Romanticon approaches and I'm getting nervous

This coming weekend my publisher, Ellora's Cave, is hosting their first ever conference/convention. They've titled it Romanticon and I'm really looking forward to attending. There's a ton of authors who will be attending and I'm one of them. Friday, Saturday and Sunday there will be workshops during the day.

The thing making me real nervous - but in a good way - is the book signing on Saturday. It will be my first organized book signing with readers who aren't my friends. I had an impromptu book signing at a friend's house right after Protect and Defend came out electronically. It was fun and no stress. This time I'm feeling a bit of stress.

I HOPE someone stops to buy my book and have me sign it. They've broken the signings down by alphabet and the G-M crowd signs from 10:30-11:30 am and from 2:30-3:30 pm. It could be very dull if everyone is crowded around other people. So if you attend, please take pity and visit me.

Other than my nerves over the book signing, I'm getting butterflies about meeting some of my favorite authors. Some of them I've been reading since I first discovered EC back in the early 2000's and some are newer.

Have you ever attended conferences or conventions and been nervous about meeting folks? If so, how did you combat that? How do you get over your shyness and just have fun?

NOTE: I had a couple of things wrong. Hint for all of you out there - always CHECK on things before you leave. Saturday is "Authormania" where the authors hang out and meet with readers. We can also sign books that people have brought with them. Then on SUNDAY is the official book fair where they will be selling books and authors will sign.

It's Contest Time!

It’s time! All month we’ve been sneaking you little hints about our favorite things. Now it’s time for the contest. The answer can be found right here on our blog.

Question: What is Francesca’s dream car?

Click the survey link to submit your answer. The randomly chosen winner will receive a brand new copy of Writing Romance by the San Francisco Area Romance Writers of America. The winner has 14 days to respond. Non-response or undeliverable email will result in forefeit, so type those emails carefully!

Good Luck!

Fahrenheit 451

While researching the lists of banned books for this week's blog I ran across an old favorite. Fahrenheit 451 is the Ray Bradbury story about a futuristic society where all printed matter is banned because officials know that people who read and think for themselves are a threat to their power. Their greatest fear is that these free-thinkers who have the audacity to read might infect others whose only connection to the outside world is a large television that broadcasts news and entertainment to the masses. These people have forgotten how to interact with one another and rely solely on whatever propaganda spews forth and those in power like it that way. Makes for a nice, calm society.

If that thought doesn't chill you, a fireman's job becomes one of hunting down those who rebel and burning their books. Their reasoning is that books can make you feel pain or sadness and that's to be avoided at all costs. People who don't feel anything don't care what's going on around them.

When does "protection" which is the disguise that censorship hides behind become all intrusive and harmful? I say it is with the first claim that someone knows what is best for me and that would include what reading material I have access to.

I've always been leery of anyone who wanted to protect me for "my own good". My first thought has always been, why don't you want me to know this? I've been making up my own mind for quite some time now and I happen to like it that way. I never censored my children. If they wanted to know something they didn't understand, I explained it. Knowledge is a more powerful incentive than fear because it gives you the tools to change the world around you.

When does censorship become intrusive and harmful? I say it is the very second someone attempts to ban a book, an idea, a thought...a freedom. What do you think?

Paris

Where Do We Draw The Line

As I see it, the process starts with the challenging of a book. Susie Bookreader finds in a certain book something that distresses her or “goes against her religious beliefs” or “is unsuitable for children” and she wants it pulled from the shelves. She campaigns for its removal and draws a big enough following to win the vote to have the book banned-removed from the eyes of innocent children and the good church going folks.

It’s a win!!

Or is it? Now let’s take this one-step further. Bob Bookreader wholeheartedly agrees with his sister-in-law Susie, but shock and dismay, he finds the banned book tucked away under young Elroy’s mattress. What’s a family to do?

No one must know. How could our son have gotten his hands on a copy of that…that reading material? A library two towns over you say…we have to stop them, don’t they know it’s on the banned list! You can find it in a bookstore too. And it’s available for purchase on the internet as well! Oh my, what is the world coming too…we are all going to…

Yeah, probably not going there for reading a book, but you see what I’m getting at right. Fear, it can make us crazy. Fear, it can make us do things that we shouldn’t. I know what comes next in the scenario above…soon they are standing in a public forum with a burn barrel and are tossing in book, magazines, music…anything and everything they fear.

So, where do we draw the line?

You know, I wish I could answer that question, I really do, but my answer would be vastly different from everybody else’s answer.

Yep, I’ve heard all the reasons and yes, it may go against one persons beliefs, it may indeed be unsuitable for children and I’m sure it may be distressing to some, but you know what I have to say to that…don’t read it, don’t let your children read it. Bury your head in the sand and only do things that you feel comfortable with, but don’t tell me what I can or cannot read.

I will be the voice for myself, I will decide if my child is old enough to understand what she is reading or if she needs to wait a few more years to be prepared enough to understand and discuss the uncomfortable parts and you do the same for you and yours, then everyone wins.

Or do they?

11 Uncensored Quote about Banned Books:

#11:

"If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed." - Benjamin Franklin, 1730

#10:

"The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame." - Oscar Wilde

#9:

"Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too." - Voltaire

#8:

"Books and ideas are the most effective weapons against intolerance and ignorance." -Lyndon Baines Johnson

#8:

"Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but unlike charity, it should end there." - Clare Booth Luce

#7:

"Every burned book enlightens the world."- Ralph Waldo Emerson

#6:

Censorship offends me. ~Author Unknown

#5:

"Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books that nobody reads." - George Bernard Shaw

#4:

"This is slavery, not to speak one's thought."- Euripides

#3:

"One man's vulgarity is another's lyric." - John Marshall Harlan, Supreme Court justice, 1971

#2:

"Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it." - Mark Twain

#1:

"An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all." - Oscar Wilde


May you all have an enlightened day!

Interview with the Werecoyote

Pic from ~ http://hellisshumor.com ~

Interview with the Werecoyote
by Pat Cunningham

I’ve been nagged – excuse me, asked by a couple of people to explain how my shapeshifters work, so I rounded one up for an interview. What’s your name, sir?

Salvatore. Call me Sal. You got any food in this dump?

- Do this for me and I’ll take you to lunch. Now then, your shifter species is -- ?

Coyote. I’m a coyote. You don’t hear so much about us ‘cause the wolves hog all the press. Chaos knows how. They’re such lumps. I think it’s because they look better on camera. All noble and heroic and scat. I’ll let you in on a secret – they suck in bed. Werewolf prowess? All a myth. You want a night to remember, you get a coyote. We’re more flexible and we have wild imaginations, y’know what I mean?

- I’ll keep it in mind. Where are you from?

New York. Upstate New York. That’s as specific as I’m getting. I don’t want my skin up on somebody’s wall. We like having room to run, but we can go anywhere. City, suburbs, country, long as there’s squirrels to chase, we’re good. Like I said, flexible.

- What do you do for a living?

Me? I’m a garbageman. A dog’s gotta eat. I’m in the city, you take what you get. It’s easier if you want to live rural. Half my family’s forest rangers. You get to eat on the job.

- Where did you come from, as a species? Why is it you can change form?

Hell if I know. Why is it you can’t? This is how we are. Our legends say we were created by Chaos because the world needed a laugh. That’s what separates us from the wolves. We’ve got a sense of humor. We can see the laughs in things. That’s why we get along so well with humans. You apes are a freakin’ riot. Wolves, they wouldn’t know a joke if it bit ‘em in the ass. Biggest drags on the planet. And that whole pack dynamic with the ranks and the hierarchy? Gimme a freakin’ break.

The wolves say they’re descended from somebody named Lycaon. Google it. I’m not the History Channel.

I know we started out in the Southwest, but we’ve been spreading east for decades. We’re all over now. Technically we’re Native Americans, but most of us are blond. Go figure.

- How do you switch form, and how long does it take you?

How do you take a piss? We just do it. Okay, you want the technical stuff. We’re born in human form. I don’t remember what shape Mom was in. I didn’t think to ask her at the time. We go a few years looking like humans, then puberty sets in. The first shift happens right around then. It’s all about smell. Your smell changes when you switch form. The family shifts and then you match up the smells in your head and poof, there y’go. Once you get the trick of it you don’t need another shifter around, you can just do it whenever.

My cousin Dominic has allergies. Stuffed sinuses. He had a helluva time.

How long’s it take? Lessee … I’d put it down to seven seconds, maybe less. My personal best is three, but that’s ‘cause some guy had a gun on me. Incredible what you can do with the right motivation.

- I’ve been hearing from other shifters, and it seems the actual change takes longer for them. It’s painful, too, with the reshaping of bones and everything.

How long? Minutes? Chaos bite me. Anything longer than thirty seconds and you might as well hang it up as a species. It shouldn’t hurt, either. It’s like sex. If it hurts, you’re doing it wrong. Nature doesn’t screw up that way. Nature makes it right or you’re done for.

We switch fast. It’s a survival mechanism. I mean, think about it a minute. It’s the Middle Ages, you and your fellow serfs are out there toiling in the fields or whatever, all’a sudden you start to change into a wolf. Now, if it takes you more than a minute, you’re not even gonna have your tail out before you got your neighbor’s hoe in your neck. I dunno how many thousands of us got whacked before evolution finally wised up and said Hey, wait a minute, this ain’t working, and speeded up the process. The quicker you get those two extra legs, the quicker you can run away from the torches and the pitchforks, y’know?

What’s the change like? Well, my cousin Dominic, y’know, with the allergies, he took a video once and we played it back in slo-mo. It starts with the hair. That feels really weird. It’s like a zillion ants squirming around just under your skin and then they all pop out at once. Then your teeth get heavy. After that it’s like whoosh and there y’are. I guess it’s a little uncomfortable, but it goes by so quick you hardly notice.

The toughest part’s the tail. We have to grow one every time. It’s like your spine doesn’t know where your body ends and it just keeps stretching out. Then it sprouts hair and your brain has to switch over and deal with a whole new limb. The worst part’s when we switch back to human and it has to go back in. Ever have an enema? That’s what that feels like. I can’t sit right for a good half hour after I shift forms.

- I heard it gets harder as you get older.

Yeah, there’s a limit to how much even our bodies can do. You hit your 40s, it starts taking longer. And it’s achy. All that pressure on the joints. Dominic’s grandma, she’s got arthritis like you wouldn’t believe. Around age 50 or so we just stop. Pick a form and stick with it. We got big families, they take care of you. Of course, most of us never last that long. Wolves, disease, accidents, humans with guns – it’s a tough world out there.

Y’know the hardest part about being a shifter? Clothing. You can’t go walking around in clothes and then shift or they’re just gonna rip right off you. The shes got it easy, they can wear loose dresses. A shirt or a pair of pants, forget it. Or shoes. You don’t want paws in a pair of shoes. Don’t even get me started on underwear. You do NOT want to turn into a canine with briefs on. Most of us just go commando.

We wear flipflops and ponchos if we know for sure we’re gonna shift. Easy to slip on and off. That’s tough to do in the winter, though. You buy a coat that’s three sizes too big and go naked under it and hope it’s still where you left it when you get back.

I’ll tell you what us shifters need. More fashion designers. We need a shifter Ralph Lauren or something. Somebody who can make us clothes that don’t rip when we switch, like a jumpsuit with Velcro or something. It falls off in pieces and when you’re done being a coyote you just tack it back together and off you go. That’d work.

- Any final thoughts?

Yeah. “Twilight’s” a crock. Since when is getting your throat ripped open and your blood sucked out romantic? Vampires aren’t any better than weres, they just got better PR guys. You ladies want the thrill of a lifetime, go find yourself a coyote. Once you go furry, you never go back. Now, how about that lunch?
~~~~~~

COYOTE MOON

Blurb ~

It's that time of the month -- the full moon -- when Willy Alvarez's moods go wonky and her dreams fill up with wolves. A time for hungers she doesn't dare fulfill because they lead to violence. She's resigned herself to a manless life, then Cody Gray arrives.

Cody is cute, funny, charming, and a werecoyote. His nose knows what Willy doesn't: she's half werewolf. He's convinced this repressed half-human she-wolf is his perfect mate. Now he just has to convince her. And quick, because her long-lost pack has learned about her existence, and they've come to town to claim her...
~~~
COYOTE MOON by Pat Cunningham at ~ http://bookstrand.com/product-coyotemoon-14959-330.html ~ Pat’s book has received several top reviews.
~~~~~~

Censorship. What does it really achieve?

I was an avid reader when I was a child, and I was twelve when I discovered Judy Blume. I read many of her books, but when it came to Forever, my mother forbid me to read it. Guess what? I read it anyway. I was completely unmoved. I was too young to understand the sexual dynamics and therefore, didn’t much care. I remember when I read the book, I pictured the characters as old. Like, in their late twenties. Because when I was twelve, that’s what all older people resembled.

I read the book and couldn't understand what all the fuss about.

My point here is not that I was a disobedient child who did whatever the hell I pleased (even though sort of I was) It is that my mother’s choice to ban the book only made it more intriguing to me. To me, being censored by my parents was -at the time- as bad as being censored by others as an adult is to me now.

There will always be people who want censorship. The question to ask them is not “why?” or “how can you presume to know what’s best for others?” but, “do you think censorship really helps anything?” Or does it just hurt?