A Day in the Life of Kaira Rouda

Posted on January 15, 2018 by Catherine Balavage

My life has changed a lot over the past six years. Not only because I finally became a full-time author, but also because my nest has been emptying year by year. Our four kids are five years apart, so that’s made my life filled with a lot of goodbyes lately. Without daily kid duties, life is certainly a lot less complicated. And, apparently, a bit darker. I’m not sure if Paul Strom, the protagonist in BEST DAY EVER, popped into my mind because of my empty nest, but maybe it gave him room to appear. I’ll blame him on the kids’ departures into the real world.

So now, a day in my life is quiet. I’m blessed to live at the beach, in Southern California, and most every day is sunny and warm. I try to hike or go for a walk everyday and soak up the sunshine. I have two dogs and they are both my walking and writing buddies. In fact, Tucker likes to sit ON my desk as I’m writing. (photo of walking desk and tucker)

I don’t usually start writing until the afternoon. I’m a night owl, so mornings are for exercising, emailing and drinking A LOT of coffee. My husband also has a second act of a career, deciding after the most recent US presidential election that it was time to get involved and be the change you want to see. I’m proud to say he’s running for congress as a first-time political candidate. That makes me a first-time political candidate’s spouse. I’ve been having fun meeting so many new people, and helping him as he follows his dreams.

All in all, it’s a blessed life. And, even though the kids are all busy young adults living their own dreams, they all live in Southern California, too. So I get to see them often. (family photo). And, they’re all doing super interesting careers. My oldest is in commercial real estate, but also is an amazing photographer. My daughter is a screenwriter in Hollywood, my middle son invented an app while in college that let’s you round up spare change to a charity of your choice and my youngest is a singer/songwriter pursuing his dreams in LA with his band, Firstwave.

So, it’s a busy, creative fun life. I hope yours is, too. And I hope you’ll give Best Day Ever, my first UK published book, a read!

Girls Who Code: Learn to Code and Change the World By Reshma Saujani

Posted on January 12, 2018 by Catherine Balavage

Getting women into STEM is a passion of Frost Magazine. We need more girls who code and Reshma Saujani has founded the leading international movement to close the tech gender gap. By 2020 1.4 million jobs will be open in computing fields in the US alone, yet only about 30% of them will be filled with computing graduates, and only 3% of those will be filled by women. This is despite women using social media apps 600% more than men. Girls are getting left behind. Girls Who Code is an organisation that aims to teach 1 million girls to code by 2020. This is the project’s first book and is a New York Times Bestseller and it is easy to see why. The back cover has glowing endorsements from Jack Dorsey, Sheryl Sandberg and Melinda Gates. It is part how-to and part girl-empowerment. It is written in an engaging way that is easy to understand and fun. This is a brilliant book which should be bought for any girl in your life. Books have power and this book has it in droves. The perfect mix of inspiration and knowledge, all written in an accessible way. Frost loves.
Crack the code to your future dreams

Since 2012, the organization Girls Who Code has been leading the charge to get girls interested in technology and coding. Now its founder, Reshma Saujani, wants to inspire you to be a girl who codes!

Bursting with dynamic artwork, down-to-earth explanations of coding principles, and real-life stories of girls and women working at places like Pixar and NASA, this graphically animated book shows what a huge role computer science plays in our lives and how much fun it can be. No matter your interest—sports, the arts, baking, student government, social justice—coding can help you do what you love and make your dreams come true.

Whether you’re a girl who’s never coded before, a girl who codes, or a parent raising one, this entertaining book, printed in bold two-color and featuring art on every page, will have you itching to create your own apps, games, and robots to make the world a better place.

Part how-to, part girl-empowerment, and all fun, from the leader of the movement championed by Sheryl Sandberg, Jack Dorsey, and other giants of the tech world.

Girls Who Code: Learn to Code and Change the World By Reshma Saujani is available here.

The Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards Announce 2018 Shortlist

Posted on January 11, 2018 by Tracy Baines

The Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards, in association with luxury tailor made travel specialist Hayes & Jarvis, has announced its shortlist for 2018. The Awards celebrate the best travel writing and travel writers in the world.

With 43 titles whisking readers to over 150 countries across seven categories, these awards celebrate both multi-award-winning authors and inspirational debuts from over 15 countries. These awards recognise the escapist, ingenious and inspirational qualities of travel writing in all its forms, including fiction, nonfiction and memoir, children’s books, cookery books illustrated adult nonfiction and Travel blogs.

The award categories are:

Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year, in partnership with The Authors’ Club
Hayes & Jarvis Fiction, with a Sense of Place
Wanderlust Adventure Travel Book of the Year
Food and Travel Magazine Travel Cookery Book of the Year
Destinations Show Photography & Illustrated Travel Book of the Year
Marco Polo Outstanding General Travel Themed Book of the Year
London Book Fair Children’s Travel Book of the Year
Bradt Travel Guides New Travel Writer of the Year
Lonely Planet Pathfinders Travel Blog of the Year

In addition to the above, the awards also include the Outstanding Contribution to Travel Writing award. Six of these categories are open to a public vote which, combined with the judges’ verdict, will determine the 2018 winners. These include: Fiction, with a Sense of Place, Adventure Travel Book of the Year, Travel Cookery Book of the Year, Illustrated & Photography Travel Book of the Year, Outstanding Travel Themed Book of the Year and Children’s Travel Book of the Year. Readers can cast their vote here edwardstanfordawards.com/vote, and two voters will be in with the chance to win a set of 10 travel books.

The winners will be announced at a star-studded dinner on 1st February 2018 during the Stanfords Travel Writers Festival at Destinations: The Holiday and Travel Show at Olympia.

The winner of the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year (in partnership with The Authors’ Club) receives £5,000 and all winners receive an antique globe trophy, to be presented at the awards ceremony.

The first Edward Stanford Award for Outstanding Contribution to Travel Writing was awarded to Bill Bryson and last year the award was presented to Michael Palin by Levison Wood who also won an award for his book Walking the Himalayas.

The full shortlist can be found at www.edwardstanfordawards.com

Hape The Rainbow Route Railway and Station Set Review

Posted on January 11, 2018 by Catherine Balavage

So the every spoiled Frost toddler has yet again had his eyes light up. A train fanatic at the best of times, he spends hours building his train sets and playing with his trains. So this Hape The Rainbow Route Railway and Station Set was sure to be a hit, and, boy, was it so. It is the ultimate train set. There is a little of everything to keep the toddler entertained for hours while you have a G&T, sorry, I mean, get on with work or chores. There is a musical element in the shape of a xylophone and tambourine track, as well as some puzzle tracks. The track is bright and fun with plenty to educate as well as entertain. We cannot say just how much we love this train set for little ones. It is the perfect gift for any special occasion. Frost loves, and so does the Frost toddler.

Hape inject a pop of bright colors with added fun and entertainment, transforming your traditional train sets into something like never before with The Rainbow Route Railway and Station Set. Perfectly suited to your toddler’s attention span around every corner excitement awaits as children aboard a journey fuelled with music and color!

With The Rainbow Route Railway and Station Set little ones have everything they could ever need, perfect for all those budding railway enthusiasts. Creating music to your ears, this set includes a number of musically interactive elements. Find your way through the bead maze then journey onwards taking the bumpy road across the tambourine track, but beware it isn’t just all fun and games as a problem solving puzzle await, sort the different shapes to venture safely back.

But what’s missing? Every railway set needs a station, and how about decoration? Why not add some beautiful trees to your railroad? With this 30 piece set nothing has been missed to create the ultimate experience.

Creating an opportunity for little ones to work in perfect harmony, this set encourages interaction between peers, ideal for entertaining the kids this summer and getting some peace and quiet. There is no mistaking the fact that this track is sure to head to the top of the toy box.

As a treat for both the eyes and ears with the sights and sounds track, Hape‘s railway collection can grow along with your little ones as you add additional tracks and elements to suit the development of your child, sparking imagination and creativity in the youngest of railway fans.

The Rainbow Route Railway & Station Set is suitable for ages 18M + and is available to buy online from Amazon.

Designed first and foremost for the child, Hape make only the best for your little ones. Using only natural materials and water based paints while exceeding quality and safety standards, make an investment that matters to encouraging endless fun and laughter.

Words for the Wounded announces the launch of The Georgina Hawtrey-Woore Award

Posted on January 10, 2018 by Margaret Graham

Words for the Wounded is run by three grannies, all writers and reviewers, all conscious that we need to help our unwell and disabled veterans. So what better way than by creating opportunities for aspiring writers, something of great importance to all three grannies..

This is why they launched their International Words for the Wounded Award five years ago. It has proved, with help from Frost Magazine, to be one of the most popular Awards ‘on the block’. This is because Frost Magazine sponsors the Award by providing publicity and opportunity to the winning authors of this self-published competition.

Not only do the two winners of all four categories receive a review and biography published in the magazine, they are offered the opportunity of writing A Day in the Life for Frost which will further bring them to the notice of all the readers out there.

This year WforW have re-named the award in honour of the founder’s editor, Georgina Hawtrey-Woore, who so sadly died last year. Founder Margaret Graham adored Georgina who was an editor supreme. Not only the doyen of Saga writers but someone who understood writers and their work.

So, here we have it:

Words for the Wounded’s Georgina Hawtrey-Woore Award for self-published authors
(physical, pdf of paperback and hardback and e-book accepted) and it is now open for entries. It closes on 11th
March and winners will be announced on 6th June 2018. Cost of entry is £12.50.

Previous winners have been taken by literary agents, or gone on to review books for Frost Magazine,or to win other awards, all of which raises their profile, and improves sales.

WforW have altered the make up of the Award too, and have four categories this year. Fiction, Non-Fiction, Young Adults
and finally – Children’s Picture book.

The two winners in each category will receive a review and profile in Frost Magazine, and the opportunity to write A Day in the Life for the magazine at a time of their choice.

There will be commended and highly commended.

Do remember that Words for the Wounded raises money for physically and emotionally wounded veterans, and every penny raised goes to this endeavour,as the three grannies absorb all the expenses of the charity.

Milly Adams, bestselling Arrow author will head the team of judges.

Please go to www.wordsforthewounded.co.uk for details of the charity and The Georgina Hawtrey-Woore Award.

And a reminder that the WforW LitFest takes place on April 21st at The Community Hall at Downley, It is a Hall which is central to the arts of the area,

Details are available on www.wordsforthewounded.co.uk

WHY I TRADED IN A HIGH-FLYING CAREER IN THE HOTEL INDUSTRY TO PURSUE MY ACTING DREAMS, AND HOW I DID IT

Posted on January 10, 2018 by Frostie

By Peter Meyer, author of The Boy from the Wild

Most of us dream about quitting the 9-5 (or is that the 8-7) rat race, but few ever do. The author Peter Meyer is proof that following a dream can be more than just a daydream. He hung up his suit and left a highly-paid job in the hospitality industry to embark on a career as an actor – and was soon rubbing shoulders with Brad Pitt.

I grew up in the hospitality industry, quite literally. I was born and raised on a game reserve in South Africa that my father created. It had a safari park, a five-star hotel and a conference centre. It was once known as Safari World and its pioneering fusion of Disney-style theme park and nature reserve made it akin to a real-world Jurassic Park

When I was older, I graduated from Les Roches Hospitality University in Switzerland and went on to work all around the world in places including the UK, Jamaica, Saudi Arabia, Dubai and Kuala Lumpur. I worked in different director roles in sales, marketing and business development for groups like Hilton, Rosewood Hotels & Resorts, JA Resorts & Hotels and then YTL Hotels. At one point I was even one of Hilton’s youngest directors at 26 years old. I had it all going for me – the experience, the qualifications, the connections, the lifestyle and so much more…. but then it all changed.

In 2014, I dropped everything to spend time with my father after hearing he had a very rare form of terminal cancer. My father was my life and an incredibly special person, so I was going to be by his side. After I lost him I lost a part of myself and realised that you are vulnerable – and that life is governed by time that we take for granted. I tried to get back into hotels and got a huge position in Kuala Lumpur but was ultimately in a very bad mental state and lost my zest and desire for the industry. I was missing my dad plain and simple.

By chance a short while later a family friend suggested that I try acting and modelling for fun, and at least until I’d planned my next move. So, a short while later, I signed onto a website that was a portal for jobs in that industry. Within the space of a few days I was contacted by a production company, which asked me to do a TV commercial for Ford.

I did the shoot and was told I was a “natural” and was advised to do more! Two weeks later I got a call from a director making an independent British film and I got a tiny part as a news anchor with some lines. It was then that I realised how much I loved acting and it woke me up out of semi-depressed state for my father. I decided to see where it went.

Suddenly I was getting acting and modelling roles and even got my first lead in a short film within three months of starting. My biggest came when I got a call to audition for Allied with Brad Pitt and got the smallest part to sing. Sadly, the role was cut but I was still an extra and got picked to be near Brad Pitt and enjoyed getting to know him. I then got chosen to work as an extra next to Liam Neeson this time on The Commuter. He partly inspired my book “The Boy from the Wild”. In less than 18 months all this had happened. I was also doing a lot of plus size modelling and was Tesco’s first plus size male model wearing Jacamo. But I have also modelled internationally with groups such as El Corte Ingles wearing Hugo Boss, GANT, Ralph Lauren and more. Who knows what’s next?

I’ve gone from surviving animal attacks and snake bites on a safari park to surviving the concrete jungles of Hollywood. How, people ask? Well, get headshots, get a showreel, get an agent, brand yourself to get your followers and have passion. If you are determined and do what you love then you will achieve. Sometimes you have to risk it to get the biscuit. A dream is yours and yours to fail, so don’t let it.

The Boy from the Wild by Peter Meyer is out now, priced £9.99 in paperback and £3.99 as an eBook. It is available for sale on Amazon UK. Visit www.petermeyer.com

BUSINESS OF BOOKS: TAKE FOUR WRITERS – INTRODUCING CLAIRE DYER

Posted on January 10, 2018 by Jane Cable

Being a poet and a novelist I’m often asked whether I prefer one over the other and I always answer that I love them both the same – like I do my two children, obviously! Seriously though, I really do believe both mediums are two sides of the same coin; both set scenes, tell stories and are peopled by characters who I hope are vivid and compelling.

The main differences may seem mundane: in poems the lines don’t always go right across the page, whereas in novels they do and, in poetry we have fewer words to play with, so every word really does count.

That’s not to say, however, that we can’t play with format in fiction and invest our prose with the same attention to detail as we do in poetry – in fact, we should.

Also, I believe that, as in poetry, a novel should have moments of distilled emotion but, unlike with poetry, in a book we can give our readers and characters, for that matter, more instances of down time: conversations about the weather, making tea, going to the shops.

For me, a poem works if it tumbles down the page and takes me with it and I believe a novel works if it draws me in and keeps me held safe in its narrative. I sincerely hope both my poetry and prose do both of these things!

So with this thought I’ll say a few words about my publications. I’ve had two collections of poetry published by the very lovely Two Rivers Press and, although each are only 50 odd pages long, they both took years in the making – each poem, I hope, earning its place in the stories the books aspire to tell. The second book, Interference Effects, came out of my MA in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway and what the poems aim to chronicle is how, as colours vary in a butterfly’s wing depending on the angle at which we view it, our impressions and thoughts about subjects as varied as art, love and loss, marriage and memory, can change when we look at them through different lenses.

I’ve had two novels and a short story published by Quercus and am utterly thrilled that The Dome Press are publishing The Last Day on 15^th February. This book has had an interesting genesis. It was always going to be about the three of them: Boyd, Vita and Honey, but it was only on the second rewrite that Vita pushed her way front and centre and waved at me, glasses in one hand, paintbrush in the other and said, ‘Put me in the first person,’ and as much as I loved writing about the other two, it was Vita who called to me the loudest.

Also, during the rewrites, the book changed from being a story about one thing to a story about another: it had the same people and same plot but eventually it revealed its true colours (a bit like a butterfly’s wings!) and it’s been a wonderful experience being part of this evolution.

The title came to me (bizarrely and somewhat prophetically) on the day after the EU Referendum in June 2016 and the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to fit with the fact that we all will experience last days: the last day of school, of work, of love, of life. And, if after every beginning there is an ending, then after every ending is a beginning: after every last day there is a next day and it is this message I hope the book holds at its heart.

https://www.clairedyer.com

@ClaireDyer1

Vera’s back on our screen – F-A-B-U-L-O-U-S news, and in THIRSK on 30th January.

Posted on January 9, 2018 by Margaret Graham

How come? The White Rose Book Café have arranged for Ann be at The Old Courthouse, Rural Arts, Thirsk, YO7 1QS on 30^th January. What a treat.

The doors open at 6.30 and the evening starts at 7 pm not 7.30 as previous stated.

Frost Magazine loves and adores Ann Cleeves’ unique detective DCI Vera Stanhope and another series has started on our TV screens this week.

As a North Country girl myself, the whole series resonates for me, but so it does for people who have never set foot north of London. Starring Brenda Blethyn at whose feet I have worshipped ever since I saw her in the magical series Outside Edge, the first episode of the 8th series was on 7^th January on ITV called Blood and Bone. Totally up to scratch it was mesmerising. But then with the combination of the cast, and Ann Cleeves, how could it not be.

I have no intention of telling you the plot, because you have recorded it, if you weren’t around to actually watch it. And it’s also on catch-up, so go on, enjoy yourselves.

But don’t restrict yourselves to the screen, Ann Cleeves latest mystery is now published simultaneously in the US (by Pan MacMillan) and in the US (by Minotaur Books). Written with her usual elan, Cleeves takes Vera Stanhope on a visit to her local prison, wherein resides an old enemy: former detective superintendent, and now inmate, John Brace.

Brace was a close friend of Hector, her father; then he was convicted of corruption and involvement in the death of a gamekeeper – and Vera played a part in his downfall. Brace promises Vera a deal: information about the disappearance of Robbie Marshall, a notorious wheeler-dealer, if she will look out for his daughter and grandchildren.

He tells her that Marshall is dead, his body is buried close to St Mary’s Island in Whitley Bay. However, when a search team investigates, officers find not one skeleton, but two…

The White Rose Book Café have arranged for Ann Cleeves to tell us more of her life and ‘whodunnits’ on 30^th January at The Old Courthouse, Rural Arts, Thirsk, YO7 1QS.

The doors open at 6.30 and the evening starts at 7 pm not 7.30 as previous stated.

Ticket tickets are £10 but going fast, which is hardly surprising as this crime writer is the recipient of the Crime Writers’ Association Diamond Dagger Award, the highest honour in British crime writing.

This is not a chance to be missed.

The price includes a copy of The Seagull. (ask Ann if she will sign it, eh?)

Contact White Rose Book Café for tickets. Tel 01845 524353