Spotlight Saturday: Guest Post and Giveaway with Jackie Gamber

Hi, everyone!

Welcome to another edition of Spotlight Saturday at Darlene's Book Nook, where we feature authors and their books!

We will be joined today by Jackie Gamber.

About Jackie:

As an award winning author, Jackie writes stories ranging from ultra-short to novel-length, varieties of which have appeared in anthologies such as Tales of Fantasy and Dragons Composed, as well as numerous periodical publications, including Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show, The Binnacle, Mindflights Magazine, Necrotic Tissue, and Shroud.

She is the author of the fantasy novel Redheart, and writing an alternate history time travel novel. She blogs professionally for English Tea Store.com, where she reviews classic science fiction and fantasy novels and pairs them with the ideal tea-sipping companion. Jackie is a member of the professional organizations Science Fiction Writers of America and Horror Writers Association. She was named honorable mention in L. Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future Award, and received a 2008 Darrell Award for best short story by a Mid-South author. She is the winner of the 2009 Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Award for Imaginative Fiction for her story The Freak Museum, a post-apocalyptic tale that looks closely at perceptions and outward appearances and how they affect the way we see ourselves.

Jackie was signed to Seventh Star Press in September of 2010, to publish her full Leland Dragon Series. Book One, Redheart, was reissued in March of 2011, with Book Two, Sela, to follow in the beginning of 2012, and the third book of the series in early 2013.

For more information on Jackie, please visit her at:

http://www.jackiegamber.com
http://www.lelanddragons.com
http://www.hads.us

Welcome to Darlene's Book Nook, Jackie!

Jackie has written a guest post, so I will now turn the floor over to her!

Playing with Imaginary Friends
By Jackie Gamber

The writing profession is a solitary one; ideas well from misty introspective places, storytelling is an anti-social endeavor. Writing “The End” is a do-or-die, one-on-one challenge. When I decide to tell a tale, it’s a deal I make with myself to see how far I can go and how willing I am to do what needs doing. No one else is affected if I don’t meet my goals, but me.

Well, and my imaginary friends.

They have a yen to have their stories told.

Does it seem eccentric to hear me describe them that way? Fellow fiction writers share this understanding of imaginary friends. My family has patience with my discussing my characters as though they exist as real as you and me, in some other dimension. It took some time for even me to accept my own concepts.

But really, characters do need to feel that real, that alive, in order for me to transcribe their stories. Not only because I want readers to believe in them, but because why else would I choose to spend so much alone time to work?

It’s difficult to pin down exactly what makes a character real. For a writer, perhaps small bits and memories and feelings of the self find their way into a story. Maybe we dream of people we want to be, places we want to visit, things we would accomplish if only circumstances shifted a smidge to the right or the left. Or perhaps our characters grow from regrets, and we tell stories over and over, trying to change the outcome of our own choices.

Or maybe, stories and characters are from all of these. None of these.

One thing I believe, though: a real character is emotion. He or she is created by it, and at best, evokes it.

I’m not only a writer, I’m a reader. And I read for the same reason I write. To experience life through the eyes of people I might otherwise never meet, never know. To play with the imaginary friends of fellow writers.

But I have to believe in a character in order to invest. Reading is a solitary act, as well, and I spend more alone time to do it.

So by believing in a character, and feeling his or her emotions, that character becomes authentic. If only for a moment, with each turn of the page, from cover to cover, that character lives.

What better reason for me to pull a chair in tightly to my desk, face a blank page, and be anti-social?

Except, thinking on it that way, writing couldn’t be more social. Telling a tale, I’m surrounded by people as real on the page as they could be in the world. Characters who think, choose, and feel.

They are my friends. Or my enemies.

But in my imagination, they couldn’t be more real.

Thanks so much for joining us today, Jackie! I'm looking forward to reading Redheart! 

Giveaway: 

One lucky winner will receive a copy of Redheart.

This giveaway is limited to entries from Canada and the United States only at the publisher's request.

SYNOPSIS: 

Enter the lands of Leland Province, where dragon and human societies have long dwelled side by side. Superstitions rise sharply, as a severe drought strips the land of its bounty, providing fertile ground for the darker ambitions of Fordon Blackclaw, Dragon Council Leader, who seeks to subdue humans or wipe them off the face of the land.

As the shadow of danger creeps across Leland Province, a young dragon named Kallon Redheart, who has turned his back on dragons and humans alike, comes into an unexpected friendship. Riza Diantus is a young woman whose dreams can no longer be contained by the narrow confines of her village, and when she finds herself in peril, Kallon is the only one with the power to save her. Yet to do so means he must confront his past, and embrace a future he stopped believing in.

A tale of friendship, courage, and ultimate destiny, Redheart invites readers to a wondrous journey through the Leland Dragon Series.

To enter the giveaway, you must complete the Rafflecopter entry form below.

This giveaway is limited to entries from Canada and the United States only, and it will close on Saturday, December 3rd at 12:01 AM EST.