booksbylyncote.com

One of the wonderful thing about being an author in this time is the Internet which allows us to have “friends” around the world. Mary Hawkins and I met on the “net” in the mid-90’s when we were helping get Faith, Hope & Love the inspirational romance chapter of Romance Writers of America started. I have always found Mary a delight.
Now to help Mary out, would you please look in your local bookstore for her new books? If you do, let me know and I’ll enter your name in a drawing for one of my September books. OKAY? Here’s Mary:

“A strong woman. My mum.
For many weeks there was only a tent on the new grain farm on the black soil plains in Queensland nearly two thousands miles away from their comfortable home and family in South Australia. Her seven month old baby nearly died from heat exhaustion on the rough roads across the continent in an old truck. When her second baby was born only a barn had been built and one section became the living quarters. Sometimes she longed to see her mother and family so far away but World War II had come, making the three to four day journey by train even harder. Sometimes she was so lonely to see another woman she held a mirror up to her face and said “hello.”

Two more children were born and, over all the ups and downs of making the farm prosper, she worked hard side by side with her husband ploughing, reaping, caring for the animals. Most of all her love for her husband, their four children and her Lord never faltered. The children learnt about faith in God from the moment they were born – in fact even while in the womb through all those early, difficult days she prayed for each child.

Then tragedy struck. A widow at thirty-nine years old there was only the eldest boy just eighteen to help her run the farm, a daughter in senior High School, another daughter and the youngest just turned ten at school. Death duties simply left very little money to survive. She took all kinds of menial jobs for the family to manage during the next few difficult years that followed but her children hardly knew until years later just how poor they were. Over the years as her children became adults, she wept with them when they wept, rejoiced with them when they rejoiced and just kept on praying for them and her grandchildren until the day she died last year at the age of ninety-two years.

Today all four of her children love the Lord and I am so proud of that strong, beautiful and loving woman who was my mother. She showed and taught me so much about the joy and peace that can only truly come from a life lived as the Christ of the Cross would have us live.

A favourite question readers like to ask of authors is “are your characters based on real people?” My immediate response is usually “no” but over the years I am realising more and more that we can only portray authentic characters from “real” people that we have met or known intimately over the years. Sure, the settings may be different, their appearance different, but sometimes people we know do creep into our stories. Without deliberately doing so, somehow over the years my dear mother’s nature has crept into some of my books. My first Heartsong Presents, Search For Tomorrow, is set in the farming area I grew up in. The hero’s mother is a widow with a strong faith. She teaches the heroine to cook as my mother tried to teach me.

After I had finished writing it, I realised somehow Mum’s faith had crept also into this recent book just released in America, Return to Baragula. She is mirrored in the reaction of the heroine’s mother to her daughter’s crisis of faith. I am just so thankful I never experienced what Emily did after the wrong choice she made as a teenager that so hurt her mother, but if I had I know Mum would still have cried for and with me – even as she told me what she thought about my actions!

I still have many of Mum’s favourite recipes. One she made very regularly was an economical, quick, easy and nutritious biscuit – or cookie in U.S.A. language! ANZAC biscuits are even for sale now days in our shops here. Although they are no where near as moist or tasty as Mum’s, each time I see them there – or make them myself – I remember my mother.
Great for your summer or my winter here Downunder to pack for a picnic, something to nibble on a walk in the sunshine or to munch on while reading your favourite book.

ANZAC Biscuits

Put in a basin and mix:-
1cup rolled oats
1 cup finely shredded coconut
1 cup Self-Raising flour
1 cup sugar (may use brown)
Melt:
¼ lb margarine
1 large tablespoon golden syrup – or honey

Dissolve 1 teaspoon bi-carbonate soda in 2 tablespoons boiling water
Add to melted ingredients, stir and quickly pour over dry ingredients.
Mix thoroughly and put a teaspoon full on a greased tray. Press with a floured fork and cook in moderate oven until golden brown.
(Hint: may add a little more flour if too moist.) –Mary”

Now about Mary’s books!

Return to Baragula is an Australian story of love, forgiveness and a past that threatens to destroy it all. It is Mary’s 17th title but first by an Australian publisher, Ark House Press. Book One in her Baragula series, it was released in Australia in 2008 but not available to shops in the U.S. until this month. Book Two, Outback From Baragula, was also released to shops in Australasia, March 2009, but so far only available in America through the publisher. However, if you can be in Denver September 19th and visit the booksigning at the American Christian Fiction Writers‘ Conference, you might just be able to get a copy there and have it signed by Mary! Currently she is working hard to try and finish Book Three, Justice at Baragula, before her trip overseas.
Read more about Mary and her books, including where to see the video trailer of Return to Baragula, on her website http://www.mary-hawkins.com

Mary, the recipe sounds easy and delicious. I will be trying it soon! And your books have beautiful covers and I will be looking for them! Remember, look for Mary’s books. Even if you don’t find them, let me know and I’ll enter you in a drawing for my September book.–Lyn

My guest today is Author Linore Rose Burkard whose brand is “Inspirational Romance for the Jane Austen Soul.” Her story is one I can identify with and her recipe sounds DEE-LISH! Here’s Linore:

“The Summer of My Content
When our family moved from Nassau County, Long Island, out to eastern Suffolk in the early 90’s, we were leaving a time of great difficulty for me. Following the birth of our second child, I descended into a nightmarish postpartum depression that was emotionally and physically depleting. After an adolescence fraught with anxiety, loneliness, and panic attacks, this was the worst thing to hit me yet. Making matters worse, the depression had not been diagnosed properly, and lack of the right treatment meant I suffered far longer than I should have. It was during this time that we bought our new house, in which I hoped to have a new beginning–in more ways than one. The older couple that had owned the home before, had, over time, transformed much of the single acre plot into a myriad of small patches of gardens. Their intentions were good, but the result was prickly rose bushes where room was needed to walk, random shrubs about the yard, and individual plantings of ground covers juxtaposed against each other in odd arrangements. We had two small children when we moved in–an infant and a toddler–and two more were to come before we would outgrow that home and leave it, nearly nine years later. But back then, with my children nearby, I devoted my energies at first to transplanting and concentrating the existing flowers, shrubs and ground covers into a couple of well-defined plots. The multiple parcels that had been carefully weeded and cleared by my predecessors were just too much for me to keep up, and we wanted some large, open areas.

Over time, even the fewer areas that I had preserved became more than enough for me to maintain. I sometimes lamented to my family that the yard work was too demanding, and I chastised myself for weeds that had not been pulled, plants that needed pruning, or edging that was getting fuzzy with growth. In addition, well meaning neighbors who were nature enthusiasts (to the point of never mowing, never pulling a weed, and, in short, having the worst looking plot of ground imaginable), shook their heads if I removed a bush or shrub, even to transplant it. And, no matter how hard I tried, my efforts never came close to producing the profusion of blooms or vegetables of their garden. I wasn’t competing, but I had the feeling they were! I just wanted the simple pleasures of flowers–their beauty, their scents, their colorful presence.

Yearning for better results, I settled upon the front garden as the one area I would maintain meticulously. With the children, I started our own seedlings in long, green trays, and it was like having pets in the house. We placed the trays above the refrigerator for warmth, watched them lovingly until the sprouts appeared, and then removed the plastic with a sense of undeniable satisfaction–the wonder of creation, still at work, right before our eyes! When the seedlings were ready, and the danger of frost past, the children joined me in transplanting them to our front, prize, garden bed. I am not, and was not then, a green thumb. Visitors sometimes admired our flowers, but whenever I drove around the neighborhood, I marveled at the profusion of blooms other people seemed to achieve so easily. My flowers were pretty, but there never seemed to be enough of them for the effect I wanted, no matter how much I planted. When I became pregnant with my third child, I felt a great deal of trepidation before the birth, fearing the onset of another depression. Many people prayed for me. Two special friends even agreed to pray for me every single day throughout the pregnancy. Of course, I also prayed long and hard myself–and Matthew, born at 9 lbs., was a glowing testimony to all that prayer.

He was what we called a “dream baby,” sleeping through the night, seldom crying, and always easily contented. He happily sat in his baby seat while I planted yet another year’s trays of seedlings into the chunky, brown earth in my garden. I had purchased an organic fertilizer and had prepared the soil with it before planting–but I wasn’t expecting anything more than the usual mediocre results of my efforts. At my doctor’s instruction before Matt was born, I agreed to forgo breastfeeding in favor of uninterrupted sleep, in order to prevent another post-partum episode. Mercifully, my hormones did not rise up and engulf me in a wild, frightful darkness of anxiety and fear. But I missed nursing; there was always a special closeness that I relished while nursing a baby. Meantime, my seedlings were growing at a delightful pace. We marveled at how they would change noticeably, overnight. By summer, I had a thriving, plush, flower bed, the bright yellows and oranges of marigolds lightening the appearance of the yard–and my days.

The truly amazing thing, though, were the begonias. Their little clusters of blooms grew, and grew, and grew. No one could believe that these flowers were ordinary. When they just about reached my waist, they finally ceased expanding. Their blooms made a pillow-top canopy of pink, white and red, hiding the tall, leggy, unsightly stems underneath. To my surprise, none of our guests recognized what they were, despite the fact that the flowers were exactly the same, only higher. A day of real triumph came when our neighbor, the undisputed green thumb, organic gardener and nature expert extraordinaire, came and admired my flowers. “What are these?” he asked, and my eyes lit up like a sparkler on the fourth of July. “You can’t tell?” I asked, relishing the fact that even HE was stumped. He looked again, and shook his head. “They’re begonias!” I was smiling from ear to ear. “Really?!” he said. “I didn’t know they could grow so big.” The amazing thing is, they don’t. Not usually–and they never have, for me, again. But they were there, then, blooming determinedly, like my life. Pushing up their faces, covering over the leggy stems. Leaving the dark earth behind for the sun. Somehow, the whole of that summer soothed my rough-edged past. I knew that the hard days, at least for now, were over. The Lord was granting me a time of rest and refreshment. And I drank it in like a dried up plot of soil, ready to bloom.” ©2009 Linore Rose Burkard

Linore Rose Burkard now lives in Ohio with her husband and five children on 3 acres, part of which she struggles to keep in bloom! She is the author of “BEFORE THE SEASON ENDS,” and THE HOUSE IN GROSVENOR SQUARE, (“Inspirational Romance for the Jane Austen Soul”). If you’re ready to be transported to Regency England, hop on over to her website.

Here’s Linore’s Recipe!

Chicken Soup with Tortilla Strips

Fresh spices really make a difference with this easy, tasty recipe.

Cooking spray

1 tsp.olive or veg oil

1/2 cup chopped onion

2-3 cloves garlic, minced

4 cups chicken broth (store bought is toxic; use homemade when possible)

15-oz. can pinto beans, drained

14 1/2 oz. can crushed tomatoes

1 cup cubed cooked chicken

1/2 cup chopped green pepper (for hotter soup, use jalapeno)

1 tsp ground cumin

1 1/2 tsp ground chili powder

1/2 tsp. dried oregano, crumbled

salt and pepper

8 6-in. corn tortillas

2 green onions, thinly sliced

1. Spray a large non-stick skillet with cooking oil spray. Add the oil and heat over medium heat. Saute onion and garlic 2 to 3 minutes, or until onion is translucent.

2. Meanwhile, dice the green pepper; Add tomatoes, broth, beans, chicken, cumin, green pepper, 1 tsp. chili powder, oregano, salt and black pepper to onions. Bring to boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat; simmer, covered, 20 to 25 minutes, stirring occasionally.

3. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350°F. Spray baking sheet with vegetable oil spray.

4. Cut tortillas in half, then into 1/4 in. strips. Place strips in one layer on baking sheet. Lightly spray strips with cooking spray. Sprinkle with 1/2 tsp. chili powder. Bake 10 minutes, or until crisp.

5. To serve, ladle soup into bowls. Sprinkle tortilla strips over. Garnish with green onions. Makes 8 servings.
I also like to sprinkle some shredded pepper-jack, mozzarella, or provolone across the strips. Allow cheese to melt for one minute before serving.

Thank you, Linore–Lyn!!

My guest today is Author Christina Berry whose first novel The Familiar Stranger will be available soon. This sounds like a delicious recipe I plan to try out! Here’s Christina:

“Doritos chips, cream soups, and green chilies—doesn’t sound like the most appetizing mix of ingredients, does it?

My grandmother made this dish decades ago, passing the recipe down to my mother, and then to me. She labeled it Chicken Chalupas, though it’s nothing like what you’d receive if you ordered a dish by the same name in a Mexican restaurant.
Chicken Chalupas
Nacho Cheese Doritos
4 chicken breasts, baked and shredded
1 c. sour cream
1 can cream of chicken
1 can cream of mushroom
½ c. chicken broth (I use what’s left from cooking the breasts)
1 small can diced green chilies (I use mild)
½ c. chopped onion
grated cheddar cheese ( as much as you prefer)

Grease a 9 x 13 pan, cover bottom with several layers of broken chips. Sprinkle shredded chicken evenly over the chips. In a separate bowl, mix sour cream, soups, broth, chilies, and onion. Pour over the chicken. Sprinkle with cheese. Bake at 350 for 35-40 mins, until chips begin to blacken. Serve with tomato wedge garnishes.

Both my mother and grandmother have handed down quite a lot of things to me besides recipes: faith in Jesus, the ability to go through hard times with trust in an Ultimate Good, a love of card games, a slightly risqué sense of humor … but they’ve shown me how to be a strong woman.

In the last five months I’ve gone through a divorce, a close loved one’s arrest, entering the part-time work force, placing my home up for sale, and moving forward to adopt a foster child. Add to this my first book release EVER coming in less than two months. I’m so thankful to have a legacy of strong women to emulate!

Kind of reminds me of my heroine. She doesn’t think of herself as a strong woman at first. Just like this recipe, Denise Littleton’s marriage has ingredients that don’t seem to go together.

Poky chips of uncertainty concerning her husband’s love, spicy chilies of unrest about finances, stinky onions of bad circumstances … but when it’s all baked together in the oven of hard times, though the end product isn’t fabulously good-looking, the flavors have melded in a marvelous way.

Happy cooking! And please come by AshberryLane and subscribe to my infrequent, humorous newsletter for a chance to win an autographed copy of The Familiar Stranger. Or drop by my blog or my editing services.

Thanks Christina. You sound like you’ve been on the “dartboard in hell.” That’s how I always describe those periods when it’s just one thing after another and none of them happy.

I’m thrilled about your first book. Now that’s something to be happy about! I wish you much success and many happy readers!–Lyn

To pre-order The Familiar Stranger, click ChristianBook.com

Online Badmouthing Can Cost A Writer Their Career. Don’t Do It!
Author: Stacy-Deanne

The Internet is a wonderful thing for writers. It gives us information and makes research available to us within minutes. It is also a portal to misconceptions, lies and viciousness when used the wrong way. These days more writers, especially aspiring ones are running to the Internet with their disgruntled feelings and broken hearts. It seems very harmless to talk about your latest experience with a literary agent on Twitter or to blog about your somewhat negative brush with a publisher at this year’s BEA, but it’s not harmless at all. Badmouthing people on the Internet is not as “safe” as you think. Even if you’re posting anonymously. There are many reasons and examples why not to do it.

I don’t know why people think that talking about someone on the net is safe. Why do you think that the target of your venom won’t find out? If you do then you’re living in a fantasy world. Out of all the people who are badmouthed in the industry, agents are the number one targets. Some writers despise agents to the point of tearing down their characters and devoting entire blog posts on how they feel about an agent. Be warned, the agent will find out one way or another. People think agents do not search the net. They do. They are busy people but they search the net from time to time and mostly, they Google themselves just to see where their name leads them. If you speak about them on any portion of the net, Google Alerts lets them know immediately. Do not do it.

How do I know? Well, I have Google Alerts myself and I love it. Any time someone writes my name down or one of the names of my books on the net, I get an email informing me. I started Google Alerts after I found out I’d been the target of a two-faced book reviewer. I googled myself one night and came upon a book review blog where people were discussing recent books. One person left a not-so-flattering review of my recent novel. That didn’t bother me. I am an author. I expect to get all kinds of reviews. What bothered me was the person who wrote it. This had been the same person who praised my book on other sites, saying it was one of the best of the year. Yet on this site I lucked up on, she’d said it was the worst she’d read of the year. Hmm, I didn’t understand it. It hurt a little because if you claim to like a book, why turn around and say you didn’t? I realize some reviewers have motives. Some reviewers do not review books just for the fun of it or to educate the public. Some actually review to tear down books. It’s not something I understand and these fake reviewers give real book reviewers a bad name.

So what did I do about it? I did the professional thing and left it alone. I didn’t email the woman and I didn’t confront her. It confused the heck out of me and I discussed it with some of my friends who shook their heads too. But as far as contacting the lady, I left it alone. I am smart enough to know that contacting a reviewer is only asking for trouble. If she could badmouth my book like she did then she could easily do more damage if I’d contacted her. My point is that you should keep your negative comments to yourself. As you can see, when you talk about someone, they will find out. Agents and publishers have many friends in the industry. These friends might read something you’ve written and report it. The agent’s loved ones could find your rant and do the same thing. It is much more serious than people believe.

Authors have lost book contracts because of their behavior about their publishers and agents. Some go beyond blogging and choose to badmouth their agents/publisher at conferences and festivals to other professionals. And guess how the info gets back to the person? Through the same professionals you sprouted off to. Twitter is the most damaging thing that can happen to an author or aspiring writer if they use it negatively. Authors are using Twitter to bully book reviewers and to “warn” writers about various agents they’ve worked with or were rejected by. Authors form online cliques and use these groups as a way to harass anyone who has said anything bad about their books. They go as far as putting people’s personal information online or anything else to embarrass or threaten the target’s wellbeing. I don’t care if you’re published or not, this behavior is never acceptable. If you have problems with an agent or publisher, be professional and take it up with them in private. If you have a problem with a book reviewer, you can email them but I wouldn’t. Book reviewers have a right to their opinions. Even unfair reviews have a right to be read. An author’s unreasonable and childish antics would hurt their career and sales more than any bad book review. Remember that everything you do on the net is visible. The writing world is too big of a place to take the chance.

Resist the urge to badmouth. Most times, if you feel the need to badmouth than the issue is not that serious. Every agent isn’t going to want to represent you. Every publisher isn’t going to be the greatest one you’ve worked with. Every author isn’t going to be your friend. Every book reviewer isn’t going to give you a glowing review or be fair about it. But just like you have the choice on how you want to use the net for your career, others do too. This is a big world and the Internet has made it even more gigantic. There are no such things as secrets online. If you don’t know this, it could cost you the chance of a lifetime.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/writing-articles/online-badmouthing-can-cause-a-writer-their-career-dont-do-it-1012088.html

About the Author:

Stacy-Deanne is a best selling author and novelist. She’s been in the writing industry for twelve years. She is a novelist with Simon and Schuster. Stacy was featured in 2006’s “Literary Divas: The Top 100+ Most Admired African-American Women in Writing”. She was born, raised and resides in Houston, Texas. You can visit her sites to learn more about her and her books.

http://www.stacy-deanne.net
http://www.myspace.com/stacydeanne