Author Lisa Mantchev is sponsoring a Shakespeare challenge, which is Liv of Liv’s Book Reviews is hosting. Read three Shakespeare plays between June 1st and August 31st, post about them in your blog, and you’ll be entered to win a few prizes.

One of them is the book Eyes Like Stars, the first in Lisa’s The Théâtre Illuminata trilogy. Here’s a description:

Welcome to the Théâtre Illuminata, where the characters of every play ever written can be found behind the curtain. They were born to play their parts, and are bound to the Théâtre by The Book–an ancient and magical tome of scripts. Bertie is not one of them, but they are her family–and she is about to lose them all and the only home she has ever known.

I cannot tell you how much this sounds like the perfect book to me, the book that will top the list of “Books I Wish I’d Written."

So, join me in the challenge, won’t you?
[via Becky’s Book Reviews]

I met Amber Benson once.  It was in February 2001, at a Buffy the Vampire Slayer Posting Board Party.  She was talking to a friend of mine, and thinking she must have been one of the regular posters whom I knew and seeing her in profile, I walked right up to her and put my arm around her shoulders as though we’d known each other since the dawn of time.

Then I realized who she was, and was pretty much in awe that she hadn’t thrown my arm off her shoulder and been all, “We’ve never met.  Please don’t touch me.”  Because that’s probably what I would have done, had I been in her situation.  Instead, she engaged me in a very pleasant conversation.

Amber Benson is both lovely and multi-talented, and thanks to Little Willow of Bildungsroman, she agreed to be one of my interviewees for the Summer Blog Blast Tour this year.  While Amber is best-known (among my friends, anyway) for playing Tara on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, she has many other credits to her name, including authoring two novels with Christopher Golden (Ghosts of Albion: Accursed and Ghosts of Albion: Astray) and her first solo novel, Death’s Daughter, published this year.

For more information about Amber, visit The Essence of Amber.  For more information about Death’s Daughter, visit the book’s website.

My interviews almost always run exactly seven questions, so here are the seven Amber was kind enough to answer for me:

You have written for several media: film, comic books, theatre, online animation, and novels.  What is your favorite thing about each medium?

I love writing plays because they are all about dialogue (one of my fav things ever) and imagination.  If you have talented actors, they can take you anywhere without ever leaving the confines of a plain, black stage.   Comic books and animated/live action film have a similar draw for me.  You work heavily with dialogue, but then you also get to describe all the great action/set pieces that your characters get to play around in/with.  Prose is the most challenging thing for me.  It incorporates all of the stuff in the other mediums, but then it also adds the element of getting inside the inner monologue of your character/s.  For me, writing novels is a real balancing act, but a very rewarding one, too!

How does your experience as an actress inform your writing process?

I think being an actor makes me more aware of character and dialogue.  That’s the stuff I’m drawn to as an actor and I think it only informs my writing and makes it better.

Much of your writing has been in genres related to the supernatural.  What about that type of story appeals to you?

A good story is a good story, whether you’re reading Dostoevsky or Heinlein.  Still, the thing I have always liked about fantasy/scifi is that you can tell a story without preaching or getting up on a soapbox.  You can deal with very topical subject matter, but throw it into an alternate world and no one gets offended.  It’s really freeing.  [For more on this subject, see my interview with Sonja Foust; she feels the same way Amber does.]

Your first solo novel, Death’s Daughter, was released recently.  How did writing this alone differ from working with Christopher Golden on the Ghosts of Albion novels?

Writing by myself was really scary at first because I didn’t have anyone to fall back on if I got stuck with a scene or a charcter’s motivation, but as I got further into the writing process, it got much less daunting.  Writing with Chris is awesome - and a lot of fun.  He really taught me all I know about writing prose.  Actually, I feel like I went to Chris Golden’s: Writing 101.  He enjoyes the written word and imparted that joy to me!

The Ghosts of Albion novels are Victorian horror, with a sort of Gothic feel to the prose and a distinct voice that fits in with that time period.  Death’s Daughter is a very modern novel with a more chick-lit feel.  What was it like to make that change?

I love writing in different voices.  If I was writing in the same world/voice for more than a few books without any relief, I would get horribly bored.  Mixing things up genre and voice/world wise keeps things fresh and interesting for me.

What are your favorite books, comic books, or graphic novels?

Graphic novel: Blankets by Craig Thompson Comic book: Sock Monkey by Tony Millionaire Novel: The Idiot by Dostoevsky

So, you’re an actress, singer, director, producer, and writer.  What do you think you’ll do next?

I am working on a middle grade book book called “The New Newbridge Academy” and I just co-directed a film with Adam Busch called “Drones”.  I am trying to stay as busy as possible and never have vacation! J/K!  :)

Thank you Amber so much for this interview!

Stay tuned here at lectitans, as I’ll be reviewing all three of Amber’s novels over the next few weeks.

Today’s SBBT Schedule: Maya Ganesan at Miss Erin Amber Benson at lectitans Carolyn Hennesy at Bildungsroman Jo Knowles at Hip Writer Mama Sherri Winston at Finding Wonderland

Don’t forget the Guys Lit Wire Book Fair for Boys!

If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe to my feed so you will get my other interview posts.

 I know that Non-Fiction Monday is supposed to focus on non-fiction for kids, but I don’t read much of that and I still wanted to get in on the party.  So here we are.

How to Be a Budget Fashionista is a guide by Kathryn Finney, founder of thebudgetfashionista.com.  The book is divided into three sections, labeled as “Steps."

Step 1: Know Your Budget.  In this section, Kathryn provides advice for fashionistas who maybe have been letting their money get away from them.  This section is essentially a mini-lesson in personal finance, and could benefit even those who do not want to become fashionistas.

Step 2: Know Your Style.  Every fashionista has a distinctive style, but these can be grouped into certain types.  Most people have more than one style.  In this step, you take a quiz and create a look book to determine what your style is.  Then, Kathryn supplies a list of designers and stores that fit your style.  PLEASE NOTE: Designers are not budget-friendly most of the time, so it might be best to look at these designers and use their work for inspiration, rather than plan to actually buy their designs.  (My style is mostly Romantic, with secondary styles of Conservative and Urban Trekker.)

Step 3: Know Your Bargains.  In the third part of the book, Kathryn discusses how to find bargains in department stores, online, from designer outlets, and more.  One review on Amazon pointed out that Kathryn’s idea of a bargain sometimes does not seem like a bargain at all: $50 for a blouse, $90 for a skirt.  While these aren’t bargains I can afford, if you look at the percent markdown from their original prices, the items she cites are true bargains.  Worrying about the specifics, however, isn’t what the book is about anyway.  Even if your clothing budget is such that you have no choice but to buy all of your clothing in thrift stores, there is advice here for you.

In addition to fashion and shopping advice, How to Be a Budget Fashionista includes ideas on how to supplement your income, how to arrange a clothing swap with friends, and how to make several beauty products from things you have lying around the house.

If you are looking to learn how to put an outfit together, this is not the book for you.  (That would be The Lucky Shopping Manual.)  But if you already know how to do that and just need some help doing it cheaper, you should check this book out.

Book: How to Be A Budget Fashionista [affiliate link]
Author: Kathryn Finney
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Original Publication Date: May 30, 2006
Pages: 240
Source of Book: Purchased from Amazon

…yesterday my life’s like, “Uh oh, pop quiz.” Today it’s “rain of toads.”

Thus spoke Xander Harris in part two of Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s pilot episode, “The Harvest.”  Even in its later seasons, Buffy didn’t have the special effects budget to create an on-screen rain of toads.  The advantage to books is you aren’t limited by those sorts of budget constraints.  In Out of the Madhouse, Christopher Golden and Nancy Holder bring the rain of toads, along with all the trolls, sea monsters, skyquakes, and nasty Cordelia-chasing demons you could ever hope for.  What’s that, you say?  Trouble in Sunnydale?  Must be Tuesday.  The difference is, this time, it’s all happening at once.  Also?  Giles is out of town.  It turns out there’s an interdimensional mansion in Boston that’s been keeping these monsters at bay, but now its caretaker, the “Gatekeeper,” is ailing and his magic is weakening.  Buffy, Xander, Cordelia and Giles head to Boston to put a stop to the monster leak, while Willow, Oz, and Angel hold down the fort against an invasion of evil monks who are out to get Buffy.  (Note: I said evil monks not evil monkeys.)

Like any tie-in, Out of the Madhouse suffers from the fact that you can’t kill off major characters.  What you can do, however, is injure them severely, and in every fight scene in Out of the Madhouse I expected someone - usually Cordelia - to end up in the hospital.  Out of the Madhouse has a structure somewhat like a multi-episode arc; you’ve got the main problem of new scary monsters, plus signs that the Watcher’s Council might be sketchy, subplots involving outside forces looking to hurt Buffy, and some new recurring characters who are quite likeable.  The dialogue is strong, though not Whedon-quality, and except for the wild special effects that would be necessary to pull it off and the unlikely requirement of on location filming in Boston, I completely believed that this was a story I might see on the show itself.  Add in a surprise ending and you’ve got a recipe for fun and nostalgia.  (Plus, Golden and Holder manage to avoid the Ethan Rayne trap!)

I’d recommend Out of the Madhouse to any Buffy fan looking for stories to tide them over between issues of the comic book or to take them back to the good old days.

Book: Buffy the Vampire Slayer - The Gatekeeper Trilogy, Book One: Out of the Madhouse
Author: Christopher Golden and Nancy Holder
Publisher: Simon Spotlight Entertainment
Original Publication Date: 1999
Pages: 384
Age Range: Young Adult
Source of Book: Library

This week’s question is brought to you by yesterday’s Free Comic Book Day, my pleasure in watching “Spiderman 3,” and my boyfriend’s birthday weekend.  Also my recent reading of Flight volumes 1 and 2, and my upcoming reading of Flight volume 3 and Kazu Kibuishi’s Daisy Kutter.

How can graphic novels bring unwilling readers into the literary world?

What I’m looking for here is a discussion of what makes graphic novels unique, what makes them literature, and what we can do to get reluctant readers to pick up a graphic novel.  For a long time, graphic novels and comics have been pooh-poohed as not “real books.”  This is a sentiment that advocates of kids and YA lit understand keenly, since children’s literature is also treated this way.  Graphic novels and comics are considered “kid stuff” by the uninitiated, and while those of us who are fans of graphic novels and comic books have fought against that for a long time, perhaps it’s time to embrace it a little and say “Okay.  These are for kids.  Let’s get them in the hands of kids!”  That’s not to say adult stories can’t be told in the graphic novel/comic book medium, but just that instead of kicking and screaming, “It’s not just for kids!” we should say, “It’s not just for kids, but it is an excellent way to draw kids into reading.”

What do you think?

Last Week’s Question: What is the purpose of a book review?

You can find answers at the original post and MotherReader.

It is a strange quirk of being a teacher that there are days when you aren’t allowed to go to work, even if you’d like to.  June 8 is one such day for me; Monday, June 11 and Tuesday, June 12 are Teacher Workdays, but Friday, June 8 is a vacation day and I’m just not allowed to go in.

This works out brilliantly because it means I can participate in MotherReader’s 48 Hour Book Challenge!  Won’t you join me?

Here are the rules, copied and pasted from MotherReader’s entry:

Here are the basic guidelines to start. I am open to suggestions if you’ve got them, or ask me questions so I can establish a related rule. Here goes:

1. The weekend is June 8–10, 2007. Read and blog for any 48-hour period within the Friday-to-Monday-morning window. Start no sooner than 7:00 a.m. on Friday the eighth and end no later than 7:00 a.m. Monday. So, go from 7:00 p.m. Friday to 7:00 p.m. on Sunday… or maybe 7:00 a.m. Saturday to 7:00 a.m. Monday works better for you. But the 48 hours do need to be in a row.
2. The books should be about fifth-grade level and up. Adult books are fine, especially if any adult book bloggers want to play. If you are generally a picture book blogger, consider this a good time to get caught up on all those wonderful books you’ve been hearing about. No graphic novels. I’m not trying to discriminate, I’m just trying to make sure that the number of books and page counts mean the same thing to everyone.
3. It’s your call as to how much you want to put into it. If you want to skip sleep and showers to do this, go for it (but don’t stand next to me). If you want to be a bit more laid back, fine. But you have to put something into it or it’s not a challenge.
4. The length of the reviews are not an issue. You can write a sentence, paragraph, or a full-length review.
5. For promotion/solidarity purposes, let your readers know when you are starting the challenge with a specific entry on that day. When you write your final summary on Monday, let that be the last thing you write that day, so for one day, we’ll all be on the same page, so to speak.
6. Your final summary needs to clearly include the number of books read, the approximate hours you spent reading/reviewing, and any other comments you want to make on the experience. It needs to be posted no later than noon on Monday, June 11.
7. Sign up in today’s comments. You’re welcome to post the challenge on your site to catch the bloggers that come your way but don’t come mine. Point them to today’s post to sign up. On Friday, June 8, I’ll have a starting-line post where you can sign in to say you’re officially starting the challenge.

I’ll post the rules again as we get closer, to incorporate suggestions or to answer questions that have come up. So how many books do you think you could read if you devoted a weekend to the task? Ready to find out?

In Sonja Foust's debut short story, _Love in Shadow_, a tomboyish fairy named Shadow realizes she loves her boss, Lon.  Five years ago, Lon's wife was killed by a band of fairies.  Shadow feels immense guilt for what her people did, and has trouble reconciling her guilt and her love.  (Read the full-length review.)  NOTE: "Love in Shadow" is an adult romance, with content that would earn it a movie rating of PG.  Language and sexuality are both less intense than in many YA novels, such as Holly Black's Tithe.  I would be comfortable recommending this story to any reader age 14 or up, and mature readers younger than that.

Sonja recently joined me for my very first author interview here at lectitans.

What's the first story you remember ever writing?

I think I've been writing stories since I learned how to write. To me, it always seemed like a practical application of that whole writing thing. Probably the earliest things I wrote were these epic poems in iambic pentameter (before I had any idea what iambic pentameter was) all about our Barbies. My sister and my two brothers and I would set them all up in the living room and write a long 30-verse or so poem about what they all were doing and then perform it for my parents or whatever other victims might have been around. My mom STILL thinks it's hilarious and she'll tell anyone who will listen all about her children's elaborate playtime.

Originally, there were no fairies in "Love In Shadow." In fact, "Love In Shadow" was a futuristic sci-fi at its birth. That wasn't working for the story, so I put it in a historical setting. As I'm lazy and don't like being historically accurate, I eventually decided it would be a fantasy instead. Since it was a fantasy, Shadow had to be a fairy, duh. (I don't know exactly why. She just did.) But I didn't want to do the same-old same-old fairy thing, and I needed another device to add conflict in the story, so the wingless fairy seemed like the way to go.

Shadow is a fish-out-of-water in two ways: she's a fairy among humans and a tomboyish woman in "proper society."  Would you describe a time when you felt out of place?

Um, how about most of my life? Seriously though, I've had quite a lot of experience feeling out of place. I won't even mention the hell that was middle school, because I'm pretty sure middle school just sucks for everyone.

Right after middle school, the summer before my freshman year of high school, my family moved from one coast (California) to another (North Carolina). The culture shock was something, especially for a socially inept 14-year-old. But I decided that 9th grade was my opportunity for a fresh start, and that idea was my life preserver.  I held onto it with all my might. When I'd come home after a tough day feeling like I'd never ever make any friends, I'd remind myself that this was my new beginning and I could be whoever I wanted to be and I would be that person again tomorrow. It was tough that first year, but eventually I found a lovely group of friends and began to feel like I had a place again. The last two or three years of high school were awesome because of those great friends. I made a lot of happy memories in those years.

Having a place is wonderful, but the lesson I learned was that sometimes it's GOOD to be out of place, because then you get to make a new and better place for yourself.

Let's play Casting Director.  If "Love in Shadow" were being made into a movie, what actress would you cast as Shadow?  Who would you want to play Lon?

Hands down, no question, Julia Roberts would be Shadow. I've had her in mind since the very beginning. She's one of my favorite actresses, and she does "spitfire" so well.

Lon's a toughie though. There aren't a whole lot of "tall, dark, and handsome" types in Hollywood right at the moment. Colin Farrell might be a good match, if he could manage not to be so smarmy for a while. 

The whole time I was reading "Love in Shadow" I imagined Nathan Fillion as Lon.

Nathan Fillion would indeed make a good Lon. Good call.

The prejudice Lon's relatives have against fairies is similar to many prejudices apparent in the modern world.  How do you think fantasy settings affect authors' and readers' interactions with universal themes like prejudice?

I think fantasy is a great way to explore touchy issues in our society. One of my favorite examples of this is Star Trek: The Next Generation. That series touched on so many modern issues like sexism (including GLBT issues), abortion, racism, war, and capitalism, and since they did it in a fantasy setting, they could get away with saying a lot of things no one else would say. Some episodes were VERY thinly veiled allegories for current events. The fantasy setting gives a little bit of distance from the actual situations and lets you think about the issues themselves without all the baggage from the specifics. It's a great vehicle for expanding your universe to include ideas you might not have thought of if they hadn't been presented in such a clean, unattached way.

Can you tell us more about your other works?

Both Lying Eyes and Home are "finished" manuscripts. Both need quite a bit of editing before I send them on their next set of rounds to editors.

Lying Eyes is a story I wrote last year about a student learning to use her psychic abilities, with the help of a local (super sexy) police officer. It's a romantic suspense, which is my all-time favorite genre to read AND write. I'm working on tightening up the characters' motivations to make them more believable and to ratchet up the tension.

Home is actually the first full-length manuscript I ever completed. It's about a pair of high school sweethearts who find their lives colliding again in their early thirties. I'm fascinated by reunion stories, probably because I feel like I've changed so much since my younger years, and I wonder how my old friends who haven't seen me in a long time would feel about me now. The manuscript needs a fairly major rewrite which will affect plot points, so it'll be a while before it sees the light of day again!

Writing is so much about editing, and that's something I'm learning the hard way. "Love In Shadow" sat in my unfinished manuscript drawer for years before I gained the right set of skills to turn it into something publishable. I hope it won't take years for these other two manuscripts, but I'm beginning to accept the fact that editing is a LONG process!

My next story, which isn't up on my website yet because I haven't written a blurb for it yet, is an 11,000 word short story, tentatively called "In a Cat's Eye." It's a paranormal romantic suspense set in my old home town of Redlands, California and it involves a sexy shape-shifting were-cougar. I'm going to start pitching it around to some editors this week, so I've got my fingers crossed that it will get picked up and into the pipeline really soon! Keep checking my website for details.

Do you feel like your degree in English prepared you to be a romance writer?  If so, how?

My knee-jerk response is, "Ha!" I had to overcome a lot of English-degree-induced prejudices about the romance genre in order to become a romance READER, let alone a romance writer. For some reason, English professors as a whole seem to think that anything with a happy ending does not count as literature. In fact, they claim, anything with a happy ending turns the reader's brain into a silly, sentimental pile of mush. Well, I'm here to tell you it's not true. My brain is significantly less mush-like since I started reading romance novels because, oh my, I've discovered that I actually ENJOY reading again! So hooray for romance novels and boo for uppity types who scoff at the romance genre as a whole.

That said, my English degree DID give me a base of knowledge that has been most helpful in my writing. It's hard to be deep and meaningful if you've missed some of the classics like Homer and cummings and Hemingway and Shakespeare and, yes, even the Bible.

Plus, now I can claim that I am actually using my degree, unlike so many liberal arts survivors.

What are some of your favorite books?

Oh my goodness, there are so many. If you're looking for a tear-jerker (and I mean soul-clenching sobs tear-jerker), go with The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. If, like me, you can only handle about one of those tear-jerkers every year or so and you've hit your quota, anything by Sabrina Jeffries is a sure-fire winner. My most recent favorite of hers is Only a Duke Will Do, but when her next one comes out, that one will probably be my new favorite because I fall in love with all of her books as soon as I read them. If you're looking for a good, old-fashioned, whodunit suspense with a heavy dose of romance, try Carnal Innocence by Nora Roberts. The one and only Nora is my favorite suspense writer, but then, she does EVERYTHING really well.

Your birthday is coming up in just two weeks.  How will you celebrate your first birthday as a published author?

Wow, thanks for remembering! I'm going to be 26 this year. I'm sure I will spend a great deal of my day marveling at how lucky I am to be doing what I love to do (WRITING!) at such a young age. Sure, I've got a long way to go-- someday, I want this writing thing to be a full time gig-- but I'm on my way and I feel so blessed!