EXITING CAIRO—JENYFER MATTHEWS

The Middle East is a beautiful place filled with the magic of the ancient world liberally mixed with modern. It’s filled with people good and bad—as with any place you visit in this world. Despite the political structures, scratch the surface of people, regardless of race, and there is a commonality; they want to be happy, have a good life, a secure place to live with plenty to eat, raise their children in safety to thrive and succeed. Unfortunately, that isn’t always possible due to political instability. Such is the case with Egypt and in January of 2011, a campaign of non-violent civil resistance which featured a series of demonstrations, marches, acts of civil disobedience, and labor strikes. Millions of protesters from a variety of socio-economic and religious backgrounds demanded the overthrow of the regime of Egyptian President Mubarak. It wasn’t a particularly safe time for westerners to be there. Various governments started evacuating their people living in Egypt.

My cyber friend, and romance author, Jenyfer Matthews and her family were among those evacuated. I knew she had lived in the Middle east for over ten years. It was home to her children. I was curious about the changes she and her family faced relocating back to the States and the effect on her writing career.

It’s been just over a year since my family evacuated Egypt, days after the first wave of the revolution. After we left, my children and I spent much of the year in limbo, staying with family and friends, waiting to see what would happen next – and whether or not we would be returning to Cairo. Just after summer vacation, days before I would have purchased tickets for us to return to Cairo, my husband was offered a job in Michigan.

About face!

If I had been paralyzed by anxiety and indecision in the first part of last year, suddenly I had too much to do in a very short period of time. My husband had already returned to Cairo after visiting us on his summer vacation and worked out his notice period and organized our personal things for shipping. I came to Michigan to find a rental house and then packed up my car for our move. The children and I arrived on Labor Day, the day before school started. We spent the first week on air mattresses, but they started school on time!

Being anxious and perpetually stressed out didn’t do much for my creativity last year either. I managed to get my backlist formatted for digital and paperback release but wasn’t able to add anything to my unfinished stories. Since returning to the US, I’ve had the opportunity to stretch my creative muscles by stalking garage sales and refinishing furniture that I find – a practical occupation as well since we lived in furnished housing while we were abroad and have very little furniture of our own. A pleasant side effect of that creative outlet was to find my mind wandering while sanding and telling me stories again.

Our transition to living in the US again after a decade abroad hasn’t been without its bumps. I’m a naturally chatty person and when you live abroad, you tend to make friends fast. It probably has something to do with being out of your own element, but I’ve met and bonded with people nearly instantly in my travels and am used to that sort of interaction now. However, I think my instantly familiar manner is a bit off-putting to the classic Midwest reserve if the people I’ve found myself chatting to in the produce section of the grocery store are anything to judge by! (That’s me, the talkative blond by the bananas)

I’ve also had to adjust my shopping habits. Having daily access to a Target is a dangerous thing! I’m used to what I call binge shopping – or trying to buy a year’s supply of “X” at a time because there was nothing that came close to Target in Cairo and I had to stock up on everything in the summers. Having a mall within ten minutes of my house doesn’t mean I need to visit it every day – I can shop at will, when needs arise now. Amazing.

One thing I love love love about Michigan is the number of weekly garage sales. I’ve always loved garage sales but it’s great to be able to use the bargaining skills I honed in the Middle East to get a great deal.

Do I miss Cairo? Of course. Cairo is a tremendously large and polluted city, but Egypt is the kind of place that gets under your skin. Life in Michigan isn’t as exciting or as challenging a place to live on a day-to-day basis as Cairo was – but when “exciting” is punctuated by the sound of gunfire, the constant threat of political instability, and rising crime rates then I’ll take the less exciting option, thanks!


If you want to read more about Jenyfer's thoughts on this and her life back here in the States, check out her blog

Three popular contemporary romance novels by Jenyfer Matthews together for the first time in one volume for one amazing low price. —Here to Stay, One Crazy Summer, and All the Way Home

BUY: Amazon, Smashwords

I am an American recently returned to the US after more than a decade in the Middle East, most recently living in Cairo, Egypt. Aside from writing, I'm a married mom of two, a decent (if reluctant) cook, an encyclopedia of random scientific / medical facts, a wine lover (but not a snob!), and a Capricorn. I love to travel, spend time with good friends, and laugh at life's surprises. View of life - definitely half full. You can find Jenyfer: Facebook and her website.

NO LONGER A SUPPLICANT…

Multi published author, Libby Malin, is visiting us again here at Over Coffee.


It's not that traditional publishers are trying to turn out cookie cutter books, they're not, but their focus is on making money. They look at trends and go with popular depictions of heroes, heroines, and plots. They're a hesitant to take on a story too different or one that doesn't fit a clear genre mold. 


Libby has been published with traditional publishers, been nominated for prestigious awards, but having contracts don't always equate to a steady income. But, I'll let Libby tell you of her writing journey.

Only the luckiest authors achieve publishing success without some rejection. In fact, it’s not unusual for lots of rejection to precede “The Call” from agent or editor offering a contract.

My story is no different. After writing for several years, having manuscripts rejected right and left, I finally reached publishing’s happy ending – first, a contract for young adult mysteries from Bancroft Press, and then a contract for a “chick lit” novel from Harlequin. After that, other contracts followed, from Dorchester (for paperback rights to my first two YAs), Sourcebooks (more chick lit – or romantic comedy), Five Star/Cengage (my first hardcover!), and even a film option deal.

Each step of the way, I thought to myself: This is it. I’ve made it. I can make a steady income from what I love to do best – writing fiction.

And every time I thought that goal had been achieved, I faced disappointment. An Edgar nomination for my first YA didn’t make sales soar, nor did it ensure future publication of other works with other houses. It did get query emails answered more quickly, though!

Some excellent reviews had the same effect—that is, they didn’t jack up sales noticeably but did help me get my manuscripts read by other editors. Even a film option deal, in the works before the print rights had sold, didn't guarantee that a publishing house would take on a project!

I also learned the hard way that when a publisher doesn’t get your book reviewed by the main trade journals, it can have a deleterious effect on your sales. A couple times this happened to me, each time for a book that was near and dear to my heart. While it’s impossible to tell precisely what reviews from the Big Journals (Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Library Journal and the like) would have done for these particular books, I can’t help thinking that the lack of such reviews meant booksellers and librarians wouldn’t be paying much attention.

Nonetheless, like all writers committed to their chosen field, I struggled on. I snagged online reviews when none were appearing in print. I did book signings, virtual book tours, and paid for one full-page ad in a romance magazine.

And I kept writing, often finding, unfortunately, that my manuscripts were like “square pegs” that didn’t quite fit in the “round holes” of various imprints. Some of my rejection letters read like back cover blurbs.

Then something wonderful happened. The Kindle was released and vigorously promoted by Amazon. Other e-readers followed—the Nook, the iPad, and new life for the Sony E-reader.

Authors everywhere started to discover they no longer needed to be supplicants of the “Big Six” publishing houses in New York in order to reach readers. Self-publishing quickly and surely began to lose its negative connotation. It no longer implied vanity publishing, an ego-driven exercise by failed novelists (and isn’t seeking publishing by the Big Six an ego-driven exercise anyway?).

Now there is no such thing as a round hole into which your square peg of a novel won’t fit. Authors can publish their slightly-off-the-beaten-track novels on their own, and many are doing so.

Count me in with that crowd. I now have five novels e-published through my family’s e-publishing house, Istoria Books. One of them, an inspirational romance that had been rejected by editors in New York and beyond, is now regularly among the top 100 bestsellers in historical romance – in both print and e-books.

And my latest offering, a romantic comedy (Aefle and Gisela by Libby Malin), allowed me to explore satire – satire of academe, no less! Who in the traditional publishing world would have taken that on?

That’s the real happy ending of this story. E-publishing has given me the freedom to write the kinds of stories I want to write, without that pesky shadow editor on my shoulder saying things like: “But remember how that agent told you this kind of plot doesn’t sell or that one said the heroine has to be this way or another one suggested you try for this kind of hero…” Those voices have been silenced.

Now I can let my own voice sing.

_________

AEFLE AND GISELA BY LIBBY MALIN

Stopping a wedding -- what could go wrong? 

History Prof Thomas Charlemagne takes a dare and stops a wedding in an attempt to put his "Timid Tommy" reputation to rest at long last....Only problem? It's the wrong wedding.

Legal problems ensue that could wreck his career as the world's leading expert on a poetry-writing medieval monk, Aefle, and his secret love, Gisela, both of whom provide a template for Thomas’s own struggles with life and love.

A heady mix of outlandish comedy, sharp wit and biting satire, Aefle & Gisela is the perfect summer beach read. EXCERPT

 Booklist -- Malin creates a world of wit and chaos that is …smart and insightfully written (My Own Personal Soap Opera).

Buy the book for Kindle here. Buy the book for Nook here. Buy the book for other e-readers here.

Hurry—it’s on sale for only 99 cents as part of a book launch promotion!

_______

Libby Malin is the award-winning author of romance, literary, mystery and young adult fiction. In an attempt to thoroughly confuse her reader fans, she writes comedy under the name Libby Malin and serious fiction under the name Libby Sternberg. Her first young adult mystery, Uncovering Sadie’s Secrets, was an Edgar nominee, and her first romantic comedy, Fire Me, was optioned for film. She lives in Pennsylvania, has three children and one husband, and confesses to watching “Real Housewives” shows despite enormous amounts of culture-guilt.

Visit the author’s website at: http://www.LibbyMalin.com

Visit the Istoria Books blog to read an interview with the author by her alter ego: http://istoriabooks.blogspot.com/2011/09/libby-interviews-libby-about-aefle.html

Some praise for Libby Malin's other comedic novels:

Booklist -- Malin creates a world of wit and chaos that is …smart and insightfully written (My Own Personal Soap Opera).

Publishers Weekly --  A whimsical look at the vagaries of dating... an intriguing side plot adds punch and pathos to the story...(Loves Me, Loves Me Not) 

_____

Finding a Substitue Me

It seems working women have way too much on their plates today. Having a career, having a successful marriage, raising a family, and doing it all well is the dream of many women in the workforce. What we end up with is exhaustion and guilt. How can you possibly do it all and do it well? If you’re lucky, you can afford domestic help.

I always managed to have someone to come in and clean my house a couple of times a week and someone who took care of the yard. I could afford it and it made life easier for me. At the peak of my career, as Vocational Rehab Counselor, I didn’t have any children so the hard choice of nannies and housekeepers wasn’t an issue.


When I did have a child, having seen plenty of my contemporaries going through the worry of hiring au pairs or housekeepers/nannies, I decided it wasn’t for me. I managed to work as an independent consultant for a few years but the workload was heavy and although I was ‘at home’ I felt the rush to get my work done with my usual competency and have quality time with my child. Talk about a juggling act, and subsequent exhaustion. So I chose to retire from being a counselor and be a full time mom using my areas of expertise to do contract niche jobs and it worked out much better for our family. Not everyone can make that choice.


My guest is Lori Tharps. She has a career teaching journalism on the university level and is married and raising two children. Now, she adds another job of author. Author, Journalist, Speaker, Mom--juggling at it's finest.


Her topic: if you could have a substitute to stand in for you in the home, what tasks would you have them do?

 

This past August, my debut novel, Substitute Me (Atria Books) hit store shelves. I’ve authored two other non-fiction books, Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America and Kinky Gazpacho: Life, Love, and Spain, but completing my first novel is like a dream come true for me. Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve loved to make up stories and reading has always been my passion. So, now I have accomplished by greatest dream. Cue the music, curtains close. Not! Becoming a published author has not changed the course of my every day life in any substantial way. I still have to go to work every morning (I teach journalism at a local university), be a great mom to my two sons and keep a smile on my face while doing it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. I love my life. But I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I could use some help every now and again. And I mean help that my wonderful husband isn’t exactly qualified to do.

The irony is not lost on me that my book, Substitute Me is about a woman in a similar position. The same position as most working mothers. Kate Carter, one of the two female protagonists in the book, is an ambitious PR executive about to return to work after her maternity leave. She loves staying home with her newborn son, but she loves her job too. So, she hires a nanny, just like the majority of other working moms in her Brooklyn neighborhood. In the newspaper ad she places, she writes that she’s looking for a “substitute me” to “love her child as if he were her own.” Zora Anderson, an African-American woman who is trying to find her purpose in life, answers Kate’s ad and becomes Kate’s perfect substitute. Almost too perfect.

Even though in my novel the Carter household is forever altered after Zora takes over the domestic duties, sometimes I dream about hiring a ‘substitute me’ for myself. These days, that is my greatest dream.

Here’s what I’d like my ‘substitute’ to do:

• • Make a delicious breakfast every morning, including fresh-squeezed orange juice.

• • Make my kids’ lunches for school with a healthy and fun rotation of meals that they’ll actually eat and not trade with the kids whose mothers give them blue Kool-Aid and snacks with neon-orange cheese powder.

• •Clean my house while I’m at work, paying special attention to the dust on all of the shelves, which I like to pretend I don’t notice.

• • Make a scrumptious dinner that won’t make me fat, but tastes like it will.

That would be pretty much all I’d ask for, but then again, we’re just dreaming here, so why stop? If I were in the market for a real ‘substitute me,’ I’d probably also ask her to:

• • Take the boys to karate, baseball and music lessons, so I can work on my writing while they’re gone.

• • Help the boys with their math homework when I can’t figure out what the heck ‘new math’ really means. Hey, I’m a writer, I don’t speak math fluently.

• • Do the laundry because I have a tendency to avoid going down in the basement because I’m afraid of the spiders and crickets that sometimes like to jump out and scare me.

• • Join the PTA so the principal and teachers at the children’s school know how much I value my children’s’ education.

• • Start a boy-scout troop in our neighborhood because my older son wants to be a Boy Scout and there are no local troop leaders.

• • Go out salsa dancing with my husband every once in awhile to remind him that the spark is still alive in our marriage.

I think that about sums up what I need help with these days. If there was somebody in my life who could handle all of those chores, I’m sure I’d be far more prolific with my writing. But in the meantime, I’ll just keep up with my frenetic pace and my mind-boggling organizational skills that allow me to write in the in-between times. It’s worked so far…

• If you could hire a substitute you, to help you find more time to write, what tasks would you assign her? Or him?

~#~#~#~#~

SUBSTITUTE ME:

Zora Anderson is a 30-year-old African American middle class, college-educated woman, trained as a chef, looking for a job. As fate would have it, Kate and Craig, a married couple, aspiring professionals with a young child are looking for a nanny.

Zora seems perfect. She’s an enthusiastic caretaker, a competent housekeeper, a great cook. And she wants the job, despite the fact that she won’t let her African American parents and brother know anything about this new career move. They expect much more from her than to use all that good education to do what so many Blacks have dreamed of not doing: working for White folks. Working as an au pair in Paris, France no less, was one thing, they could accept that. Being a servant to a couple not much older or more educated, is yet another. Every adult character involved in this tangled web is hiding something: the husband is hiding his desire to turn a passion for comic books into a business from his wife, the wife is hiding her professional ambitions from her husband, the nanny is hiding her job from her family and maybe her motivations for staying on her job from herself.

Memorable characters, real-life tensions and concerns and the charming—in a hip kind of way—modern-day Park Slope, Fort Greene, Brooklyn setting make for an un-put-down-able read. Excerpt

Buy: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books a Million

~*~*~*~*~

Lori L. Tharps is the author of two critically acclaimed non-fiction books and the new novel, Substitute Me. She is an assistant professor of journalism at Temple University.

Please visit her website, LoriTharps.com. And on Facebook 

WHEN THE WORDS WON'T COME

“There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.”

My guest is women's fiction author, Leanna Ellis. Her forte is handling subjects and emotion with humor.

We all hit different forms of writer's block. I think it comes with the territory. How we deal with it is also individualist. I'm a firm believer that God never allows us to face an obstacle alone. He always makes the way out for us. The secret is to see the path provided and then have enough trust to follow it, especially given the fact that humans tend to have *eye* problems. You know what I mean;  I think, I feel, I want?

I love Leanna's article of running out of words, dealing with grief and grayness of spirit. It resonated with me as I have faced similar issues this year. Leanna was provided an unlikely hero, Hilo. But I'll let her tell you all about that.


What happens when you run out of words? Recently I came back from a writer’s conference, and I was frankly all talked out. Usually I sit in the quiet (or near quiet, except for my barking dogs, meowing cat and children coming and going, okay not-so-quiet) of my house and write my books. But what happens when an author runs out of words?


This happened to me not too long ago. Right when I was supposed to begin writing my book, FACELIFT. No words. They just wouldn’t come. You see, my father had just passed away. To make matters worse, I write books with a big dose of humor and I frankly didn’t feel very humorous. Erma Bombeck once said, “There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.” Those words are so true, and actually describe my writing pretty well. I write about deep subjects, difficult subjects, deep in the heart subjects, and package it all up in humor. But after my father died, humor was hard to come by. And the well of words I’d been drawing from for almost twenty years was dry.

What’s an author to do? First of all, I tried to be patient with myself. When I could only write ‘Chapter Five’ one day, not the chapter, just those two words: chapter five, I breathed deeply, tried not to panic, and said, “Maybe tomorrow.” Cue in the music from Annie here, right?

The words still didn’t come. Day after day I had no words to put on the page. But I was busy helping my children through their grief and as they finished up the school year. There were lots of activities to keep us busy and kept me moving even when there were days that I didn’t want to get out of bed.

But the one thing that really got me moving was my crazy labradoodle, Hilo, named after our favorite vacation spot on the big island of Hawaii. She was a puppy, not quite one year old, and she had more energy than all of my other animals and children combined. I’d raised several animals in my time but never had I experienced a dog like this. Think Marley and Me…but worse! She could jump in one bound onto my dining room table. And she did regularly. She also ate everything in sight, including ten pairs of eyeglasses. She ate half a turkey, a pound of butter, a bunch of grapes, nine spicy chicken wings (bones included), numerous boxes of tissues, rolls of toilet paper, shoes and who knows what else. So to start each day, in my pathetic effort to wear her out (at least for a while) I would take her for a walk. But I soon realized that the blue sky, sun, and soft breeze blew away the gloom I often woke with in the mornings. Now, walking wasn’t an easy task, Hilo liked to bark and lunge at anyone and any dog or cat she saw. She reminded me a bit of Tramp in Lady and the Tramp, the way Tramp could stir up those chickens was the way Hilo liked to stir up the neighborhood. She also loved to go after cars and school buses. But those exhausting walks (more so for me than her) took my mind off my sorrow for a few minutes at least.

I began writing about Hilo’s antics on my Facebook page (still do!). Then one day, I thought maybe I would write her into a scene in my novel, Facelift, just for the fun of it. Of course, I had to change her name to protect the not-so-innocent. So she became Cousin It. And soon words were flowing more easily. Suddenly scenes were coming together for me.

Through the humor of Hilo, I was able to face the heartache in my own heart but also in my characters’. I don’t think it was a coincidence that FACELIFT was about finding hope and joy in spite of painful circumstances and situations.

FACELIFT Blurb:


A ‘can do’ kind of woman runs her own business, raises her teenage daughter, and takes care of her ex-mother-in-law after a botched facelift. But Kaye learns a facelift is more than skin deep. Joy is more than tacking on a happy face. It's relying on her sovereign God who has a plan for her life. Download first chapter excerpt. Trailer

BUY:  Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books a Million, Borders, IndieBound 

• In Facelift, Kaye feels like her life is out of control. Have you ever felt that way?

I’ll be happy to provide a book for a giveaway. Please limit to the U.S. Thanks!

~ * ~ * ~

Winner of the National Readers Choice Award, Leanna Ellis writes women’s fiction and is known for her quirky characters and wacky plots as in her current novel, FACELIFT. But don’t let the quirkiness fool you, Ellis probes the heart and plucks at the heart strings. Next year will debut FORSAKEN, the first of an Amish/vampire series. Now that is wacky!

You can find Leanna: Website, Blog, Facebook