VS Grenier ~ Award-Winning Author, Speaker & Podcaster

KA-BOOM! is about a little fairy named Sprout that runs into trouble quite often. She has a shoe fetish, but is one of the queen’s favorites because in the end she gets the job done. In the story, Sprout meets a little girl named Taylor after blowing up Taylor’s dollhouse. Sprout doesn’t give up trying to get Taylor to trust her as Taylor believes Sprout is a fibbin' fairy.  Sprout and Taylor finally become friends after Sprout shrinks Taylor and together they have a fantastic adventure. The message? Never give up. Title: KA-BOOM! Publisher: Halo Publishing Int. ISBN-10: 161244069X ISBN-13: 978-1612440699 Genre of Book: Children’s Chapter Book Fantasy Adventure Paperback: 46 pages July 2012 More about the book: Sprout is a fairy from Spritesville, Ohio. Her given name is Sprunetta Brunetta. She doesn’t like it because she thinks it sounds too much like somebody’s wicked sister. Since she is only four inches tall, all her friends call her Sprout.

Sands Hetherington credits his son John for being his principal motivator. Sands raised his son as a single parent from the time John was six. He read to him every night during those formative years. He and young John developed the Crosley crocodile character in the Night Buddies series during months of bedtime story give-and-take. Sands shared, “We always did bedtime stories and probably didn't miss a night for six or seven years. Stories were as essential as air and food.” It’s no wonder Sands loves to read and write, and is a big advocate in starting a reading schedule with young children. Sands majored in history at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) and has an M.F.A. in creative writing and an M.A. in English from UNC-Greensboro. However, he started writing at a very young age. “I think it was 10th grade. I handed in some sappy poetical piece and the very cute student teacher gushed over it. Her name was Ellen and she was spoken for, but that did it

Come join host VS Grenier and Irene Roth on BTR’s World of Ink Network's The Stories for Children Show August 6, 2012 live at 2pm EST - 1pm CT - 12pm MT - 11am PDT We bring children's authors together with their readers. This week come meet author Maggie Lyons of the contemporary children’s chapter book, Vin and the Dorky Duet. Magnetic compost heaps, man-eating bubble baths and other disasters erupt when an inventive seventh-grader meets a challenge to win a David Beckham autographed soccer jersey if he can befriend an unsociable nerd and introduce his sister to the nerd’s hunky brother. The story is about the disasters that pile up when a seventh-grader’s brilliant plan to meet his sister’s challenge takes more than one wrong turn. Life tosses challenges at all of us. It would be incredibly boring if it didn’t. What matters is what we learn from them. Get a sneak peek of the book at http://youtu.be/Qtgtp_rnAZ4 Available wherever books are sold and online.

Sands Hetherington credits his son John for being his principal motivator. Sands raised his son as a single parent from the time John was six. He read to him every night during those formative years. He and young John developed the Crosley crocodile character in the series during months of bedtime story give-and-take. Sands majored in history at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) and has an M.F.A. in creative writing and an M.A. in English from UNC-Greensboro. He lives in Greensboro. VS: I want to thank you for being my guest here on The Writing Mama today. To get things started, Sands, what do you do to help balance your writing life with your family life? Sands: Hi Mama and thanks for having me over. Actually, my family life was part of my writing life. I was a single (male) parent of a six-year-old son. We always did bedtime stories. One night John invented a red crocodile named Crosley for an after-lights-out companion. This evolved directly into

Putting words together and making them sound nice is your ‘thing’. You are the go-to person for friends, families, colleagues and clients come to you to for writing inspiration. You know when you meet a comedian and ask them to tell you a joke and they stare at your speechless, well sometimes you are unable to perform because of writer’s block, and you have been put on the spot! Here are 5 activities writers can do to help them get over that pesky block.  Exercise: Shape up and clear your mind, it’s a win, win! Doing something simple as going for a 30 minute walk or joining an hour fitness class can help you. Exercise is good for increasing your heart rate, blow flow and releasing those natural ‘good feelings’ called endorphins. When that block stands in your way, grab your tennis shoes and head to the gym.  Nap: Sometimes writers get discouraged and find difficulty writing all because they are tired. This is a perfect time to take that catnap you daydream about it. The b

BTR’s World of Ink Network show: Families Matter with hosts VS Grenier, Kecia Burcham and Irene Roth. The Families Matter show airs live once a month on the 4th Wednesday of the month at 6pm EST - 5pm CST - 4pm MST - 3pm PDT The idea of this show on BTR’s World of Ink Network is to have guests and listeners (adults or kids) share information to help empower children and their families. Our July show topic is Empowering Our Children. This month we have a special guest...our own Irene Roth. She is a freelance writer for kids, teens and tweens. Irene writes about empowerment, drawing on her expertise from philosophy and psychology. She holds a Masters Degree in Philosophical Psychology and writes in the area of autonomy, authenticity and empowerment. Irene has a series of picture books for kids 3-8. Her first book Courage will be released at the end of this year through Halo Publishing. Irene has also written an empowerment book for teens entitled Seasons of Emp

For those who have known me since the beginning of my writing career know I have offered a free monthly, then later every other month a newsletter for writers. In 2009, SFC Newsletter for Writers was even in Writer's Digest as one of the 101 Best Newsletters/Websites. I was so excited and shocked when this happened. Even some of my blog posts I've written for this blog and others have appeared in SFC Newsletter for Writers; along with regular contributions from other writers, tips, market information and much more. I've enjoyed putting SFC Newsletter for Writers together each issue. I've learned so much from working on it. It's hard to believe I started offering SFC Newsletter for Writers back in 2006 and now six years have gone by. It's been a fun run but with the demands of family and personal writing goals, I have decided to close its doors. I'm working on the very last issue to send to my subscriber list, which has doubled and tripled over the years.

Come join host VS Grenier and Irene Roth on BTR’s World of Ink Network's The Stories for Children Show July 23, 2012 live at 2pm EST - 1pm CT - 12pm MT - 11am PST We bring children's authors together with their readers. This week come meet author Dominick Domingo of the newly released young adult fantasy book The Nameless Prince released by Twilight Times books. About the book: To find Elena, Seth embarks on an odyssey of riddles and self-discovery. Only in 'Interia' is it safe to discover the truth about his past, and the forgiveness that will set him free. Excerpt and purchase link: http://twilighttimesbooks.com/TheNamelessPrince_ch1.html Book trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcYISQLNEFM We will be chatting with Dominick Domingo about his writing and inspiration. Want to meet more authors? Visit us at http://sfcmagazine.com and read interviews under our Featured Guest section. Follow us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/B

Be Yourself: Tips For Finding Your Own Writing Style As a writer, you have to have some sort of individuality in order to stand out from the crowd. If you look at all of the successful authors, you'll notice they all have their own distinctive writing style. Here are a few tips to help you find your own writing style. Keep a journal and an ideas book. Keeping a journal will allow you to write every day and give you a place to express yourself. Writing in a journal every day will help you find your own style as a result. You can use a number of techniques (stream of consciousness, question and answer, periodic reflection), in order to find the writing style that is perfect for you. In contrast, you can write down all ideas you have in your ideas book. If you take it with you wherever you go, you will soon fill it up. So whenever you need something good to write for an employer, you will have a ready bank of ideas there to tap into! Experiment every chance you ge

Over the last couple of nights I’ve been having trouble sleeping. I’m sure part of it is due to the crazy summer storms racking havoc in my desert home town. The electrons in the air have not only me, but also my whole family feeling restless. With this comes long hours of lying in bed, eyes closed and my mind fully awake.  I don’t know about you, but when I’m in a half awaken state of mind I find my thoughts wonder to topics I normally don’t consciously think about on a daily basis. One of the topics my mind likes to wonder to frequently during these times are my writing goals and expectations.    Lately, I’ve been wondering if I’m truly meeting or able to live up to the expectations I’ve made for myself as an author, editor and mother. It seems more and more demands are put upon us as writers, and even as editors, however the days are not longer so we sleep less. With this comes not performing at our desired levels with less sleep so how do we balance these demands… exp