Skeleton Horses and Rushmore Kid

Oh, don't you love titles that don't make any sense? It's been a cool week - but HOT. I have some random things to share. First, I went to the Battle of the Barns in Martinez, CA to meet the riders and sell copies of Bull Rider. I expected a horse show and got more of a performance.


The riders were divided into teams by their riding clubs or barns. They all dressed up - pirates, midieval peasants, Indians. They decorated the horses too and then, let the games begin. It's been so hot here, Terri Farley (my partner in signing) and I prepared with umbrellas and sunscreen. Turns out the Bay breeze was going and we longed for sweatshirts. I'm posting my favorite picture - Skeleton Horse. Thanks, Barb, for the invite.

OK, and here are a couple of links for you - Tina Nichols Coury posted an interview with me today on her blog, Tales from the Rushmore Kid www.tinanicholscoureyblog.com and the Sacramento Book Review also posted a review and podcast (30 minutes but come on, I'm kind of entertaining...) at http://www.sacramentobookreview.com/suzanne_morgan_williams.php. This one is also linked on my webiste.

On the home front, my husband and I had contacted a well service to check out our well pump that was cycling on for no apparent reason. We had a series of tests to perform to isolate the leak and decide - plumber, irrigation guy, well eeeek. Then yesterday I went to the goat pen and the darn goats had turned the spigot on. I turned if off. That ten seconds was worth at least two hundred dollars. Moral of the story - always suspect the goats.

I Know It's July but I'm Thinking Fall

I guess my miserable ratio of days to blog posts in July has me thinking ahead. July has been a lovely month filled with keeping the plants alive and the animals cool (so far so good) and hanging out at home and writing. (Also going well.) This weekend, I'm looking forward to Vacquero Girl's Battle of the Barns in Martinez, California. August looks busier and then there's the fall. I'll be in Oklahoma City in September at Encyclomedia - a library convention - and am looking for school visits if any of you know folks there, then Jimez Springs New Mexico in October for the New Mexico SCBWI Retreat (preceeded by our Nevada SCBWI Mentor Retreat which is also in October), then I'll be in the greater Seattle/Puget Sound area in November for a number of events. Check out booktour.com/author/suzanne_morgan_williams for updated information as we make our plans. We, would be me, and Terri Farley, author of the Phantom Stallion and Island Stallion series. We'll be presenting together in Seattle and again at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada in January.

OK, this is getting a little overwhelming so changing the subject - I'm currently reading Crash Into Me by Albert Borris, a Class of 2k9 Member and co-president who's gotten a lot of buzz lately. Albert suffered a massive stroke in December and although he's recovered physically, his language is slower in returning. The 2k9 crew has been helping to get the word out about his book and his story got picked up by School Library Journal, the New Yorker, Media Bistro - a bunch of cool places. So look for the book and check out Albert's work. I'll post about the book when I'm done. That's all for now folks. Off to do what I'm supposed to be doing.

Bloggin' and Rodeo with the Class of 2k9

June 18th is my day to blog for the Class of 2k9 so head on over there to hear about our group, our books, and the Reno Rodeo - http://community.livejournal.com/classof2k9.
Check out our website too - http://classof2k9.com. Or if you are in the area, stop in at the Reno Rodeo and look up the Sundance Bookstore/Writing the West table in West Hall (the indoor arena.) We're right next to the ladie's room so we're hard to miss! Rosanne Parry (Heart of a Shepherd), Terri Farley (Phantom and Island Stallion series) and Chris Platt (various horse themed books) will be there with me (Bull Rider) signing their books.

Nevada Novelist Community

About four years ago Ellen Hopkins, Teri Sloat and I stayed up very late at the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrator's conference in Los Angeles brainstorming about a mentor program that would help aspiring writers and illustrators who were "almost there" and but had reached a plateau in their work. As the Nevada SCBWI Mentor Program (which we are in the third round of running right now) took shape, I began to imagine a time when many of the great writers we were working with would be published. There was a long list of probable people. Wouldn't it be cool to surprize people with a group of novelists whose connection was Reno, Nevada? I imagined a "school" not in the teaching sense but in the identifiable sense - a school of writers for Middle Grade and Young Adult readers who were mostly serious, mostly contemporary, mostly reality based - but not necessarily all of those at once.

Today I had coffee with Ellen, our friend and fellow author Heidi Ayarbe, and her daughter. Several years ago we were all in critique groups together and none of us had published fiction. Ellen was first with Crank published in 2005. So check it out now - Ellen is a New York Times best selling author several times over for her verse novels Crank, Burned, Impulse, Glass, and Identical. Tricks in it's great red cover comes out in August. Heidi's debuted in 2008 with her novel, Freeze Frame and she has another one on the way. Freeze Frame recently won the IRA (International Reading Association) Young Adult Book Award for fiction, 2009 - given for an author's first or second book for young readers. And as for me, Bull Rider was released this February and is a Junior Library Guild Selection.

Also in the Nevada Novelists Community - Terri Farley, author of the Phantom Stallion, Wild Horse Island series and Seven Tears into the Sea - with a gazillian books in print, Fran Cannon Slayton who is from Virginia but completed our first Nevada SCBWI Mentor Program (Ellen was her mentor) so we proudly claim her. Her first novel comes out in June from Philomel - When the Whistle Blows. One reviewer called this historical novel set in a 1940s West Virginia railroad town "an understated masterpiece." And we'll claim Lindsay Eland from Colorado - another novelist who completed the mentor program. Look for her novel, Scones and Sensibility in 2010. There are more names we fully expect to add soon - but I won't say them here. I'm not planning to jinx anyone but there are some really talented people around. So, how about a big Nevada YeeeHaaa for these authors. I think the dream is happening.

OK, I wish I'd been blogging for the last few days. So much has happened. I've been in the Pacific Northwest signing books, visiting schools, and visiting friends and relatives. I traveled with my husband and with Terri Farley - author of the Phantom Stallion Series and the Wild Island Series. Since we are both Reno authors who write about the West, we were presenting and signing together. Rosanne Parry, author of Heart of a Shepherd set up a terrific signing for the three of us at Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park, Washington. That's us signing books at "Ranch Sunday!" It was so fun.




So I wish every author could have been there when we dropped in at Barnes and Noble in Clackamas Town Center to see the magic that happens between readers and authors. Terri had offered to sign books for the store and we had just found them on a top shelf when a girl came up and was trying to reach them. "Do you like those books?" I asked her.
"Oh, she reads them all," her mom said.
Then Terri said, "I wrote those books."
I thought that girl was going to pass out from excitement. She bought three books, Terri signed them, and she went home a very happy camper.

A week later Terri and I were signing at Barnes and Noble in Vancouver, Washington and a boy came in to buy Bull Rider. He was on chapter four (of a book he'd checked out from the library) and was anxious to get his own copy and finish. "He doesn't like to read much," his mom said. "But he can't wait to read this." Music to my ears. More tomorrow.