Teale Blog
Join Me at My Book Launch!
Special thanks go out to Michael Davie and Manor House Publishing for organizing my book launch! It’s scheduled for Sunday, December 18, and will take place at A Different Drummer Books, a wonderful bookstore located at 513 Locust Street in Burlington, Ontario. A Different Drummer Books is an independent local bookstore that has built a national reputation for the astounding book knowledge of its staff and the personal service provided to customers. The store is dedicated to carrying high quality books and maintains a regular schedule of author events and reading groups. I’ll be sharing the day with noted Canadian author Alyxandra Harvey, author of the popular “Drake Chronicles” series. She has a new book out now as well called “Briar Rose: and other fairy talks darkly revisited.” All in all it should be a fun day and I’m looking forward to celebrating the official birth of “Shades of Teale.” I’d love to see some familiar faces at the event – if you can make, please join...
Read MoreOf Sharing and Clutter
Thanks again to the organizers of last night’s IABC Professional Independent Communicators (PIC) meeting in Toronto last night. I had a lovely opportunity to talk about “Shades of Teale” and I signed a number of copies of the novel. Congrats to designer and marketing strategist Tom Hedges for winning the draw for a copy of my book…I’m thinking it might be one his wife might read first? 😉 I’m looking forward to attending the next PIC meeting as well where the speaker will be helping us out with organizing our cluttered hard drives. I will be hanging on her every word – I have old digital copies of my manuscript mixed in with goodness knows what else and the mess I’ve made of my computer filing system is humbling. As I mentioned in my talk last night, I started dreaming about writing a novel when I was eight years old — but life was busy and as the years went on I put that dream aside to focus on more practical matters. Eventually I reached a stage in my life where I realized I wasn’t getting any younger, in fact I began to realize, as my mother has often said, that “this ain’t a dress rehearsal.” I reluctantly admitted that if I wanted to make my biggest dreams come true I needed to put my heart into them right away. I didn’t waste a minute and within months I was pregnant with my family’s fourth child (a fifth and final baby followed sometime thereafter). And then I got down to work on my novel. The baby was finished in nine months; the book took 13 years. Starting and finishing – two themes that thread their way through everyone’s lives I guess. And although I often think I should “do something” about my hard drive I’m not always sure exactly what that “something” might be. Hopefully next month’s meeting PIC will give me some...
Read MoreChampagne, Strawberries and Book News!
Many thanks to my sister, Debbie Crossman, and all the lovely ladies who attended last night’s “Shades of Teale” Champagne Kickoff in Toronto! The evening was a delightful and enjoyable way to launch a promotional tour and I appreciate the generous support of all involved. Most of all, I had an absolute ball! One of the things I love best about being an author is the opportunity to meet readers and hear the “stranger than fiction” stories that are nestled just below the surface of daily life. Many of the vignettes in “Shades of Teale” had their start as snippets of overheard conversation or heartful downloads of painful stories that people have shared with me over the years. I never reveal a source and I never judge. We’re all on a journey of one sort or another and I believe that at any one time people do their best with the information they have available. I’m always on the lookout for new and interesting tales to tell – if you have any to share, drop me a line at susan@crossmancommunications.com. And stay tuned for more news! What’s the fuss about? Read an Excerpt and find out...
Read MoreA Writing Dream Come True
…This post was originally published at my corporate communications site, Crossman Communications… I’m celebrating in Technicolor today as I greet the arrival of my novel, “Shades of Teale” on amazon.ca. I began writing the book in the late 1990s to bring my dream of becoming a published author to life and it never occurred to me that writing one book could take such a long time! Granted it wasn’t my full time gig. During the past 13 years I’ve also worked on business writing projects for Crossman Communications, given birth twice, moved numerous times, walked my terminally ill husband to a painful death by cancer and embarked upon a new uncharted life as the widowed mother of three children, two of whom are still in public school. Signing a publishing contract with Manor House Publishing this past summer catapulted me straight onto Cloud Nine! “Shades of Teale” tells the story of one woman’s journey through marriage to enlightenment in a style Manor House Publisher Michael Davie calls a cross between “Bridget Jones’s Diary” and “The Devil Wears Prada.” It takes a bold look at some of the womanly issues that keep some of us up at night and it pokes a little fun at some of the expectations and misconceptions we ourselves stumble over from time to time. And yes, this is a fictional story. If you’re interested in ordering a copy through amazon.ca please do! Copies will also be available through this site within the next few weeks and the e-book will be coming soon! If you’d like to see the book appear on the shelves of your favorite bookstore, please let them know! The novel is published by Manor House Publishing and distributed through University of Toronto Press (UTP) Distribution. The ISBN number is 978-1-897453-16-2 and it retails for $20. If you’d like to help me promote my novel, please get in touch! You Can Help By… Reviewing the novel either on amazon.ca or for use on my website; Suggesting the names of independent bookstores that might be interested in carrying the book; Providing me with opportunities to give readings and book signings for your club, organization or business; Offering speaking engagements where I can talk about the novel, meet your friends, colleagues and fellow group members, and sell and sign copies of my book Following my character, @TealeCovey, on Twitter so she feels connected to the wider world of keen readers. 😉 My official launch takes place from 1 to 3 pm on Saturday, December 17 at A Different Drummer Books, 513 Locust Street, Burlington, Ontario. Please come and join me there as I celebrate the cheerful arrival of “Shades of Teale” to my writing family! Read Excerpts from...
Read MoreWhy I Wrote Shades of Teale
An Author’s Note I began writing this novel out of a sense of dismay over the many stories I’ve read in the newspaper or heard on the news about another woman found lifeless in her own home. With her partner arrested and imprisoned, the woman’s family – parents, siblings, children and friends – are left with the anguish of re-building lives shattered by the violent end of their loved one’s life. Abuse, death and shattered lives – a disturbing pattern that is more commonplace than we imagine. On researching this topic I came upon recent statistics from the Canadina Women’s Foundation that paint a bleak picture: Every six days on average a woman in Canada is murdered by her intimate partner – nearly 70 deaths a year. On any given day in Canada, more than 3,000 women (and 2,500 children) are living in emergency shelters due to domestic violence incidents, which annually account for over 40,000 arrests and $4.2 billion in social/health/judicial services and lost productivity costs. As someone who has never been in an abusive relationship, I was intrigued by the dynamic of abuse. What would make a woman choose to involve herself with a man who appears to despise her? I began to ask such questions while working for a women’s shelter where I met some amazing women who shared their stories with me. I also read everything I could find on the topic. And I listened. Friends also spoke in strict confidence about difficult circumstances they’d survived. Ladies, I’ll protect you and your identities forever. This has been a sad but enlightening journey. But out of all of those fascinating and heart-breaking pieces of tragedy, I was able to weave together the purely fictional account of Teale’s escape from abuse to freedom. Her abuser, David, is no man I’ve ever met, although I’ve seen glimpses ofhim in the stories other women have told me. It is my hope that this fictional story leads to a deepr understanding of a very real problem that causes untold pain to women every day. Susan Crossman, November 8,...
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