July First Monday Classics Reads Adventures of Huckleberry Finn June 26, 2015

If you live near Hillsborough, NC come join us!

Friends' Matters

There’s still more than a week left to read (or reread) this often-controversial classic of American literature and celebrate our country’s independence (July 6 at 6:30 p.m.) by joining us in the First Monday Classics group to discuss it! Join the Facebook group for more information and community.

The First Monday Classics Book Club meets on the first Monday of the month at 6:30 p.m. to discuss a classic novel. Meetings are held at the main library in Hillsborough. The lively and engaging discussions are facilitated by Piedmont Laureate and local author James Maxey and local author Nathan Kotecki. Come join us for a particular book, or become a regular!

Upcoming selections include:

• August 3: The Awakening by Kate Chopin
• (hiatus in September)
• October 5: The Brothers Karamozov by Fyodor Dosteovsky

Books are selected by group consensus, so if there’s a classic you’d like to talk about, please join us!

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Women writing — some links June 25, 2015

Looking forward to checking out the articles I haven’t already read and some of these authors!

Shannon Turlington

For my yearly reading project in 2015, I have been focusing on women writers, specifically of speculative fiction. This project has led me down lots of wonderful side alleys discovering new writers, revisiting old favorites, and thinking about what they have to say. It’s also helped me understand the bias that women writers continue to face when it comes to getting published, reviewed, and honored. Here I want to share some related links and also encourage every reader to seek out more women writers to add to their To Read lists.

• Shit people say to women writers – A Tumblr dedicated to the shit women writers have to hear all the time
• One of my favorite women writers, Margaret Atwood, lays down her 10 rules of writing
• Daphne du Maurier, women writer and badass
• Is there a double standard for judging domestic themes in fiction?
• Madonnas and whores: on…

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OCPL Wins State Library Grant

Yay! Congratulations to my library!

Friends' Matters

by Libbie Hough

The Orange County Public Library is pleased to announce it has been awarded a $17,882 grant from the State Library, Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA).

The funds will enable the library system to offer technology services for children and their families at its Hillsborough location.

Orange County Government matched a portion of the grant, bringing the project total to $23,000. LSTA grants are federal funds from the Institute of Museum and Library Services presented to eligible North Carolina libraries by the State Library.

The library will use the money to buy five Internet-access computers, five early literacy iPads, and five school-age iPads for public use, beginning January 2016. Having these tools on site will give children opportunities to work on school projects, access the library’s online resources and explore personal areas of interest. Establishing technology services for children and their families has been on the library’s to-do…

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Guest Post: Meanwhile, In The Serengeti by Barbara Ann Wright June 20, 2015

Sounds like a great read!

No Wasted Ink

Straight people are my wildebeests. I watch them from the grass, waiting. One little noise will send them into a stampede, hooves kicking the dirt into a cloud, making them harder to catch.

I creep forward, silent, downwind from them. I must catch them off guard. I take a deep breath, stand up, let them have a good look at me, and say, “I write fantasy novels about lesbians.”

Okay, maybe it’s not exactly like that, but pitching a novel starring LGBT characters to a straight audience has its pitfalls, but if I want the widest readership possible for my work, it’s something I have to do.

I love all my fans. From the LGBT crowd to the pansexuals and asexuals, those who are intersex, and those who eschew labels. And there are straight people who seek out diverse books. I love them, too. I usually don’t have to sell…

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Book Review: Going Through the Change by Samantha Bryant

A new review of my novel on Kate M. Colby’s blog!

Kate M. Colby

Going Through the Change by Samantha Bryant
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Disclaimer: I received a free electronic copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Going Through the Change by Samantha Bryant follows five seemingly-normal women, all of whom happen to be going through menopause. However, “the change” isn’t all these women have in common — all of them have undergone inexplicable bodily alterations that have left them with unbelievable new abilities. Eventually, the women cross paths and three of them team up to figure out what has happened to them. Once they determine the common denominator, they go in search of the person responsible and get much more of a fight than they expected.

Going Through the Change is a fun and quick-paced novel. While it is obviously geared toward women, especially middle-aged women, as a young woman I still enjoyed the novel and…

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June newsletter: Darin Kennedy, Stacey Cochran, Karissa Laurel, Brian Posehn, “Noir at the Bar”, the Manly Wade Wellman Award nominees, and more June 6, 2015

Look guys! There’s my book . . .right next to some truly awesome books. Feeling famous 🙂

Bull Spec

Vol 5 No 4. Saturday, June 6, 2015: Well, maybe this is turning into a bimonthly thing instead of monthly, as I didn’t manage a newsletter in May, either. Since late April we’ve seen plenty of local writers have stories, books, and audiobooks published, added a pile of new events to the upcoming readings calendar, and! found out this year’s nominees for The Manly Wade Wellman Award.

As usual, let’s start with some highlights from events that are right around the corner:

 

• June 6 (Saturday) 8:15 pm — Durham’s Manbites Dog Theater presents the last performance in the opening run of the world premiere adaptation of Nick Cave’s Australian/Southern Gothic/cult novel And the Ass Saw the Angel.
• June 7 (Sunday) 2 pm — Flyleaf Books hosts Darin Kennedy discusses his paranormal thriller The Mussorgsky Riddle. “Psychic Mira Tejedor possesses unique talents that enable her to find anything and anyone, but now…

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IWSG Today June 3, 2015

Hi Everybody,

My *real* blog is at http://samanthabryant.com.

Please join me there today for my #IWSG post: Starting the Con Circuit.