IMPORTANT INFORMATION

The 2024 OFFICIAL MASTER LIST: https://tinyurl.com/w54yupwe

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Ninja Minions Attack!


Just who are the Ninja Minions? Only the most awesome bunch of bloggers in the world. They will be assisting me in April, helping this Ninja keep his sanity. 


What makes a Ninja Minion? Stealth. Know-how. Top blogging skills. And sheer awesomeness. 



Let me introduce you to this cool team of Ninja Minion Masters. If you’re not following them, you should!


Master of travel and New Zealand, Rhonda Albom

Master of introspection and honesty, Nicola Burggraf

Master of poetry and truth, Nilanjana Bose

Master of her writing and IWSG admin, Susan Gourley

Master of mystery and book blogger extraordinaire, Mason Canyon

Master of freelance writing and middle grade mayhem, Stephanie Faris

Master of mysteries and flash fiction, Yolanda Renee

Master of deep thoughts and contemplation, Ann Bennett

Master of snark and other-worldly writing, Patricia Lynne

Master of innovation and writing entrepreneurship, Melanie Schulz

Master of book events and youthful writing, Donna McDine

Master of music and rants, JA Scott

Now you see them – now you don’t! Because they are Ninja Minions…


Co-host Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh is the author of Amazon Best-Sellers CassaStar, CassaFire, CassaStorm, and Dragon of the Stars, and his blog can be found HERE

Monday, March 28, 2016

The Joyful Brigade Hits the Road

It's almost time for us to hit the ground running with the Challenge. I'm happy to be a co-host for the second year running and I'll be ably assisted by the seasoned bloggers listed below. Meet the Joyful Brigade and say howdy!

Keith Channing is retired and lives in the middle of France with his wife and two dogs, where he mostly makes up and writes lies for the sheer pleasure of doing it. Some of them even rhyme. Many of these lies, both of the rhyming and non-rhyming types, end up on his blog, as do some of the photographs he's taken from time to time.

Contact Links:

Fuller bio is at https://about.me/keithchanning
https://www.twitter.com/keithchanning
https://plus.google.com/108165500792647138091
http://keithchanning.tumblr.com/

Bish Denham was raised in the Virgin Islands where her family has been living for over a hundred years. She worked for 23 years with abused, neglected, and emotionally disturbed children before retiring. Bish has been writing off and on most of her life, but it's only been within the few years that she's taken the plunge to self-publish. She now has two books out in the world: A collection of ten stories about the Caribbean trickster Anansi, called Anansi and Company: Retold Jamaican Tales and a novel about a vain young lizard who believes he has a destiny called A Lizard's Tail. She's currently working on a Caribbean ghost story and has been blogging 9 years. This will be her 7th A to Z Challenge.


Contact Links:
http://bish-randomthoughts.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/BishDenham.Author/
https://twitter.com/BishDenham


Betty Dmochowski Wooton has been blogging for close to 10 years under a lot of different names, but finally settled into her niche, A Bench with a View, about 4 years ago. She blogs about a variety of subjects and tries not to blog more than once a week so she can save time to check out and read lots of other blogs. This will be her 4th A/Z Challenge. In real life when she's  not blogging or reading blogs she's a medical transcriptionist. She has been married for 35 years and was recently blessed with a grandson born right after Valentine's Day 2016.

Contact Links:
http://viewsfrombenches.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/betty.wooton
https://www.facebook.com/walkhumblywithMyGod

Jen Garrett writes for, about, and around children all day. But sometimes she finds time to do the dishes at her home in Northern California. She also finds time to blog, participate in SCBWI, facilitate The Writers Bloc at her local library, query agents, and read mountains of books. How? We don’t know.


Contact Links:
lexicalcreations.weebly.com

Twitter handle @lexicalcreation
Facebook Lexical Creations and https://www.facebook.com/thewritersblocinplacerville/

Sheena-Kay Graham is a writer, Christian, proud Jamaican, Harry Potter fan, Divergent lover, Dauntless Faction, Book Obsessed. She blogs about her life, books, book reviews, her upcoming novels, and sometimes random fun, plus the movies she sees at the cinema.

Contact Links:
http://queendsheena.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/SheenakayGrahamAuthor/
https://twitter.com/queendsheena
Laura Hernandez is the mother of four children and grandmother of three with another two arriving this summer. She is engaged to a retired military man and currently resides in Missouri. Her hobbies include reading, DIY projects and arts & crafts. She's always had a passion for books so wasn't surprised when she eventually started a blog. 

Those first few blog posts only had a picture of the book she read and a sentence or two for a review. Since then, reviewing books has afforded her opportunities that she never knew existed and Laura is very thankful for the many book-addicted friends she's been able to make.

Contact Links:
The Voluptuous Book Diva - http://voluptuousbookdiva.blogspot.com http://facebook.com/voluptuousbdiva

http://yabkd.blogspot.com and on Facebook http://facebook.com/yareeds
Twitter @VoluptuousBDiva 
Instagram @volptuousbookdiva

Michelle Wallace is a writer-in-the-making, on an adventure, a never-ending journey. Her many titles include writer, blogger, flash fiction junkie, wannabe poetess, educator. She looks forward to meeting and interacting with many different writers/poets/bloggers from many different places, as she believes that this potpourri of characters will enrich her life in one way or another, helping to mould and shape her writing experiences. Therein lies the success story~it lies in the actual journey!

Contact Links:
http://www.writer-in-transit.co.za/
Facebook link: https://www.facebook.com/michelle.wallace.author
Twitter link: @mishy1727 Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/14191973-michelle

And then there's me, J.L. Campbell. I'm plenty happy to have this great group of bloggers to help make the Challenge fun and easy. I live in Jamaica and write sweet romance, romantic suspense, women's fiction, new and young adult novels.


Contact Links: www.joylcampbell.com
https://www.facebook.com/jcampbellchambers
https://twitter.com/JL_Campbell
https://www.pinterest.com/thewriterssuite/

Thanks so much for stopping in, I hope you're looking forward to the Challenge as much as we are. Feel free to visit these bloggers and get acquainted.

Friday, March 25, 2016

Introducing Holton's Heroes!

The other co-hosts have introduced their team of assistants (a/k/a "minions"), so I guess I should introduce mine as well.


I asked each of them to write something about themselves, so here's what they had to say...

Dcrelief was born and raised in North Carolina has been blogging since 2006; celebrating ten years April 2016! Currently she maintains three blogs: dcrelief - Remove the Rose Colored Glasses, dcrelief - Battle of the bands (where I first met her), and An Artful Blogger (joke blog). Dixie is an artist, and paints and sketches portraits and landscapes, depending on a client's request, in acrylic, pastel, or charcoal. She does crafting and sewing, specializing in costume design or repair, shabby chic creations, and doll clothes.

Kimberley Cooper (Kim) is married, mid-fifties in age, and lives in the UK, sandwiched between the sea and the South Downs. She works part-time for a local charity and supports her father, who is in his eighties and frail. She's had a couple of short stories published in anthologies, which gives her the confidence to self publish, both short stories, a novella and a novel. There's a second novel on the go, 60,000 words through so far. She loves to read blogs, both on writing and those which give an insight into how other people live their lives.

Laura Roberts is a four-time A to Z Challenge participant (2016 marks #5!), and has published three of her April blog post collections as books. She is also a five-time NaNoWriMo winner and a 3-Day Novelist, and you can read more of her work -- or submit to her annual "Everything I Need to Know About Love I Learned From Pop Songs" anthology -- at Buttontapper.com.

Erica is a veteran with the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. She's been writing short stories and plays since 3rd grade and fell out of it in college. I started this blog to get back into writing. She tells us, "My writing style is rather dark and macabre. In my own opinion my writing style is very Edgar Allan Poe-ish/H.P. Lovecraft-ish." She's "super excited to be a part of the Holton’s Hero team. Every year I’ve participated in the challenge and have come across some pretty fantastic blogs and developed a few awesome virtual relationships. I’m looking forward to cheering ya’ll on and giving you virtual high fives. And I can’t wait to read your posts, get to know you and maybe, just maybe develop a blogger-to-blogger relationship. Sounds kinda creepy huh?"

Elizabeth Los says "My favorite fictional character: Sherlock Holmes - I'd sit next to the library shelves in the Summer and read for hours. My favorite movie is The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951). I play piano, flute and trumpet. I love Beethoven, Mozart, Rachmaninoff, but enjoy film scores by Zimmer, Doyle, Goldmith, Horner, Elfman, Morricone, etc, etc. I could listen for hours and still not get enough. :) Oh, and I write. I've published one novel and a few short stories. I'm currently working on a five book young adult series."

Linda G. Hill says she's first a mother of three wonderful boys, second, a novelist and blogger. She says "I write. I observe. And then I write some more. People and their behaviour fascinate me endlessly. I read. A lot. I love to learn." Linda runs a number of blog hops that I participate in, including Stream of Consciousness Saturday and One-Liner Wednesday.

Shan Jeniah Burton lives a passionately playful life filled with lovely chaos, intertwined with her chef husband and two endlessly fascinating homeschooled children who keep outgrowing their clothes. She is particularly fond of words and dreams, imagery and photography, travel, nature, history, music, and fictional people with green blood and pointed ears. I met her through A Round of Words in 80 Days.

Sneha Sasikumar proudly says she has three beautiful places in India to be called as home: one, the emerald Andaman and Nicobar Islands where she is born and brought up, two the Luscious Kerala which is where her ancestral roots are, and finally the Happening and cool Bangalore where she is settled for the past six years. Techie by profession, dancer by birth, Blogger and doodler by choice and in love with her three tattoos. Sneha lives life on her own terms and is always up to learn new things in life. She follows her heart but doesn't forget to carry the brains along :) When life throws lemons at her she turns it into a lemonade!!!

Michele Truhlik is a writer, blogger and small business entrepreneur. Previously an owner of an advertising agency and a bar, she currently has a dog-sitting business and a jewelry business and is much happier being out of the corporate world. She is also following her calling and is an Animal Chaplain and will be officially credentialed and ordained in 2017. She has been rescuing and adopting greyhounds since 1999 and has been owned by 8 greyhounds.

I'm very honored and grateful to have a group of assistants this talented, decicated, and easy to work with, and hope you'll visit their blogs and get to know them.