Our last Book 'Em North Carolina Writers Conference and Book Fair was held on Saturday, February 27, 2016 at Robeson Community College in Lumberton, North Carolina.
I founded this event roughly seven years ago and 2016 marked the Fifth Annual Event.
I have truly enjoyed meeting so many authors, publishers, literary agents and even Hollywood producers and rock stars through Book 'Em North Carolina. Though the event was visible to the public only on one day a year, I worked twelve months a year in order to pull it off. There were countless hours spent on the website, this blog, registering authors and performing all the duties from those that make a huge impact to the little things no one ever saw. But I could not have accomplished the event without the dozens of volunteers who came forward each year to help make it a success.
In those first five years, Book 'Em North Carolina received many awards: one for the Friends of the Robeson County Public Library, two for Robeson Community College and two for myself.
After the 2016 event, I turned the reigns over to Robeson Community College. With the college behind the event, it can grow far beyond what one person could ever seek to make it. With the changing of the guard, there will be changes, all of which are designed to make it bigger and better. That takes time, and for those who have followed this blog or interacted with us on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest, we appreciate your patience while a new, improved system is put into place.
For now, we're discontinuing this blog though it might reignite in the future if volunteers are willing to maintain it. I will try to pop in periodically and let you know how things are going.
We hope you stay in touch with us on our Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/bookemnc/), our Twitter feed @bookemnc (https://twitter.com/bookemnc) and the website (http://bookemnc.org/). The website will be redesigned in the coming weeks to reflect the next event.
And thank you for participating or supporting Book 'Em North Carolina!
p.m.terrell is the founder of Book 'Em North Carolina. Learn more about her at www.pmterrell.com and about Book 'Em North Carolina at www.bookemnc.org.
Tuesday, July 5, 2016
Thursday, July 16, 2015
A Thin Slice of Heaven
Prior
to writing full-time, she founded two computer companies in the Washington, DC
Metropolitan Area. Among her clients were the Central Intelligence Agency,
United States Secret Service, U.S. Information Agency, and Department of
Defense. Her specialties were in white collar computer crimes and computer
intelligence, themes that have carried forward to her suspense.
She
is also the co-founder of The Book ‘Em Foundation, an organization committed to
raising public awareness of the correlation between high crime rates and high
illiteracy rates. She is the organizer and chairperson of Book ‘Em North Carolina,
an annual event held in the real town of Lumberton, North Carolina, to raise
funds to increase literacy and reduce crime. For more information on this event
and the literacy campaigns funded by it, visit www.bookemnc.org.
AN INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR
p.m.terrell is traveling right now in Ireland, and we asked her why Ireland inspires her books. Here is her answer:
A
few years later, I was researching a love interest for Vicki Boyd, the main
character in Vicki’s Key. It was
important for her to fall fast and hard for this man so I looked into studies
of what women liked. It turned out that the number one accent women liked the
most was Scottish, followed closely by Irish. I decided to make the character
Irish; Dylan Maguire was supposed to be in just that one book but the editors
liked him so much they had me rewrite the ending so that he became a central
character in the Black Swamp Mysteries
Series.
As
I developed his character, I began studying Ireland—its history, culture,
language and geography. By the time I wrote Dylan’s
Song, in which Dylan returns to Ireland to rescue a CIA operative, I was
firmly enmeshed in the country. I felt as though I knew his village like it was
my own; I could see the roads, the houses, the Catholic Church at the top of
the hill, as clearly as any place I’d actually lived.
While
writing Dylan’s Song, I came across the
story of The Night of the Big Wind, the fiercest storm to hit the Emerald Isle
in recorded history, and I knew I had to write about it. That story became The Tempest Murders, which switched back
and forth between Ireland’s storm and Hurricane Irene as it barreled toward the
North Carolina coast—and a killer that tied the storms together. The book was
so well received that I followed up with another Irish story called The White Devil of Dublin, in which I
fused the Viking conquest of Dublin with a present-day albino killer.
My
latest book, A Thin Slice of Heaven,
takes place in Northern Ireland. I decided to place the castle about fifty
miles west of Belfast, never realizing that my ancestors had come from that
very spot, near a tiny village called Ballygawley. I traveled there in April
and will be there again this month. It was a surreal experience standing at the
top of the hill where their remains are buried, or standing in front of the
ruins of a manor house, or walking the grounds where they once lived.
She had arranged
to meet her husband in Northern Ireland for a second honeymoon, but when
Charleigh arrives at the remote castle, she receives a message that he won’t be
coming—and that he’s leaving her for another woman.
Stranded for the
weekend by a snowstorm that has blocked all access to the castle, she finds
herself three thousand miles from home in a country she knows nothing about.
She is soon
joined by Sean Bracken, the great-grandson of Laird Bracken, the original owner
of the castle, and she finds herself falling quickly and madly in love with
him. There’s just one problem: he’s dead.
AN EXCERPT
A movement caught her eye and
Charleigh started, whirling around. No one was there. She laughed nervously; no
doubt, it had been a bird outside the window, its reflection caught in the
mirror. Still, she returned to the door. There was a simple doorknob lock which
seemed woefully inept, but she quickly recognized a thick piece of wood
standing against the wall as an old-fashioned bar, and slipped it into place.
It was better than a deadbolt, she reasoned.
She kicked off her shoes and checked
her cell phone again. Finding no reception, she returned to the window and held
it aloft until a weak bar appeared.
The phone beeped, causing her to
jump, as a text message appeared.
She stared at it, not realizing that
she’d been holding her breath until it expelled in a whoosh that left her
dizzy.
“Charleigh,” it read, “I can’t do
this. I’m not in love with you. I’m in love with someone else.”
“The imbecile.”
The sound of the man’s deep, rich
voice startled her and she spun around. No one was there. The bar remained
across the door. There were no blind spots in the room; it was circular and
plainly, though tastefully, furnished. She strode purposefully to the bathroom.
A set of candles blazed on the countertop and though the shadows danced in the
corners of the room, she could clearly see that she was alone.
Yet she could not have imagined it.
The tone had been resonant and almost gravelly, the timber of a man’s voice
upon first arising. The brogue had been both commanding and melodious.
SPECIAL LINKS
Author’s
website: www.pmterrell.com
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/pmterrell
Paperback
on amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Thin-Slice-Heaven-p-m-terrell/dp/1935970348/
Smashwords:
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/528424
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Tuesday, July 7, 2015
The Last Dreamgirl
Two
young men meet on ship when both are recently out of college. They share a
flaming ambition. Each aims to write novels that will be internationally acclaimed
and win him a place in American letters. One of them, Paul Theroux, achieves
the dream in all its glory: becomes world famous, writes over 40 books, and
three of his novels are made into films. The other, Shane Hayes, fails
completely, but keeps tenaciously writing, decade after decade, plowing on
through hundreds of rejections. Then almost half a century later, Shane
contacts Paul, who remembers him, reads three of his books, likes them, and
praises them with endorsements.
In
writing to agents and publishers Shane could now say, “Query for a novel
praised by Paul Theroux.” No one offers a book deal because of an endorsement,
so rejections keep coming. But more people let him send at least a sample and
are predisposed to see merit in it. At his age, time is crucial. In the month
he turns 75, Shane receives contracts on two of his books from different
publishers. He will always be grateful to the literary giant who remembered ten
days of friendship half-a-lifetime after it ended.
ABOUT THE BOOK
AN EXCERPT
Traffic
was light enough that Ron could pull out and follow Bower, a car or two behind.
Bower drove to a local Acme supermarket, parked, grabbed a pushcart, and went
in to shop.
Ron
did the same. While he avoided trailing Bower through the aisles he effectively
followed him by going down aisles that Bower was coming up, and sometimes
pausing near Bower to search for products on one side of the aisle while Bower
was scanning the shelves on the other side. Viewing the man’s features at close
range Ron had no doubt that this was the Vulture. Ron got so close to him in
the drug and cosmetics aisle that he made two notable observations. First, from
a sharp side angle Bower’s deformed eye-placement could be seen under his dark
glasses. Second, he was working from two shopping lists—which seemed to be in
different handwriting. At a glance Ron perceived one as a small neat feminine
hand, written in blue ink, and the other as a larger, though equally neat,
hand—probably masculine—in pencil.
Ron’s
heart leaped at the thought that the penned shopping list had been written by
Sandra Moore. But he knew how much he wanted to find evidence of her being
alive in Bower’s house and feared he might have seen what he wanted to see.
Seconds after the observation, when he had moved down the aisle, he began to
question it.
The
fact that both lists were so neatly written made him doubt that they were done
by different hands. The pencil versus ink could have created that illusion; and
sometimes one’s mood and the size of the paper can prompt one to write smaller
than usual....
Ron’s
doubts about handwriting were resolved when he made his next pass of Bower’s
cart near the feminine hygiene shelves and saw in it a box of women’s sanitary
napkins. Why in God’s name would Bower be buying Kotex if he lived alone? There
had to be a woman there and a menstruating woman at that. Ron couldn’t check
but would be willing to bet that the Kotex had been written on the blue-ink
shopping list in what had first struck him as a feminine hand. It was a
feminine hand, and he would lay odds that it was Sandra’s.
SPECIAL LINKS
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/ShaneHayes732
Barnes and
Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-last-dreamgirl-shane-hayes/1121480919?ean=9781935970248
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Shane Hayes will be awarding a $20 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC
to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
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