eMuse March 09 is out.

I've been MIA for a while with no excuse besides being busy. The last couple of weekends we've been shopping for Easter clothes. Finding Momma a dress has proven much easier than finding Z a suit. It seems most baby suits start at 6 months and go up. We also had the task of finding his christening outfit. I wanted a traditional christening gown, the SO nearly had a conniption fit and insisted that he needed a suit. In the end I couldn't find a reasonably priced gown that wasn't frilly and girlie so we ended up going with the suit. It's a satineen pair of cuffed short pants, a shirt and a quilted vest.

We've also been hunting for a new camera as the old one died on us recently. That figures. Just when I need a camera to take massive amounts of baby pictures, the thing dies.

The March 09 issue of eMuse online literary magazine is out. eMuse is a quarterly ezine that features original art, short stories, poetry, reviews of books and articles. This month eMuse has reviewed books by authors you’ve heard me mention here including Anny Cook, Sandra Cox and Cindy Spencer Pape.

Two of my books are reviewed by staff this month as well. I’m an editor there, but I want to be clear that I don’t edit reviews for content-if someone said my work sucked, I’d not argue. In fact, this month you’ll find my latest book, Circle of Wolves, reviewed by a (gasp) man. A straight man. Interesting, that’s all I’ll say.

In addition, while we try to sustain the highest standard of literature at eMuse this month has one of the best short stories I’ve ever read. It’s dark, haunting and more than a tad sinister. Black Velveteen by Jennifer Hudock is a must read.

I’ve been a fan of NPR (National Public Radio) since I was young. I finally found a station here in Atlanta that broadcasts NPR during drive times and that has made me a happy camper. You never know what you’ll learn on NPR. It’s not all serious discussion of economics and politics or organic alfalfa farming. For example:

I heard this story first on NPR, then found the link on AOhelL.

Cat found in couch?

In Washington State a woman who bought a used sofa from a Value Village thrift store got more than she expected: a strange mewing noise and odd movements. Sure enough, when the couch was inspected a very hungry 9 year old calico cat, “Callie”, was found inside. Turned out the owner had been searching for his cat but had not put together the disappearance of the cat with the donation of the couch. Is a tirade on the dangers of sofa kitties coming up? Naw, just thought it was a curious and interesting story.


Sears’ Tower

Now if I were going on a tirade, it would be about this bone-headed move in Chicago. Most people in the US know the Sears’ Tower. It’s the tallest building in the US and was for a long time the tallest building in the world. The name Sears’ Tower was linked to Chicago like Wrigley Field, Soldier Stadium and Lake Michigan. But not for long. In a stupid move, obviously motivated by the tough economic times but stupid nonetheless, the name of this landmark will be changing.

The London-based insurance brokerage The Willis Group, as part of their occupancy agreement, was given “naming rights” to the famous tower that will now be known as the Willis Tower. First of all, what kind of idiot puts the rights to name the Sears’ Tower on the table in the first place? The purpose of the real estate investment group formed in 2001 to buy the tower was to protect it. Not to mention that Willis has stated they didn’t even pay extra for the naming rights.

And what kind of unmitigated gall does it take for someone to ask for the right to rename a landmark?

Contests Coming Soon!

July 9th marks the release of the sequel to Mating Stone titled Lovers' Stone. Lovers' Stone is the story of two people who are bitter enemies and yet ardent lovers. Trust me, star-crossed doesn't even come close to describing it.

To mark the release I'm going to be running a contest July 7th through 11th for a genuine ruby and diamond necklace with matching ruby stud earrings. Be sure to check back for details.

Interested in winning $50 or $100 in Amazon gift cards? Stop by www.emuse-zine.com and read about the Writer’s Summer Camp to learn how.



It's a weekend of painting around our place. We spent today putting the sealer coat on the walls. The coat of paint put on by the builder was so thin it might just be an illusion. So we sealed the walls in the baby's room and will paint it tomorrow. We have, of course, changed our minds again. *eye roll* We'd chosen white but realized we can't tell whether we actually put the paint on the wall or not. The base color is white, the sealant is white, we can't tell where we painted and not. So today the trip to the home improvement store included buying a paint called Vanilla Latte. I was amazed it only took us three or four color strips to pick one we agreed on. It's the color of a coffee that someone put way to much cream in. A very very light tan. It will match the jungle decals and pictures we are putting up.

We've also had another change of mind related to Smudgie. We still don't know if we have a girl Smudgie or a boy Smudgie. That will have to wait a couple of weeks. But early on we had picked out two names we both agreed on. That wasn't easy, hence the early start on hammering it out. You see, I'm a traditional kinda girl. My family is very connected to each other and giving children family names is just something most of us do. My parents and both of my mother's siblings have sons that are Jr's or II's. The older of my sisters wanted to follow suit but ended up compromising with her husband and using his middle name. Almost all of us have a portion of our name that traces back to a family member. My great grandmother was named for her mother. I was named for my mother's uncle and my father, and right on down to the most recent addition who was named for her daddy's favorite aunt. My darling SO's family has no such family links. A name is a name. And unusual, but modern, names are best. I hate trendy names. Maybe it comes from being a teacher and the nuisance of having six children named Ashley, Amanda, Joshua, Justin, and Caleb in your class each year.

So in the early round we tossed out the new "hot" names: Aedan, Emily, Hannah, Jordan, etc. We also tossed out rather formal names like Addison, Parker, Bentley and others.

We came up with two we liked and we still like the girl's name. Anna Catherine. My great-great grandmother was Anna. My great-grandmother was Anna. My grandmother's middle name was Anna. And I had a great aunt named Catherine, so on my family terms this works. The SO likes it so it's okay.

We'd picked out a boy's name and though we both liked it, it didn't survive the 40 times rule. Someone once said to me that before you decide on a name you have to look at it carefully. ARe there any hurtful nicknames that rise quickly to the mind? Do the initials spell something offensive or humiliating? On both these counts the name we picked met the criteria. It wasn't a family name, but it was an older name, actually biblical in origin. Asher. Asher was one of the sons of Jacob and therefore one of the 12 tribes of Israel.

But Asher hasn't passed the 40 times rule. It goes like this. Imagine yourself over a period of a couple of weeks saying the name 40 or more different times. "Asher stop that." "Asher don't do that." "Asher don't pull the puppy's tail." and on and on and on. For me as much as I liked the name, it just didn't pass the test. I can't see myself using this name over and over and over again. So we are talking about a new name. Not so much a family name, but an older/non-trendy name. It is currently undergoing the 40 times test. The SO seems much less bothered by this than I. I don't think it will start to kick in until we actually know the sex.

JulNoWriMo. Yep. I've decided to do the July version of the NaNoWriMo that is held every November. November is a crazy time for me to try to dedicate to writing 50,000 words in a month. It's the start of the holiday season and it's a busy time at school. So this year I decided to take a piece that I started on a previous NaNoWriMo and do my 50,000 in July finishing this piece. That's the great thing about the July NoWriMo is that you can finish a piece you've already begun. The piece is much more solidly fantasy than romance. Most of my other stuff is mostly romance with fantasy/paranormal bents, but this is fantasy with a bit of romance worked in. It will be a bit different and is a whole different world than any I've had published. It's not the world of Sanctuary and not the world of my Weres.

New Issue of eMuse Out

The March 08 issue of eMuse magazine is out. I serve as an editor for this online literary magazine and I have to tell you with all sincerity that I work with the best bunch of folks imaginable. They scurry about behind the scenes dealing with deadlines and the missing of deadlines, technical problems, last minute emergencies and general disasters. Through it all they create a wonderful magazine each quarter.

This month eMuse features an interview with erotica writer LA Day and reviews two of her recent releases. Our art department offers up the amazing work of James Neely. His art is unique and spans genres. Our fiction section includes three character driven shorts from Gary Beck, William Falo and an impressive new writing talent Tony Vanderdrift. All of these stories are excellent reads and contain fascinating characters. Vanderdrift's The Huntress gives us just the right blend for a dark, deadly and beautiful character. Sheila is someone you're going to want to meet.

The issue also spotlights and article by your's truly on epublishing. It takes a look at the pros and cons of epublishing and some of the misconceptions too. I want to thank Raelene Gorlinsky of Ellora's Cave, Brenna Lyons of Epic and Deanna Lee of Cobbleston Press for their help. Also several writers chimed in with their thoughts and ideas as well. So many people wanted to talk about this topic that it could have taken over the entire issue.

And of course we couldn't do a literary magazine without doing interviews. The issue includes reviews on the works of authors such as Carrie Vaughn, Sherrilyn Kenyon/Kinley MacGregor, Jacquelyn Frank, PC and Kristin Cast, Amarinda Jones, Shelley Munro, Bronwyn Green, Jean Hart Stewart, Anny Cook, JC Wilder and more.

So pop over and checkout all the hard work of the writers, artists and editors.

The Year With(out) a Santa Claus

I was thirteen or fourteen that year. It was the year I was baptized and the year my family lived in a small ranch style house in a neighborhood most people wouldn’t venture into during the day, let alone at night. Our street sat right on the dividing line between the territories of two rival gangs. No, this wasn’t New York, L.A., or even Chicago. It was a relatively small Midwest town who had seen recent influxes of people from the larger cities like Detroit and Chicago. With these new comers came the gangs. But oddly enough they didn’t bother us. Our street was neutral territory. And the gangs aren’t what I wanted to talk about.

We were very poor that year. Not just “things are tight” poor, but “the cupboards are bare” poor. We often ate only one meal a day because there was very little food. Breakfast or lunch had to be scrounged from left-overs in the fridge or were limited to buttered toast with government surplus butter and the twenty-five cent loaves of white bread from the day old store. The recession of the 80’s was hurting everyone. Almost no one we knew still had a job as most of the plants in town had closed down. Our small town lost General Electric, Hyster, Caterpillar, General Motors, Quaker Oats and even our Chuckles plant. (Remember the little gummy candies in the pack with assorted flavors? My grandmother worked for 30 years making those things. But that’s another story.)

Christmas? No way. We kids knew how bad things were and we didn’t even talk about presents. As the oldest of the kids I knew that while some of the younger ones still thought Santa would remember them, they were in for a big disappointment.

One day my stepfather came home from helping a friend who hauled off people’s trash to help earn extra money. That day he came home with the back of the truck filled with scrap lumber. He called us out to help unload it and I thought he was crazy piling up old pieces of wood. That night after my siblings had gone to bed, he put on his coat and went outside. He came in with an armful of wood. Now I was sure he was crazy.

He cleared off the table and laid it out. With a pencil he began drawing a pattern on a piece of cardboard. It took only a few minutes for me to be enthralled watching. I love woodworking. I love the smell of the wood, the feel of it, how it smooths itself and how the creations take shape. If I’d have been a boy, I’d probably have become a carpenter. After letting me watch for about a half an hour as he used his scroll saw to cut out the patters he looked up at me. After a long pause he handed me the piece he’d cut out and a piece of sandpaper. “If you’re going to watch, you might as well help.” And I did.

That December I helped him make doll cradles for my sisters and a rocking horse for my brother from the bits and pieces he had scrounged from other people’s trash. We stained them, painted them and lined them with scraps of a garish blue velvet that had also been salvaged. I helped my mom sew little mattresses. I helped my stepfather glue yarn my grandmother gave us to the horse for a main and a tail. The same blue velvet lined the rocking horse’s saddle. We kept all of this hidden during the day and pulled it out at night to work on after everyone was asleep.

A couple of days before Christmas, my mother stood in line at the Salvation army and picked out a couple of second hand dolls. She brushed their hair, cleaned their plastic bodies and my grandmother sewed simple little dresses for them from scraps. On Christmas Eve I helped arrange these treasures under the tree and went off to bed. There would be nothing for me the next day when I awoke, but it felt so very good to know the younger kids would awake to find that Santa hadn’t forgotten them after all.

When morning came I followed them into the living room. I couldn’t completely suppress my disappointment that there would be no gift for me, but I tried hard not to let it show. To my amazement there was a rectangular wooden box sitting under the tree. It had been pieced together from strips of wood, stained a dark walnut color and the words “Holy Bible” had been burned into the top and outlined with gold paint. I lifted the lid to find the same blue velvet lining and a white Bible. I didn’t care that the Bible had been bought cheap because someone had ordered it with their name and not picked it up. I didn’t care that the name on it wasn’t mine.

My father had left my mother and me before I was two. He never had any contact with me and I could pass him on the street today and never know. All my life I had felt the void. But in that moment I realized the man sitting on the sofa smiling smugly was trying in every way he knew how to be a father for me. I realized that despite all the problems we had, he thought of me as his daughter. He and I had worked into the early hours of the morning on the kids toys. This gift meant he had stayed up even later to finish this for me.

Santa Claus came that year to our house. He didn’t just bring dolls, cradles and a rocking horse. He brought us a father.

On the Seventh Day of Christmas My True Love Gave to Me...

Seven Seductive Santas

Be sure to check back here each day for the next seven days to see all seven seductive Santas!

Do you want to win some fantastic holiday reading? If so come celebrate the Twelve days of Romance with 12 authors from Ellora's Cave, Wild Rose Press, Total-E-Bound and Cerridwen Press. Each day beginning December 8th and running through December 19th one of the twelve authors will tell what their "True love gave to them" on either their blog or website.

Collect all twelve answers and e-mail them to anny@annycook.com with 12 days of Romance in the subject line to win some great books. There will be three lucky winners. The prizes –

1st prize--6 books

2nd prize--4 books

3rd prize--2 books

All books and prize winners will be drawn randomly.

Participating Authors/Books:

Anny Cook Winter Hearts
Sandra Cox Boji Stones
Bronwyn Green Ronan’s Grail
Heather Hiestand Cards Never Lie
Barbara Huffert Deal of a Lifetime
Amarinda Jones Mad About Mirabelle
Kelly Kirch Time for Love
Cindy Spencer Pape Cowboy’s Christmas Bride
Brynn Paulin Fallen
Jacquéline Roth Access Denied
KZ Snow Mrs. Claws
Lacey Thorn Earth Moves

And don't forget to check out eMuse online literary magazine. The December issue is out tomorrow, Dec. 15th. See www.emuse-zine.com for original fiction, book reviews, poetry and art.