Who Wants To Play?

Conference season is coming up! Need swag? Read on:

Sadly, I won't be able to attend any conferences this year (but maybe 2020). In past years, as an "official" blogger for some smaller conferences, I ran a game I called "Five Words." It's a fun progressive fiction game, with 4-8 or so players. I give the first player five words that they need to incorporate into their narrative, along with a couple of loose world-building rules, and then that player leaves 5 words for the next player to use. The idea is to make the words pretty awkward, and sometimes the stories take some crazy turns. Entries run from about 100-300 words each. I did the editing and formatting, and created physical chapbooks as swag for the conferences.

Here's what I'm thinking. If there are authors who would like to participate, I will do the same as before. But I won't be at any of the conferences to distribute them! My costs for printing and materials run to about $1 per book. So if participating authors want to chip in up to $20, I will make up to 20 books per author and mail them to you. No charge for my time and work, because it's fun for me 😊.  Here's an idea of what they look like:

Interested?  Repeat offenders participants are welcome! Leave me a comment and/or contact me at nicola327 at hotmail dot com.

And here is how one story unfolded:

Part 1, by Laura Bickle
Part 2, by Calandra Usher
Part 3, by AJ Norris
Part 4, by Roselynn Cannes
Part 5: by Gina Conkle

Part 6: by Nancy Holzner

Shelf Bytes!

Can you spot the new tool in my blogging arsenal? If your eye went to the headset, good job!

It's not news that I've been guest-hosting on Tamara's #3Bloggers1Series podcast feature for a little more than a year now. It is so much fun! I can talk for hours with Tamara and Casey about books, and we often do -- but we try to keep the actual podcast part to an hour or so.

At the beginning of the year, Tamara decided to launch a super-short feature - the Shelf Byte, a full book review in five minutes or less. I thought that sounded super-fun so she is letting me do a few of these for her too. These are a great gateway if you're still on the fence about podcasts (I was for a long time), as 5 minutes is pretty low-commitment. Or if you're already a podcast addict and need some bite (byte) -sized 'casts when you don't have 30 or 60 minutes for a longer listen.

I thought I'd do a quick link-up here. Watch this space for future Shelf Bytes!

Check this page to stay up to date for all of the podcast goodness at ShelfAddiction.

Beneath a Scarlet Sky Shelf Byte (Tamara)
Diamond Fire Shelf Byte (Nicola)
His Package Shelf Byte (Nicola)
Two Girls Down Shelf Byte (Tamara)