Bookmarkers

I have a handful of bookmarkers. Tall, thin, wide, fat, half-fold with magnets. Famous names burst from the magazine-finish markers. Debbie Macomber from Mira Books http://www.debbiemacomber.com/. Or, Dana Mentink published by Barbour in mass marketing http://www.heartsongmysteries.com/. Silver Rush Historical Mysteries Series by Ann Parker http://www.annparker.net/ published by Poison Pen Press is an inch or two taller than the others. All are magazine slick finish, mixed color schemes from deep browns sprinkled with azure to buttercup with pastel flowers. Annette Langer, a local writer, http://www.annettelanger.com/, hands out matte-finish bookmarks for both her books self-published through WingSpan Press.

See that holly and pinecone bookmarker to the upper right? A gift from Lani Longshore http://lanilongshore.wordpress.com/, it’s crafted from holiday cloth, backed with green plaid and bound with machine stitched edges. It lays flat in large books, and the top button and beads guide me to my place. Lani isn’t famous yet, but she will be! Her unnamed sci-fi novel whets the skills of our California Writers Club http://www.trivalleywriters.org/ novel critique group. If an agent doesn’t pick up Lani’s manuscript, I have permission to borrow her name for one of the good-guys in my mystery novel. My bookmarkers? I’ll link them to one of my characters, an avid reader who is a craftsperson when not solving crimes.

Sullenberger, Peanut Butter and Me

I’m an avid reader and an infrequent flyer. These two facts meshed together not long after I flipped up the footrest on my Lazy Boy chair and buried my head in HIGHEST DUTY, My Search for What Really Matters by Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger III (Harper Collins Publishers, 2009). I read slowly and savored every moment of his childhood quest to fly. I marveled that he had been licensed as a private pilot at an age when I didn’t have a learner’s permit to drive a car.

World of words

Words are like ice cream. They come in all flavors. Words can caress and console, or harass and intimidate. Words can groan with agony and defeat or shout with exuberance and triumph. Words provoke my imagination and infiltrate my dreams. Words are the pinnacle of my world. Linked together with skill, they tell a story. I have listened to audio books and viewed them on screen, but nothing beats the feel of a printed book. I love the feel of paper, the excitement of turning the next page of a mystery. I feel connected to the author of an inspirational devotional while I touch the page and reflect on what I have read. When I turn the last page and close the cover, the triumph of a book read becomes a trophy.

"The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them."  Mark Twain

Fifty-word bio

A bio, short for biography, is just that – short. It’s a summation of basic facts about the author. It mentions publications, awards or successes, and current works in progress. It begins with your name and ends with web links.

“Never use never or always,” may sound like good advice, but it doesn’t apply to bios. Never, never, never write your bio in the first person bragging tense. Always write your bio in the third person. Use the pronouns “she” and “her” (him/his) to describe your accomplishments.

Be concise. Bios for anthologies are usually limited to 100 words, but only half that for my nonfiction short story, Miracle on a Train, in Christmas Miracles, an anthology by Cecil Murphey (St. Martin’s Press, October 2009). The max limit cut out all the frills, with no space for my seventeen-word final web links sentence. So, I cut my favorite “Visit my website at http://www.carrtwins.com/ for books and my blogs at http://violetsvibes.blogspot.com/ and http://violetsvibes.wordpress.com/for writing tips.” I inserted the website, the most important link, and omitted the blogs.

Violet Moore is the author of In The Right Place and Moments of Meditation and co-creator of Carr Twins & Co. (www.carrtwins.com) publishing. She is an inspirational writer and speaker and a featured contributor to an international women’s ministry website. She is Vice President of California Writer’s Club, Tri-Valley Branch.

That’s my bio in exactly fifty words.