THE VERSATILE BLOGGER AWARDS

I interrupt Authorpalooza to bring you this special message . . .


The delightful Susan Buchanan, blogger and author extraordinaire, has been kind enough to present me with a Versatile Blogger Award.  I love blogging and I put a lot of time, thought, and energy into trying to come up with fun and fresh things to post here at Books by Banister, so it's very gratifying to receive this commendation.  

Thanks to Susan Buchanan at Sooz's Journal for bestowing this lovely award upon me.  It is greatly appreciated.  Sooz's Journal is a wonderful blog where you'll find Susan's thoughts on writing and the whole crazy self-publishing process. 


The rules of The Versatile Blogger Awards are as follows:

• Thank the person who gave you the award and include a link to their blog.  CHECK
• Select 15 blogs/bloggers that you've recently discovered or follow regularly.  If it's a bit of a task to list 15, and I don't want you to feel being nominated is a burden, just mention as many as you can - 8 or 10 is fine  List them, and you might like to include a link to their sites, and let them know that you've nominated them.  CHECK (see my list of fave blogs below)
• Tell the person who nominated you 7 things about yourself.  FUN and CHECK

Seven little-known facts about yours truly:

1) I was a carrot-top for the first two years of my life.  I wish I had a scanner so that I could share with everyone my very first swimsuit shot, which consisted of my chubby little 1 1/2 year-old self striking a pose in a fuschia one-piece with my clashing orange  head.  Thankfully, my hair turned blonde a short time later.

2) I am a devout Anglophile and love all things British - Earl Grey tea, Downton Abbey, Shakespeare, Jane Austen, the royal family (I got up in the wee hours of the morning to watch the weddings of Charles/Di and Sarah/Andrew, plus the funeral of Princess Diana, live.)  I think my fascination with the English people and culture is a genetic thing because my maternal grandmother was born in England and came to America with her parents when she was 5.  I missed that accent by just two generations, darn it!  

3) My mother had a terrific craving for pineapple sherbet when she was pregnant with me and she ate it constantly.  The only food that I'm allergic to is, guess what?  Pineapple.  Weird, huh?

4) I read GONE WITH THE WIND, all 1048 pages of it, when I was just 11 years old.  It remains my favorite book to this day (okay, it's tied with PRIDE AND PREJUDICE.)

5) I was a cheerleader in elementary school (Don't laugh.  Football is a BIG deal in Texas no matter how young you are.) and I was on the Homecoming Court in 4th grade.  The redheaded rascal who escorted me to the Homecoming ceremony was named Keith.  8 years later when I was on Homecoming Court in high school, I was also escorted by a young man named Keith (totally different guy in a different state - North Carolina.)  I didn't win either time, so maybe that name is bad luck for me?

6) I have never had a passport, although I have been out of the country once - to Canada, but I was able to show my birth certificate and get over the border and back.

7) I was born with a geographic tongue, which means my tongue has lines on it like a map.  

I would like to pass The Versatile Blogger Award on to the following people, whose blogs continually inspire and entertain me.  Thank you for updating frequently, for always striving to come up with interesting, new topics, for making me laugh, drool, sigh, and nod my head in agreement.  These blogs come with my highest recommendation:

Isabella Anderson (author/reviewer), Chick Lit Goddess 

Michelle Betham (author)

Laura Chapman (author/reviewer), Change the Word

Heidi Hall (author/reviewer)

Meredith Jaeger (author), The Trouble With Twenty-Two

Rachel Kall (author)

Tracey Livesay (author), Mimosas at Midnight

Romi Moondi (author)

Brooke Moss (author)

Sophie Moss (author), Sophie Moss Writes 

Dina Santorelli (author), Making Baby Grand

Meredith Schorr (author)

Lucie Simone (author/reviewer) 

Juliette Sobanet (author), Chocolate for Writers

Jen Tucker (author)