Category: Museitup

Pride Must Be A Place Review…

For some unknown reason, My Google alerts chose today to send me an alert on a PRIDE MUST BE A PLACE review from July. Maybe Google knew I needed a boost in spirit?

Anyway, I’ve been talking so much about my recent release, THE CAMINO CLUB, that I sometimes forget how happy I was to have PRIDE MUST BE A PLACE published. I absolutely loved writing that story about the inception of a Gay Straight Alliance in a small town high school! I wrote half of Pride at the 2015 Muskoka Novel Marathon. Then, Michael and I stayed at his sister’s cottage for a week later on during that same July and I finished the manuscript. It was a fun ride!

Anyway, Google sent me an alert for a beautiful review of Pride that was posted at Muskoka Style Magazine in July. The reviewer, Kaitlyn Sutey, actually suggested it for a Pride Month read. It’s really a gorgeous review and it reminds me that I have written other books. We lose sight of that when we’re in the thick of publishing The Next Novel.

Click the photo from the article below to be taken to the review: Pride Must Be A Place, A Summer Read

If you haven’t yet read PRIDE MUST BE A PLACE, you can pick it up at any of the below links (there’s also a link to Goodreads, where you can add it to your shelf and read what others are saying about Pride:
Amazon USA | Amazon Canada | Barnes & Noble | Books-A-Million | Book Depository | BookShop | Indigo-Chapters | IndieBound | WalMart USA | Goodreads

While you’re here, I did just release a novel a week ago! The Camino Club, from Duet Books/Interlude Press, is now available everywhere!

Here’s what American Library Association’s BOOKLIST has to say about it:

Pick up your copy today at any of the following links!

Amazon USA | Amazon Canada | Barnes & Noble | Books-A-Million | Book Depository | BookShop | Indigo-Chapters | IndieBound | Kobo USA | Kobo Canada | Interlude Press/Duet Books | WalMart USA | Target | Blackwell’s (UK) | Booktopia (Aus) | APPLE Books | Goodreads

Sebastian’s Poet Nearing the Gate! (Editor Love)

Okay, so I love working with a good editor. I just went through the first round of edits for my soon to be released adult novel, SEBASTIAN’S POET. My editor was so precise and helpful. I just love the way she was able to take a sentence that was a little foggy and rework it until it said exactly what I wanted it to say. It was like she was a clairvoyant, reading my intent and making it reality. I hear writers often complaining about the editing process. Heck, I’ve done it myself. But when you read the notes of the editor and they all help you to see things in a slightly different slant—a more correct slant—it’s such a euphoric feeling. I love that my editor is able to adjust things here and there until the clarity that I was looking for comes through. It’s an amazing experience. I felt giddy as I read some of her suggestions and notations. 

Round two of my edits will be coming my way shortly. I’m really excited about this book. It was a real journey writing SEBASTIAN’S POET. The first draft was written in a 48hr writing marathon. By the end of that marathon, I was peaking on words. I felt like Carlos Castaneda flying on peyote. But it was such a clean high, this high of words. There is NOTHING to describe the feeling of writing a novel in one sitting, without an outline, without an idea of where you’re going to go. I just sat down and wrote. I watched the words appearing on the screen and felt as though I were seeing them for the first time, like they didn’t just travel through my mind, down my arms and through my fingers onto the screen. I wrote faster and faster so that I could find out what would happen next. 

Over the next couple of years (Sebastian’s Poet was written in July, 2007) I worked extremely hard at polishing the manuscript. Once it was accepted for publication by Musa Publishing, I felt like my favourite baby was picked! I’ve written seven or eight novels over the past few years, but this one…the emotional attachment is so great. It was my first marathon novel. I lived and breathed nothing but it for an entire weekend. It was my peyote. When it recently went through the first round of edits, and I saw my editor making all the iffy sentences I thought to be ready actually resonating with more clarity—well, I wanted to dance. It made me that happy. I can’t wait to see the second round of edits.

This is the novel I am most proud of. I am on tenterhooks to see the cover of SEBASTIAN’S POET. So excited! Can’t wait! 

More to come on the release of this novel. Until then, SUMMER ON FIRE, my young adult novel, is still available. (-:

 

My debut novel, Summer on Fire

Preparing for Montreal Book Signing – MuseItYoung – Nov 5

Just getting ready to print flyers for the table at my book-signing in Montreal this coming Saturday. There will be a slew of MuseItUp Publishing authors on hand at Zellers in Pointe Claire…for most of the afternoon. Should be a great event!

 

SUMMER ON FIRE by KEVIN CRAIG

Zach Carson is a loyal friend. But is loyalty enough to keep best friends together when one of them sets fire to the rural barn they use as the local hangout? Zach, Jeff Barsell and Arnie Wilson struggle to pick up the pieces when news spreads that a body was discovered in the burnt out shell of the neighbouring home. When the word murder is used by the local police, the stakes grow even higher. When the police start searching for their most likely suspect—none other than Jeff’s older brother, and nemesis, Marty Barsell—the boys decide to join forces and come up with a way to prove his innocence. But just how innocent is Marty Barsell? When Marty admits to being at the scene of the crime, the three friends enlist the help of Zach’s annoying sister, Sherry, as well as the sympathetic town eccentric, Ms. Halverton. But can they keep it together long enough to save Marty, and themselves, from imminent catastrophe? Summer on Fire is the story of friendships, and the lines we are asked to cross in order to keep them.

“This book was absolutely fantastic. I can already see that this will be making the round among family and friends. I would highly recommend this book. I am confident you won’t be disappointed.”

“Couldn’t put this one down. I was immediately captured by the three boys & the crisis that threatened to rip apart their friendship.”

“Kevin does an amazing job of telling a story where heart, loyalty and courage are at war with one another.”

“A delightful read…hopefully we will see more from Mr. Craig.”

“This is beautifully written…I loved every word of the book.”

“What a great read! I’ll be recommending this to both my teenage children! Great job…I can’t wait to read the next one.”

AVAILABLE at     ZELLERS

www.museituppublishing.com

CHAPTERS/INDIGO       BARNES & NOBLE        AMAZON

www.kevintcraig.com                            www.kevintcraig.wordpress.com

Montreal Bound – November 4-5-6 for MuseItUp Publishing Extravaganza

November 4/5/6, MuseItUp Publishing is hosting their first retreat to be held in Montreal. Writers from around the world will gather for a three day event that includes a huge booksigning extravaganza at:

Zellers Pointe Claire on Saturday, November 5, from 1 to 5 pm

Come and meet our authors that day and have a chance to win one of several door prizes, including 500,000 Club Z points offered by Zellers to one lucky winner.

It’s true. I will be in Montreal November 4-5-6 to help promote my publisher and my young adult novel SUMMER ON FIRE. We have a lot of things lined up…I do believe we will be taking Montreal by storm.

Lately, I’m realizing how hard it is to continually promote yourself and your work when you’re not in the self-promoting mood. To be truthful, I am NEVER in the self-promoting mood. It feels contrary to who I am. But I feel it’s a blessing to have my work published and I am grateful for the opportunity. I don’t want to waste it by being myself and hiding in a corner somewhere trying desperately to look like I don’t exist. SO…I will be in Montreal, signing copies of my debut novel. If you’re in the area, please come out and see some of the wonderful MuseItUp authors. I will be the desperate wallflower aching for a wall.

Available directly from my publisher, by clicking the book cover above. Or, you can also purchase SUMMER ON FIRE through CHAPTERS BARNES & NOBLE AMAZON and other booksellers.

Follow the reviews at GOODREADS

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

Guess what I did last night?

I picked up my dog’s ‘leavings’. It’s true. And I also did dishes over the weekend, and went grocery shopping. I did so many mundane everyday things, it would take me too long to list them here.

I thought everything was going to change.

I thought the sun would shine brighter. I thought someone else would drive me to where I needed to go. AND that the places I needed to go would suddenly become more luxurious, more Grey Pouponish.

Nope. I can sit here on the other side of the first weekend of my authordom and assure you I have no servants. I have no exciting places to go. I have no golden chariot in my driveway. And, no, my driveway did not become paved with gold over the weekend. As much as I expected it to happen, it did not.

This published author is still picking up dog poop. Still getting his hands dirty. C’est la vie.

But I am dancing in the positive feedback my novel is receiving. I am having the time of my life. The more things change, the more they stay the same. But it is also true that the more they change, the more you appreciate everything that doesn’t. I wouldn’t change my life for anything.

Of course I knew that along with the praise that came, I would still be sat here in my same life doing the same daily chores and tasks. This is my life. I share it with the best people I know. I am proud to say I have a wonderful and amazing dog to pick up after. Franny rocks! I even said so in the opening pages of Summer on Fire. I couldn’t thank others, without also thanking her.

I love it here. I don’t expect fame and fortune. I expect to keep on living. And I also expect to keep on chasing my passion. Writing, the process of writing, is everything to me. The fact that a few people will read my words, and that a few of those people will enjoy them, is just an added bonus.

Don’t mind me. I’ll be over here cutting the grass, or pulling the weeds, or picking up after Franny, or doing the groceries, or what have you. And if I’m lucky, I’ll even be sitting in a corner occasionally, writing!

Summer on Fire is now available, by the way (I’m published now…I have to mention that my book is available. Isn’t that to be expected?) You can click on the cover below to be taken to the MuseItUp Publishing Bookstore (or, it’s also available in most online stores where books are available, including Amazon).