Swing Sideways – Book Giveaway & Journey

Congratulations to Laurel Decher – She is the winner of SWING SIDEWAYS!

Please contact me with your address!

Congratulations to Nanci Turner Steveson for her debut book, SWING SIDEWAYS. She has agreed to do a book giveaway, so all you have to do to get in the running for win Nanci’s new book, is to leave a comment. Reblog, tweet, or talk about it on facebook with a link and you will get additional chances to win. Just let me know the other things you did to share the good news, so I can put in the right amount of tickets in my basket for you. Please make sure you check back on June 27th to discover the winner. Make sure I will be able to find and email for you, too.

BOOK DESCRIPTION:

Perfect for fans of Bridge to Terabithia and Walk Two Moons, this debut middle grade novel is the story of two girls and the unforgettable summer in which they learn about true friendship and loss.

Annie has been promised a summer of freedom in the country. Freedom from a difficult school year, freedom from her fake “friends” back in the city, and, most of all, freedom from her mom’s life-governing spreadsheets and rigid schedules.

When Annie meets California, who is visiting her grandfather’s farm, it seems she has found the perfect partner for the summer she’s always craved. Especially when California offers Annie a real-life adventure: if she and Annie can find the ponies her mom rode as a girl, surely it will remind her mom how wonderful the farm is—and fix what’s broken between her mom and her grandfather.

But Annie’s summer of freedom is sprinkled with secrets, and everything she has learned about bravery and love will be put to the test when the truth behind the ultimate secret changes her life forever.

THE JOURNEY:

When I was a little girl my family lived in England for several years. I was given a 33 rpm record of Vivian Leigh (aka: Scarlett O’Hara) narrating Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny. I grew up in a house full of books and readers, but this recording was my introduction to the beauty of a story. In fact, I loved and played that record so much, my older brother pretended there was an accident and my beautiful record mysteriously got snapped in two.

In school, I couldn’t wait to learn to read and write. See Jane run. See Dick run. Those are the first words I remember reading by myself on a page. Then, at age nine, I read Black Beauty for the first time and everything changed. I have a clear memory of turning that last page and knowing I would be a writer someday. In fact, I sat down right then and wrote my first “novel” which I still have, ivory construction paper stapled at the top, complete with home drawn illustrations and a story about a wild horse named Liberty.

I took a different path to publication than most, and it took me a lot longer to get it done. I wrote stories all the time. In my early twenties I wrote what I thought was a brilliant moving, beautiful story and sent it to my editor brother. It came back with so many red pen marks on it, a less dedicated person would have given up right then and there. But I didn’t. I knew I was supposed to be an author. I knew I was going to write for kids, and there would always be horses or ponies involved.

I was a single Mom from the time my kids were young, so I often worked two or three jobs. But I still wrote, late into the night. In 2000 I quit my “business suit” job to follow my heart and manage a large equestrian center. Seven years later, I left that job because the call to write was so strong and the hours required to manage at huge equestrienne center left me no time, no creative energy to write. I went back to a job I could do with my eyes closed and leave every day at 5:00, fresh and ready to write into the night.

Once I started writing in earnest, I joined SCBWI and attended every single conference I could manage. I had the good fortune to meet Kathy Temean, at that time the RA for the NJ-SCBWI, and through lots of volunteering, I was able to meet and network with many agents and editors I otherwise would not have met. At conferences, I got every critique I could afford and listened carefully to what each editor, agent, or author said to me. I kept writing, and then branched out to retreat and learn through the Highlights Foundation workshops, where I worked under the mentorship of Patty Lee Gauch, Kathi Appelt, Janet Fox, and more wonderful teachers. And I kept reading and writing.

I attended workshops in Austin at The Writing Barn, and hired Bethany Hegedus to work with me one on one. And I listened. I met a friend who would become my long distance critique partner, and I listened.

See the common thread? I read constantly, and I wrote constantly, and I listened. Not all critiques helped me write my story, but they ALL, in some way or another, helped me on my journey.

On January 1, 2011, I finished reading Sharon Creech’s Walk Two Moons, put it down, and Swing Sideways started spilling out of me. It went through many revisions before being ready to submit, but the story is one that I felt so strongly needed to be told.

I met my agent in a very unusual way. He is the founder of Writers House, Al Zuckerman, who has so many Pulitzer Prize winning authors on his client list he was totally off my radar. But, he loved my writing and signed me. In 2014 we sold my first book, Swing Sideways, to Rosemary Brosnan at HarperCollins in a two book contract, and I was placed under the editorial direction of an editor who turned out to be The Perfect Match for me, Andrew Harwell. Swing Sideways launched on May 3 of this year. It has received some stellar reviews from important publications, and was chosen as one of only four books for the HarperCollins School and Library Team New Voices Program. My second book, Georgia Rules, (unrelated to SS), comes out summer 2017, and I am currently working on a third middle grade book in the same literary style as the first two.

NANCI’S BIO:

Nanci Turner Steveson writes for middle grade readers and is an active member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. She studied under the mentorship of award winning authors Kathi Appelt, Patty Lee Gauch, and Bethany Hegedus.

At home in Wyoming, Nanci is on the Board of Directors of the Jackson Hole Writers Conference, and is the Teen Creative Writing Instructor at the Teton County Library in Jackson Hole. She works as a Stage Manager for Off Square Theatre Company, with her heart tied closest to the annual Youth Musical Production. One of Nanci’s greatest ambitions is to work with kids and inspire them to become two-fisted readers, like herself, and allow their own creativity to soar through the beauty of creative writing.

A life-long horse girl, Nanci lives in a historic meadow cabin in the shadow of the Teton mountains with two horses, two dogs, and an assortment of elk, moose, great gray owls and the occasional black bear who wander down from the national forest outside her back door. After a profound experience in 2009, Nanci is dedicated to getting books into the hands of homeless people, especially in shelters that house children, through her Literacy for Hope Project.

Nanci, it will be so much fun to read your book, after following it all the way to publication. So proud of you.

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy