Tag Archives: Giftmas Blog Tour

2019 Giftmas Blog Tour

Giftmas 2019 — Let’s Do This!

December 9, 2019 R. Parrish Leave a comment

The Giftmas Blog Tour and fundraiser to benefit the Edmonton Food Bank is back, and with a fun new addition this year — a snowman drawing contest!

Every year some friends and I get together to participate in a blog tour and fundraiser for the food bank. It’s that second part that is the most important, so let’s focus on that for just a second.

The Edmonton Food Bank’s mission is to feed the people in our community and also to help find solutions to the causes of that hunger. That means not only do they work to fill the cupboards and bellies of the most vulnerable among us, they also work with them to offer “free employment assistance, English & math upgrading, budget advice, personal counselling and information on affordable housing.” [Source] as well.

But their resources are always strained, especially around the holidays, and while no one should ever go hungry, so many holiday traditions rotate around food and the dinner table, that food scarcity can be felt even more strongly at this time of year than others.

If you can manage it

Please donate to help support our fundraiser for the Edmonton Food Bank

Because of the Food Bank’s bulk buying power, every dollar you donate equals 3 meals for hungry people this year. So you know how people say ‘Every dollar counts?’. Every dollar really does count. So much.

And that is for every Canadian dollar, which means my American and British friends can get even more bang for their buck!

Can you spare 3 meals? How about 6?

Our goal this year is $1000. That’s our most ambitious goal ever and I’m more than a little bit nervous about it.

But wait! There’s more!

Here’s this week’s blog tour schedule. I will also be blogging every day, and including a link to each blog so if you check back here you won’t miss a thing.

I’ll also keep a running update on how we’re progressing toward our goal.

I’ll also be sharing some of the entries from the snowman drawing contest. Because, did I mention? There’s a snow man drawing contest!

To enter:

Draw a snowman. Use whatever medium you like — pencils, crayons, computer programs, it’s up to you. Make it as simple or complicated as you’d like.
Write the words ‘Giftmas 2019’ or #Giftmas2019 on your snowman picture somewhere
Email a copy of your snowman drawing to rhonda.l.parrish@gmail.com
Use the subject line ‘Snowman Drawing’

In that email tell me if you’d like to be identified as the snowman’s artist when (not if) I share your entry on my blog and social media or if you’d prefer to remain anonymous. If you do want to be identified, also tell me if you have a website or social media link you would link me to include with your picture.

Parents are welcome to enter their children’s snowman art. Any entries from people under the age of 18 need to be sent via an adult because winners will need to provide a snail mail address to receive their prizes and, for obvious reasons, I don’t want to collect personal information from minors.

Entries must be in my inbox by midnight MST on December 15th.

Winners will be announced on December 17th.

The winners:

Two prizes will be awarded. The first will be chosen by the Giftmas blog tour bloggers by secret ballot. The second will be a random draw.

The prizes:

Winners will each receive a snow man plushie, a $10 Amazon gift card and a book.

If the winner is an adult the book will be a signed copy of Mrs. Claus. If the winner is not an adult the book will be a copy of The Snowman by Raymond Briggs.

I almost hesitate to say this, because this blog post has already been quite long but, uh…

Wait! There’s more! LOL

If drawing a snowman isn’t your thing (but c’mon, everyone can draw a snowman!) but winning prizes is, check this out:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

You can win a whole whack of prizes including:

signed copy of Chicken Soup for the Soul: It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas from Beth Cato
a free manuscript evaluation, up to 100k words from Stephanie Lorée
a physical copy of Painting Kuwait Violet by Pamela Fernandes
a steeped in prayer mug
4×4″ encaustic block painting by Cindy James
100 plastic glow-in-the-dark alien toys from Jennifer Lee Rossman
a signed ARC of ICE by Candas Jane Dorsey
5,000-word copy edit/proofread from JB Riley
e-book copies of the Storms in Amethir series and the two Circle City Magic books by Stephanie A. Cain
owl Mitts (hand crocheted wristlets with owl designs on the back) from Lizz Donnelly
tuckerization or query critique by Premee Mohamed
minimum 4 stanza poem about subject of your choice by Stephanie Weippert
75% of Tammalee’s Patreon income for December
paperback of Haunting the Haunted by E.C. Bell

Possibly best of all, by entering the draw and using the social media options to earn extra entries you are helping signal boost the fundraiser and supporting it that way. So even if you can’t donate directly, perhaps your signal boost will put this on the radar of someone who can.

And you’ve got a shot at an awesome prize pack for doing it 🙂

That’s an awful lot of stuff for one blog post, so here is the tl;dr version —

Please donate to help support our fundraiser for the Edmonton Food Bank

And if you do donate to support the fundraiser, consider nicking one of these graphics to brag about it on your social media, blogs and mailing lists. Perhaps you’ll inspire someone else to donate as well?

Thank you!

Sign Up for the Giftmas 2019 Blog Tour

November 9, 2019 R. Parrish Leave a comment

Every year I host a blog tour in December to benefit the Edmonton Food Bank. I call it the Giftmas Blog Tour and I would like to invite you to join me this year 🙂

The blog tour will take place from December 9th through December 16th and it will include:

A fundraiser for the Edmonton Food Bank
A snowman drawing contest
A Rafflecopter giveaway
Stories
Recipes
and more!

In December I will be looking for monetary donations but for right now what I’m looking for are bloggers and prizes.

To donate a prize to the Rafflecopter (which we use to encourage donations to the food bank and sharing on social media to spread the word about the tour/fundraiser) or for the snowman drawing contest all you need to do is follow the link at the bottom of this post and tell me what you’re donating.

Once the tour is over and I have the winner’s contact information I will send it to you and you will send them the prize you’ve donated.

In previous years prizes have included books, critiques, Tuckerizations, bookmarks, crafts, artwork… I think there was even cookies one year? So, basically, anything you can think of.

To participate in the blog tour you need to have a blog* and a willingness to write a blog for the tour.

We don’t have a theme this year (aside from the snowman drawing contest) so you can write about anything you want. Share cookie recipes, a holiday story (fiction or otherwise), try your hand at drawing a snowman, talk about favourite December activities, share a holiday playlist — whatever you want.

Each post will be required to share a link to the fundraiser for the Edmonton food bank and will be encouraged (but not required) to post the Rafflecopter code and information about the snowman drawing contest.

Easy peasy.

To sign up to participate in the blog tour, simply follow the link to the form below and fill it out.

If you have a day you’d prefer to blog on, include that on the form. If you don’t just put ‘N/A’ and I’ll ask you to cover whatever day has the fewest participants.

Sign-ups will close November 23rd so sign up to blog and/or donate a prize before then so you don’t miss out.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP

And thank you very much!

*however you define ‘blog’. Some people have used self-hosted elaborate blogs, some have used Goodreads and occasionally we’ve even had people use public Facebook posts

2017 Giftmas Blog Tour

And the Winners Are…

December 13, 2017 R. Parrish Leave a comment

As part of this year’s Giftmas Blog Tour we had a raffle. And the prizes for the raffle were pretty epic. There were two of them. Yesterday afternoon I let the Rafflecopter choose our winners and sent them emails to let them know.

Second Prize is:

Beth Cato will send you a signed copy of a Chicken Soup from the Soul book containing one of her essays
Signed copy of Vacuia Magia by L.S. Johnson
Themed packet of journaling/scrapbooking ephemera
Mini hand-bound leather journal by Lynn Hardaker
eBook copy of Bait by Laura VanArendonk Baugh

The winner, as determined by Rafflecopter is Anna P.!

The Grand Prize is:

Paperback copies of the first four books in the Amethir series by Stephanie A. Cain
Beth Cato will send you a signed copy of a Chicken Soup from the Soul book containing one of her essays
Signed copy of Vacuia Magia by L.S. Johnson
Copy of Three-Way Dance signed by Brian Rosenberger
Sensitivity read or poetry critique by Lisa Bradley
- Will read and respond to up to 50 pages of fiction from her perspective as a queer USian Latina with chronic illnesses and depression OR critique up to two pages of poetry (one long poem or two shorter ones)
Paperback copy of The Stars in My Door signed by Doug Blakeslee
Signed copy of Monsters in my Mind by Ada Hoffmann
Paperback copy of Heavy Metal by Andrew Bourelle
Small piece of art by Lynn Hardaker
eBook copy of the Witches of Doyle three book set by Kirsten Weiss
Paperback copy of The Songweaver’s Vow by Laura VanArendonk Baugh
Tuckerization by Laura VanArendonk Baugh
- Name if it fits the world and characteristics if it doesn’t, or Laura will substitute another world to keep the name
Custom cross stitch (6€³ square or smaller) by Jennifer Lee Rossman
Art print from Barbara Tomporowski
Signed copy of Dying on Second by E. C. Bell
Download code for a free copy of He Sees You When He’s Creepin’: Tales of Krampus courtesy of Jude Tulli

This was won by Heidi B.!

Congratulations ladies, and thank you for supporting our fundraiser by boosting its signal. We really appreciate it. And if you didn’t win, I’m sorry — but the good news is we raised over $1,000 for a really good cause and you were a part of that. Thank you!

And thank you also to everyone who donated a prize to the pool. I couldn’t have done this without you 🙂

More details about the book I’m giving away and such will come in the following weeks.

Congratulations again, Anna and Heidi!

2017 Giftmas Blog Tour

Giftmas 2017: The Aftermath

December 12, 2017 R. Parrish Leave a comment

WE RAISED $1,089!!!

Ahem. I mean:

Our fundraiser was an amazing success! Thank you so much to everyone who participated in the blog tour, donated to the cause, signal boosted our efforts or took part in any number of other ways. You are all amazing and together we did something crazy awesome.

We raised $1,089 to benefit the Edmonton Food Bank. Since they can stretch that money so that each dollar equals three meals that means we raised 3,267 meals!

Whoot whoot!

If you donated to the fundraiser don’t forget to use the ugly form over here to claim your awesome rewards:

Ugly form to claim awesome rewards

Just because the blog tour is over doesn’t mean the posts don’t persist though. It was a crazy few days so I wanted to bring all the posts together in one place just in case you missed something 🙂

All. The. Blog. Posts:

December 4th:

Introduction to the Blog Tour (Me)

Giftmas Goals (Stephanie A. Cain)

How it Works (E.C. Bell)

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Giftmas (Jennifer Lee Rossman)

December 5th:

Why I Give (Me)

Why I Give (E.C. Bell)

December 6th:

What I Celebrate (Me)

Giftmas Tour Details (Pamela Q. Fernandes)

December 7th:

Dear Santa (Me)

Through the Fog (Beth Cato)

Light Defeats the Dark (Stephanie A. Cain)

Shining a Light to Bring About Change (E.C. Bell)

Shine a Light (Jennifer Lee Rossman)

Shining a Light (Laura VanArendonk Baugh)

Shining Lights I (J.S. Watts)

December 8th:

Lighting Up the Lives of Others (E.C. Bell)

Light of Christmas (Pamela Q. Fernandes)

Belief and Fantasy (Stephanie A. Cain)

Working Together to Help a Stranger (Me)

Shining a Light and SAD (Jennifer Lee Rossman)

Shining a Light During Hard Times (Beth Cato)

December 9th:

Shining Lights II (J.S. Watts)

Doing Something Together (Barbara Tomporowski)

Tolkein, Mars and Christmas (Laura VanArendonk Baugh)

The Opposite of Light (Me)

December 10th:

Stories in the Wintertime (A.J. Wells)

Do We Need the Holidays? (Alexandra Seidel)

Shining a Light (Doug Blakeslee)

White Wine in the Sun (Me)

December 11th:

No Capes! (Me)

No Capes and No Action Figures (Stephanie A. Cain)

No Capes! (E.C. Bell)

Oh! And also, I said on social media that if we raised twice our original goal I would add a stretch goal that was my giving away my ghost story collection, “The Other Side of the Door” (which I haven’t even announced yet) for free. Well, our original goal was $522. Twice that would be $1,044. We raised $1,089. So guess what I’m giving away? More about that later though, for today I just want to focus on what we managed to do together.

$1,089.

Whew! It’s kind of mind-breaking.

Thank you again. Everyone.

I’ll announce the raffle winners tomorrow!

2017 Giftmas Blog Tour

Giftmas 2017: No Capes!

December 11, 2017 R. Parrish Leave a comment

2017 was very difficult for a lot of people in my world, myself included. Over the past months I’ve occasionally felt like I was floundering in all the bad news, tragedies and crises. The thing that has helped me out of those dark spots was to make a concerted effort to seek out and focus on positive things going in the world — things are are far too often overshadowed by the bad.

WIth that thought at the very forefront of my mind I decided to make the theme for this year’s Giftmas Blog Tour ‘Shining a Light’.

By sharing our stories and raising money to help feed hungry families, my hope is that this blog tour will be a light as well.

Our fundraising goal is $522 (that’s one dollar more than we raised last year!). Because the Edmonton Food Bank can stretch every donated dollar into three meals if we reach our goal we will have contributed 1,566 meals to families this season, but we can’t do it without you.

If you are able, please donate to our fundraiser for the Edmonton Food Bank. Every dollar counts and, in addition to the warm feeling that comes with helping others, we are also offering a whack of goodies to every person who contributes. You can check out the details and claim your rewards by clicking here but those rewards include ebooks, holiday cards, stickers, Tuckerizations, handicrafts and more!

And here is the most important link in this whole blog tour:

Please donate to our fundraiser for the Edmonton Food Bank

You’ve heard the saying, “Not every hero wears a cape” or something to that effect, yeah? Well, in the spirit of that and our theme of ‘Shining a Light’ I wanted to spend a portion of this blog tour highlighting those cape-less crusaders whose actions make other people’s holidays just a little bit more special. For this post I asked the blog tour contributors to share a brief story about the time someone did something to make their holidays (or just their day) better.

The story I want to share in response to that happened a long time ago. Dani was very little (2 or 3). I was a single mom, working full time and going to school, and money was very freaking tight. I’d managed to get some presents under the tree, though, and (probably thanks to the food bank, though I’m not 100% on that) there was plenty of food in the house. It was a good Christmas.

Then, when we turned up at my grandmother’s place for the big family Christmas dinner, it turned into a great Christmas. Apparently Santa Claus had made a mistake when it came to addresses and in addition to the Teletubbies he’d left for Dani under our tree, he’d also left something at Grammy’s for her. It was a huge bubblegum pink Barbie van with all sorts of cool features (it even transformed into a stage with working speakers!). Dani, who was all about Barbies then, loved it. And more than the present I loved the fact one of my uncles had gone pretty far out of his way to get a present and credit Santa Claus for it, just to make sure Dani didn’t just have a good Christmas, she had a magical one.

“There are a couple of specific times I can remember when, despite the fact I was working forty-plus hours a week, I was also hungry. Nearly fifteen years ago I was working at a Big Ten university where the pay was above minimum wage, but just barely. I was drowning in debt and trying to pay for grad school as well as work full time. At my lunch break, I went out to my car and tried to scrounge up enough money for a meal. When I got to Taco Bell, I ordered my bean burrito and didn’t have enough for a drink. Something in my face must have told the guy behind the counter just how much I wanted that Dr. Pepper, and that I wasn’t lying when I said I didn’t have the money. That guy, who was probably a college student trying to make ends meet himself, bought my drink for me. Was it a huge expense? No. Would it solve all my problems? No. But just by showing me a little human kindness, that guy shone the light of hope into my day. And when I give to others today, I hope I’m honoring his gift to me.”

Stephanie A. Cain

“This may sound cheesy, but I’m grateful every single day. I say “thank you” more than a dozen times a day, for big things and small, to everyone from my husband to a cashier to my dog, and I really think it helps all of us.”

Laura VanArendonk Baugh

“After working out-of-province for a week, I recently came home to find Christmas lights coruscating outside and the pubs, markets, and row houses of my “Dickens Village” glowing within. One of my best friends had put up the lights, and my daughter arranged the miniature Victorian village. The pulsing jewel tones outside and the gentle colours within warmed my heart and welcomed me home.”

Barbara Tomporowski

“My grandma is like a superhero to me. She adores Christmas. She has never lost that child-like joy for the holiday. She collects Santa Clauses, and squeals with joy when she gets new additions for her collection. One of the major lessons she imparted on me early on is that good things should not be confined to any one time of year. Her favorite Santas stayed on display all the time. Christmas music that you love doesn’t need to wait until after Thanksgiving–if you feel like listening to it in July, crank it up! The same with food. Tuck away favorite holiday treats in the fridge, and enjoy then in April or July. My grandma is in her 90s now, so this lesson of “enjoy now, don’t wait!” is even more important than ever.”

Beth Cato

“Once upon a time, when I was a wee lad, the family would make the pilgrimage from our home in Maryland to New York for the holidays. I respect that my parents for making that slog 2-3 times a year for to visit relatives. During one such trip, where it was pretty much a blizzard, we ended up into a snow bank in the middle of nowhere. Fortune smiled on us pretty hard when a tow truck arrived about 30 minutes later leading a line of cars. It saved us from spending a night there. Saved us from a ruined trip.”

Doug Blakeslee

“Hands down, one of the nicest things anyone ever did for me was when my husband put Christmas lights on the thirty foot evergreen in front of our new-to-us house. My dad used to light up the evergreens on the farm, and I loved how they welcomed us when we drove up the highway to visit at Christmastime. My husband worked long and hard on our tree, and it looked spectacular. It absolutely made my Christmas that year. It also started the Christmas decorating challenge with our next door neighbours, (which they have won for ten years in a row, darn it anyhow) but that is another story. “

E.C. Bell

“One Christmas, a few years back, my heroes were the staff of Central Middlesex Hospital and The London Ambulance Service. Dad was in hospital over Christmas. Mum and I had been in to see him on the day and had come home again, but the stress of the experience affected my mother’s health. Cue emergency call and a visit from a wonderfully professional but supportive ambulance team, who coped with our needs and the vitriolic abuse of at least one driver, because the presence of an ambulance in our road meant that he had to drive an extra one minute detour. I ended up with both parents in hospital, in separate wards, over Christmas, but all turned out well in the end, as they say.”

J.S. Watts

“The tiniest things can make a normal day extra special. I got a warm fuzzy feeling once when a student of mine gave me a fruit basket, just because. The best thing about this was that she managed to completely surprise me with this, and I love being surprised in a good way. This was in summer, not winter, but it did make my day.”

Alexandra Seidel

“Two years ago, my brother and I were fighting about the cooking for Christmas. I didn’t want to do anything. We argued while putting up our tree and star. And I just wanted to make a simple meal. I was quite unhappy at work. Every Christmas before that had been the same, lonely and without family. That year was not going to be any different. I returned home from a long day at the clinic and an even longer commute. The house was a mess and I was ranting at my brother, when I went to the bedroom only to find my parents, especially my dad with tears in his eyes, standing behind the door. I leaped on him. It had been the first Christmas in 10 years that my family spent together. Two years later he was gone. So I always cherish that Christmas. He made that decision for some reason to travel to see us for Christmas from Kuwait and it was the best thing he ever did! Heroes don’t wear capes!”

Pamela Q. Fernandez

And now maybe it’s our turn to, if not be a ‘hero’ at least make your holiday a wee bit more special if you win this Rafflecopter. Check out the full list of prizes by clicking here (there are too many to list in this space) and enter. You get one free entry every day and you can earn extra ones by donating to our fundraiser or boosting our signal 🙂

a Rafflecopter giveaway

2017 Giftmas Blog Tour, Guest Blogger

Giftmas 2017: Stories in the Wintertime

December 10, 2017 R. Parrish Leave a comment

WIth that thought at the very forefront of my mind I decided to make the theme for this year’s Giftmas Blog Tour ‘Shining a Light’.

By sharing our stories and raising money to help feed hungry families, my hope is that this blog tour will be a light as well.

And here is the most important link in this whole blog tour:

Please donate to our fundraiser for the Edmonton Food Bank

Today I am hosting A.J. Wells on my blog and making an appearance on hers. Please enjoy her thoughts on stories in the wintertime 🙂

Stories in the Wintertime
A.J. Wells

The song, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” contains the lyrics:

There’ll be scary ghost stories
And tales of the glories of the
Christmases long, long ago

The Christmas season is the perfect time to remember the value of storytelling. It’s a value that doesn’t stop when the snow melts off the ground, and it doesn’t begin with the season. But when Christmas comes, it’s (hopefully) time to relax for a bit, which means everyone has the chance to tell stories, rediscover new stories, or if they’re writers who have too much time on their hands, to create their own.

Why do we want to? Why do we tell stories? We do it to entertain. We do it just to enjoy making something happen. But many of us don’t want to keep their stories to themselves. There are entire industries of people telling stories to each other, or to the public, or teaming up to make their own stories together. While profits are the main concern of mass media, and a lot of subpar material gets churned out every year, even the most trashy material proves that people want to share stories with each other.

But we need to share our stories, not just for bonding, for self-expression, or for profit, but because they allow us to share truths with each other in a secret language, and to expose new truths to each other. This happens to storytellers, too, as through the act of storytelling they will discover new things about themselves.

It’s complicated to exchange truth in this way. Creating a story with a message in mind often cripples it, makes it mechanized and predictable, but on the other hand, stories can’t help telling truths. They might only be the truths the author believes in, but, those are still something. Even when all creativity might be stomped out of a work by executives, even when a story is extremely simple or simplistic, most stories try to say something, and stories can change a person.

When it comes to stories showing truths, the example most appropriate to the season is Christmas stories, whose stars achieve success only after they learn to follow Christmas’s values of charity and companionship, to demonstrate how good it is for real people to hold those same values.

This holiday season, remember the power of stories, and aim to create some of your own. By donating to the Edmonton Food Bank, you will help make sure that others are free to do the same things.

A.J. Wells is an Edmonton writer and member of local writer’s groups The Scruffies and the Smeerps. She works for On Spec: The Canadian Magazine of the Fantastic, and runs a freelance writing and editing site at www.wellsaj.com. Her novel, “The Doll and the Dragon”, is currently in the works.

2017 Giftmas Blog Tour, Guest Blogger

Giftmas 2017: Shining Lights II

December 9, 2017 R. Parrish Leave a comment

WIth that thought at the very forefront of my mind I decided to make the theme for this year’s Giftmas Blog Tour ‘Shining a Light’.

By sharing our stories and raising money to help feed hungry families, my hope is that this blog tour will be a light as well.

And here is the most important link in this whole blog tour:

Please donate to our fundraiser for the Edmonton Food Bank

Today I have the pleasure of hosting J.S. Watts and appearing on her blog. Please enjoy J.S.’s take on shining a light 🙂

This is the second of my two blog posts for the Giftmas Blog Tour 2017, which is raising funds for the Edmonton Food Bank (that’s Edmonton, Canada if you are reading this in the UK). The link to the fundraiser is here: https://www.canadahelps.org/en/pages/giftmas-blog-tour-2017-supports-the-edmonton-food-/

Big thanks to the generous Rhonda Parrish for hosting me and for setting up the Giftmas Blog Tour in the first place.

In my first post, I admitted to my love of shiny lights and the glittering indulgence of year-end. In this one, I thought I’d share some more thoughts about the shiny visuals of Christmas.

As a writer, I try to evoke all the five senses to bring my words to life: touch, taste, sound, smell and sight. I like to think if used correctly they can prove extremely evocative.

My last poetry collection, “Years Ago You Coloured Me”, is all about memory and things that leave their mark. I therefore spent a lot of time trying to write evocative poetry. The collection includes several winter or Christmas themed poems. Over the years, I have also written a number of other wintry or Christmas focused poems. Collectively, they have referenced all of the senses and include, “prickly soft boughs like arms”, “aromas of Christmas, / flavours of a childhood past” and a “sound like jasmine”, but when I consider them dispassionately the sense I find I’ve drawn on most is that of sight, the “festive, / kaleidoscopic lights” of the Christmas period.

If I think about my childhood Christmases, it is the glittery, colourful, nature of them that comes to mind first: the glow of firelight, Christmas tree fairy-lights shining in an otherwise darkened room, the glint of that light on tinsel and wrapped presents. It’s the lights that get me every time.

To illustrate the way the shining lights of Christmas can take me back, I thought I’d share a poem with you. It’s from “Years Ago You Coloured Me” and it is a brief look at how lights, even after Christmas is over, can transport me to a place I thought I’d lost.

Christmas Lights – Ware, January Third

I thought Christmas had gone,

faded back into mid-winter night

and the acid-burn aftershock of New Year.

But, driving through the town centre

after dark, I found the lights,

primary coloured, electric ribbon lanterns

strung along the High Street

in brazen, gaudy delight,

the exact bright shades

of the cheap paper chains

I stuck together as a child,

painstakingly licking each rainbow strip

to form a piecemeal rope of coloured dreams

strong enough to draw Old Christmas down,

bright moon balloon of kaleidoscopic glass,

loudly reflecting entire colliding spectrums,

as well as simpler echoes

of childhood’s undarkened joys.

J.S.Watts is a UK poet and novelist. Her poetry, short stories and book reviews appear in a wide variety of publications in Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the States and have been broadcast on BBC and Independent Radio.

Her poetry collections, “Cats and Other Myths” and “Years Ago You Coloured Me”, plus a multi-award nominated poetry pamphlet, “Songs of Steelyard Sue” are published by Lapwing Publications. J.S. performs her poetry all over the UK and runs workshops on both poetry and prose. She has been Poetry Reviews Editor for Open Wide Magazine and Poetry Editor for Ethereal Tales.

Her novels, “A Darker Moon”, a work of literary dark fiction, and “Witchlight”, a paranormal tale, are published by Vagabondage Press. For further details see: www.jswatts.co.uk and, of course, her Goodreads Blog: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6620930.J_S_Watts/blog

2017 Giftmas Blog Tour, Guest Blogger

Giftmas 2017: Lighting Up the Lives of Others…

December 8, 2017 R. Parrish Leave a comment

WIth that thought at the very forefront of my mind I decided to make the theme for this year’s Giftmas Blog Tour ‘Shining a Light’.

By sharing our stories and raising money to help feed hungry families, my hope is that this blog tour will be a light as well.

And here is the most important link in this whole blog tour:

Please donate to our fundraiser for the Edmonton Food Bank

Today I’m hosting E.C. Bell on my blog and making an appearance on hers. Please enjoy this post from her about lighting up the lives of others:

When I see Christmas lights I think charity, and I thank my parents (and grandparents) for that.

On the farm, back in the eighties, my grandmother would start knitting mittens “for the kids” a month before she started making Christmas gifts for us. (Yeah. She made our gifts. And they were amazing.) The kids she was knitting for were teenagers who were going to spend Christmas at YESS, a local emergency shelter for teens.

While she was busy at that, my dad would get the outside evergreens prepped to light. He ascribed to “The Christmas Story” theory of Christmas lighting. (He used a tractor with a bucket, not a ladder, to get high enough to decorate them, but the theory still holds.) He’d add strings until breakers blew, and then he’d back off one string. All of it would have blown the mind of every safety officer in the known world if they’d seen, but hey, it was a different time, and that was the way he rolled.

In mid December, he’d light the trees. Then, he’d buy a bunch of frozen turkeys and take them and the mittens in to the shelter, so those kids would have warmth and food, at Christmas.

I imagine those trees were a beacon to him, calling him home to the warmth and laughter that was the farm, after his Santa run.

My father and grandmother are now gone, but their tradition isn’t. It just looks a little different at our house.

One December a few years ago a kid knocked on our door. He was half frozen because it was (surprise surprise) bitterly cold and he was NOT dressed for the weather.

“Nice tree,” the kid said. He was talking about the huge evergreen in our front yard that my husband had decorated with Christmas lights. He’d done it for me soon after we’d moved into the place, because I’d so loved the trees out on the farm.

I will never forget him sitting at our kitchen table calculating exactly how many strings of lights the outdoor electrical outlet could take, (he’s an electrician, so that’s the way he rolls) and then developing a tool (with duct tape, of course) so he could get the lights to start exactly at the top. Nothing like the way my dad lit his trees, but the effect was the same. It looked wonderful.

“Thanks,” we said. And then we waited, because we knew the kid was going to try to sell us on donating to his cause.

“I know you won’t want to make a donation,” the kid said, waving a sheaf of papers at us. “Nobody on your block does. But at least you opened the door. Would you mind if I came in for a second? Just to warm up?”

The wind was howling and he looked miserable, so we said yes. And we let him give us his pitch, even though we donated to local charities and had hit our financial limit for the year.

He warmed up, thanked us for listening, and went on his way. My husband and I watched him trudge off into the darkness, and for a second I wished I knit mittens, because that kid could have used ta pair. Then, my husband said, “Hell, he’s only asking for $35. We can afford that much.”

So we called him back, signed up to be foster parents, and gave him the money. We actually did it for him, more than for a kid from Haiti, but now we are helping a little girl who was caught in a bit of hell not of her own devising. My husband was right. The money isn’t much, to us.

Last year we fostered a couple more orphans. Two young elephants from Kenya, caught in hell. It’s not much money, but—I hope—we are making a difference in their lives, too.

And we turn on the Christmas lights before we donate, so our house looks as warm and welcoming as my parent’s farm did, so many years before.

About E.C. Bell:

My debut paranormal mystery, Seeing the Light (2014) won the BPAA award for Best Speculative Fiction Book of the Year, and was shortlisted for the Bony Blithe Award for Light Mystery. The 2nd and 3rd books in the series are out now (both shortlisted for awards, look at me go!) and the 4th will be available in October, 2017. Which means I’m hard at work on number 5. My short fiction includes the Aurora Award winning fantasy anthologies Women of the Apocalypse and The Puzzle Box. When I’m not writing, I’m living a fine life in my round house with my husband and our two dogs.

2017 Giftmas Blog Tour

Giftmas 2017: Dear Santa

December 7, 2017 R. Parrish Leave a comment

WIth that thought at the very forefront of my mind I decided to make the theme for this year’s Giftmas Blog Tour ‘Shining a Light’.

By sharing our stories and raising money to help feed hungry families, my hope is that this blog tour will be a light as well.

And here is the most important link in this whole blog tour:

Please donate to our fundraiser for the Edmonton Food Bank

For the past six years I’ve written a letter to Santa on my blog. This is not an actual wishlist of things I’d like my friends and readers to buy for me (unless we live together LoL), it’s just supposed to be fun. This year I decided to incorporate it into my Giftmas Blog Tour. In part because I wasn’t sure when else to schedule it (my blog is pretty busy this month) but in part because while I’m not shy about asking Santa for things I want, I also like to ask for things for others… so I think that means it fits the theme of ‘Shining a Light’. 🙂

Dear Santa,

Remember last year when I started out my letter by saying how tough 2016 had been? Well, dude, I had no freaking idea what was waiting for me. 2017 has pretty soundly kicked my ~~ass~~ butt. But I’ve tried to be good, to do good, despite all that, so hopefully I’m on the Nice list. Actually, I met one of your elves at the All Is Bright festival and they told me I was on the Nice list so here is this year’s wish list 🙂

I’d really like a new printer. This one is still working (barely) but it’s getting touchier and touchier every day. I guess I don’t blame it, it’s over ten years old now I think — what is that in human years? Like eighty? I’ll probably be pretty cantankerous when I’m eighty too… Still, I’d really like a printer that I didn’t have to coax into working each time I needed it.
Could you help the Oilers win a few games? Does that fall within your purview at all? Because that would be sweet. Right now it’s not looking like we’re even going to make the playoffs and though that’s a rather familiar feeling, it’s not one I’m fond of.
I’d love to adopt a chimp from Fauna Foundation. The good news is that the chimp doesn’t actually come live with me, but the money that goes into ‘adopting’ them helps pay for their care (and that of all the other animals) at the sanctuary.
A mysterious package! They all look so cool. The one I’m most intrigued by is Filigree in Shadow, but I’m pretty flexible really. These are kinda pricey but the Curious and Conundrums thing that I subscribe to from the same company is pretty sweet so I expect these to be too.
There’s also this bourbon I’d like to try. Not just because John Wick drinks it, but admittedly, also because John Wick drinks it.
Remember six years ago when I said, “I could also really use some baseboards and riser thingers for my bathroom and kitchen. If we don’t finish them up soon they are just going to blend into the background and we’ll never get them done.” Well, as it turns out, apparently I could see the future…

Thank you Santa, Merry Giftmas!

Best,

Rhonda

Those of us who have donated to this blog tour are not Santa Claus, but we might have a gift for you just the same! See this Rafflecopter here? Well, the prize list for it is so big I can’t fit it all on this page. Seriously. You can check it out by clicking here but first place comes with original art, poetry critiques, books, books, uh, more books… You get the idea.

Everyone gets one free entry each day and you can earn extra ones by donating to our fundraiser or boosting our signal.

Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

2017 Giftmas Blog Tour

Giftmas 2017 – What I Celebrate

December 6, 2017 R. Parrish Leave a comment

WIth that thought at the very forefront of my mind I decided to make the theme for this year’s Giftmas Blog Tour ‘Shining a Light’.

By sharing our stories and raising money to help feed hungry families, my hope is that this blog tour will be a light as well.

And here is the most important link in this whole blog tour:

Please donate to our fundraiser for the Edmonton Food Bank

There are as many different ways to celebrate winter holidays as there are families and today I wanted to find out about what some of the blog contributors celebrate. You can join in the conversation by commenting here or using the #Giftmas2017 hashtag on social media — what do you celebrate? How do you celebrate it?

Our family celebrates a secular version of Christmas that I like to call Giftmas, hence the name of this blog tour. One of my favourite family traditions is advent. On December 1st we clear all the clutter off our fireplace mantle and replace it with a new kind of clutter — candle clutter! We put twenty-five candles out. Each night in December we light the number of candles that match the date, hang out together and enjoy a chocolate and some holiday music. Some years we’ve read books aloud, but mostly we just sit in the varying degrees of darkness and talk. It’s a lovely, restful way to count down the days toward Christmas. And not just because there’s chocolate, but also because there’s chocolate 🙂

What do the other participants celebrate? Let’s ask them!

“We don’t really celebrate anything anymore, but when I was a kid, we had a the worst fake tree ever made. We used to strategically place the tinsel to cover the gaps between limbs.”

Jennifer Lee Rossman

“We celebrate Christmas, though in a more secular way. (I grew up in the Church of Christ, and was taught that Christ’s birth was something to be acknowledged all year long.) For me, Christmas is about joy and good food and family and Santa Claus. This is what I’ve tried to impart on my son, too. He’s autistic, and we adapted our traditions for his sensory needs. He has always loved numbers and math, so from an early age, I started getting him advent calendars so he could count down the days to Christmas with chocolate. When I hit post-Christmas sales, I try to find one or two more advent calendars too so we can then do “January and February advent” for his numerical joy. We did a third extra advent one year, but since we live in Arizona, I found that the chocolates became too soft by March and we couldn’t get them out of the plastic!”

Beth Cato

“I celebrate Christmas as the birth of Jesus Christ. Not that he was born on December 25, of course; the Roman calendar at that time was a hot mess (leap months, seriously?), even if anyone had bothered to record the date at the time. But December 25 is as good a date as any other to acknowledge and honor the day. We exchange gifts because gifts are a nominal cultural remembrance of the gifts of the Magi to the newborn Jesus or a Christian rebranding of Saturnalia gifts—but mostly because it’s fun.”

Laura VanArendonk Baugh

“We have a very traditional Advent and then a long 12-day Christmas season until Epiphany. So we start from the 2nd of December lighting a candle on the wreath, we start creating the crib sowing the grass and hay, we soak our fruits in rum for Christmas cake and then start making sweets for the office. The kids all start doing the one-kind-deed-a-day decoration chains and we pull out the decorations. In addition to that, we start caroling at various places, work on the Church star and crib with the community, organize gift bags for the poor, make a retreat and confession. Finally, by Christmas week, the cake is baked, the decorations and lights go on and the merrymaking starts on Christmas day after midnight mass right till Epiphany.”

Pamela Q. Fernandez

“As an atheist, I celebrate my cultural roots: I celebrate that there is glÃ¼hwein (mulled wine) again and that it’s the time of the year to make feuerzangenbowle (a very German thing), which contains wine, rum, and fire as the main ingredients. Since it is the end of the year and the very tipping point of the dark season, I do have the sense of a coming together with those you hold dear (because drinking glÃ¼hwein alone is just sad), of reflecting on the past year and setting out to tackle the new one, of a sense of quiet.”

Alexandra Seidel

“I’m not really in the Christmas spirit right now—I’m in the Advent spirit. Advent is a Christian season of hopeful anticipation, of waiting, of expectation. It’s a time to reflect on the darkness in the world and to look forward to the coming of a savior, a messiah who will show us the right way to live and lift us out of the darkness. I think in that way, it has a lot in common with the Winter Solstice—and maybe that’s part of why the early Christian church decided to place Christmas so near to the solstice. Over the past several years, I’ve made an effort to place emphasis on Advent until Christmas Eve—the day my parents and I have always held our own private celebration of Christmas.”

Stephanie A. Cain

“My family has always celebrated Christmas. At least we call it that, but it is really a secular celebration, rather than a religious festival. At times, I have somewhat flippantly been known to draw on the mid-winter and Roman heritage of my home country (I’m British) and offer felicitations for the festival day of the risen god, Sol Invictus.”

J.S. Watts

“My holiday traditions are a muddle! We go Yule singing door-to-door in the days leading up to Christmas. On Christmas Eve, we sing carols and go to church. We open gifts on Christmas morning, and eat a supper that includes a cake shaped like a Yule log. Next, we celebrate the changing face of Janus on December 31^st by ushering out the old year and welcoming the new. Lastly, I celebrate Imbolc on February 1^st, lighting candles and lanterns to welcome the coming of spring. ”

Barbara Tomporowski

“Not a holiday sort of dude. I like the excuse to give presents or hang out with people, but there’s no one holiday that I adhere to. Again, the cynic in me grumbles, but stays quiet for the most part during the month of December. I like the cold, the lights, and the mountain of baked goods that accompany this time of the year. It’s the only chance to watch my favorite version of “Christmas Carol” with Alastair Sims.”

Doug Blakeslee

“We celebrate a secular version of Christmas. I was raised on a farm, and that definitely coloured how I celebrate the season. We baked multitudes of fantastic cakes and cookies. We went to the back forty and cut down our own Christmas tree. Then we decorated it and the rest of the house. It was wonderful. But one of the big events that signalled (to me at least) that Christmas had really truly arrived was watching Alastair Sim’s version of “A Christmas Carol” on CBC on Christmas Eve. Now, in my own house, we decorate a tree (sadly, we have moved to artificial, but digging it out of its box and putting it together is just as good as slogging through the snow to cut down a real one. Right?), and bake a bunch of different cookies for the season, but I have developed a variation of “the movie before Christmas.” Now, we watch the “25 movies of Christmas.” We start with “Die Hard” on December 1st, and watch (at least) one movie with some sort of a Christmas theme an evening until Christmas Eve. That’s reserved for… (if you guessed Alastair Sim’s “A Christmas Carol,” you’d be wrong!) “Love Actually.” Because my husband gets to pick movies too, and this is one of his favourites.”

E.C. Bell

Another Giftmas tradition I enjoy is exchanging gifts and it really is true what they say about giving being better than receiving — I love a good gift, don’t get me wrong, but I really love the feeling that comes with finding and giving someone else that perfect something.

Which is an elegant little segue to the fact that if you love books or art I might have the perfect gift for you. Two people will win awesome prizes from this Rafflecopter right here. There are honestly too many prizes for me to list them all here, but you can check out the list by clicking here.

Everyone gets one free entry each day and you can earn more by helping us signal boost this tour and fundraiser, or by donating.

Thank you, and good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

2017 Giftmas Blog Tour

Giftmas Blog Tour 2017

December 4, 2017 R. Parrish 6 Comments

Welcome to the 2017 Giftmas Blog Tour!

The Giftmas Blog Tour has been an annual tradition since 2014, but last year we added an extra fundraising layer — raising money to benefit the Edmonton Food Bank and help feed hungry families. We’re continuing that this year and hoping to do even better than last year.

2017 was a very difficult year for a lot of people, so the theme for this year’s blog tour is ‘Shining a Light’. We will be sharing positive, hopeful, funny or otherwise — attempting to shine lights into the darkness. Because every little bit helps.

The tour officially begins tomorrow, but this blog post right here is the main hub. It’s going to be a huge blog post, containing a whole whack of information, but I’ll try not to let it become overwhelming.

The most important part of this whole post, of this whole tour, is this right here:

Donate to the Edmonton Food Bank

Last year we raised $521 so this year our goal is $522!

I’m going to be unrepentantly pushy about that link and here is why — every dollar matters. I’m not exaggerating. Because of their partnerships, bulk-buying and that sort of thing the Edmonton food bank can turn every dollar donated to them into three meals for hungry people. Let me say that one more time:

$1 = 3 meals

Oh, and if you’re American your dollar will stretch even further because all donations made to this fundraiser are in Canadian dollars. At the time of my writing this blog post that means for you every $0.78 = 3 meals.

So if you can manage to donate, even just a dollar, you will have shone a light into three people’s lives. And that ain’t nothin’. And as an added bonus, we’re offering some awesome rewards for your generosity. Check that out below.

If you can’t donate, you can still help by spreading the word, and we’ll enter you into a draw for some awesome goodies for doing that too!

Mmmk. So, in order to try and keep this from becoming super complicated let’s look at this one thing at a time. First, if you can donate, in addition to the warm feeling you will get from the knowledge that you are helping those less fortunate than yourself, I’d like to offer you the following rewards:

Donor Rewards:

The first ten donors (of any amount) will receive a download code for a free copy of Faegotten by Jude Tulli.

If you donate $1 or more you may claim all of the following:

A personalized holiday card from me, Rhonda Parrish*
An ebook copy of your choice of any of the Alphabet Anthologies (A is for Apocalypse is already free, so you’d be picking from B is for Broken, C is for Chimera and D is for DInosaur.)
Giftmas stickers from Stephanie A. Cain

If you donate $40 or more you may claim all of the following:

A personalized holiday card from me, Rhonda Parrish*
An ebook copy of your choice of any of the Alphabet Anthologies (A is for Apocalypse is already free, so you’d be picking from B is for Broken, C is for Chimera and D is for DInosaur.)
Giftmas stickers from Stephanie A. Cain
Tuckerization in Circle City Magic by Stephanie A. Cain (Stephanie’s choice of either a villain, victim or werewolf from this series will be named after you)
Homemade winter holiday themed fabric coasters from Rhonda Parrish (set of four)*
Advance copy of the Magical Menageries Colouring Book (expected release Summer 2018)*
eARC of E is for Evil (expected release Spring 2018)

To claim your rewards fill out the form below. Include in the body of your message any of your preferences (which Alphabet Anthology you’d like, for example) and if you’d like to receive any of the physical items (which are marked with an asterisk) I’ll also need your snail mail address.

If you made your donation anonymously please also let me know the date and approximate time that you donated.

To claim your rewards for donating to support the Edmonton Food Bank, please fill out the form below or email me directly at Rhonda.L.Parrish@gmail.com using the subject line ‘Giftmas Blog Tour Donor Rewards’.

[contact-form to=”rhonda.l.parrish@gmail.com” subject=”Giftmas Blog Tour Donor Rewards”][contact-field label=”Name” type=”name” required=”1″][contact-field label=”Email” type=”email” required=”1″][contact-field label=”Donation Amount” type=”checkbox-multiple” required=”1″ options=”$1 or more,$40 or more”][contact-field label=”Message ” type=”textarea” required=”1″][/contact-form]

This is an ugly form. I know it’s an ugly form, you know it’s an ugly form… but it works. :-p

Once you’ve submitted the form or sent me an email to claim your rewards for donating, don’t forget to keep on scrolling and enter the Rafflecopter too!

But wait! There’s more! As promised there are ways that you can help which don’t involve spending any money and which will still give you a shot at some awesome goodies in return.

Grand Prize:

Paperback copies of the first four books in the Amethir series by Stephanie A. Cain
Beth Cato will send you a signed copy of a Chicken Soup from the Soul book containing one of her essays
Signed copy of Vacuia Magia by L.S. Johnson
Copy of Three-Way Dance signed by Brian Rosenberger
Sensitivity read or poetry critique by Lisa Bradley
- Will read and respond to up to 50 pages of fiction from her perspective as a queer USian Latina with chronic illnesses and depression OR critique up to two pages of poetry (one long poem or two shorter ones)
Paperback copy of The Stars in My Door signed by Doug Blakeslee
Signed copy of Monsters in my Mind by Ada Hoffmann
Paperback copy of Heavy Metal by Andrew Bourelle
Small piece of art by Lynn Hardaker
eBook copy of the Witches of Doyle three book set by Kirsten Weiss
Paperback copy of The Songweaver’s Vow by Laura VanArendonk Baugh
Tuckerization by Laura VanArendonk Baugh
- Name if it fits the world and characteristics if it doesn’t, or Laura will substitute another world to keep the name
Custom cross stitch (6″ square or smaller) by Jennifer Lee Rossman
Art print from Barbara Tomporowski
Signed copy of Dying on Second by E. C. Bell
Download code for a free copy of He Sees You When He’s Creepin’: Tales of Krampus courtesy of Jude Tulli

Second Prize:

Beth Cato will send you a signed copy of a Chicken Soup from the Soul book containing one of her essays
Signed copy of Vacuia Magia by L.S. Johnson
Themed packet of journaling/scrapbooking ephemera from Lisa Bradley
Mini hand-bound leather journal by Lynn Hardaker
eBook copy of Bait by Laura VanArendonk Baugh

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Wow!

Do you need a moment to catch your breath? I wouldn’t blame you if you do. Like I said before though, here is the most important part about all of this:

Click here now to donate to support the Edmonton Food Bank

All the rewards and the prizes are pretty amazing, but they are nothing compared to how good you’re going to feel for helping to make someone else’s holiday’s brighter. Shine a light — donate today.

That’s a lot right? But didn’t I mention something about a blog tour?

The blog tour runs through December 11th and a whack of fantastic writers and bloggers will be working together to bring you a series of great blog posts, all of which are intended to help shine a light.

All. The. Blog. Posts:

Welcome to the 2017 Giftmas Blog Tour!

Donor Rewards:

I write, I edit and I take a lot of naps.