West of Mars -- the Meet and Greet: Debut a Debut update

Friday, January 26, 2007

Debut a Debut update

Okay, no wonder I'm tired and cranky. In just one week, our list of debut authors we know about has swelled from 40 to 173. And guess who is the keeper of the list? Rashenbo?

Well, I did volunteer, so no bellyaching allowed on my end. If you know of a debut author who qualifies under our rules, keep those names rolling in. And if you catch any mistakes, please let me know! There's no malice intended, just an exhausted mom-writer-wife with a potentially torn knee cartilege (again).

I thought I'd post the list for you here, even though it's fun to watch the hits on my main website. Guess I'll watch 'em in both places.

Alan Fox -- The Seeker in Forever
Albyn Leah Hall -- The Rhythm of the Road
Alex Espinoza -- Still Water Saints
Alexandra Sokoloff -- The Harrowing
Ali Liebegott -- The IHOP Papers
Alice Greenway -- White Ghost Girls
Aliya Whiteley -- Three Things About Me
Amir Gutfreund -- Our Holocaust
Amy Bryant -- Polly
Ana Baca -- Mama Fela's Girls
Andrew Britton -- The American
Antoinette May -- Pilate's Wife
Antonia Arslan -- Skylark Farm
Benito Cordova -- Big Dreams and Dark Secrets in Chimaya
Betsey Osborne -- The Natural History of Uncas Metcalfe
Brian Martin -- North
Brian Shuster. The Minerva Virus
C-Murder -- Death Around the Corner
CA Belmond -- A Rather Lovely Inheritance
Carolyn Turgeon -- Rain Village
Cate Sweeney -- Selfish Jean
Catherine Murdock - Dairy Queen
Cheryl Strayed -- Torch
Christine Conrad -- Mademoiselle Benoir
Cindy Woodsmall -- When the Heart Cries
Clifford Chase -- Winkie
Colleen Gleason -- The Rest Falls Away
Cornelia Read -- A Field of Darkness
Conor Corderoy -- Dark Rain
Da Chen -- Brothers
Daniel Judson - The Darkest Place
David Lynn Golemon -- Event
Debra Dean - The Madonnas of Leningrad
Debra Ginsberg -- Blind Submisssion
Derek Armstrong -- The Game
Diane Setterfield -- The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel
Donna Westover Gallup -- White as Snow
Drew Bowling -- The Tower of Shadows
Edward Charles -- In the Shadow of Lady Jane
Ellis Avery -- The Teahouse Fire
Faiza Guene -- Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow
Farrell O'Gorman -- Awaiting Orders
Frances Washburn -- Elsie's Business
George Robert Minkoff -- The Weight of Smoke
Gillian Flynn -- Sharp Objects: A Novel
Gina Buonaguro and Janice Kirk -- The Sidewalk Artist
Gordon Dahlquist - The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters
Heather Hayashi -- To Save the World
Heidi Pitlor -- The Birthdays
Henry Chang -- Chinatown Beat
Hisham Matar -- In the Country of Men
Heidi Pitlor -- The Birthdays: A Novel
Hisham Matar -- In the Country of Men
Hugh Paxton -- Homunculus
Jackie Kessler -- Hell's Belles
James Canon -- Takes from the Town of Widows and Chronicles from the Land of Men
James Janko -- Buffalo Boy and Geronimo
Jana DeLeon -- Rumble on the Bayou
Jane May -- Doggy Style
Jason Webb -- The Ghost of Che Guevara
Jed Rubenfeld - The Interpretation of Murder
Jenn Reese -- Jade Tiger
Jennah Sharpe -- Along the Hibiscus Path
Jennifer Gilmore -- Golden Country: A Novel
Jerome Tell -- The Election
Jill Conner Browne (with Karin Gillespie) -- The Sweet Potato Queen's First Big Ass Novel
Jonathan Drapes -- Never Admit to Beige
Joshua Cohen -- Cadenza for the Schneidermann Violin Concerto
Joshua Palmatier -- The Skewed Throne
Joshua Spanogle - Isolation Ward
Judith Lindbergh -- The Thrall's Tale
Judith Marks-White -- Seducing Harry
Julie Carobini -- Chocolate Beach
Kat Richardson -- Greywalker
Kathleen Jacobs -- The Friday Knitting Club
Katherine Min -- Secondhand World
KE Silva -- A Simple Distance
Kelly Kerney -- Born Again
Keith Donohue -- The Stolen Child
Kevin Shay -- The End as I Know it
Kirsten Sawyer -- Not Quite a Bride
Laura Dave -- London is the Best City in America
Laura Fitzgerlad -- A Veil of Roses
Laura Ruby -- I'm not Julia Roberts
Lauren Fox -- Still Life With Husband
Lauren Lipton -- It's About Your Husband
Lauren Marks-White -- Seducing Harry
Layne Maheu -- Song of the Crow
Lee Merrill Bryd -- Riley's Fire
Liam Jackson -- Offspring
Lila Shaara -- Every Secret Thing
Lisa Fugard -- Skinner's Drift
Lisa Pearl Rosenbaum -- A Day of Small Beginnings
Lisa Unger -- Beautiful Lifes
Lori Lacefield -- The Seventh Survivor
Lu Vickers -- Breathing Underwater
Lucy McCarraher -- Blood & Water
Marcus Sakey -- The Blade Itself
Margo Candela -- Underneath it All
Marie Arana -- Cellophane
Marisa de los Santos -- Love Walked In
Marisha Pessl -- Special Topics in Calamity Physics
Mark Binelli -- Sacco and Vanzetti Must Die!
Mary E. Neighbour -- Speak Right on: Dred Scott a Novel
Matthew Scott Hansen -- The Shadow killer
Max Brooks -- World War Z
Meg Mullins -- The Rug Merchant
Melissa Clark -- Swimming Upstream Slowly
Mia King -- Good Things
Michael A. Fitzgerald -- Radiant Days
Michael Graham -- The Snow Angel
Michael Stephen -- The Manuscript
Michael Thomas -- Man Gone Down
Michelle Tea -- Rose of no Man's Land
MWF Curran -- The Secret War
Naomi Alderman -- Disobedience
Natalie Danford -- Inheritance
Nora Gallagher -- Changing Light
N.S. Koenings -- The Blue Taxi
Olga Grushin -- The Dream Life of Sukhanov
Pam Jenoff -- The Kommandant's Girl
Pamela Carter Joern -- The Floor of the Sky
Patrick F. McManus -- The Blight Way
Patrick Hyde -- The Only Pure Thing
Paul Batista -- Death's Witness
Paul Rusesabagina - An Ordinary Man
Paul Wolfe -- Choices
Peter Behrens -- The Law of Dreams
Peter Bourne -- The Deserter
Peter C. Brown -- The Fugitive Wife
Peter Hobbs -- The Short Day of dying
Racy Li -- Ninja
Rae Meadows -- Calling Me Out
Raymond Khoury -- The Last Templar
Rebecca Drake -- Don't Be Afraid
RG Willems -- Targets of Affection
Robert Dugoni - The Jury Master
Robert Fate -- Baby Shark
Robert Gregory Browne -- Kiss Her Goodbye
Robert Gussin -- Trash Talk
Roger Morris -- Taking Comfort
Roger Alan Skipper -- Tear Down the Mountain
Roseanne Keller -- A Summer All Her Own
Sam Barone -- Dawn of Empire
Sam Savage -- Firmin
Samantha Grosser -- Another Time and Place
San Culberson -- The Nick of Time
Sandi Ault -- Wild Indigo
Sara Gruen - Water for Elephants
Sean Chercover -- Big City Bad Blood
Sela Carsen -- Not Quite Dead (http://www.Selacarson.com)
Sela Carsen -- The Virgin Courtesan
Shane Gericke -- Blown Away
Stephen J. Spignesi - Dialogues
Steven Hockensmith -- Holmes on the Range
Steve Voake - The Dreamwalker's Child
Sunny -- Mona Lisa Awakening
Suroopa Mukherjee -- Across the Mystic Shore
Suzanne Adair -- Paper Woman (http://www.suzanneadair.com)
Tasha Alexander -- And Only to Deceive
Tawny Taylor -- Sex and the Single Ghost
Thomas Mullen -- The Last Town on Earth: A Novel
Thomma Lyn -- Thy Eternal Summer
Tinling Choong -- FireWife
Toby Devens -- My favorite midlife crisis (yet)
Tom McCarthy -- Remainder
Tony D'Souza -- Whiteman
Troy Cook -- 47 Rules of Highly Effective Bank Robbers
Wendy Wasserstein -- Elements of Style
Will Beall -- L.A. Rex
William Kittredge -- The Willow Field
Yael Goldstein -- Overture
Yvette Christianse -- Unconfessed

Prizes:

2 $20 gift certificates from Borders
A copy of RG Willems' debut, Targets of Affection
5 free points from BookMooch.com
A copy of Matt Curran's debut, The Secret War
An autographed copy of Lila Shaara's debut, Every Secret Thing
A copy of Suzanne Adair's debut, Paper Woman
A copy of Racy Li's debut e-book, Ninja
A copy of Sela Carsen's debut e-book, Not Quite Dead
A copy of Sela Carsen's follow-up short, The Virgin Courtesan
A copy of Michael FitzGerald's debut, Radiant Days

And a hello to all of you dropping in from the Romance Divas bulletin board! I hope everyone visiting for this contest will stay awhile, poke around, and become as enchanted with my world of Riverview, USA, and my fictional band, ShapeShifter.

Labels: books, contest, Debut a Debut, Writing Aspirations

# posted by Susan Helene Gottfried @ 9:22 PM

Comments:

173! I suppose that counts as a success!! Do you know how many people are partcipating in the contest?

# posted by

Anonymous : January 26, 2007 9:47 PM

Not a clue. Hopefully lots and lots. Like... one for every author listed, minimum.

# posted by

Susan Helene Gottfried : January 26, 2007 10:12 PM

This is a wonderful idea...:-) Unfortunately, I'm technologically impaired and couldn't find a link to send my web addy and book title to...lol. I humbly ask to please be added to your author list and hope it's all right to put the info here...:-)

Elisabeth Jason
www.freewebs.com/elisabethjason

Soul Sacrifice - released by Aspen Mountain Press, November 2006

# posted by

Anonymous : January 27, 2007 3:49 PM

Absolutely, Elisabeth! I've got it down on my master list for the next update. Thanks for dropping by and congratulations on the publication!

# posted by

Susan Helene Gottfried : January 27, 2007 4:44 PM

173?! Wow! This is getting pretty big!

Hope the knee gets better!

# posted by

Anonymous : January 27, 2007 7:23 PM

The contest is getting huge. The knee is getting smaller (swelling going down).

Both are VERY good things. :D

# posted by

Susan Helene Gottfried : January 27, 2007 8:08 PM

Love this idea! I have not read a new debut in a while, so this is my excuse.

# posted by

Tia Nevitt : January 27, 2007 8:25 PM

Awesome awesome prizes.
I'm so mad I can't participate in this but I hope you get a ton of people!! I should take a copy of that list and try to read some of these debuting authors!

# posted by

Lauren : January 27, 2007 11:09 PM

SHG, the link you left on my blog is an Error 404. Come fix it, 'kay? Do you want to copy and redo the whole thing, and I'll delete the current one, or just add a new link? I'll know by looking at whatever you post.

# posted by

astrologymemphis.blogspot.com : January 27, 2007 11:58 PM

*sigh*

I am link retarded, I swear it (and not PC, either, but TFB on that one). I'll see what I can do, Lesia.

And yes, Lauren, you SHOULD copy the list and see how many of these babies you can get your hands on. But... since I'm getting new names daily, you might want to wait until the end of the contest for the final list. I suspect it'll be huge by that time. At least, I hope it will be -- and that participation in the contest will be commensurate.

(wow. I used retarded and commensurate in the same comment. What does that say about me?)

# posted by

Susan Helene Gottfried : January 28, 2007 8:33 AM

Susan,

I've got your Debut a Debut list of authors up in my sidebar. I'll keep it fresh in people's minds, and I'll bully people into participating.

Bully... yes, I said it; I'm not ashamed.

# posted by

Camille Alexa : January 28, 2007 10:59 AM

Blue, I think we might become very good friends...

Make sure you update the list of authors from my website, not the blog. The website gets updated nightly; the blog, only when I feel like it. (Hey, I've got to keep my own groupies happy, as well as make new ones!)

I appreciate the support!

# posted by

Susan Helene Gottfried : January 28, 2007 11:01 AM

Oh, and thanks to Southern Writer again for her blog-link to West of Mars.

(...And book-love spreads, like ripples on the surface an inky pond.)

# posted by

Camille Alexa : January 28, 2007 11:02 AM

I love seeing how this list is growing. I'm just wondering how many of these bookies I'll be able to sneak into my reading queue for the contest ;)

# posted by

karen! : January 28, 2007 11:33 AM

Thanks so much for including my novel on your list! Only one thing...the title is TORCH, not TORCHED. Can you fix that please? It's a common mistake people make and I always laugh because torched is precisely how I felt after finally finishing the dang thing! I love that you're doing this. Thanks for supporting all us debut novelists--and my best to you on your book as well. I'm happy to send signed copies of Torch to anyone who goes on Bookmooch.com to mooch one from me (bookmooch is a very cool book exchange site that I recently discovered). Happy reading!

# posted by

Anonymous : January 28, 2007 3:39 PM

Fixed it, Cheryl; it'll be on tonight's update, as well as your offer to send an autographed mooched copy. I might be headed there now, in fact... *grin*

# posted by

Susan Helene Gottfried : January 28, 2007 3:48 PM

#160 on your list (Tasha Alexander's And Only to Deceive) was one of my fa favourite reads last year!

Here I am trying to 'declutter' and you've given me a list of books to check out. *sigh* They're like rabbits, I tell you!

# posted by

Marci : January 28, 2007 3:55 PM

Yes, they ARE like rabbits.

But at least you have ONE book to write a review for and enter the contest with!

# posted by

Susan Helene Gottfried : January 28, 2007 5:49 PM

I would love to be included. My debut novel came out March 2006 and the second came out in August 2006. Happy to say the sequel to my second is coming out in March. My website is www.nikkileigh.com and my pen name is Nikki Leigh.

Also, I'm the owner of the Readers Station and would be happy to include a promo for your contest on our contest page. Our latest newsletter is coming out in a few days and we are promoting a contest we're having so the contest page should get a lot of hits. If you want to send me a short blurb about the contest and the link I'll include you. The email addy is nikki-leigh@excite.com. I'm always looking for new contests to list of the Readers Station site and my site -- so feel free to send any :)

Nikki Leigh

# posted by

Nikki Leigh : January 28, 2007 6:40 PM

Just remembered another...
Londonstani by Gautam Malkani
(UK edition May 2006, American edition June 2006)

# posted by

karen! : January 29, 2007 10:46 AM

Thank you so much, Susan..:-)

# posted by

Anonymous : January 29, 2007 11:11 AM

Hey Susan, I've reviewed a number of the books on your list already - here are some links (in case your readers are interested):

Albyn Leah Hall -- The Rhythm of the Road

Diane Setterfield -- The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel

Jed Rubenfeld - The Interpretation of Murder

Keith Donohue -- The Stolen Child

Melissa Clark -- Swimming Upstream Slowly

Sam Savage -- Firmin

Tom McCarthy -- Remainder

Now I just have to figure out what I'm going to read for the contest!

# posted by

Janelle Martin : January 31, 2007 2:34 PM

Your review of The Stolen Child is what got me interested in Donohoe and his book, remember? That's the only one I've read.

Thanks for the links, babe! I hope they lead lots of my readers your way -- Janelle writes AMAZING reviews -- and that they help the authors find readers.

That's what the contest is all about, after all. Exposing us all to new authors.

# posted by

Susan Helene Gottfried : January 31, 2007 2:47 PM

Oh, I forgot to add that Some Like it Haute by Julie K.L. Dam (Hardcover - Feb 22, 2006) should be on your list of debut books.

I reviewed it here.

After Helen by Paul Cavanagh is another to add to your list. (Paperback - Jan 26 2006)

# posted by

Janelle Martin : January 31, 2007 2:54 PM

Thanks, J. They'll be on the next update on my website and the next time Erica updates over at Writing Aspirations.

I'll do another blog update of everything over the weekend, I hope.

Oh, and After Helen isn't available at either Powells or Amazon, just in case anyone's looking.

# posted by

Susan Helene Gottfried : January 31, 2007 3:02 PM

my god what a list!

# posted by

Sparky Duck : February 15, 2007 6:11 PM

Yeah, and it got even bigger over at my website, too!

btw, we're already collecting names for the 2008 Debut a Debut contest!

# posted by

Susan Helene Gottfried : February 15, 2007 6:20 PM