Thursday, June 24, 2010

Double RITA nominee Elisabeth Naughton

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Romantic Suspense author, Elisabeth Naughton, whose book Stolen Fury is up for 2...count them, 2 Romance Writers of America's RITA ® awards this year in the Romantic Suspense category AND the Best First Book category, has graciously hosted Golden Heart finalists her blog for the past few weeks (and for the next few weeks to come).

And today is my day! Please stop by if you get the chance.

Elisabeth Naughton's Blog

After this hectic spate of lovely and much appreciated publicity, Heather's Historical Hodgepodge should be returning to Tuesday posts.

In other news, the American Chemical Society saw the Kansas City Star article last week, and called me. After a couple of lovely interviews about this chemist turned romance writer, they will be running an article in the Chemical and Engineering News towards the end of July. Interesting times :)

I won't be posting next week, as I will be out of internet range until after the 4th of July. See you on the 6th!

Have a great holiday.

Monday, June 7, 2010

A Case of the Mondays...

A Case of the Mondays…

I’m writing my blog post on Monday this week because I was featured in my local newspaper, the Kansas City Star, in their FYI section in a little piece they call “A Case of the Mondays.”

Each week, they choose a local person to showcase. They do a short interview, then create random questions, which you answer in a one-liner sort of format, with the final question relating to Mondays.

I am very honored to have been chosen as June 7th’s case. (I tried to tell them I wasn’t that cool, but they decided to run it anyway).

So, if you live in the KC area, it’s on the cover of today’s FYI section. If you don’t, I’m posting a link to the online version which has the text and a picture, but is missing the cute pink fluffy mule slippers and Hydrogen clip-art.

I thought it would be fun to also give you my unofficial answers to be compared to what actually made it into the story, so those are below the link.
Have a great week!

A Case of the Mondays - Heather Snow (this link will take you to the actual article. My unvarnished answers are below)

Last movie I wanted to bail on but didn’t: “The Cell”. If I hadn’t been trapped in the middle of the very top row, I’d have been out of there.

My favorite element from the periodic table:
I’m going to have to go with hydrogen. It’s the most abundant and simplest of elements, it has the potential to power the world cleanly and most importantly—when it oxidizes, it becomes water. I am a total waterbaby!

My biggest fear if I win a 2010 Romance Writers of America Golden Heart Award: My right brain says it fears that everyone will expect me to wear those fluffy pink mules with the kitten heels when I write. I’ve got a two-year-old to chase. This mama has got to wear sensible shoes!
My left brain says it fears I would win the Golden Heart but never get published.



When my right brain and left brain do battle, which one wins?
Left, every time. Which can be creatively challenging, but I love a challenge.

Latte or coffee, black?
I’m a tea with milk and sugar (and scones with clotted cream) kind of girl.

Best name ever for a historical romance character:
Geoffrey Alisdair Wentworth, Earl of Stratford, of course, the hero from my novel “Sweet Enemy”. But if I can’t choose one of my own characters, people seem to love dark names like “Devlin” or “Lucien” or “Deverill”. I prefer Ambrose, but really, anything sounds good with a title attached to it.

“Gone with the Wind” or “The Notebook”? Will I lose my romance writer tiara if I say neither? Give me Cary Grant and Irene Dunne in “The Awful Truth” any day, even if it wasn’t adapted from a book.

I knew I was officially a mom when… I started to really view other humans as the precious gifts that we are. My son taught me that.

Plot device I pledge never to employ:
Heroine wakes up only to realize that it was all just a dream while declaring the butler did it which, of course, he did.

Mondays don’t scare me because…
I’ve got one of the toughest critique groups in town and they meet on Tuesdays. Tuesdays are terrifying!

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

It's not a holiday weekend unless...

…someone ends up in the emergency room. In 1987, my fourth of July holiday weekend was spent in the hospital recovering from a snake bite. No kidding. A young copperhead got my foot as I walked up the path from the lake, which proceeded to spread venom quickly through my body and necessitated a three day hospital stay. Yay!

Flash forward to Memorial Day 2010. Another holiday spent at the very same lake with family and good friends. It was a nice weekend—incredible weather, dinner from the grill, a little guitar on the patio after the kids went to bed and yes, a few hours in the good old emergency room with my dear husband.

And how, do you ask, did this holiday weekend injury occur? Surely something more cool than a snake bite. Water skiing? Wake boarding? Extreme golfing? Nope. Freak mower accident. The funny part of this story is that my husband claims he brought it on himself because as he was mowing along in his shorts, he was thinking how silly his parents were for riding him as a kid to always wear jeans while mowing. He even arrogantly thought to himself “I’ve been mowing for 25 years and nothing’s ever happened” when a rock kicked up and put a deep puncture wound in his leg.

So listen up, kids…your parents harp at you to wear protective clothing for a reason. Mock them at your peril! A rock may not jump up to bite you for 25 years, but when it does…irrigation and stitches for you, my friend. Not to mention hours sitting next to a guy in a camo-hat with a bloody knee bandage regaling you with his story of how he took on a gang of “punk kids on them souped-up golf carts”. But that’s another story…

I still think I beat my hubby in the cool lake holiday weekend injury department. Do you have any vacation injury stories to share?