Jeri Smith-Ready

Forever books & food moods

Over on Facebook, my friend Kayley tagged me on a meme that I couldn't resist (which is saying a lot). The instructions were:

Don't take too long to think about it: fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you. Make sure it's the first fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.

Then we were supposed to tag 15 friends, but I didn't do that. I have a (nonexistent) sign on my (nonexistent) desk that says, "The Meme Stops Here."

With each of these books I remember something different--a scene, a character, a concept, or the way it made me feel in that moment. With most, I can remember where I was when I first read it, the same way I associate certain songs with certain stretches of highway where I first heard them (or where I played them on infinite repeat).

In no order other than when they popped into my brain:

1. Possessing the Secret of Joy by Alice Walker
2. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
3. Call of the Wild by Jack London
4. Stupid and Contagious by Caprice Crane
5. High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
6. "Notes from the Underground" by Fyodor Dosteyevsky (technically a novella)
7. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
8. Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
9. Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
10. A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engel
11. Dogsbody by Diana Wynne Jones
12. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
13. The Solitaire Mystery by Jostein Gaarder
14. L'Etranger by Albert Camus
15. The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell


Rather than discuss the rationale for each one (because it was meant to be quick, after all), I wanted to point out one book that I was just thinking of a few minutes ago (which led to this blog post): Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel.

In a central scene, the novel's protagonist Tita is forced to cook the wedding food for her older sister Rosaura, who is marrying the man Tita loves (and who loves her back but for custom's sake has to marry the oldest girl because the youngest has to stay home forever and take care of her mom--bogus!).

Anyway, Tita cries bitter tears as she's preparing the cake, and the tears kinda get mixed into the batter. At the reception, everyone who eats the cake starts crying. These episodes continue throughout the book, as Tita's repressed anger and passion infuse her cooking.

Takeaway message: the spirit in which food is prepared affects its taste. So ever since I read this book, I try to be merry or at least calm when I cook. I have certain carefully chosen CDs that can play while I make dinner. (Most of my favorite music would make food taste really nasty.)

Oh, and a glass of wine or beer helps a lot, but not until I'm finished with the knives.

----

What are your "Forever 15" books? If you only have a minute, give me five, or even one, and tell me why. What parts of the book will you always remember--the characters, a scene, the philosophy, or the feelings it gave you?

Labels: food, reading

• posted by Jeri @ 6:25 PM
• 10 comments

Two ways to help Tails of Hope

Need some nummies? Tails of Hope, the animal rescue organization I volunteer with, is having a giant Bake Sale tomorrow at the Guilford Mansion in Frederick, MD, from 11am to 3pm. One of the people making goodies for the sale is a professional chef, so this ain't your average Bake Sale with Duncan Hines cupcakes (although those will probably be available, too).

If you're in the area, please stop by. I won't be there due to this annoying cold (what with the swine flu worries, I might scare people by sneezing and coughing), but Tails of Hope could really use your help. They had $9,000 in vet bills last month for the shelter animals in their care. Yeesh!

Here's a map to help you find it, as well as more information on this and other Tails of Hope events.

If you're not in the area, you can still help my favorite animal folks by helping them win a grant. It's super easy to do. I'll let Linda Junkins, our president, explain it:

The Animal Rescue Site is having another Shelter Challenge, and Tails of Hope has the potential to win up to a $20,000 grant! You can help by voting for Tails of Hope--today and every day--and by forwarding this to everyone you know.

To vote for us, simply click on the above icon, and then search for "Tails of Hope" in Maryland. You can vote every day until July 26, 2009. So program your PDA, set your alarm clock, tie a string around your finger--whatever it takes--but please don't forget to cast your daily vote!

Thanks for all you do to help our animals in need.

Since I don't have much time to volunteer these days due to book deadlines, this is one of the few ways I can help, by spreading the word. So please in turn help me by reposting the link and the voting instructions on your blog, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, or whatever.

Thanks and have a great weekend! If you go to the bake sale, tell them Jeri sent you. :-)

Labels: food, foster dogs, good

• posted by Jeri @ 8:56 AM
• 0 comments

Contest winner and Looking for birthday ideas

The winner of the CD giveaway for Monroe's story is...alishsmom! So just send your mailing address to jeri AT jerismithready DOT com, and I'll see that your brand-new copy of Alvin Youngblood Hart's Big Mama's Door gets on its merry little way.

You have until 9pm eastern tomorrow night to enter to win a signed copy of the phenomenal debut novel by Stephanie Kuehnert, I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone. See my interview with Stephanie for details.

Now...my birthday is Friday, and I'm hoping to get all my work done before then so I can take the day off. I'm trying to figure out how I want to spend my day. So far I have two ingredients:

1. Sending Chris to Sam's Bagels for breakfast sandwiches, coffee, and a dozen bagels, a treat I usually save for Deadline Hell.
2. Reading the entire Y: The Last Man comic series by Brian K. Vaughn. The tenth and final volume just came out a couple weeks ago. I've read the first two, but then stopped and waited for it to be over so I could glom it all at once. That's how I tend to operate with series. Does anyone else do this?

Other than that, I'm coming up dry. I'm so unaccustomed to days off that I don't know what to do with them, and I'm afraid I'm going to end up wandering aimlessly around the house, then accidentally fall into a mad fit of filing.

So I'm looking for inspiration. If you had a free day with no responsibilities, how would you spend it?

Labels: Contests, food, life, reading

• posted by Jeri @ 8:51 AM
• 8 comments

Blog Whore!

I mean, Blog Tour. If you're not already sick of reading my inane babblings, here are three more opportunities to have your brain cells coated with my thoughts (I recommend a nice vinegar rinse afterward). One of them has something in it for you.

Interview at Ann Aguirre's blog. Find out my secret celebrity boyfriend, my favorite drink, and whether a dolphin could take on a ninja. Or a pirate, I forget. Anyway, one lucky commenter will win a signed copy of Wicked Game.

Interview at Fangs, Fur & Fey. Rachel Vincent asks about my favorite scene from Wicked Game, how I researched the book, and why the hell I chose to write in first person present tense.

Big Idea at John Scalzi's Whatever blog. This is one of my favorite blogs going way back, so I'm tickled and terrified at being featured on it myself. The Big Idea is--well, just go look. It's pretty short.

Thanks to Ann, Rachel, and John for picking my brain!

Labels: blog tour, Contests, craft, food, interview, vampire series

• posted by Jeri @ 11:55 AM
• 2 comments

Caution: contains words

(In which you begin to lament the fact that I found the USB cable to my camera)

The other night I was fixing a box of frozen Birds Eye Green Beans with Almonds (which are delicious, by the way).

Note that Birds Eye Green Beans with Almonds is called "Birds Eye Green Beans with Almonds." If you're astute or, say, awake, you might infer that Birds Eye Green Beans with Almonds contains...well, yes, green beans, but what else?

I opened the box of Birds Eye Green Beans with Almonds, dumped the green beans into a microwave-proof container and pulled out the bag of....what, again?


Yes! Birds Eye was careful to give us ONE. FINAL. WARNING. that Birds Eye Green Beans with Almonds does, in fact, contain almonds.

Inspired by their paternalism, I decided to post similar labels on ambiguous objects in my house, such as this faucet:




And this creature:


And finally, realizing how much I might offend those with deadly nut allergies, I had to include a picture of myself, just as ONE. FINAL. WARNING:

Labels: food

• posted by Jeri @ 8:53 PM
• 6 comments

Animal husbandry question

Anyone know how to get peanut butter out of a cat's fur? Without getting the dog involved, I mean.

It's, uh, research for a book. Yeah, that's it.


A-Z Update: "Privilege" by Incubus

Labels: food, pets

• posted by Jeri @ 11:02 AM
• 8 comments

RWA Part Two

So Thursday was the official start of the conference. I went to a panel composed of buyers from the big chain bookstores. It was really enlightening. The Published Author Network (PAN) panels are for authors only--no editors and agents allowed, which leaves us free to ask frank questions, like "How do I know if my publisher's just not that into me?" (Not an actual question asked out loud.)

Had to miss the luncheon because I was busy moving from the Adam's Mark to the Hyatt (the conference hotel), where my window looked out over Dealey Plaza. Well, if I craned my neck to the right I could see it and the Book Depository (and yes, The Window).

I didn't get a picture (the window wouldn't open), but here's a public domain shot from 2003:



Thursday night Harlequin held a dinner for all the single-title (i.e., non-category romance) authors at the Iron Cactus Grill. The party was hosted by Diane Moggy, VP of Global Single Title Sales, whom I got to meet for the first time. I also got to see CEO/Publisher Donna Hayes, whom I first met at BEA last month, as well as Executive VP Loriana Sacilotto. On the editorial side I met Margo Lipschultz and Tara Parsons, who was my interim editor when Stacy was on maternity leave last year.

And last but not least, my personal heroine, account manager Andi Richman, who is the Barnes & Noble sales rep for all of Harlequin. It's thanks to her that Eyes of Crow had such great placement and support at that chain last year. She told me she read Requiem for the Devil and loved it. Yay, another cult member!

Everyone was incredibly friendly and accessible. Even though Harlequin acts as a large publisher in terms of their market muscle, the people who work there give it a personal touch that makes it feel like a big family, cheesy as that sounds.

Fawning over. Back to the food. Yummy margaritas, but again, no vegetarian appetizers, so I had a crabcake. Which is hilarious, that a Marylander should go to Dallas for a crabcake. Then they set out a fajita bar, and I was oh-so-happy.

Shared a raucous table with fellow LUNA authors PC Cast, Robin D. Owens, and Maria V. Snyder, as well as Rachel Vincent (who writes for the MIRA imprint), Gena Showalter (ditto, HQN), Mindy Klasky (Red Dress Ink), Pamela Britton (NASCAR), and my fabulous editor Stacy Boyd, who, I discovered, shares my birthday.

Which was last Wednesday, by the way. Forgot to mention that in my previous post. Why yes, my Amazon wish list is up-to-date, thanks for asking.

Speaking of Stacy, here's a photo of us before going out to dinner the night of the Rita Awards:



I took my hair down later, which may have been a mistake. I get rather shaggy in humid weather.

Anyway, back to Thursday. Later that night in the bar, Jana and I caught up with Rachel again, as well as her critique partner Rinda Elliot, her agent Miriam Kriss of the Irene Goodman Agency, and author Jenna Black, also repped by Miriam. Other than Rinda, I'd met all of them at RT in Houston.

Miriam's Minions (as I have dubbed them just two seconds ago) have become one of my favorite little groups of people to see at conferences. I'd take a bullet for any of them. Well, a rubber bullet, tossed by a toddler. But still...

More tomorrow, if you can stand it!

Incredibly appropo A-Z Update: "Open Book" by Cake

Labels: appearances, food

• posted by Jeri @ 7:36 AM
• 2 comments

RWA Part One

Splitting this into two (possibly three) parts, so as not to overwhelm any of us.

Tuesday night my magnificent roommate Jana G. Oliver (left):



and I went to the Kiss of Death Annual General Meeting, where I saw my old buds Lisa Tapp (left) and Karen Ender:



These pictures were actually taken Thursday night after the Daphne DuMaurier Awards. Lisa won third place in the unpublished Short Contemporary category, and--drum roll, please--Jana won FIRST in the published Paranormal category. This was one of several awards her wonderful book Sojourn has won. Here are the others:

Golden Quill Award, First Place, Paranormal
PRISM Award, First Place, Time Travel
Booksellers Best, First Place, Paranormal
Independent Book Publishers Award, Gold Medal, Science Fiction/Fantasy
Forward Award, Best Overall
Compton Crook Award, Finalist (scorchingly close second place)
National Readers Choice Award, Finalist

It's just a freaking amazing book, and everyone should buy it.

Wednesday after lunch Lisa and I saw Marjorie M. Liu, Cathy Clamp, and Publishers Weekly blogger Barbara Vey in the bar briefly before heading off to the Booksellers Tea, where I met several booksellers, one of whom had actually heard of me!

David Reamer from Hastings Bookstore in Round Rock, TX, said his girlfriend was a big Eyes of Crow fan, and that all the LUNA books were selling really well in his store. He gave me some great insights on the vendor's side of the business, and soon an ARC of Voice of Crow will land in his mailbox.

At the Tea I also met authors Liz Maverick and Rosemary Clement Moore, who are ridiculously cute, and saw Cathy Clamp again. (For the record, Cathy is everywhere. I'm pretty sure she can bend space and time to manage this. Yet she always looks fresh and well-rested!).

Also met romantic comedy author Kristan Higgins, who has dogs and feet on all her book covers. We bonded over the lamentation of the lack of rom coms in the market these days. The next day she gave me a copy of her first book, Fools Rush In.

I actually spoke with several authors who were writing more humorous material (and selling it!) I'm extremely psyched about this, because there are not enough romantic comedies in the world. What's wrong with the book-buying public? Love is funny!

Wednesday evening was the mass signing to benefit literacy efforts. I sold about 30 out of 50 books, which was pretty good. Everyone who bought a copy of Eyes of Crow or who told me they already owned it received a sneak preview of Voice of Crow. I had a Rita finalist flag next to me on the table, and I was fortunate enough to sit next to the renowned Maria V. Snyder, fellow LUNA author (of the Rita-nommed Magic Study) and dear friend. So we pimped each other's books along with our own. Synergy!

I didn't get a picture of myself at the signing, but I did get to keep my flag:


So imagine me sitting next to it and a pile of books (ones without the upper right corner chewed by cats) in a roomful of amazing authors. To my left is an enormous line for Nora Roberts.

Afterwards I bought my leftover books at 75% off and put them in the Goody Room for giveaway. They were snatched up, possibly by aliens, in about ten minutes.

It was great to meet fans new and old at the signing. I found out from a nice lady from the Colorado Romance Writers that Eyes of Crow tied for First Place in their Award of Excellence contest, then lost in a tiebreaker to Shana Abe's The Dream Thief. Boo. Still, it's nice to know it almost won. Better a close second than a distant fifth.

Wednesday night was the Gathering for the Fantasy, Futuristic, & Paranormal chapter of RWA. By the time I got there after the signing, all the food was gone, and I ate three rolls (with butter!) for dinner. I sat with Jana, Gail Dayton and PC Cast, as well as some sweet ladies from Gail's chapter in Texas--Sherry and her mom Delores, and Katey Coffing, who was a Golden Heart finalist (the biggest award for unpubbed writers) for Best Paranormal.

PC, Gail, and I were the three finalists for the PRISM Award for Best Fantasy. As they read off our names, we all clutched hands, and when Gail's name was announced as the winner, the whole table went nuts. Her LUNA novel, The Barbed Rose, won first place and totally deserved it. PC's Divine by Choice (another awesome one) won second, and little Eyes of Crow brought up the rear at third.

Then PC won the PRISM for Best Light Paranormal Novel for Goddess of the Rose (these are all books I've actually read!). Then Jana won for Best Time Travel with Sojourn, then Sherry and her mom won raffle baskets. Katey got a rock.

Afterwards PC, Jana, and their publicists at Two Sisters Promotions, Sherry and Kristen, took a limo (it was the same price as a cab) with neon-lit ceiling to Avanti's, a local Italian restaurant. Dallas being an extremely vegetarian-unfriendly city, I got a loaf of garlic cheese bread. When it arrived, we all thought it was garlic bread for the table, and everyone ate it. Whimper.

I thought I'd have room to talk about Thursday in this entry, but no. More tomorrow.

A-Z Update: "One Love" by Bob Marley and the Wailers

Labels: appearances, awards, Eyes of Crow, food

• posted by Jeri @ 12:19 PM
• 1 comments

All Hail the Mighty Hexagon

Jerry: All right, we're taking a car service. So we'll swing by and pick you up. How about six? (Laura looks offended). Six is good. (Laura looks offended and angry). You got a problem with six? (Laura opens the door and gets out). What? What?
--Seinfeld, "The Lip Reader"

The Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and Titan (which gets my vote as Coolest NASA Mission Ever) has recently discovered a strange hexagon surrounding the planet's north pole.

Earth apparently has a similar polar vortex, but ours is a circle, which has been established by Raising Arizona as an entirely normal shape*.

However, hexagons have been spotted on many Earthling breakfast tables, in their crispy form. Which gets my vote as Most Tell-It-Like-It-Is Product Label Ever. Ask for them by name.

I'm adding this last bit here as proof that I can write an entire paragraph without using the word 'which.' Which It seems to be my verbal tic, if you haven't noticed.

*Evelle: [about the balloons he just bought] These blow up into funny shapes and all?
Grocer: Well no... unless round is funny.

Labels: astronomy, food

• posted by Jeri @ 12:35 PM
• 2 comments

Character birthdays, Part Two

I mentioned a few weeks ago that March 1 was the birthday for Shane, the hero of my vampire novels.

One reader asked me offline if I bought Shane a birthday present. A couple of months ago a discussion on this subject took place on the Smart Bitches site, prompted by a post on Laurell K. Hamilton's blog. The discussion centered on how real the characters are to authors, how much they drive the plot, and how thoroughly we know the contents of their pockets.

I can usually tell you what kind of music my main characters like (in Bad Company it's sort of the point) and even how they take their coffee:

• Lucifer: Black and bitter, as dark a roast as possible
• Beelzebub: Tons of cream and sugar--he hasn't an ascetic bone in his body
• Ciara: Three sugars, no milk, except when she's really tired, when it's time for a gigante mocha, organic two-percent milk, one-and-a-half shots of coconut, no whipped cream, lots of cinnamon, and a little nutmeg
• Shane: Black and cheap

There's no coffee in the Aspect of Crow world, which is one reason I'd never want to live there. They make do with chicory. Also, without electricity it's a lot easier to get a good night's sleep.

I use character interviews to deepen my knowledge of these people, but usually not until after the first draft. The first draft is the getting-to-know-you process. I put them through hell and see how they react. Do they crumble? Do they run? Do they fight back with nasty words? Fists? Do they blame others? Themselves?

If I know how they face down certain death, the rest comes easy. When they step up to a coffee counter and the bored barista says, "What'll you have?" the answer is waiting on the tip of my brain.

Back to Shane's birthday. I wanted to get him food, because like a lot of gift-buyers, I go by what I would want most (be honest, you do it, too).

But vampires can't enjoy solid food ("everything tastes British") so I settled on a six-pack. The local liquor store didn't have any microbrews from his home state of Ohio. Instead I bought some Smithwick's Irish Ale, made by the brewers of tar-in-a-bottle, aka Guinness. It was a nod to Shane's heritage, and the whole reason for posting this musing today and not tomorrow, or, say two weeks ago when it would've been more timely.

A brief product review: Smithwick's is fantastic! It's extremely smooth, while somehow maintaining a rich, full-bodied ale taste. How did I get this far in life without trying it? Go pick up one (or six) for yourself, and have a Happy St. Patrick's Day!

A-Z Update: "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" by Green Day

Labels: craft, food, holidays, vampire series

• posted by Jeri @ 9:04 AM
• 5 comments