What's Up the Street Next Week?

Spring days!
Aren't they wonderful?
Blossoms, breezes, long walks and refreshing bicycle rides.
Planting flowers and having picnics.
Love it!
Apart from Autumn, it's my favorite time of year.

What about you? Do you have a favorite season? Are you inspired to write during a certain season? or about a certain season? :-) Most of my novels take place in the Fall. I didn't realize this until I was working on the weekend blog post. What about you?
Leave your answer for a chance to win Karen Witemeyer's wonderful novel, A Tailor Made Bride.

Okay - we do have a winner for Rachel Hauck's fabulous book, Dining With Joy.
SUSAN ANNE MASON

Haven't you won enough in the past few weeks ;-) LOL
Congrats, Susan. Please send me your snail mail at pepperbasham (at) yahoo (dot) com.

This week some special posts are coming up.
Check them out!

Wednesday help us welcome our fabulous new Alley Cat, Karen Schravemade as we post a very fun interview so you can get to know her better. We are so glad to have her as part of the Alley.

Thursday, Ashley has a brow raising for us. How to craft the Hero and Heroine of your audience's dreams. Woohooo! Bring. IT. ON! I'm all for hero-talk :-) Go, Ashley!

Friday, Cindy starts a series about Knowing your Reader. This week she'll be chatting about Know Your Reader, Know Your Character.

Looks like there's a lot of character development going on this week, so don't miss it.

And - don't forget to stop and smell the roses.
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pictures are available courtesy of Pepper's trip to England which happened 4 years ago in May.
Lovely trip it was too!

What's Up the Street Next Week?

Thanks to the fabulous Lisa Jordan we have a PARTY going on this weekend.
499 followers!! (with the BIG hope that after today, we'll be up to 500)

In celebration, on lucky commenter will receive Rachel Hauck's wonderful contemporary romance, Dining With Joy.  So make sure you leave a comment today or tomorrow for your chance to be in the drawing!

But not ONLY are we celebrating 500 (I walk by faith) - we are celebrating EVEN MORE!

We are thrilled to welcome Women's Fiction author, 2011 Genesis Finalist, and beautiful Aussie, Karen Schravemade to our crew at The Writers Alley. (Isn't she beautiful?) You'll get a chance to get to know her a little better on April 25th with an interview post. Until then, go check out her fabulous website at www.karenschravemade.com

Now...what ELSE can we possibly celebrate?
Courage.

By the end of February, many aspiring authors sent their precious manuscripts on the unpredictable journey of ACFW's Genesis contest. The competition was fierce - and the biggest number of entries ACFW had ever seen. Regardless of semi-finaling or not, winners are people who press the 'send' button...and that means all those who entered.




Genesis semi-finalists were announced on Wednesday and we are so happy to announce Alley Cats and Alley Pals who are part of the list.

Alley Pals:
Susan Anne Mason
Melissa Tagg
Melissa Jagears
Michelle Massarro
Carol Moncado
Heidi Chiavaroli
Karen Barnett
Christina Rich
Lyndee Henderson
(and many others from our 500 list of readers)

Alley Cats:
Casey Herringshaw (Contemporary Fiction)
Cindy Wilson  (Contemporary Romance)
Pepper Basham  (Contemporary Romance)

So....get out the chocolate, balloons, and dancin' shoes.
IT'S. TIME. TO. PARTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What's Up the Street For Next Week- NEW YEAR'S Edition

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

How are you celebrating the coming of a new year?
What is one of your writing resolutions?
What is one of your personal resolutions?
How are you going to bring Jesus into your New Year? :-)

Starting a New Year gives us an opportunity to reflect on the past year and I'll HAVE to say that one of the highlights of this year was getting to meet some of my fellow Alley Cats at ACFW in September. WHAT. A. BLESSING!!!

It was also a wonderful opportunity to meet some of the fabulous Seekers from Seekerville as well as some of our fabulous Alley Friends.

So what do the Cats have up for you this week?

Monday - Pepper takes a recap from her Sizzling First Encounters series to ring in the New Year. She'll provide some 'first encounters' examples from published authors that will get the new year started off with a BANG!

Tuesday - Sherrinda jumpstarts our creative flow with a 'What if' Day.

Wednesday - Cool post by Mary this week entitled the Privelaged Class - Misconceptions of famous published authors.

Thursday - Casey gets us ready for the new contest year with The Low Down on Contests, Should I? Shouldn't I?

Friday - Our soon-to-be-published Krista Phillips brings a fabulous post this week (assuming she survived her edits from last week ;-)


NEWSTAND:

Genesis 2012 opens this week! To learn more about it go here - http://www.acfw.com/genesis

And stay tuned for next Monday, Jan 9 when Angie invites 2011 Genesis finalist Naomi Rawlings to give some helpful tips about entering the Genesis.


Casey starts Operation: Encourage and Author this week. Stop in a check http://encourageanauthor.blogspot.com/
Now from all of us to you - Have a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!
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pictures courtesy of:
http://en.loadtr.com/a_Happy_New_Year_-494802.htm