The Inhabitants of the Hallway

Find out who haunts the hallway where Ally is trapped between worlds in Forget Me Not in the 9th and final stop on the Ghost Tour. Join me and Kari Olsen over at her blog, A Good Addiction. Then come back over to the Ghost Tour and scroll to the bottom of the page to find the Rafflecopter.

You could win a free copy of Forget Me Not and this raven feather bookmark designed especially for the Ghost Tour.

The contest will go on until October 31!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to My New Book

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

FORGET ME NOT

My paranormal verse novel goes on sale today at bookstores everywhere and amazon.com.
It's available in hardcover and as an e-reader.

Read the wonderful Kirkus review.

Here's another review from Alamosa Books.

And come back tomorrow, October 3 for the start of the Ghost Tour.

FORGET ME NOT Book Trailer - Cast and Crew

I am VERY excited to announce the release of the book trailer for FORGET ME NOT. I'm trying to get 2,000 YouTube views before the book is released on October, 2, so if you like the trailer please pass on the link via Twitter or Facebook or email or whatever.

Go here now to see the FORGET ME NOT BOOK TRAILER

I was lucky to have a very talented group of young people working on this project. Most of them are recent University of New Mexico Graduates. Josh Stuyvesant, second from the left, who just completed his degree in Media Arts, created the script and storyboard and basically put the whole video together. Check him out at his blog. His very talented friend, Kyle Ruggles, created the musical score, Jessica Garrett did makeup, and Jesus Ordóñez was in charge of photography.

Josh also played the part of Elijah, the boy you see running down the street and holding the forget-me-not bracelet. Haleigh Chwirka, who went to school with my oldest daughter through sixth grade, played the part of Ally. I didn't even know that Josh knew Haleigh until I arrived at the cast party at La Cumbre. Haleigh just finished her teaching degree and will be leaving soon to teach English in Thailand.

Jeremy Kinter played the Hangman, the creepy guy in the hall, and also served as production assistant. He's actually a very nice guy in spite of his role in this video. When Josh and I got together for the final stages of production, we met at one of my favorite coffee shops, the Satellite, where Jeremy happens to work as a barista.

Nate Steinberg played Davis, the football stud. He also helped with set up. He is sort of semi-famous, having played an extra in "The Social Network." His father is David Steinberg, book reviewer for the Albuquerque Journal.

These kids all did an amazing job, so if you like what you see, pass it on. BOOK TRAILER LINK

Preparing for a Book Launch: Searching for Flowers

I can't believe it's a mere 8 weeks until the release of FORGET ME NOT.

While looking for flowers to use in the book trailer, I called the local florist to see if they had forget-me-nots. They did not, nor could they order any. I went to the craft store to see if they had plastic versions of the tiny blue plastic flower. They didn't. I finally went to Jackalope, a local nursery based on the fictitious animal that is supposedly a cross between an antelope and a jack rabbit. To my dismay I discovered that forget-me-nots were NOT in season. 

They suggested growing them from seeds. I told the helpful plant lady that I doubted my publisher would delay the release of my book to allow me time to grow flowers.

Trying to be helpful, the plant lady showed me white barcopa. It also has five petals, but it's white, not blue. I seriously considered painting the flowers, but since I've never been artistic, I put this thought aside. Just as I feared all hope was lost, I found this pretty little blue flower whose name I can't remember. It's not forget-me-nots but as long as we don't do any close up shots, I think we'll be okay.

I now have complete sympathy for those movie people who have to go around town searching for props and sets and drug stores with jukeboxes and flowers that aren't in season and whatever else the crazy author decided to put in the story.

I now also know that flowers can have stunt doubles.
There's a lot more to being an author than I ever imagined.

Dead Rapper Rap

If your school is like mine, then your primary focus right now is one of two things, either SPRING BREAK or SBA testing. You may not be spending much time talking about stories or poems at the moment, unless it's to explore the types of literary devices that might be found in the SBA, or to practice skills (like skimming and scanning) that are related to the SBA, or to learn how to become a whiz at answering multiple choice questions of the sort that might be found on the SBA.

But don't despair. Something exciting awaits you at the end of SBA.

April is poetry month.

You might not think you have time to explore poetry, and yet poetry offers more literary bang for your buck than just about any other form. Consider the story poems that not only offer a complete plot in one to two pages, but also explore literary devices like metaphor, simile, and personification.

Consider some of these great story poems:

"The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes

"Casey at the Bat" by Ernest Thayer

"The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe

While writing my upcoming verse novel, Forget Me Not (Simon Pulse, October 2012), I took the poetic structure of "The Raven" and wrote a story poem about the rapper, 2Pac, showing up in a class as the substitute teacher. The poem is found below at the end of this post.

  

If you live in the Albuquerque Metro Area, you may interested to know that I will be at Alamosa Books with Caroline Starr Rose, to bring a free workshop to students, teachers, and writers on Saturday, April 14, 2012 at 2pm. Winners of a special poetry contest will be announced at that time. Poems may be submitted to Alamosa until April 10th at 8p.m. The elementary school in the Albuquerque area with the most submissions will win a free author visit by Caroline, and the secondary school with the most submissions will when a free author visit by me.

If you are not in the Albuquerque area, they may still enter to win a cool poster containing the poem by finding at least four of the eight 2Pac song titles hidden in the poem below. If you email a list of the titles to Alamosa, you will automatically be enterred in a drawing. For more information visit Alamosa Books.

  

Here is the poem:

  

DEAD RAPPER RAP by Carolee Dean (from the Paranormal Verse Novel, Forget Me Not- coming October 2012 from Simon Pulse)

Once upon a Friday morning, almost all the class was snoring.

Our teacher left a vocab worksheet for a sub who was a bore.

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

followed by a man's voice rapping, rapping lines I'd heard before.

"I'm Skandalouz," the voice he muttered, rapping at the classroom door.

"Open up, or I'll kick in this door."

Ah, distinctly, I remember, it was a bleak day in September.

Dude told the sub he came to send her to a class on the second floor.

She grabbed her books and packed her bag, running past the man in black.

And then I saw it was 2Pac, standing at the classroom door.

"All eyez on me," yelled the man, standing on the cold tile floor.

"I'm your new sub, Mr. Shakur.

"I'm here to wake you from your dreaming, give your simple lives some meaning."

He smiled at us, his white teeth gleaming, then he pointed at the door.

"If you're thinking about jetting, don't want to get caught here abetting

someone who'll have you forgetting what the h--- this class is for.

If you get out now, I won't detain you, block you, trap you, or restrain your

exit." No one touched the door.

"Ah, I see you've all decided to listen to your uninvited

guest get down. I must confide that I've got a special treat in store.

Forgive me if my words are cryptic. Guess I'm just 2Pacalyptic.

Get off your butts, we're gonna kick it, like you've never kicked before."

And soon he had the whole class rapping and break-dancing on the floor.

Dancing on the classroom floor.

He rolled his sleeves and there I saw it, a tattoo of a black bird on his

arm, and then I heard the haunted whisper of the raven's words:

"Keep ya heads up, no regrets, don't know if heaven's got a ghetto,  

but only God can judge what debt you'll have to pay forevermore.

He don't care if you scream and shout, 'cause big G knows there's no way out.

Once you've crossed the line-you're down, and you won't be getting up no more.

Hope you' re open to suggestion, 'cause there only is one question

left. I'm pretty sure you've guessed it. Heard it many times before."

Ah, distinctly, I remember, it was a bleak day in September,

when I heard the raven whisper    

"What are you willing 2 die 4?"