Tampa Book Buzz

winners of inkwood books’ third annual get caught reading contest

Inkwood Books has posted the winning photo from its 3rd Annual Get Caught Reading Contest.

miami herald on book promotion

The Miami Herald recently had a good article for authors on book promotion.

(from the Florida Horror Writers Yahoo! group)

book buzz:boy versus girl by john a. pristell

Boy Versus Girl by John A. Pristell, ISBN 1-4259-0307-X

Many different colors come in the same box of crayons,
No one better than the other but each has a unique shade on,
Occasion,
They get out and mingle with crayons of the opposite box,
Whose occupants slightly differ in composition and in thought,
But offers the same colors, 

In Boy Versus Girl, local author John A. Pristell examines the many facets of relationships, including searching for true love, the pain of unrequieted love, the unwritten rules of paying for the tenth date, Valentine’s Day, and the joy and torture of first love.

While the rhyming scheme sometimes feels forced and having most poems end with a comma instead of a period is annoying (and perhaps an unfortunate typographical error?), Pristell’s enthusiasm is evident and his steadfast belief in love is encouraging.

Book Buzz Barometer: C-

Pristell’s website is http://www.boyversusgirl.com/.

turner classic movies’ november giveaway

There’s still time to enter the November book giveaway sweepstakes at Turner Classic Movies’ website. This month’s book is Still Moving:The Film and Media Collections of The Museum of Modern Art by Steven Higgins. Click here to enter or to read about this book.

venice readers’ rialto on december 10

Here’s some info for those readers and authors a bit south of the Tampa Bay area (info from the FWA Sarasota Chapter’s newsletter):

SANDDOLLAR BOOKSTORE
272 Miami Avenue
West Venice, FL 34285
(941) 480-1930

Sanddollar Bookstore cordially invites you to our First Annual Venice Readers’ Rialto to be held on Sunday, the 10th of December, 2006, from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm.  In an effort to promote local authors especially, we will have a tent, tables, and activities in the lot of the Pattison Building, here on the isle of Venice.

8 tables will be available under-tent, with an additional 6 tables uncovered.  These will be 8-foot tables charged at $75.00 under-tent; $50.00 outside. Seating and water will be provided, and all sales are your own unless you’d prefer to make arrangements for our store to handle any transactions.

Due to limited space, tables will be apportioned on a first-reserved basis, so do respond as soon as possible to get a spot.  (Halving tables between authors is encouraged), and if response is sufficient, we may add more tables.  This is our first effort to bring out the readers of Venice and we hope to make it a success.

There will be advertising in the local print media and direct-marketed flyers posted and handed-out throughout affiliated businesses.  Let’s give Sarasota a run for its money!

We especially appreciate the efforts of the FWA and look forward to seeing their participation in this event.  If you have any questions, concerns, etc., feel free to call.

Thank you.

Sviat Makohon and Peggy Sienecki

SANDDOLLAR BOOKSTORE
272 Miami Avenue West
Venice, FL  34285
Ph # (941) 480-1930
Fax # (941) 412-9357
Email : nomadly(at)yahoo.com

book buzz:know where you going? you gotta know where you been! by barbara j. sorey

Know Where You Going? You Gotta Know Where You Been! by Barbara J. Sorey ISBN 978-0-595-37610-0

Barbara J. Sorey’s love of history, family and geneology is evident in her book Know Where You Going? You Gotta Know Where You Been!, in which she shares stories of her life as an African-American growing up in Clearwater, Florida, during segregation. Sorey writes about family vacations, how her parents met, the excitement of moving to a new home, the bonds of family and neighborhood, and her experiences at church and school. She often provides too much information for the casual reader, however, with passages like:

The Davis family lived next door to us. Mr. Jessie Davis was the head of the family. His wife’s name was Sally. They had two daughters, Alma and Gertrude. Gertrude, the eldest daughter, was married to Mr. Fred. They had no children. Alma, it seemed, was always between marriages and had a whole lot of children! Her eldest children were two boys around the same age as Jeannette and I, Ricky and Robert Samuel. The other children, Larry, Thad, Alma, Sally and Jessica, were born later. There were two houses on their property. Mr. and Mrs. Davis lived in the main house with Alma and her kids. Gertrude and Mr. Fred lived in the second house behind the main house.

Such detail, while admirable, makes this book a sometimes-difficult read for someone who is unfamiliar with Sorey’s family or neighborhood. Those readers who share this familiarity, or who have a strong interest in local history, will find Know Where You Going? You Gotta Know Where You Been! to be a richly-detailed trip down memory lane.

Book Buzz Barometer: C-

Sorey blogs at http://goldanddiamond.spaces.live.com/.

possible film and TV show based on local author t.j. waters’ book

St. Pete author T. J. Waters’ new book Class 11:Inside the CIA’s First Post-9/11 Spy Class is about the group of American citizens who volunteered for the CIA after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Here’s the description Waters gave me:

From 170,000 applicants, the CIA selected just over 100 Americans to make up the first class of spy trainees to volunteer after the attacks.  We came from every possible profession and social strata:  an NFL alumni and a police negotiator, a commercial airline pilot and private chef, a single mom and the fiancee of a 9/11 victim. There were investment bankers from New York, lawyers from Georgia, military officers from Texas, and software programmers from Silicon Valley.  The only common denominator among the group was the desire to serve our country in its time of need. 

These officers are now deployed worldwide.  Yes, many of them are in Iraq and Afghanistan, but others are engaged in projects not commonly associated with the CIA.  Class 11 officers witnessed and reported the genocide in Darfur, the tidal wave in Indonesia, child trafficking in Asia, and the recent political upheaval in South America.  It was a remarkable assembly of people who took a radical detour from their otherwise comfortable, midcareer lives after 9/11.  It is my pleasure to introduce them to you, even at arm’s length to protect their undercover status.

Waters has been interviewed on Fox News Live and on multiple radio programs and networks.  20th Century Fox and Roundtable Entertainment have optioned the film rights and are developing a pilot for ABC’s fall 2007 television schedule (congratulations, Waters!).

Visit www.tjwaters.com to purchase or to read an excerpt of Class 11, to see some spy tools, or to learn more about this Bay area author.

quote of the day

A well-composed book is a magic carpet on which we are wafted to a world that we cannot enter in any other way. — Caroline Gorden

(taken from the Florida Writers Association Sarasota Chapter’s November newsletter)

poet kimberly johnson at usf november 20

The University of South Florida (USF) is bringing Dr. Kimberly Johnson in for a poetry reading on November 20.  Here’s the info from the flyer I received:

POETRY READING

Kimberly Johnson

Grace Allen Room, November 20th 4:00 PM

Kimberly Johnson’s first poetry collection, Leviathan with a Hook, was published by Persea Books in 2002; her second collection, A Metaphorical God, was completed with the support of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and is forthcoming from Persea Books in 2008. In addition to being an award-winning poet, Dr. Johnson is also a gifted translator and Renaissance scholar. Having completed recently a magisterial translation of Virgil’s Georgics, she is currently working on a critical study of self-feminization in seventeenth-century religious poetry entitled Brides of Christ and is co-editing with Michael Schoenfeldt and Richard Strier a volume of scholarly essays on seventeenth-century literature. Dr. Johnson has earned degrees from the University of Utah, the Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the University of California, Berkeley. Her work has appeared most recently, or is forthcoming, in The New Yorker, The Iowa Review, Prairie Schooner, Harvard Review, Slate, Saw Palm, Southern Review, Southern Humanities Review, Western Humanities Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Journal, 32 Poems, National Poetry Review, Hotel Amerika and Arion.

This event was made possible by the generous support of the Humanities Institute.  For more information about this reading, please contact Professor Jay Hopler at jhopler(at)cas.usf.edu.

augusten burroughs comments on film adaptation of his book

Click here to go to the Writer’s Blog to read Augusten Burroughs’ comments about the film adaptation of his novel Running With Scissors. 

Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs is the TBB Online Book Club pick for this month.  The Tampa Book Buzz Online Book Club is housed at Target’s Bookmarked website.  Each month we pick a book to read and discuss on the Bookmarked site.  During the month, I’ll post tidbits about the author and/or the book here.  At the end of the month, I’ll tell you what I thought of the book and hopefully you’ll do the same.  Email me at tampafilmfan (at) aol.com for more info.