Mechanics

Wait, it’s passive and tensed? The layman’s guide to verb words

If we’re going to spend the merry, merry month of May talking about verbs, it’d be pretty useful to have some working vocabulary, right? I’ll be the first to admit that though I have a degree in Linguistics with a minor in English, I can never keep “intransitive” and “transitive” straight. Even a Word Nerd can learn some new tricks (although I’m sure Annette does know these terms 😉 ). And yes, we’re going to start really simple—although I’m sure you already intuitively know most of this stuff!

The following are all properties of verbs:

Tense expresses when the action occurred. Past tense, for example, means the action happened in the past. (Told you we’d start simple!)

Person and number determine how we conjugate the verb: the first person, plural, form of “to walk” (present tense) is “walk” as in “we walk.” (English verbs are tricky, since I walk, you walk, we walk, y’all walk, they walk. Only he, she and it walks 😉 .) Because we like everyone to get along, verbs must agree in person and number—the conjugated form of the verb must match the subject. None of that “I walks” stuff.

Voice can have this really long, technical definition, but let’s just put it this way: voice tells us if the subject of the sentence is doing the action or being acted upon. And there’s a great example in that sentence there: the guy IS DOING the action is active voice. The guy IS BEING ACTED upon is passive voice—the guy, the subject of the sentence, isn’t doing anything.

Aspect can indicate an ongoing action: this is the “progressive” tenses—I am walking vs. I walk.

Mood is complicated (and not just because I’m a woman). If you know what the word “subjunctive” means, good for you! That’s a mood. And that’s all I’m gonna say.

Transitive and intransitive are two verb classes that tell us whether or not the verb will have an object. Okay, say it with me now: transitive verbs take objects (the thieves!). Transitive verbs transfer the action of the verb to something later in the sentence. For example:

Transitive: Joe took the bicycle. (The bicycle is the object.)
Intransitive: Joe died. (Don’t steal bad, bad Leroy Brown’s bike, dude.)

When this gets messed up . . . it’s pretty funny:

Transitive abuse: Joe took. (Yeah, okay, sometimes it could work where the object is understood, but not in isolation like this.)
Intransitive abuse: Joe died the bicycle. (He did what now?)

And now for the finale: the ones you’re going to want to remember for future posts here are tense, voice, and (in)transitive. They just seemed lonely without the full complement of verb qualities 😉 .

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Publishing, Marketing

Self-Publishing Panel, LDStorymakers

I’ll continue posting my notes from the 2009 LDStorymakers conference, with fun with verbs coming on Tuesdays and Thursdays!

Self-Publishing panel
Moderator: CS Bezas
Panel Members: Gary Hansen, Joyce DiPastena (blog), Marsha Ward (blog), Sarah Eden, Tanya Parker Mills

Panelists’ intros:
Sarah Eden: Writes historical fiction, author of Seeking Persephone. Published 9 novels, from Arizona, Print on Demand (POD) expertise. As a fiction author, she makes things up, so she may lie at any time on this panel. Whitney finalist 2008

Joyce DiPastena: 2007 Whitney finalist Loyalty’s Web
 self-published, picked up by Leavenwood Press and republished.

Marsha Ward: Western fiction (The Man from Shenandoah, Ride to Raton and Trail of Storms) Journalism background with LDS newspapers, over 900 publishing credits, national contest wins, came to self publishing in a unique way (whiche she touches on later).

Tanya Parker Mills: The Reckoning Whitney finalist 2008, had her first novel rejected and found herself blocked in her second novel, and knew she had to get it out there. From Washington.

Gary Hansen: Wet Desert, a Novel, Whitney 2007 finalist, suspense/thriller (national, but “LDS-friendly”).

Something pertinent to know about self-publishing

  • Gary: Once he’d been frustrated on national market, he took the “go into the bookstore and find your section—genre, cost, etc.” Picked price point and went through self publishers to find a cost-effective place: found a self-pubbed book in Costco and contacted author—actually printed it himself. Sold through first print run (2600) and into second.
  • Tanya: POD, Booksurge because of its Amazon ties. It’s so hard to get pubbed by traditional publishers (mainstream contemporary fiction, non LDS, going for national market). Self-pub has increased b/c it’s more affordable now. Rarely do you get picked up like Eragon did. Tremendous marketing as self-pub plus lucking out in a coincidence. What she would have done differently: she would’ve done differently: set up a distributor.
  • Marsha: the valid reasons to self-publish:
    • Poetry collections (for friends and family and other interested parties)
    • Family histories
    • Autobios/memoirs (unless you’re famous!)
    • You’re giving seminars, how-to books, public speaking—tremendous back-of-the-room sales.
    • Personally: she had a health crisis and thought she was running out of time. Getting good responses editorially, but negative marketing reports (Western novels are too niche). Chose not to become her own publishing company—POD/Publish assistance people. Researched to know what they would and wouldn’t give her, looked at customer feedback, went with iUniverse. Was going to go through traditional publisher for 3rd in series, but too mch lag time for her fans (guy came up to her in the grocery store)
  • Joyce: also writing to national market but “LDS friendly”—Medieval romance. Lots of positive response on national market, but they didn’t know what to do with it. Agent called her: too much plot to be a romance and not enough pageantry to be a historical. She put it away for years and years and kept trying to write a straight romance, but it wasn’t working—she kept throwing in other plot lines (I guess non romance plot lines). Ended up with these books sitting around, and she realized she could die with books in drawer or take a chance on self publishing to see if there’s an audience. She turned to Marsha for help, also went with iUniverse POD—knew she couldn’t go out and sell her own books (Gary has a garage full of books!). To her surprise, she began attracting a readership of people that were interested in the cross-genre. Finalist at Whitneys: editor took notice of that and reprinted her book. Be realistic about your marketing talents. Can you push the books on your own, or are you too shy? Online?
  • Sarah—Butter pecan is the best therapy for writer agony. Cheetos can be consumed at VERY large quantities at 3 AM. You need to do your research. There are so many options in self-pub—diff companies, methods. Traps: vanity presses. Options: book sizes (bigger book: more words per page, fewer pages, lower cost). Know what you want first so you can find a company that will provide that in a way that is affordable and satisfying to you. Talk to people who’ve done it before because they know things that the companies won’t tell you. Look at their books in person.
  • Marsha: google [“company name” sucks] to check them out.

Questions:
Don Lee: How do you distribute your books?
Gary: In order to get into big stores, you have to go through distributors—Ingram or Baker and Taylor. In the bookstore, they’re very worried about Returns—they don’t want any obligations—they can return unsold books to them without cost. You have to have that method or they won’t take it. Getting a distributor—just like getting an agent or editor. BIG step. If you get there, bookstores can at least order it from any bookstore in the country. Distribution is critical.

Roger Nielsen: What was your initial investment, Gary?

  • Gary: Obviously, POD has big advantages, but his goal was a low cost (equal to trad pubbed books)—you have to sell cheap to distributors ($4.50 for a $10 book). 363 pages with small font to keep page count down—setup fee ~$3000, and then the books are cheap. The more you print, the cheaper they are per book. You’re tempted to print like 10,000 so they’ll be $1.50.
  • Tanya: with POD and digital presses, you pay upfront. I decided to get the total design freedom package—control cover design and copy, paid a little more. $1367 including that package. No warehousing, order from Amazon and they print and send it. $1367 is for set up and a few books she’d ordered for herself.
  • Comment from LC Lewis: Sometimes booksurge gives you a promo pkg with 30 free books if you sign up for marketing.
  • Marsha: Paid iUniverse. Purchased rights to cover images from Corbis $300, royalty-free to use forever. Last package cost $399. Commissioned painting for second book at $300. Ordered 200 copies of her first and 25 each of the others. Distribution: website, blog, building writing community, a lot of contacts, list of people who wanted her next book. Sell autographed copies from her website, you can get it from bookstores, Amazon, iUniverse, ebook on Books on Board. Book trailer.
  • Comment from Roger again: BYU is getting a very specialized machine to do this—prints from PDF $0.04/pg, 300 p book in 4 minutes.
  • Sarah: That’s the kind of machine most PODs use. initial fee (CreateSpace, connected to BookSurge) just under $2/book, plus $0.008/pg. Printing only—$39 per title—gets your ISBN number, per-page cost below $0.01/pg. Economies of scale.

LC Lewis—Amazon sets price for BookSurge?

  • Tanya—yes. I wanted it at $14.99, they set it at $17.99.
  • Gary got to set his own MSRP (retail), they set their discount. Amazon has to get their margin, 55%—you have to sell it at $6.79 for a $14.95 price.
  • Sarah—CreateSpace—you set your own prices. Take into account shipping costs! Supply and demand. CreateSpace, part of Amazon, qualifies for SuperSaver shipping (her original POD company was too expensive with shipping)
  • Tanya—Two issues ago Writers’ Digest was all about self-publishing

I know some people have said it’s a good idea to create a separate company that isn’t you to be the publisher. Does that help?

  • Sarah—In a way it does. One of the cons of self-publishing—people pick up a book that’s self pubbed, they think it’s self pubbed because it’s bad. If it says “Published by Sarah Eden,” it’s not good in their minds.
  • Gary—I came up with a press. I named it Hole Shot Press—I didn’t want people to be able to tell it’s self-pubbed.

Any tax tips?

  • Gary—You have to keep track of your income if you make money (which has not been an issue for me yet). When you sell direct to a customer in your state, you have to pay sales tax. You have to get a state sales tax number.
  • Sarah—I get royalties instead of profits with CreateSpace. It’s a 1099. But don’t forget to subtract your expenses.
  • Cindy—As always, consult your tax advisers.

Roger—WriteWise or any of these other groups experience?
No

Any marketing tips so people can hear about your book?
Joyce—[dubbed marketing guru by . . . Marsha at the beginning of the panel] Websites, blogs. I like to do contests because that builds up a mailing list of people who enter. Then she can send them info. One tip she read: a reader who has never head of an author before needs to see the title of the book at least 10 times before they’ll consider buying a book from an unknown author. Her goal isn’t always a sale, it’s to get her book’s name out there.

About the conference: LDStorymakers is a writing contest geared to LDS writers. The conference covers both the niche, regional publishers that cater to the LDS market as well as national publishers.

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Mechanics

May it be

I’ve been thinking about verbs for a while now, and I’m thinking that’s where I want to start with my rants posts about writing topics. And what better time to discuss verbs than the merry, merry month of May, right?

Right?

C’mon, guys—it’s a modal? A modal verb?

Yeah, on that note, I think we’ll be starting with the basics—like what the heck a modal is, anyway—and then go on to talk about how we use verbs in writing, including the dreaded passive voice. (Guess what—if you’re getting dinged by your critique partners for writing in the passive voice a lot, you might not be doing anything wrong. Then again, you might—but still, there’s hope!)

And I’m lining up guest posts from some brilliant English minds (even doctors, folks!), so be sure to check back next week—or subscribe to the blog to get RSS updates (or email updates)—to join in the “verbal” discussion.

In other news, I’m renaming my current works. Yes, I know, I can’t help it—I just read the chapter on titling in Stein On Writing and I found one that really struck me:

Saints and Agents

To match the new title for Duty of the Priest, Evidence of Things Not Seen is now Saints and Spies. The Projects page and excerpt page have been updated to reflect this.

And I promise soon to talk titling and explain this move. But first—verbs!

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Publishing

LDS Publishers’ Panel

Panelists:
Lyle Mortimer—Cedar Fort
Kirk Shaw—Covenant
Lisa Mangum—Deseret Book & Shadow Mountain
Chris Bigelow—Zarahemla

Walnut Springs Press was supposed to have an panelist with us, but she wasn’t able to attend. (New imprint of Leatherwood—contact info on LDStorymakers)—inspirational fiction, romance or suspense, YA, fantasy

Chris Bigelow—Zarahemla Books “niche” publisher

  • focused on Mormon market on “grown up” books (not “adult” 😉 Fiction and memoir.
  • Open to any kind of storytelling in those modes, including genre—scifi, horror; experimental with Mormon themes
  • Somewhat literary, short story collections (usually only for those who’ve been previously pubbed in journals)
  • “blind spot” for poetry—not looking for it
  • If you can get one of the big three to publish your book, that’s where you should go. But if they say your book’s too edgy, come to Zarahemla
  • 3-6 books a year
  • prefer submissions that come with recommendations—include it with your submission

Lisa Mangum—Deseret Book and Shadow Mountain (national market imprint—children’s fantasy, etc.)

  • 150 products a year—incl new material, paperback reprints and music
  • 1500 submissions a year
  • try to find the MS that are really well written, have a strong voice, want things that are marketable and will draw customers to stores

Kirk Shaw—Covenant

  • Gift books (Worldwide ward cookbook, Sweetwater Rescue, Saints @ War, Pres & Prophets)
  • Genre fiction, esp romance—suspense, historical. Chick lit
  • Inspirational rather than scholarly doctrinal; music line, talk CDs, etc.
  • Not as much fantasy & scifi

Lyle Mortimer—Cedar Fort

  • “He who writes the nation’s stories need not worry who governs.” —Unknown
  • pub books that make a difference in the world (and make money)
    70-85% = nonfiction—Gospels Made Easier is best seller, #2 = Shell Game (#31 on NYT Bestseller list)
  • gifts & sculpture
  • Total 175 projects; about 120 books a year

Questions

How does each house distribute?

  • Lyle—have their own warehouse & dist own products
  • Kirk—do own to independents, chains, local BIG chains
  • Lisa—Through Des Book & Seagull, B&N, Amazon, independent bookstores
  • Chris—Ingram Distributor gets books out nationally; Granite publishing and dist pick up half the titles to get them to independent LDS titles, and Deseret Book outlets from time to time

What do you do to market and publicize the books you accept?

  • Chris—very driven by reviews: placing ARCs with local media, publisher’s weekly, national media
  • Lisa—Robust mkting dept—help with author websites, book signings, ARCs, school visits, conferences, posters, bookmarks, commercials, radio, newspaper, catalogues
  • Kirk—Catalogues—huge, large majority; radio and TV behind big projects. Best timing = conference time, mother’s day, father’s day, Christmas. Fiction doesn’t get as much of that, though. Great pool of authors who push to do school tours, creative contests, blogs, website development. A lot of publishers will tell you authors tend to complain about a.) royalties and b.) lack of marketing support, thinking that the publisher’s going to do it for them. Grassroots author involvement.
  • Lyle—Authors often feel publishers don’t do enough to move their book. What is your publisher going to do to make your book a bestseller? NOTHING. The publisher will do whatever he has to to make a ROI. YOU have to put in the legwork. It feeds itself.

Are any of you planning to do eBooks?

  • Lisa—short answer: yes. We are working mostly to get our backlist as well as our new titles available for Kindle, though Amazon, and things like that. I don’t know if we would ever do a books specifically and exclusively as an ebook, but we’re trying to get all of our published book converted.
  • Kirk—Ditto.
  • Lyle—Tough to stay up to date. E format and paper go hand in hand.
  • Chris—Not excited personally about ebooks yet, but a few authors have wanted to go onto Kindle and it’s very easy.

Typically, how many debut authors do you take on a year?

  • Chris—not very many, sometimes none.
  • Lisa—Some every year. Always very nice :D. On average, maybe 6-8? Good year, 8-10.
  • Kirk—About the same, maybe a little more than that. Try to fit them in with their established authors. Tricky—balancing groups. Big names, middle lists, debuts.
  • Lyle—a pub’s most efficient author is a repeat author. Debut novels are harder to sell (100x harder on national market vs. LDS market)—about 80 new authors a year, looking for the good stories

How many kissing scenes would push a novel out of the LDS market? [Just kidding] How many of the authors you pub come to you with an agent and how many pick up an agent later?

  • Kirk—I think it’s more of the quality of the kissing? 😉 Broad gamut—he’s the most liberal editor at Covenant, compare notes with other editors, what will the readership be happy with?
  • Lisa—a handful have picked up agents after coming to us, but vast majority don’t and won’t. And 3.5 kisses.
  • Chris—If these guys are too prudish for you, come to Zarahemla. Not on agents’ radars.
  • Lyle—2 authors on NYT list 3x each, and in those negotiations, the agents had no part. Both had agents, both got paid, but he’s never met the agents. If anyone has an answer to the kissing question, he’d like to know. He doesn’t have an answer—but they have to be integral to the story.

What are you looking for/what is your greatest need?

  • Lyle—I’m not the acquisitions editor, etc., I’m the publisher. Looking for great books that will sell.
  • Kirk—story of friend who comes to him every few months chasing trends and paychecks. Find what you love writing and if you see a good opportunity to rip stuff from the headlines, then do it.
  • Lisa—We’re looking for your book because you have something only you can say and only you can tell that story.
  • Chris—Adult fiction, memoir. Identifiably Mormon and yet really different.
  • Kirk—look at where your book would fit on the shelf. Find something that will grab someone with just one sentence.

Once you have the MS ready to submit, should you focus on one pub or multiple?

  • Lyle—simultaneous submissions used to be almost nonethical. But these days, not so much. Just specify in letter. Can be good and bad for author. Editor may be less interested or feel more pressure to look at it.
  • Kirk [Sorry, trying to catch up]
  • Lisa—Send to lots of publishers, but make sure they’re the right publishers for you
  • Chris—encourages simultaneous submissions, but he doesn’t see any point in subbing to Zarahemla while subbing to mainstream publishers. Wait until you strike out but getting good feedback.

What can we say to make us stick out in your minds?

  • Chris—Looking for noting that they’ve taken classes (and the professor loved their manuscript), pubbed author liked their manuscript
  • Lisa—Not to suck up, but really: “say LDStorymakers.” This is her fave conf to come to b/c we’re the most passionate. Networking like this is huge for her.
  • Kirk—(Reference to Miss Snark’s blog)—networking. Try to present yourself as a person, and treat them as if they’re just another person. Ask what they’ve read recently that you’ve enjoyed? Be personable and don’t pitch at first. Eventually in the relationship, they may ask you or invite you to tell about your work.
  • Lyle—Facebook! Request him as a friend. (Pretty sure at the book.) Elevator pitches! 15 second max. Always take the opportunity to mention it!

If I’m writing to boys 8-12, who do I submit to?

  • Lyle—Me.
  • Kirk—Sure.
  • Lisa—One person handles all incoming subs to sort to readers.
  • Chris—Haven’t done anything there yet, but they’ll consider it if it’s edgy. ‘Cause that’s a great age group to write edgy stuff for.

What’s going to kill your book fastest (pet peeves)?

  • Kirk—polygamy
  • Lyle—authors demanding marketing. Recently received a manuscript with a picture of the author on it. Nude.
  • (audience—send it to Zarahemla!)
  • Chris—We require that kind of photo! 😉
  • Lyle—don’t just follow the market.
  • Lisa—Bad writing. Really obviously bad writing. Timing.
  • Chris—don’t call or come to my house. Email, please?
  • Kirk—The little things—go to the website and follow submission guidelines. Yes, really.

How do you feel about self-pubbed authors subbing a new MS to you?

  • Chris—If you’ve self-pubbed a book with total sales ~2000, you can shop it to a publisher to reprint/republish. Zarahemla wouldn’t be turned off by that, but if they did it well it’d be a positive.
  • Lisa—Agree. Hardpressed to name any self-pubbed books they’ve bought rights for and pubbed. But if you were submitting a diff book, being self-pubbed wouldn’t be held against you. It’d show you’re serious, you have confidence, you have at least some exposure.
    Kirk—No stigma against someone who’d pubbed before. To be blunt: it’s hard to take that same book and bring it into the house and try to repub it with new cover, etc. Have had authors do that—self-pubbed or smaaaalll press that folded. Dilemma: bookstores look at author’s sales record. Usually order less than the last book the author sold. While they wouldn’t refuse to look at stuff because it’s self-pubbed, they only want to see unpubbed works. Carefully consider who you used, how you sold, how bookstores you’ve sold through would consider their books.
  • Lyle—not kidding about FB. Send me a message that you’re a member of LDStorymakers so he’ll confirm. Self-pub isn’t a problem for him, but for us. He’s a gatekeeper for the market and a value-adder. Better design, better editing, nature of the business. Least expensive way is to go through a publisher. EX: David Ridges = best selling doctrinal author. He doesn’t sell more books per title, but in 6 years he’s produced 25 products and he sells a lot of product. Sounds of Zion distributed his self-pubbed book; Cedar Fort picked it up and it’s really taken off.

About the conference: LDStorymakers is a writing contest geared to LDS writers. The conference covers both the niche, regional publishers that cater to the LDS market as well as national publishers.

Is your writing any good? Join my writers' email group to find out how you can get a free edit & skill assessment!

 
Marketing

So Your Book’s Out—Now what? Candace E. Salima on marketing your books

This begins a series of notes from the 2009 LDStorymakers Conference

Presented by Candace E. Salima (blog)

The publisher is responsible for getting book printed & to stores—the rest is up to you

Branding your name and the most effective use of your time and books

Author website

  • homepage
  • announcements on main page: upcoming books, book trailer, etc. (sticky posts! Or alt new front page, blog relegated)—always include purchase link!—the goal is to get them to buy the book
  • about you section:bio, recommended reading and viewing, (hired publicist—Doug Johnston), contact
  • media—events: book groups, speaking engagements, chats, online classes, podcast, screenplays, blog
  • books (my projects)—Have a purchase link either selling directly or to publisher (affiliate link) or to Amazon—upcoming and books in print
  • has bookstore on her website to draw more traffic in
  • contests—bring in more and more people who want to win things
  • links, feedback, recipe, chat place—friendliness, welcoming

Website goal: pull people in & try to keep them there, chatting with other fans, etc.—make sure the site isn’t just static—draw them back!

One key: (not fact, but a strong opinion): make website as professional as possible [From an Internet marketing professional, let me just add: it’s pretty much a fact 😉 ]

check out other authors’ websites, make a list of things you like and don’t

Blog

  • Get your name out there even more because you have a constantly changing thing—dedicate it to writing or whatever—post at least every 3-4 days to keep people coming back
  • Maintaining email list of interested reviewers!—authors incognito
  • good for virtual book tours—start drawing readers to your site—reviewing others’ books! (affiliate links):
    • Post titles—use author name and title in review post title
    • draw in fans of other authors—they’ll see you like this book, maybe they’ll like your books
    • comment on others’ blog tour posts reviewing your books; offer to answer questions in the comments—combine to interview
  • find a passion to use on you blog (hers is politics)

Social Networking

  • Twitter box on blog
  • FACEBOOK—pages
    • fans
    • promote everyone she knows, enjoys
    • NOTES
    • photos of covers—include summary and purchase link

Articles

Write articles for magazines you purchase and website magazines.

Book trailers

  • Once again, make it look professional! You don’t want anything associated with your book to give someone an impression of amateurism.
  • Post it on your blog and website

Public speaking

  • get the word out on the topics you’d like to speak on
  • Candace did a national 21-day, 11-city book tour for $800: planned around where family members live
  • Volunteer: book readings at libraries—reading to kids, ESL classes—improve your sphere of influence (but don’t just do it out of selfishness 😉 )

Promoting New Releases

  • post Facebook note
  • Post on your blog and post to your social networking stuff
  • virtual book tours
  • firesides
  • news item (not press release)—radio, TV, print—something a publicist can do for you
  • ARCs to media outlets—again with publicist
  • dress for success for public speaking: clean, professional, comfortable (standing up, walking around), on time, interactive

Marketing your book will guarantee your success. The harder you work, the more it gets out there, the happier your publisher will be.

Questions:
Do you have any advice for handling negative reviews and bad press?
“Sure, it brings more sales. Be happy.”
“If you get a bad review, so what?” — Counteract by recruiting friends, family (blog readers) to give positive reviews)

About the conference: LDStorymakers is a writing contest geared to LDS writers. The conference covers both the niche, regional publishers that cater to the LDS market as well as national publishers.

Is your writing any good? Join my writers' email group to find out how you can get a free edit & skill assessment!

 
Works

The run up

I’ve been gearing up for the LDStorymakers Conference tomorrow. I registered after encouragement from Annette Lyon online and off, and I’m getting excited (even though I’m a fairly shy person and a little nervous about meeting new people).

So I’m thinking about what I’m going to do with this site. So far I’ve used it as mostly a writing journal, chronicling the biggest milestones in my manuscripts. (On that note, I got Duty back from my critique partner on the third and finished the latest round of revisions on Tuesday.)

I’d like to do more with the blog portion of the site. I’ve had a few ideas for posts on grammar mechanics and writing technique, as well as some fun activities. I’ve been holding off for a formal “launch” for the website. Subscribe to the blog to get RSS updates (or email updates) so you don’t miss anything!

Works

Bragging rights

I’m so excited! Judged by the wonderful Annette Lyon and hosted by the illustrious Michelle Mitchell of Scribbit fame, the March 2009 Write-Away Contest centered around the theme of “sweet.” And this morning, they announced the winner:

Me!

I know you’re dying to see the winning entry, so here you go:

The stereotypical image of the forbidden fruit of the Garden of Eden is an apple. I must respectfully dissent from popular opinion here—if I had to choose a modern fruit to grow on the tree of knowledge of good and evil, I’d have to go with the plum. . . .

Read the rest of “The Bitter and the Sweet.”

Aside from some very decadent-sounding truffles, I’m getting some serious bragging rights. I should also thank Sarah and my mother for their help editing the essay. Yes, I’m revealing a deep dark secret—I’m not a prize-winning author on my first draft. And of course, thanks to Annette for judging and Michelle for hosting!