Redfeather, off the beaten path...

If you're in Steamboat Springs, Colorado later this month, rub shoulders with the local literati (and other cowboys and ski bums) at Off the Beaten Path Bookstore.
November 13, from 5:30 to 6:30. 

I promise you a Redfeather sighting...

Colfax Avenue: It's Not Your Grandfather's Road Trip!

Colfax Avenue: It's Not Your Grandfather's Road Trip!: Looking For Redfeather ; A 21 st Century Novel About Three Runaway Teens in the American West. Fiction House, Ltd. announces the publica...

Crazy old lady, ranting for a cigarette and looking for Redfeather.  Have you seen him?

Colfax Avenue: It's Not Your Grandfather's Road Trip!

Colfax Avenue: It's Not Your Grandfather's Road Trip!: Looking For Redfeather ; A 21 st Century Novel About Three Runaway Teens in the American West. Author's Note: "A portion of the ...

Looking for Redfeather? In paperback, on Amazon

Looking for Redfeather, a contemporary novel about three runaway teenagers who meet up by chance on the road, is now available in paperback!  What a long, strange trip it's been...

Redfeather nearly ready to roll

It might be your grandfather's car -- but it's not your grandfather's road trip.

I just received the proof copy of Looking for Redfeather.  One correction necessary -- the title page -- and it will be good to go! 

It's been a long haul!  I wrote the first draft of Looking for Redfeather during National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), 2007.  Every year, during the month of November, writers all over the world pledge to write a 50,000 word novel in thirty days.  It's a fast-paced process, ugly in spots, but it gets done.   

I had a hell of a ride with these runaway teens in a stolen (actually, borrowed without permission) Cadillac Eldorado, and when I was done I let the manuscript rest for several years before having another look.

Wow! Rereading it, I found I really liked these three teens and I wanted to bring their story to life.  It's taken me about three years to revise the novel.      

I landed an agent who also believed in the book - but he wasn't able to place it.  Most of the editors of the major houses replied with something like, "Loved the characters and the voice -- just have to take a pass."  Or, "Great voice and quirky characters, but we just published a road trip story."  Or, "Excellent writing, but where's the depraved sex?"  (Just kidding -- I made that one up!)

I created my own imprint Fiction House, Ltd. and published Looking for Redfeather, hiring Create Space for comprehensive editing services, interior design, printing and distribution.  It's been a real learning process, the publishing process!

At Fiction House, Ltd we're almost ready to roll with Looking for Redfeather, so keep your eyes peeled for a champagne-colored Cadillac crusing with three runaway teens.

ISBN  0989365301
ISBN 13 trade paperback  978-0-9893653-0-7

Soon to be available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Indie bookstores too.  Available in electronic format NOW on Smashwords!

  

My latest novel, Looking for Redfeather, is now available on Smashwords.  For a limited time, you can download it FREE with the coupon code yy58y  Hurry!  Offer ends soon!  Trade paperback book to follow...

Life is a highway…

Fifteen-year-old Ramie Redfeather leaves Cheyenne with music in his pocket and his thumb in the air.  He’s looking to find his father, a man he’s never met.  Ramie gets a ride with Chas Sweeney, a seventeen-year-old driving a “borrowed” Cadillac Eldorado with Maryland tags, who just happens to be passing through Cheyenne.  Chas is running from the wreckage that is his world, sixteen hundred miles away.  In Denver Ramie and Chas meet Mae B. LaRoux, an enchanting young singer from Baton Rouge.  LaRoux, who struggles with a learning disability, is on a mission to become a professional musician.  The three runaways band together and set out on a fast-paced road trip to get to the Austin Music Festival, looking for Redfeather along the way.  They’re on the road –but it ain’t Jack Kerouac’s road trip!

Linda Collison’s first novel, Star-Crossed, published by Alfred A. Knopf in 2006, was chosen by the New York Public Library to be among the Books for the Teen Age – 2007 and inspired the Patricia MacPherson Nautical Adventure Series.  Her coming-of- age story With a Little Luck won the former Maui Writers Conference Grand Prize in 1996.  Born in Baltimore, Linda moved to Wyoming when she was twenty-four and has been on the move ever since.  Follow her on her website www.lindacollison.com. 

 Fiction/ Coming-of-Age/Young Adult

2012writers STILL ALIVE: Linda Collison and Barbados Bound

2012writers STILL ALIVE: Linda Collison and Barbados Bound: Adventurer and author, Linda Collison , swaps sea stories with me and tells us about her latest novel, Barbados Bound (Patricia McPherso...

A Sea of Words

Check out Linda Collison's author blog, Sea of Words http:/www.lindacollison.com/blog

Tazmanian author blogs about Star-Crossed

http://www.margaretmuirauthor.blogspot.com/

Is it just me, or is there a draft in here?

The book is published, now comes the anxiety; how will your readers respond? It feels like one of those dreams when you discover you're somehow naked in the middle of a crowded room where everyone else is fully dressed.

I think you have to find a balance between accepting and learning from well-intended criticism and deflecting snipes from those readers who -- ZING!-- can take you out with one devastating remark. Praise too, can be hard to accept, though I'm not sure why.

Having written and published two novels and two nonfiction books, I now read with a more critical eye, yet a more empathetic understanding for fellow authors. Writing, like life, is a learn-as-you-go endeavour.

That said, I'm happy to share the first review of Surgeon's Mate, from David Hayes of Historic Naval Fiction, who recently interviewed me.

Interview with Astrodene's Historical Naval Fiction

It was a little intimidating, being interviewed by David Hayes of Astrodene's Historical Naval Fiction, David being a Brit and all. To have Surgeon's Mate included on his site is a feather in this Yank's cap, for sure. Well it seems I have a series to write, so back to the 18th century I go...

Surgeon's Mate

Published by Fireship Press; April, 2011

Best Holiday Gifts Under $50!

A cup of coffee and a sypathetic ear.

A walk down memory lane over a bottle of wine.

A book that changed the way you look at life.

A photograph that speaks a thousand words.

Music, in any format.

A meal made with love.

A heartfelt smile, the kind that lights up your whole face.

Time. Not a watch, but the extravagance of your time, freely given.

today the dog died

I sit in the twilight alone
with my sorrow
silence like a kettle drum
creshendoing in my head
My thoughts run on and on
a rosary, mardi gras beads,
baubles on threads of memories my own and
those bequeathed to me
or imagined
invented
picked up like cheap souvenirs from
some former life
We are never alone we are
always alone
I can't decide
I want to cry
but can't afford
the luxury

-- lscollison 0/23/2010

deja vu

Dreams are the poems of our old illiterate souls
twisted syntax of emotions
raw fear and desire
incomprehensible yet
understood

Created maybe by our monkey minds
cobbling bright bits and warnings gathered
from the debris of the day
They make no sense to our daytime minds
but are perceived in the marrow of our bones
recorded in the nucleus
of every cell, entwined in the DNA
or maybe the RNA, who knows
those twisted chromosomes, the squirming genes
carry more than we know

You don't forget your dreams
you carry them around, a bundle on your back
an invisible load balanced on your head
as did your Grandmother
as did Eve

-- lscollison

I don't really care who you know
or where you are
having drinks with trendsters, hip hangers-on,
almost-celebs and would-be artist flaneurs
its who you are
that concerns me

Go on, bare me some soul
one true word, give me some hope
a flash of heart, one revealing sentence
or better yet, a provocative question
go on, shock me
indulge my fantasy

you haunt me still

a smell of burning vanilla
drifting through the house
the movement of curtain
a far-off tinkle of glasses
raised in toast
to our happiness...
the way your eyes
find mine
from years past
you haunt me
still

life could be a pier

so narrow, so limited
confined
converging lines
abrupt

it might be an island
narrow
a vantage point
or maybe a launch pad

this jetty life
a runway
into a greater, deeper
blue

for now
it's all i need
it's enough

Some of the best adventures I've ever had...

Linda talks with Michael Weir about sailing and wine tasting...