Encouragement

Like most writers, I'm curious about how my novel is received by individual readers. Luckily I've heard from some readers by email. Finding that personal note in my email is just incredible - I have one printed out and hanging over my writing desk right now.
Some readers have approached me in person at various events, always surprising and encouraging me with their enthusiastic support. 

I've also set up a web monitoring process of sorts. The terms "Jeanne Moran" and "Risking Exposure" are entered into Google Alerts so I'm notified by email when either are mentioned anywhere on the web. I get lots of false hits, you know, an obituary for a 100-year-old Jeanne Moran in Canada, risk of exposure to ebola, that sort of thing. But hey, I get some correct hits too. One of those hits alerted me to the inclusion of Risking Exposure in a Best of 2014 blog post.

Every few weeks, I check the book's sales page on various websites for posted reviews. Today I checked Amazon's Australia site and found this:

Truly wonderful Young Adult novel with a well-written, believable main character you'll root for just as I did. Ms. Moran takes us inside Germany during the advent of WWII and explores the Nazi abhorrence of diversity, anything that deviates from the norm. Working for years in college providing support services for adults with disabilities, this story hit home in so many ways. I couldn't put this amazing book down. Brava, Ms. Moran.

What a wonder. Praise and encouragement from a total stranger on the other side of the world.

Now excuse me while I work on my sequel.

The TBR in 2015 list

For Christmas, Mike gave me "By the Book: Writers on Literature and the Literary Life from The New York Times Book Review." The volume is a compilation of 65 interviews of writers, artists, historians, and others. The focus of the interviews are books - favorite reads in the last year, favorite childhood books, which books most influenced career choice, that sort of thing.

It was a great way for me to add to my 'To Be Read' list. 

Books written by fellow local authors Eric Buffington, Heather L Adams, Regge Episale, Eugenie D. West, and John Koloski were already piled on my pseudo-desk, waiting for me. After reading "By the Book," I added dozens more to the TBR list, at this point still a list on the public library's website.

There's an interesting mix there of print and audio books, fiction and non-fiction, adult and juvenile literature. There's inspirational, fantasy, historical, and literary, some poetry and short stories - just about any genre imaginable. And with authors like Hilary Mantel, Laurie Halse Anderson, Elmore Leonard, John Irving, Toni Morrison, Laini Taylor, Alice Munro, Thomas Merton, Margaret Atwood...

It's going to be a very good year.

An unbelievable honor

In one of my book give-aways last year, Ramisa the Authoress, a blogger from Australia, scored a copy of Risking Exposure. Lucky for me. She read it, loved it, and placed it on her Favorite Books of All Time list.
She blogged about my book, sponsored a give-away contest, and in general has been unbelievably supportive of my debut novel from half a world away.

In her most recent blog post, she reviewed and categorized some of her 2014 favorites. Risking Exposure figured twice into her list of Best in Books - books you 'pushed' the most to your friends, and books you found thought-provoking/ life-changing.

Whoa.Thank you, Ramisa.
As a writer, that's amazing. Humbling. An unbelievable honor.

If that weren't enough, she mentioned me again under the Looking Ahead category, listing my as yet unfinished, unnamed sequel as one of the books she is anticipating the most, hopefully in 2015.

I'm anticipating the book also. I know my story line, the characters and their interplay, where the story ends, etc. Even so, the process of the story revealing itself as I write is astonishing, confusing, exhilarating. It requires the delicate balance of my conscious mind's need for control and my muse's need for creative license.

I hope the result garnishes fans as loyal and enthusiastic as Ramisa and others who have encouraged me on this adventure.