The Ink Mages on Producing a Podcast and 2 Giveaways!

 A few weeks ago I attended a Monarch Publishing event and was fortunate to meet two fantasy authors, Stephanie Cotta and Angela Hughes. They recently started a podcast, The Ink Mages, and agreed to answer questions about the process. Take it away, Stephanie and Angela!

INTERVIEW

Carol: What does your name mean?  

Stephanie and Angela: We are The Ink Mages! We wanted to come up with a catchy name that had a magical fantasy ring to it (since we’re fantasy nerds) but also had a writing-esque vibe to it as well. So, after bouncing around some terms and names, we landed on the word ‘Mage’ and then we slapped ‘ink’ in front of it, and our name was born. As Ink Mages, we feel the name embodies how we create magic on the page when we write. 

Carol: Why did you decide to create a podcast?

 

Stephanie and Angela: We wanted to grow our audience and platform, and doing a podcast was something we both had been discussing for months. So, naturally doing one together seemed the perfect fit. Second, since we have so much fun discussing our own books, myths, legends, and fantasy books, we wanted to create a space where we could invite readers and writers into our imaginative world and “nerd out” with us.  

Carol: What are your goals for The Ink Mages podcasts?

Stephanie and Angela: Our goal is to interview other authors, grow our audience, share about our books, help encourage aspiring writers, and build a community of nerds who love to talk about fantasy books. Our current goal is to do four episodes a month, shooting for one a week. We’re hoping to do our first interviews next month in September 2023. So be on the lookout!

Carol: What were your fears or concerns in creating a podcast? Did you have any bumps in the road when you got started?

Stephanie and Angela: Our biggest concern was, how do we start? Where do we go to record? Do we need equipment? And how involved will this be? But, after we spoke with Dr. Jen Lowry of Monarch Press, she helped us navigate which platforms to use and where to start. From there, we just hopped on Streamyard a month ago and said, “We’re doing this, let’s record!” And that’s how our first episode happened. We had a blast just nerding out together and knew this was going to be a special endeavor.

Carol: I know your podcast is pretty new, so who do you hope your audience will become? What do you hope to offer that other podcasts don’t?

Stephanie and Angela: We really hope to grow a community of writers, readers, and lovers of fantasy. There are plenty of nerds out there who love talking “all things books,” and we want to stick to what we do best: writing fantasy and being passionate about our favorite sci-fi/fantasy stories. We want to focus on those two elements so our audience knows with every episode what our niche is. We love broadcasting that we are “Super Nerds” when it comes to fantasy and sci-fi—hopefully, that will set us apart as well.   

Carol: How do you plan to grow your audience?

Stephanie and Angela:  Through social media. We have created an account for The Ink Mages on all the major social platforms, and we try to make several posts a week to engage with our audience. We run polls ask questions and encourage people to leave comments on our videos so we can have a fun dialogue. Check out our LinkTree to connect with us!

Carol: What type of equipment do you need? Hardware or software? 

Stephanie and Angela: We started very basic with our equipment. We record on Streamyard using their free service. Angela uses a microphone, but Stephanie does not. There are plenty of free resources out there, including uploading on YouTube and Spotify, so starting a podcast is not an expensive venture. As we grow, we may expand and upgrade the services we use, but for now, the most important thing for us is just to get out there and start.

Carol: How did you decide on Spotify for your platform?

Stephanie and Angela: Spotify Podcasters seemed a natural choice, and it was recommended to us—plus it’s easy to use. You can add interactive questions and polls on this platform, so it gives us feedback on what episodes we should do next. And it has all the links to other podcast platforms, making it easy to upload to all of them with one click.

Carol: What advice would you give to others who want to start a podcast?

Stephanie and Angela: Just start. Figure out what you want to focus on, find your niche, and just start recording. Don’t overthink it. If you’re introverted like us, find a partner to host it with you—that’s what sealed it for us. On our own, it seemed daunting, but having a friend on the show made the conversation more fun and engaging.

Carol: How much time does it take to create a podcast? 

Stephanie and Angela: Getting started took a little legwork of creating our Ink Mages account on all the social platforms. But before we even did that, we had to design a logo—that was the fun part. Having our name figured out really helped the design take form. We chose a feather quill pen to highlight the writing aspect of our podcast, followed by an image of a stack of books, to show our love of reading!

Once we had that, it put a fire in us to really dive into our podcast and make it happen. Next, we created a shared email, so we have access to all the accounts. We used Canva for designing all our YouTube video thumbnails, and initially that took thirty minutes to design. From there, we can reuse the template, just changing out the information for our new episodes. It’s very easy and not time-consuming at all.

When recording, our episodes run a little under an hour, and then we splice them for easier consumption. We do minimal editing, so after a recording, we spend an hour or two getting it ready for uploading. 

GIVEAWAY

Stephanie and Angela are each giving away an Ebook. Stephanie's book is The Conjurer's Curse and Angela's is Elanor and the Song of the Bard. 

Leave me a comment with your preference and I'll enter your name. PLEASE make sure you include your email address if you are new to my blog.  Giveaway ends on September 7 so enter now! If you prefer, feel free to email me instead. 

FIRST PODCAST!

BOUNTIFUL RED ACRES by Eileen Heyes: A Review, Author Interview and Giveaway

 It is my pleasure to introduce Bountiful Red Acres by my North Carolina friend, Eileen Heyes. Written for third-eighth graders, it details a year in the life of two families one Black and one White in Surry County, as they move from season to season in 1900. The book is beautifully illustrated by Dare Coulter and is a welcome North Carolina resource published in 2023. All illustrations are used with permission of the NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

This is the story of an ordinary year in the lives of two ordinary families, raising crops, rearing children, building community. (p.5)

INTRODUCTIONS

The book opens with touching introductions by descendants of both the Sawyers and Hauser families. Mary Hauser and Janie Hauser Morgan wrote: "Reading about the Sawyerses and Hausers as neighbors and community members brings beautiful new texture to the lives we imagined when we visited Shoals and depth to our understanding of North Carolina's Piedmont...lives are both deeply intertwined yet separate, bound by the rhythms of the same seasons, and also made starkly different by the legacy of slavery." 

Jerry Ward, a Sawyers descendant wrote, "I am excited and thankful that my family lived their lives so that, even after the passing of more than a century, they and the Hauser family are still touching lives today."

Eileen writes in her prologue, "What's so special about this community, Shoals Township? Well, nothing. "And that's the point. All across the Piedmont at the turn of the twentieth century, many rural communities were a lot like Shoals."

Each season includes information about the annual activities that comprise normal life. The book shows how Blacks and whites lived

separately and yet their lives were intertwined in work and play. Each season has a sidebar with details about daily life that might be unfamiliar to students. 

REVIEW

Winter

In the cold months of winter,...rural families work as hard as ever. 

A squirrel hunting party sets off on January 1, 1900.

Today's young readers might be aware of hunting, preserving food, chopping wood, or quilting, 

Neighbors quilting together.

but I wonder how many have thought about a different chore--harvesting ice. Along with other neighbors, Adam Sawyers and his sons helped hack and haul six feet square blocks of ice to the Hauser's icehouse. Everyone who worked received a share of the ice when they needed it during the hot summer. 

The sidebar for Winter describes how ice was made from the dammed creek and stored in a cellar-like hole that is lined with straw and insulated with sawdust.

SPRING

The windows were opened wide to let in fresh air and the school year was over. Children were free to help on the farm--indoors and out. They were needed to help with spring cleaning, cooking, and harrowing and planting fields. 

Although this was a hopeful time of year with flowers budding, it also brought sadness to the Sawyers family. Annually on Good Friday, Mr. Sawyers took his son Preston to the Hauser family graveyard to tend to the graves of his four baby sons. Along the way, Mr. Sawyers explained that the township didn't have an African-American graveyard. So, they turned to their friends, the Hausers who made room for his sons.

Mr. Sawyers at the cemetery.

The sidebar for Spring discusses segregation and some of the economic effects on Blacks.

Summer

Fruits were ripe and plentiful on both the Sawyers' and Hauser's farms. Plums, apples, and blackberries were picked, dried, and preserved for the cooler months.  Children helped with the weeding, cutting lumber, picking off tobacco worms, and feeding the livestock. It took a lot of work to keep hungry families fed and functioning.

The sidebar for Summer is about the once-every-decade census. Nathanael Boydon visited all the families in Shoals and often stayed for dinner. When he didn't get around to visit every family, he filled in the forms anyway. No one bothered to correct him. 

FALL

 

Harvesting honey was a huge task that involved lots of time and several pairs of hands. Even the drained beeswax was used and made into candles. The Shoals farm families were busy harvesting, canning, and making just about everything from apples that you can imagine. Nothing went to waste. Even the corn husks were put to use--as dolls or in the privy or stuffed into bed ticks.

The children returned to school in November. The African-American children went to a one-room schoolhouse where Dalton Sawyers taught 21 children in all six grades. Since the White school burned down a year earlier, they were schooled in groups in private homes.

The sidebar from Fall talks about common modes of transportation. Although Thomas Hauser owned a surrey, most folks got around by walking. 

The book ends with a return to winter and an epilogue in which the author shares how the two farms eventually became the Horne Creek Living Historical Farm. Admission is free--so buckle up the kids and experience life on a working farm in 1900.

INTERVIEW

CAROL: How did you end up writing this book?  Did you approach the NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources with the idea or did they come to you? Did they set the parameters of the book? 

EILEEN: The book that became Bountiful Red Acres had a kind of complicated, twisty history. I'll spare you several years of backstory on that. I was hired to write the story on recommendation from my dear friend, author-illustrator Anne Runyon. By that time the folks at DNCR had decided what they wanted was a book about the Sawyers and Hauser families, who lived on what is now a State Historic Site called Horne Creek Living Historical Farm. It's a beautiful site, in Surry County, south of Pilot Mountain State Park. 

The only parameters my editors gave me were that my story should have a narrative structure and a child's point of view. Then, in consultation with the site manager at the farm, Lisa Turney, I settled on telling the story of the year 1900 from the POVs of 10-year-old Preston Sawyers and 12-year-old Robert Hauser -- perfect ages for a book aimed at 4th-grade readers.

 

CAROL: Since its publication, have you heard if teachers are using it in classrooms? Perhaps as part of NC studies?

EILEEN: I know of at least one teacher who plans on using it in her classroom at Durham's R.N. Harris Elementary. Also, Rodney Dawson, an Education and interpretation Specialist with the N.C. African American Heritage Commission has been promoting my book as a resource for teachers. And I've been delighted to see the Sawyers and Hauser descendants embracing my book. One Hauser descendant bought copies to donate to all the schools in Surry County, plus more to distribute among his family members.

What I hope students and teachers will get out of this book is a glimpse of the "missing middle" in our history. When we study history, we tend to focus on heroes and achievers, or we study conflicts and victims. But we give a lot less attention to ordinary people and how they lived, how they kept moving through every day, year after year and kept the world turning. This is who the Sawyerses and Hausers were -- a Black family and a white family who had adjacent farms in a time when law and custom kept Blacks and whites apart in many aspects of life. Here in their ordinary farming community of Shoals, the Sawyerses and Hausers were friends. Despite the pervasive racial and economic inequalities, these two families farmed successfully, they made sure their children got an education, they lived with dignity and they just plain carried on.

CAROL: Please speak about the research process. What was fun and joyful, what was difficult (and maybe?) depressing or discouraging?  How long did you research before you started writing?

EILEEN: Research for this project was easier than for most nonfiction because most of what I needed was in the files at Horne Creek Farm. Back in the 1980s and '90s, when the farm was being prepared as a State Historic Site, other researchers had searched out the histories of the community, the property, and the two families. Site Manager Lisa Turney was my guide through those existing resources. Another really helpful source was a newspaper called The Progressive Farmer out of Winston, N.C., which is digitized in the Library of Congress's "Chronicling America" collection. Great online resource for anyone wanting to re-create American history!

The research, outlining, drafting, and writing unfolded over several years, for a variety of reasons. It was an unusually leisurely project.

The most fun part for me was visiting the farm, which of course I had to do in each season to portray the changing sights, sounds, and fragrances of the farm in the course of a year. Spending time on site helped me sort through the mountain of information and pick out the details I wanted to use, the specific facts that would bring the story to life for young readers. I set out to hit a target length of 4,000-6,000 words but ended up at more like 7,600 words because there were just so darn many interesting details to include -- and my editors agreed, it all needed to be there. 

I'd also like to say, I love the way artist Dare Coulter brought her own insights to the story. As you know, an author has no input on how a book is illustrated. I had seen Dare's work and was thrilled to learn that she would be on the project. Sure enough, her art added a whole different dimension to the story. And big credit to Sheilah Barrett Carroll, the book's designer and editor, who pulled everything together into a cohesive whole. I am grateful for the privilege of working with both of these talented women!

GIVEAWAY

If you're interested in winning this unique book, please leave me a comment by August 29. If you prefer, you can always email me. If you are new to my blog or are from North Carolina, I'll put your name in twice; just let me know in the comments. 

                                        *****

Congratulations to Gail Hurlburt who won The Pie That Molly Grew and to JoLynn Worden and Kathy Dykstra who won copies of Disconnected.

Don't forget to check out other great MG books on Greg Pattridge's Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday blog.

THE PIE THAT MOLLY GREW: A Picture Book Review and Mini-Author Interview

This must be the season for new picture books because my email box is full of books waiting to be reviewed. I'm happy to share one by author and self-proclaimed backyard explorer, Sue Heavenrich. 

The Pie That Molly Grew  (Sleeping Bear Press: 2023) combines the rhythm of the nursery rhyme, This is the House that Jack Built with the science of growing pumpkins. It ends with a yummy feast and STEM back matter (including directions for scooping out a pumpkin and a pie recipe) that every preK-first grade teacher will love. 

REVIEW

Here is the opening page which reflects the simple beginning of what becomes an enormous plant.

The lyrical book proceeds to show Molly planting the seed and watching it sprout. Next, she plants it in her garden:

         "to grow from the seed that Molly sowed."

(Are you starting to hear the rhythm?)

Next to arrive on the scene are leaves as "big as your head turning sunlight to food wherever they spread."

As Molly tends to her pumpkin plant, the vine grows and grows and begins to produce blossoms.

The author makes sure that her readers understand the important role that bees have in pollination.

Molly proudly displays her pumpkin "big and round" which is "sliced and diced and baked in a pan and left on the table till feasting began."

for the seed and the sprout,

for the vine and the leaves,

for the flowers that nourished the hardworking bees.

And the wonderful pie that Molly made.

Parents, grandparents, and educators-beware! Every child who hears this book will want to: 

a) scoop out a pumpkin and save the seeds

b) make a pie

c) plant pumpkin seeds next spring!

Chamisa Kellog's bright illustrations will grab young readers' attention as they are drawn into The Pie That Molly Grew. 

Mini-Author Interview

Carol: I’m curious about the different types of bees that you have seen pollinating your garden. Can you talk about that a bit?

 

Sue: I love watching the insects that share my garden and listening to their buzzing and humming. I started looking at them more closely when I became one of the community science volunteers at the Great Sunflower Project (https://www.greatsunflower.org), growing flowers for – and counting – the pollinators in my garden. And by “growing flowers” I mean that I allow flowers that some folks call weeds to grow in my garden bed: Queen Anne’s lace, yarrow, dead nettle, mullien, red clover – the bees love clover! I don’t know the names to all the bees that visit, but I’ll see common eastern bumble bees, tricolor bumble bees, yellow bumble bees, carpenter bees (they are the ones with shiny bee butts!), leafcutter bees, metallic green sweat bees, and squash bees. There are also a number of flower-pollinating flies, too.

A bee doing her job in Sue's garden.

Carol: Do you ever save your pumpkin seeds?

 

Sue: I do. Saving the seeds from a pumpkin is pretty easy: cut open the pumpkin (which you have to do whether you’re baking it for pie or making a jack-o-lantern) and scoop out the guts. Then I pull out bunches of seeds and rinse them in a strainer to get the strings off, and let them dry on a wax paper-lined cookie sheet for a few days. Pumpkins are related to other squashes,  cukes, and melons, and sometimes they can be cross-pollinated. So you might get a surprise when you plant your saved seeds – especially if your pumpkins were growing within flight distance of zucchinis. But hey! It’s science. 

                                            *****

To read Sue's answers to some commonly asked questions, check out Chamisa's interview on Sue's blog.

Here are more blogs that are featuring Molly this week and next:

Aug 15 - at Vivian Kirkfield's blog for a Book Birthday & giveaway

 

 Aug. 16 - we'll join the STEAMTeam at Maria Marshall’s blog, The Picture Book Buzz

Aug. 18 - at Carol Baldwin’s blog & a giveaway!

Aug. 23 - with Kathy Halsey on the GROG blog

Aug. 25 - over at Beth Anderson's blog

Aug 28 - with Lauri Fortino at Frog on a Blog

GIVEAWAY

Sleeping Bear Press is providing a giveaway copy. If you are interested in winning this informative and fun book, please leave me a comment by August 21. As usual, if you share this post on social media or are an educator or librarian, you get an extra chance. If you are new to my blog, please leave your email address. U.S. addresses only. If you prefer, email me to enter the giveaway.

DISCONNECTED by Riley Cross: A Book Review by Guest Blogger, Georgie Bartlett

Please welcome a new teen blogger, Georgie Bartlett. You can read about her and the giveaway below her review.

REVIEW

I thoroughly enjoyed Disconnected (Monarch: 2023) for a myriad of reasons, one of them being that it was an interesting and thought-provoking story from start to finish. Riley Cross has a way of making you feel as if you are really in Unity, Chiara’s controlled and restricted world. 

 The main character, Chiara, was born a third-generation Anomaly, meaning she was the result of her parents falling in love rather than a perfect genetic match chosen by Auto. Inside Unity are those deemed worthy of citizenship, and outside of the circular walls of this futuristic civilization live the Streamless, the social outcasts. Unity’s inhabitants have been taught that the Streamless are mindless and incapable of functioning; just one of the many lies they have been fed since birth. The all-powerful artificial intelligence, Auto, controls the virtual world (the DataStream), and essentially rules over the citizens of Unity.  

When her mother and father die under mysterious circumstances, Chiara is orphaned and put under the care of her enigmatic Grandfather. When he also dies mysteriously and Chiara’s memory is wiped, she begins her mission to collect the shattered fragments of her mind, uncover the truth, and ignore the awful headaches, nightmares, and visions plaguing her. She also needs to escape Unity. In doing this, she has to decide whether or not she can leave her childhood best friend, Silas, possibly forever.  

Something that really stuck with me throughout the book was the phrase “Always with you,” which Chiara’s Grandfather tells her. I loved that he always had something to steady her. You can actually learn a lot from Grandfather and Auto about the plethora of dangers attached to AI and the gradual development of technology, and I positively love a fiction book that can teach me something. It had me thinking, could our society get to this point eventually?  

The characters in Disconnected felt so real, sometimes I forgot they were fictional, which is certainly a distinguishing characteristic of good writing. Among the main characters, there were arguments, conflicts, and heartbreak, but they all manage to put everything aside and come together in the end. I related to Chiara’s struggle with staying true to herself in an abrasive society. 

I am still thinking about this story, which is always a good sign when it comes to a novel. I adored how the evil of Auto was combated by books and the Forbidden Library which were all preserved in Chiara’s mind. She actually quotes Robert Frost at one point, and I have to say, that only helped to raise this book in my estimation. He is by far my favorite poet, and this book is by far one of my favorites I’ve read this year.  

 I don’t often read Sci-Fi, but Disconnected had me engaged from the start. The plot always kept moving, keeping me interested and wanting to read more. I recommend this to anyone with a penchant for Science Fiction. This book is an entirely clean read, which is one of the many things I appreciated about it. It does contain some graphic imagery surrounding Grandfather’s death, so I would recommend this book for readers ages 13 and up. If you want a novel that’s suspenseful and captivating, then Disconnected is a wonderful book to add to your TBR. I believe you will love it! 

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Georgie Bartlett is a teen living in the beautiful mountains of North Carolina with her family and two mischievous rescue dogs. She enjoys writing, crocheting, journaling, gardening, playing the drums, and above all, reading. 

GIVEAWAY

Monarch Publishing is giving away a paperback copy and an Ebook version for two of my blog readers. To enter the giveaway, please leave a comment by August 22 with your email address if you are new to my blog. This would make a great gift for the young Science Fiction reader in your life -- or as an addition to your library. You can also email me to enter the contest. If you share this on social media or start following my blog I will enter your name twice. U.S. addresses only for the paperback.