I have a couple of appearances to tell you about.

Blog Interview

First of all, Emily Wenzl interviewed me for her Literary Fort Collins blog. That post published yesterday and you can find it here: “Patricia Stoltey, local Fort Collins author, is a rock star at online author promotion.” Promoting other authors is a lot of fun, which is why I open this blog up to guest posts every Thursday. If you haven’t been a guest yet, I have open spots in July and beyond.

I guess that provides a good segue into an introduction to Laura Pritchett, a well known author, environmental activist, and writing coach here in Northern Colorado. Laura will be my guest this week.

Upcoming Radio Appearance

Two other authors of a certain age (Nancy Reed and John Paul McKinney) and I will be Richard Keller’s guest on our local KRFC radio program where local writers are interviewed and given the opportunity to talk about their craft and their writing lives.  Our segment will be pre-recorded so I’ll let you know how that goes next week. I haven’t done a radio program for many years, so it will be an interesting experience (and I’m guessing it will be lots of fun, knowing Rich and the other two guests).

I’ve also been invited to do a Podcast with Rich for Northern Colorado Writers, but I’m not sure when that will happen. That will be another first for me, and I know Rich will make it entertaining. He has done seventeen Podcasts so far, which is awesome. Rich rocks in his efforts to help promote local authors.

Am I Writing?

Not so much. But I signed up again for Camp NaNoWriMo for July.

Meanwhile, I’ve been out pulling a few weeds in and around the garden boxes I couldn’t plant this year. I have a mess on my hands. It’s going to take a lot of work before I can grow anything next season.

What I’ve Been Reading

I finished Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning by Peter C. Brown. It was worth reading for the three elements of learning that really work. The big one for me was self-testing (or for real students, testing from the instructor), and to me that meant I need to stop skipping the quizzes and exercises at the end of chapters in user manuals and self-help books. There was more, so if you’re struggling with learning some new skills, you might want to give the book a read.

After that I read an excellent thriller set in Belfast by Stuart Neville called Stolen Souls. The plot deals with the trafficking of young women from Eastern Europe and has a plot within the plot that includes a serial killer. If you like thrillers and can deal with sensitive topics, lots of bad guys, along with violence and gore, I would highly recommend this read.

Now I’m about two-thirds through Bram Stoker’s Dracula. What compelled me to read the book? That quote I posted here on June 10th which was attributed to Stoker in Dracula but seemed not to fit. I found the passage, and now it all makes sense. I thought I had read this classic before but it became clear to me as I got into the novel that it was a new reading experience. It’s an amazing novel, that’s for sure.

Please come back and join me on Thursday to welcome Laura Pritchett to the blog.