Tag: Swallow

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ANOTHER GOOD SWALLOW REVIEW!

Just got another review of my novel by lit blogger Mystee, at A Moment With Mystee. I’m particularly happy because this isn’t the usual type of book Mystee reads, and she still liked it.

She concludes with: “This book leaves us wide open for a series. Will there be another Sophie book? Even if there isn’t this one is definitely worth picking up.”

Wow, thank you Mystee! I don’t know yet if there will be a sequel. I guess it depends on how this one fares in the long run. I’m working on something else at the moment, but had originally intended for there to be another Sophie book (with the second more focused on dance; I wrote the first one before I’d become a dance fanatic), so I’m absolutely thrilled there is interest!

Also, I’m going to be doing a Q&A with Mystee later in the week. How gracious of her 🙂 — will be my first author interview! So, I will definitely be linking to that when it’s up. Read the rest of her review here.

Also, I see the book has now been made available on Barnes & Noble.com (their list price is $10.79), as well as Amazon, and Smashwords.

Oh update! Mystee just published a guest post I wrote for her about the novel, my reasons for writing it, etc. It’s the first opportunity I’ve had to publicly chat about it, so if you’re interested please read! And thank you again to Mystee, who basically rocks!

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ANOTHER GOOD SWALLOW REVIEW

From Elizabeth A. White at Musings of an All Purpose Monkey:

“Plank has created a wonderfully three-dimensional and quite believable character in Sophie, and Swallow presents an almost painfully realistic portrait of a young woman’s journey from emotional repression and self-doubt to emotional freedom and self-assurance.”

Read the rest here.

Thank you so much, Ms. White! I’m so beyond thrilled that people are really liking the book!

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SWALLOW REVIEWED ON BASIL AND SPICE

I love this review, from a writer, Randall Radic, whom I met on Facebook.

Here’s an excerpt:

“Plank’s writing style is fluid and easy to read.  And she certainly has a knack for getting inside the heads of her Ivy League characters.  Her portrayal of New York’s hoity-toityness provides a crispy snap-crackle-pop kind of humor to the story.  And even though Sophie is a product of Yale Law School, she’s really just a small-town hick from Arizona.  Which means she’s like a vegetarian at a Kansas City steak house – out of place.  And it’s this asymmetry that brings about laugh-out-loud moments for the reader.

Essentially, Swallow is a coming-to-grips-with-who-you-are story.  And it’s a good one.”

Thank you thank you, Mr. Radic!

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BEA

You guys, I am sorry about being out of it the last few days. BookExpo America is currently underway at the Javits Center and my week is nuts. But I promise to get up a review of the two ABT Bayaderes that I saw last week — especially since it was Cory Stearns’s debut as Solor and Hee Seo’s debut as Gamzatti! I will write more later this week, after all the madness has ended. In the meantime, here are some photos of BEA thus far. Above, the entrance, although early in the week there wasn’t much activity. Today is the beginning of the free galley (book before book goes to market) giveaways so I think it’ll be a lot more packed.

Big advertisement for John Grisham’s new, soon-to-be-released book — because who needs more publicity than John Grisham, right?

Inside the Javits Center. I’m standing in the ridiculously long Starbucks line, for my overpriced cup of coffee. Everything in Javits is ridiculously expensive. If you ever have a conference there, bring your lunch!

My book, along with some of the other Book of the Year Award finalists in the ForeWord Reviews stand at the new book exhibit.

And last night at Providence in midtown was the IPPY (Independent Publisher) Book Awards. For each of the gold medalists they had a continuous little slide show whereby they’d project a picture of the cover of your book, along with details like author and publisher, onto these big screens throughout the restaurant so everyone could see. Very very nice 🙂

Anyway, thoughts on Bayadere, as well as the Millepied / Karoui / Escaich event at the Guggenheim coming soon!

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THANK YOU!

Thank you so much to everyone who showed up last night for my little book celebration party! And as well to those who couldn’t come but who were there in spirit 🙂 I’m so very grateful to have such wonderful longtime personal friends as well as newer-ish Facebook and blog reader friends and Tweeps with whom to celebrate such things. And, as always, I’m immensely grateful for everyone’s support. Thank you, you guys!

Photo taken by my good friend and fellow writer, Ariel Davis.

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SWALLOW NAMED FINALIST IN 2010 IPPYS

So psyched! My novel is a finalist in this year’s IPPY Awards, in the regional fiction division. I’m psyched both because, if the entrants mean anything (and I’m sure they do), this is a pretty prestigious contest for indie publishers (just scroll down to the Literary Fiction division, for starters – I mean, Matterhorn guy is there for cry eye! And the highly regarded indie publisher Other Press has a bunch of finalists, McSweeney’s has one in the Popular Fiction category, Rachel Kramer-Bussel, the queen of erotica, is in the Erotica division, etc. etc.). I’m also happy because I’m in the race for a regional award. I tried to make New York a real character in the story as much as the human characters and I feel my book is as much a New York novel as it is one about a young woman with Globus Hystericus. This makes me feel I kinda succeeded in doing that (at least in someone’s estimation 🙂 ).

I really really wanted an IPPY! And I really wanted to be in the running in ForeWord’s BOTYA (btw, here is a pic of my little ole book in their display at the recent London Book Fair — I’m on middle shelf all the way at the end). So, I am very happy right now — particularly after getting T-rashed by one reviewer — which put me in a blue funk for days… More on that to come!

Book publicity stuff and planning for the party tonight have put me behind on dance reviews (4 to be exact — Luciana Achugar’s rather eerie Puro Deseo at the Kitchen, the birth of a compelling new modern dance company – DeMa — which took place on Thursday night at the Alvin Ailey Citigroup Theatre, and two NYCB performances). I promise to try to get to them tomorrow afternoon and Monday.

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SWALLOW IS A GOLD MEDALIST!

In Independent Publisher‘s Living Now Book Awards, in the category of Women’s Fiction. I’m so happy! Happy Earth Day, everyone!

Also, check out the other medalists — in all the categories, but particularly in my own. Stressed in Scottsdale by Marcia Fine and Shaken and Stirred by Crystal Black Davis both look very entertaining as well as enlightening. And Stressed is set in my old neck of the woods!

Independently published and small press-published books face an enormous uphill battle both in the marketplace and in terms of gaining acceptance within the greater publishing industry (despite the fact that a small press novel won this year’s Pulitzer). I’m immensely grateful to publications like Independent Publisher and ForeWord, and Amazon’s Breakthrough Novel Award (open for the first time this year to self-published books) for their invaluable recognition and support.

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FOREWORD, SMASHWORDS, AND SHE-WRITES

Swallow received a positive review in ForeWord Reviews this week, which made me very very happy. ForeWord is an industry magazine, specializing in independently-published books and is read by librarians and booksellers and the like. The reviewer called me an “exuberant writer” — both in the book and here on my blog! Hehehe, no, really?!?! 🙂 I so love the last sentence.

Also, I’ve made the book available on Smashwords, which is an e-book seller and distributor. I know lots of people don’t have a Kindle and some were having problems downloading the Kindle ap to their computers or iphones, etc., so on Smashwords it is available in a variety of formats for virtually any kind of e-reader, including your computer. It’s been approved for the Apple iPad and should be on that soon. And pricing is the same as on the Amazon Kindle.

Finally, on Thursday night the newish writer organization SheWrites had its first NYC get-together, at the chi chi Marc Forgione bar and restaurant in TriBeCa. Huge turnout! I got a t-shirt (above) since I was one of the first five to arrive. And those of us who’ve published did a book exchange. So, I ended up making off with two books — The Last Bridge, a really intense-looking novel by Teri Coyne, and The Futurist’s Mistress, a book of poetry (which I don’t read nearly enough of) by Lorraine Schein. If you’re a writer (you don’t need to be published and you don’t need to be female; you just need to be supportive of women’s writing) I recommend joining. It’s free and fun and there are great networking and socializing opportunities.

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SWALLOW IS A QUARTERFINALIST IN THE AMAZON BREAKTHROUGH NOVEL AWARD!

You guys! My novel is a quarterfinalist in this year’s Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award in the adult fiction category! That means you can download an excerpt here for free (you don’t need a Kindle, you can download right onto your computer), read it and (I think) rate it and comment on it. Please please please please do! I am told there will be a Publishers Weekly review up there soon. Yikes!

Also I would ever ever ever so greatly appreciate if anyone who’s already bought the book and read it (you wonderful wonderful people!) and emailed / Facebook messaged / Twitter DM’d me with their comments, if you would please write a little review with those comments on the book’s main Amazon page, here. If you can’t remember what you said, please email me and I’ll send you your email — I have them all saved, believe me 😀

This is so cool — am very excited; the pool of applicants was originally 10,000 (evenly divided between adult and young adult), then narrowed down to 2,000 and now narrowed to 500. So I’m up against 250 others in the adult fiction category. This is a huge award and of course I’d be silly to get my hopes up too high – being a quarterfinalist makes me extremely happy!

But it’s fun ‘cuz now everyone can participate in my book in a way, and in the general contest. Again, go here to see my book’s excerpt, and go here to see the others in my category, and here for all categories (look on left-hand side of screen). And of course my book in full is still available for purchase – for $3.99 on Kindle and $14.99 (or cheaper if used)  in paperback.

Thank you so much you guys!