Going Wild & Green...

Moms gone wild?
After you turn 30 or so, "wildlife" has a whole new connotation..My front yard, pictured here, is a certified wildlife habitat.I'm guest posting today over at Fatal Foodies on the 6 steps to establishing a wildlife habitat in your yard--or balcony or patch of dirt....
Here's an excerpt:

There's been a sign posted in my front yard for three years. It's no "Keep off the Grass" warning--I haven't had a lawn in years. It's an official "Certified Wildlife Habitat™." sign, one of the easiest, green, fun and transforming things you can do to your yard-- and for the earth...CONTINUE READING


And here's a piece on dusting off your travelin' shoes...which is something Emma, the protagonist in SECRET KEEPERS, yearns to do. My guest blog at WritetoTravel on how childhood travel can influence your writing:

For me, what's so powerful about travel, besides being the ultimate form of escape, is the way it changes your view of the world, even after you return home. ESPECIALLY after you return home. CONTINUE READING

Guest Blog: Setting--warped a little

Over at The Bookcase, I'm guest blogging today on why SECRET KEEPERS is set in Palmetto, loosely based on my hometown and its overlay of New South over Old South. Sometimes it helps to have a lousy sense of direction-- you can just, you know, make things up. Or warp them. Take liberties. Earn your poetic license.

For example, I changed the cemetery name from Springwood to Springforth. I thought Springforth was a better name for a cemetery, anyway. And that outdated Confederate Monument--you see them in just about every southern town-- I tweaked that, too.

Sometimes I find inspiration right in my front yard. The pitcher plants, Love-Lies-Bleeding, and moonflower vine in my garden prompted some poetic license. Amaranth, a seedy, neglected estate in Secret Keepers, has a secret garden. When the Blooming Idiots gardeners stumble upon its bounty of botanicals, they find a few other-worldly flowers as well: secret keepers are flowers with a potent aroma that trigger a powerful memory of love in a person’s life.

Read the entire post here.

On daylilies, signed copies of SECRET KEEPERS & Whole Latte LIfe

Your Moment of Zen: It's day lily time-- here, to the left, is yesterday's treasure...sigh...already gone today. The impermanence of forms! Plenty of buds, though :)

News: Now you can get a signed copy of SECRET KEEPERS, no matter where you live! Fiction Addiction, a local bookstore in my town, will now be offering this service. And I think it's really cool...sort of like I having a jetpack and a magic robot hand that can sign books all over the globe. When you go to the Fiction Addiction link to order, indicate you'd like a signed copy of either [or both!] of my books--and any inscription or "secret" message you'd like-- in the comments section on the checkout page. Ta da-- you'll have your books signed, sealed and delivered.

Today: blog post at Whole Latte Life with lots of intriguing questions on writing and heart-warming comments. One commenter will be chosen to win a signed copy of SECRET KEEEPERS, along with a seedy character package.

Oh, and speaking of contest: a quick note to my Dear Reader emailers: the Dear Reader SECRET KEEPERS/seedy character contest is fantastic--I've received close to 200 emails, and the day is young. Not to mention the week. So I am entering all your names in the drawing, and working hard to answer every one of your emails-- which I LOVE to read. But it may take me a few days to answer you. Hold tight, I'm getting there!

Blog Tour & a Fame-seeking Hummingbird

Yesterday, snapping some pictures of the Bee Balm in the garden, this hummingbird--you can just see her on the right there if you squint--hovered an arm's length from my lens as if she were posing...and as if I were Paparazzi.

Hummingbirds love red, and I guess that includes red carpets. So...I think I'll name her Angeline...as in Jolie. She's gorgeous and she knows it. Unless she is a he, so maybe Brangelina is a safer choice.

Bootylicious Blog Tour stops today at Momecentric, where my guest post is on front-yard gardening: plant it, and they will come.

Blog Tour Today: Writers Inspired

Mary Jo Cambell interviews me today on her blog, Writers Inspired, a "a community for writers to gather up courage and inspiration."
Here's one Q&A...you can read the entire interview here.

1. Wow, Mindy, your list of credentials are a novel in itself. Let’s talk about your fiction awards. Are you always on the look out for contests that suit your writing style, or is this something your agent or publisher does for you? How do you prepare your work for a particular contest? What about a residency contest?

Something I love about entering writing contests: the deadlines. Sounds funny, maybe, but consider two important points:
1. You have to prepare and submit something by a certain date—which can motivate you to finish or polish.
2. You’ll find out whether your manuscript made it or not within a certain time frame. Even if your work didn’t make it this time, take heart. So often when you submit a story or article for publication, you wait a loooong time to find out if it was read, much less accepted. At least in contests, you’ll know for certain if your work was considered or not. And you can move on.
Poets & Writers has an excellent calendar and listing of contests. You can find it at bookstores and also online. >>CONTINUE READING<<

Blog Stop Today: The Importance of Book Covers

The Bootylicious high-speed virtual tour is all the way across the globe today, where I'm guest blogging on the importance of book covers over at Suzanne Kamata's terrific blog Gaijin Mama (an American writer living in Japan).

Here's a portion of my post:

As booksellers will tell you, readers DO judge a book by its cover. Or, ahem, “dust jacket”—to use the formal term. So… should an author get involved with cover art? Only if she wants to. If you happen to have some passages or some images that you feel drawn to, or that you feel inspired your work, by all means share it!
For example, the cover for my first novel, THE GARDEN ANGEL, went through several different versions. Continue Reading>>>

By the way, Suzanne is a writer and editor--who, before she made her home in Japan, once lived in the Palmetto State--and I interviewed her last year to help get word out about her books, Losing Kei (Leapfrog Press) and Love You to Pieces: Creative Writers on Raising a Child with Special Needs (Beacon Press). I've included that author-to-author interview from last year with Suzanne, here:

After graduating from the University of South Carolina in 1988, Suzanne Kamata was eager to leave the country, to “experience a non-Western culture.” To git, as we say around these parts. She applied to the Peace Corps and was assigned to Cameroon, but, on a lark, decided to head to Japan after being offered a one-year assistant teaching position with Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET), a program her brother had read about in the newspaper. “I figure I'd spend a year in Japan and then go to Africa,” she said. “But one year in Japan didn't seem like enough - there was still so much to see and do and learn.” Kamata decided to renew her contract for one more year.
She’s been there ever since.
Two decades later, Kamata makes her home in Tokushima Prefecture, Japan with her husband, Yukiyoshi Kamata, and their nine-year-old twins. She teaches part-time and writes in her “pockets of free time” when her children are in school. A productive writer, Kamata’s work has appeared in over 100 publications. She is fiction editor at the online magazine Literary Mama and the author of the novel Losing Kei. She has edited two anthologies: The Broken Bridge: Fiction from Expatriates in Literary Japan and the Love You to Pieces: Creative Writers on Raising a Child with Special Needs.
“I think mothers all over the world have a hard time finding time to write,” she said. “Much to the dismay of the other mothers [at her daughter’s school], I would often sneak off to a cafe or to the school library for an hour or so to read and write. I wrote my novel and edited Love You to Pieces that way.”
Kamata’s twins were born prematurely, and her daughter has cerebral palsy and is deaf. “I realized, when she was diagnosed that I had no idea how to raise such a child. As a literary sort of person, I first went to books to try to figure out what was going to happen and to try to find solace.” The result is Love you to Pieces: Creative Writers on Raising a Child with Special Needs, an anthology Kamata edited about raising children with special needs. The collection includes short stories, essays, and poems by renowned authors (such as Brett Lott) as well as emerging writers about families coping with autism, deafness, muscular dystrophy, Down syndrome and more. “The best novels, short stories, and memoirs can pull in the lives of their characters and provide a deeper understanding of others,” Kamata said, adding she hoped the book “will serve as a kind of support group in far-flung places…”
Raising children outside her native culture is “bittersweet,” Kamata said. “'I’m happy that my son is bilingual and that my children have been exposed to various cultures. And I'm glad that they have a close relationship with their Japanese relatives.” On the other hand, she misses sharing “simple things like running through the sprinkler in the middle of summer,” or going trick-or-treating. “But these conflicts give me something to explore in my writing,” she said. “ As a reader, I tend to be drawn to multicultural stories, though I also read a lot of fiction set in South Carolina, especially when I'm feeling nostalgic.”
Kamata’s novel Losing Kei, tells the story of a young South Carolina painter who, as an American expat, loses custody of her only son to her Japanese ex-husband and then resorts to desperate measures to get him back. “When I write nonfiction, I feel naked. When I write fiction, I feel like I'm wearing a dress --or maybe a flimsy negligee! But seriously, I like being able to move events around and make sense of them—something that happens more in fiction.” Losing Kei is Kamata’s first published novel—she’s written five—and said she’s excited about working with Leapfrog Press, publisher of Losing Kie, to plan a stateside booktour.
When Kamata arrives in South Carolina this month, she plans to visit family, catch up with friends, and sign copies of her novel.
And maybe run through the sprinkler.

Today's Blog Stop: Flash Fiction Chronicles

Bootylicious Booktour Blogstop today is at Flash Fiction Chronicles. Here's a portion of the interview:

FFC: Flash fiction is the perfect vehicle for learning and experimenting with different genres. In addition to your comments above, is there any other conventions a writer need consider if wanting to write in the “Southern” genre?

Mindy: Flash fiction is a wonderful way to exert pressure on a scene. At times–especially in a longer manuscript– you may have a scene that doesn’t seem to work–maybe it meanders, maybe you aren’t sure what the conversation should do, or what should happen. It seems flat. A novel, after all, is elastic– but can get flabby.

If you pare a scene down, revise it, cut it down to its essence, and consider each word, each sentence–which often happens when you write flash fiction–you can hone in on what works. Words make up sentences, sentences make up scenes, scenes make up chapters, chapters make up novels.

One novel I really admire and count as a favorite is Mrs. Bridge by Evan Connell. It is a novel made up of exquisite, economical, elegant scenes, tiny brushstrokes–and each one has an arc, like a flash fiction collection.>>CONTINUE READING>>

WOW! The Muffin

Today I'm thrilled to start my month-long virtual bootylicious tour with WOW! Women On Writing and a terrific bunch of blog hostesses.

Stop by The Muffin today and comment for a chance to win a signed copy of SECRET KEEPERS. I will be checking in to answer your questions.

As WOW says: " If you're interested in learning about Southern Fiction, novel writing, or how you can be a weekend writer and a mom and still churn out two novels, be sure to check out this insightful interview... This tour is unique. Not only do we get to know the extremely talented award-winning author Mindy Friddle, we also venture to other countries, such as Japan, and bring you new media platforms along the way, such as a video interview! It's going to be a fantastic journey."

June 1, 2009 (Monday)

Mindy Friddle launches her tour at The Muffin!

Come join us for the first day of Mindy's tour! Jodi Webb interviews Mindy about her novel Secret Keepers and gets the scoop on what it takes to go from a weekend writer and single mom to published author. Find out the 3 things you need to keep your novel writing on track, and what the most common question authors are asked on book tours is!

We welcome your comments and urge you to participate! Those who comment will be entered to win a signed copy of Mindy's book, Secret Keepers.

Visit: http://www.wow-womenonwriting.com/blog.html

About The Muffin: From the bakers of WOW! Women On Writing. Have you checked out what we've been baking for you on the daily Muffin? We've stirred together some traditional ingredients with new ones to deliver more interviews, enlightenment, thought-provoking ideas, and inspirational messages to help you through those gray writing days.

Want to get blog posts from The Muffin via email? Sign up for free and get posts delivered straight to your inbox with feedburner.