I’m very excited about tomorrow. I will be at HallowRead tomorrow in Ellicott City, which is very charming. I highly recommend day trips to Ellicott City in general.
I will be speaking on the “Coming of Age” panel at 1:15pm, if you are into that kind of thing. I will have tee shirts available for sale, and swag bags for reviewers.
Come by and say hi and, if ya like, buy a book!
Tickets are available for purchase here: http://hallowread.com/tickets/
Hope to see you there!
WHERE: Glenn Dale, MD – Marietta House
WHEN: October 7 @ 2:30pm
WHAT: Historic House Tour, Reading, Signing, Costume Contest (with prize!), Refreshments
October 7th – come join us for a supernatural afternoon of readings, refreshments, and tour the historic home. Are there ghosts? You tell us!
Marietta House Museum’s “Author’s & Playwright’s Corner” presents supernatural fiction with authors H.L. Brooks, and Dea Schofield. This event is a great opportunity to support independent women authors. Continue reading
I miss waiting for “The Wizard of Oz” to come on once or twice a year. I miss the lead up to the end of the school year and the phenomenon of the summer blockbuster. I miss not understanding about bills and politics. I miss jump-rope and jacks and creeks with smooth stones. I miss that first kiss feeling, when you weren’t even sure how kissing worked. I miss grape soda and skinned knees, tire swings and climbing trees. I miss swimming all day for weeks in a row. I miss the coolness of a desert night, sitting in a concrete pipe with a friend talking about everything, after the rest of the neighborhood had gone to sleep.
I will be a vendor at the Celebrating Women event in Prince George’s County at Marietta House Museum. I will have my novel and coloring book available.
Red August copies are $14.95, the coloring book is $8.99 – descriptions and photos at the end of this post.
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I’m lucky enough to know two other fantastic area women artists who will also be vending at the event, Bridget of BDevlinDesigns, and Mary of Scribbles In Stitches.
The event is meant to showcase the talents of women artists and entrepreneurs.
From the website event page:
September 17th – 11am-6pm
Celebrate women of many talents – artists, and entrepreneurs. Shop female owned food, wine and craft vendors. View artists’ demonstrations and enjoy readings, plays, music and more. $5 per person entry – children 5 and under are free.
Please come by and support area artists and businesses!
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What if you found out that you were descended from a long line of clandestine fighters, and that your family was still at war? Or that the love of your life was something other than human? August Archer thinks she’s a normal teenage girl—even though she has been having disturbing and erotic dreams about wolves lately. Still grieving over the loss of her bookish, charming father, and wondering over his final gift of a red hooded cloak, August is uprooted from her New York City apartment to a tiny town in Maryland, and the rambling Victorian house where he grew up. There she meets a wise woman with a gift for herbal medicine, the gentle old man who keeps the house in repair and the grounds thriving, and her new neighbor: an enigmatic, irresistibly fascinating man who refuses to talk to her, yet who seems to know her better than she knows herself, and fuels her most intense romantic fantasies. But it’s when August begins to coax her feisty Scottish grandmother out of her self-imposed catatonia that a strange tale of werewolves and hunters emerges—one in which the man of her dreams may be her family’s oldest enemy—in this modern-day telling of the Red Riding Hood story.
This is the handmade cover for the original “The Hound and the Hedgehog” which was made out of a Harry Potter book that fell apart. I later acquired a stuffed hedgehog and gave him the features of our lovable and fearless Pokey.
Weatherhill and Raven Heights Radio Presents
The Hound and the Hedgehog
Written by William Hardy
Script Adaptation by Heather Brooks & William Hardy
Directed by Heather Brooks
Private eye Don Keyhote knew he was in for it the minute he laid eyes on the gorgeous dame in the red dress who walked into his office that gray December day. But what starts out as a lost pet case turns into a whole kennel full of trouble for the doubtful gumshoe as he encounters a shifty bird, a hulking gorilla, and a slippery weasel—not to mention a hedgehog who’s handy with a cocktail sword—in this semi-hardboiled shaggy dog story.
The Players
William Hardy as P.I. Don Keyhote & Pokey
Erica Smith as Heather Fields (the Woman in Red) & Myra
Robin Elaine, Erica Winter & Heather Brooks as Ferret, Monk, Detective Brannigan and sound effects.
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Coming for the holidays is a fun little radio play that has been adapted from an adorable book written by William Hardy.
“The Hound and the Hedgehog” was a short story written for me as a gift one fine winter holiday season several years ago. It contains lots of little inside jokes, like many of the animals mentioned happen to look a bit like our family pets. Not to mention (though it seems I am mentioning it) the damsel in distress is named Heather and she bears a striking resemblance to another Heather you might have heard of (me) before I let my hair go white and pink and cut it all off.
This is Hera. She used to live with me when I had a house and a yard and my family was still all together. She now lives with Robin in the most doggiest of happy dog havens. Hera is part hound and therefore sort of a mascot for “The Hound and the Hedgehog,” even if the hound in the story is the gumshoe.
I think about this little story every holiday and Will reads it to our family (at my pressing) from time to time because it’s just short enough to do that. My love of radio plays, which started with Seeing Ear Theatre’s production of Snow Glass Apples written by Neil Gaiman, had me thinking maybe I’d like to be involved with a radio play some day. Then, after a couple of podcasts with Raven Heights Radio I read some of “The Hound and the Hedgehog” to Raven Heights mastermind and podcast goddess Erica Winter and asked her if she thought she’d be interested in it as a voice play. She loved the story and the idea, and so we thought it would make a good bit of story-time around the holidays. Partly because some of it takes place around the holidays and partly because it’s family friendly and fun.
We’re set to have a rehearsal in a couple of weeks, then we will record in early December. Erica tells me she will be putting it on the Raven Heights website right before the holidays.
Below are some of the other animals that make cameos in the story.
Copyright 2015 Weatherhill
My sweetheart and I play a game. One of us makes up a sentence and then the other one invents a short story that begins with that sentence.
Sometimes the stories hit dead-ends. Other times they wind on for a long while. This is a good game for when you’re traveling, but can be quite difficult if you have to focus on something else. Also, it’s sometimes difficult to remember the names and other details you’ve put in at the beginning as the story gets longer.
Perhaps I ought to try it with my computer handy and see what turns up.
H.L. Brooks 