Book EXtravaganza – Book Winners – Cover Reveals Kudos – Writing Contest

OPPORTUNITY:

2021 Writing and Illustrating Holidays Book Extravaganza Feature with Book Giveaway

It’s time for this year’s Holiday Book Giveaway Extravaganza. If you have a book that you would like see featured and can send the winner a copy, please email me to let me know you would like to be featured. The book does not have to be published this year. It is open to authors whose books were already featured, since it would give people a second chance to win a copy.

You will need to write up your journey with the book, send me your photo and bio, plus send me six interior art .jpgs (at least 500 pixels wide). These spots fill up fast, so make sure you snag a spot early. Please title the email 2021 Book Extravaganza Feature and send it to: kathy(dot)temean@hotmail.com. Thank you!

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BOOK WINNERS:

Darlene Beck Jacobson won MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD by Rochelle Melander

Dedra Davis won MEENA’S MINDFUL MOMENT by Tina Athaide

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CONGRATULATIONS to Amy Leskowski. She just signed with Agent Keely Boeving. This is part of the note she sent me, “I’m not sure I would have known about Keely if it hadn’t been for your feature on her. Then when she critiqued my PB first page on your blog, I queried her right away (after revising accordingly) and have just signed with her! I’m a Kathy-Temean’s-blog success story! I will be sure to point to your site whenever I share how I got my agent. I’m grateful for the service you provide to growing and querying writers.”

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COVER REVEALS:

BELOW ARE TWO FUN COVERS AND BOOKS COMING OUT NEXT YEAR.

KENDRA HENTHORN’S PICTURE BOOK BAA, BAA TAP SHEEP, ILLUSTRATED BY LAUREN GALLEGOS. 

PUBLISHED BY SLEEPING BEAR PRESS COMING OUT ON APRIL 15, 2022 

ALSO COMING OUT ON APRIL 15, 2022 FROM SLEEPING BEAR PRESS. 

AUTHOR SOPHIA GHOLZ and ILLUSTRATOR SUSAN BATORI FOR BUG ON THE RUG

CONGRATULATIONS EVERYONE! 

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NO FEE POETRY CONTEST:

New York Encounter, an annual three-day public cultural event in the heart of New York City, is sponsoring its 6th annual poetry contest in celebration of its 2022 theme: This Urge for the Truth.

The contest is open to all poets writing in English. There is no entrance fee, and cash prizes of $300, $200 and $100 will be awarded to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners, who will be invited to read their poems during the 2022 Encounter (Feb. 18-20). The winning poems will be published on the NYE website after the reading. Our guest judge is Mary Szybist: poet, professor, and winner of the 2013
National Book Award for Poetry.

See last year’s winning poems.

Submission Guidelines:

▪ Send 1 unpublished poem, IN THE BODY OF AN EMAIL, to: nyepoetry2022@gmail.com.
▪ The poem must respond to the theme (see description below).
▪ Type your NAME as the subject line of your email.

Submission Deadline: Monday, November 15, 2021

This Urge for the Truth

A pandemic turned the whole world upside down. Millions of people died, and their relatives and friends have had to cope with suffering and death. Nobody could avoid, at least for one moment, some radical questions:
Why do we have to suffer and die? What is the meaning of all of this? Is there nothing I can do? What can I rely on? Feeling ill at ease, we moved on to less unsettling questions: Is Covid really dangerous? Are masks necessary? Should vaccination be mandatory? For many of us, our political affiliations provided “answers” to these questions, inviting us to follow a party line rather than search for the truth.

This same dynamic, fueled by the media and online communities we choose to trust, happens all the time in our public life: whether the election was fair or stolen; whether a demonstration was a protest or a riot; whether racism is systemic; whether gender is related to biological sex; whether climate change is real. It seems we live in different worlds, each with its own “truths” that often spare us the hard work of seeking the truth. But at what price?

Reality no longer surprises us. It is twisted to fit to our interpretations, and its meaning is purely subjective. Its impact does not open questions which would set us on a journey and, after a while, even the most tragic events do not change our minds. As a result, we feel both trapped in our certitudes and afraid of the unexpected. We are left dissatisfied, with the nagging feeling that we are losing ourselves. And yet, a subtle, relentless desire for what is true remains.

Can we ever know what is real and who is trustworthy? Why does truth matter? And how can we reach it?

“One day the wanderer slammed a door shut behind him, came to a halt, and wept. Then he
said: ‘This penchant and urge for what is true, real, non-apparent, certain—how I hate it!’”
—Friedrich Nietzsche, The Joyous Science

Talk Tomorrow,

Kathy