Vanilla Heart Publishing
Smoky Trudeau (Zeidel) is the author of novels, short stories, and two nonfiction books especially for writers: Front-Word, Back-Word, Insight Out: Lessons on Writing the Novel Lurking Inside You From Start to Finish; and Left Brained, Write Brained: 366 Writing Prompts and Exercises to Free Your Creative Spirit, Awaken Your Muse, And Challenge Your Skills Every Day of the Year, all from Vanilla Heart Publishing. She has published short stories and poetry in literary journals such as CALYX and online e-zines such as The Foundling Review, and was a 2003 Pushcart Prize nominee.
An ardent outdoorswoman with a deep reverence for nature, Smoky’s Observations of an Earth Mage is a collection of prose and poetry celebrating the fragile beauty of our planet. She was the lead editor for Vanilla Heart Publishing’s 2010 Nature’s Gifts anthology.
Finally succumbing to her bohemian spirit and need to live near the mountains and the ocean, Smoky moved to Southern California in 2008, where she lives with her husband and daughter in a ramshackle cottage in the woods overlooking the San Gabriel Valley and the San Gabriel Mountains beyond. When she isn’t writing, she spends her time hiking in the mountains, camping in the Sierras, splashing in tidepools, and fighting the urge to speak in haiku.
To learn more about Smoky, visit her at http://SmokyZeidel.wordpress.com
ALL NEW EDITION!
Mysterious and masterfully crafted, Smoky Trudeau Zeidel’s The Cabin draws the reader into a world in which reality swims, and truth is a thread of love through time. When protagonist James-Cyrus Hoffman inherits his grandfather’s farm, he discovers he has inherited more than land, his lineage bearing the passions, transgressions, and scars of his ancestors. A thoughtful, provocative, satisfying story that challenges not only the protagonist’s sense of time and place but the reader’s as well.
—Patricia Damery, author of Snakes, and Farming Soul: A Tale of Initiation
A breathtaking journey back and forth through time, through dream-space, and through magical realms. A celebration of the power of love and reverence for life that knows no limits or bounds.
—Donna Henes, author of The Queen of My Self
Smoky Trudeau Zeidel brings to this magical and compelling historical fantasy an obvious and highly detailed love of plants and animals, mountains, dreams, and the old wisdom of one attuned to the mysteries of the natural world.
—Malcolm R. Campbell, Campbell Editorial, author of The Sun Singer and Sarabande
The Cabin
by Smoky Trudeau Zeidel
James-Cyrus Hoffmann has just inherited his grandfather's farm, and with it a mysterious cabin deep in the woods on Hoffmann mountain; a cabin he has dreamed about since childhood.
When James-Cyrus enters the cabin, he is vaulted back through time to the Civil War era, where he meets Elizabeth, the brave young woman who lives in the cabin, and Malachi, a runaway slave. James-Cyrus realizes his dreams of the cabin were visions of the past, and that Elizabeth is his great-great aunt—a woman who vanished without a trace from the family tree.
He also learns of his ancestors' pivotal role in the lives of dozens of runaway slaves who were offered a safe haven at the cabin, a station on the underground railroad.
The Cabin Video
The Cabin
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The Cabin
by Smoky Trudeau Zeidel
KINDLE ALLROMANCE PDF
SMASHWORDS FOR ANY READING DEVICE
On the Choptank Shores
by Smoky Trudeau Zeidel
On the Choptank Shores is set on Maryland's eastern shore in the late 1920's. Happy endings, in novels as in life, sometimes come at a heavy price.
The tragic deaths of her mother and two younger siblings have left Grace Harmon responsible for raising her sister Miriam and protecting her from their abusive father, Luther, a zealot preacher with a penchant for speaking in Biblical verse who is on a downward spiral toward insanity.
Otto Singer charms Grace with his gentle courtship and devotion to his brother, Henry, but is unable to share with Grace the terrible secret he has kept more than twenty years.
Luther's
insane ravings and increasingly violent behavior force Grace to question everything
she ever knew. Then, tragedy strikes just when Otto's secret is uncovered,
unleashing demons that threaten to destroy the entire family. Can Grace find
the strength to save them all?
On the Choptank Shores
by Smoky Trudeau Zeidel
KINDLE ALLROMANCE PDF
SMASHWORDS MULTIFORMAT
On the Choptank Shores Video
Observations of an Earth Mage by Smoky Trudeau
The Cabin by Smoky Trudeau
Redeeming Grace by Smoky Trudeau
Front-Word, Back-Word, Insight-Out by Smoky Trudeau
Left Brain, Write Brain by Smoky Trudeau
Front-word,
Back-word, Insight-Out:
Lessons on Writing
the Novel Lurking Inside You
from Start to Finish
Every day, people sit down in front of a blank computer screen or piece of paper and start to write their own version of the Great American Novel. Many never get beyond “Once upon a time....” Their stories remain stuck inside, where only they can hear them. That’s because writing a book is easier said than done. Writing a good book is even harder. Why? Because novel writing is a skill that must be learned, just like a nurse must learn to take a patient’s blood pressure, a pilot must learn how to fly, and a concert pianist must learn to read music.
Based on her years of teaching writing workshops, author Smoky Trudeau has created a program of step-by-step lessons to teach you how to transform that story stuck inside you into good fiction. You’ll learn winning techniques for starting your story and how to decide which character should tell it. You’ll gather ideas for writing believable dialogue and developing characters readers will love—and those they’ll despise. You’ll learn how to build tension, write an exciting climax scene, then gracefully bring your story to an end; and much, much more.
Full of examples and exercises to help you hone your skills, Front-word, Back-word, Insight-Out is the must-read book for anyone who wants to unleash their inner author and free the stories lurking inside.
Front-Word,
Back-Word, Insight Out is the
Fiction Writer’s Workshop Smoky taught at community colleges and other venues
for eight years. Here are just a few of the nice things her students have said:
Smoky’s impeccable writing expertise and teaching
skills inspired me to write a short story that not only won a local competition
but will soon be published in an anthology.
That story will someday be a novel, and I owe it all to Smoky.
Sue Stewart
Your insights, energy, and sense of humor make you an
outstanding teacher. You should win a
prize.
Donald
Sherbert, Ph.D.
Trudeau is a delight…she knows a lot and conveys
examples in class tactfully and with skill.
I always left class inspired...
Anonymous
Student Evaluations
Left Brained, Write Brained: 366 Writing Prompts and Exercises to Free Your Creative Spirit, Awaken Your Muse, And Challenge Your Skills Every Day of the Year
One of the most valuable things you can do as a writer is set aside time every day to write. You don’t always have to be witty. It doesn’t always have to be great prose. The act of writing in and of itself will make you a better writer.
But sometimes it’s hard to know what to write. That’s where writing prompts and exercises come in handy. You don’t have to come up with something to write about; the writing prompt tells you exactly what your subject is for the day.
During my many years as a writing instructor and coach, I’ve created hundreds of writing prompts to motivate my students and clients. The funny thing is, some of the best writing I get back from these students and clients isn’t the stories they’re working on, but rather their answers to my writing prompts!
This book is set up calendar style, beginning with January 1 and ending with December 31, but it’s perfectly fine to start any time of the year. At the beginning of each week (a week being a seven-day period, not necessarily starting on a Sunday), you will be asked to write about your writing goals for the upcoming week. At the end of those seven days, you’ll be asked to reflect back on the week and whether you accomplished your goals. In between, you’ll find exercises on setting, dialogue, grammar, poetry, and just about any other topic you can think of.
Some exercises may seem like they have little to do with writing. In fact, in a few of the exercises, you don’t write at all. This is because exercising your creative muscles in artistic arenas other than writing helps you become a better writer. Carrots are a healthy food, but if you ate only carrots, you wouldn’t stay healthy for long, would you? No … you need a variety of foods to stay healthy. By participating in activities other than writing, you nurture your creative nature and ensure it stays healthy and strong.
Some of the exercises in this book are easy and can be completed in a matter of minutes. Some are more difficult and may take longer. Do the best you can. No one is judging you.
You’ll find some of these prompts deal with serious subjects, encouraging you to explore your feelings about different topics. Others are downright playful, even silly. You’ll find a lot of references to fairy tale and cartoon characters. Just because we call these exercises doesn’t mean they can’t be fun! And when something is fun, it somehow seems less threatening and easier to accomplish.
Let me hear how you’re doing! If you’re particularly proud of your response to a prompt, send it to me at authorsmokytrudeau@gmail.com. I’d be delighted to hear from you. Or, if you come up with a writing prompt of your own that you would like to see included in a future edition of Left Brained, Write Brained, drop me a line and share that, too.
So dig in, have fun, and flex those creative muscles!
— Smoky —
cover photo by Kathi Anderson
In this collection, Observations of an Earth
Mage, by Smoky Trudeau, readers will be delighted and enchanted by the prose
and poetry celebrating the beauty and splendor of the natural world. Humor and
drama. From the magnificent vistas of
Observations of an Earth Mage Video
Observations of an Earth Mage