Big news! My new book, LOST IN COPPER PARK has just been released by independent award-winning Ginninderra Press. Just in time for Christmas. Huge thank you to my wonderful publisher Stephen Matthews. The book is available direct from www.ginninderrapress.com.au or print and ebook editions from Amazon, Book Depository and other online booksellers, $27.50 or ask your bookstore to order it in ISBN 978 1 76109 042 4.
Cover image by Russian contemporary artist, Zoya Kriminskaya.
Counting down to release this month by Ginninderra Press of my new book, LOST IN COOPER PARK.
The book achieved Notable Awards in Seizure’s Viva la Novella Book Competition and the highly acclaimed European Disquiet International Literary Contest.
You wouldn’t believe I was once a Public Relations consultant with my own business. Here I am scrambling around trying to write a press release for my new book, ‘Lost In Cooper Park’. It’s many years ago since I worked in the publicity industry and so much has changed since then. I’m trying to remember how to create a gob-smacking, eye-catching, has-to-be-read press release.
My new book is soon to be released and I need to get it some traction. I’m with a small but prestigious publisher, Ginninderra Press. No budget for promotion. So here I go. I need to put on my left-brain thinking cap rather than the right-brain fiction writer/poet hat.
So, first things first. I’ll see what Google has to tell me.
Lots. Lots of info on Google and a template or two.
My book won’t be released until next month, so until I have a release date, I can’t send out the release.
In the meantime, I’ll try and find my Media List, hidden under a pile of papers, or named something obscure on my computer.
Apart from sending the press release out to the media, a press release needs to be included when you send out copies of your book for review.
One thing I learnt from my Google search is that I need to add my web site address. Damn! Now I’ll have to update my website too.
The marketing side of being a writer never ends. We all hate it. We’d rather be in our dark caves creating new stories and poems.
I’m at my writing desk now attempting to compose a first draft of the Press Release following one of the templates.
I’ve been slaving away trying to write a good blurb for my soon to be released by Ginninderra Press new book, ‘Lost in Cooper Park’.
Writing a blurb is hard hard work. There are no shortcuts or easy answers. Anyway, after a chat with a close writing friend, this is what I’ve put together for the back cover.
The story begins when, after a fierce storm, Gypsy, a golden Labrador, goes missing in Sydney’s Cooper Park.
A bittersweet comedic account of mistakes, misconceptions and reconciliations in the lives of a disparate group of urban men and women.
There’s Crystal, who wants stability with her eight-year-old daughter and new partner.
Crystal’s ex, searching for the meaning of existence.
Doctor Sarah wanting a new beginning in France.
Rosemary and Philip who want their daughter to walk again.
Crystal’s high school sweetheart who wants another chance.
And the Homeless Girl hiding in Cooper parklands.
And then there’s the cruelty, unpredictability and beauty of life.
Back cover blurb: ‘Lost in Cooper Park’ by Libby Sommer
Tell me what you think? Would you be interested in reading this book?
Do you know that it is Perinatal Mental Health Week 2020? A time to raise awareness and collaborate to ensure that parents in need know they are not alone.
1 in 5 mums and 1 in 10 dads experience perinatal depression and anxiety, which is 100,000 Australians each year.
pmhweek.org.au
Australian writers tell the truth about perinatal anxiety and depression in poetry, fiction & essay in the new anthology, Not keeping mum, edited by Maya Linden, published last month. I was honored to have my short story, The New Baby (first published in Quadrant magazine) included in this important anthology.
Heartfelt, at times confronting and occasionally funny, this collection gives insight into how women navigate the profound changes that occur in their bodies, relationships and lives when they become a parent, and how they find the light at the end of the tunnel.”
Anne Buis
All profits from the sale of this book go to PANDA (Perinatal Anxiety and Depression Australia).
A fantastic example of this writing advice is Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five.
Poignant and hilarious, threaded with compassion and, behind everything, the cataract of a thundering moral statement. – The Boston Globe
Kurt Vonnegut’s absurdist classic Slaughterhouse-Five introduces us to Billy Pilgrim, a man who becomes unstuck in time after he is abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. In a plot-scrambling display of virtuosity, we follow Pilgrim simultaneously through all phases of his life, concentrating on his (and Vonnegut’s) shattering experience as an American prisoner of war who witnesses the firebombing of Dresden.
Don’t let the ease of reading fool you – Vonnegut’s isn’t a conventional, or simple, novel. He writes, “There are almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are so sick, and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces. One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters.”
Slaughterhouse-Five is not only Vonnegut’s most powerful book, it is also as important as any written since 1945. Like Catch- 22, it fashions the author’s experiences in the Second World War into an eloquent and deeply funny plea against butchery in the service of authority. Slaughterhouse-Five boasts the same imagination, humanity, and gleeful appreciation of the absurd found in Vonnegut’s other works, but the book’s basis in rock-hard, tragic fact gives it a unique poignancy – and humor. – Goodreads
As mentioned previously, I really enjoy writing in a super-short form. I’ve been told I have the ability to distil. So … prose poems and poetry have been added to my repertoire. I’m currently working on a new collection of poetry, prose poems and flash fiction titled ‘Love & A Search for Meaning’. What do you think of this working title for a collection? Any comments much appreciated.
“Writers live twice. They go along with their regular life, are as fast as anyone in the grocery store, crossing the street, getting dressed for work in the morning. But there’s another part of them that they have been training. The one that lives everything a second time. That sits down and sees their life again and goes over it. Looks at the texture and the details.” – Natalie Goldberg
Have a read of my flash fiction ‘Sober Sixty’ first published in the August 2020 Grieve Anthology, Stories and Poems of Grief and Loss.
Sober Sixty:
Samantha’s single women friends were envious, although she assured them Johnny wasn’t perfect. Mood swings, challenging stuff like that.
Nobody messed with Johnny. Nobody knew better than he did, he was always watching YouTube and learning new facts and figures. Also, he rode a motorbike and practiced shooting at weekends. There were Facebook groups for bike riders and a rifle range nearby. Johnny was proud of being a rev-head and a good shot with his gun, and not many people could disagree that he had unusual interests for a man his age.
‘Sober since forty and counting,’ he said about his sobriety. They didn’t talk about his twenties and thirties.
There’s a photograph of the two of them from Christmas day. Johnny had tried to lower himself to Samantha’s height for the photo so they’d be on the same level. ‘Stand up tall,’ she’d said. ‘Stand to your full height.’ ‘That’s right,’ he’d said. ‘You like things big.’
‘What does ATP in ATP Cup stand for?’ was the type of thing Johnny would call out while she poured him a glass of water before setting out on a stroll around the block.
Samantha thought she knew the answer, but didn’t want to risk being wrong. She’d learnt to tiptoe around his wildness and dreaded the fighting when she wasn’t attentive enough to his needs. Dry drunk, AA called it. The unpredictable rages were doing her head in. She knew she needed the courage to walk away.
Now she’s getting by a day at a time.
Her friends say she’s one of the lucky ones. She’s dodged a bullet.
Libby Sommer, Author 