Last Stop on Tornado Siren mini blog tour: Donna Hoke's My Life as a Wordsmith

Today, I make the final stop on my mini blog tour for Tornado Siren, at Donn'a Hoke's blog, My Life as a Wordsmith.  We spend some time talking about the differences between writing plays and writing novels, and how to navigate going back and forth from one form to the other.

Donna is a fellow playwright and member of the Playwright Submission Binge, where today we're all finishing the final day of a 30-day-long binge of script submissions.

Thanks to Donna for having me as her guest today (and to Lori and Diana for the previous stops on the tour).  I hope you'll come check out the final stop.

Stop #2 on Tornado Siren Blog tour: On writing, living and loving

This is the second day of my mini blog tour for Tornado Siren.  Today, I'm over on Lori Foster's blog, "On Writing, Living, and Loving," talking about my decision to publish Tornado Siren as an ebook, and the in and outs of putting out an ebook. 

Lori's an old high school friend from our Saranac Lake days.  I don't think either of us would have guessed way back then that we'd end being writers.  Certainly I was headed straight for a career as a computer scientist.  Be sure to check out some of the other posts on her blog, about writing and motherhood and life, she's a lovely writer.

And thanks again for coming along for the tour.  I hope you'll check it out.

The Tornado Siren Mini Blog Tour Begins

Today's the start of my mini (three stop) blog tour for Tornado Siren.  Diana Renn has me as a guest over on her blog today, where we talk about multi-tasking around a zillion different projects.  She's a good friend and a terrific writer.  Her YA mystery, Tokyo Heist, will be coming out from Penguin in June.

So come on over, and check out the start of the tour.  (Please.)

Mini Blog Tour for Tornado Siren

Many authors, especially those of ebooks, now engage in blog tours to promote their books.  My inspiration/role model is my friend, Gene Doucette, who did a 30-day blog tour for his book, Immortal, earlier this year.

I had great plans for nice long blog tour this fall, but a string of readings, productions, and even a film shoot, that have caused me to trim my ambitions a bit.  (I know, I know, poor me.)

So I'm going to have a pleasant mini blog tour next week, where I'll be a guest blogger on three sites run by some of my friends, who all happen to be lovely writers.  I'll be talking about a little bit about Tornado Siren, and a lot about balancing a zillion different writing projects, switching back and forth between prose and plays, and the pluses and minuses of self-publishing an ebook. 

Here's the schedule:

Wednesday, September 28:  Diana Renn's blog (which features a great post on group blogging today)  (check out her spiffy new web site)

Thursday, September 29:  Lori Foster's On writing, living and loving.  She writes so beautifully about motherhood, but she writes about the author's life, too.

Friday, September 30:  Donna Hoke's My life as a wordsmith.  I love that she writes plays, books, and crossword puzzles.


Thanks to Diana, Lori, and Donna for hosting me.  To everyone else, I hope you'll check out the posts!

The Rhombus Readings are this weekend!

Don't miss The Rhombus Readings this weekend.  We've got an exciting line up of new plays that we've been working on for the past year or two.  I'm delighted to get to hear my new play, Flight, read on Saturday night.  I've got a terrific director (M. Bevin O'Gara) and cast.  I've been making big changes since I brought the play to the Seven Devils Conference in Idaho.  (Even though my stay was cut short, due to family tragedy, I've stayed in touch with my director and dramaturg and the id theatre folks.)  And I've been working on the script in my Huntington Playwriting Fellows group, as well as in Rhombus.

Now I need to hear it in front of an audience again.  That's where you come in.  (And by audience, let's be honest, 5 people isn't much of an audience.  Now, 20 people, in a small theatre, that's an audience.  So bring a friend or two.) 

It's free.  It's fun.  And there will be good snacks.  (I'll bake brownies.)


All the readings will take place at Boston Playwrights' Theatre, 949 Commonwealth Ave., Boston


The Fakus by Joe Byers
Friday, Sept. 16
8 pm
A sinuous tale of three canny people and one large sum of money on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City. All of them are deadly earnest. Trust is for sale to the highest bidder. Every heart has its price tag. Featuring Nancy E. Carroll, Paul Melendy, and Craig Mathers.

Flight by Patrick Gabridge
Saturday, Sept. 17
8 pm
Sarah spends her days in the airport, finding comfort in its organized chaos, forced anonymity, and careful security. Little does she know that beneath its clean and shining façade, the airport - like the world outside it - is littered with lives torn apart by loss. Caught in the crossfire of the airport's lost souls, Sarah discovers there is no such thing as an innocent escape. Directed by M. Bevin O'Gara, featuring Elise Manning, Luis Negron, and Brenny Rabine.

The Embryos by Ginger Lazarus
Sunday, Sept. 18
4 pm
Mommy and Daddy love their embryos. Love them so much that when in vitro fails, they decide to take their precious blastocysts home and care for them like children. All might be well, except that "Leggo and Eggo" have voracious appetites and uncanny abilities beyond their developmental stage. When they run amok, the poor would-be parents are faced with a choice: save their embryos from the world, or save the world from their embryos. Directed by Barlow Adamson, featuring Robert Murphy and Lisa Tucker.
(There's a fun interview with the embryos from The Embros on the Playwrights Perspective blog.)

Playwright Submissiong Binge (#19) Starts Tomorrow!

Twice a year, a bunch of playwrights take up a simple challenge: submit a play day, every day, for 30 days.  Once a writer submits, he or she reports back to the group what was submitted, where, and why. Over the years, a supportive online community of playwrights has grown up around the event. Tomorrow we start Binge #19. It's a great way to make your marketing chores a lot more fun and, because people are so generous, a great way to find out about possible submission opportunities for your plays.  It's free and low pressure. (There are more than 600 people on the Yahoo group now.)

Come join us at The Binge.

report from Cranston

A couple weeks ago, I got to see my show Curse the Darkness at the Black Box Theatre's 6th annual one-act play festival, in Cranston, Rhode Island.  The space is a tiny little black box in a store front--it seats about 30 people.  The evening was completely sold out, which is always lovely and gives an evening the right kind of energy, whether the house holds 30 or 300.

Here's what the audience looked like:

I like this idea of taking photos of audiences.  They're sometimes the forgotten key element in the theatre.  I plan on taking more audience pictures whenever I can.

And here's my cast:

Ethan, Mia, Amelia, and John all did a terrific job with the show.  They clearly had a lot of fun with it.  They also served as stagehands throughout the evening, which worked perfectly for my show.  (You can read the entire script here to see why.)  It's exactly what I wanted.  The audience caught on after a few minutes, and laughed hard.  Rich Morra did a great job with directing my piece and the whole evening.  I was glad to share the bill with plays by friends Mark Harvey Levine (Scripted) and Nina Mansfield (Clown Therapy).

Curse the Darkness is just as fun as I'd hoped it would be (this was my first time seeing it), and I hope it will work it's way into a lot of festivals.