Booktour.com walks on the moon!

Okay, maybe not that far out, but the folks at Booktour.com have done something great. They combined an author's upcoming event calendar with the author's Amazon free blog page, making a stunning place to promote your events with exposure to your books at the same time.

More details are posted [naturally...] on my Amazon blog page here.

Want to read one like the one you just read?

You know the feeling - you read a really great book and want another one just like it, either from the same author or a similar writing style, or topic. Now you can visit Book Army http://www.bookarmy.com, a social networking site for readers. At the site you can browse titles by category, read book reviews, visit author pages to learn more about their work. and participate in discussion.

Upcoming Chicago-area event

You're welcome to attend, invite friends, or pass along this timely workshop notice.

Helen




You're welcome to attend, invite friends, or pass along this timely workshop notice.

Helen

The state of freelance from a newsman's perspective

"The combination of waiting and rejection used to drive writers to drink; now it drives them to blog. The blogosphere is an editor-free zone, a lawless, all-embracing realm from which uncertainty, disappointment, and standards have been banished. Anything goes and everyone, it sometimes seems, is there, even the talented, which is proof of the painful universality of rejection. (We all need a place safe from putdowns.) The blogosphere is the hack's idea of heaven."

Read more about the insights of Thomas Blick, a former newspaper travel editor, now a freelancer again.

Writers write... Even when they are on the force!

My favorite moment at the Printer's Row Lit Fest this weekend...


No, he's not writing a ticket, but he is a writer, and purchased Release Your Writing to get motivated. The festival was terrific, and packed! Hope you got downtown to enjoy it. Don't take these Chicago resources for granted, folks. We are incredibly lucky to live in a city that supports the Arts.

Chicago: City of Big Writers

The writing community in Chicago is best described as a self-propelled engine of change.

From Chicago's earliest writers: Nelson Algren, Theodore Dreiser, Stuart Dybek, James T. Farrell, and Studs Terkel our path was set. They made it easy for us to rest on their shoulders. We're a city of big writers and boast this weekend's Printer's Row Lit Fest, the autumn Humanities Festival, and dozens of powerhouse writing groups around the city and suburbs.

We even have a writing style manual to call our own: The Chicago Manual of Style. So write well in the history of our city, but get out and support writing groups and events too. You never know, you might meet one of our local celebs.

The incredible Encyclopedia of Chicago has marvelous research on Chicago's Literary Cultures.

Dear Reader

Suzanne Beecher is a writer and the founder of DearReader.com, an online book club where over 365,000 people read together. Sign up for the free service and Monday to Friday you'll receive a 5-minute portion of the featured book of the week.

Twelve genres to choose from, meet authors, win books, and be one of the four lucky readers each month to receive a batch of Suzanne's homemade chocolate chip cookies. Visit DearReader.com, sign up today, and start reading tomorrow. Go to: www.DearReader.com.

And, if you run out to buy all those great books, please remember to support YOUR local independent booksellers. Some of Chicago's wonderful indie bookstores are:

57th Street Books
The Book Bin
The Book Cellar
The Book Stall at Chestnut Court
Centuries & Sleuths
Women & Children First