment is for Book A Day and insert the Title/Author of the book and the URL on ARe/OmniLit where it may be found.

When you get your Paypal receipt, forward it to our Community Manager Kathryn Lively at Kathryn.lively@allromanceebooks.com, subject heading “Book-A-Day”.

Publishers may submit more than one book to giveaway. If you would like to request a specific day for a giveaway, please let Kathryn know. We may not guarantee a date, but will work to accommodate all requests.rt, Arlington, VA 22206.

Stale Bagel Pancakes

When a university chooses a new president, 

it chooses a leader for the surrounding community. 

What happens when the choice is a bad one?

Stale Bagel Pancakes

6 to 8     crumbed bagels (4 cups), soak until they are soft.
2     eggs
1     cup of milk
½     Teaspoon cinnamon
1     cup fine chopped apples
1/4     cup raisins
    Pinch of salt

Or make Vegetable Bagel Pancakes

Add 1 ½ cups of any chopped vegetables like zucchini, potatoes, carrots, or whatever, instead of the apples.

The mixture should be moist.  Mix all the ingredients, let stand for 20 minutes.  Place mixture in a greased  baking pan, and bake in a preheated 400-F or 204-C degree oven. 
For a variation form into any size patties, fry patties in 2 tablespoons of oil.

Catching UP!

The newest in Elizabeth Eagan-Cox's popular Shannon Delaney Series. 

Just right for the Halloween Season!

Still working on the data resolution and payment issues. Should be done by Monday. That's the good news...

NOW for the rest of the tale.  I have been down with flu this week, and for a couple of days there I wasn't well enough to do anything. Am feeling MUCH better now. Shelley wrote the checks for me and I will sign them and get them in the mail asap!

Still: 

No print books went to press or back to press this week.

No new galleys went out, or went out again, this week.

Very little work got done on any of the books that remain in progress.

Speechtag Question from Paul Tag

Question: (used with permission)

 

As you may remember from my first two thrillers, Category 5 and Prophecy, I write in the third-person limited viewpoint.  As such, in those books I've referred to my characters by their last names: e.g., Silverstein and Kipling.

 

I've completed my third thriller in that series (in which, by the way, Linda Kipling now has the lead, rather than Victor Silverstein) and have been using that same last-name convention.  I'm getting ready to publish this novel through iUniverse.  This time, I have a different evaluator, and he is pretty adamant that I should be using first names.  Here is what he says:

 

"I also suggested that the POV could be strengthened by carefully selecting the names when writing in viewpoint.  It can feel very distracting to consistently read Kipling when Linda is the viewpoint.  It also removes some of the intimacy created by a limited POV.  Cop dramas sometimes use this technique, but it isn't as common in thrillers.  Would Linda think of herself as Kipling?...In the end, the honest problem with using Linda's last name (or any of the other viewpoint characters' last names) on such a consistent basis is that it clashes so significantly with the limited viewpoint that the author establishes.  It is like constantly pulling the reader close and then pushing him or her away.  This breaks the ideal feeling that a limited viewpoint is trying to create, and therefore it would strengthen the novel to change it."

 

Here is what I said to the evaluator in reply.  "I look at it differently.  In the third-person-limited viewpoint, it is I, the narrator, who is telling the story, and I do not perceive myself as being that intimate with the character that I would use first names.  There would be nothing wrong with doing what you say but, from my perspective, it is less appropriate in this thriller where serious things are happening, for which my job as the narrator is to remain at arm's length from the characters."  I then point out that the way I do it is consistent with the way Tom Clancy and Robert Ludlam write in their books.

 

The evaluator did not buy my argument.

 

It would be easy to make the changes he wants, but I don't feel good about it.  Have I been doing it wrong all along?  Should I change all of my third-person POV references to their first names?

 

Thank you for your consideration.  Please say hello to Roger for me.

 

Your grateful former student,

 

Paul Tag

 

Answer:

 

Dear Paul,

I firmly believe this is author's choice.  Actually in Limited omniscient, each scene is told from the viewpoint of a character, as you (the author) portray them, and the reader is supposed to be inside that character's thoughts and actions.  Whether you call her "Linda," or "Kipling," you are putting us inside her during all her scenes.  Being the character that she is, a strong, business-like, competent, and sometimes combative, agent, I do agree that it is in keeping to call her by her last name as long as we are not in first person. Secondly, this is a thriller, not a romance, and you are in good company with Ludlum and Clancy.

Certainly you are being consistent with your other books in using last names and I see nothing "wrong" with it, nor could I find any guidelines on use of first names in the Chicago Manual of Style, the stylebook used by most publishers.  Having said that I do sort of quibble with your perspective that it is "You the narrator" who tells the story.  In limited omniscient viewpoint, it is supposed to be the characters who tell the story. The author puts the reader inside each of them in turn, depending on whose side of the situation you wish to relate. Nevertheless, it is YOU who write the narrative and the dialogue for those characters to speak and it is your voice that relates the whole story, so perhaps you are right in that, too.

It's been so long since I've read your book that I can't recall now, but in conversation what do they call each other? Many working partners refer to one another by last names in conversation. Yes, most remarkedly in Dragnet, but it happens in real life, too.  At this time, I don't recall any place where Silverstein said, "You know, Linda...."

Now you, quite properly, did not say who did your evaluation, but my guess is (if the team there works like the one at WD did) you could probably get as many answers to this question as there are evaluators, because once the hard and fast rules were observed, the rest of what we wrote was opinion based on the individual piece. This is born out in that your earlier evaluators did not object. At least, as far as I am aware, there is no firm rule on this point and it should rightly be left up to the story-teller and whatever is appropriate to the story he is telling. In any case, to follow in the footsteps of Ludlum and Clancy certainly can't be a bad thing. :) And IF there were any obscure Style rule against it, THEIR copy editors would have made them change it when THEY were newbies.

Best,

Arline Chase
Publisher

 

Corn Muffins -- Recipe

New right now!

Lizzie Dix’s Corn Pudding

1     small box Corn Muffin Mix. Martha Washington or any other brand. Prepare batter according to directions.

Add to batter:

1/4 cup.     Brown sugar
1         can creamed corn
        Dash of salt.

Bake in a greased 9x9x2 inch square baking pan or dish, for 35 to 40 minutes in a slow 325-F or 163-C  oven, or until brown on top and solid, but not too dry. It’s done when a toothpick comes out clean, but should be moist.

Contributed by Lizzie Dix,one of our cover artists.

Wild Rice Casserole

Carlene Dater’s Wild Rice Casserole

1     cup wild rice
½     lb. fresh or 2 cans mushrooms
¾     cup butter
3     Tbsp. grated onion
3     cups chicken broth

Soak and wash rice 3 or 4 times in boiling water till rice opens up. Slice fresh mushrooms. Brown rice in butter; add remaining ingredients except broth. Put into buttered 2 ½ quart casserole. Add broth. Cover and bake at 350-F or 177-C for about 1 ½ or 2 hours. Takes a while, but well worth it.

Contributed by Carlene Dater, author of The Colors of Death and An Extra Pail of Eyes... Kate Lomax travels to her hometown of Pine Bluff, Minnesota to attend the third wedding of her friend, Elizabeth. She is eager to see her old friends, a group of women called the Birthday Girls. What should have been a happy occasion quickly turns sour when the body of one of the Birthday Girls is discovered in her own swimming pool.

Catching UP

Books that went to press or back to press this week:

WORLD WITHOUT END, by Nancy Madison

No galleys went out this week.

The good news is that data entry is finished and we should be ready to write and mail checks soon.

Scene Openers?

An undersea thriller just waiting for readers to find it's adventure.

Scene Openers?

Question:  What is the best way to open a scene? How do I lead readers into the story? My writer's group complains that all I write are "weather reports."

Answer: Writers call the opening of the scene, the "transition." Most of us have problems learning to write transitions simply because first we imagine the scene in our heads, then we have to begin to describe it SOMEwhere. The first thing you notice when you look out the window is the weather. The first thing you notice when you walk into a room, is who else is there.

A transition is when you move the reader from one place to another, or one scene to another, or one time to another. For those of us who are old enough to remember black and white westerns (or who are fans of movie classics) one memorable transition is when they flash on the screen, “Meanwhile, back at the ranch....”

When we see that, we know we have cut from the chase to what is happening back home.

A good transition, like the lead in a newspaper or magazine article, should answer the questions, Who? Where? and When? Otherwise it leaves the reader vaguely aware that something is missing and causes editors to write in their refusal letters, "This story needs to be better grounded in time and space." 

I know. I have the return letters to prove it, because I used to be the world's worst at writing transitions. The worst kind of transition is a "weather report" as in: "It was a dark and stormy night," because it doesn’t say where, or when, or who. Nor does it indicate an imminent problem that must be solved in the story. Every story is about someone with a problem to solve.

There is NOTHING in that transition to indicate that we're in Italy, it's 79AD, and Vesuvius is blowing it's top. What would pique your interest? A dusty classic with a title about an ancient city? Or a volcano about to erupt? If we want to lead the reader into our story, we need to attract their attention. No matter what story we are writing, something has to be at stake.

A lot of that is plain common sense. I can't tell you how many manuscripts I see where scenes open with a conversation between two people, but we don't know where they are. Worse, many times a third person will say something, then following the speech, will be the words, "Danny Martin joined them on the post office steps." It's plain disorienting for Danny to speak, before he joins them. Sort of like someone sneaking up behind you and poking you in the back when you're not looking. And it's even worse if the first two people have been talking for half a page before we find out they're at the post office. Especially if we've already built them a street corner, or a grocery store parking lot, or a comfortable living room in  where they can talk by using our own imaginations.

To keep readers grounded, they need to know where they are, and who is there with them, preferably with a problem statement to make them wonder what will come next.

Shipwreck -- recipe

Shipwreck

1 pound lean hamburger, seasoned with salt, garlic powder, and oregano
4 medium or 5 small potatoes sliced.   
1 can of drained red kidney beans, or any beans you like
1 small can of whole tomatoes poured over everything

Layer in potatoes to mostly fill the pot. Add beans, and put meat on top. Pour tomatoes over everything. Bake 2 hours at 300-F or 148-C degrees, or all day in a slow cooker on high.  You do want lean meat for this, as all the fat ends up in the bottom of the pot.

Contributor’s Note: Why it’s called shipwreck I don’t know.  It’s an easy, one-pot-cooks-everything dinner.  You can do it either in a casserole pot and oven, or in a crock pot.  Crock pots are a great item for helping a single person come home to a hot meal.

Happy Banned Book Week

 

Banned Books Week

 

We do not believe in banning books due to content that may offend one faction or another. 

Connie Foster inaugurated www.ebooksonthe.net in 1997 and ran it until Jan. 1. 2000, when she sold it due to her illness. She published GHOST DANCER in 1998.

In all our years of selling on the Internet, the above is the only book on our site about which we have received a complaint and a request for removal.  This effort at censorship happened before I bought www.ebooksonthe.net, so at the time Connie Foster was the publisher. It was she who received the complaint about the book.  

Connie explained that ebooksonthe.net was a site with "some of everything" and if "Native American spiritualism" offended the customer's  fundamentalist Christian tenets, she was free not to read it and in a pinch, Connine would return her $3.50 upon request, but the book would not be removed from sale.

Connie then advised me to write a press release about the incident, saying, "Banned books sell very well!" Since I was working at the newspaper then, getting such an article published was a conflict of interest...

Books on the site begun by the late Connie Foster still list some of everything. We do not believe in censorship, nor do we seek out books with prurient content.  Each book should be judged on it's own merit. Every book has a theme, a bottom line. What It Says! 

Last month we received a query for a YA book about a schizophrenic character who lived in an imaginary world populated by fascinating characters. It was entertaining and fairly well-written. But the bottom line of the the theme was that young people with such an illnesses could function perfectly well without their medication and lead happier and more productive lives. We passed on that one.  If that's censorship, the author is in good company.

Most authorities agree that the most-often
Banned Book of all time, everywhere, is:

The Holy Bible

American Library Association List of Top 100 Banned Books

Actually their website is three short, but The Top 97
Banned Books doens't quite have the same Punch.

1. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
3. The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
4. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
5. The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
6. Ulysses, by James Joyce
7. Beloved, by Toni Morrison
8. The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
9. 1984, by George Orwell

11. Lolita, by Vladmir Nabokov
12. Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck

15. Catch-22, by Joseph Heller
16. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
17. Animal Farm, by George Orwell
18. The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway
19. As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner
20. A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway

23. Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston
24. Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison
25. Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison
26. Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell
27. Native Son, by Richard Wright
28. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey
29. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
30. For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway

33. The Call of the Wild, by Jack London

36. Go Tell it on the Mountain, by James Baldwin

38. All the King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren

40. The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien

45. The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair

48. Lady Chatterley's Lover, by D.H. Lawrence
49. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
50. The Awakening, by Kate Chopin

53. In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote

55. The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie

57. Sophie's Choice, by William Styron

64. Sons and Lovers, by D.H. Lawrence

66. Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
67. A Separate Peace, by John Knowles

73. Naked Lunch, by William S. Burroughs
74. Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh
75. Women in Love, by D.H. Lawrence

80. The Naked and the Dead, by Norman Mailer

84. Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller

88. An American Tragedy, by Theodore Dreiser

97. Rabbit, Run, by John Updike

Top Ten Banned books for the last Ten Years

2011

    The Color of Earth (series), by Kim Dong Hwa
    Reasons: nudity; sex education; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group

    The Hunger Games trilogy, by Suzanne Collins
    Reasons: anti-ethnic; anti-family; insensitivity; offensive language; occult/satanic; violence

    My Mom's Having A Baby! A Kid's Month-by-Month Guide to Pregnancy, by Dori Hillestad Butler
    Reasons: nudity; sex education; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group

    The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
    Reasons: offensive language; racism; religious viewpoint; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group

    Alice (series), by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
    Reasons: nudity; offensive language; religious viewpoint

    Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
    Reasons: insensitivity; nudity; racism; religious viewpoint; sexually explicit

    What My Mother Doesn't Know, by Sonya Sones
    Reasons: nudity; offensive language; sexually explicit

    Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily Von Ziegesar
    Reasons: drugs; offensive language; sexually explicit   

    To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
    Reasons: offensive language; racism



   2010

    And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
    Reasons: homosexuality, religious viewpoint, and unsuited to age group

    The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
    Reasons: offensive language, racism, sex education, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, and violence

    Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
    Reasons: insensitivity, offensive language, racism, and sexually explicit

    Crank, by Ellen Hopkins
    Reasons: drugs, offensive language, and sexually explicit

    The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
    Reasons: sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, and violence

    Lush, by Natasha Friend
    Reasons: drugs, offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group

    What My Mother Doesn't Know, by Sonya Sones
    Reasons: sexism, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group

    Nickel and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich
    Reasons: drugs, inaccurate, offensive language, political viewpoint, and religious viewpoint

    Revolutionary Voices, edited by Amy Sonnie
    Reasons:  homosexuality and sexually explicit

    Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer
    Reasons: religious viewpoint and violence


   2009

    The Perks of Being A Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
    Reasons: anti-family, drugs, homosexuality, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit, suicide, unsuited to age group   

    To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
    Reasons: offensive language, racism, unsuited to age group

    Twilight (series) by Stephenie Meyer
    Reasons: religious viewpoint, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group   

    Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
    Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group

    My Sister's Keeper, by Jodi Picoult
    Reasons: homosexuality, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexism, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, violence

    The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big, Round Things, by Carolyn Mackler
    Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group       

    The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
    Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group   

    The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier
    Reasons: nudity, offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
   


   2008

    And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
    Reasons: anti-ethnic, anti-family, homosexuality, religious viewpoint, and unsuited to age group

    His Dark Materials trilogy, by Philip Pullman
    Reasons: political viewpoint, religious viewpoint, and violence

    ttyl; ttfn; l8r, g8r (series), by Lauren Myracle
    Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group

    Scary Stories (series), by Alvin Schwartz
    Reasons: occult/satanism, religious viewpoint, and violence

    Bless Me, Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya
    Reasons: occult/satanism, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit, and violence

    The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
    Reasons: drugs, homosexuality, nudity, offensive language, sexually explicit, suicide, and unsuited to age group

    Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily von Ziegesar
    Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group

    Uncle Bobby's Wedding, by Sarah S. Brannen
    Reasons: homosexuality and unsuited to age group

    The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
    Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group

    Flashcards of My Life, by Charise Mericle Harper
    Reasons: sexually explicit and unsuited to age group

   2007

    And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
    Reasons:  anti-ethnic, anti-family, homosexuality, religious viewpoint, sexism, and unsuited to age group       

    The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier
    Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, violence       

    Olive's Ocean, by Kevin Henkes
    Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit

    The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman
    Reason: religious viewpoint

    The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
    Reason: racism

    The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
    Reasons: homosexuality, offensive language, sexually explicit

    ttyl, by Lauren Myracle
    Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group

    I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou
    Reason: sexually explicit

    It's Perfectly Normal, by Robie Harris
    Reasons: sex education and sexually explicit

    The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
    Reasons: homosexuality, offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group
       


   2006

    And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
    Reasons: anti-family, homosexuality, and unsuited to age group

    Gossip Girls (series), by Cecily Von Ziegesar
    Reasons: homosexuality, sexually explicit, offensive language, and unsuited to age group

    Alice (series), by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
    Reasons: offensive language and sexually explicit

    The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things, by Carolyn Mackler
    Reasons: anti-family, offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group

    The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison
    Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group

    Scary Stories (series), by Alvin Schwartz
    Reasons:  insensitivity, occult/Satanism, unsuited to age group, and violence

    Athletic Shorts, by Chris Crutcher
    Reasons: homosexuality and offensive language

    The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
    Reasons: homosexuality, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group

    Beloved, by Toni Morrison
    Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group

    The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier
    Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicity, and violence

  

2005

    It's Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health, by Robie H. Harris
    Reasons: abortion, homosexuality, nudity, religious viewpoint, sex education, unsuited to age group

    Forever, by Judy Blume
    Reasons: offensive language, sexual content

    The Catcher in the Rye, by J. D. Salinger
    Reasons: sexual content, offensive language, unsuited to age group

    The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier
    Reasons: sexual content, offensive language

    Whale Talk, by Chris Crutcher
    Reasons: racism, offensive language

    Detour for Emmy, by Marilyn Reynolds
    Reason: sexual content

    What My Mother Doesn't Know, by Sonya Sones
    Reasons: sexual content, being unsuited to age group

    Captain Underpants (series), by Dav Pilkey
    Reasons: anti-family content, unsuited to age group, violence

    Crazy Lady!, by Jane Leslie Conly
    Reason: offensive language

    It's So Amazing! A Book about Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies, and Families, by Robie H. Harris
    Reasons: sex education, sexual content


 
 2004

    The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier
    Reasons: offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, violence   

    Fallen Angels, by Walter Dean Meyers
    Reasons: offensive language, racism, violence

    Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture, by Michael A. Bellesiles
    Reasons: inaccurate, political viewpoint

    Captain Underpants (series), by Dav Pilkey
    Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit

    The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
    Reasons: homosexuality, offensive language, sexually explicit

    What My Mother Doesn't Know, by Sonya Sones
    Reasons: offensive language, unsuited to age group, sexually explicit

    In the Night Kitchen, by Maurice Sendak
    Reasons: nudity, offensive language, sexually explicit

    King & King, by Linda deHaan
    Reason: homosexuality   

    I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou
    Reasons: homosexuality, offensive language, racism, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group

    Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
    Reasons: offensive language, racism, violence
   


   2003

    Alice (series), by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
    Reasons: sexual content, offensive language, unsuited to age group

    Harry Potter (series), by J.K. Rowling
    Reasons: occult/Satanism

    Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
    Reason: offensive language

    Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture, by Michael Bellesiles
    Reason: inaccuracy

    Fallen Angels, by Walter Dean Myers
    Reason: drugs, offensive language, racism, sexual content, violence

    Go Ask Alice, by Anonymous
    Reason: drugs

    It's Perfectly Normal, by Robie Harris
    Reason: homosexuality, nudity, sexual content, sex education

    We All Fall Down, by Robert Cormier
    Reason: offensive language, sexual content

    King & King, by Linda de Haan
    Reason: homosexuality

    Bridge to Terabithia, by Katherine Paterson
    Reason: occult/Satanism, offensive language
   


   2002

    Harry Potter, by J.K. Rowling
    Reasons: occult/Satanism, violence

    Alice (series), by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
    Reasons: homosexuality, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group       

    The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier
    Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group

    I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou
    Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, violence

    Taming the Star Runner, by S.E. Hinton
    Reason: offensive language

    Captain Underpants, by Dav Pilkey
    Reasons: offensive language, unsuited to age group

    The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
    Reason: offensive language

    Bridge to Terabithia, by Katherine Paterson
    Reasons: occult/Satanism, offensive language, violence

    Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, by Mildred D. Taylor
    Reason: offensive language

    Julie of the Wolves, by Jean Craighead George
    Reasons: unsuited to age group, violence
   


   2001

    Harry Potter, by J.K. Rowling
    Reasons: anti-family, occult/Satanism, religious viewpoint, violence

    Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
    Reasons: offensive language, racism, unsuited to age group, violence

    The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier
    Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, violence

    I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou
    Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit

    Summer of My German Soldier, by Bette Greene
    Reasons: offensive language, racism, sexually explicit

    The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
    Reasons: offensive language, unsuited to age group

    Alice (series), by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
    Reasons: sexually explicit, unsuited to age group

    Go Ask Alice, by Anonymous
    Reasons: drugs, offensive language, sexually explicit

    Fallen Angels, by Walter Dean Myers
    Reason: offensive language

    Blood and Chocolate, by Annette Curtis Klause
    Reasons: sexually explicit, unsuited to age group

Adirondac Apples -- recipe

Adirondack Apples:

3         Empire Apples
1/2     cup of  New York State Maple syrup
3         cinnamon sticks
1         tsp.of  genuine vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 400-F or 204-C degrees. In a bowl, mix well the syrup and the vanilla extract. While oven is preheating, wash, core, but do not peel the apples. Place apples in a baking brick or other high-walled oven dish. Insert a cinnamon stick into each apple, and fill in the remain core space with the syrup/vanilla extract mix, drizzling remaining mix over the apples. Cook for fifty minutes.