Monthly Archives: March 2011

Storylandia 3 sample, part 6 of 6

Sample Storylandia 3, part 6 of 6

Review of Storylandia 3: Dead Girl, Live Boy

“I am sitting on a balcony with a cup of coffee when I open the book. I have been waiting for this moment, a block of time when I can fall into the journey this writer is sure to create. Admittedly there are expectations of her. I have been reading her writing for years, and I have never openly recommended one of her books. All I have ever said to friends and family is she has this incredible knack for a sentence. For me it is the perfect example of economy in writing when a writer packs history, philosophy and a sly grinned humor into six or seven words leaving us with a period, the simplest of punctuation as if it were nothing. Bang for your buck I would say.”

~snip~

“Dead Girl, Live Boy is not a novella for the light hearted. You will not find butterflies or daisies or puppies or cute little kittens. What you will find is a city dotted with hope as irony and a survival fashioned from those who gave meaning to grit. Maybe we find there are no true heroes or quite possibly we all are because even as irony hope is still hope found in small spaces amongst the characters of this book.

“Michelle Brooks paints a picture as real as most any I have seen weaving fiction like Krakauer reporting a story. I feel I have a secret, as if I am living amongst one of the greats, a legendary writer.”
book, by Shea Goff, March 26, 2011

Michelle Brooks interview at Selling Books

What is the best advice you could give other writers about writing or publishing?

“Stick with it if it’s something you feel you really want to do. Try to write every single day at the same time. At the same time, don’t get overwhelmed. Steady progress will complete a book just as well as a big burst of inspiration and energy, neither of which I have. Do it for the love of the thing itself and try not to get too result-focused. Don’t take any rejection personally.”
Michelle Brooks – Dead Girl, Live Boy, SellingBooks.com, March 11, 2011

Storylandia 3 sample, part 5 of 6

Sample Storylandia 3, part 5 of 6

Storylandia 3 sample, part 4 of 6

Sample Storylandia 3, part 4 of 6

Storylandia 3 sample, part 3 of 6

Sample Storylandia 3, part 3 of 6

Review of Storylandia 3: Dead Girl, Live Boy

“I guess what really intrigues me about “Dead Girl, Live Boy” is the imagery and foreshadowing throughout. One such example is the brother’s reaction to Josette’s divorce: ‘Josh hung up on me and sent me an e-mail the next day that had an attachment about a man who’d stabbed his girlfriend and buried her alive. She’d crawled out of her grave and arranged to break into a house and call 911 before passing out.’ Another grave yard reference occurs earlier when Josette talks about her future ten years from now and how her parents may be dead by then: ‘I know that I will visit their graves often, if for nothing else, to make sure they’re still in them.’ With lines like that, how can you not feel uncomfortable? How could you not want to see the aftermath of this train wreck in the making?”
Dead Girl, Live Boy, JR’s Thumbprints, March 5, 2011