It's Friday and that means it's time to celebrate. This week I'm celebrating that I got accepted to be part of the 2017 Ohioana Book Festival, which will be held in April. This will be my third time participating in the fest and I love it. I was so thrilled when I got my acceptance confirmation and I can't wait be there again, this time with Baby Moo's Great Escape!
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| Cow kisses! |
I'd love to bring Baby Moo himself with me, but I have a feeling he wouldn't fit too well at the table.
The Celebrate the Small Things hop is hosted by Lexa Cain and co-hosted by L.G Keltner at Writing Off the Edge and Tonja Drecker at Kidbits. Visit Lexa's blog here to find out how join in the hop yourself and to see the list of participants.
Now I want to turn the blog over to the awesome Chrys Fey, who is here as part of her Tsunami Crimes blog tour. Welcome, Chrys!
I asked Chys this question in preparation for her visit:
Have you ever lived through one of the natural disasters you have written about in your series? If so, can you share a little about the experience?
ANSWER:
Hurricane Crimes was strongly based on my experience with
Hurricane Francis and Tropical Storm Fay. Hurricane Francis was one of three
hurricanes that struck Florida, one right after the other, in 2004. As a matter
of fact, while writing Hurricane Crimes,
I imagined Beth’s house was the house I was living in when those hurricanes
hit. Unlike Beth’s house, mine survived. The only damaged was to parts of the
porch and the garage door, which was knocked down.
The flooding in Hurricane Crimes was based on the floods
from Tropical Storm Fay. She made landfall on Florida four times. Many places
flooded. Where I was living, the streets flooded so much that it looked like my
house was floating in the middle of a lake.
Thankfully, I have not experienced
an earthquake or tsunami, but Book 4 (which I will be editing soon) is about
wildfires, and I have experienced those. The fire in that story, which
threatens Beth and Donovan’s home, is taken directly from my childhood
memories. Every part of it: my best friend’s dad saying the fire looked like it
was right next to my house, the moment when I see a crowd of gawkers at the end
of the street and I yell at them, my dad on the roof with a hose, the
firefighter who got burned, the brush truck that got stuck in the fiery
woods…everything.
Even real-life random moments
were used fictitiously, such as my mom coming out of the house with a bag of
potatoes, and one of my cats running toward the fire. She survived, but another
one of my cats, Angel, had also run toward the flames. She came home that
night. Burned. She died a few days later on my twelfth birthday.
I fully believe in using our
experiences in our stories, and that’s what I do.
BLURB:
Beth and Donovan have come a long way from Hurricane
Sabrina and the San Francisco earthquake. Now they are approaching their
wedding day and anxiously waiting to promise each other a lifetime of love. The
journey down the aisle isn’t smooth, though, as they receive threats from the
followers of the notorious criminal, Jackson Storm. They think they’ll be safe
in Hawaii, but distance can’t stop these killers. Not even a tsunami can.
This monstrous wave is the most devastating disaster Beth
has ever faced. It leaves her beaten, frightened. Is she a widow on her
honeymoon? As she struggles to hold herself together and find Donovan, she’s
kidnapped by Jackson's men.
Fearing her dead, Donovan searches the rubble and shelters
with no luck. The thought of her being swept out to sea is almost too much for
him to bear, but the reality is much worse. She’s being used as bait to get him
to fall into a deadly trap.
If they live through this disaster, they may never be the
same again.
On
SALE for $2.99!
BUY
LINKS:
BIO:
Chrys Fey is the author of the Disaster Crimes Series. She
is a blogger, reader, auntie, vegetarian, and cat Lover. Get Lightning Crimes (Disaster Crimes
2.5) for FREE!
FIND
CHRYS:
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How exciting about the Ohioana Book Festival! That picture of you and Baby Moo is absolutely adorable...
ReplyDeleteAnd congrats to Chrys on her latest release! Can't imagine what it must be like to live through a natural disaster of any kind. What happened to Angel is so tragic... :(
Thanks, Heather! I still think about her a lot.
DeleteCool news about the festival!
ReplyDeleteSorry you lost your cat in the fire, Chrys.
Thank you, Alex.
DeleteCongrats on the festival. Baby Moo is cute. Can you say that about a moo?
ReplyDeleteMarilyn @ onbecomingawriter.com
Congrats Julie about the festival and sorry cows can't travel there. Surviving these disasters can be tough indeed Chrys. Sorry about your cat.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Sheena-kay.
DeleteThank you so much for having me on your blog, Julie! I was glad you asked this question. :)
ReplyDeleteOh, and congratulations on the festival acceptance!!!!
DeleteCongratulations on the festival! I'm sure it'll be a lot of fun. I've never been to a festival like that before, but I think it'd be cool to meet other writers like that.
ReplyDeleteHi Julie and Chrys - great you're going to Ohioana again and pity you can't take Baby Moo with you .. he'd be a great draw for book signing! But Chrys and her crime series sound great books and experiencing Hurricane Francis can't have been fun ... but so useful for future books .. cheers Hilary
ReplyDeleteHurricane Francis is a storm I'll always remember.
DeleteThat's awesome about the Ohioana Book Festival! I'm sure if you could bring Baby Moo that he'd get a lot of attention for your book. Pet the cow and buy a book. :)
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on your news and I agree having a cow at your table would certainly attract people!! Great photo :) Hope you and Baby Moo have a wonderful week - Special Teaching at Pempi’s Palace
ReplyDeleteHow wonderful! May you enjoy it to the fullest (and sell lots of books too). Congrats to Chrys!
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteCongrats on getting to go to the Bookfest again! Maybe Baby Moo can come himself, but he'll be there in spirit in your books. Have a lovely weekend, Julie!
ReplyDeleteGreat work, Julie!! So pleased you'll be out and about with Baby Moo :) Congrats to Chrys - it's a great read!!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Nicola!
DeleteJulie, congratulations on the festival invitation!
ReplyDeleteChris, your book sounds awesome. I use fictionalized versions of real life events, too.
Congrats on the festival. Sounds like a lot of fun. And Chrys, those details about the fire sound horrifying. The poor cats!
ReplyDeleteCongrats on the festival, it should be lots of fun.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on being accepted to the book festival! Those experiences have definitely given Chrys rich material to draw on.
ReplyDeleteCongrats, Julie! And Chrys, I think it's great you could use all those real experiences in your stories :)
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on being invited to another book festival, Julie! (You're gonna turn into an extrovert, whether you like it or not.)
ReplyDeleteChrys' book four sounds like another winner. Thankfully, we've only been close enough to experience the smoke and soot from wildfires, but it's scary that Chrys' family was so close to one. As awful as that experience must have been, her memories of it will make her story even more realistic.
Congrats on the acceptance into the book festival. I live in Ohio but haven't heard of that one.
ReplyDeleteI've never been through anything like that. Too bad about Angel, though.
ReplyDeleteI count myself lucky. I've never faced a natural disaster. We came close a couple years back to a forest fire and were on high alert for a few days, but that was it. No doubt my luck will run out one of these days. :-)
ReplyDeleteAnna from elements of emaginette
Congratulations, Julie. That Baby Moo is such a cutie.
ReplyDeleteHey Chrys. I think you are so brave to write about your past experiences. It's awful that you had to go through all that.
Oh, congratulations on your awesome news, Julie! Sounds like it will be amazing.
ReplyDeleteWow, Chrys. I didn't know how personal the subject of natural disasters was to you. So sorry you went through all that, but I think it's wonderful you can share it in a story. <3
How funny would it be to see a cow at the table when people walked up? Congratulations on being invited back again, Julie. Also, congratulations to to Chrys too.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on Ohioana! That's not an easy one to get into.
ReplyDeleteAs a little girl, I was scared to death of fires. I'm not sure why I focused on fires, it's not like we lived in an area where they happened very often.
Congratulations for being accepted into Ohioana Book Festival, Julie!
ReplyDeleteAnd good luck to Chrys Fey with her book.
Congratulations on the book festival! I hope you have a great time.
ReplyDeleteHow sad about the cat. Tapping into real life experiences with these should make them all the more powerful.
I think Baby Moo would love to go to the Festival. You just need a bigger table.
ReplyDeleteChrys - I'm sorry you lost your cat, that's a hard memory to carry. Best of luck with the new release.