Video Book Trailer for St. Peter’s Monsters.
Read the first 10% of my ebook for free! February 8, 2010
For your preferred format, go to:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/9508
Available formats:
LRF (for Sony Reader)
Epub (open industry format, good for Stanza reader, others)
Palm Doc (PDB) (for Palm reading devices)
Amazon Kindle: forthcoming. Stay tuned.
Online Reading (JavaScript)
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PDF (good for highly formatted books, or for home printing) No sample available
RTF (readable on most word processors) No sample available
Plain Text (download) (flexible, but lacks much formatting) No sample available
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Thank you!!
CONTEST: Name the heroine of my second novel January 14, 2010
I need your help! I don’t like the first name I chose for the heroine of my second book, Kudzu Palace.
Send me your suggestion for her new name.
If you win, you’ll receive an acknowledgement in the book and an autographed copy.
You’re allowed to enter ONE first name.
I’ll choose entries that I like and will draw one name from those entries selected. The contest is subject to cancellation if I do not like any of the entries.
Go to www.nevabryan.com and click on the news tab. That will take you to the contest form.
Please include your name, telephone number, e-mail address, and mailing address. Entries without these four items are invalid.
This contest runs today through February 14, 2010 at Noon.
Tales of the Lonesome Pine Bookstore Offers Free Memoir Writing Class January 11, 2010
The Tales of the Lonesome Pine Bookstore will host a free workshop on the basics of memoir writing. The class takes place January 22, 7:00 PM at the bookstore, 404 Clinton Avenue East in Big Stone Gap.
To register for the class, please contact the bookstore at 276-523-5097. The deadline to register is January 20.
Neva Bryan is the workshop instructor. She has taught memoir writing at the J. Fred Matthews Memorial Library, Appalachian Heritage Writers Symposium (Southwest Virginia Community College) and Appalachian Agency for Senior Citizens. She has taught fiction writing at Morehead State University during the Appalachian Writers Association annual conference.
Bryan, a prize-winning writer, is the author of St. Peter’s Monsters, a novel of romantic suspense set in and around Wise County. Her work appears in several journals, including A! Magazine for the Arts, Appalachian Heritage, Appalachian Journal, Bluestone Review, Clinch Mountain Review, The Distillery, Floyd County Moonshine and Jimson Weed. She is published in the book anthology We All Live Downstream.
A winner of the Appalachian Writers Association James Still Award for Poetry, she has received prizes for more than 15 of her works.
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Reading Tall Tales to Children at Coeburn Community Library December 23, 2009
http://www.flickr.com/photos/coeburn_community_library/4098605763/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/coeburn_community_library/4098605325/in/photostream/
The Coeburn Community Library celebrated We the People with a reading of a tall tale by me.
This free event was open to children in grades 4 through 6, as well as their families. Library staff led a tall tale writing and craft workshop after the reading.
The event took place November 10.
We the People is a National Endowment for the Humanities program designed to encourage and enhance the teaching, study, and understanding of American history, culture, and democratic principles. The Coeburn Community Library received funding to participate in We the People.
The Coeburn Community Library is part of the Lonesome Pine Regional Library system.
Our Blizzard December 22, 2009
A terrible snow storm ravaged Southwest Virginia Friday, December 18. As a result, Saturday’s book signing was cancelled.
On a personal note, we lost power and phone Friday night and, as of today, Tuesday, still do not have it. I am a snowstorm refugee, staying with relatives. I washed my hair at work this morning. We may not have power until Christmas or later.
Ah, a story must come of this.
Neva’s new web site December 14, 2009
I have a brand new web site. There you’ll find pictures of my family, pets, and book signings. You’ll also learn more about my secod book.
Check it out: www.nevabryan.com.
Excerpt from St. Peter’s Monsters December 2, 2009
Wren remembered the way the water had felt the night she fell in the flooding creek. It had carried her away and covered her until the world grew dim and distant. That seemed a good thing to her now, to be far away from the world. She climbed up on the bridge and pivoted so that her legs hung over the side.
She let her purse dangle between her legs a moment, then dropped it and watched it disappear beneath the current. That was easy, she thought. She looked up at the sky, at the stars. They’re not really angels.
Reprint: Reject Me, Please by Chris Rodell November 24, 2009
November 18, 2009
Reject me, please
By Chris Rodell, a freelance writer and author who blogs at www.EightDaysToAmish.com
I’m nostalgic for the days when I used to gauge my how hard I was working by the frequency of my rejection letters. I knew I wasn’t working hard enough unless I was getting at least one rejection a day. This made sense because if the rejections were coming with regularity it meant that my stuff was being considered elsewhere and would by the law of averages produce a positive result. These days I rarely count on getting either the rejection or the positive result. It’s a Twilight Zone existence where I spend my days yelling down a long canyon and hearing no echoes. After a fun and fruitful decade as a freelance magazine writer, I’m using the godforsaken downturn in that field to sharpen and pitch four book proposals (an upmarket satirical novel, a downmarket non-fiction humor book, a memoir and a fantasy tale about how the world would be better a place if Dick Cheney was a kindly undercover superhero). The general reaction has me thinking maybe it’s time to come up with a fifth book proposal. I spend about half my time sending out fastidious query letters to agents and publishers and the other half wondering why no one bothers to respond. The obvious answer is, of course, I’m a unqualified hack and that my ideas suck.
But there is evidence to the contrary. I’ve worked with some of the snazziest magazines in the country — and I’m talking about ones that still exist and actually lived up to their commitment to pay me. My ideas have earned flattering interest from top ranked industry people who tell me my offbeat stuff’s great, but just not quite right for them. “Just keep pitching,” they say, “You’re bound to find the right person. Good luck!” So pitch I do. I pitch the way the sweaty guys in the locomotive coal pits did when they wanted the train to make it up a really steep grade. I just keep on shoveling. But despite all the evident energy, the wheels on my locomotive just keep spinning. There is no progress. No advancement. I get a real surge of satisfaction after I’ve spent a couple of hours pouring through the top dealmakers at Publishers Marketplace until I’ve found 10 worthy targets and tailored my lively query letters to their specific interests. How can it miss? I never do it like this, but I wake up those mornings feeling like I ought to shave and put on a really nice shirt.
I’m sure two or three of the recipients will respond with hosannas about my proposals, ask to see more or — hallelujah — offer me a contract on the spot. But no one responds. Never. They don’t say yes. They don’t say no. I don’t know whether they got them and are considering them, if they rejected them outright or if they didn’t get them and are sitting there banging their heads on their desks and beseeching, “Why on earth won’t somebody send me a proposal about Dick Cheney in cape!” It’s worse than even prom time in high school when at least I knew by the hysterical laughter that I’d earned yet another rejection. Then there are one’s like this that came last month from a top editor: “Thanks for sending this! I’m going to read it tonight and get back to you tomorrow.” I still haven’t heard back. Has she been abducted? Should I call? Send flowers? Form a search party? If she has been abducted and I succeed in saving her from lost time space ship experimentation you’d think she might look favorably on my proposal — or at least respond to my query with a crisp, “No thanks.” I guess maybe I was raised differently. If someone asks me a question, I answer. I respond to all my e-mails, even ones from students or fellow freelancers who are struggling and seeking veteran advice. I tell them what I can but always include the Bob Dylan line from the 1997 song “High Water” to add necessary perspective: “Don’t reach out for me, can’t ya see I’m drowning, too?” Pity my poor wife. She sees no result and certainly no income. In weaker moments, she counsels that maybe it’s time for me to find what she calls “crap jobs,” as if my professional existence could possibly become any crappier. Bless her heart, she just doesn’t have a clue.
There are no crap jobs and it’s too late for me to pack a lunch pail and head to plumber school. I’m in it up to my neck. The only thing left for me to do is to continue to fail at a more spectacular level. I can’t quit. I have to believe I have good ideas and one of them is soon bound to bear fruit. And on that happy day there will be a grand party. There will be extravagant booze, cigars, succulent seafood and dances of mutual joy until the sun comes up and the band slams the trunks on their battered instruments and heads for home. It’ll be one of the world’s greatest parties. And, by God, you’re all invited. Just be sure to R.S.V.P. It’s only proper.
St. Peter’s Monsters recognized for creativity and originality October 21, 2009
Independent Publisher Online has made St. Peter’s Monsters a highlighted title.
This means IPO recognizes it as one of the best of the books received and reviewed by its editorial staff.
These books are honored each month for exhibiting superior levels of creativity, originality, and high standards of design and production quality.
