Storywitch’s “Book of Shadows”

Yes, it’s late, but I’m thinking that’s not such a bad thing, because though the Christmas season is past, the spirit of giving shouldn’t ever be. You’ll remember my December newsletter contest prize was $50 to the winner’s chosen charity. However, as I did last year, I promised I would have a blog post that discussed/listed the other charities that were nominated for the drawing, so we can all learn about additional ways we can help those in need.

I’ve tried to loosely categorize these alphabetically in case you have particular interests, but some could go in more than one category, of course. If I thought the organization was well known, or the name was self-explanatory as to their mission, I didn’t elaborate. However, if that wasn’t the case, I tried to include a little info, either from the website or the description the contestant provided. And of course for those organizations that have websites, I’ve included the links so you can click and learn more about them!

As I said in January, I was not at all surprised to hear how generous so many of you are with your time and resources. I hope this post will lead to additional resources going to these fine organizations. Thanks again for participating!

ANIMALS

Animals for Adoption (Sue Sternberg)

ASPCA

Bengal Cat Rescue

Best Friends Animal Society Home Page

Brunswick Animal League

CAAWS – Capital Area Animal Welfare Society

Chimp Haven

The Heartland Shelter

Humane Society of the United States

International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW)

Kitsap Humane Society

Luzerne County SPCA

Martinsville SPCA

McKamey Animal Center

Michigan Humane Society

National Wildlife Federation
Peggy Adams Rescue League

Rancho Coastal Humane Society

Southport-Oak Island Animal Rescue (SOAR)

Tails Humane Society

DISEASE PREVENTION/CURES/FAMILY SUPPORT

American Cancer Society

American Diabetes Association – NY

Avon Products Foundation Inc.. -  Walk for Breast Cancer – NY

Caring Bridge for Audrey Robart – This is a relative of the reader who submitted the organization. Audrey has hit the maintenance phase this month but still has a long way to go.  Her mother passed away with leukemia a few years ago at this time of year. 

Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Mo

Juvenile Diabetes Foundation

Ronald McDonald House

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital

Operation Smiley Face – Cancer survivor who sends out “smiley faces” to bring cheer/support to those facing disease/hardhsip

Tenovus – Welsh-based charity for cancer care and research

HANDICAP ASSISTANCE

Canine Companions for Independence – Can give money or time – can raise a puppy for the organization.

Guiding Eyes for the Blind – this organization helps a challenged person live a more full life and at the same time gives some lucky dog a loving home as well as a very important job.

Paws with a Cause – Wonderful work training service dogs for the handicapped, hearing dogs for the hearing impaired, and now they are training seizure-alert dogs also.

KIDS

Easter Seals of Southeastern Pennsylvania is a pre-school that works intensely with children with many different types of disabilities although many are autistic.  Most of the children have little or no speech but they work with them each day. Last year, one little boy who was at the end of his last year in the school and had never spoken, actually spoke a sentence one week before the last day of school.

Freedom Writers –There are books about and by Erin Gruwell about her teaching methods and how she inspires others to replicate her success. And yes, this is the organization/woman who inspired the movie with Hilary Swank!

Fresh Air Fund – Since 1877, The Fresh Air Fund has been giving inner-city children the joy of a summer vacation with volunteer host families and at Fund camps, creating unforgettable memories and fresh possibilities.

Gift for Teaching – Organization’s mission is to transfer surplus community resources to teachers to help students in need.

Girl Scouts of America

InterServ – faith-based, not-for-profit, human service organization countering the effects of poverty on children, youth, elderly and families in St. Joseph, Missouri and neighboring communities

Make a Wish Foundation

St. Mary’s School, Lincoln NE – “a wonderful school [who] gives to their poor. Since they are the poorest parish in the city they rent text books from the state. When I asked the principal if I could help with $50 GC for books she gave me a list of "The Boxcar Children" Books for the library where they rarely get donations to add to.”

Ricky Martin Foundation – Children’s rights (Child Trafficking, Violence Against Children, Health, Education, etc)

Victory Junction – Provides camp experience for children with chronic medical conditions or serious illnesses.

Youth Haven Ranch – local Christian group that teaches underprivileged children the love of Jesus Christ. During the holiday season, they have Christmas parties giving many of these children the only Christmas gifts that they will receive all year.

MILITARY/VETERAN SUPPORT

Fisher House Foundation – helps the injured military and their families with short and long term care needs

Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund – helps the injured military and their families with short and long term care needs

USO

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

Doctors without Borders

Heifer International

One.org – grassroots campaign and advocacy organization backed by more than 2 million people who are committed to the fight against extreme poverty and preventable disease, particularly in Africa.

Save Darfur Coalition – This organization raises public awareness about the situation in Darfur and mobilizes response for humanitarian aid, ending the violence, promoting long term sustainable development, etc.

Unicef

World Vision – “they’re one of the charities pretty much every government allows on the ground immediately after disaster strikes” 

HUMAN ASSISTANCE(General)

American Red Cross – National

Central Virginia Food Bank

Habitat for Humanity

Orlando Sentinel Family Fund – supports nonprofit agencies in Central Florida that provide low-income and underserved residents with basic needs and promote the acquisition of basic skills so that they may fully participate in and be productive members of the community.

Salvation Army

Southwest Indian Foundation

United Way

So tomorrow, February 2nd is the official release day for the Laced with Desire anthology! Would you like to read an excerpt from each of the stories? Here you are:

No Strings Attached by Jaci Burton

La Petit Mort by Jasmine Haynes

Honor Bound by Joey Hill

Rhio’s Dancer by Denise Rossetti

This is the second time I’ve had the privilege of sharing the cover with these three talented ladies, and just like last time, we wanted to celebrate with a blog tour.

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The winner of the January newsletter contest drawing is Audra! Congratulations! I’ve sent you a direct email so you can let me know which of my titles you’d prefer to receive for your prize.

You may remember that this month’s newsletter contest asked what your favorite all time book is. Audra’s was Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, which was a great choice – happens to be one of my favorites as well. Would you like some other suggestions for your reading lists? Here are the titles that were submitted as “all time favorites” from the contest participants. Since I figure you already know about mine, I didn’t include the contestants that named my books, though I definitely appreciated that!! Enjoy, and hope you find many TBRs here.

Those who submitted these as their favorites sometimes included the reasons why in their email. In the interests of space, I just gave the title/author here, but if you’d like to comment and say why you loved any one of these titles, don’t hesitate to do so.

Also, don’t forget to visit here tomorrow for the Laced with Desire author blog tour! Four more chances to win books, as well as to find out fashion “secrets” about us (chuckle – things you may decide you didn’t want to know!)

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The winner of our December newsletter contest random drawing was the Welsh-based charity for cancer care and research Tenovus, suggested by Ilona! http://www.tenovus.org.uk/. As you may remember, the prize was $50 to your favorite charity. In this case, it will be a comparable amount of pounds sterling (grin).

As mentioned earlier, after I get past Gideon’s rework, I will do a blog in January about the many wonderful charity suggestions I received – everything from animals to literacy, to the Salvation Army and other very worthwhile groups. But I wanted to go ahead and let you know who won the prize.

Thanks for all the great suggestions – this is a very generous, loving group (and of course I’m not at all surprised by that). Happy New Year!

Well, as promised, here’s a short summary of the reading I did during my November vacation. Turned out, it was good I brought a selection of books, because good ole storm Ida kept us inside with cold temps, heavy rain and winds for three days. But that was okay – at this point in life, I couldn’t ask for more from a vacation than my husband’s companionship, and hours of movie watching and reading time, interspersed with the occasional walk along the beach to watch the dolphins and check out ocean scenery.

As a matter of professional courtesy, I don’t talk about books that I don’t like and/or don’t feel are worth reading. So all of the following, in my opinion, ARE worthwhile reads and I was glad for the time I spent with them. This doesn’t mean I won’t point out my personal little hang-ups with them, if I have any. That’s because I know one person’s hangup is another person’s automatic buy, and so may help the author as well (laughter). I don’t summarize the books in great detail, but if you click each cover, it will take you to the page that tells you more about the story. If it’s a small press/digital, I’ve also included the publisher name.

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The November newsletter contest winner is Cyma! Congratulations, Cyma – you get your choice of one of my titles, and that lovely $50 Barnes & Noble gift certificate. I’ve also sent you a direct email.

Thanks so much to all of you for entering, and for the many kind comments you included in your entries about holiday wishes, my work and tomorrow’s release of Mermaid’s Ransom. I wish I could have responded personally to everyone, but this was our most successful contest yet – nearly 200 entries!

On that note, be thinking about your favorite charity, because, just like last year, my contest prize in the December newsletter will be a $50 donation to the charity of your choice, to celebrate the spirit of the season. Stay tuned for that…

Until then, hope you all had a great Thanksgiving (those who celebrate it), and hope all is well with you and yours.  Off to work on Brendan and Chloe, and prepare to plunge into part II rework of Gideon, Anwyn and Daegan!

Here’s Part XI, and I hope it’s a satisfying wrap-up to Tyler’s birthday celebration. While I’ll keep the “Tyler Tied Up – All of It” page in the side bar, I’ll also send the whole thing to Terry over at the yahoo fan group so she can archive it in the files list for quick reference. It’s been a pleasure to spend time with these two!

I wish you and yours a wonderful Thanksgiving, if you celebrate it, and to all I wish a very happy holiday season. Don’t stress out too much over those crazy relatives, the shopping lines, the extra few pounds that will come off after all of it’s over…just enjoy the time with those you love, give to the organizations that need it so much this time of year (my choice is going to be the Salvation Army and my various animal charities) and dwell on the blessings.

As I mentioned earlier, I won’t start a new vignette until the new year (the one with Lyssa and her former servant Thomas), but in a week or so I’ll have a blog post about my vacation reading so you can determine if you want to add to your TBR (To Be Read) list. I’ll also give you a reminder heads up on the couple interview/giveaway opportunities I identified in the newsletter.

Remember to keep letting me know your vignette ideas as well. I’m compiling a list to keep us busy well into 2020 (lol). A vignette idea can also be a request to know how certain loose ends were tied up. I just had a lovely reader ask about Make Her Dreams Come True, wanting to know if Meg made up with her mother, what she and Daniel are doing now, if they had any children, etc. So I added that to the vignette list, which means it might become a vignette focused on just those two, or maybe a social gathering with other characters so we can learn more about what’s happening with a variety of folks.

Anyhow, without further ado, here’s the last part of Tyler and Marguerite’s vignette!

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Mermaids and Myth! That was the mini-event that Judi Fennell and I hosted at the Authors After Dark conference in Suffern NY October 23-26. We were scheduled for a poolside event at 4pm on the day of registration, so I thought, “oh, we won’t have too many folks”. Instead, we had nearly thirty! One of them, Carol B, even wore a special embroidered mermaid skirt in honor of the event. She quite graciously allowed me to photograph her backside (lol).

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Yep, it’s official. This is the next to last part. The final segment, right before Thanksgiving, will draw this to a close. And give both Marguerite and Tyler a chance to lie in one another’s arms and rest (smile).

Before you ask, we’ll get started on the next one after the holidays, never fear! I won’t try to plunge into a new one during the crazy Christmas prep period, but that will give me more time to think about Lyssa and Thomas’s one intimate night together…

In the meantime, hope you enjoy this…

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Congratulations to TRISH! She’s won the October newsletter contest for the title of her choosing. I’ve emailed her directly, but wanted to wish her a public congrats and thank everyone for entering. This contest gets more popular every month! I’ll have to think of something special to go along with the book giveaway next month, in honor of the release of Mermaid’s Ransom in early December…

We’ll be back on track with the vignette this week, so tune in Wed or Thu to see what happens next with Marguerite and Tyler. The Vampire Mistress rework is pretty much done (a few more touches tomorrow and then off it goes to my ever-patient editor). Now that I’ve gone through it, I’ve decided I’m actually glad it turned out to be two books. The rework  made the relationships between Gideon, Anwyn and Daegan better developed, helped me to get closer to all of them (instead of being distracted/worried by excessive word count), and ironically, we’ll likely end up with more story in two books than we would in just the one. Which means the chance to spend more time with these three, which I’m hoping you’ll like. :>

Happy Samhain! Today’s the Wiccan New Year’s Eve, so to all of you out there, many blessings. Hope you do something lovely tonight. And may everyone enjoy their Halloween!