March Madness

My version of March Madness–any brackets are the punctuation kind. 🙂 A lot of exciting things happened in March on the book front. Here are three tidbits I have not yet shared on this blog, and one ICYMI.

The Wallace House of Pain Advances to the Finals for Chanticleer

My novelette about a troubled father-son relationship has been named a Finalist for the Chanticleer International Book Awards (CIBA) in the Short Stories & Essays category. As the organizers of the program point out, this means The Wallace House of Pain has survived four rounds of CIBA judging!

For more on the book and the award, check out my last post on the subject, from when The Wallace House of Pain made it onto Chanticleer’s Short List.

New Reader Review of Horseshoes and Hand Grenades

This new review of my first adult novel Horseshoes and Hand Grenades was posted on Amazon and Goodreads under the title, Powerful and Important:

S.M. Stevens’ Horseshoes and Hand Grenades is a realistic, engrossing story about a difficult subject, the emotional trauma of sexual abuse. Her depiction of two women, the first who experienced family trauma, while the second encounters a workplace predator, is realistic and disturbing. What Stevens does exceptionally well is illustrate how the abuse is pervasive, both in terms of the number of women affected, and equally important, the trauma’s long-term effect on the individual abused. Horseshoes and Hand Grenades is also a coming-of-age story about two women who successfully navigate their early careers amidst this and other challenges. Well done!

Successful Book Event at Local Library

Also in March, I participated in the first Bookport celebration at the Richards Free Library in Newport, N.H. The organizers did a fantastic job. I met many wonderful readers and many wonderful authors, including these guys:

Cover of Beautiful and Terrible Things Revealed

And ICYMI, in March my publisher and I revealed the cover for my forthcoming novel Beautiful and Terrible Things. Read more in the original post here.

That’s it for now. I hope you enjoyed my version of March Madness!