Remember that magician I met through my books? If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you may recall that I made friends with a reader last year who not only lives overseas, but gave my books their first reviews on Amazon UK. Here’s a post I wrote about how Owen Lean (aka The Bachelor of Magic) and I became pen pals through my books: How I Became a Fan of My Fan! Owen is a fascinating guy; which is why Teal Gray and I interviewed him on our radio show a few weeks ago (check out the replay…
Month: December 2015
Historic Cemetery Symbols While it’s common for evergreen trees to be planted in historic graveyards, pine needles and pine cones are not symbols I see engraved on headstones as often as other trees – such as the oak tree. Pine trees: Immortality While it’s true that many coffins have been made from pine, this had more to do with practicality than symbolism. Where pine trees were widely available, they were often used to make coffins. However, as a symbol (much like other evergreens, including holly, ivy, and yew) pine trees are associated with immortality and eternal life. Rather than lose…
What is HARO? For this month’s IWSG post, I wanted to pass along a helpful tip for writers. It’s called HARO, which stands for Help a Reporter Out. I found out about HARO while standing in the lunch buffet line at DFWcon, a wonderful annual writing conference here in Texas. There were two authors standing ahead of me, Nina Amir and Harry Hall, and their conversation was so interesting that I not only joined in, but I wound up taking notes as we shuffled along! Why should writers join HARO? One tip that Nina passed along was that Harry and I…