Contemporary authors

National Author’s Day

/ Andrew McDowell / 11 Comments

It’s National Author’s Day! I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to many different writers I’ve met, and who’ve been encouraging to me on my author’s journey. Writing, despite what some (if there are any still) think, isn’t solitary. I started out on my own when I was a teenager, but I’ve come to see that authors get where they are with the help and support of others, especially fellow writers.

Here’s a list of some of those writers:

Ben Garvey

Ari Meghlen

Lorraine Ambers

Sharon Ledwith

J. I. Rogers

Rebecca Alasdair

Michele Chynoweth

John DeDakis

Lucia St. Clair Robson

Izolda Trakhtenberg

Victoria Clarkson

Sally Whitney

Jennifer Bort Yacovissi

Austin S. Camacho

Vonnie Winslow Crist

A. L. Kaplan

There are many more too, including those on my Amazon Authors Twitter List and those whose pages I follow via my Facebook page. Again, many thanks to all of you! I wish you the best of luck with your own writing endeavors! Same to you reading this, especially if you’re participating in NaNoWriMo!

I’m looking forward to my writer’s talk, which is now in two weeks! I’ll be discussing the importance of names for the Annapolis chapter of the MWA at the Maryland Hall for Creative Arts. Come on out if you’re in the area, especially if you’re a writer! I’ll also be participating in their Open Mic next month!

The holidays are around the corner, and books make great gifts! Please don’t forget to order your copy of my high fantasy novel, Mystical Greenwood:

US$:  Amazon  |  Barnes & Noble  |  Books a Million  |  Goodreads

UK£:  Amazon.co.uk  |  Foyles

If you enjoy the book, please post your review and help spread the word, especially on Amazon and Goodreads! Add it to your to-read list on the latter today!

Remember, the cover art is available also on Deviant Art in the form of prints, mugs, magnets, mouse pads, coasters, postcards, and greeting cards. Show you’re a fan!

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Inscribed #2

/ Andrew McDowell / 1 Comment

With time, more books are inscribed and the collection grows. I’ve already posted about several I own and enjoyed. Here are some more (and like before you can see my partial reflection on the book covers as I took the pictures):

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I won a copy of Leigh Goff‘s Disenchanted at a Facebook launch party for the book. At the Write in Right Now event that I participated in last November, I purchased Shadow Patriots from guest speaker Lucia St. Clair Robson.

I purchased T.C. Weber’s Sleep State Interrupt, as well as Joseph B. Ross Jr.‘s books Arundel Burning and In the Shadows of the Flames, at the MWA in Annapolis.

More will come I’m sure! And with Mockingbird Lane Press publishing my novel, entitled Mystical Greenwood, I look forward to eventually signing copies of it!

Inscribed

/ Andrew McDowell / 4 Comments

An author’s inscription makes your copy of their work unique to you. If you’re a writer yourself, you remember the story behind the inscription, and the connection made with your fellow writer.

Here are seven inscribed books I own:

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A Thousand Acres was inscribed during a weekend event for prospective students specifically interested in creative writing at Washington College, where Jane Smiley was the guest speaker. The Good Thief was inscribed at the very last VOICES author reading I attended at St. Mary’s College. I also received from Hannah Tinti during the subsequent Q&A a pendant of St. Anthony, the patron saint of lost things (which you can see in the slideshow’s fourth picture above), who features in the novel along with a “wishing stone” – a stone with a natural, unbroken ring of another color (another student before me received one).

Reboot! and Beyond Blue were both inscribed during different meetings of the Annapolis chapter of the MWA, where Phil Burgess and Austin S. Camacho were the respective guest speakers. The Last Government Girl was inscribed at the Baltimore Book Festival in September 2015. As I had won second place in the MWA Contest’s creative nonfiction category, Ellen Herbert won in the novel category. I purchased Up the Hill to Home at Barnes & Noble in Bowie. When I opened it, to my surprise it already bore Jennifer Bort Yacovissi‘s inscription! Sally Whitney‘s Surface and Shadow was inscribed during the book’s launch party at the Annapolis bookstore.

In addition to these books, I have an inscribed short story, Gasoline, written by Jennifer Cognard-Black under the pseudonym J. Annie MacLeod. It was given to me as a gift at the end of my first semester at St. Mary’s:

Finally, I have two promotional cards won in a drawing at another meeting of the Annapolis chapter of the MWA, where James L. Gossard talked about his graphic novel Mobtown. They bear his inscription along with those of his collaborators, Gabe Fremuth and Anthony Ness:

I remember inscribing the anthology which included my essay during the previously-mentioned Baltimore Book Festival. Someday soon with future novels hopefully I will do for others as these authors did for me.