C. Lee McKenzie

Young Adult and Middle Grade Author

So Do You Like Book Events? How About Super Helpful Books or Fun New Books? Her Grammarness Serves Up a Dollop of Detail

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Book Events

A BOOK EVENT YOU’LL LIKE: January 4 7:30PM Kepler’s in Menlo Park, CA 94025 is hosting three of my old 2009 Debs: Lauren Bjorkman, Kimberly Derting and Stacey Jay. Stop by and hear what they have to say about World Building.

YOUNG ADULT EVENT
New Year’s Reads with Lauren Bjorkman, Kimberly Derting,  and Stacey Jay     
Friday January 4th,
7.30 pm
Start the New Year with some of our favorite YA reads.

miss fortune cookieThe Fortune Cookie by Lauren Bjorkman: Meet Erin. Smart student, great daughter, better friend. Secretly the mastermind behind the popular advice blog Miss Fortune Cookie. Totally unaware that her carefully constructed life is about to get crazy..   
The Essence by Kimberly Derting: At the conclusion of The Pledge, the essenceCharlaina (who can understand all languages in a country where the language you speak determines your class) defeated the tyrant Sabara and took her place as Queen of Ludania. But Charlie knows that Sabara has not disappeared: The evil queen’s Essence is fused to Charlie’s psyche, ready to arise at the first sign of weakness.

romeo redeemedRomeo Redeemed by Stacey Jay: All will be revealed for fans who have breathlessly awaited the sizzling sequel to Juliet Immortal. This time Romeo takes center stage and gets one chance, and one chance only, to redeem himself.

  
If you have a book event and what a bit of a shout out. Let me know. I can shout.
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New Books

A SUPER HELPFUL BOOK: A few week ago-and now I totally forget how it happened-I was contacted and asked if I’d be interested in reviewing a new book about social media.
“Heck yeah,” says me.
I can use all the help I can get. I didn’t really expect much, but I was surprised. SOCIAL MEDIA JUST FOR WRITERS  by FRANCES CABALLO is a winner of a book. Here’s my AMAZON review, but if you’re still scratching your head over profile pages and fan pages and how those charts work and on and on and on, grab this book. It’s a hit list of what to do for each of social media giants.

A FUN NEW BOOK: Lauren Bjorkman’s MISS FORTUNE COOKIE (Holt) is out. The tag line: Fate will come looking for you. Don’t bother hiding.  Sounds enticing, doesn’t it?

If you have a new book coming out. I’ll post about it. Just send me links, a two-three sentence tag line and a cover. I love new books and I love posting about them. If you’ve just read a book you couldn’t put down, I’d love to hear about it.

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Her Grammarness

Here’s more than you ever wanted to know about the adverb ALREADY and its friend, ALL READY! But here it is anyway.  First, they’re not the same words. They have two meaning and, as you can see two spellings. Unfortunately, some writers treat them as siamese twins. They’re not even fraternal twins. 
ALREADY means IT-whatever IT is-is done, finished, kaput. 
In American English we often say, “I already edited that manuscript. I’m not doing it again.” (I suggest writers don’t say this to their editors.)
The Brits kind of keep “already” for use in the present perfect. You know those Brits! “I’ve already edited that manuscript, you obtuse critic, you.”  
ALL READY is reserved for “Are you all ready to publish your book?” Meaning, “Are you prepared to get that @~# manuscript out of your C Drive?”  OR “I am all ready to become a New York Times Bestselling author.” There’s a small gap between those two sentences in terms of time, but PREPARED is the synonym for all ready in both.  BTW I just read a book that had these words ALL WRONG. Oops!
Do you have any burning questions for Her Grammarness? If I can’t answer them I have an army of linguists to tap into. They love grammar, phonological and semantic questions. Makes them feel needed.

Interview with Lauren Bjorkman

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Lauren Bjorkman is here!! And she comes with her debut novel, MY INVENTED LIFE which just came out this September.

Want a preview of My Invented Life? Read on.

Roz and Eva are sisters, close friends, and fierce rivals. Roz fantasizes about snagging the lead in the school play and sexy skate god Bryan as her boyfriend. Sadly a few obstacles stand between her and her dreams. For one, Eva is the more talented actress. And Bryan happens to be Eva’s boyfriend. But is Eva having a secret love affair with a girl? Enquiring minds need to know.

Roz prides herself on random acts of insanity. In one such act, she invents a girlfriend of her own to encourage Eva to open up. The plan backfires, and Roz finds herself neck deep in her invented life. When Roz meets a mercurial boy with a big problem, she begins to understand the complex feelings beneath the labels. And she gets a second chance to earn Eva’s trust.

My Invented Life is set in a small California high school during rehearsals for a Shakespeare comedy.

Here’s a quick look at who Lauren Bjorkman really is.

Lauren Bjorkman grew up on a sailboat, sharing the forecastle with her sister and the sail bags. Against all odds, they are still friends. She enjoys making things up, chocolate in large quantities, and anything that makes her laugh. She lives in Taos, New Mexico with her husband, two sons, and a cat that plays fetch.

While Lauren was here she answered some questions that give a little more “insider” information about her.

Of all your favorite books, which one do you wish you had written?

I’ve been asked this before. The answer keeps changing based on my mood. This week, I’ll say Crank by Ellen Hopkins because I’ll never write a novel in verse, and she does it so beautifully.

What fictional character do you wish you could be?

Doesn’t this scenario sounds fun: sailing through the air on a soft orange peach, snacking on scoops of juicy fruit, while arguing with a witty giant centipede? I’ll go with James, from James and the Giant Peach.

After chocolate what do you eat to make the writer-block pain go away?

Popcorn, maybe. Noisy chewing has a way of relieving my stress levels. It totally bugs my husband, though. So I have to do it in private. Which allows me to go off by myself and escape into a good book at the same time.

Be sure to order Lauren’s book at AMAZON or one of your favorite Indies.