Sunday, May 17, 2015

NEW BLOG ADDRESS

HI!

Blogger doesn't support me anymore ( to techy techy for me to understand why) so I am over at a brand NEW Blog address on Wordpress. Follow me over there or if you are on Networked Blogs, you'll keep getting the same feed! But if you want to visit, here is the new address: https://authorkdrose.wordpress.com/

Don't miss out!

Friday, June 27, 2014

Coming Soon- New Book of Poetry

New book of poetry coming soon (unless I try to shop it around). Here is a sneak peak at the cover.



Biography
Author. Bleeding Edge. Will not fit into your mold.

K.D. Rose is an author and poet and currently has "Heavy Bags of Soul" and "Inside Sorrow" on sale at Amazon.com. Look for "I AM"- a book for female empowerment and "The Erasing Series", Book 1- Erasing: Shadows on sale soon!K.D. Rose is now also an Author With Lycaon Press, a subsidiary of Breathless Press. Her book, Inside Sorrow won the Readers Favorite 2013 international Silver Medal for Poetry.


Just like her books, KD Rose is edgy, hits you in the gut and gives you the education you never knew you needed. Writing with irony, truth, and a spiked pen, she takes you past the self into self-evolution.

I AM will be released at the end of October and Erasing: Shadows will be released in December! Erasing: Shadows is Book 1 of a Seven Book Series for New Adults in the Paranormal Genre.


K.D. has an eclectic mind and loves language, physics, philosophy, photography, design, art of all...
Read More
K.D. Rose is an author and poet. Her poetry has been published in Candlelit Journal, the Voices Project, and showcased in the Tophat Raven Art and Literary Magazine. KD has three books of poetry published on Amazon: "Heavy Bags of Soul", "Inside Sorrow" and “I AM (Poetry in Motion)”. KD is also an author with Lycaon Press with whom she published "Erasing: Shadows" for New Adults in the Fantasy/Paranormal Genre.

K.D. has an eclectic mind and loves language, physics, philosophy, photography, design, art, writing, symbolism, semiotics, spirituality, and Dr. Who. K.D. is an avid supporter of music, the arts, cutting edge science, technology, and creativity in all forms that encourage us to expand and explore past the artificial limits we often set for ourselves in order to see the everyday connections that exist among all things.

Join K. D. Rose on the following social media sites:


Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00830RFC0

Twitter: @kdrose1

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/K.D.RoseWriter
Blog: http://www.kdroseauthortales.com

Email: kd.rose@aol.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6038789.K_D_Rose

LinkedIn:
http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=184204909&trk=nav_responsive_tab_profile



Wednesday, June 25, 2014

My Review of "The Empathy Exams" by Leslie Jamison

Yesterday I finally read "The Empathy Exams" by Leslie Jamison. First, I am a hard read these days. As I've gotten older, it takes more and more to catch me as a reader, but once caught, I usually devour the book in a day. I've bought (downloaded) a number of books recently just to keep myself up with the current state of publishing and what is considered good/great. Kudos to Jamison because her book not only snagged me, it kept me reading until through at one in the morning.

In this book Jamison not only provides a continual stream of unique topics, but does so with an intelligence that I miss in so many other books. Perhaps it's the "literary" choice, but those books often fail to interest me as well. I'm not in the space anymore where I will see a book through despite a poor first chapter. Jamison, as solipsistic as many authors of essays are (and perhaps must be) nevertheless adroitly pulls together this collection in her quest to dissect empathy. Full of personal experiences and deep mots justes, Jamison often left me with the kind of "aha" delights in thought or reflection that just don't come along every day.

Some of her personal thoughts come across as shallow- this is where the solipsism arises- but she juxtaposes these by drawing on formidable writers past and present to blend her contemplative ingredients with a generally seamless effect.

Winner of the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize and a Harvard and Iowa Writer's Workshop graduate, Jamison is currently earning her Ph.D. at Yale. Jamison, here in "The Empathy Exams", while displaying some of the intrinsically entropic symptoms of the MFA world, manages to break out from the MFA Chinese finger trap to write an engaging and relevant book. More importantly, her writing is the result of adept critical thinking and the ability to conceptualize and synthesize seemingly disparate ideas, events and people. The result is an apt model for the new essay standard.

To see her own thoughts on similar matters, one need only go the following article, by Jamison herself, published in February. You can find it here. http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116778/mfa-vs-nyc-most-useful-explanation-how-writers-get-paid

My Review of "The Fault in our Stars" (book) by John Green

's review
       


Read in May, 2014


I read "The Fault in our Stars" by John Green today. I often hesitate with ratings and reviews because the judgment of a reader towards a beloved, boring, or satisfying book is so inequitable. How does one compare "Atlas Shrugged" against "Leaves of Grass", or rate "The Upanishads" using the same classifiers as one does with "Gone Girl"? How does our own subjectivity play out within a five point system? A book is capable of touching me on many levels. Who am I to say that certain levels are better than others? And yet, as a subjective person, I find some writing more meaningful to me than others.

What I can state is whether a book touched me or not. I can assess whether a book surprised me, challenged me, left me with a sense of wonder, lifted me, seduced me, or simply passed time pleasantly. There are also books that cannot move me past the first few pages. How meaningful that should be to anyone else is uncertain. As an avid bibliophile, my proclivities in books somewhat define me. I often hold them close, not even singly, but en total, as a treasure that I would rather not discuss. The gifts within books reveal themselves to me the way a pyramid accumulates width and depth, stone by stone, yet within a larger scheme.

Within this larger scheme, I can assert that this book is popular for a reason. In my own mind, that reason is valid. I am a sucker for some of the techniques used in it. On the other hand, I knew the story before finishing the first page. The sign of this book's largess is that the knowledge did not diminish the experience of the book itself for me. I would have preferred one character to have been further redeemed. I would have preferred this or that or the other, but it was not my novel to write. Yet, all novels become ours when we read them. Therefore I can say that John Green's novel was an enhancement. "The Fault in our Stars" enriched this reader, and I place a high value on being able to make that statement.
                    
           


             
 

Saturday, June 21, 2014

Welcome Brantwijn Serrah and Her New Book- Lotus Petals!


Let's start off with a few interesting details about yourself, hm?

I'm a life-long denizen of sunny SoCali, though at heart I'd love to live in Portland, Seattle, or Alaska.  I guess I've enjoyed sun enough that I'm ready for rain, snow and cozy fires in the fireplace!

I'm the oldest of five siblings and the only girl. I'm also the shortest of them, so... there's that.  I've been married five years and my only children are covered in fur and love tuna.

I have an extra vertebrae in my spine.

How do you pronounce that name of yours?

Well, I pronounce it, "bronch-VYN". The actual Dutch pronunciation of it is a bit stronger, but I'm consistently falling back into my softer habit. So I guess, since it's my name, that's how its pronounced.

And how long have you been writing?

All my life. The first story I remember writing, I wrote in first grade. We were learning to draw three woodland critters—I think they were an owl, a fox and frog, maybe—and then we were supposed to write a story about them. My teacher sort of opened my eyes when she mentioned my story used actual literary techniques, though I didn't know that they were techniques at the time, or what they were... I'd just written the story the way stories I read were written. It stuck with me, though, all these years.

Where did the idea for Lotus Petals come from?

There were two major elements that brought about Lotus Petals as an erotic novel. The first was the two lead characters, Rhiannon and Aijyn. I already had them in mind, I knew they'd met in Japan and I knew Aijyn was something very, very special.  I hadn't found the real guts of their story, though.  Then, when I saw Memoirs of a Geisha in theaters, I fell in love with the time period and the culture of geisha, and thought that might be where Aijyn and Rhiannon's story began.

Sometime around then, when I was looking more into geisha culture and stories, I found an erotic novel centering on the subject. I won't give the title here, but there was a whole prologue about how the author was some kind of expert on geisha, and how her insight into their world had produced this amazing and sultry work.  And the book was terrible! I mean really, really terrible! Not only was its representation of geisha just incredibly shallow and lukewarm and, in my opinion, completely reinforced the misconception that they were just prostitutes, but the writing itself was simpering and weak! I was so incredibly disappointed!

So those two things sort of combined in my mind, and the idea to write a better erotic novel, set in Japan and featuring my two characters who had been looking for a home, all came together.  Since then, Lotus Petals evolved away from that original intent—Aijyn is no longer a geisha, but an oiran, sort of a forerunner to the geisha, and the novel is set in the Edo period, during isolationism, rather than 1800's—but those were the seeds of it, at least!

Do you have a favorite character?

Oh, that hardly seems like a fair question, but I have to say Aijyn. She's just this beautiful, beautiful dear heart of a girl. It's kind of hard for me not to absolutely love her.

Any character you really didn't like?

If we're talking about a character I hate because she's just plain despicable, then it's Sölva, Rhiannon's sadist of a bodyguard.  I designed her to be the one readers should love to hate. 

If you mean my least favorite in the sense they never really stood out to me as much as the others, then its Kazuo, the captain of the Temple guard. He came to me when blue-ring octopus venom became a plot point, and he served his purpose well as the belligerent captain unwilling to see his men disciplined for the sake of a lower-class character. He never really meant much to me, though.

How do you feel when it comes to editing your work?

I am obsessive compulsive about the presentation of anything I'm working on (and I mean that quite seriously. I do have OCD, and one of the things that triggers me is disorganization, inconsistency, or sloppiness in presentation). So, it comes naturally to me to proofread and edit. Sometimes I'll get writer's block because of it: I know I should go on, but something about the last segment just isn't right and I really, really can't go on without fixing it.  It's terrible during National Novel Writing Month. You're supposed to silence your inner editor; there is just no way for me to do that.  You're not supposed to delete or edit what's already done—save all that stuff for after the month is over, they say. It's almost become a tradition of mine to make it to day 24 or so of the event and delete the last 3-5000 words because something about them just didn't work, and then I have to make that word loss back up.  It's just the way I am.

That being said, I really value the perspective of my editor.  Even though the manuscript I send her is as clean and polished as I think I can possibly make it, I know she'll still find errors and, if not actual errors, at least points where something can be improved. And I appreciate that. I try to give every note an honest consideration, even if it's one I don't initially agree with. The fact is, it's her job to do this, and she sees things I don't and she has worthy ideas. So even though I edit the crap out of everything I do, I would never turn down the help of my editor.

What does your "writing space" look like?

I'll write in lots of places. I even wrote a few parts of my new project at a mini-golf park, on my Kindle, between holes! I suppose I'm most comfortable writing in bed, though, with a cat sitting on me. I only added that last part because they will sit on me, whether I like it or not.

How do you take a break from writing?

I'm also an artist, so I like to draw, paint and work with Photoshop and my Wacom tablet. You can see some of my racier work on my blog. That's what you'll most commonly find me doing, but I also customize My Little Pony figures (if you don't know what that is, Google "Custom MLP" in Images), and I've recently developed an interest in sewing and embroidering plushies. So I do a lot of artistic dabbling.
 
Cover:

 
Blurb:

Rhiannon Donovan, daughter to the vampire Queen, would rather die than be made a bride to a demon Lord. Aijyn, courtesan to the undead Daimyo of Kansai, can think of nothing more horrifying than his promise of eternal life.  In the halls of the Blood Lotus Temple, the two women struggle against the chains of their fate, and find a solace in each other that could mean freedom for them both... or might cost each of them their lives.

Social and buy links

Buy link on Breathless Press: http://tinyurl.com/lm5qk7d
Brantwijn Serrah's page on Breathless Press: http://tinyurl.com/p4bl55r

Brantwijn's Facebook Page: http://tinyurl.com/qf2bzwk


Foreplay and Fangs on Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/q2cmnep

Find Brantwijn on Google+

And on Goodreads

Say hi to her on Twitter

Enter our giveaway!
a Rafflecopter giveaway


Author Bio

When she isn't visiting the worlds of immortals, demons, dragons and goblins, Brantwijn fills her time with artistic endeavors: sketching, painting, customizing My Little Ponies and sewing plushies for friends. She can't handle coffee unless there's enough cream and sugar to make it a milkshake, but try and sweeten her tea and she will never forgive you. She moonlights as a futon for four lazy cats, loves tabletop role-play games, and can spend hours watching Futurama, Claymore or Buffy the Vampire Slayer while she writes or draws.

In addition to her novels, Brantwijn has had several stories published in anthologies by Breathless Press, including the 2013 Crimson Anthology and 2014 Ravaged Anthology.  She's also had a short story published in the Cleiss Press Big Book of Orgasm and the anthology Coming Together Through The Storm. She hopes to have several more tales to tell as time goes on.  She has author pages on GoodReads and Amazon, and loves to see reader comments on her work. Her short stories occasionally pop up at Foreplay and Fangs, her blog at http://brantwijn.blogspot.com.

 

 

 

 








 

 

 
 
 

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Monday, June 9, 2014

The Path To Creativity

Also today! The Path to Creativity. Read H.K.'s views over at Sheri Velarde's blog today!    

Erzabet's Enchantments: A Taste for Danger

Erzabet's Enchantments: A Taste for Danger: Still licking his wounds over blowing it with the love of his life, Detective Jack Heart finds himself in over his head with corporate po...



Check out Erzabets Enchantments for a sneak peak into H.K. Sterling's new mystery, A Taste For Danger and read an interview with H.K. as well!  H.K. Sterling's books are suitable for ages 18+.

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Sneak Peak at H.K. Sterling's new Mystery!

Hop on over to Words With Leti Del Mar today for a Sneak Peak at H.K. Sterling's new mystery, A Taste For Danger! The book releases on June 13 but you can pre-order now! http://bookswithletidelmar.blogspot.com/


A Taste For Danger is the Sequel to A Taste For Killing in the Chasing the Taste series for Breathless Press. Both books can be read as stand-alones too! Pre-order here: http://www.breathlesspress.com/index.php?main_page=product_free_shipping_info&cPath=26&products_id=579&zenid=2e94bd1635980c83c9514b43ba487f4d

Read a SAMPLE of A Taste For Killing on Wattpad: