Guest Star: Jeri Smith-Ready

It's time for another Guest Star! Our guest this week is Jeri Smith Ready, contributor to the brand new anthology, Enthralled

About ENTHRALLED

This collection of original paranormal YA short stories grew out of the 2010 Smart Chicks Kick It Tour, a multiauthor, multicity, author-organized tour of the US and Canada.  With it, these 16 authors hoped to bring a little taste of the Smart Chicks experience to readers everywhere.

About the story "BRIDGE"

In the world of the SHADE novels, everyone seventeen and under can see and hear ghosts, but no one else can.  So when Logan Keeley dies and his eighteen-year-old brother Mickey blames himself, they can’t ease each other’s pain or reconcile their rage.  Over the course of SHADE and SHIFT, Mickey sinks into a near-suicidal depression over Logan’s death. 

“Bridge” is the story, told in free verse, of how two brothers, with the help of a stranger, forge the chasm between them to find a lasting peace.

“A solid collection of stories...Sarah Rees Brennan's ‘Let's Get This Undead Show on the Road’ follows a vampire in a boy-band and stands out with its perfect blend of snark and sincerity. It's followed in a one-two punch by Jeri Smith-Ready's intense and earnest ‘Bridge.’...This collection is ideal as a sampler tray for paranormal readers looking to pick up new authors to follow or to further explore the fictional worlds they already know. 

—Kirkus Reviews

A standout among the many paranormal-themed anthologies. 

—Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (Recommended review)

And here's my interview with the author, Jeri Smith-Ready

What was your favorite part of writing this book? Your least favorite part?

My favorite part was trying something different-writing in free verse. I've always loved reading it, in books by authors like Ellen Hopkins, Lisa Schroeder, and Jame Richards.  It drills down to bare emotions and forces the writer to choose precise words to express their meaning.  I loved creating rhythms and sounds to reinforce the feelings and thoughts Logan was trying to get across.

My least favorite part is my fear that I did it wrong.

As writers, we all love to procrastinate. What's your favorite procrastination activity?

Hands down: Twitter.  I've never been addicted to anything-food, video games, drugs-but I'm addicted to Twitter.  It's like my lifelife to other people.  I have this fear that if I leave it for a day, everyone will forget about me.  So it's more than an addiction, it's a full-blown existential crisis! ;-)

If your main character, Logan, could give one piece of advice to teenage girls, what would it be?

Since he died from a mixture of drugs and alcohol (not an overdose, but a deadly combination), he would definitely warn teens to stay away from that stuff.  Especially alcohol, because it makes you do stupid things (like take drugs).

As a guy talking to girls, he would say to watch out for "bad boys." They're so popular in YA literature, but in real life, they're not secretly good on the inside, waiting for the right girl to come along and redeem them.  They're just bad. Except Logan would use a harsher word than "bad."

If there was one thing about Logan's life that you'd like to have in your own life, what would it be? What about the one thing about his life that you'd NEVER want to have?

I would love to be a musician!  I've always dreamed of performing in a band-I guess that's why I love reading aloud so much.  And to have the close relationship he has with his siblings, both the ones in the band (Siobhan and Mickey) and his younger brother Dylan.  My brother and sister are eight and ten years older, and while we're close now, when I was growing up it was like having four parents.

I wouldn't want to live in a world with ghosts everywhere, even if I wasn't young enough to see them.  That would be really creepy.

What are you working on next?

I'm still revising/perfecting SHINE, the third part of the SHADE trilogy, which comes out May 1.  Then I'll write the final book in my adult vampire series, LUST FOR LIFE, which comes out next October.

Then I start my first YA contemporary, slated for a Fall 2013 release. We'll be announcing more details next month, but I can tell you this much: 1) it's about a boy and 2) I am very, very excited about it!

About the author:

JERI SMITH-READY has been writing fiction since the night she had her first double espresso. Her nine published books include two series for adults and the SHADE trilogy for teens, about a world of ghosts only the young can see, which concludes May 2012 with SHINE.  Like many of her characters, Jeri enjoys music, movies, and staying up very, very late.  Visit her at www.JeriSmithReady.com, or on Facebook (www.facebook.com/JeriSmithReady) or Twitter (http://twitter.com/jsmithready), where she spends way too much time.  Logan himself can be found on Twitter @keeley_logan, as can his rival/”brother-in-pulp,” Zachary Moore (@moore_zachary).  The boys love to chat with each other and with their real-life fans.

First Impressions: What I Love about Brazil!

So here I am in gorgeous, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and it couldn't have exceeded my expectations more! It's so beautiful here! I love it!

Atop Sugar Loaf Mountain!

I really enjoy experiencing new countries and cultures. And since it's my first time here, I thought I'd share with you a few things that I love (so far!) about Brazil.

A quick disclaimer: I've only been in the city of Rio and so these impressions are limited to what I've seen here. I obviously can't speak for the rest of the country!


Food/Drink:

•  There's cheese EVERYWHERE! In the pastries, in the bread, served as a side dish. And since I'm such a big lover of cheese, this won me over on day ONE!
  
  
• The soda here is made with actual sugar (not high fructose corn syrup!) In fact, when I tried to explain this strange American phenomenon of the High Fructose Corn syrup to a Brazilian friend of mine here, she looked at me with a funny expression and said, "Corn? In soda?" Exactly!
  
  
• The coffee is heavenly! And it's served (at least at my hotel) with a choice of cold AND hot milk! And the milk is thick and creamy and delicious! I haven't seen a dinky little artificial creamer cup anywhere.
  
  
• They serve coconuts with a straw in it! As evidenced in the photo. It's better than any "juice box" of coconut water I've ever tasted! The coconut is literally pulled from the tree, a whole is drilled in it, a straw is added, and voila! Refreshing drink! (And" it's got electrolytes!" Note: if you haven't seen the movie, Idiocracy, either go rent it or disregard this joke.)
  
  
• Other random foods I've found irresistible: Pão bisnaguinha (little sweet bread rolls that look like mini hot dog buns), pipoca caramel (caramel popcorn), Aipim Frita (some kind of fried root vegetable similar to a potato that reminded me a lot of potato pancakes), Guarana Soda (which tastes kind of like ginger ale but sweeter, hence, better!) and Pão de Queijo (cheese bread. Let's face it, is it EVER possible to go wrong when you put cheese and bread together?)

 
General Cultural Observations:

• When you order something "pequeno" (small), like coffee, drinks, etc, it's actually SMALL! As someone who has often been accused of "eating like a bird," I'm very appreciative of this. I'm tired of ordering "small" portions in the U.S. and not even being able to finish them. And then feeling guilty for wasting food. Since when did the "small" soda at fast food restaurants become a Big Gulp? Observe the photograph. This was a "chocolate pequeno" (A small hot chocolate) or as my husband likes to say, "Jessica Size" and I actually finished it! And the tiny little spoon was just too "fofa" (cute) for words.
  
  
• The public buses (at least the ones in Rio) have both a driver AND a cashier, who sits in a little booth behind the driver and sells tickets. I find this to be completely brilliant! I've been to so many countries where the driver is both the driver and the cashier and not only does it slow down the entire boarding process, it puts a lot of stress on the foreigner (that would be me) who is trying desperately to figure out how much I owe, how to ask how much I owe in a language I barely speak, and which one of these unfamiliar colorful bills is the right denomination (all while the driver is speeding to the next stop). So thank you, Rio, for this simple yet effective solution!
  
• And speaking of unfamiliar colorful bills, the money here has animals on it! As an animal lover, I find this to be totally awesome! I mean, seriously, how cool is it to pay for your dinner with money that has a monkey, a parrot and a jaguar on it? I'll tell you.... it's REALLY cool!
  
• Rio has some of the most well groomed dogs I've ever seen! I'm not kidding! Around 6-8 pm, everyone is out walking their dogs and it looks like a dog show. The coats are shiny and immaculate, as though the dogs spent the entire day at the beauty parlor while their owners were at work. They make my dogs (who spend their days, rubbing themselves in the dirt and chasing squirrels through fields) look like bums!
  
• Everyone here is really active and in shape. There are always people jogging, biking, and playing volleyball all day long. It's great! Check out the picture of the Ipanema beach strand on Sunday. They close the street to cars and everyone is out walking! And instead of fast food restaurants and Starbucks on every corner, they have juice shops. Seriously, the Brazilians LOVE their juice. And I don't blame them, it's delicious! So hmmm....juice instead of fast food on every corner, real sugar instead of High Fructose Corn syrup, and I haven't seen a single overweight local? Seems pretty self-explanatory to me!
   
• And the final thing that I love about Rio (so far)...is that everyone is really nice! They smile at you, and are helpful and are very appreciative when you try to speak Portuguese! (The operative word here being "try").

Well, that's all for now! I'll post more first impressions as they come!

Tchau!
Jessica