Goodreads Giveaway–and Michael Gettel-Gilmartin’s Blogging Goodbye

Brave on the Page has been on the Powell’s Small Press Bestseller List daily since December, usually at #2, and we finally moved into the #1 spot on Tuesday. Thanks to all the contributors and our enthusiastic readers, we are now a #1 bestseller! Hurray!

I’m giving away five copies of Brave on the Page through Goodreads. Here’s the link if you want to put your name in the hat between now and when the giveaway closes on Feb. 14.

If you’ve read the book already, please consider leaving a review. And if you’re planning to read it, please add it to your list. I’d love for this project to spread its warm happy glow to more writers outside of Oregon.

As Renée K. Nicholson wrote in her review of Brave on the Page, published by the Los Angeles Review on Saturday, “Separated into three sections, the first and third consisting of interviews and the second made up of flash essays, this book offers interesting advice and inspiration from journalists, novelists, middle-grade authors, poets, nonfiction writers, writer-activists, short story writers, and all kind of writers in-between. What emerges is a tapestry of writers who happen to hail from the same geographic region, sharing wisdom, encouragement, and counsel beyond the boundaries of regional writing.”

This is a craft book by a particular group of people, in this case geographically connected instead of, say, graduates of the same MFA program. So it’s not just for Oregon writers. And Renée captured that spirit of the collection beautifully with her review.

Michael Gettel-Gilmartin holds a copy of Brave on the Page at the Powell’s Espresso Book Machine.

And speaking of Oregon writers, yesterday Michael Gettel-Gilmartin closed down his blog, A Year of Living Dangerously, to focus on other projects. He started the effort in February 2010 to chronicle twelve months of social media and agent querying, and then kept it going. I interviewed Michael for Brave on the Page and especially appreciated his tips on social media.

Michael had a vocal and established following when I first started this blog, and his work inspired me to grow this community. I met him through a mutual friend, and although we’re practically neighbors, we didn’t actually meet until the Espresso Book Machine launch party for Brave on the Page last October. I have since had the pleasure of hearing him read from his middle grade novel, Shakespeare on the Lam. 

As an inspirational farewell, Michael collected quotes from writers about the craft and compiled them into two lovely blog posts. You can read part one here. And you can find part two, which features a few thoughts from me, here. Funny, when I sat down to write some writerly pearls of wisdom, as Michael requested, I began by thumbing through Brave on the Page, trying to decide who to quote. And then I realized I wanted to say something about how writing advice is intended to inspire, but each writer ultimately knows his or her own process best and should trust that instinct.

You can still find Michael online at his other blog, Middle Grade Mafioso. He’s also a contributor to Project Middle Grade Mayhem.

Thanks for all the work you did with The Year of Writing Dangerously, Michael, and especially for your commitment to contact each of your comment-leavers personally. That really helped shape my philosophy of blogging.