Friday Five - Stasia Ward Kehoe

Our Friday Five this week is with Stasia Ward Kehoe, author of AUDITION, a novel in verse that was published by Viking last October.  I'm very pleased to call Stasia a friend as well as a colleague.  We share the same editor AND agent, but more than that, she's given me support and advice and friendship as well.


THE FIVE:


1.  What would your super power be?
Cooking gourmet meals with lightning speed. Also, I’d love to have the power to enjoy doing laundry. Sigh.

2.  If you could go back in time, where/when would you go?
I’d travel to 1930s London and have a nice hot cup of Earl Grey tea at Harrods with my dream besties, Agatha Christie and Noel Streatfeild.

3.  What is your guiltiest pleasure?
I love going to spas for a good massage and a pedicure complete with ridiculously bright, sparkly nail polish.  If I could afford it, I’d go to a spa every week J

4.  What one word do you think describes you best?
Enthusiastic (some might say over-zealous!)

5.  What is your favorite writing motto/mantra?
“Most people go to their graves with their music still inside them.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes.  This quote is written on a scrap of paper beside my computer.  Whenever I am tempted to skip a day of writing, those words recommit me to the keyboard.

ABOUT AUDITION:
From Goodreads:
When high school junior Sara wins a coveted scholarship to study ballet, she must sacrifice everything for her new life as a professional dancer-in-training. Living in a strange city with a host family, she's deeply lonely-until she falls into the arms of Remington, a choreographer in his early twenties. At first, she loves being Rem's muse, but as she discovers a surprising passion for writing, she begins to question whether she's chosen the right path. Is Rem using her, or is it the other way around? And is dancing still her dream, or does she need something more? This debut novel in verse is as intense and romantic as it is eloquent.

You can order AUDITION here.
And throughout March you can enter to win a signed copy of AUDITION on Goodreads.

ABOUT STASIA:

You can find Stasia on the web.
On Twitter.
And in the DEAR TEEN ME Anthology in November.

You can enter to win a signed copy of AUDITION throughout March on Goodreads.

We Have Winners!

First of all, I want to thank every single one of you for the overwhelming amount of enthusiasm for GILT.  And for all your lovely comments about the website design (I have passed them onto the designer, who was delighted!)

Secondly, and without further ado, these are the winners of the website giveaway:

The winner of the Class of 2k12 swag pack is Dominique from the Book Vault!

The winner of the ARC of REMARKABLE by Lizzie K. Foley (which truly is remarkable -- I loved it!)  is Claire Louise at Claire Reads!

The winner of the ARC of GRAVE MERCY by Robin LaFevers (again, I'm having a hard time giving this one up, but I plan to buy a copy of my own next month) is Vivien!

And the winner of the ARC of GILT is Rebecca at ReadingWishes!

Congratulations, winners!  Please e-mail me with your address at katherine(at)katherinelongshore(dot)com and I will get these in the mail to you as soon as possible!

RETREAT!

Writers spend a lot of time alone.  Even those who write in a coffee shop or on a crowded airplane.  We live inside our heads when we write and sometimes coming out of that space discombobulates us as we try to remember where we are and what we're supposed to be doing.

That's why it's so much fun for us to get together and practice our solitary craft all in the same room.

I spent this weekend on a little mini-retreat with some amazing writers.  Beth Hull hosted at her lovely little home, having kicked out her family (but not her cat) and worked on the first revision of a delightfully quirky novel.  Talia Vance brought sandwich supplies and worked on the sequel to her upcoming SILVER (Flux, September 8, 2012).  Pat Kahn kept us supplied with chocolate and guacamole and read from a beautifully descriptive middle grade novel.  And Kristen Held brought pizza fixings and started something completely new that held us all enthralled from the first page.

I made regular coffee runs and had a major breakthrough on Book 3 of The Royal Circle series.

But more than that, we shared that writing space.  The one in which it's OK to hate the words you just set down on the page.  Or to love the fact that your characters just started kissing again.  Or to write something new -- five pages that took six hours to wrench from the recesses of your creative mind -- and read it aloud, knowing that you won't be laughed at.  In fact, someone might just say, "I think you have your first chapter right there."