There are many phone calls a writer dreams of receiving, but for most of us it’s the “big three” as I like to call them, that leave us breathless, and yes, feeling a bit childlike in our joy.

First comes the call from a literary agent saying they’d love to represent our work. Then the call when a publisher wants to purchase our book. And then, further down this crazy and uncertain road, is the day the phone rings and we hear the one word that takes our breath away and has the power to drop us to our knees … BESTSELLER!

I’m thrilled to share the wonderful news that Saving CeeCee Honeycutt has hit several bestseller lists since its launch date of January 12, 2010:

New York Times

SIBA (Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance)

Heartland Indie

Southern California Regional Indie

Mountains and Plains Indie

Bookscan

Ingram

Barnes & Noble

Also, Saving CeeCee Honeycutt has been selected by SIBA as a 2010 OKRA-award nominee for Southern fiction (hardcover).

Thank you to all my readers—librarians, booksellers, book bloggers, fellow authors, magazine and newspaper reviewers, and the many book clubs—for embracing CeeCee’s story so fully.  And a special thanks to Pamela Dorman, my publisher, and to Catherine Drayton, my literary agent.  A writer couldn’t feel more honored.

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Those wise eyes and beautiful smile belong to writer, W. M. (Willi) Savage. Writing under the pen name of Renee Kohl, Willi is known for her works in YA Fiction, Historical Fiction, Fantasy, and the ever-popular coming-of-age. As a woman who has made her mark and continues to do so, I asked Willi if she would consider sharing some of her insights with the readers of my blog, and she graciously accepted. I’m so glad that she did!

Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?

—Paul Gauguin

“Paul Gauguin was a creative person like countless others, including myself and other writers. However, he chose to express his talent using a paintbrush and a palette. The groups I identify with choose to express their talents through writing. The artist and the writer, our fields are similar and our finished works answer the three questions posed by Paul Gauguin, with which he titled one of his paintings, Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? Like the figures and scenes on the artist’s canvas, so are our writings; whether they are in the form of short stories, novels, memoirs, biographies or numerous other styles—each completed work is the product of where we come from, what we are and where we are going.

What are we? We are the product of our beliefs, morals and values, interwoven with the language formed by the fusion of our subconscious and conscious.

Where are we going? As writers, we take our readers to many places, real and imaginary. We visit old castles in distant lands, skyscrapers in large cities and virtual worlds.

Where do we come from? In her book The Art of Fiction, Ayn Rand tells us we rely on our subconscious to provide us the language used in our writing. I agree with Ms. Rand’s premise. On the other hand, we know we put much effort into forming our conscious language. We can conclude that our subconscious experiences combined with our more limited conscious efforts, define where we come from, and reflects in our writing.

After completing and editing my first novel, It’s Time for Your Close-up, I found I could associate characters and occurrences with people I knew and with events I was familiar with in my everyday life. That being said, I agree with the scholars who link writing with the subconscious. Further, I discovered that evidence of the eleven years I spent working in social services appeared throughout the novel.

It’s Time for Your Close-up follows the life of a street-wise nine-year-old orphaned girl named Shan from Spanish Harlem who is taken in by her devout Christian grandmother, Miss Helen. The grandmother raised her up and sets out to groom the little girl into a proper young woman. When the grandmother is out of the picture, the girl falls under the care of an older boy who is an aspiring actor. Like her grandmother, the boy becomes a guiding force in the girl’s life and she is supportive of his career aspirations. Both main characters are confronted with obstacles common to many young people today coming from alternative and/or dysfunctional families. Because of their highly scrutinized relationship, a scandal arises, which the two overcome through dedication to each other. Shan becomes successful by being true to the ideals her grandmother has instilled in her—education, hard work and perseverance.

It was months after I wrote the storyline before I realized I had already met Shan. Shan had come into my life when I was doing social work in Oklahoma City. This Shan was a real person with a different name. Some of her circumstances were different from the character in my book, but there were profound similarities too. Both the girl I wrote about and the one I knew were from alternative household families.

The real-life Shan was one of my clients. A few years ago, I sat across the table from a 15-yeal old girl who asked to get food stamps put in her name because her mother had just died and she was left to care for her 7-year old brother. It was possible for the underage girl to do this. The young woman and little brother lived alone in a house because the father lived elsewhere and was unfit to parent either child. Both children were in school an instance when I replaced my Social Worker title with the one I call Human Being. I did something we were told never to do—I gave the young woman my home phone number and asked her to call me. For the next four years, I helped guide the young woman through college. I arranged tutoring for her and through personal contacts, assisted her with getting a job while she was in college.

Now I realize that through this experience, I became Miss Helen, Shan’s grandmother in the novel. It makes me think…What a wonderful world we live in—a place where any ordinary citizen can play a positive role in someone’s life. My goal moving forward is to continue playing that role in the lives of readers through my writings.”

Biography

You can visit W. M. Savage’s website HERE

W.M. Savage was born and raised near Jonesboro, Arkansas. She is one of eight children born to Rev. William Davis and Verlean Davis. She relocated to Kansas City where she received her Bachelor’s degree from the University of Kansas. A few years later Savage moved to Oklahoma City and continued her education by obtaining her Masters of Education degree in Creative Studies from the University of Central Oklahoma. She began her career teaching and designing curriculum for a vocational center, and later moved into the field of social work.

Savage now writes full time. She has written numerous poems, children’s stories, and has written three novels. Her first published novel, written under the pen name Renee Kohl, is a mainstream/contemporary coming-of-age novella entitled It’s Time for Your Close-up. Her second is a young adult novel entitled Gabrio, which also falls under the subgenres historical fantasy and adventure. Her third and recently completed novel is a post-World War II historical fiction work entitled, Souls left Behind.

Savage resides in Oklahoma City. Her hobbies include reading, watching films, collecting antique books, and traveling. She attends writers’ conferences around the US and Canada, and plans to travel to Europe in the near future.

It is my great pleasure to introduce you to a beautiful young woman by the name of Riley Carney. Riley is someone I admire for a many reasons. Not only is she a published author, she is also the fiercely dedicated engine behind the non-profit corporation for literacy, Breaking The Chain. I asked Riley to share her story with my readers and she graciously accepted.

Here, in her own words, is Riley’s amazing story!

“For as long as I can remember, I have always loved to read. I devour books, soaking up their words and absorbing their worth. What I love most about reading, though, is what I learn from books. Learning has always been an integral part of my life, something that I’ve had access to through books and through my education. While I had always considered learning to be an emotional necessity in my life, over time I began to realize that learning offered me a world of opportunity.

This truly hit home for me when I was fourteen years old and I learned that over 120 million children around the world do not have access to a basic education. I learned how vulnerable children are, in particular, enduring poverty and exploitation, and I realized that only through education do they have the chance to make their lives better.

This realization is what drove me to create my nonprofit for literacy, Breaking the Chain. The goal of Breaking the Chain (www.linkbylink.org) is to try to eliminate the bonds of poverty and illiteracy for children through education. During the past two years we have worked on domestic and international projects, though we are currently focusing on the domestic part of our program.

When I first created Breaking the Chain, I did not intend to turn it into a crusade to combat illiteracy. My original goal was to raise enough money to adopt a village in Kenya, Africa by building and outfitting a school for the village, providing a water purification system, alternative income like goats and sewing machine for the adults so the children can stay in school, and basic medical supplies. Three months later, I had raised $30,000.00 and had succeeded in adopting the village.

I realized that even though I was just a kid I could make a difference and I began to see Breaking the Chain as a way to opportunity to many children around the world.

To date, Breaking the Chain has built two more schools in Africa, both in Sierra Leone, a war-torn nation recovering from a brutal civil war that destroyed most of their schools. We were also able to adopt one of those villages and provide them with clean water and alternative income.

In addition to our international efforts, we have also sought to create education opportunities within the United States.  In 2008, we created a children’s literacy center in a women in crisis shelter in Colorado, stocking a room full of furniture and books so that the children there have a place to go and learn. We also bought over 1,000 books for Reach Out and Read and The Heart of America Foundation.

Literacy center I created for children at women’s shelter in Denver CO-Riley Carney Colorado – High School

Bookin’It Books

Just this month, we launched an exciting new program called Bookin’It. The program works directly with schools and classrooms to give books to children in schools with low literacy rates. We seek to encourage children to read, and therefore increase literacy rates, by providing opportunity. Many low literacy schools are very underfunded and do not have books in the classrooms.

A few weeks ago, I made our first delivery of books to different classrooms. One teacher broke down crying when she saw the books I had brought for her students. She notified other teachers about the program and by the end of the week we had sixteen different classrooms requesting books. I had always known there was a deficiency of books in many schools, but I had no idea how great the need was or the tremendous impact that they would have.

The Bookin’It program focuses primarily on elementary school students. Kindergarten through fifth grade is the most crucial time for literacy. After fifth grade, children are no longer taught basic literacy skills, and children who have not learned to read by age ten will likely be illiterate for the rest of their lives.

We hope to change that. Only through practice and exposure to books and reading does a child truly learn to read and with the books provided by Breaking the Chain, hopefully these children will develop the essential skills that they need to be able to succeed in life.

An exciting component to this program is that for only $250, donors can adopt an entire classroom and have their donation attached to that classroom on our website, if they choose. It makes the donation process much more personal. Donors directly impact those children. Who doesn’t like to know where their money is going when they make a donation?

While it may have started as one goal, one school in Africa, Breaking the Chain has become my passion. I’ve seen firsthand to impact books and an education can have on a child’s life. Part of the inspiration behind writing my books is to encourage kids to read.

I have spoken at a number of schools around the country about my writing and about Breaking the Chain. I encourage kids to take ownership over their own education, and to reach out to others in need because one person really can make a difference.

To learn more about Breaking the Chain, please visit our website at www.linkbylink.org. We really need your help right now. Donations have been down this year and we have a list of sixteen schools that need books. Even a small donation can make an enormous difference.”

Donations to Breaking the Chain are tax deductible.

www.linkbylink.org

www.rileycarney.com

www.rileycarney.blogspot.com

Riley Carney is the author of The Fire Stone, a wonderful (first in a series of five) fantasy novel that’s a huge hit with young adults and adults too. Engaging from the very first page, the characters, the story, the imagery, and the sheer magic of The Fire Stone will sweep you away. Available now at your local independent bookseller and also at Barnes & Noble and Amazon. I highly recommend this book! Please visit Riley’s website: www.rileycarney.com

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I’ve been on tour since January 9th, and it’s been the most amazing experience I’ve ever had. Every day my plane touches down in a new city and I have the opportunity to meet book lovers from Boston to Florida, and from Savannah to La Jolla. Each city, each event, and each person I meet touches my life in a unique and memorable way.  To say I’m grateful for the experiences is an understatement. Below are some pictures of my journey.

This is a shadow box that my dear friend, Suz Percival from Naples, Florida, made for me!  Inside is a quote from my book (when Miz Obee pilfers marbles off the game board at the nursing home), and there’s a picture of Savannah where CeeCee walked on one of her many journeys through downtown. And yes … those are real marbles!  I just love this and will cherish it forever. Thank you Suz!

Here I am with my girlfriend Welenia Foster in Savannah!

We had a fabulous time together and I’m looking forward to seeing Welenia again.

This is a picture of my girlfriend, Gigi, and me at the ALA Conference in Boston.

And this is my girlfriend Mary (she and Gigi are friends and drove in to see me)

And here I am with my girlfriend Marlane at Barnes & Noble in Cincinnati

Friends! (L to R) Shawnee, Shauna, Steve, and Marlane

More friends! (L to R)  Sally, Suzie, Lori

Fun in Marietta, Georgia!

Author event in beautiful Hudson, Ohio

And here I am at the American Library Association Winter Conference

with Dawn, the owner of the popular book blog, She Is Too Fond Of Books

It was a bitter cold day in Marietta, Georgia, but it was warm and inviting inside Sam’s Club. I was greeted with gorgeous flowers, smiles, and enough balloons to celebrate an inaugural, which in many ways this was. Pictured with me here is Lin, a wonderful woman and photographer who took care of me from the moment I entered the door to the moment I left. Lin was my ballast, and oh, did I need her!

Below are some random shots from my whirlwind adventure. I want to thank everyone at Sam’s Club and all the wonderful customers who made me feel so welcome and so special. It was a terrific day, and I made some new friends. And as you’ll see, even a few tears of happiness were shed. I’m so grateful to have had this opportunity, and, oh, what a memory its given me.

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