Angela Benson
For the upcoming week, our special guests are librarians and booksellers from around the country, maybe even the world.
Librarians and Booksellers, I’m sponoring a “Write that Book” contest to thank you for your support of the upcoming trade paperback release of my novel, The Amen Sisters (select link for excerpt and reviews). To enter, please add a comment to this post with the name of your library or bookstore. No need to register in order to comment.
Five lucky librarians and five lucky booksellers will win a “Write that Book” prize package that they can use themselves or share with their patrons. The package includes a seat in my writing tele-seminar (held on November 1, 2007) and a copy of my writing book, Telling the Tale: The African American Fiction Writers Guide.
Now, some of you may be thinking, “I’m not African American.” It doesn’t matter, as you know publishers use titles as marketing hooks, and this title is a good example. To assure you, here is a review of “Telling the Tale” from the Internet Writers Journal along with an Amazon.com reader comment.
Writers Writer – The Internet Writing Journal (visit the site for the full review)
[Angela Benson’s] writing advice is constructive and sincere; writers would be well-advised to follow her advice and practice their craft by completing the exercises in the book. Benson knows her stuff, and her wonderful reference book for African-American fiction writers would be equally useful to writers of any ethnicity.
Amazon reader, 4 stars (see Amazon for other reader comments)
This was a great book to use as a writing guide for aspiring writers. It was an easy read with simple steps to accomplish the major goal of writing a novel. I am a true testament that completing the exercises are helpful. After following the guidelines in the book, I completed my first novel. I’m now a published author, and I credit my success to this book!
For you regular visitors to AngelaBenson.com who are not librarians or booksellers, you’re welcome to join in the fun (and the contest) by sharing stories about the library or bookstore in your life. Two winners will be selected from those entries and both will receive one seat in the seminar and one copy of the book. All you have to do is post a comment with your story. Registration is not required to comment.
All winners will be announced on Monday, September 24.
My love affair with books–and bookstores and libraries–started when I was very young, maybe five years old, thanks to my mom. And I’m grateful for that.
My family recently went through a tough financial period. The last thing I had money for was books. So I turned to my local library, taking my three children too, partly to give them recreation and partly to encourage them to read. At one point, when the library closed for renovations for the summer, I had over fifty books on loan (I could take out up to 100!)
Borrowing books from the library is a great way to try out new authors, so even now that things are better for us, I still use my library regularly.
I’ve requested a new copy of Telling the Tale, without results. My copy (used) is so heavily highlighted, coffee stained, and crumpled that I’m loosing inspiration. (O.K. the highlights, coffee and crumples are my own doing…..but still) I’d like a new copy. Are you going to revise the edition? If so, when?
I love this web site. The material on it is very motivating. The excerpt from the new book makes you hunger for more.
Lisa, Telling the Tale is out of print so it’s hard to find a copy. If you win the contest, I’ll send you a free one. Over the next few months, I’m going to be revising the book and putting it on the web for use in my tele-seminars. Thanks for your interest.
Elizabeth, welcome! Do come again.
This sounds like an awesome opportunity — both a workshop and a book — both on writing … **sigh**
It’s what I wanna be when I finally grow up (you’d think I might have done that by now as a Baby Boomer …)
Libraries and I — well, my favorite experience with libraries is the summer I decided to “protest” the fact my church held the annual Vacation Bible School during the weeks of Summer School instead of at the end of the summer, in August, after Summer School when everyone was looking for something fun to do before going back to school. Lots of the kids who came to our VBS were kids who didn’t come to Sunday School and only showed up each year after they’d “done their time” in Summer School that year.
I was in 6th grade and an A student for reading and English classes, but I signed up for summer school and the reading class.
The teache was shocked to see me. I’d had her for 5th grade and she knew I didn’t have to be there; so what was I doing there. I told her and she liked the idea.
For the six weeks of summer school, we spent our day in the library reading. I devoured shelves and shelves of books and checked out many others that I took homje to read and return for more books.
I read Isaac Asimov’s book about the origin of words, gothic novels, the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan, and so much more.
Oh, to go live in a library if I could!
I had a wonderful time.
The church never returned to the two-week VBS for the second and third weeks of August, and I never saw those kids that came just for VBS ever again. I wonder if they ever found another church or if they ever discovered the joys of reading and a library?
teache?
homje?
I better learn to proof BEFORE I hit “submit” — OOPS! LOL
Well I love contest, because I always win! But this one is gonna help me with my next career, since I’m gonna be a writer, yes when I grow up. I love libraries, until I moved to Montgomery and couldn’t find the real library. I grew up in libraries, it was one down the street from the kindergarten that I attended. It was called the East Ensley Library in Birmingham. We would go there to check out books and to listen to them read stories. Then when I went to Middle School, I would go to the library after school to wait for someone to pick me up. It was always just a cool place to hang out with a lot of something to do. Now the only library I visit is the one in the school I work in and it is not up to par, but it is light years better than it was when I started working there ten years ago.