#WW Blog Styling with Friends

                I was honored by my good #pubwrite friends, Karen DeLabar  and Aden Penn with the Versatile Blogger award.  Their talent, energy and enthusiasm leave me in awe.  

                I am reminded of the quote “to whom much is given, much is expected.”  It not just the pretty award above that I refer to (although that’s awesome), it is the support, mentorship, camaraderie, and education I have received from family, friends, including all my fellow writers and readers.  Let me as Karen said pay it forward:

                Recipients of the Versatile Blogger award must do the following in support of their fellow bloggers:

1. Thank and link to the person who nominated you.

2. Share seven random facts about yourself.

3. Pass the award along to 5 new-found blogging buddies.

4. Contact the winners to congratulate them.

So here goes:

7 Random Facts About Me 


I know 2 times 7 is 14, but I'm not that interesting.

1)      - I ate bugs in Australia

2)      - I went to an all-girl Catholic school for 12 years.  I know that explains a lot, including the bugs

3)      - I only have one canine. A tough one for someone who writes vamps and weres.  Maybe I suffer from fang-envy

4)     -  While we are on the subject, I’m a Dark Shadows fan.  Yes I am that ancient.

5)      - I will eat just about anything (see #1 above) except internal organs like liver, kidneys, etc.

6)      - I slept six hours in the Presidential Suite at the Fours Seasons in Philadelphia.  No presidents or heads of state were injured in the process.

7)      - When on Wall Street in the 80’s I was complimented by Japanese bankers for kepping up with them when drinking over lunch, which may have extended into dinner. I don’t remember, but it was a good thing I had a couch in my office.

Since I received this award from two people I hereby bequeath and recommend the following 10 awesome blog sites to you.  Please visit and follow these terrific folks.

Steve Umstead

Karen S. Elliott

Al Boudreau

Thea Atkinson

Caridad Pinero

Aimee L Salter

R. A. Evans

Ann Mauren

Sheila Lamb

ParaYourNormal (you now who you are)

Stop by these awesome bloggers and say hi.  Feel free to leave one or two random facts about yourself on this post or any of my others.

Blog Streaking with Thea and Friends

For the month of April, fellow author, Thea Atkinson is streaking through 30 blogs and flashing us a piece of fiction. I generously offered her a space today so she could expose a piece. My blog will be back to normal tomorrow. In the meantime, enjoy and follow the links at the end to see who she flashed yesterday and who she will flash tomorrow. Feel free to leave a comment to let me know if you enjoyed the streak, and you are welcome to tweet it or share it on Facebook. You can also follow the chain through twitter with the hashtag #blogstreak

I am Anna

By Thea Atkinson

http://theaatkinson.wordpress.com

I am Anna, and the sounds of this house whisper to me as I lie on my narrow bed in darkness. There’s no window in my bedroom to relieve my eye of wall; no moonlight streams in through clouded panes. This room is wholly blanketed in a perfume that dissipates by day but that leaks from the walls at night and rises to my nose with the stealth of a snake. It brings with it a spectral whispering that brushes over my body and makes each hair rise to its touch. From toe... to shin... to thigh... to stomach… the moaning washes over me, as if it were a blanket being pulled to my chin.

When it reaches my ears it swells to a whisper and circles my head with a ghostly life of its own, with essence, and movement, and body.

I repeat the same sentence to remind myself I am of this world and no other, that I am a solid body with a right to be here. I repeat it to block out the sounds of night in this room, to disguise the whispers, to fill in the brief silences between the guttural cries--to drive away the spirits.

I am Anna.

I scrub his floors and scour his fancy, indoor commode in return for billet, spare and cheap as it is. My employer just grunts at my efforts and scurries back into the mortuary, closing the door behind him with a deathly click. I gape and try not to look shocked at the naked bodies within.