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An author blog from a Texas girl who’s seen the world…
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BOOK REVIEW: First Course by Jenn Bouchard

Janie Whitman, the protagonist in First Course, undergoes a life-changing twenty-four hours. First, she loses her job in Chicago and the boyfriend/boss there breaks up with her. Then, hard on those happenings, her parents die in a plane crash, and her sister, Alyssa,...

Enter My Holiday Giveaway!

One lucky participant will win: A hand-made cozy scarf A signed copy of A DIFFERENT KIND OF FIRE Bookish print swag Click here to enter, or use the widget below. No purchase necessary. The more ways you enter, the more your chances of winning. Good luck and have fun!...

A Halloween story: Morrigan

  Morrigan © Suanne Schafer A whistled song disturbs my sleep. Just outside the churchyard, I lie, warm and drowsy, buried within the earth, roofed by a grove of dark pines whose fallen needles and verdant mosses quilt my bed. Loath to leave a lovely pleasure, I...

New Book Trailer! Hunting the Devil

In case you missed it in my newsletter and here on the front and book pages of my website, here's the new goosebump-inducing book trailer for Hunting the Devil. I hope you love it as much as I do! 😈📚🎬

Enter My Summer-Into-Fall Book Lovers Giveaway!

One grand prize winner will receive a signed paperback copy of A Different Kind of Fire, a handmade beaded velvet bookmark, and a Hunting the Devil book bag. Ends at Midnight/CT on September 5th Good luck and have fun! a Rafflecopter giveaway

Enter My First Springtime Giveaway

More daylight = more time to read, so it felt like the perfect occasion for a new bookish giveaway! 🌞📚One lucky winner will receive an eBook copy of A Different Kind of Fire, and a $10 Amazon gift card. This one ends a week from today, so get in while you can. Click...
-Blog Updates-
Update on A DIFFERENT KIND OF FIRE

Update on A DIFFERENT KIND OF FIRE

Great news! A Different Kind of Fire has just been released on Audible, six weeks ahead of the release of the paperback. It's narrated by Ayesha Kleinjan and can be found at Audible.com as well as on Amazon.

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New Artsy Bookish Giveaway – With $10 Amazon Gift Card

New Artsy Bookish Giveaway – With $10 Amazon Gift Card

I had so much fun doing a big, beautiful, artsy bookish giveaway haul last month, I've decided to do it again! This time, I'm upping the ante by including a $10 Amazon gift card in one of the prize combos. It's only on for eight days, so enter while you can... Good...

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Update on A DIFFERENT KIND OF FIRE

I'm so excited! A Different Kind of Fire was just nominated for the 2018 Readers Choice Awards contest by TCK Publishing! Please vote for it at https://www.tckpublishing.com/2018-readers-choice-voting-page/ It's also up for preorder at...

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Update on A DIFFERENT KIND OF FIRE

My debut novel, A Different Kind of Fire, has been available in paperback for pre-order on Amazon and at my publisher's website for several weeks and will be delivered on 11/1/18. The digital version should be available for pre-order about ninety days before the...

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More Tarzan

More Tarzan

In one of those random internet searches, I discovered that the United States Post Office issued a commemorative stamp for Edgar Rice Burroughs (ERB) way back in 2012. I don't know how I missed it, but here are some images to illustrate how Tarzan enchanted readers...

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A Different Kind of Fire gets a cover

A Different Kind of Fire gets a cover

Here, Ruby Schmidt is leaving West Texas to study art at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia:

Raised to ranch life, hard work did not bother Ruby. She loved the land as much as Bismarck did, but painting enraptured her. Deep in her soul, she knew she had talent. As far back as she could remember, at every free moment, she had drawn pictures. During times paper was scarce, she traced images in the dust with a stick, lamenting the interminable wind that blew them away. When she sketched, she felt as free as Bismarck’s mustangs. If not allowed to become a painter, she would shrivel up inside. But leaving Bismarck had been harder than she thought possible. At the break in his voice when he said goodbye, only her white-knuckled grip on the handrail kept her from falling into his arms. She could turn around. She could go back. It wasn’t too late.
The clacking of wheels on train tracks set the pace of her swirling thoughts. Yes. No. Stay. Go. The train’s whistle announced the stop in Big Spring. Ruby stood, preparing to get off the train, still not certain if she was coming or going, but thinking she should at least stretch her legs. As she descended, she noticed a careworn woman waiting on the platform. Not much older than Ruby herself, the woman was pregnant, had a toddler slung on one hip, and her fingers enclosed another child’s hand.
Ruby closed her eyes. That was her future if she returned home. She got back on the train and announced her final decision with a determined stomp of her foot, loud enough that the men around her looked up in surprise. After an apologetic shrug, she returned to her thoughts. She would stick with her original plan. Bismarck had agreed to wait a year. If her studies didn’t work out, she could always return home. Things would still be the same. Nothing ever changed in Truly.

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A Different Kind of Fire, Nudity, and the Fig Leaf

A Different Kind of Fire, Nudity, and the Fig Leaf

Classical statues and Renaissance statues of the human body, like Michelangelo's David, were modeled on well-toned bodies of athletes. However, their genitalia was portrayed under-sized as artistic depictions of penises of normal size, even flaccid, distracted from...

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The Gross Clinic and A Different Kind of Fire

The Gross Clinic and A Different Kind of Fire

My book, A DIFFERENT KIND OF FIRE, is about an eighteen-year-old woman who goes to Philadelphia to study at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA). I will be blogging about some of the paintings and artists she encounters while at school. As as former physician, I have always been fascinated by The Gross Clinic, so of course, the painting had to be featured in the book. 

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A Different Kind of Fire Publication Update

A Different Kind of Fire Publication Update

My novel, A Different Kind of Fire, has been selected by Waldorf Publishing for publication in 2018. They have picked up my second novel, as yet unnamed, for 2019. Set against the Gilded Age of America, a time when suffragettes fight for reproductive rights and the...

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A Different Kind of Fire – Advance Praise

A Different Kind of Fire – Advance Praise

My novel, A Different Kind of Fire, features a woman artist in the 1890s as she struggles to reconcile art, career, motherhood, lovers, and marriage. Sounds like nothing much has changed for women since then. Waldorf Publishing says it will be out sometime in 2018....

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My Love Affair with Tarzan

My Love Affair with Tarzan

Like thousands of other girls growing up in the fifties and sixties, I adored the Ape Man. The British anthropologist and naturalist, Jane Goodall admits her study of chimpanzees was an attempt to fulfill her dream of living among the apes like Tarzan. I envision a serious chick-fight between myself and Jane Goodall over the King of the Jungle. Like Goodall, I’m convinced I’d have been a better wife for Tarzan than Jane Porter, the American girl he married.

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