Need a last minute Halloween recipe? How ’bout Dead Witches Fingers? They’re suitably ghoulish. See the Wolfy Chicks blog. Author Judith Graves shows you how to make these delightfully gruesome treats.
Pair them with Blood-flavored Ice Cream–a recipe by author Kitty Keswick.
Two treats sure to make your guests howl.
Author Kimberlee Mendoza is giving away a free copy of her YA book, Trick to Treat. Find out more at the Climbing Rose website.
Sarah Bradley has wanted to hang with the popular kids since her freshman year, and now she has the chance. All she has to do is survive a Halloween scavenger hunt with the “in” crowd. When the girls lock her in a haunted mansion, she feels the trick is on her. Then she meets Matt and begins to believe that maybe she got a treat after all. But what if “love” is part of the game?
Often writing is an opportunity to free yourself from the chains of the past. To loose the bonds holding you captive, preventing your spirit from soaring. But for me, that freedom always comes with a price tag—guilt. Writing is fun. Losing myself in another world, becoming brave and strong, fearless in the face of danger, is a guilty pleasure. I avoid writing because I enjoy it so much.
When I indulge, my conscience whispers, “Anything that feels this good must be a sin.”
So I put duty before pleasure and crowd out the siren call of the empty page. It’s easier to clean closets or scrub toilets than to pour out my soul on the page. It’s easier to meet deadlines for copyediting or to critique other people’s work than to free my heart. It’s easier to engage in busywork or to cross off items on my to-do list than to let my imagination soar.
Now what’s your excuse?
Well, sort of… Not sure what you call it when a plastic figure dresses up for Halloween, but I thought this post from Bonnie Blogs Green was humorous. Bonnie, a Leap Books author whose eco-mystery Island Sting is coming out in January, surrounds herself with Green Teens. And two of them combined their artistic talents to make an environmentally friendly costume for a plastic figure Bonnie rescued after a storm.
Mr. Pumpkin Head
You’ll have to look closely to see who’s hidden under that Pumpkin Head, but I guarantee it’ll be a familiar face.Want to know if you guessed correctly?? Stop by Bonnie Blogs Green, where she unmasks this mysterious stranger.
And while you’re there, check out her other eco-friendly posts.
Leap Books is offering some graveyard fun. Check it out. And while you’re at the site, take a peek at their new Exclusives–2 fab stories set in cemeteries. Perfect for this time of year. Better yet, they feature vampires—what more could you ask? If you need a few shivers to keep you on edge this Halloween season, LEAP on over.
And for a recipe for even more haunting fun, try the directions for the Leap Gravestone Art. It’s definitely art to die for…
Come join me in the closest graveyard for a hauntingly good time.
Entertaining any VAMPS this Halloween? Want to serve them blood-flavored ice cream? Author Kitty Keswick offers a recipe at http://
leapbks.blogspot.com/2009/10/blood-flavored-ice-cream-anyone.html.
And that’s not the only fun. While you’re there, check out the free spooky reads: My Prom Date’s a Vampire and Old Flames Die Hard. Get ready for a romp through the graveyard and some spine-tingling fun.
Somehow Banned Books Week passed me by. It’s not the only thing I missed. Juggling so many projects causes me to totally lose track of time. But I did want to give a shout out to this Banned Books Week topic at Lily Stone’s blog: Should This Cover Be Banned?
When I was a librarian, I always got excited when Banned Books Week arrived, because I loved putting up Banned Books displays and hearing people say, “That was banned?” Then they’d stare in horror at some of the classics, and many of their favorite titles.
Once when I was putting up a Banned Books display in a case at a nearby mall, a man almost physically attacked me because I put a Bible in the shelf. He elbowed me aside and snatched the Bible. A tug of war ensued; I wasn’t about to let him steal library property.
I tried to “talk him down” by sympathizing with his distress. I agreed the Bible should have never been banned. Nor, I pointed out, should the other books. As I talked, he reluctantly loosened his grip, and eventually went away muttering that people who banned books should be shot. Not exactly my intent, but I did manage to get my point across.
Now I’m championing another cause: a banned book cover. Lily Stone’s blog gave most of the facts. Some teachers don’t want this cover in their classrooms because of the bullet holes and blood.
Should you ban a book cover as too violent if the story’s about endangered Key deer being poached? And what about the educational value author Bonnie J. Doerr packed into its pages? As a former Science teacher, Doerr wants to get teens excited about caring for the environment. She’s planned lessons to relate the novel to many different areas of the curriculum. Wouldn’t it be a shame if this message never reached the intended audience?
I love Banned Books week because it represents freedom of choice–a privilege supported by the U.S. Constitution. Let’s allow our writers and artists to create by appreciating their visions rather than banning them.
