The Liberation of Max McTrue Contest

Brought to you by Figment.com and Kim Culbertson

Kim Culbertson is joining Figment for a whirlwind weekend of Flash Fiction to celebrate her new ebook, The Liberation of Max McTrue! (Look for my review tomorrow.)

Enter the Max McTrue Flash Fiction Contest!

There will be a Total of three prizes: Each winner gets a free download of The Liberation of Max McTrue as well as a custom-made “beautiful things” journal. The first place winner will also receive a 30 minute manuscript review by Kim Culbertson.

All you have to do is write a super short story under 500 words that follows one of the four prompts below. Submit your entry between 11:00am on February 3^rd, 2012 and 11:59pm on February 5^th, 2012. The Figment editorial staff will choose the top ten entries as finalists, and Kim will choose the winners from those finalists.

The Prompts:

(1) Write a story set against the backdrop of a scavenger hunt.

(2) Write a story confined to the periods of a school day. The character can be in school or out of school.

(3) Write a story in which a character is deeply afraid of something.

(4) Come up with a totally ordinary character and then set him/her up to have an extraordinary day.

How to enter:

1. Go to www.figment.com and sign up.
2. Once you have received your confirmation email, go to your Figment profile page, click “My Writing,” and “Create Something New.”
3. Before you start writing, read the full rules on the Max McTrue contest page, which you’ll be able to find under the “Contest” tab on Figment on February 3^rd, 2012.
4. Write an original story, under 500 words, that follows one of the four prompts above.
5. Go to the “Details” tab of your story, and put maxmctrue in the “Tags” section.
6. Wait the 2 hours it sometimes takes to see your story appear on the contest page.

Everybody Wins! in a non-profit dedicated to improving literacy levels by mentoring low-income youth. Their philosophy is one mentor, one child, one book at a time, and since it’s founding in 1991 Everybody Wins! has grown to include programs in 16 states reaching thousands of children.

You can help their cause simply by watching the book trailer for Rose’s Garden by Peter H. Reynolds. Dedicated to Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, Rose’s garden is about community, nature, beauty, and the power of faith. For every 10 people who watch the 60 second trailer, Fablevision, a media and interactive development studio, will donate one children’s book to Everybody Wins!

When A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness came out in hardcover last February it was an immediate hit. Debuting at #2 on the New York Times bestseller list, it’s been getting rave reviews since. Now, publisher Penguin has released the title in paperback, and you can win a copy by commenting here by midnight (PDT) on Wednesday, January 11. The giveaway is restricted to addresses in the U.S. and Canada.

Here’s a synopsis of the book from the author’s website:

“When historian Diana Bishop opens a bewitched alchemical manuscript in Oxford’s Bodleian Library it represents an unwelcome intrusion of magic into her carefully ordinary life. Though descended from a long line of witches, she is determined to remain untouched by her family’s legacy. She banishes the manuscript to the stacks, but Diana finds it impossible to hold the world of magic at bay any longer.

For witches are not the only otherworldly creatures living alongside humans. There are also creative, destructive daemons and long-lived vampires who become interested in the witch’s discovery. They believe that the manuscript contains important clues about the past and the future, and want to know how Diana Bishop has been able to get her hands on the elusive volume.

Chief among the creatures who gather around Diana is vampire Matthew Clairmont, a geneticist with a passion for Darwin. Together, Diana and Matthew embark on a journey to understand the manuscript’s secrets. But the relationship that develops between the ages-old vampire and the spellbound witch threatens to unravel the fragile peace that has long existed between creatures and humans—and will certainly transform Diana’s world as well.”

A Discovery of Witches is the first book in the All Souls Trilogy. The second in the series, Shadow of Night, is due in summer of 2012. To find out more about Deborah Harkness and her books, visit the author’s website. And don’t forget to leave your comment for a chance to win.

When Mari McCarthy was last featured on Mother Daughter Book Club.com, it was to talk about mother-daughter journaling and her eBook, Who Are You? How to Use Journaling to Know and Grow Your Life.

As part of her new Wow! (Women on Writing) tour, she’s back with another intriguing guest post about things you should consider before you decide to partner on writing a journal with someone, and some thoughts about who may want to pair up to keep a journal.

McCarthy also has a new eBook just out called Dark Chocolate and the Journaler’s Soul: 17 Personal Journaling Stories for Healing and Growth, in which some of Mari’s friends and associates share their own stories about keeping a journal. You can win a copy of Dark Chocolate by leaving a comment here before midnight (PST) on Friday, December 23.

Journaling: Purely Personal, or for Sharing?

There are many different attitudes towards the question of privacy when it comes to journaling.

• Do you journal strictly for yourself, and fiercely defend the privacy of your notebooks?
• Do you journal privately but hope that your survivors will read your words after you’re gone?
• Do you use your journal as a place to give your writing a workout, later using bits in a book or other publication?
• Do you journal dispassionately, with no real concern for who may or may not read it?
• Do you journal as a way to communicate with a partner, friend, or successor?

Though we think of a journal as a personal tool, we need not think of it as exclusively private. But before embracing the joy of journaling out of the closet, let’s take a moment to remember that private journaling remains of utmost importance. The aspect of journaling that is expression without censure or repercussions or exposure on any level must forever be respected. A journal may become semi- or fully-public only if its author freely allows it.

That being said, many a journal may be created in the spirit of sharing. In this case, it will written by

• an individual who expressly intends it to be read by others, or
• two or more individuals, each contributing entries to one notebook.

In the latter case, the journal is the result of a compact between two or more parties for fun or profit or both.

It has to be a compact, a contract, a shared promise between people who have confidence in one another. Shared journaling isn’t for superficial situations. Intensity, commitment, persistence are all crucial. Trust is paramount.

As noted in my earlier post here, mothers and daughters can make dynamic journaling partners. Others who may put shared journaling to mutual benefit might be:

• Emergency team members
• Travel tour groups
• Recovery groups
• Mentor relationships
• Journaling as a classroom or project requirement
• New parents, sharing a journal for the first year of their child’s life
• Caretakers of any kind

And, of course, untold more possible groupings. If the compact is backed by sufficient trust, shared journals can be transformative. Our personal stories harbor enormous potential for teaching and learning, while providing welcome comfort in their humble familiarity.

The shared journal is shorthand for exploration and learning.

Again, don’t expect that the process of building a shared journal will be without challenges. Sustained effort will be required, despite setbacks. Commit to your partner(s) but even more, commit to yourself that you’ll complete the agreed-upon course. It’s by staying the course that you can accurately judge its effects.

Which leads me to my last tip: make the course relatively brief, to begin with. Agree to share the journal for a short time. When the time’s up, you can continue, increase, decrease, quit, whatever. Let the harmony build naturally. Enlarge your challenges in small bites, and let it all be a pleasure.

What are some relationships or involvements you suggest as having good potential for shared journaling? Please comment!

Mari L. McCarthy, journaling therapy specialist and author, owns Create Write Now, a website dedicated to all things journaling. The site includes hundreds of journaling prompts, personal journaling stories, interviews, a blog, and many other resources. Mari has published nine books to date; her most recent ebook is Help for the Holidays: 7 Days of Journaling to Ho! Ho! Ho!

Author Annette Laing is busy putting the finishing touches on her third book in The Snipesville Chronicle series. The new book will appear in March. In the meantime, she’s lowered the price of the first book in the series, Don’t Know Where, Don’t Know When (see my review) to just 99 cents for Kindle and NOOK users.

Here are the links if you’d like to take a look:

Kindle

NOOK

Today is National Family Literacy day, the start of a whole month devoted to families reading together. To celebrate, I’ll be giving away one copy each week of my guidebook, Book by Book: The Complete Guide to Creating Mother-Daughter Book Clubs. While Book by Book is geared to book clubs made up of moms and daughters, the tips you find there can be adapted to most any kind of reading group you want to start. That includes father-son and parent-child as well as kids only and adults only.

What’s so important about family literacy? For one thing, being able to read and understand well are crucial skills that help both kids and adults be successful at both school and work. And reading for fun is especially important, as a study by Scholastic, Inc. found that children who read for fun are more likely to think of themselves as good students and be successful at school. Book clubs are a way to keep reading fun.

Throughout November, I’ll be sharing tips on ways you can get your family reading together and talking about what you read. Along with the book lists I publish with suggestions by age group, you can use these tips as inspiration to start your own mother-daughter book club, family reading group or something else that promotes reading. For more in depth advice on getting a group off the ground, you’ll want your own copy of Book by Book. So don’t forget to leave a comment on this post talking about anything related to literacy. You could list some of your favorite books or say why reading is important to you. If you’re already in a book club you may want to say what you like about your group. Each Friday, I will choose a winner from the comments posted. If you don’t win the first week, your comment will be considered among the list of entries for the next three weeks.

Today I’m taking part in the WOW! Women on Writing tour for Mari L. McCarthy, the author of a new eBook called, Who Are You? How to Use Journaling to Know and Grow Your Life. A former business consultant, McCarthy now teaches others how to improve their lives through therapeutic journaling and uses journaling herself as a tool for business, for writing, and for life. Her new book focuses on revealing hidden fears (and how they hold you back), listening to your inner coach (that wiser voice inside), and finding out who you really are.

In this essay McCarthy created for Mother Daughter Book Club. com, she talks about the joy of sharing your journal with someone. Would you like a copy of her new eBook? Just leave a comment with your thoughts about journaling before midnight (PDT) Monday, September 26 and you’ll be entered to win one. Please note: the giveaway is closed. Congratulations to Amber on winning.

The Shared Journal – Mother-Daughter Adventures

By Mari L. McCarthy

You might think journaling is an entirely private matter, but that is not always the case. Some journals, like project or travel logs, are actually meant to be read by other people. Sometimes a journal is originally composed by several different people as a sort of team effort. So journal writing is not necessarily a solitary activity.

Consider the fun, therefore, of doing journaling in tandem with your daughter. You could share one notebook to express your thoughts on whatever topics you want. Some possibilities might be:

• Life in general
• Stuff I’m worried about
• My thoughts about what I am currently reading
• What I dreamed about last night
• How I’m doing in my progress toward goals

… and, of course, about a zillion other possible subjects of interest.

It would be fun, don’t you think, to pick up that well-worn notebook and read what your daughter wrote last night when she came in from her date? And, as the daughter, wouldn’t it be interesting to read accounts of your mother’s dreams?

Here’s one way of structuring the practice.

• Agree to try it. Look eye-to eye and be sure both parties are ready to give this journaling thing a go.

• Agree on a place where you will keep the notebook. Be sure it is safe from any prying eyes.

• Stick with the program for at least a couple of weeks no matter what. Write and read faithfully and as much as possible without judgment. If it seems awkward or difficult at first, keep working at it. Soon enough, you’ll be addicted!

• Agree whether or not to discuss the writings out loud. If one party or another would rather not talk out loud about anything in the journal, this wish should be respected. In any event, avoid over-discussing the journal entries. Let the process remain a written, not a spoken one.

• Assuming the process is as fascinating to you as I predict it will be, continue at your own pace. Find your own forms and rules. A mother-daughter journal shares the life of your mind and bonds the two of you closer than ever.

Now, be honest. If you have a relatively healthy relationship with your mother or daughter, is there any good reason not to share in this generously intimate way?

What are your ideas for mother-daughter journaling?

By Mari L. McCarthy – The Journaling Therapy Specialist, founder of Journaling for the Health of It™.  Please visit Mari’s blog at http://www.createwritenow.com/journal-writing-blog/. In Who Are You? How to Use Journaling Therapy to Know and Grow Your Life (http://www.createwritenow.com/journal-therapy-store#ecwid:category=1077033&mode=product&product=4674145), Mari presents a gentle process for self discovery through journaling. Mari’s latest publication is titled, Your Money Matters! Use Journal Writing Therapy to Get Financially Fit Now. See http://www.createwritenow.com/journal-therapy-store#ecwid:category=1077033&mode=product&product=5436679 for details.

In addition to being in a mother-daughter book club, Clare Havens is also contemplating starting a mother-son group with her 7-year-old son. Here she talks about her reasons for wanting to get this club off the ground and the challenges she expects to face doing so.

Havens is also the author of A Bella Street Mystery: Secret Formula, a “tween noir” novel that she describes as “a fun, suspenseful romp through Manhattan, tying in the worlds of haute couture and 1930s gangsters—think Humphrey Bogart meets Anna Wintour.”

Haven is offering five copies to give away to readers at Mother Daughter Book Club. com. What do you need to do to win? Just leave a comment here by midnight (PDT) on Friday, September 23. Please note: the giveaway is closed. Congratulations to April, Amber and For more info about A Bella Street Mystery, visit Havens’ website. Read on for her perspective on mother-son book clubs.

Starting a mother-son book club? Am I nuts?!

By Clare Havens

Call me crazy but I am seriously thinking about starting up a mother-son book club! Yes, we all hear so much about how boys don’t like to read and the image we have of a parent-child book club is one of mothers and daughters immaculately dressed sipping tea from china cups and saucers while they discuss Jane Austen doesn’t jibe with what we imagine when we think about boys. Gross out jokes. Cartoons. Snot. However, I have been reading recently about some brave souls who not only have started mother/parent-son book clubs but who positively LOVE them!

It seems to me that the key identifying factor of a son book club is the noise and energy level. Boys like to be active, we all know, and they often learn better while they are moving around. It makes sense to me to offer boys activities, related to the book at hand preferably, to occupy them while someone is talking about a certain book. There could be handouts where boys can draw maps showing locations of secret portals or enemy headquarters. There could be mask making or building with Lego bricks or plaster model painting…

There should be food and drink. Boys should be allowed to relax and eat—this isn’t another lesson, it is supposed to be fun! I guess the food could even relate to the book and making it could also be the activity—multitasking boys! Love the idea!

Books needn’t be the only things discussed. Why not comics? Graphic novels? Ebooks—these are much cheaper than paperbacks and many boys can download them onto a computer without buying a specific ereader. Movies could also be discussed, notably how they differ from the book. Boys could also be asked to cast movies for books which have no film version.

Give out the new book at the end of the meeting. No excuses that they couldn’t find the book before the next meeting!

One idea I really like which I read about on http://gettingkidsreading.blogspot.com is to give each person a piece of paper/fabric/bark or whatever on which they have to write the beginning of a story before the next meeting. At the next meeting they swap their piece with someone else and have to continue the story on the other side.

Some clubs have trivia quizzes about the book just read with prizes such as water balloons given for correct answers. At the end of the meeting the boys can go have a water balloon fight outside! The boys can set the quiz questions.

Why not start a simple free blog where club members can post photos, reviews, comments, questions, etc. in between meetings? This might appeal to the techno-savvy set. Tying in technology would appeal to many boys, in my opinion.

These are all ideas that would work well for mother-daughter clubs too but would work really well for many boys. Let’s not leave them out of the fun! I think boys enjoy reading more than they are often given credit for—they may often like reading in a different format to girls but they are often just as passionate about a book or a character. I think I may actually start a mother-son book club, I just have to go figure out how many boys throwing water balloons I can fit in my backyard!

Stephanie Stiles is author of the new book Take It Like a Mom, of which Publishers Weekly says “Stiles captures the petty and hilarious dramas that overlay stressed-out suburban lives in her debut, an ode to stay-at-home momdom.” Today I’m featuring a bit of mother-daughter “unadvice” that Stiles has to offer. I’m also offering one copy of Take It Like a Mom to one reader who comments with a bit of her own unadvice at the end of this post. Just leave a note by midnight on Thursday, August 25. Addresses in the U.S. and Canada only please. Please note: the giveaway is closed. Congratulations to Edith on winning.

Here’s the publisher’s description of Take It Like a Mom:

Here’s Stiles’s thoughts on what not to do if you want to have a good relationship with your daughter or your mother:

MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS: A LITTLE “UNADVICE”

Is there a relationship more notorious for all of its innate conflicts than that of mothers and daughters? Oh, I mean besides the Jersey housewives. But, other than that, can you think of a relationship more fraught with lore and controversy than the infamous mother-daughter bond? I’ve seen whole marriages crumble under the strain of what moms and daughters confront in a single month of (my) adolescence. So, maybe that’s why everyone and her mother feels entitled to weigh in with advice about how best to navigate these murky, estrogen-laden waters. When it comes to moms and daughters, it would seem that everyone is an expert, eager to share  words of “wisdom” on this often incendiary, always inscrutable relationship. And, because I now have a daughter of my very own, I’m on the receiving end of both sides of the equation. So, what follows here is a selection of the choicest suggestions that people have offered me throughout my years as daughter and mother; I like to consider it “unadvice” of sorts, and invite you to determine its merit:

• Don’t be critical of each other’s choices! I once dated a guy who wore black plastic parachute pants. That’s not the sad part. I borrowed them. That is. You know what? I could have used a little criticism. And not just about the pants, either. Because, really, what kind of guy wears black plastic parachutes and then doesn’t mention to you that you look like a Hefty bag in Mia flats when you borrow them? The kind of guy I’d criticize my daughter for dating, that’s who.

• Spend quality time together, doing things you enjoy, rather than fighting! Hah! Good one! Great joke! Oh. Wait. You were serious? Because I thought the fighting was our quality time. Was I wrong here? Do other mothers and daughters enjoy doing something other than this? I suppose there was that one time a while back when we decided to go to a movie, but we spent the whole ride to the theater arguing over the brand of sneakers Dad used to wear to play tennis (I was right: it was K-Swiss), then missed the show because we had to turn back to check his closet. Ahhh, the memories.

• Focus on your similarities, not your differences! Hmm. Similarities, huh? Well, we both wear sleeves in winter. And I’m pretty sure we both owned a lamp at one point or another. That’s a good start, right? Now, if anyone has any ideas about how to spin these into an entertaining conversation around the holiday dinner table, I can be reached at stephaniestiles.com.

• Just give it some time; it’s just a phase! How long can “a phase” last before it becomes “a personality”? I thought “a phase” had to be brief, or if not brief, then at least something short of permanent. Is this not correct? Because it’s uncanny how long the phase of my mother not jumping at my every whim and demand has endured. I’m starting to think she might not outgrow this phase.

• Learn to respect each other! Well, jeesh; why didn’t I think of that? Gosh, I could kick myself! Of course: just respect each other. And I could’ve had a V8, too.

• What she really needs right now is more space! More? Space? Isn’t space infinite? I’m no Stephen Hawking or Albert Einstein, but even I’m smart enough to know that sometimes, even astrophsyics just doesn’t have all the answers.

I may never sort out the how-tos and the how-definitely-not-tos of being a daughter or a mother; but at least, it would seem that no one else has either. Because it would feel just awful to think that all these voices of self-proclaimed authority had truly found the answer, while I was still using crib notes and copying off a brown-noser from the back row. After all, there’s a certain  comfort in knowing that my relationship with mom (and, I’m sure I’ll discover soon, with my daughter, as well) is as perfectly flawed as everyone else’s. Even if it is all her fault—for not taking my advice.

Stephanie Stiles

October is National Reading Group month, and it’s also the one-year anniversary of the release of Book by Book: The Complete Guide to Creating Mother-Daughter Book Clubs. As you may know, I love helping new mother-daughter book clubs get started, and to celebrate my book’s birthday, I’m giving away one copy of Book by Book each week in October along with one book that I recommend reading in a mother-daughter book club.

I chose each book I’m offering to go along with my getting-started guidebook specifically because I recommend it for girls aged nine to 12, which is when most mother-daughter book clubs get going. All you have to do to be eligible to win is to leave a comment on each week’s giveaway post. Tell me why you want to be in a mother-daughter book club, ask me a question, or even just say that you’re excited about the chance to win. Each week I’ll choose one winner from the comments and mail a signed copy of Book by Book along with my suggested title.

Here are the books I’ll be including with book by book:

Week of October 4: Rickshaw Girl by Mitali Perkins (signed copy)

Week of October 11: Noonie’s Masterpiece by Lisa Railsback

Week of October 18: Tortilla Sun by Jennifer Cervantes

Week of October 25: The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly

Tune in Monday, October 4 for your chance to win during the first week of the giveaway.