Sneak Peek: Please, no eyes

Today we have a sneak peek from author JD Mader’s collection of literary fiction short stories: Please, no eyes.

Please, no eyes. is a collection of short stories written over the span of a decade. Many of them are set in San Francisco. They are glimpses into lives. Ugly, beautiful, and often both, these stories evoke deep empathy through deeper character development. All are steeped in Mader’s raw, gritty style. Music, mayhem, and sometimes love…they bloom in the strangest places. These are fictional stories, but they are really about all of us. Mader and his characters have at least one thing in common: they want only to live in fiction, as water flows through trembling hands.

Please, no eyes is available from Amazon and Amazon UK.

And now, an excerpt from Please, no eyes….

Continue reading “Sneak Peek: Please, no eyes”

Featured Author: Karen Wojcik Berner

Karen Wojcik Berner grew up on the outskirts of Chicago. She graduated from Dominican University with degrees in English with a concentration in writing  and communications.

Karen has worked as a magazine editor, public relations coordinator, and freelance writer. She is a two-time “Folio Magazine” Ozzie Award winner for Excellence in Magazine Editorial and Design. Her work has appeared in countless newspapers and magazines. She lives in the Chicago suburbs with her family.

Karen writes contemporary literary fiction with a sprinkling of the classics. Her Bibliophiles series explores the lives of fictional American suburban book club members. The first, A Whisper to a Scream, centers on Sarah, a stay-at-home mother of two, and Annie, a PR executive with fertility issues, each of whom thinks the other’s life is far superior to her own. Until My Soul Gets It Right chronicles Catherine Elbert’s journey as she bounces from coast to coast in search of her true self.

To learn more about Karen, please visit her website, www.karenberner.com or her Amazon.com author page. Continue reading “Featured Author: Karen Wojcik Berner”

10 Things That Can Harsh Your Book-to-Movie Buzz

The biggest hope of many authors these days is having a book adapted to film. Screw the Big 6/5/4 (whatever) Publishers. When there’s a starburst on your book cover that reads “Now a major motion picture,” you’ve really made it.

Still, few authors are going to have the kind of clout needed to call the shots about translating the book to the screen. That is very likely going to mean the movie will be different from the book, and WAY different than you imagined it.

An author’s artistic integrity is a precious thing. We also hope that a great movie will drive book sales even higher.

Sadly, Hollywood doesn’t always get it right. Here is my list of the top ten different ways Hollywood can snatch failure from the jaws of success in making an adaptation: Continue reading “10 Things That Can Harsh Your Book-to-Movie Buzz”