OPPORTUNITY: TWO BOOK-GIVE-A-WAYS
Gayle Aanensen’s new 88 page novella, GREATER THAN GOLD hit the book shelves this week. It is now available on Amazon and will appeal to anyone who celebrates Christmas.
Greater than Gold is the story of two troubled boys and their two Christmases—Oscar in the present day, and Omar way back in biblical time. A good description would be The Polar Express meets The Book of Luke. After all, if a magical train ride can restore a boy’s belief in Santa Claus, why can’t an angel time-travel Oscar back to Bethlehem, where he discovers the peace, joy (and danger!) of the very first Christmas. Twelve-year-old Oscar Olsen is missing his soldier Dad, and he wants nothing (repeat, nothing) to do with Christmas this year! He acts out his anger on his Mom, his friend, Melissa, and even the strange new kid in church, Albert. A young, inexperienced angel, still struggling to control her wings, appears in Oscar’s bedroom. She tells Oscar that her official alphanumerical name is too long, so he can call her Earth Angel 10. She whirls him back to 2,000 years ago, where he becomes Omar, an orphaned camel-boy, riding with the Magi. Omar is a brand-new person in the traditional nativity story. Young readers will be drawn into the boys’ two parallel stories, told in alternating chapters.
Ten days ago, I featured Margo Sorenson new book, SPAGHETTI SMILES and forgot to offer everyone a chance to win a copy her wonderful book illustrated by David Harrington who was featured on Illustrator Saturday. So we are offering the book give-a-way this week.
So if you leave a comment to this post you will automatically have a chance to win GREATER THAN GOLD OR SPAGHETTI SMILES.
If you reblog, tweet, post on your facebook page you will get an extra ticket with your name paced in the hat. This will definitely up your chances for winning one of the books. You can comment now and then do the other things later, but please come back before the deadline and let me know how many things you did. Both will make a nice gift for the holidays. Good luck!
The Unusual Stew by Robert Zammarchi was voted as the best Halloween poem. His prize is a featured post right here on Writing and Illustrating. He can choose to use it right away or hold on to it for when he wants to talk about something special. Thank you to everyone who submitted poems and to everyone who voted.
I think everyone enjoyed this, so I am going to do the same thing for Thanksgiving. If you have a poem or an illustration inspired by the holiday, please email it to me at: Kathy(dot)temean(at)gmail.com – Please put THANKSGIVING POEM or THANKSGIVING ILLUSTRATION in the Subject Box.

Agent Alex Slater
Remember to submit your first pages for this month. It is the last one for this year.
The four winning first pages will be sent to Alex Slater from Trident Media for critique. PLEASE DO NOT SUBMIT IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO HAVE YOUR CRITIQUE POSTED.
Here are the guidelines for submitting a First Page in November:
In the subject line, please write “November First Page Critique” and paste the text in the email. Please make sure you include your name, the title of the piece, and whether it is as picture book, middle grade, or young adult, etc. at the top.
Plus attach your first page Word doc. to email. Format using one inch margins and 12 point New Times Roman font – double space – no more than 23 lines. First page should not be submitted with two pages. Send to: kathy(dot)temean(at)gmail(dot)com.
PLEASE FOLLOW THE GUIDELINES: Last month a number of submissions were taken out of the mix, due to not following the directions for both the pasted email and the attached Word doc.
DEADLINE: November 24th.
RESULTS: November 28th.
Talk tomorrow,
Kathy
Congrats to Robert on the win! And you bet I’d love a book! SPAGHETTI SMILES looks right up my alley! lol
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By: writersideup on November 14, 2014
at 1:33 am
Who wouldn’t want a chance to win one of these awesome books. I tweeted, posted to FB and reblogged. Best of luck to the authors!
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By: darlenebeckjacobson on November 14, 2014
at 12:16 pm
Reblogged this on Darlene Beck-Jacobson and commented:
For a chance to win one of these great new books, go to the website and leave a comment.
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By: darlenebeckjacobson on November 14, 2014
at 12:17 pm
Kathy, thank you so much for doing this! Writersideup and darlenebeckjacobson, grazie mille for joining in the fun! 🙂
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By: Margo Sorenson (@ipapaverison) on November 14, 2014
at 12:46 pm
It’s OUR pleasure, Margo! 😀
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By: writersideup on November 14, 2014
at 2:04 pm
Spaghetti Smiles and Greater Than Gold – thanks for the giveaways. I tweeted too.
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By: sspratt2010 on November 14, 2014
at 4:41 pm
Grazie mille, sspratt!
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By: Margo Sorenson on November 14, 2014
at 5:32 pm
Thanks for the inspiration!
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By: katmaz2012 on November 14, 2014
at 5:51 pm
I’m a new Dave Harrington fan; would love to win his Spaghetti Smiles book. Thanks for entering me.
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By: Carol Federlin Baldwin on November 14, 2014
at 7:53 pm
Ciao, katmaz2012 and Carol Federlin Baldwin — Grazie for stopping by! Yes, I am a David Harrington fan, too! 🙂 Glad you could be inspired, katmaz2012!
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By: Margo Sorenson (@ipapaverison) on November 14, 2014
at 8:39 pm
I’d love to win Spaghetti Smiles. It looks like such a fun book!
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By: piroska on November 15, 2014
at 9:11 pm
Thanks for a blog continually packed with useful information. I love learning about new artists and authors here. I’ve been dying to get my hands on a copy of Spaghetti Smiles since I read about it here. Thanks. I’m off to send a giveaway tweet!
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By: Joanne Roberts on November 15, 2014
at 11:15 pm
Wonderful, Joanne! Kathy is amazing, isn’t she? Grazie mille for your post and tweet!
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By: Margo Sorenson (@ipapaverison) on November 16, 2014
at 10:37 am
Amazing 🙂 would love the opportunity to be enthralled in this story.
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By: Emma on November 17, 2014
at 11:07 am
Grazie, Emma! Thank you for visiting Kathy’s special blog! A presto!
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By: Margo Sorenson (@ipapaverison) on November 18, 2014
at 11:47 pm
Spaghetti Smiles is my kind of picture book. Would love to win it. Thanks for the chance.
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By: gayleckrause on November 18, 2014
at 1:14 am
Allora, gayleckrause, thank you for your kind words about SPAGHETTI SMILES. The illustrator and I have been having a lot of fun with it, and, thanks to wonderful bloggers like Kathy, the word is getting out. Grazie for stopping by! 🙂
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By: Margo Sorenson (@ipapaverison) on November 18, 2014
at 11:48 pm