Blog Guest: Ann Summerville

I welcome author Ann Summerville to my blog. Here we are last summer at a writer event. Ann's new book, Trouble at the Manor, is the fourth in her Lowenna cozy mysteries, and she's ramping up a new series. Let's hear from this prolific author.

What are your current or upcoming works?
I’m currently working on a new series, Pecan Valley. Each book will be based on a quilt pattern. I thought it would be fun to introduce an older protagonist (retirement age). I think my readers will love the new characters.

Excerpt:

Grandmother’s Flower Garden

Bea peeked through the blinds in her kitchen. They were still there, both of them. Two feet clad in mud-covered brown boots protruding, uninvited, from beneath the vines of her sunshine yellow squash or was it a cucumber vine? She couldn’t tell from the window. Regardless of which vegetable patch these boots were invading, she had no doubt that the owner was lifeless. After all, who lies beneath vegetation in someone’s well tended garden in the middle of a Texas summer?

This wasn’t what Bea had anticipated when she told her friends she was starting a new life, moving from the hustle and bustle of the city, moving to the country and she said . . . . Bea paused for a moment, thinking of the words she had used.

“I’ll have a vegetable patch, grow raspberries. I’ll buy storage jars for the vegetables and make jam. Perhaps even pickles.”

But there in the middle of her prized squash . . . Bea lowered one of the blinds with her finger until it resembled a v-shape, scrunched her brow and considered looking for her glasses. No, the feet were definitely pointed toe up among the yellow flowered cucumbers.

What was she to do? The garden club tour was in less than a week and having yellow tape and crime scene people traipsing around just simply wouldn’t do. But regardless which vegetable from the cucumber family had been invaded, this was the second death in as many weeks and she began to reconsider her life changing decision.


Who is your favorite character in your books?

In the Lowenna Series, Rose is my favorite character. She is who she is. She doesn’t do anything to impress anyone, says how she feels and loves her friends dearly.

Any chance of a screenplay from your book? Who would you cast as your leading characters?

I have started writing a screenplay of A Graceful Death, but with such a busy schedule, I haven’t had time to delve deeper into this side of the writing industry.

Where can we buy your book? Advise any contact info.

All my books are available in print on Amazon.com or for e-readers at Amazon.com and Smashwords.com

My books are all listed on my Amazon author page

http://www.amazon.com/Ann-Summerville/e/B005CAPSOG/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_2?qid=1359981500&sr=8-2


Favorite tunes playing as you write?

I prefer quiet when I write. I find music distracting.

Are you consistent in genres of movies/books/TV or do you prefer a variety of entertainment choices?

I mostly like mysteries, and dramas (especially British ones). Of course Downton Abbey is a favorite. I also read mysteries, but I have joined more than one book club this year and that has helped me to read something a little different. I plan to find more biographies this year.

If you could go anywhere on a paid vacation or retreat to write, where would you choose?

Italy would be my first choice. I particularly like Venice, but then the Cornish coast in England would be another lovely retreat, especially as the Lowenna series is based there.

If you won the lottery, but had to give away half the winnings, where would you spread the joy?

Even if it wasn’t a requirement, I’d look into opening a no-kill shelter for animals and also expand our local crisis pregnancy center where I have volunteered for over 20 years.
Do you encounter writer's block? What do you do to get over it?

The only time I ever experience writer’s block is when I’m in a classroom setting and the teacher asks for something written in a few minutes. My mind seems to fly out the window. Otherwise, I never have problems writing. I’ve always got more than one project going on, so if I’m stuck with one project I go on to another one.

Thanks Ann for sharing your thoughts on writing, on your upcoming projects, and for joining Word Splash

Thank you Joanne for inviting me to be a guest on your amazing blog today.

Wordsplash Flash: A New Collection

I'm pleased to launch my second book, a collection of flash fiction tales. Here's the back jacket blurb:

Flash Fiction - Tell a story in less than five hundred words. Capture love, hate, and heat on a page. Enhance characters with dialogue or a sigh. Let them bemoan their fate or choose to persevere.

Wordsplash Flash is a collection of sixty stories, none over five hundred words. The book contains four sections: Love/Hate/Love, Saints & Sins, Labor, and Heat. Lose yourself in a corn maze (Maize), stomp on love (Wrath of Grape), and spit watermelon seeds (Toothless Grin). Meet an underwear model (Brief Encounter) or slog in a factory (Press On).

In our hurry-up environment, you need a break. Take a minute to step out of your world and into the past (1940 Theater) or the future (Too Hot to Cold).

Wordsplash Flash tales offer a respite, a laugh, or what just happened? moments.

It is available on Amazon   both in print and as a Kindle e-book

Book Review: Ideal Bookshelf

I have done more than see movies at the end of 2012. I've been perusing books and collecting reviews which I shall sprinkle on my blog as we stroll through 2013. Let's get started.

My Ideal Bookshelf edited by Thessaly La Force, with original art by Jane Mount is a cool book to browse for the new year. I love bookshelves and the possibilities. You can tell a lot about people by books they choose to keep and display. Consequently, My Ideal Bookshelf  lends insight into other authors' and artists' collections.

In some cases, there's a sense of familiarity - aha moments of great reads (Diary of Anne Frank, tons of Jane Austen) In other cases, choices open up new worlds, authors and books that are strangers to me. The personal essays are thought provoking, amusing, and share the same love of words - a thirst for knowledge, and a yearning to reach beyond one's life and dreams.

Here are a few quotes from the back cover:
My goal as a writer is to do as much as possible at one time. Life itself is so cacophonous and complex...
I want to do justice to the complexity around us - Jennifer Egan

I think books find their way to you when you need them - Roseanne Cash

I think humor needs some kind of tragedy in order to be memorable. The funny things I remember have a twinge of sorrow to them - David Sedaris

Amongst many shelves, I have a favorite featuring David Sedaris, Mary Karr, Calvin Trillin, and other humor/memoirists. In regards to classics, I have all of my Dr.Seuss I read as a child, plus growing into Little Women - a fave.

Ray has a full shelf supporting Stephen King.

What's on your Ideal Bookshelf? 

Meet Annalisa Crawford

 I met Annalisa Crawford through the April 2012 A-Z Blog Challenge. Her blog posts exuded energy and charm. I asked her to be a guest today, and I hope fellow writers/readers check out her blog, book - Cat and the Dreamer and enjoy our meet and greet.

What are your current or upcoming works? I've got a couple of collections I'm working on at the moment. One is a trilogy of novellas set in the same town, and the other is gathering together my previously published short stories. Some of them were published in small press magazines more than 10 years ago - as a result, I'm sure very few people have ever read them!

Who is your favorite character in your books? There's a character called Murray in one of the novellas I mentioned above. He's in a story called The Traveller, and I based him on a couple of lads I had crushes on at school.

Here is an excerpt that introduces Murray:
I watch the stranger enter. As do all the women. We all look up, gazing out from behind the large yellow menus, or peering around the heads of tired, worn-out husbands. We all look up in clumsy unison, so he must have noticed. But he walks solidly towards the bar and faces the wall, pretending otherwise.
The stranger. An odd term to use; all the people in this room are strangers to me. But he is different; he does not belong. He stands out from the other men; not least because the other men are dressed in white shirts and gaudy ties, with heavy jackets slung across the backs of their chairs. They’ve been dressed by girlfriends or wives. And the girlfriends or wives are in pretty maxi-dresses with dainty sandals and too many beaded bracelets.

He – this stranger – is wearing frayed denim cut-offs, heavy black walking boots and a washed out, long-sleeved orange T-shirt. His hair is dark, the curled ends are bleached softly by the sun, his skin is tanned golden. His eyes – should I get that close – will be a smooth rock-grey or deep ocean green. He sweeps both hands through his hair and, for the first time, turns to survey the bar. Female heads swoop conspicuously.
He walks to a table in the middle of the room, drops his rucksack to the floor and slides into the chair in one fluid movement. He lifts his glass, closing his eyes and tilting his head, savouring the taste as though it was his very first. I almost feel the ice-cold lager in my mouth, the fine tingle of white froth on my lips, the droplets clinging to the rim. Women stare, caught up in fantasy, but as his gaze scans the room they lower their eyes and shrink back into their chairs in an inverted Mexican Wave.


I focus on his rucksack, which is large and straining. So he is not a Stranger, after all, but a Traveller

Any chance of a screenplay from your book? Who would you cast as your leading characters? Years ago it would have been Johnny Depp - no question! But he's a bit too old for that part now, so I'll go for Ashton Kutcher


Favorite tunes playing as you write Currently, I'm listening to the radio. But I'm also listening to The Vaccines. The music I listen to changes with each project.

Last movie viewed. HP & The Deathly Hallows, pts 1 and 2 with my kids. I haven't watched the other films, but I love the books. I just really wanted to watch the last installment.

If you could go anywhere on a paid vacation or retreat to write, where would you choose? Probably Canada. Somewhere a little bit cooler which would make me want to be inside, all wrapped up, but with a really good view of a lake.

If you won the lottery, but had to give away half the winnings, where would you spread the joy? As many charities as I could that were involved with children, diabetes and cancer.

Do you encounter writer's block? What do you do to get over it? Yes I do! To get over it, I gather together all my previously published stories and work at making them into a collection!


Thank you Annalisa for being a guest today, and good luck in all writing endeavors. Enjoy your summer.