Contest Winner!

I'm several days tardy posting this....but the winner of the Curiouser and Curiouser contest is Rachel Bellavia (from Blogger)! Rachel, please email me at nataliecparker AT gmail DOT com with your mailing address to claim your very own ARC of THE CURIOSITIES.

Her entry was both silly and delightful, so I'm posting it here for you all to see.

Thank you to everyone who entered! I enjoyed all of your entries and if I could give all of you an ARC, I would!

And then I was a debut novelist

I'm sure there will be a time for details later. Now, however, is the time for ex!cla!ma!tion points! Because I'm going to be published!

The official announcement:
 

Natalie Parker's BEWARE THE WILD, pitched as Twin Peaks meets The Village, in which a claustrophobic Louisiana town is dominated by its sinister, encroaching swamp, which swallows up a boy who is instantly forgotten by everyone except his sister, and replaced by a mysterious girl from the past who is intent on taking over his family and his life, to Phoebe Yeh at Harper Children's, in a good deal, in a pre-empt, in a two-book deal, for publication in Winter 2014, by Sarah Davies at the Greenhouse Literary Agency (NA).

Foreign: info@rightspeople.com 

That's right. HarperCollins Children's Books! I am so happy I could sprout flowers from the top of my head. And oh, holy crow, there's already a Goodreads page.  

To every one of you who has been reading this blog over the years, THANK YOU.

Curiouser and curiouser contest

I'm in an exceedingly good mood. My week was a pitch perfect mix of challenging, exciting, and engaging. It involved high stress day job meetings, celebrations, chalk drawings, and fire. Really, it was incredible. I suppose you could even call it a curious sort of week.

*and then it happened that Natalie failed to segue seamlessly*

So, I'm going to give away an ARC of a book I've had the privilege to watch evolve, THE CURIOSITIES by the Merry Sisters of Fate (do I really need a parenthetical here? don't you know them already? Brenna, Tessa, and Maggie).

What's it about? I'm glad you asked:
A vampire locked in a cage in the basement, for good luck. 


 Bad guys, clever girls, and the various reasons why the guys have to stop breathing. 


 A world where fires never go out (with references to vanilla ice cream). 


 These are but a few of the curiosities collected in this volume of short stories by three acclaimed practitioners of paranormal fiction. 


 But The Curiosities is more than the stories. Since 2008, Maggie Stiefvater, Tessa Gratton, and Brenna Yovanoff have posted more than 250 works of short fiction to their website merryfates.com. Their goal was simple: create a space for experimentation and improvisation in their writing—all in public and without a backspace key. In that spirit, The Curiosities includes the stories and each author’s comments, critiques, and kudos in the margins. Think of it as a guided tour of the creative processes of three acclaimed authors. 


 So, are you curious now?

I'm sure you ARE curious and you're dying to figure out how to win this beautiful ARC.

The rules are simple, really: I want you to show me how curious you are about THE CURIOSITIES.

This is a points for creativity sort of contest, but the kind of creativity is entirely up to you. The only requirement is that your blog entry/tweet/facebook update/vlog/tumblr post/whatever include the words "I'm curious as a ___ about THE CURIOSITIES."

For example, you might tweet: I'm curious as a cucumber about #THECURIOSITIES!

Or you might blog an original piece of artwork: (This was also the week I learned cucumbers are strangely difficult to draw and they look better without arms.)

Whatever you do, include the phrase "I'm curious as a _____ about THE CURIOSITIES." Add links to this post if it suits your fancy. Enter as many times as you like, just make sure you drop links to your entries in the comments below.

I'm afraid this is a US address only contest. I also need to be able to see your tweets/FB updates/etc - I can't count locked entries. Sorry!

I'll pick my favorite entry next Friday the 11th, so you've got time to be creative. Aaaaaaand go!