Recent Author Events and Book Reviews
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Recent Author Events and Book Reviews

Recent Author Events

I’ve enjoyed getting out and promoting THE YEAR OF LOVING and my other novels, too, of course.

Book Club

Early in February the Women’s Novels of New York Book Club hosted me at a dinner downtown. What a great group of women! They asked meaty questions and offered insightful comments about The Year of Loving. They reminded me why I am a novelist.

That’s right, books are the keepers of soul, and novels enrich people’s lives! Novels entertain, amuse, provoke, incite, and open the doors to the mind. I was touched and honored to sit with this thoughtful, kind group of readers. Also, the food at Gloo was delicious.

Book Blog Reviews

Two book review blogs posted excellent reviews of THE YEAR OF LOVING.

CTRL, ALT, BOOKS! is run by Layna whom I’ve known for a few years from other blogs. She reads and writes with keen intelligence. I love her well-written, deeply observant reviews. She serves as one of my ‘test’ bloggers; if she doesn’t get what I’m trying to do, then I haven’t done my job as a novelist. She’s that good.

Layna started her review with these words: “Traci L. Slatton is one of the most underrated authors I have come across. I have yet to read one of her works that I didn’t thoroughly enjoy and The Year of Loving is no exception. It was beautifully written and evoked a wide range of emotions.”

In conclusion, she wrote, “The book is written in such a way that you really connect with all of the characters, whether you like them or not. I had to keep reading to know what happened next in Sarah’s life, even if that meant I lost a little (a lot) of sleep in the process. Truly a great story and a must read!”

Layna’s review prompted me think–which a good review does. I had to ask myself, Why am I an underrated author? Because I think Layna is on to something. I sent her a note saying so, and thanking her for the review. Seems like I have some work to do within my own consciousness…

CTRL, ALT, BOOKS! review

Also, Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers published a review. What a treat to find a new review blog! Gina R wrote the review:

On the surface, we have a woman (Sarah) caught between ages, pulled two ways by desire, and struggling to make all the pieces fit one big puzzle in an effort to reach happily-ever-after.  At its heart, it’s a story of one woman truly finding her way back to herself.

Did I agree with all her choices?  No…in fact, I was actually very surprised by the ending… I was thinking something completely different, but then again, that resistance to fit what I think, or what anyone thinks for that matter, is what makes Ms. Slatton’s character that much more real. The way Sarah struggles to deal with her friend’s illness…, the constant battle between her and her daughters (let’s now even mention the ex) to find some common ground let alone agreement on pretty much anything, and even the yoyo not-a-relationship status she puts herself and the two contenders in, all add up to one independent, not-perfect-but-still-trying-mightily woman that will capture your attention, if not your heart…

I enjoyed this review and the openness with which Gina related her experience of the novel.

The Year of Loving Book review

Library Event

In addition, just yesterday I did an author event at the Riverside Library in NYC. It was good fun, with attendees who asked probing questions about THE YEAR OF LOVING. The lovely librarian Ms. Gomila helped out in various ways. A great experience!

Recent author events

Announcing THE YEAR OF LOVING
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Announcing THE YEAR OF LOVING

Announcing THE YEAR OF LOVING

I am delighted to announce the forthcoming publication of THE YEAR OF LOVING.

The Year of Loving by Traci l. Slatton

Art gallerist Sarah Paige’s world is crumbling. One daughter barely speaks to her and the other is off the rails. Sarah is struggling to keep her gallery afloat in a tough market when she learns that her most beloved friend has cancer. In the midst of her second divorce, two men come into her life: an older man who offers companionship and stability and an exciting younger man whose life is as chaotic as hers.

Sarah’s courage, humor, and spirit strengthen her, but how much can she bear, and what sustains her when all else falls away?

THE YEAR OF LOVING is available on Amazon.com for pre-order. Publication date is October 10, 2016.

Look for a blog tour in November from Bewitching Book Tours!

 

BLOOD SKY is 2015 Indiefab Finalist
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BLOOD SKY is 2015 Indiefab Finalist

BLOOD SKY named Foreword Reviews’ 2015 INDIEFAB Book of the Year Awards Finalist

New York, New York —Today, Parvati Press is pleased to announce BLOOD SKY has been recognized as a finalist in the 18th annual Foreword Reviews’ INDIEFAB Book of the Year Awards. Here is the complete list:

https://indiefab.forewordreviews.com/finalists/2015/

Here is the page for Traci L. Slatton’s novel BLOOD SKY:

https://indiefab.forewordreviews.com/books/blood-sky/

Each year, Foreword Reviews shines a light on a select group of indie publishers, university presses, and self-published authors whose work stands out from the crowd. In the next three months, a panel of more than 100 volunteer librarians and booksellers will determine the winners in 63 categories based on their experience with readers and patrons.

“The 2015 INDIEFAB finalist selection process is as inspiring as it is rigorous,” said Victoria Sutherland, publisher of Foreword Reviews. “The strength of this list of finalists is further proof that small, independent publishers are taking their rightful place as the new driving force of the entire publishing industry.”

“I am honored and delighted to receive this recognition,” said author and publisher Traci L. Slatton. “Foreword Reviews is the ‘Library Journal’ for independent publishing, and this kind of spotlight is encouraging and gratifying.”

Foreword Reviews will celebrate the winners during a program at the American Library Association Annual Conference in Orlando, Florida in June. We will also name the Editor’s Choice Prize 2015 for Fiction, Nonfiction and Foreword Reviews’ 2015 INDIEFAB Publisher of the Year Award during the presentation.

About us: Parvati Press is an independent press with a vision of quality books in print, ebook and audiobook format. These books are often playful, metaphysical, serious, and thought-provoking; they will enrich your life.

About Foreword: Foreword Magazine, Inc is a media company featuring a Folio:-award-winning quarterly print magazine, Foreword Reviews, and a website devoted to independently published books. In the magazine, they feature reviews of the best 170 new titles from independent publishers, university presses, and noteworthy self-published authors. Their website features daily updates: reviews along with in-depth coverage and analysis of independent publishing from a team of more than 100 reviewers, journalists, and bloggers. The print magazine is available at most Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million newsstands or by subscription. You can also connect with them on FacebookTwitterGoogle+, and Pinterest. They are headquartered in Traverse City, Michigan, USA.

Indiefab Finalist

Three Recent Beautiful Reviews of BROKEN
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Three Recent Beautiful Reviews of BROKEN

Here are two three recent beautiful reviews of BROKEN, my historical novel set in occupied Paris.

This morning the lively Underground Book Reviews site posted Katie Rose Guest Pryal‘s review of BROKEN. The review snippet on the front page of the site said, “This book is beautifully written. The history is magnificent….”

What really thrilled me was Ms. Guest Pryal’s comment within the review: “Throughout it all, the author manages some truly gorgeous turns of phrase. In explaining why she can speak any language with perfect precision and accent, Alia refers in this fashion to her former ethereal status: “I am exempt from Babel.”

As a storyteller, I prioritize Story. Story must come first in a novel (or screenplay). As a writer, however, I am warmed in the deepest cockles of my soul when I hear my prose praised. These good words are especially appreciated because Katie Rose Guest Pryal is herself an author; she even writes books about writing. ! She is an educated consumer. So her statement about “truly gorgeous turns of phrase” simply ravishes me.

See the full review here.

Review of Broken by Traci L. Slatton

OneBookTwo Review Blog also recently posted a lovely review of BROKEN, starting off by saying “This is a fantastic book of love and light.”

Fickle Fiona went on to say,

Traci Slatton does a fantastic job of recreating Paris 1939 – 1942 with the fear and torture of occupied France…

To be honest there was nothing about this book that I didn’t like. It flows beautifully and it is one of those books that stays with you even after you are done reading it. For this reason I give this book five stars! I will reread this book more than once and recommend it to all my friends and, readers; I highly recommend it to you too.

To hear that my book will be recommended and re-read is a special joy and pride for an author.

Read OneBookTwo’s full review here.

These two reviews exemplify the kind of review that delights, thrills, humbles, and inspires me!

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I had to edit this post after publishing it because another wonderful review of BROKEN came in today from HighlightingtheMind Blog. Sarah Oliverson wrote,

This book did exactly what it was supposed to and it left me breathless. I say this because this was one historical fiction that sucked me in throughout the book. As she spun this historical fiction in Paris, starting in 1939, she made it possible to walk side by side with the main character Alia A. K. Mercier. These are the type of books that grab my attention, she nailed it.

When reading I find it rare that a writer holds my attention through the book. When I have a book that my nose is glued to and my eyes don’t stop moving until the pages run out, I keep that author in my favorites stash. Because of how well this book was written and the historical significance this book holds, I give this book a 5 out of 5.

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How cool is that???!!! Maybe I should go buy a Powerball ticket?

Pick up a copy of BROKEN on Amazon.

Scrivener: A Fabulous Writing Program
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Scrivener: A Fabulous Writing Program

A glowing review of writing software Scrivener, sold by Literature & Latte.

What took me so long? Lo, the years I have wasted, toiling in Microsoft Word…

I’ve been drinking the Microsoft Word Kool Aid. A gazillion years ago, when my pet Brontosaurus would give me a ride across Central Park to the East Side, I used a program called Word Perfect. I preferred it to Word. Word Perfect just worked better, more nimbly. But no, Word was the standard in publishing, so I switched to Word. Reluctantly, yes. But still, citing the demands of my profession, I made the transition. Womanfully, I learned the program and grew adept at it.

Some years later, I made the opposite switch, from absurdly complicated to unbelievably easy: I left behind my Windows PC and bought an iMac. I’ve never looked back. The Mac computer was blissfully, stupefyingly easy to use. It just worked right out of the box. With this experience in my wheelhouse, why didn’t I realize sooner that writing a 60,000+ word novel could be so much easier than the way Word makes the task?

A month ago, I was scrolling through Cult of Mac Deals and spied Scrivener on sale for a little under $20.

The low price piqued my interest, and since I was 15,000 words into a new novel–which is about where the sheer ponderous drudgery of Microsoft Word kicks in–and man oh man was I tired of pushing that rock up the hill–I risked the $20. I bought Scrivener.

That may have been the best $20 I ever spent. There are so many wonderful aspects to writing with Scrivener that I can’t name them all. I’ll just say, if you write long documents, novels, non-fiction texts, or a PhD dissertation, BUY SCRIVENER!! You’ll thank me.

Once I opened Scrivener, I was immediately taken by the binder, which groups all kinds of files together for easy reference. It means I can work horizontally and vertically, which lubricates and enhances my writing life. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been in Chapter 22 and had to remember a detail from Chapter 11, or was it Chapter 13? I’d have to search and scroll to figure it out.

In Scrivener, the binder holds the Manuscript, which is broken into Folders, which are my chapters, and inside the folders are Text files, which are scenes within the chapter. The folders and text files can be moved around with drag and drop. Files inside folders can also be moved around.

Best of all, there are different ways of viewing your folders and files. You can work within an individual file, just typing into the page. I like to write in Scrivenings mode, which shows all the files within a folder (or all the files in the manuscript) vertically. Here’s a screenshot from the extensive tutorial that comes with the program:

Screen Shot 2015-10-14 at 8.06.15 PM

The Binder is visible on the left hand side of the screenshot. Notice it has three primary folders: Draft, Research, and Characters. The “Draft” is the manuscript with all its parts and steps, and only the files in it are compiled and then output into PDF’s or Word Documents or just about whatever form you want it in.

In my projects, I rename Draft to the name of the Novel. Instead of Parts, I have Chapters. And within each chapter I have a scene which I don’t number, I name with a tag for what’s happening in the scene: “Sarah argues with Scott”, “Babysitting”, “To the doctor’s office,” etc.

Naming my scenes this way makes it fast and easy to look up details when I need them, because I’m working both horizontally and vertically.

Notice in the screenshot above that Step 16 and Step 17, which are separate text files, are both visible and separated by a gray line. That’s because I took the screenshot in Scrivenings mode. Scrivenings combines individual documents into a single text for viewing and editing. You can work with the text files in a single folder, or you can group together a bunch of text files from several folders to work with–perhaps because those are all the scenes from one character’s p.o.v. or because those are the scenes in which a particular character shows up.

Here’s another screenshot in Corkboard mode:

Screen Shot 2015-10-14 at 7.51.34 PM

In this screenshot of Corkboard mode, all the text files in the folder named Part 1: Basics are shown as index cards on a corkboard.

It just boggles my mind to be able to switch back and forth between Scrivenings and Corkboard! Can you imagine how delightful it makes plotting a novel????

There are a million wonderful features to this program, but I’ll just mention one more: the Research folder is facile and will accept just about any old thing you drag into it. So far, I’ve dragged in Mail messages, PDF’s, and Word documents. There’s a way to drag in Web pages but I haven’t used that yet because it hasn’t been necessary. But how sweet it is to have all my references grouped together in the Research folder for easy access…

One Caveat: this is a feature rich program and there is a learning curve. I spent the first few days watching Youtube video tutorials. Literature & Latte has some good ones. My favorite is called “Scrivener Bootcamp” by Jason Hough. I recommend that tutorial because it got me up to speed pretty quickly. I recommend investing the time in learning the program because you will reap vast rewards for doing so.

I’ve been able to write better, more easily and more cleanly, since acquiring and learning Scrivener. I also know, to the word, how many words I’ve written at a session, because there is a Target feature that allows me to set my target number of words for the day, and for the entire novel, and track the progress. Now I know for sure when I’ve written 383 words or 1672!

Scrivener is a terrific tool for writers. I give it 5 Traci Stars*****!

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Traci Slatton interviewed by Desiree Watson on Wellness Lounge
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Traci Slatton interviewed by Desiree Watson on Wellness Lounge

Desiree Watson interviewed me on her VoiceAmerica radio show Wellness Lounge, A Step Further.

Life in its multifarious impishness is both funny and fun. Recently I started a BlogTalkRadio show, Independent Artists & Thinkers. I’ve been booking guests and thinking about people I’d enjoy having on the show.

A friend of many years came to mind, a woman of vision and great energy: Desiree Watson. Back in the day when I was a healer, Desiree was interested in holistic health and wellness, and we had done some things together. So I googled around and found her Wellness Interactive site. Desiree has been a busy lady, I thought, and promptly emailed her.

A few hours later, my cell phone rang. It was Desiree herself. What a delight to hear her warm voice!

I had meant to invite her to be a guest on my show, but she beat me to it and invited me to be a guest on her VoiceAmerica Radio Show: Wellness Lounge, A Step Further. Her show is focused on empowering listeners, body mind and soul.

Here’s what the show has to say about itself:

THE WELLNESS LOUNGE-A STEP FURTHER empowers you with the benefits of a wellness lifestyle. Desiree Watson, a pioneer in the wellness lifestyle movement, guides you toward incorporating wellness into your life through commentary and interviews with exemplary personalities from such diverse fields as professional sports, corporate management, government, and health care. Our topics embrace the interconnections of mind, body and spirit, while offering in-depth analyses of the wellness lifestyle movement and its impact on the health care system, politics and international aid. Related topics will spark awareness of the positive impact of the wellness lifestyle movement and how a wellness lifestyle commitment can successfully empower the individual and influence educational and political processes on a local, national and international scale. The Wellness Lounge – A Step Further airs Mondays at 6 AM Pacific on VoiceAmerica Empowerment and Saturdays at 7 AM Pacific on VoiceAmerica Variety.

This morning we aired. It was a delight to be a guest; Desiree has a talent for supporting and encouraging her guests to open up and be eloquent. What fun!

Here’s the show link: http://www.voiceamerica.com/episode/85279/empowerment-of-self

You can listen here, too.

[sc_embed_player_template1 fileurl=”http://tracilslatton.com/watson051115.mp3″]

 

Wellness Lounge