Ultimate Baba Yaga Blast Giveway! And Book Signing

I had a fabulous time yesterday in Albany at the Flights of Fantasy bookstore doing my first "real" book signing as a novelist (other than small things around my own area). As a bonus, I got to see my sister Sarah (and fab brother in-law Rich) who live near there, and check out the Barnes & Noble, which only had one copy of the book left

My sister is the good-looking one to the left. On the right you can see my stalwart friend Ellen, who did the driving.

At Flights of Fantasy

I shared the signing with a fab SF/Fantasy author named Ryk Spoor

Got to see a longtime fan, Josephine F.

As well as the radiant Rebecca Elson of The Magical Buffet, who brought me goodies!

And got a surprise visit from a formal local and Blue Moon Circle regular, Lauren, which made my day!

The book signing was kind of the highlight of a truly fabulous book release week. I've been working hard, but having a lot of fun, so I have a couple of gifts for you folks, who have all helped to make the release of both Baba Yaga books, WICKEDLY DANGEROUS in September and WICKEDLY WONDERFUL on December 2nd so successful.

First of all, I have a fun, FREE Baba Yaga short story for you! The lovely folks at Literary Escapism do a cool thing where they ask various authors to write a short short story about their protagonists going holiday shopping. Of course, since Beka is a witch, she goes Yule shopping, and needless to say, it isn't all that simple. I hope you enjoy this story, since I had a lot of fun writing it.

And, of course, I had to do one last big, blowout giveaway! I can't express how much I appreciate everyone's support--buying the books, and posting reviews, and spreading the word. But maybe this will help.

It's a GIANT GIVEAWAY!

 I'm giving away the ultimate Baba Yaga series prize pack: signed copies of both books,  Wickedly Wonderful mug, a Chudo-Yudo dragon necklace (because we're all about the dragons around here), bookmarks, postcards, magnets, and two dragon temporary tattoo booklets!

A closeup of the Chudo-Yudo necklace

The mug

This would make the perfect ready-made holiday gift for a friend who likes paranormal romance...or for yourself, of course.

So THANK YOU, so much for being such a great cheering section, and good luck to you all!

(USA only, due to the weight of all that booty, but if you are out of the country, you are welcome to enter and I will send you a modified prize pack.)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Book Release Party and Guest Blogs

I had a fabulous Book Release Celebration Party on Sunday (which worked out well, since I could clean the house on Saturday, have the party on Sunday, and recover on Monday!). A fitting 13 people come to help me celebrate this landmark--the release of my debut novel, Wickedly Dangerous.

To be honest, I almost didn't bother to have a party. I'm not much on being the center of attention, and I'm a wee bit tired and burned out from all the promo and preparation leading up to the actual release day, Tuesday the 2nd.

But I finally decided, what the hell, you only have ONE debut novel, right? So I invited a few of the folks who have been so supportive for so long, and who live within driving distance. Of course, they couldn't all make it, but the ones who did brought yummy food to share, and the company was great. I felt very, very lucky. And not just because of this...

Pals Rebecca and Jim brought this amazing Chocolate Guinness Stout cake from their favorite bakery

The gang, cheering for the book (along with my posters sent by Berkley)

More cheering, with me in the middle

My gorgeous sister Sarah came all the way from Niskayuna for the party

I hated to cut into the cake. And yes, that poster has legs.

My charming and handsome pal Rob came from Binghamton. And brought pomegranate mead!

It was a fabulous day...but now I'm back to work. I hope you'll come visit me at a couple of places online where I'm guest-blogging (or just being talked about) today.

I'm the guest of Nancy Hunter at the very cool Eight Ladies Writing blog, which features eight different writers from four states and three continents. Come see what I have to say in my guest blog, and leave me a question or a comment (you know, so they won't think I have NO friends).

Author pal Alex Bledsoe, who was one of the people who read early and gave my publishers a blurb for the book cover, is talking about me over on his blog Alex's Blog. I have no idea what he is going to say...hopefully it will be something nice!

Important Advance Head's Up!
I am going to be doing a live chat and giveaway of a $50 Amazon Gift Card on Tuesday, release day, over at Bitten By Books
Follow this link to RSVP early, and get an extra 25 points towards the contest!

And I'm going to have a special surprise for you all on release day, as well as one last big giveaway, so be sure to come by and say hi! We can have a party then too...but I'm afraid you'll have to bring your own cake!

People are Talking About Me (and Feline Friday)

People have been talking about me this week. Well, at least, they've been talking about my books, and that's a good thing!

Author Jim C. Hines had a great review of WICKEDLY DANGEROUS on his blog HERE (Spoiler: He liked it!)

Author Lisa Shearin was kind enough to spread the word at her blog HERE

(These are both amazing authors--two of my favorite writers AND people. If you're not reading them yet, you should definitely check them out.)

Rebecca Elson talked about The Witches Broom on her blog, The Magical Buffet

You should go check these things out and say hi--tell 'em Deborah sent you :-)

Maybe the most exciting of all was a review in one of the major romance publications, RT Book Reviews. They gave WICKEDLY DANGEROUS four stars (they only go up to 4 1/2, so 4 is great) and a really glowing review. (I'm not sure if you can read the review if you don't have a subscription, but here is the link in case you can.) RT BOOK REVIEWS

My wonderful publisher, Berkley, is giving away twenty copies of WICKEDLY DANGEROUS on GOODREADS -- go see if you can snag a copy!

It is hard to believe that the novella will be out on August 5th! That's next week! *faints* Wickedly Magical

And the lovely folks at Berkley sent me the first print copy of WICKEDLY DANGEROUS, hot off the presses. Magic the Cat was very impressed. Isn't it bee-oo-tiful?

Your Feline Friday picture

She doesn't look like she wants to give that one up, but pretty soon I should get my box of author copies, and then I suspect we'll be having some giveaways... In fact, I will probably do something next Tuesday, to celebrate the release of the novella, so stay tuned. (If you're not signed up for the newsletter, you might want to be...just saying.) I know I'm going to do an ARC giveaway on my Facebook Author Page (they don't let you do giveaways on your personal page, silly people), so if you want in on that, you should go like me.

 As you might expect, the next month or so is going to be a lot of "OMG THE BOOKS" around here, but I'll try to keep it interesting. Next up is a blog post on the origins of the Baba Yaga (the original stories, not my updated take on  it). I hope to have exciting news to announce soon about the Super Sekrit Project too.

Nothing but good times ahead! So are you as excited as Magic is about the book?

A Day with Rebecca, or Let Them Eat Cake!

One of my favorite people came to visit on Saturday. I first met Rebecca Elson through her blog The Magical Buffet and other online venues, and then finally in person when she came to visit me one year at the local Spiritual Arts Fair, which I took part in at the time.

Addendum: Rebecca scolded me for not putting up the picture of Magic the Cat's "Oh, no, it's HER again" face. This is the look Magic gave Rebecca when she walked in the door:

 

Rebecca, me, and author Gail Wood, another one of my favorite people

She lives just far enough away that we don't get to see each other nearly as often as we'd like to, but HURRAH! she came to visit for a few hours on Saturday, and we had a wonderful time together as always.

Mostly we just sat and talked, catching up on life stuff, career stuff, and the rest. But of course, she had to try out the new desk.

 Hey--get your feet off of there!

And I made us one of my signature uber-salads (this one had chicken and corn I'd roasted on the bbq, plus avocado, tomatoes, and lettuce, spinach, and herbs out of the garden) and my new favorite discovery, sparkling pomegranate juice. Firefly fans, please note the cool "Brown Coat" hat she is wearing.

As usual, Rebecca and Magic had a serious discussion about whether or not Rebecca gives cats tidbits off her plate. (Magic is in favor. Rebecca is not. Hence the look.)

We had to have a salad, because afterwards we ate some of this, which Rebecca brought with her from her (and now my) favorite bakery, Dolce & Biscotti in Albany.

 

It is apparently called "Ultimate Chocolate Indulgence Cake" and the name is not an exaggeration. It was fabulous and sweet...just like the company.

Of course, being the silly folks we are, this led to a hearty round of "Cake or Death" jokes. (Eddie Izzard, for the few of you who haven't heard this stuff yet.)

I hope you had fun this weekend too, and that you got to spend at least part of it with someone special. And just a suggestion, but if someone offers you "Cake or death," pick the cake. Just saying.

Feline Friday: The Coming Weekend

How the heck did it get to be Friday? For that matter, how the heck did it get to be July 11th? *blinks*

On the other hand, I have fun plans for this weekend--I'm REALLY looking forward to a visit on Saturday from one of my favorite people, Rebecca Elson of the The Magical Buffet blog, which is less about magic that it is about life. (Although she did just do a review of a book on goddesses that sounded so amazing, I went right out and bought it. Thanks a lot, Rebecca.)

I plan to cook up a simple BBQ for us, and as usual, we will probably just sit around and talk for hours about anything and everything. Rebecca will undoubtedly have her usual argument with Magic the Cat about whether or not cats should be allowed on people's laps at the table. And then, of course, Saturday night is full moon, which I'll be observing by myself because everyone in Blue Moon Circle is off doing something or other.

Then Sunday will be all about catching up with the yard, garden, and writing. Big surprise, right?

So what are you doing this weekend? I suspect that around here, we'll have a lot more of this:

 Reading (That's the new Donna Andrews book, The Good, the Bad, and the Emus)

 Napping (not on Saturday, since Rebecca will be here, but hopefully on Sunday)

 And checking out the new desk

I hope you have plans to do something fun!

Fast and Easy Daily Divination

Lots of people read their horoscope every morning, but for many of us, that is the only bit of “checking in” we do. After all, few people have the time (or inclination) to do a full tarot spread with their morning coffee. And mostly, we don’t need that much detailed information. Luckily, there are lots of fast and easy ways to get a quick hint at what your day holds, or what you need to know to make the most of it.

Years ago, when I was practicing with my first coven, my then-high priestess had us do an interesting experiment. Every day for a month, we pulled one rune stone at the beginning of the day. We wrote down the stone, and any flashes of intuition we got when we looked at it, and then checked in at the end of the day to see if there was, in fact, any relationship between the two. Not surprisingly, there often was.

This also turned out to be a great way of learning the runes themselves. I started out having to look up the meanings of each rune in a book [my favorite is Lisa Peschel’s A Practical Guide to the Runes—it’s old, but it is easy to use and understand], but by the end of the month, I was much more familiar with them. If you’re interested in becoming better acquainted with the stones or any other form of divination, try doing something like this. It’s a fun and practical way to learn. Either pull one out of a bag, if that’s what you store them in, or place them in a small bowl and just close your eyes and grab one.

If rune stones aren’t your thing, you can do this with tarot cards instead. If you’re not used to using the cards, I suggest starting with something basic like the classic Rider-Waite Tarot. That’s the one I started with, lo these many years ago, and I have been reading professionally for ages with this one pack. [It’s a bit battered by now, but it works so well for me, I’m rarely tempted to switch to something else, despite the bevy of beautiful decks out there.] However, there are lots of variations on the tarot card deck, and you can pick whichever one seems to “speak” to you the most loudly.

As with the rune stones, you can start your day by shuffling the deck and picking out a card at random. Sometimes one will even jump out of the deck at you. You can either ask a question (“What does my day hold?” “What do I need to know today?”) or just see what comes up. If you are dealing with something tricky, you can ask a specific question, like “Should I go out on a date with that hunky guy at the office?”

There are plenty of alternatives for those who don’t have or don’t like either rune stones or tarot cards. I have a number of interesting decks that I use for inspiration, answers, or just a way to get in touch with spirit quickly and easily.

One of my favorites, which I’ve used numerous times in ritual with my group Blue Moon Circle, is the Goddess Inspiration Oracle deck, by Kris Waldherr. She’s well known for her beautiful goddess-themed artwork, and this deck is filled with amazing images, as well as lovely descriptions of the 80 goddesses featured on the cards—yet another way to learn while being inspired and guided.

Another one I like is The Gifts of the Goddess: 36 Affirmation Cards by Amy Zerner and Monte Farber.

My current favorite was a Yule gift from my friend Rebecca Elson. She gets to preview lots of great decks for her blog, The Magical Buffet, and she knew I’d love this one when she saw it. The Conscious Spirit Oracle Deck, by Kim Dreyer, has lovely pictures and inspiring affirmations. I’ve taken to pulling one each morning, standing at my altar, and reading it out loud. Then I try to carry its message through the rest of my day. For instance, this morning’s card was number 18: Air Elemental. And the affirmation said, “I embrace the element of air and am open to all knowledge and wisdom.” Isn’t that a great way to start out the day? (Also, I have to do research today, so it makes a certain amount of sense.)

The simplest way to use any of these options is to choose one—runes or tarot or some other form of tapping into intuition—and simply pull one stone or card each morning. Take a minute to focus on it, and you’re done.

If you want to take it a step further, you can keep a couple of different options out where you can access them easily, and pull from whichever one calls to you the most that day. Or do runes one month, and tarot cards another.

To move a little more deeply (and I highly recommend trying this, at least for a month sometime), write down your stone or card, and any thoughts or feelings you have about it, and keep track of them in a small notebook or in your Book of Shadows, if you have one. (If you already journal, you can add this to your daily jottings.) At the end of a day, a week, or a month, take a look back and see if you can make out any patterns that could be helpful.

Asking for guidance and/or inspiration doesn’t have to be complicated or take a lot of time. You certainly don’t have to be an expert card reader to do it. (In fact, many folks like me, who do read professionally, can’t read for themselves at all. Ironic, isn’t it?) You just have to take the same amount of time and effort you would put into reading your daily horoscope. And honestly, this is likely to be a lot more helpful!

New Things for the New Year: Kindles and Cards and Nanos, Oh My

I've started off the new year by getting myself a couple of new pieces of technology that I've been resisting for some time--a Kindle eReader and an iPod Nano. I also have a great new set of Oracle cards, thanks to the lovely Rebecca Elson (who always knows which ones are best, because she reviews them for her fabulous blog The Magical Buffet).

I confess, I'm a bit of a Luddite. I'm not big on gadgets (I still don't know how to text on  my new cheapo cell phone, although in part that's because I can't get reception at my house, so I only use it on rare occasions), although I do have three computers (a desktop and two laptops, one huge old one for editing and the smaller one I'm typing on right now) and a 4 or 5 year old Galaxy tablet (which I got for when I travel, and mostly use to play Words with Friends...).

My old stereo died years ago, and I have mostly been playing music on my computer, since that has the best speakers--Altec Lansing, which I discovered thanks to my father, who is NOT a Luddite--and my portable CD player which is huge, has crappy speakers, and eats D-cell batteries like they were M & M's.

In truth, I don't listen to music a lot in the house, although the car won't move unless there is some kind of tune playing. I blast fun music while cleaning, and I like to have music on outside when I'm gardening, but otherwise, I like the quiet. Still, it was getting frustrating to move to parts of the house where I could barely hear the computer speakers, or drag the portable battery-eater out to the garden. And *any day now* I am going to start going to the gym. So the iPod Nano seemed like a good idea.

Also, my new Honda Fit has a place to plug one in, which seemed like it would be a lot easier than carting tons of CDs around. Ill let you know how it goes, since I'm still figuring out how to download music onto it, and I haven't even tried to play it yet. [See Luddite, above.]

The Kindle came about for two reasons. One, lots of my favorite authors and writer pals are putting out some of their books, novellas especially, only in eBook form, and I was missing out on them. I have a Kindle app on my computer, but I really don't like to read on the computer, since I spend so much time on it anyway, and the laptop is banned from the bedroom. I have downloaded some things onto the tablet, but I never did end up reading them there (among other things, you can only adjust the type to four different sizes, and to change pages you have to swipe the screen with your finger, which eventually aggravates my tendonitis).

The other reason I finally broke down and got the Kindle is because I've been having problems with my eyes for months, which despite all efforts by my wonderful eye doctor (including multiple prescription changes and an attempt with extra reading glasses) has resulted in major eye pain whenever I read or use the computer. [Yeah, I know. That's only about 90% of my day.] I was hoping that being able to adjust the print size would help, and that meant getting some kind of an eReader.

I didn't want to spend a lot of money, since I would still much rather read in paper form, and I wanted something lightweight, for when I was lying in bed. The basic Kindle seemed to fit the bill.

I've only been using it for a week or so, and I have mixed feelings about it. It is definitely pretty easy to use, even for the technologically challenged like me, and I can make the font as large as I want to. But I really don't like the grayish background, which I find difficult to read against at any time, but especially at night in bed. Dammit.

Has anyone else had good experiences with other eReaders they can suggest? I don't particularly want to spend the money on a new tablet, since I only need something to read on.

The last new--thankfully LOW tech--goodie is my Conscious Spirit Oracle Deck, a Yule gift from my pal Rebecca. Written and beautifully illustrated by Kim Dreyer, this deck is one of the coolest ones I've seen. I've been using it as a daily guide of sorts, pulling a card every morning and saying out loud whatever is on it as an affirmation. I also try to be mindful of whatever comes up, as I walk through my day.

For instance, today's card was #24 (Third Eye Chakra), which says: I see the wisdom of my higher self and apply this wisdom to my life. How cool is that? [I liked them so much, I immediately ordered a set as an early birthday present and sent them to my friend Skye.]

I've also been thinking a lot about this blog, and what I want to do with it in the coming year. I've considered making it a bit more personal...obviously, I spend a lot of time talking about writing and magical work, usually in the context of my own life. (And y'all get to hear about fun stuff like rat incursions and kitchen floods.) But I tend to be a fairly private person, so while I often share my life, I don't usually talk much about how I feel, or more personal issues.

And to be honest, I'm not even sure it that is something people would even be interested in reading about. (Seriously--I'm BORING.)

So you tell me: what do YOU want to read about here in the coming year? What are your favorite bits? what do you want more of, or less of? After all, I really write this for you, my readers.

Oh, and before I forget! The new Llewellyn book, The Witch's Broom is ON SALE now, and available for preorder. Once it comes out, it will be $15.99, but Amazon has it priced at $11.99, in case you want to get your copy ordered now. *happy author dance*

The Birthday Weekend Report

I hadn't really planned to do anything special for my birthday this year--let's face it, turning 53 (gasp!) isn't exactly one of those big exciting occasions. But then people kept saying, "Why don't we...?" And somehow I ended up with plans for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

None of it was very fancy, but all added up together, it really made for a stellar birthday.

Friday, my friend Ellie (who runs The Artisans' Guild with me), took me and our mutual friend Bobbie, whose birthday is May 2nd, out for a shared birthday lunch at the wonderful Cajun restaurant down the street from the shop. I had this insanely good burger topped with bacon and sauteed onions and apples...

Ellie also bought me one of the best, most appropriate cards I ever saw...

 On Saturday, my fabulous blogger pal Rebecca Elson, from The Magical Buffet, came up from Clifton Park (about 2 hours away) with her husband Jim, who is an absolute sweetie. As was the amazing cake they brought with them from a local bakery, Dolce and Biscotti. It was a Guinness stout chocolate cake with Bailey's buttercream frosting. OH MY GOD. They also took me out to lunch at The Farmhouse, a terrific restaurant about 3 miles from my house, and then we just hung out and talked and talked and talked. It was a lovely day.

Then on Sunday, the actual day of my birthday, I spent the morning working in the garden with my best pal Ellen and then in the afternoon went to the movies with my friend John to watch Tom Cruise blow things up in Oblivion. Neither of those activities were particularly birthday oriented, but being with friends was the thing that made them great. Well, and John bought the popcorn :-)

All in all, it was a wonderful low-keyed three day celebration, topped off with lots of lovely birthday greetings both online and off. It made me feel all happy-shiny to know I had such great friends. There is no present better than that.

Guest Post at The Magical Buffet

Magic the Cat and I are given 10 questions to answer at one of my favorite blogs, The Magical Buffet.

Go check it out, and tell Magic you said hi!

The Magical Buffet

A Visit from the Magical Buffet!

One of the side benefits of being an author is that I have made a lot of great friends along the way. One of my favorite pals is Rebecca Elson from The Magical Buffet (www.themagicalbuffet.com )-- Rebecca is a blogger and a reader and a tireless cheerleader for all things me, bless her little heart.

And she lives about an hour and a half from me, so every once in a while we actually get to see each other in person, rather than communicating via email and FB. Yesterday she drove up here so I could do some energy healing work on her, and she brought me yummy lunch from Panera Bread. You can see her here, being ogled by Magic the Cat, who clearly thought there should have been a third sandwich.



Then she interviewed Magic about the upcoming book. It was quite a conversation. I could barely get a word in.



All in all, it was a lovely visit. Be sure to wander over to The Magical Buffet, where Rebecca talks intelligently about a variety of subjects, and go follow her on Facebook and Twitter. Be sure to tell her that Magic the Cat sent you!

Save the Date! September 11th in Saratoga

Hi All!

If you live anywhere near Saratoga, NY...

I hope you will join me and six other spiritual/Pagan/paranormal Nonfiction authors at the Magical Buffet of Authors event at the Saratoga Barnes and Noble on Saturday, September 11th from 2-6.

Here is the link to the B&N site with specifics http://store-locator.barnesandnoble.com/event/3044002

This event is the brainchild of fabu blogger, Rebecca Elson of The Magical Buffet (if you have never checked out her blog, by golly, you should! http://www.themagicalbuffet.com/ )

The other authors include Ellen Evert Hopman, Gordie Little, Lama Willa Miller, David Pitkin, Maria Kay Simms, and my pal Gail Wood (who some of you might remember from The Spiritual Arts Fair here in Oneonta).

I hope to see some of you there!

Fabulous First Friday and the Spiritual Arts Fair

I have been putting a lot of time and energy lately into being on the committee for a new venture in Oneonta: Fabulous First Fridays. The idea here (which has been done very succesfully elsewhere) is to have a number of arts and culture related events on the first Friday of every month to draw people downtown.

The kick-off date was last Friday, May 7th, and it went pretty well. The Artisans' Guild (the shop I run and have my jewelry at) held a "Meet the New Artists" reception, featuring the seven artists and craftspeople who had joined the shop in the last year. Here's a pic of me chatting with a few of the other artist-members of The Guild.



The next day, Saturday the 8th, was the 6th annual Spiritual Arts Fair, held at the local UU Church. I took a bunch of books to sign, and did mini-tarot readings all day long. That's a fun activity--but a lot more draining than you might think, especially when you run into a streak of people with real issues, as I did this year. Still, at least I could help.

The highpoint of the day for me was getting to hang out with Pagan author pal Gail Wood [check out her books, if you haven't already and you're interested in Witchcraft--they're wonderful!] and blogger Rebecca Elson from the Magical Buffet http://www.themagicalbuffet.com/. Both ladies live just far enough away that I only get to see them on rare occasions. So this was a real treat.



That's Rebecca on my left, and Gail on my right. The next time we'll be together will be at major multi-author booksigning event that Rebecca is putting together for the Barnes and Noble in Saratoga, on September 11th. I can't wait!

Of course, the downside of all this activity was that it seriously cut into my writing time.

Twitch, twitch.

Luckily, I made up for it with an unusually productive burst on Sunday, ending up with 5K words by the time the day was over. That's possibly a personal best for me (I usually average 1,500-2,000 words in a day). This puts me well over the 2/3rd mark on the manuscript at 68,500 words. I'm aiming for about 88K, which should take me about 2 weeks to hit, if all goes well.

I'll keep you posted!