The following is a guest post by Donna Urbikas, author of My Sister’s Mother: A Memoir of War, Exile, and Stalin’s Siberia. A couple of years ago I took myself on a cross-country tour of writers’ conferences where I could pitch my newly finished manuscript, My Sister’s Mother: A Memoir of War, Exile, and Stalin’s Siberia. Reception was great except that I am not famous, so who would care? Fortunately, the…
Tag: survival
Guest Post
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Interview With Jonathan LaPoma
The following is a guest post by Jonathan LaPoma, author of Developing Minds: An American Ghost Story. If you would like to write a guest post on my blog, please send me an e-mail at contact@cecilesune.com. Can you tell us a little about yourself? I’m an award-winning novelist, screenwriter, songwriter, and poet from Buffalo, NY. In 2005, I graduated from the State University of New York at Geneseo with a BA in history…
James Dashner
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The Maze Runner by James Dashner
16-year-old Thomas wakes up in a dark elevator, and the only thing he remembers is his first name. When the doors open, a group of boys is staring at him, but they refuse to give him any information on where they are. Eventually, Thomas finds out that they live in the Glade, at the center of a maze. Some of the boys have been there for up to 2 years,…
Guest Post
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Traveling Left of Center by Nancy Christie
The following is a guest post by Nancy Christie, author of Traveling Left of Center. If you would like to write a guest post on my blog, please send me an e-mail at contact@cecilesune.com. The Book There are some people who, whether by accident or design, find themselves traveling left of center. Unable or unwilling to seize control over their lives, they allow fate to dictate the path they take—often…
John Green
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The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
The Fault in Our Stars is the story of Hazel Grace Lancaster, an empathetic 16-year-old girl with thyroid cancer. She has been battling the illness since the age of 12, and a new drug seems to have stopped the cancer’s progress. She needs to be hooked to an oxygen tank though to help her breathe, and she totes the device wherever she goes. However, illness has isolated her, and she spends…
Fiction
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Divergent by Veronica Roth
In the first book in the Divergent Trilogy, Beatrice lives in a future Chicago where people are divided into 5 factions representing the main characteristic of each person: Abnegation (selflessness), Amity (love), Candor (honesty), Dauntless (courage) and Erudite (knowledge). Beatrice has spent her childhood in Abnegation with her family. At the beginning of the book, she has just turned 16, and she must choose which faction she will belong to…
Fiction
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MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood
I arrived an hour early at Southminster United Church in Ottawa on Tuesday 24 September 2013. Already there was a line for the event One on One with Margaret Atwood. Before getting to my seat, I was given 4 buttons: “Margaret Atwood MaddAddam: See the Future, Seek the Truth”. This was the first time I was handed a gift at a literary event. I thought this was a great souvenir,…
Fiction
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The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood
The Year of the Flood, the second book in the MaddAddam trilogy, came out 6 years after Oryx and Crake in 2009. It is not a sequel, but rather a companion to the first novel as it takes place on a concurrent time. Toby and Ren survived the epidemic that killed most of the human race. A series of flashbacks informs us that Toby was a therapist in a spa…
Fiction
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Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
On 24 September 2013, Margaret Atwood came to Ottawa to present the last book in the MaddAddam Trilogy. The event took place at the Southminster United Church, and the place was packed, a testament to the author’s fame. Margaret Atwood, all dressed in black with a red and gold shawl, talked about the dystopian world she imagined in the MaddAddam Trilogy. The story came to her almost in its entirety…