Holiday Gifts from the Heart #GivingTuesday

Here it is. My annual gift-giving post. ❤🎁 There’s something for everyone on your list.

I usually post mid to late December for last-minute ideas but I’m posting early for Giving Tuesday (which takes place on November 30th this year). (If you shop on Giving Tuesday, most organizations will match, double, or even triple your gift.) Enjoy!

Quick, easy, heartfelt. ❤🎁 Perfect for Giving Tuesday (and last-minute gifts):

Environment / Nature

ARBOR DAY FOUNDATION

Mission: “to help others understand and use trees as a solution to many of the global issues we face today, including air quality, water quality, a changing climate, deforestation, poverty, and hunger.”

These Trees in Celebration certificates are lovely and every single dollar you spend plants a tree. (For Giving Tuesday, every dollar you spend plants two trees.) They have other fun gifts here like delicious, rich, rain forest coffee. Every sip helps the world. Because. Trees. Behold the beautiful trees! 🌲

• About Arbor Day Foundation

Animals / Wildlife 

ASPCA

Mission: “animals are entitled to kind and respectful treatment at the hands of humans and must be protected…”

Show your love for our four-legged friends. Give a holiday gift card in honor of a beloved furchild. I can’t stand the cuteness of that puppy. You know you want to help these little munchkins. Available in snail mail cards or ecards.

• About ASPCA

Hunger / Poverty

HEIFER INTERNATIONAL

Mission: “to end hunger and poverty in a sustainable way by supporting and investing alongside local farmers and their communities.”

Choose a donation and mail, print it out, or email with a custom message to the gift recipient. Or you can give a gift card (to print out or send via email) so they can choose their own donation.

My personal favorite gift to give is honeybees. They are awesome. Here are 2 reasons why:

“Food for Life: Honey is the only food that includes all the essential elements necessary to sustain life, including enzymes, vitamins, minerals and even water. Its unique chemical makeup also allows it to be preserved indefinitely.”

“Farmers’ Helpers: In the process of searching for nectar, bees pollinate plants. The placement of a single colony can potentially double local fruit and vegetable yields.”

Isn’t that incredible? It’s the bee’s knees. 🐝

•  About Heifer International

KIVA

Mission: “to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty. We celebrate and support people looking to create a better future for themselves, their families and their communities.”

Mail, print these out, or email them to the gift recipient and they can start loaning right away. Change someone’s life, get paid back, help someone else… And on it goes. Making spirits bright.

• About Kiva

Childhood Cancer/Childhood Diseases

ST. JUDE CHILDREN’S RESEARCH HOSPITAL

Mission: “Finding cures. Saving children. St. Jude is leading the way the world understands, treats and defeats childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases.”

Please do check out the site if you don’t already know about St. Jude Children’s Hospital. And, if you do, well… ‘Nuff said.

Mail a card or send an email

• About St. Jude Children’s Hospital

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

About Giving Tuesday

Use the hashtags #GivingTuesday and #GivingTuesday2021 on social media to spread the word and find tons of ways to help this holiday season! 

 ❄️ Have a beautiful holiday season! ❄️

The Shadows We Breathe ~ Vol. 2 #NewRelease

It’s here! 🥂🖤 🎉

The Shadows We Breathe (Volume 2) is now available in eBook and paperback!

eBook

Paperback

Thank you to the talented authors who contributed their gorgeous prose to this anthology of short fiction. You are all amazing. 

To Loni Townsend for the beautiful cover art. And to Allie Potts for her help with some icky techy stuff and for creating the 3D image of this book.

Blurb

WE ARE ALL PART SHADOW 

Life promises joy and sorrow. Alongside the light, there will always be traces of darkness. It is the nature of being human.

In this anthology of short fiction, we explore health—how the state of our bodies and minds nurtures us, damages us, and forms our reality.

Eight artists, whose words paint worlds, bring you stories of pain, confusion, acceptance, and courage. They reveal the conflicting and contrasting nature of health.

Whether mental or physical, our state of being can create chaos or bring us peace.

Within these pages, beautiful words are spun into tales threaded with darkness.

Discover the shadows we breathe. 

Contributors 💕

Georgia Bell is the author of Unbound, a young adult paranormal romance about love, fear, and immortality. She was raised on a steady diet of science fiction and fantasy and began writing the stories she wanted to read over a decade ago.

Author Page | Twitter

Ruth Daly’s poetry, humour, fiction, non-fiction, and contemplative pieces have been published in magazines for children, young adults, and families. She has written 59 children’s books for educational publishers covering such varied topics as musical instruments, endangered animals, rocks and minerals, and explorers.

Blog | Twitter

Ali Isaac is a writer and blogger living in Co. Cavan, Ireland. In 2020, she was awarded a writing mentorship by Words Ireland and the Arts Council of Ireland, working under the guidance of author, Sara Baume. Her writing has been published in The Stinging Fly, Sonder, and Paper Lanterns.

Author Page | Twitter

R.A. Kerr is a life-long classic film enthusiast and has been blogging about old movies for a decade. She is also a freelance writer and editor, and has facilitated creative writing workshops for kids.

Blog | Twitter

S. Mitchell-Jackson writes prose and poetry. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and the Queen’s Ferry Press Best Small Fictions award. She won the Channillo Short Story Prize in 2020. 

Author Page | Twitter

D. Wallace Peach, best-selling fantasy author, started writing later in life after the kids were grown and a move left her with hours to fill. Years of working in business surrendered to a full-time indulgence in the imaginative world of books, and when she started writing, she was instantly hooked.

Author Page | Twitter

Allie Potts lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with her husband, two children, and spoiled dog. When not finding ways to squeeze in 72 hours into a 24 day, Allie consumes and creates science fiction, fantasy, post-apocalyptic quests, cozy mysteries, and contemporary fiction.

Author Page | Twitter

Available NOW in both eBook and Paperback! 🖤 🎉 

The Shadows We Breathe ~ Vol. 2 #CoverReveal

It’s almost here! Isn’t the sage green gorgeous? 💚 Thank you to Loni Townsend for that amazing cover art. And to Allie Potts for creating the lovely 3D image. 

 

Coming soon to a theatre near you: Volume 2 of The Shadows We Breathe. 

I, once again, had the privilege of working with seven talented authors. Some seasoned flashers and few new faces this time around.

The second anthology in this series will be out this fall. (Yes, I know it’s fall right now. Which means… Watch. This. Space.) 

Thank you to the authors who contributed their beautiful words to this collection of poignant stories. 🖤

 

Contributors 💕

 

Georgia Bell is the author of Unbound, a young adult paranormal romance about love, fear, and immortality. She was raised on a steady diet of science fiction and fantasy and began writing the stories she wanted to read over a decade ago.

Author Page | Twitter

Ruth Daly’s poetry, humour, fiction, non-fiction, and contemplative pieces have been published in magazines for children, young adults, and families. She has written 59 children’s books for educational publishers covering such varied topics as musical instruments, endangered animals, rocks and minerals, and explorers.

Blog | Twitter

Ali Isaac is a writer and blogger living in Co. Cavan, Ireland. In 2020, she was awarded a writing mentorship by Words Ireland and the Arts Council of Ireland, working under the guidance of author, Sara Baume. Her writing has been published in The Stinging Fly, Sonder, and Paper Lanterns.

Author Page | Twitter

R.A. Kerr is a life-long classic film enthusiast and has been blogging about old movies for a decade. She is also a freelance writer and editor, and has facilitated creative writing workshops for kids.

Blog | Twitter

S. Mitchell-Jackson writes prose and poetry. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and the Queen’s Ferry Press Best Small Fictions award. She won the Channillo Short Story Prize in 2020. 

Author Page | Twitter

D. Wallace Peach, best-selling fantasy author, started writing later in life after the kids were grown and a move left her with hours to fill. Years of working in business surrendered to a full-time indulgence in the imaginative world of books, and when she started writing, she was instantly hooked.

Author Page | Twitter

Allie Potts lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with her husband, two children, and spoiled dog. When not finding ways to squeeze in 72 hours into a 24-hour day, Allie consumes and creates science fiction, fantasy, post-apocalyptic quests, cozy mysteries, and contemporary fiction.

Author Page | Twitter

Available soon in both eBook and Paperback!  

 

Blurbs Drive Me Batty #IWSG

Blurbs, am I right? They’re the scourge of the writing world. A plague. They must be destroyed.

Blurbs are the bane of every author’s existence. (At least mine. And it’s my blog so I say OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!)

Also, I’ll add, intros. Ugh. Though not quite as bad as blurbs, intros are pretty awful. I have a whole post on rejected book intros that’s totally worth reading. It’s sad and kind of hilarious and 100% true.

Here’s a snippet from that post (which could definitely work for blurbs):

During this time of lunacy when I was alienating friends and forcing family to disown me, I came up with some real doozies.

The following introductions are real. They were not written for your amusement. But I thought I would share them with you in case you are amused. It’s okay, you can totally be embarrassed for me.

• I like writing. I don’t like spiders. I made a book. Read it.
• I think I’d rather become dinner for the Swamp Thing than continue working on this foreword. Which is ridiculous because the Swamp Thing protects people (and is probably a vegetarian).
• Short fiction is like dark chocolate. It’s pure cocoa with no fillers. A small piece is rich and satisfying.
• I don’t like writing bios, forewords, or introductions. Actually, I don’t care for anything that requires me to tell readers about myself or my work.
• This pumpkin spice stuff is seriously getting out of control. Here’s a book with NO pumpkin spice in it.
• I’ve missed meals, skipped family outings, remained unshowered for two five days, typed until my eyes were sand paper and my fingers bled, developed headaches that laughed at Tylenol, and alienated many friends with my writer moods. I do hope you appreciate all that went into this book and that you will take pity on me and read it.
• I triple dog dare you not to read this book!
• This is a collection of mini stories… But, wait! There’s more! No, there isn’t. But mini stories are fun and delicious. Like those little cupcakes with sprinkles that you can eat a bunch of without having to explain yourself to anybody because they expect you to eat more than one.
• Will this torment never cease?!!!
• I’m seriously considering finding a vampire and asking it (“him”? or “her”?) to turn me so I have an excuse to not finish this intro. No, seriously. Now I’m wondering. What is the correct pronoun for creatures of the night? Are they “it” or do you refer to them by the gender they were before they were bitten? And, technically, they are still that gender. Regardless, if I were a turned into a vampire it would require some adjustment on my part. Would that be an acceptable reason for not including an introduction to this collection?
• There is nothing (not one thing) in this book that mentions the United States political system, the election, or the candidates.
• Short fiction is known by many names. Flash, sudden, postcard, micro, hint… Hint fiction. Get it? Hinting at Shadows does hint at darkness but it’s also hint fiction. Cool, huh? *nudge* *nudge* *wink* *wink* Know what I mean?
• I’d rather be watching Harry Potter.
• If I write any more introductions, there’s a real possibility I will spontaneously combust.

Titles? Now that’s a different ball of wax. I love titles. Titles for books, blog posts, short stories, flash… Titles are wonderful. Delightful. Magically delicious. (And easy. And fun. Have I mentioned I love them?)

What say you, gentle readers? Can you write blurbs easily? (If so, I don’t like you anymore. Kidding. But do comment because I may hire you.) What about titles? How easy or difficult are those for you?

IWSG Question of the Month

November Prompt – Which is more difficult–coming up with a title for your book or writing the blurb?

IWSG (Insecure Writer’s Support Group)

This post is part of IWSG , a monthly blog hop/prompt started by Alex J Cavanaugh.